Asi Hell

Chapter 7

That night, the woman in the photograph entered Su He's dream for the first time from beside her pillow. She opened the window, gently took Su He's arm, and led her into the room. Then, the woman smiled and said to Su He, "You will also become a woman as beautiful as me."

As Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 2, Chapter 26: The Windowsill (3)

That year, Suhe had been out of university for three years. Including her four years of university life, she had lived in that southern city for a full seven years. That summer, she went back to her hometown alone. When she stood in that old house, the center of all her nightmares, some distant memories made her feel chilled to the bone.

She sold the old house as quickly as possible and then hurriedly fled the city.

She decided never to return, and even vowed to erase all memories of the city from her mind. She also pledged to live happily from that moment on.

Living happily, isn't that everyone's dream?

The light from the lantern grew dimmer and dimmer, but thankfully, it was already daylight outside.

The rain is still falling.

When Huang Tao opened the door, the sound of rain rushed in like a ferocious beast, bringing a cool and refreshing feeling. A sleepless night had already left Huang Tao and Qin Ge extremely exhausted; sitting alone by the lamp was even more arduous than trekking in the rain, and besides, you had to stay alert and wary of any potential dangers. The strong, rotten smell in the small building was also unbearable.

Huang Tao opened the door and immediately saw a figure slowly walking towards him in the rain.

Seeing Qin Ge walking so leisurely in the rain, Huang Tao immediately became alert. He called out to Qin Ge, who looked exhausted and was about to lie down on the table for a nap. Qin Ge perked up and quickly ran to the door to stand beside Huang Tao.

The rain outside seemed to connect heaven and earth; Qin Ge had never seen such heavy rain before. The rain blurred their vision, making it difficult to discern the distant, winding, majestic mountains, while the closer peaks appeared steep and precipitous, as if carved by a knife. The small building stood on a flat valley; on a clear day, the view should have been quite expansive. The figure slowly approaching was about five or six hundred meters away from the building, too far to see clearly, but one could sense its extremely slow pace. Huang Tao and Qin Ge, now wide awake, stared intently at the figure in the rain.

Seeing someone appear at this moment should have been a happy thing, at least the person would tell them where they were. But Huang Tao and Qin Ge were not happy at all. The person who was slowly walking in the rain, although now only a small figure, exuded an indescribable eeriness.

—Walking alone in the desolate mountains, and in such heavy rain, he could still walk so leisurely.

The figure drew closer; it was a man wearing a white shirt and beige trousers, the clothes clinging tightly to his body, revealing his thin frame. He was an ordinary man; in any other setting, no one would have noticed him. But Qin Ge and Huang Tao simultaneously noticed something unusual about him.

His gait was peculiar; his limbs seemed somewhat stiff, making each lift of his knee or leg appear quite strenuous. His body swayed slightly as he walked, requiring him to raise both hands for balance. His head drooped, as if he wasn't even looking at the road ahead, yet he was walking directly towards the small building.

Qin Ge and Huang Tao were already somewhat terrified, because the man's walking posture was familiar to them. He walked exactly the same way as the "zombie" who had walked past the side of the bus last night.

The "zombie" was deathly pale, expressionless, truly like a ghost from legend. And then there was the drumbeat he struck on the cliff; it was that drumbeat that guided the people in the car to this small building. Now, the man in the rain walks exactly like the "zombie," but his figure is clearly different from the "zombie" of last night. He walks straight towards the small building, carrying such a strong eerie aura.

Qin Ge and Huang Tao were on high alert, their hearts pounding in their throats.

The man had already reached the bottom of the porch, and without any intention of stopping, he continued to walk forward.

By this time, Qin Ge and Huang Tao could see clearly that the man's face was deathly pale, his expression blank, and his eyes had a lifeless gray hue. He was different from the "zombie" they had seen last night. That "zombie" had paused briefly as it passed the bus, its gaze meeting Qin Ge's through the window. Although his expression was also blank, his empty eyes revealed a beast-like murderous intent.

The man in the rain had a vacant look in his eyes, like a dead man.

Qin Ge clenched his fists, determined to stop the man if he took three more steps forward. If he didn't listen, he would have no choice but to rush out and stop him. Huang Tao, standing beside him, clearly shared the same thought; his shoulders twitched, as if he was struggling to suppress his impulse.

The person suddenly stopped when he was about five or six meters away from the door.

He raised his head slightly, as if to prove to the people inside that he was still alive. Then, he opened his mouth, and some hoarse sobs escaped, but no one could understand what he was saying. Next, he seemed to want to take another step forward, but his body swayed even more violently.

To Qin Ge and Huang Tao's astonishment, he suddenly fell heavily forward.

