Zapatos de cristal

Capítulo 13

Fang Jian suddenly realized his lapse in composure, looked somewhat embarrassed, and couldn't answer for a moment.

"You've been following me!" Ningxia's voice rose, her expression turning angry. "No wonder I've felt like I've been watched these past few days; it was you!"

"No! No! It's not what you think! I'm just... worried about you!" Fang Jian felt a little guilty after being glared at by Ning Xia.

"What are you worried about? You're following me, and you're making excuses?" Ningxia didn't seem to appreciate it.

"No! I'm afraid... what if, what if someone else tries to take advantage of that Fang Lian? I know about the teacher's matter!" Fang Jian seemed helpless against Ning Xia's anger and could not defend himself. He looked ashamed when he mentioned the professor.

Seeing his expression, Ningxia couldn't bring herself to get angry. She said with a hint of reproach, "But you can't stalk me! It's like I have no privacy!"

"Sorry! I just wanted to clarify some things too!"

"What's the matter?" Ningxia asked Fang Jian to sit down and handed him a bottle of Coke.

"Well!" Fang Jian stammered.

Ningxia couldn't help but tap him on the forehead: "Say it! I'm angry!"

Fang Jian raised his head, looked at Ningxia, his expression somewhat strange, and hesitated to speak.

"If you're not going to talk, then please leave!" Ningxia stood up.

"Don't you think that Lin Wei is suspicious?" Fang Jian immediately blurted out.

"Suspicious?" Ningxia sat down, looking at Fang Jian with suspicion. "By the way! How do you know him? You haven't answered me yet!"

"Really?" Ningxia exclaimed, suddenly realizing, "I thought he was just a high-ranking staff member!"

"That's why I find him very suspicious!"

"What's suspicious?" Ningxia asked, somewhat annoyed.

"He's so busy, how could he possibly have time to spend with a little girl like you?" Fang Jian said, sipping his cola.

"What do you mean?" Ningxia was somewhat displeased.

Fang Jian put down his cola, exhaling a large gulp of cold air, and said, "Don't you think he has ulterior motives? You're so beautiful!"

"What are you talking about?" Ningxia glared at him, changed the subject, and brought up the matter of Su Yun's diary.

"Oh! She saw that woman in red too? Is she the same person you saw in the box? What about her diary?" Fang Jian immediately became very interested.

Ningxia shook her head dejectedly: "The diary is gone! The dressing case is gone! Even that copy of 'The Ancient Mirror and the Secluded Pool' is gone!"

"What's going on?" Fang Jian exclaimed and jumped up. That box was a priceless antique!

Ningxia glanced at him and told him everything.

"Your brother took him away?" Fang Jian asked, puzzled.

"That's possible! Forget it! I don't want to investigate anymore! I just want to know what's going on with Su Yun!" Ningxia felt helpless towards her brother.

"What a pity! What a pity!" Fang Jian muttered to himself as he paced back and forth in the living room, head down in thought, shaking his head repeatedly.

"Don't think about that antique anymore! I don't think it's a pity to lose it. I'm worried about my brother now!" Ningxia's only relative in this world is Ningkang, and she doesn't want anything to happen to him.

"I'm not sorry for Fang Lian, I'm sorry for your classmate's diary. It must contain some secrets! It could very well be the reason for her suicide!" Fang Jian said thoughtfully. "And, who knows, it might also contain the secrets of the Gu Tan Club!"

Ningxia felt that Fang Jian's words seemed to make sense, so she couldn't refute him anymore.

"So, I think Lin Wei might also have problems! You should still be careful!" Fang Jian said seriously.

Ningxia wanted to say something, but he had nothing to say. Although his words were somewhat arbitrary, they were not without reason, because almost everything could be connected.

"Alright! You rest first! I'm leaving now, there are some things I need to figure out!" Fang Jian suddenly remembered something and hurriedly prepared to leave.

Ningxia opened the door and waited for Fang Jian to leave. After thinking for a moment, she said to Fang Jian, "Next Wednesday, we're going to Black Town!"

Fang Jian glanced at Ning Xia, lost in thought: "And Lin Wei?"

Ningxia nodded.

"While I respect your freedom, I still want to advise you not to go to that place alone with him!" Fang Jian said seriously.

