Exorzismus - Kapitel 2
In that frozen moment, Chunyu felt something fly into her eyes.
Chunyu quickly put the camera down, rubbed her eyes hard, but it seemed like there was nothing there. She breathed a sigh of relief, raised the camera, and waved it at Qingyou: "Okay, can we go back now?"
Qingyou didn't answer. She turned and looked at the window of the haunted building again, but seemed to find nothing. Then, she walked to Chunyu's side and said, "Thank you, I won't forget you."
Qingyou's words made Chunyu extremely uncomfortable; close friends usually wouldn't speak like that. Chunyu glanced at the haunted building one last time, secretly made a face, and then pulled Qingyou out of the courtyard. Once away from that eerie place, Chunyu could finally breathe a sigh of relief. She cautiously asked Qingyou, "You've seemed like a completely different person these past few days; even your speech has been strange."
But Qingyou didn't answer. Only the red phone hanging on her chest bounced as she walked, seemingly answering on behalf of its owner.
After nightfall.
Chunyu's two other roommates—Xu Wenya and Nan Xiaoqin—have returned. They are both the kind of girls who aren't particularly outstanding, but aren't bad-looking either. It's just that the presence of the universally loved Chunyu makes them seem a bit overshadowed.
Xu Wenya was rather short and had a youthful appearance; walking down the dormitory corridor at night, she resembled a hobbit elf from "The Lord of the Rings." Now, as soon as she returned to her dorm room, she curled up on the lower bunk opposite Chunyu, intently sending and receiving text messages, constantly creating a jarring ringtone.
At that moment, Qingyou was engrossed in a book with her head covered, when Chunyu curiously pulled Nan Xiaoqin aside and asked, "Where did you go?"
Nan Xiaoqin blinked and said mysteriously, "We went to see a handsome guy." "Boring." This was something that set Chunyu apart from other girls; she was always slow to react to these kinds of things, even though she was the object of many boys' secret crushes. "Do you know who the most handsome man in our school is?" "What does that have to do with me?" Chunyu shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. "Professor Gao from the Art Department." Nan Xiaoqin smiled slightly. She was a tall, slender girl, and while a slim figure was every girl's dream, her excessive "skinny" always made the boys hesitate. "Forget it, I don't know anyone in the Art Department, and I've never heard of any Professor Gao." "Chunyu, but I saw him today. The Art Department was having an art exhibition, and Xu Wenya and I went to see it this afternoon. Sure enough, we saw Professor Gao, whom the girls were talking about—wow, he lived up to his reputation, he was incredibly handsome!"
Her tone was as if she had met a pop idol, which Chunyu found somewhat amusing. Just as Nan Xiaoqin was recounting her unexpected encounter with the handsome man, Qingyou stood up, turned on her computer, and imported the photos from her digital camera.
Chunyu stood beside Qingyou, watching her open the photos she had taken that afternoon. ———This is a photo of Qingyou standing in front of the haunted building.
Just like in the photos taken by Chunyu this afternoon, the entire haunted building was captured. Qingyou stood downstairs expressionlessly, wearing black clothes and a red phone. Combined with the gloomy sky and background, the whole photo felt very strange.
Qingyou stared coldly at herself in the photo, then suddenly trembled slightly. She quickly clicked the mouse a few times to zoom in. "The second-floor window!"
Chunyu couldn't control herself and cried out. She and Qingyou both saw it—in the photo, behind the fourth window on the right side of the second floor of the haunted building, stood a black figure.
Incredible.
Qingyou's eyes widened as well. She zoomed in on the image again, moving the second-floor window to the center of the image viewer.
It almost took up most of the computer screen. The image was zoomed in to this extent that it became somewhat blurry, but the photo clearly showed a dark figure in a second-floor window. Judging from the figure's outline and long hair, it should be a young woman.
However, her face was not clearly visible.
The woman in the window was obscured by a shadow; only a rough outline could be seen. Even with the image adjusted to its highest resolution, the second-floor window remained somewhat blurry. After all, it was only a small part of the background in the photo, so being able to spot the woman at all was already quite an achievement.
Qingyou adjusted the photo to its normal size, with herself still in the center and the supposedly haunted three-story building behind her. Behind the fourth window on the right side of the second floor, there was a vaguely discernible black figure.
Suddenly, Chunyu felt that the woman in the photo, standing by the second-floor window, was looking down at Qingyou taking pictures, and perhaps—she herself, holding the camera, was also there.
Thinking of herself, Chunyu immediately said nervously, "How could this figure have been captured in the shot?"
At the time, I remember seeing no one else in the shot except you.
