The 19th level of Hell

Chapter 5

Chunyu retrieved Qingyou's digital camera, only to find that the photos stored on it had also been deleted. Perhaps Qingyou had deleted them herself after transferring them to the computer that day. Was some unseen force manipulating their fates? Chunyu found the whole affair increasingly difficult to comprehend. Maybe that digital photo was simply a hallucination, and had never actually been taken?

No, Nan Xiaoqin and Xu Wenya clearly saw the photo too! But now they're both terrified by Qingyou's death and dare not stay in the room she lived in; they've disappeared somewhere. Chunyu can only rely on her memory to recall that mysterious digital photo. The background of the photo is that gloomy building, in front of it is the expressionless Qingyou, and there's a figure in the second-floor window—good heavens, doesn't it look like a funeral portrait?

Thinking back carefully, it really does look very similar! From the choice of background to the serene expression, it's just like the portrait hanging at the memorial service.

Could it be that Qingyou knew she was going to die, which is why she went to the haunted building to take a picture of herself in her final moments?

Or was it intentional to capture some special information in the photo—like a shadow in the second-floor window? Chunyu shook her head violently, unwilling to think about it anymore; after all, the photo was gone now. However, although it was confirmed that Qingyou had committed suicide, Chunyu was still questioned by her teachers and classmates. She felt that this time she had completely fallen into a maze, and could no longer find the exit to the truth.

Date added: 2005-02-18 12:35:48

That afternoon, Chunyu went to the hospital accompanied by her teacher, wanting to see Qingyou's remains one more time. In the cold morgue of the hospital, Chunyu saw Qingyou once again.

At this moment, the bloodstains at the corner of Qingyou's mouth had disappeared, and her expression remained serene, only now pale like that of the dead. A chilling aura enveloped Qingyou's body, as if from a celestial realm; she would no longer experience any pain.

Gazing at Qingyou's current state, Chunyu's eyes welled up with tears, as if she could hear Qingyou's voice again. Chunyu hoped that all of this was just a nightmare, but when would she wake up from it?

From the year Chunyu entered university, Qingyou was her best friend. The boys often said they were the two beauties of the department, inseparable at all times, making the girls both envious and jealous.

During her freshman year, Qingyou was a quiet and reserved girl, seemingly hiding something she didn't want to say. Over the next two years, she became much more outgoing and had a few boyfriends, but none of those relationships lasted. Because of the incident in the deserted village six months prior, Chunyu was looked at differently by many classmates, as if she were some kind of ominous monster. Only Qingyou continued to help Chunyu, enabling her to quickly recover and reintegrate into normal school life. It was also under Qingyou's influence that Nan Xiaoqin and Xu Wenya accepted Chunyu back into their dormitory.

Qingyou, her only trusted friend, now lay before her, a stiff corpse. She wondered if her tongue was still in her mouth.

In an instant, all fear was forgotten, and Chunyu involuntarily reached out and stroked Qingyou's arm.

This is the deceased's arm.

The sensation on my fingers was cold and stiff. This person, who was alive and well just a few days ago, whom they had shared the same air in the dormitory, slept in the same bunk bed, only inches apart, was now separated by two different worlds.

Chunyu didn't know where she got the courage. When she was a child, she never dared to look at the deaths of elderly relatives. Now, as she touched Qingyou's hand, she felt no fear, only tears sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto Qingyou's pale face.

Though the tears were warm, they could not awaken the one who had been sleeping forever.

Three days later, Qingyou's body was sent for cremation.

To everyone's surprise, Chunyu did not attend Qingyou's funeral. People speculated that her absence, besides fearing she might become overwhelmed with grief, was perhaps also due to concerns about the judgmental stares and whispers from others. At least in the subconscious of many around her, Qingyou's death was already seen as a misfortune brought by Chunyu.

What others didn't know was that when Qingyou was sent to the crematorium, Chunyu had been crying in her dormitory all day.

The day after the cremation, Qingyou's mother came to her daughter's former dormitory to sort through Qingyou's belongings. Chunyu stood silently to the side, head bowed, like a child who had done something wrong. But Qingyou's mother didn't make things difficult for Chunyu; she knew Chunyu was Qingyou's best friend.

In the past, Chunyu had heard from other classmates that Qingyou had an older sister who was two years older than her and also attended the same university, but had died for some unknown reason. If this was true, then Qingyou's mother had already lost two daughters, and her pain must have been doubled.

Qingyou's mother barely uttered a word, simply packing her daughter's belongings quietly, as if all her tears had dried up. Finally, all the items were packed into a large cardboard box, which Qingyou's mother then carried down from the girls' dormitory.