Without further hesitation, Qin Ge and Huang Tao rushed out together. They carefully turned the man on the ground over, only to find that his face was ashen and he had already stopped breathing.

The two of them worked together to carry the man into the house. After a thorough examination, Qin Ge shook his head, and Huang Tao, who was standing next to him, understood what he meant—the man was already dead.

Such a thing is truly incomprehensible. Early in the morning, a man walked to the front of the small building and suddenly died. Where did this man come from? His clothing and complexion indicated that he must have been a city dweller. How did he come from the city to this desolate mountain area? He walked straight toward the small building, as if it were the end of his journey. Did he know that he would die in front of the small building?

Qin Ge and Huang Tao suddenly thought of another question: Did the man die when he reached the small building, or was he already dead when he arrived?

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Qin Ge turned around and saw Dong'er and Su He emerging from the stairs. He quickly called out and waved to them, signaling them to stop. Dong'er and Su He stared at the dead body on the ground in surprise, their eyes filled with doubt. Qin Ge ignored them and, along with Huang Tao, moved the dead man to a room to the side. The walls of the room were indeed painted very white, and an indescribable odor permeated the air.

At this point, Qin Ge believed that was the taste of death.

As Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 2, Chapter 27: The Windowsill (4)

Back outside, Dong'er and Suhe had already come down. They were eager to ask something, but Qin Ge interrupted them before they could speak, saying, "There's a kitchen behind the small building. I just went to check it out. There are pots, a stove, and half a jar of rice inside."

Dong'er glared at Qin Ge with dissatisfaction: "Who was that person just now? Why wouldn't we see him?"

Qin Ge hesitated for a moment and then remained silent.

Suhe then pulled Dong'er's arm and whispered, "Let's go to the kitchen and see. After all this time, no one can stay up without eating something."

"But I want to know how there suddenly became an extra person here."

“Let the men handle these things. Even if we knew, we couldn’t help them,” Su He said softly. “Everyone is hungry. Let’s do what we can.”

"Do you need any help?" a timid voice suddenly asked from the stairs.

Tong Hao and Zhang Song came down the stairs together. They had slept in the same room last night. Tong Hao's face was flushed, and his gaze lingered on Su He hesitantly, as if saying those words was an incredibly difficult task.

Su He hesitated for a moment and didn't speak, but Dong'er waved to him with a smile: "It's rare for a man to volunteer to cook, of course we won't let you down." She looked at Su He exaggeratedly again, "Alright, it seems that cooking is none of my business. The thing I hate most when I'm at home is going into the kitchen."

Su He gripped her arm tightly, blinking his eyes, clearly hinting at something to Dong'er.

Dong'er chuckled and said, "If you want me to go, then I'll go, as long as you don't think I'm in the way."

Su He's expression was a mix of amusement and resentment, while Tong Hao felt extremely uncomfortable. Dong'er seemed to have quickly forgotten about seeing the man earlier; she put her hands behind her back and led the way to the kitchen. After taking a few steps, she turned back and said to Su He and Tong Hao, who were still standing there, "What are you waiting for?"

Su He and Tong Hao exchanged a quick glance, then looked away immediately, both lowering their heads and silently following Dong'er toward the kitchen.

Zhang Song, who was behind him, sat down, seemingly wanting to ask something, but hesitated to speak.

"Now, you can tell me what happened." Someone spoke again on the stairs. Qin Ge and the other two turned to look and saw the bearded artist Lei Ming slowly walking down the stairs.

Zhang Song clearly still remembered what happened last night; his eyes flickered, and he avoided Lei Ming's gaze. Qin Ge frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "If you want to know what happened, go and see for yourself."

Lei Ming paused for a moment, then watched as Qin Ge headed towards the room where the body lay. Lei Ming and Huang Tao followed behind, and Zhang Song hesitated for a moment before also following. Inside the room, the dead man lay face up on a puddle of water, his face deathly pale. No one doubted that he was 100% dead; even the room was filled with an inexplicable aura of death. Lei Ming and Zhang Song looked very serious as Qin Ge recounted what had just happened to them, their brows furrowed deeply. They couldn't fathom why this man had appeared in these deep mountains, or why he had mysteriously died in front of the small building.

“If only one of us were a doctor, we could find out the cause of his death,” Zhang Song said in a low voice. He glanced cautiously at Lei Ming, seemingly somewhat afraid of him.

Lei Ming nodded slightly, seemingly having forgotten what happened last night. Zhang Song's eyes immediately lit up. He stepped forward, getting closer to the corpse, and stared at it, muttering, "Could there be something on him that could identify him?"

Qin Ge slapped his forehead in frustration, inwardly cursing himself for being so careless. After so many years as a policeman, he hadn't even thought of this most basic thing. He immediately stepped forward and carefully examined the body's pockets.

There were no identification documents, only a newspaper.

