Night Doll

Chapter 1: The Doll Murder Case (1)

(1)

At midnight, a torrential downpour poured down from the dark night sky, instantly enveloping the entire campus in a hazy rain mist. The night-blooming jasmine on the balcony trembled, emitting a damp and strange scent.

Song Xiaomo put down his book, walked to the window, and gently opened it a crack. A gust of cold wind, carrying sparse raindrops, hit him. He shivered and quickly closed the door and window.

The dormitory building across the street stood in the darkness, enveloped by rain and its sound. It was an old building, clearly bearing the design style of Baroque architecture, with intersecting curved surfaces and elliptical spaces. The word Baroque originally means strange and bizarre, and its main architectural characteristic is the pursuit of strange and unusual effects, such as expressing space in a deformed and discordant way, and depicting figures with exaggeratedly slender proportions. Song Xiaomo's father was a well-known architect, so he had a strong interest in architecture from a young age. After graduating from the architecture department of a famous university in China, he went on to study at HY University in South Korea for a master's degree.

Tonight is Song Xiaomo's thirteenth night at HY University. Thirteen is considered a very unlucky number in Western culture. At this hour, most students are already asleep, lulled by the patter of rain. For some reason, Song Xiaomo feels a strange sense of unease and foreboding, and can't fall asleep. He lives in room 520, and something seems to be moving in the room directly opposite his in the building across the street, like a ghost in the dark, always secretly watching him. The tinted windows of that room are always tightly closed, so even during the day, nothing can be seen inside. Song Xiaomo paid special attention; those two windows have never been opened, and the lights have never been turned on at night.

Is no one living inside?

Designers are usually sensitive, and Song Xiaomo's growing curiosity kept her tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep.

It was past two in the morning when the wind picked up and the lightning flashed, tearing through the darkness. The rumbling thunder outside the window made the room tremble, and an eerie, terrifying atmosphere filled the air.

Song Xiaomo put on her clothes and walked to the window again.

Just as he glanced towards the room opposite, a terrifying clap of thunder exploded, followed by an arc of lightning that streaked across the sky, flashing a blinding, eerie white light that illuminated the dormitory building as if it were daytime. In that brief moment, a large black bird let out a heart-wrenching cry and flew from the balcony of the opposite room into the thick rain. Song Xiaomo was pleasantly surprised to find that the window had suddenly opened, perhaps blown open by the strong wind.

Another blinding flash of lightning streaked across the sky, and Song Xiaomo's pupils dilated. Through the blur, he finally saw something hanging in the room.

To be precise, it looked like the corpse of a child, his flowery clothes fluttering in the wind.

Why don't children have legs and feet?

Song Xiaomo grew bolder and tremblingly opened the window. Suddenly, he froze as if frozen. A black rope dangling in the air caught his eye. My God! There was clearly a child's head hanging from it.

Chapter 2: The Ghost Doll Returns (2)

A human head with no hair, no eyebrows, no ears, and no nose.

Before he could react, the head suddenly turned to look at him, grinned, and revealed a pair of unfathomable dark eyes.

"Who are you?"

He gasped, closing his eyes in terror. He felt a surge of power rushing to his throat. He tried desperately to control himself, but he couldn't stop his body from trembling violently.

"No, no, there's nothing there, it must be a hallucination, a hallucination..." He shook his head vigorously to clear his mind.

Then, mustering his courage, he suddenly opened his eyes. Song Xiaomo wasn't a particularly timid person. In fact, he was fearless and dared to work the night shift at the morgue alone.

The thunder grew more and more distant, and the surroundings gradually quieted down. The room opposite returned to darkness. He could see nothing. Everything had vanished into a vast expanse of rain and mist.

"It might really be a hallucination, damn rainy day..." He took a deep breath and tried to reassure himself.

Song Xiaomo's tense nerves slowly relaxed. He carefully checked the windows and doors, then decided to go back to bed. Just as he left the window, he couldn't help but glance back at the gloomy room across the way.

This time, as if fate were playing a joke on him, another sudden, ghastly white bolt of lightning flashed. In that instant, he felt something fly into his eye again. His heart pounded once more…

What is that?

(2)

The next morning, Song Xiaomo opened her eyes to find the sky already bright, with sunlight streaming onto her bedside like water.

"Oh no, I'm going to be late for class this morning." Song Xiaomo slapped his forehead and quickly sat up in bed. He habitually glanced at the mirror on the bedside table; a sleepless night had left his eyes sunken, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look like he had just recovered from a serious illness.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

Who could it be? He was the only Chinese student in this dormitory building, and he always kept to himself, rarely interacting with the other students upstairs. Without thinking too much, Song Xiaomo carefully opened the door.

A young man's pale, gaunt face was revealed.

"Hello, may I come in?" The young man smiled slightly. Seeing that Song Xiaomo was a little confused, he added, "I live next door, in room 521."

"Oh, hello, hello. Please come in." Song Xiaomo's mind instantly cleared. He had seen him a few times in the corridor before. Although they had never spoken, the face was somewhat familiar.

The young man came in, picked up a chair, and sat down. Somewhat reservedly, he asked, "Did you sleep well last night?"

Song Xiaomo's heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively glanced towards the room opposite. Strangely, the open window had closed again. Several white pigeons were flying back and forth on the balcony. He remembered last night, in the light of the lightning, he had seen two strange things: the first was the hanging human head, and the second was a young couple kissing. If the first was a hallucination, how could he explain the second sighting of the young couple? Was that also a hallucination? For a while afterward, Song Xiaomo observed them intently. Unfortunately, the rain gradually stopped, and the lightning never appeared again. He regretted not having seen the young couple more clearly.

Chapter 3: The Return of the Ghost Doll (3)

"What's wrong with you?" the young man asked, looking at him with a strange expression.

"Oh, excuse me, what did you ask?" Song Xiaomo asked awkwardly as she came to her senses.

"Nothing, I was just asking if you slept well last night."

"Last night?" Song Xiaomo immediately became alert, staring intently into the other person's eyes as she asked, "Did you see something?"

"What? I don't understand what you're talking about." The young man looked somewhat bewildered.

Seeing that he didn't react in any particular way, Song Xiaomo quickly swallowed the words that were about to come out and changed her words to, "I slept okay, it's just a bit late. Look, if you hadn't come, I would still be in bed right now."

"Yes, there was a rare heavy rain last night, and the thunder woke me up several times."

Song Xiaomo poured him a glass of water and casually asked, "What brings you here today? Is there anything I can help you with?"

The young man took the cup, took a slow sip, and smiled, "It's nothing. I hear you opening and closing the door at the same time every morning, so I guessed your life must be very regular. But today... I was worried something might have happened to you, so I came to check on you."

"Thank you, I'm sorry to have troubled you." Song Xiaomo looked at the man gratefully, her goodwill towards him growing unconsciously. Especially when you're in a foreign country, it's rare to meet such a considerate foreign friend.

"I'm so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Park Eun-hee, and I study psychology. I've been here for two years..."

"Then you're my senior. My name is Song Xiaomo, I'm from Dalian, China, and I study architecture..."

"China?" Park Eun-hee's eyes lit up, and she said with some longing, "A great country with a long history. I really look forward to visiting it someday. Many great figures were born there, such as Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Mencius. Ancient Chinese historical records contain early discussions on the psychology of crime. Mencius believed that all people have a sense of compassion, shame, and right and wrong. Some people do bad things because of the influence of their environment..."

"Hehe, it seems you know a bit about Chinese culture, you're practically a China expert, unlike the friends I met when I first came to Korea. They were only interested in Bruce Lee and kept asking me who w

……