The 19th level of Hell - Chapter 4
Chunyu found the teacher on duty and told him about the possible trouble Qingyou might have gotten into. But the teacher was also skeptical, because these days students play so many pranks that many teachers are completely bewildered.
The teacher first comforted Chunyu, telling her not to worry too much, because even a missing person report requires more than 24 hours. Besides, it's too late to gather anyone else at this hour. The teacher said he would try to find Qingyou and told Chunyu to go back to her dorm to rest.
Having no other option, Chunyu returned to her dorm room. Nan Xiaoqin and Xu Wenya were already asleep. But she couldn't sleep at all, and could only sit on the lower bunk, her mind in turmoil, unsure of what to do. Chunyu looked back at Qingyou's belongings and realized that Qingyou hadn't even taken her bag. That's right, when Qingyou left in the afternoon, she hadn't taken anything except her phone around her neck. Since Qingyou hadn't taken a bag, it was impossible for her to have left the university campus, because she probably didn't have a single penny on her.
Therefore, tranquility must still exist somewhere on campus.
Where could she be?
Chunyu carefully recalled all of Qingyou's unusual behavior over the past ten days: besides sending and receiving text messages day and night, she had dragged Qingyou to the haunted building yesterday afternoon and even took a picture there, which resulted in a mysterious human figure being captured in the photo.
A haunted building?
Will Qingyou go to the haunted building again this afternoon? Chunyu dared not think any further, but where else could Qingyou go besides this?
Suddenly, a strange impulse filled Chunyu's chest. She felt incredibly brave, just like that nightmarish trip to the deserted village six months ago. The impulse made her make a decision in an instant—to go to the haunted building to find Qingyou.
We can't wait until tomorrow; we have to go now, because Qingyou is asking her for help, and it might be too late if we wait too long.
Chunyu found a flashlight under her closet; it was the one she had used when she went to the deserted village. She had thought it would have been thrown away long ago, but she found it still hidden there. Chunyu wrapped a scarf around herself, covering half her face, and ran out of the dormitory with the flashlight.
She knew she couldn't go to the teacher on duty anymore, because the school forbade students from trespassing into the haunted building, and telling the teacher would be tantamount to walking into a trap. Chunyu had no choice but to bite the bullet and sneak out of the girls' dormitory area, running alone into the dark campus at night.
The north wind continued to rage at three in the morning, and Chunyu felt her courage had returned to what it had been six months ago. Guided by the campus streetlights, she jogged towards the haunted building. Just like yesterday afternoon, she turned into the alleyway next to it and finally arrived at the building.
In the cold night wind, Chunyu couldn't make out the shape of the haunted building in front of her; the beam of her flashlight was practically useless. She loosened the scarf around her face, took a few deep breaths, and realized that her back was sweating.
However, Chunyu caught a whiff of a scent on the wind, which made her involuntarily take a few steps forward—this was the very spot where Qingyou had taken photos yesterday afternoon.
She instinctively looked towards the second-floor window and noticed a faint light coming from one of them. At that moment, Chunyu's heart nearly leaped out of her chest. She could vaguely make out that the light was emanating from the fourth window on the right side of the second floor.
The mysterious figure that appeared in the digital photograph is also appearing in this window.
What's in the fourth window on the right side of the second floor?
Could it really be a haunted building? A house that had been sealed off for many years suddenly lit up with a faint light in the middle of the night. A scene that only exists in horror movies was now vividly unfolding before Chunyu's eyes.
Looking at the faint light coming from the second-floor window, Chunyu naturally thought of that mysterious figure. Who was that woman?
After hesitating for a while, Chunyu took a few steps forward and, in the beam of her flashlight, she saw a half-open door. Unbelievably, the door to the haunted building was ajar, as if it had been opened just to welcome her.
But Chunyu clearly remembered that yesterday afternoon, the main door on the ground floor was tightly closed. She wondered who had opened it.
She didn't have time to think further. Since the door was open for her, why not go in and take a look?
Although the girls would get goosebumps whenever the rumors about haunted buildings were mentioned, it was nothing to Chunyu, who had experienced the deserted village. "It's okay, it's not a haunted building, it's just a closed-off school building."