Qingyou nodded: "That's right, I even checked the windows of the haunted building, and there was nothing inside." "But the haunted building has been sealed off by the school for more than ten years, so there can't be anyone inside."
Chunyu couldn't bear to look at the photo anymore. She and Qingyou stared at each other, unable to explain how such an image could have been taken; it seemed to be beyond their scientific comprehension. "If it's not human—then it's a ghost!"
This sudden remark startled Chunyu and Qingyou. It turned out that Nan Xiaoqin had already stood behind them, coldly looking at the photos on the computer screen. "You went to the haunted building today?" Even Xu Wenya jumped off the bed, bringing her cute, childlike face close to the computer screen.
Qingyou's expression darkened further. She angrily turned off the computer and climbed into bed to bury herself in a book.
Chunyu winked at Nan Xiaoqin and Xu Wenya, signaling them to stop provoking Qingyou. Then, she secretly glanced at the cover of the book in Qingyou's hand. It turned out to be the Chinese version of "Rain and Moon Tales," roughly equivalent to the Japanese version of "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio," written by Ueda Akinari from the Edo period of Japan.
How could she read such a book? Chunyu remembered that Qingyou used to be most afraid of this kind of story.
The girls' dormitory became much quieter at this time, and Chunyu looked out the window alone. The deep night air was filled with howling winds, making the room feel eerily cold.
At midnight, the girls' dormitory lights were turned off.
Chunyu, who had caught a slight cold, tucked herself in tightly under the covers. This girls' dormitory had been there for decades, and every cold winter night, the girls would secretly curse these unheated rooms. Chunyu curled up in her upper bunk, feeling that her feet were still a little cold from her recent shower, so she quietly rubbed them to warm them up.
She had been sleeping in this upper bunk for over three years. Every night, the distinctive smell of the girls' dormitory would fill her nostrils. Knowing she would be leaving in just over six months, she felt a pang of reluctance to part with that scent. Chunyu was an exceptionally sensitive girl, and even her sleep wasn't very deep. Every time Qingyou got up in the middle of the night, it would startle her awake. Although Chunyu's eyes remained closed, she could feel the bed frame trembling slightly, followed by the sound of Qingyou tiptoeing out the door. She lay quietly waiting for Qingyou to return, as if the darkness in the dormitory was merely an illusion, and that dawn would soon break outside the window. And so, she slowly drifted off to sleep again, until she was awakened once more by the noises of the night.
Date added: 2005-02-18 12:35:02
Now, this commotion has started again.
Chunyu had already drifted off to sleep when she suddenly felt a tremor beneath her—as if her heart had been jolted. She involuntarily tightened the blanket, and then it seemed the entire bed frame began to move.
She sensed that Qingyou, who was on the lower bunk, had stood up and walked to the center of the dormitory. She waited for the sound of Qingyou leaving the room, thinking she was probably going to the toilet.
However, Chunyu waited for several minutes but still didn't hear anyone come out.
What is Qingyou doing?
The spring rain, hidden under the covers, could no longer hold back. Just like when she was a child, nestled in her mother's arms listening to stories, she quietly opened her eyes. The girls' dormitory was pitch black, with not a ray of light coming from outside the window, as if it had sunk into a tomb.
Suddenly, Chunyu heard footsteps.
It was the sound of Qingyou's footsteps; she was pacing back and forth in the dormitory, seemingly with some strange rhythm. This made Chunyu's heart race suddenly. Qingyou had never had the habit of taking walks in the dormitory at night. She quietly sat up and turned on a bedside lamp.
The soft white light illuminated Chunyu's face and also faintly revealed the tranquility in the center of the dormitory—she was wearing a white nightgown, the hem of which almost dragged on the ground, and her braided hair was loose over her shoulders, like a floating ghost.
Even stranger, Qingyou was spinning in circles.
Chunyu could hardly believe her eyes, but everything she saw was real. Qingyou was circling the open space in the middle of the dormitory, making rhythmic footsteps. Qingyou's circles were counterclockwise, almost perfectly circular, her steps neither hurried nor slow, her body very steady, as if mechanically performing some kind of ritual.
The soft, dim light from the upper bunk shone on Qingyou's face, unable to illuminate the entire dormitory. It looked like a spotlight shining on the female lead on a dimly lit theater stage, adding an eerie touch to Qingyou's twirling. She was expressionless, just like when they were taking photos in the haunted building that afternoon, but the calmer her expression, the more frightened Chunyu became.
Suddenly, Nan Xiaoqin across from her got up. She was clearly startled awake as well. She rubbed her eyes, saw Qingyou spinning around, and immediately shouted, "What are you doing?"
But Qingyou seemed not to hear at all and continued spinning around. In Chunyu's eyes, she seemed to have spun around forty or fifty times.