Mitternachtsböse

Kapitel 20

Was last night a dream? The room is arranged as usual, and there's no indication that a fierce fight has taken place.

I must be under too much stress lately to have such nightmares.

For several days in a row, Fang Qing couldn't sleep well, feeling uneasy that the foul smell in the room seemed to be getting stronger.

Sometimes I'd be woken up in the middle of the night by a series of hurried footsteps, and sometimes by a man's sigh.

Unable to bear it any longer, Fang Qing dialed 110.

The police officers very responsibly helped her search the house inside and out, including the walls and under the bed where she suspected something...

"Miss, I think this is what's causing you this trouble..." A police officer pulled a dead, tangled rat out from behind a wardrobe. "Open the doors and windows wide, buy some disinfectant and clean it up. I'm sure the smell will be gone soon!"

After seeing the police off with gratitude, Fang Qing felt a little more at ease.

But she felt something was wrong, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Once she was in bed, she remembered that her colleague had helped her look for a house before, and even though there were no dead rats, it still smelled bad.

That morning, when Fang Qing went downstairs, she felt a pair of eyes watching her from the corner on the second floor.

She turned around and saw an old woman.

When the old woman noticed her, she quickly looked away, walked to her own door, opened it, and went inside.

Bang—the door slammed shut hastily and decisively.

From then on, Fang Qing always felt like she was being stared at whenever she went up to the second floor.

But the old woman never showed up again.

Two days later, Fang Qing felt that the room seemed to have an odor again, but the sticky mouse traps she bought showed no signs of being disturbed.

Knock knock knock!

There was a rapid knocking on the door.

It's so late, who could be looking for me?

Suddenly, she remembered her previous experience. Panicked, she didn't know whether she should open the door.

Knock knock knock!

The person knocking on the door didn't seem to be in a hurry; they knocked methodically without saying a word.

"Who are you looking for?" Fang Qing checked the time; it was only a little past nine o'clock, so it shouldn't be anything serious.

If it's that group of people again, I'll rush out and ask for help!

Fang Qing cautiously moved to the front of the security door and looked out through the peephole.

It was pitch black.

What happened? The streetlights were working fine when I got home. The knocking was so loud, it's impossible it didn't trigger the motion-activated switch…

Has someone blocked the peephole? Who would play such a prank!

Thugs? Robbery?

However, changes always happen unexpectedly. Before Fang Qing could fully analyze the situation, she saw a small flame rise from the other end of the cat's eye.

It was a match. The match lit a white candle.

The candle illuminated a face that was deeply lined and withered.

An old man grinned at her, his mouth devoid of teeth.

His pupils were very large, with almost no white showing. It gave the impression that his face consisted of three dark holes besides his nostrils.

Fang Qing was so frightened she wanted to scream, but she covered her mouth tightly.

Then she discovered something even more terrifying...

Why does that old man only have a head? I didn't see his hands or body at all while lighting the candles.

Ah! Ah! Ah—!

She finally couldn't hold back anymore, screamed and rushed into the bedroom, threw herself on the covers and cried loudly.

He shakily pulled out his phone to call the police.

Just then, she received a call from a hidden number.

Fang Qing's voice was almost choked with tears: "Hey..."

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded very unclear, as if it were filtered through a layer of tin foil.

"Move out of that house right now, it's unclean!"

"What did you say?"

"Grandma Li downstairs knows some things. I can't say too much, or they'll come after me..."

Before Fang Qing could react, the other party had already hung up.

This sudden surprise left Fang Qing completely bewildered.

Strangely enough, the knocking stopped and there was no further sound.

She gritted her teeth, mustered her courage, and went to the security door again, looking out through the peephole: the corridor was still pitch black.

Just then, footsteps and voices came from the stairwell. The streetlights turned on, illuminating the corridor.

She opened the door in disbelief. Indeed, the streetlights were working perfectly.

Why were the streetlights off just now?

After thinking it over, Fang Qing changed her shoes and went upstairs.