Chunyu silently encouraged herself, then, holding a flashlight, cautiously entered the haunted building. Exploring the haunted building at night was like entering an ancient tomb—the stairwell was like an underground maze, immediately raising a cloud of dust. Under the beam of her flashlight, only clusters of white light appeared, creating a stark visual contrast against the surrounding darkness. Chunyu circled the stairwell several times, but she couldn't see anything clearly, and she dared not enter any of the rooms, because she suddenly thought of the last scene of the movie *The Blair Witch Project*. Finally, she found the stairs. Chunyu took a deep breath and slowly stepped up, reaching the second floor of the haunted building.
The second-floor corridor was cleaner. Chunyu used her memory to deduce the room she was looking for. She walked along the corridor to the right and carefully counted the rooms until she found the right one.
This must be it. Chunyu took another deep breath and then slowly pushed open the door—sure enough, there was a sliver of light.
Chunyu felt a chilling fear once again. She poked her head into the doorway and found that it was a small classroom with a small fluorescent light shining softly along the top edge of the blackboard.
Who turned on the light?
She tiptoed into the classroom, her eyes immediately drawn to the window. Who had been standing there yesterday afternoon? Suddenly, Chunyu smelled a strange odor. She walked past rows of old-fashioned desks, following the scent to the far end of the classroom… “Qingyou!”
She couldn't help but scream. Yes, Qingyou was lying on the classroom floor, wearing the clothes she had left in the afternoon, face up, expressionless, her long hair cascading down the floor like a waterfall.
Chunyu immediately rushed to Qingyou's side, only to find that blood was flowing from the corner of Qingyou's mouth. The strange smell she had just smelled must have been the smell of blood.
She reached out and touched Qingyou's face, but immediately jerked back as if she'd been electrocuted—Qingyou's body was already cold.
A jolt of fear coursed through Chunyu's body. She trembled and collapsed to the floor, gazing at Qingyou's serene face. Her fear gradually turned into sorrow.
Qingyou is dead.
This was an undeniable fact. Even if Chunyu couldn't believe her eyes, she couldn't deny her own grief. She looked up at the classroom that had been empty for so many years, the fluorescent light on the blackboard still emitting a dim glow, as if she had entered another world—was this the haunted building?
Salty tears slowly welled up in her eyes. Chunyu felt her heart sink into an abyss, and her vision blurred with tears. Suddenly, Chunyu noticed Qingyou's chest; the red phone was still lit up, as if a new text message had just arrived.
With an unknown force, Chunyu instinctively grabbed Qingyou's phone.
Sure enough, the screen showed unread text messages.
This was the last text message Qingyou received on her phone; it contained an English phrase—"This is a deadly night."
Yes, Qingyou is dead.
This was another heart-wrenching experience that Chunyu had personally witnessed in the past six months. From then on, she was destined to be drawn into an incredible and terrifying experience.
In the early hours of the morning, Chunyu unexpectedly discovered Qingyou's body in the haunted building and immediately reported it to the school. At first, the teacher on duty couldn't believe it, but when he rushed to the scene of the haunted building with some doubt, he realized the seriousness of the matter.
Qingyou's body was immediately taken to the hospital, where the cause of death was even more shocking—doctors discovered that Qingyou's tongue had been bitten off at the root, and a large amount of blood clots in her mouth had flowed into her trachea, causing her to suffocate.
The only possibility is suicide—because the wound on the bitten tongue matches the shape of Qingyou's teeth perfectly, so it could only be that she bit off her own tongue.
This news came as a complete surprise to everyone. It's like the "biting one's tongue to commit suicide" in martial arts novels, or like the legendary tongue being pulled out? It is said that this only happens in sports competitions, where athletes accidentally bite their own tongues during intense physical collisions, resulting in the tongue or blood clots getting stuck in the trachea and endangering their lives.
Why commit suicide in such a bizarre way? There seems to be no such case in reality. Even accidentally biting your tongue while eating causes excruciating pain, let alone biting it off yourself while still alive.
Qingyou's death remains a mystery.
Innocent Chunyu was also caught in the vortex. From the morning after Qingyou's incident, the school leaders talked to her several times. Chunyu could only repeatedly recount everything she knew, but these things were too bizarre. Even her most trusted teacher was skeptical of her words.
To prove she wasn't lying, Chunyu turned on her dorm computer, because it contained the photo taken in front of the haunted building. However, when she turned it on, she discovered the computer was infected with a virus and the system wouldn't run. Later, she called a computer science professor, who found that the virus had automatically deleted everything from the hard drive, and even sending it out for hard drive recovery might not be possible.