Der Charme einer starken Frau verbreitet sich über die ganze Welt

Kapitel 9

I asked, my mouth agape, "It's you?"

"That's the same question I wanted to ask you." Ye Xiao looked at me with a suspicious gaze, pointed to the corridor inside, and said, "Let's go upstairs and talk."

Ye Xiao and I walked up the stairs to the girls' dormitory. Girls kept running down the stairs, all looking panicked. We arrived at the second-floor corridor, where several teachers-looking people were standing in front of one of the dorm rooms, talking nervously.

My heart started racing for no reason, and my legs involuntarily followed Ye Xiao to the door. Ye Xiao showed them his police ID, and I followed him inside.

That strange smell again, just like it was in Huo Qiang's dorm room last night. Ye Xiao coldly scanned the room, his gaze landing on a bed by the window—there was a girl lying on the lower bunk, curled up with her face towards the wall.

Ye Xiao immediately put on a pair of white gloves and carefully reached out to the lying girl, slowly turning her face towards him.

—I saw that face.

Good heavens, I almost screamed. I've never seen anyone with such a terrified expression. Their mouth was so wide open, it looked like they were about to swallow their own eyeballs whole.

What kind of fear is this? I'm sorry, I really can't describe her face in words. I can only say that if you saw it once, it will be etched in your memory forever, becoming the most terrifying scene in your nightmares.

After staring blankly for more than ten seconds, I suddenly realized that I knew this girl, and even knew her name—Han Xiaofeng.

Han Xiaofeng is dead.

I couldn't believe my eyes and instinctively retreated to the doorway. I took another deep sniff; yes, it was that smell—the deathly stench of Huo Qiang's dormitory.

Ye Xiao examined Han Xiaofeng carefully again, then left the still-rigid corpse and turned to a teacher, asking, "Is she Han Xiaofeng?"

The teacher didn't dare approach and kept wiping the sweat from her forehead as she answered, "Yes. This morning, when her roommates got up, they found that Han Xiaofeng was still asleep. They thought she was sleeping in, so they ignored her. Around eight o'clock, they found out that she was dead."

Was anything unusual last night?

"No, her classmates said she went to bed at 12:30 a.m. It was very quiet at night. There are five students in the dormitory, and no one noticed anything unusual."

Ye Xiao said coldly, "Just like Huo Qiang yesterday."

Was she also scared to death by a nightmare?

At this moment, several other police officers came in and began their investigation of the scene. Ye Xiao pushed me and the teacher out of the dormitory, saying, "No one is allowed to enter this room until the investigation is complete."

Then, Ye Xiao walked out by himself, found a secluded spot, and said to me, "Now you can tell me why you're here?"

I could no longer hide it from him, so I told Ye Xiao everything: I had found Huo Qiang's dorm room last night, and then Han Xiaofeng had called me.

Ye Xiao said sternly, "Why didn't you listen to my advice?"

"No, this is my responsibility; it all started with my novel."

"What is this? Guilt, or self-blame? Remember, this is none of your business."

But I shook my head and said blankly, "I must find out the secret of the deserted village."

Before I could finish speaking, I dashed out of the girls' dormitory. I needed to find the remaining two people—Su Tianping and Chunyu.

However, when I finally found their dormitory after making several inquiries, I discovered that they had both disappeared. Their classmates had not seen them since this morning.

Perhaps they've already heard about Han Xiaofeng's death? But where can they find them now?

I scratched my head and thought for a long time, but I couldn't come up with a solution, so I could only go home feeling itchy.

Even after returning home, I was still restless, spending the entire day lost in thought, and had absolutely no interest in writing my novel. I lay on the sofa with my eyes closed, recalling the first time I met Han Xiaofeng—the first day of this story, and also...

In that room, she appeared energetic and fearless, a stark contrast to the girl named Chunyu. But later, the phone call she made from the deserted village revealed her fear and erratic behavior. I'm 100% certain she saw something, but for some reason, she couldn't or dared not speak of it.

What force caused Huo Qiang and Han Xiaofeng to die tragically? Can nightmares really kill?

Suddenly, four words flashed through my mind—

"A Nightmare in a Deserted Village".

A chill ran down my spine; perhaps no one can escape this dream.

But do nightmare murders really exist? If so, there must be information about them. Yes, researching has always been one of my strengths, so I immediately turned on my computer and started frantically searching on Google.

However, after searching online for several tens of minutes, all I found were boring web pages, and I logged off in frustration.

Perhaps I could find it in a bookstore? I immediately ran out of the house and walked into the nearby subway station in the night. There was a bookstore there that I frequented, the place where I wrote about signing books in my novel and how I met "Xiaozhi".

It's eight o'clock in the evening, and there aren't many people in the bookstore. I'm standing alone in front of the psychology and criminology section, flipping through books that describe crime and death.

But I still couldn't find the content I needed. Perhaps there has never been such a bizarre case before, in ancient or modern times, in China or abroad?

Suddenly, I heard a faint sound of footsteps coming from behind the bookshelf in front of me.

For some reason, my heart fluttered slightly. So, I took a book down from the shelf, creating a gap that allowed me to see the pair of eyes behind it.