Chunyu followed Qingyou's mother downstairs and saw her draw a circle with chalk in the open space downstairs, then put the items from the box into the circle one by one.

A crowd of girls had gathered around, none of them understanding what was happening. They saw Qingyou's mother use a lighter to set fire to a white nightgown—the one Qingyou had worn that night when she had been spinning around as if possessed.

Chunyu then understood what she was doing. She was burning the deceased's belongings, turning their wares to ashes and sending them to the ghosts in the underworld. For thousands of years, this was how the Chinese had handled the deceased's belongings; Chunyu remembered burning clothes of deceased elders at home when she was a child. Her mother, her spirit serene, knelt beside the circle, burning her deceased daughter's clothes one by one. Normally, burning things on campus was forbidden, especially in the dry winter. But no one dared to stop her; everyone knew the sorrow in her heart.

Almost all the belongings in the cardboard box were burned. Chunyu was familiar with every single item that had been burned: the clothes Qingyou had worn, the books she had read, and even many odds and ends like toothpaste and toothbrushes—all of them had been thrown into the circle and burned. Next to the circle drawn in chalk was a small opening, probably a passage to send these things to the underworld.

Finally, Qingyou's red phone was also thrown into the fire, and its metal casing immediately burned and twisted.

Looking at the burning phone, Chunyu suddenly remembered the last text message—yes, the text message!

An important secret may be hidden in the quiet world of a mobile phone.

By the time Chunyu realized what was happening, it was too late. The high temperature from the burning phone had exposed its internal parts, emitting a pungent odor.

It was too late; the most important part of the phone's chip had been burned out.

Chunyu sighed, staring blankly as her phone turned into a pile of scrap metal. All of Qingyou's belongings left in the dormitory were reduced to ashes or twisted remains.

The fire leading to the underworld has gone out.

Only then did Qingyou's mother shed tears. What a suffering yet strong mother she was. After Qingyou's mother left, Chunyu still stood alone in the same spot, before her a circle drawn with chalk, containing patches of burnt remains.

At this moment, Chunyu thought to herself: A person's physical body is destroyed, but the things they used in life remain, such as underwear, towels, and toothbrushes. They were so close to their deceased owners, and must still retain their breath and shadow, or even be a part of their lives. Therefore, only by burning these things can the deceased be truly cremated.

Chunyu nodded. It must be so. Just now, when she saw Qingyou's clothes burning, she felt as if Qingyou was right in front of her, wearing those clothes, being burned by the flames, turning into a pile of ashes, and being blown high into the sky by the cold wind—had she gone to heaven or hell?

That evening, Xu Wenya finally returned to the dormitory, but Nan Xiaoqin was still nowhere to be found. Chunyu finally found someone to talk to, but Xu Wenya gave her a disgusted look, curled up on the bed playing on her phone, refusing to speak to Chunyu.

Chunyu, not wanting to make a fool of herself, looked back at the once tranquil lower bunk, only to find it completely empty. Even the sheets had been burned; it was truly "empty and deserted." The air in the dormitory was stiflingly heavy. The two girls remained silent, so they simply turned off the lights and went to sleep early.

The thought of the lower bunk being empty kept Chunyu awake. It was as if if no one slept in the lower bunk, the person in the upper bunk would be restless, and the entire bed frame would wobble and sway. Although this was just Chunyu's imagination, she had long been accustomed to sleeping in the quiet upper bunk and didn't know how she would get through the cold winter nights without tranquility.

Wrapped in thick blankets, Chunyu dared not even breathe loudly, as if any movement would cause the bed frame to collapse. Suddenly, she heard a faint sound from across the room. It was Xu Wenya's voice.

Then came the sound of footsteps as the door opened and someone left. What was Xu Wenya doing going out in the middle of the night?

Chunyu held her breath and waited for a while, but still didn't hear Xu Wenya return. Even if she went to the bathroom, it wouldn't take that long. Chunyu was left alone in the dormitory. Outside, the cold wind howled in the dark night. She dared not move even more in bed, afraid that the bed might shake at the slightest moment.

Suddenly, she heard her phone ring with a text message notification.

The urgent text message ringtone immediately reminded Chunyu of the night Qingyou had her accident... Sweat seeped out again on her back, as if the ringtone was stabbing into her heart.

After hesitating for a moment, Chunyu reached out and tucked her phone into the blanket.

Now her entire head was covered by the blanket, with only the glow of her phone screen illuminating her eyes. Curled up in the pitch-black bed, staring at her phone screen, it felt like being in a cave with a flashlight.

Yes, it was like discovering a ghost in a cave. Looking at the text message on her phone in the middle of the night, Chunyu almost screamed.