She didn't notice that a few drops of wax were scattered on the ground in front of her door by the soles of her shoes.

Although she didn't know who Granny Li was, her intuition told her that the old woman who had been staring at her that day must be Granny Li.

She knocked on the door of room 208.

The old woman cautiously poked her head out: "Who are you looking for?"

"Excuse me, are you Granny Li?"

Grandma Li said irritably, "Why are you looking for me if you don't even know me?!"

Fang Qing didn't know how to start the conversation: "Grandma Li, I live in the apartment above yours, number 313. Someone told me that some bad things happened in my apartment, some... I don't know how to put it. I wanted to ask you about it..."

The old woman's expression changed from indifference to agitation, followed by panic and fear.

"Why are you asking? Did you rent or buy it?"

"I bought it, and I only moved in recently. So you probably haven't seen me many times..."

"Come in and talk."

...

It turns out that a tragedy really did happen in room 313. A man named Zhang Tao, unable to bear the loneliness of his pregnant wife, began an affair with a young woman. Unexpectedly, his wife, Shu Fang, found out. In a fit of rage, Shu Fang hanged herself at home, killing both herself and her unborn child. And Zhang Tao's mistress happened to live in room 313.

Somehow, Shu Fang's relatives all found out about Zhang Tao's affair. When all the aunts and uncles rushed to room 313, Zhang Tao was discussing breaking up with his mistress. The specifics are unclear, but they were arguing very loudly, and then they saw room 313 engulfed in flames.

The entire hallway was filled with the strong smell of barbecue.

Everyone in that house was burned to death. The police carried eight bodies out of the house.

The charred flesh fell off at the slightest touch, and several bodies were burned like charcoal figures.

Later, the residents of this building moved out one after another. It's been almost two years now, and the current residents are mostly new tenants.

Old Mrs. Li had no money to move, so she gritted her teeth and stayed here, and nothing bad happened to her.

Fang Qing got goosebumps just listening to it.

Just as she was about to leave, Old Lady Li approached her suspiciously and whispered, "Actually, the gatekeeper said that Shu Fang's relatives came in a total of 7 people. Including Zhang Tao and that woman, there should be 9 corpses... But at the time, who dared to interfere! No one mentioned it."

Fang Qing moved back to her home almost inch by inch.

Why? After spending so much time and money, I ended up buying a haunted house! No wonder the real estate agent was so happy, no wonder they got such a good price for such a prime location…

Why didn't we compare them more carefully back then!

Fang Qing wanted to cry but had no tears.

After listening to Granny Li's words, Fang Qing increasingly felt that the walls of the room were covered in soot and fire-stained shadows. Perhaps the souls of those nine people from back then were still trapped in this room, branded on the walls and floor, unable to find release…

By the way, whose body is missing?

Where?!

The more Fang Qing thought about it, the more terrified she became, so she wrapped the blanket tightly around herself.

She drifted off to sleep after an unknown amount of time.

I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and saw that the bedside lamp was still on. I reached out and turned it on, then went back to sleep.

Only after the lights went out did Fang Qing notice that a pair of glowing green eyes on the ceiling were staring intently at her.

"ah--!"

She screamed and hurriedly turned on the light.

Upon closer inspection, there was nothing on the ceiling.

It was a hallucination; the old woman's story must have scared me.

Despite these thoughts, Fang Qing dared not turn off the light and fell asleep in fear with the light on.

The next morning, Fang Qing stood on the bed and tiptoed to check the ceiling, and found nothing unusual.

When Fang Qing got home from get off work that evening, she deliberately didn't turn on the lights and went straight into the bedroom to check. There were no eyes on the ceiling.

It was just a hallucination! She breathed a long sigh of relief.

After lying in bed and reading for a while, she gradually felt her eyelids getting stickier and stickier.

So I turned off the lights and went to sleep.

In that instant, she suddenly noticed the green eyes on the ceiling—not just one pair… but four pairs!

"ah--!"

She sat bolt upright in fright. She turned on the light, but there was still nothing there.