These are the eyes of a young woman, her face lowered as she turns the pages of a book.

Suddenly, she realized someone was watching her, so she slowly raised her head, and her gentle gaze met mine. For a moment, we both froze.

—Nie Xiaoqian.

Through the gap in the bookshelf, I looked into her fox-like eyes, as if I were looking at a comic book that had suddenly appeared.

She suddenly smiled slightly at me, and then disappeared in a flash.

Disappear like smoke?

I nervously pressed my face against the bookshelf, peering through the gaps until a hand patted me on the back.

I turned around cautiously, only to find that she had moved behind me.

"Xiaoqian? What are you doing here?"

Part Two, Day Seven, Section 16, Day Twelve (2)

She replied calmly, "You can come here to read books, but I can't?"

"You just got off work, right? What kind of book are you looking for?"

She held up a book in her hand, which turned out to be Süskind's novel "Perfume," which tells the story of a murderer who is obsessed with fragrance.

I nodded: "I also really like this book; it's a fantastic novel."

She seemed somewhat reserved, and said softly, "I should go."

Then, I followed her to the cashier. She bought the book, and just as she was about to leave, I suddenly called out to her, "Excuse me, can we talk again?"

She hesitated for a moment and then said, "Okay, I'll give you ten minutes. Where is it?"

I looked around and said, "This will do—"

It turns out that there's a book bar in a corner of this bookstore, with a few tables and chairs where people can drink tea and chat while reading.

We sat in an inconspicuous corner, with a white candle lit on the table. In the flickering candlelight, I hesitated for a long time but couldn't say a word.

She glanced at me and said, "You have limited time, so hurry up and tell me what you need to say."

The matter concerning the deserted village is so complex and confusing that I don't know where to begin, so I simply blurted out, "Two people have already died."

"What did you say? Who died?" She was clearly startled as well.

"The two people who went to the deserted village were college students. They had just returned to Shanghai the night before last, and died yesterday and early this morning, respectively."

Instantly, her face turned deathly pale, and she covered her mouth with her hand, saying, "You're saying someone died not long after returning from a deserted village?"

I nodded tremblingly: "Yes."

"What exactly happened? Could you explain in more detail?"

In the white candlelight, I carefully recalled the story again, from the first day: the sudden visit of the four college students, all the way to the discovery of Han Xiaofeng's death this morning. Then, I took a sip of tea and recounted it all to her in detail.

My narration far exceeded ten minutes, but she had long forgotten the time limit I had given her. After I finished speaking, she let out a long sigh of relief, and I noticed that her face looked even more like "Nie Xiaoqian" in the candlelight.

She said softly, "Thank you."

I was a little confused: "Thank me for what?"

"Thank you for telling me all this. I think we can discover the secrets of the deserted village from those college students."

Are you also searching for this secret?

Her expression was somewhat strange: "I'm sorry, I can't explain it clearly either."

"However, there's one more thing I need to ask you—the night before last, you warned me not to answer the phone before we parted. But the phone did ring that night; it was Huo Qiang, who had just returned from the deserted village. It's strange, how did you know he would call me?"

She stared into my eyes, remained silent for a moment, and then suddenly said, "Feelings, do you believe in feelings? The other night, in that moment by the roadside, when I looked into your eyes, I suddenly heard—"

What did you hear?

Her gaze left my eyes, and she stared blankly at the white candle, saying, "The phone is ringing."

"No, that's impossible. I don't believe in such things."

"Because you've written so many things like this in your novels, you think it's all man-made, right?"

"Who do you think you are? Nie Xiaoqian from Lanruo Temple? A spirit medium? Or a shaman?" Only after saying that did I realize I'd lost my composure. "I'm sorry, Xiaoqian—"

She gave a faint snort: "Forget it, I know what you're thinking right now. You think I'm just a crazy, unreasonable girl, and that everything I say is just wishful thinking."

"But you have no way to prove that what you're saying is true. For example, how exactly did you know about the deserted village?"

Do I have to answer?

I answered firmly, "Yes, you must answer, tonight, now. If you don't answer, I will consider you a liar and never listen to your harassment again."

“But—” she took a deep breath, “I can’t say.”

"If that's the case, then you have no way to make others believe you."

I jumped to my feet, and I must have looked quite frightening. She stared at me coldly, her eyes, the kind you'd only see in a ghost story, appearing rather unsettling in the candlelight. I stood, she sat, our gazes locked on, neither giving way, for a dozen seconds.

Finally, her gaze softened, and she lowered her eyes, saying, "Alright, I'll tell you—"

I nodded and gently sat back down in my chair.

Through the flickering, ambiguous candlelight, she said softly, "It was my grandmother—everything about the deserted village was told to me by my grandmother."

"Was your maternal grandmother from a deserted village?"

“I don’t know.” She became somewhat agitated and lowered her head as she said, “I only vaguely remember that when I was little, my grandmother held me in her arms and whispered stories about the deserted village to me.”

"I see. Where is your grandmother now?" I asked anxiously. If her grandmother were still alive, I would definitely pay her a visit.

“My grandmother died more than ten years ago.”