The newspaper, folded to the size of a palm, was in his back pocket, already soaked with rainwater. Qin Ge held it between two fingers, carefully unfolding it and laying it flat on the ground. The newspaper was a local evening paper from a city in Guizhou, folded into a quarter sheet. The only impression Qin Ge had of that city was that it was famous for its cigarettes, all of them mainstream brands, and for a time Qin Ge insisted on smoking only one of them.

Huang Tao, Lei Ming, and Zhang Song all crowded around to look at the newspaper. They started with the first and fourth pages, finding nothing particularly noteworthy. Qin Ge turned the newspaper over, and on the third page, they both noticed a news item. The news was only a small piece, about a middle-aged man who, after his wife left home, searched the entire city without success, and finally climbed to the rooftop of an eleven-story building and jumped off.

Such social news can be seen in almost every evening newspaper, but this news was accompanied by a photo, which showed the slightly ferocious face of the man who jumped to his death.

Now, Qin Ge and the other three stared intently at the face in the photograph, none of them uttering a word. The air seemed to freeze, the stench of death growing stronger in their nostrils. Sweat beaded on Zhang Song's forehead, Lei Ming's breathing was rapid, and Qin Ge and Huang Tao's gazes were vacant, as if the photograph was even more eerie than their current predicament.

The man in the photo looks exactly like the man lying dead on the ground at that moment.

Could it be that he really died before he reached this small building? How could a dead person cross mountains and valleys, and walk straight towards this small building?

If a dead person can still walk, then he is no longer a dead person but something else entirely.

As Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 2, Chapter 28: The Dead (1)

The aroma of rice wafted from the kitchen, and one of the four men sitting outside let out a couple of rumbling stomachs. Qin Ge forced a smile: "Looks like our chef's skills are pretty good."

"I knew you had a sharp nose. Go upstairs and call them down for dinner." Dong'er responded, smiling as she walked out from a side passage with a pair of bamboo chopsticks in her hand. "I really admire those two. They can make a pot of rice taste so good. If it were me, you'd be eating burnt rice."

Tong Hao and Su He followed behind Dong'er. In the time it took to cook a meal, the two had become quite familiar with each other. Hearing Dong'er's words, they just smiled but didn't say a word. Su He carried a bowl, while Tong Hao carried a basin of freshly cooked rice. When the rice was on the table, Dong'er eagerly scooped a bowlful, and just as she was about to bring it to her mouth, she suddenly giggled and handed the bowl to Qin Ge.

Huang Tao, standing to the side, shook his head jokingly and sighed, "It's a blessing to have a wife who knows how to cherish you."

Zhang Song stood up: "You guys eat first, I'll go upstairs and call those girls."

Huang Tao and Lei Ming remained seated, while Su He and Tong Hao began serving rice. Su He placed his bowl in front of Huang Tao, who thanked him and accepted it without ceremony. Tong Hao hesitated for a moment after serving his rice before placing the bowl in front of Lei Ming. Lei Ming, however, seemed not to see the bowl in front of him. With a sullen face, he stood up and went to serve himself rice. At that moment, his face was so dark it looked as if water could be squeezed out of it.

Tong Hao stood there, somewhat bewildered. Everyone knew of Lei Ming's strangeness, so Qin Ge and Huang Tao gave him meaningful glances, signaling him not to take it to heart. Tong Hao sat down awkwardly, head bowed, remaining silent.

Zhang Song and the six young models quickly came down. After resting for a bit, the girls were much more energetic. Smelling the aroma of food and seeing the rice, they chattered excitedly and rushed over, greeting everyone before grabbing bowls and filling them without hesitation. Xu Juan shook her head helplessly at Qin Ge and Huang Tao: "These girls, they'll never grow up."

Huang Tao glanced up at the stairs: "It seems we're missing one person."

Zhang Song replied, "She told us to eat first, and she'll be downstairs right away after she tidies up."

Huang Tao nodded, buried his head in his food, and after a couple of bites, his gaze drifted back to the stairs, looking somewhat uneasy. Qin Ge noticed this and remarked, "Married women are different from young girls. Even if they're just going to buy a bag of melon seeds, they'll spend ages getting ready. Their first thought at any time is always about their image; they go out every day as if they're going to a beauty pageant."

Dong'er slapped him on the shoulder: "I'm a married woman too, am I as bad as you say?"

Qin Ge stared at her and said seriously, "Only ugly women are too lazy to dress themselves up."

Dong'er's slap immediately came down, while the girls over there giggled with food in their mouths, and one of them mumbled an encouragement to Dong'er to hit harder and teach Qin Ge a lesson.

Huang Tao remained silent. He could tell that Qin Ge was deliberately creating a relaxed atmosphere to help everyone forget something. This was fine; some things were simply beyond the women's control, and their ignorance made things easier. However, he was still worried about the young woman upstairs. This building was too eerie, and based on experience from movies and TV shows, danger always seemed to befall those who were alone.

Now, only that young woman is upstairs. Could something unexpected happen?

As if in response to his concerns, a scream rang out from upstairs at just the right moment. Everyone froze, unsurprisingly, the scream belonged to the young woman. The air seemed to freeze, and a ghostly aura began to linger in the room. This small building had only one entrance, the front door. Zhang Song and the model had just come downstairs, meaning there was no one else upstairs besides the young woman. Now, the woman's scream was shrill and terrified; clearly, something had happened that horrified her, or perhaps she had been harmed. Who could possibly slip past so many people and hurt her?

Perhaps, in these mountains, in this little building, all the impossible can become reality.

Huang Tao rushed upstairs first, followed closely by Qin Ge and Lei Ming. The rest hesitated, unsure whether to follow and see what was going on, but Zhang Song stopped them.

“If there’s something they can’t handle, we can’t help them either,” he said.

Five of the six rooms upstairs had their doors wide open. Huang Tao rushed to the closed door without hesitation and pounded on it. There was no response from inside; the young woman screamed once, then fell silent. Qin Ge and Lei Ming, who arrived shortly after, had grim expressions. Qin Ge was about to say something when Lei Ming kicked the door hard. The wooden door was made of solid wood and was exceptionally sturdy, but the hinges couldn't withstand the weight, and the door swayed and opened a crack. Lei Ming then kicked it again, and the door fell backward.

The young woman was lying on the ground, clearly unconscious.

Huang Tao and the other two stared wide-eyed, almost unable to believe what they were seeing.

Asi's Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 2, Chapter 29: The Dead (2)

Beside the young woman lay a man, face down, motionless. His clothes were stained, and beneath and beside him were white lumps of varying sizes, some as large as a fist, others as small as grains of rice.

Qin Ge, Huang Tao, and Lei Ming rushed into the house. Huang Tao picked up the young woman, while Qin Ge and Lei Ming turned the man over. A stench of decay filled the air, and Qin Ge and Lei Ming instinctively stood up and moved away from the man. Huang Tao turned to look at them and saw that the man on the ground was already a rotting corpse.

Huang Tao's face changed color, and even his hands, which were holding the young woman, trembled slightly.

The young woman was still breathing, clearly having fainted from extreme shock. Huang Tao lifted her up, his brows furrowed, and said to Qin Ge and Lei Ming, "You two take her here; I'll carry her downstairs."

After speaking, Huang Tao left without waiting for Qin Ge and Lei Ming's reply. Qin Ge and Lei Ming were slightly surprised. Although they had only known each other for a short time, Huang Tao had given them the impression of being calm and composed, but his behavior after seeing the corpse was indeed somewhat abnormal. However, at this moment, Qin Ge and Lei Ming didn't have time to think about it; their attention was focused on the gradually decomposing corpse in front of them.

Based on his experience as a police officer and the degree of decomposition, Qin Ge estimated that the body had been dead for at least a week. Furthermore, since the body had been frozen, the exact freezing time was unknown; therefore, a week was a very conservative estimate. Frozen bodies decompose more easily than bodies in their normal state.

There were also chunks of material under and around the corpse. Qin Ge picked one up and quickly determined that it was plaster.

Gypsum has a wide range of uses. In medicine, it is used as a heat-clearing and fire-reducing medicine; in agriculture, it is used as a fertilizer to improve soil structure; in the construction industry, it is used as a cement additive; and in tofu shops, it is used to coagulate soy milk into tofu. However, what most people are most familiar with is plaster statues—plaster powder is quickly solidified in a mold to create various shaped sculptures.

The reason why there was plaster under and around the corpse seemed not complicated, because Qin Ge and Lei Ming almost simultaneously discovered a nearly two-meter-long groove on the wall of the room. The groove was extremely irregular, but its interior was completely white. The material of the groove's surface was also clearly plaster without close inspection.

The answer to how a corpse ended up in that young woman's room is now clear.

The body must have been hidden inside the wall. The reason plaster was used to seal the wall is because of the key characteristic of plaster powder – it can solidify in a very short time. Therefore, the body couldn't have been sealed inside the wall for very long, perhaps only a tiny bit before this group of people arrived at the building.

The location where the body was hidden has been found, but some other questions remain.

Why would the body be hidden in the wall, and why must it be hidden before the group reaches the building? Unless, of course, the person who hid the body intentionally wanted the group to see it. If so, what message were they trying to convey through the corpse?

All the questions ultimately point to one crucial question: who orchestrated all of this, and what was their purpose in bringing this group of people to this small building in the mountains?