Seeing his serious expression, Ningxia wanted to laugh, but she didn't want to show it, so she just nodded and said, "I'll be careful! Don't worry!"

Fang Jian sighed heavily and shook his head, saying, "Fine, if you won't listen to my advice, then so be it. It's best to be careful!"

"Yes! Yes! Master Fang!" Ningxia deliberately mimicked his tone.

"I'm leaving! If anything happens, be sure to call me. From now on, my phone will be on 24/7!" Fang Jian said as he walked down the stairs, his voice echoing through the hallway.

Ningxia returned home, took a hot shower, and felt like her body was falling apart. She lay heavily on the bed and quickly fell asleep.

Ningxia's phone rang in her backpack in the living room, but she was sound asleep in her bedroom. The tension she had felt during the day in the old house was suddenly relieved, and she fell into a deep sleep without hearing a sound.

Resting in his apartment, Lin Wei listened to the "whispers of autumn" coming through the receiver, shook his head with a smile, and hung up after a short while: "That girl! She must be exhausted!"

After a while, Lin Wei's phone suddenly rang. Lin Wei flipped open the cover: "Ningxia? Asleep?... "

But a sentence coming from the receiver made Lin Wei's expression change drastically, and he shouted, "What?"

Hearing the familiar ringtone of a cell phone coming from the living room, Ningxia suddenly woke up: "Oh no! It's his call!" She jumped out of bed, rushed to the living room, opened her backpack, and took out her phone.

"Lin Wei?" Thinking it was Lin Wei, Ningxia answered the phone without even looking.

There was no one speaking on the other end of the phone, but a faint breathing sound could be heard coming from it.

"Hello! Is this Lin Wei?" Ningxia was a little surprised that he didn't speak.

Ningxia was so startled that she threw her phone onto the sofa, but the strange high-pitched singing voice still came through the phone clearly, humming intermittently. The entire living room was filled with this strange sound, which was especially jarring in the quiet night.

"Singing style?" Ningxia suddenly remembered the strange woman recorded in Su Yun's diary. Wasn't she the one who always spoke to Su Yun in a singing style?

The thought sent a chill down Ningxia's spine. She mustered her courage and slowly reached for her phone on the sofa. The singing continued; she couldn't understand what it was, but the melody rose and fell, like a woman's mournful wail. Remembering the scarred woman she'd seen in her hallucination in the old house earlier that day, the chill on her back intensified.

He picked up the phone, and the sound from the receiver grew closer as the distance decreased. Finally, a strange, singing-like laugh came from the receiver, making Ningxia feel a chill run down her spine and her hair stand on end.

"Hello?" Ningxia suppressed her fear and answered the receiver. The laughter suddenly stopped, and then there was no sound, but the faint breathing could still be heard from the other end.

"Who are you?" Ningxia asked boldly.

"I am a wronged soul!" A strange singing voice suddenly came from the receiver. Just as Su Yun had described, the woman was singing. Although she was prepared, Ningxia was still startled by the chilling singing voice from the receiver and almost dropped the phone again.

"I am a wronged soul!" came the same lyrics again from the receiver.

"Don't play tricks on me! I'm not afraid of you!" Ningxia's voice rose to bolster her courage, but cold sweat seeped from her back and palms.

"Hahaha..." A burst of extremely shrill laughter rang out, as if the owner of the laughter had seen through Ningxia's timidity and laughed wildly.

Ningxia suppressed the piercing, fearful laughter, and said angrily, "What are you laughing at?"

"I laugh at your self-righteousness!" A line of singing came from the receiver, the voice high-pitched and shrill. For opera singers, that was a skill, but to Ningxia at this moment, it sounded like a metal spoon rubbing against another metal basin, a sound that could pierce eardrums, extremely unpleasant.

Just as she was about to retort, she heard a "beep" and the call ended. In an instant, the jarring sound disappeared from the receiver, and the room fell silent. Ningxia was drenched in cold sweat and slumped weakly onto the sofa. She glanced at the caller ID with lingering fear; it was an unfamiliar landline.

"Ring ring..." The phone rang loudly again, and Ningxia's heart, which had just been at ease, suddenly jumped to her chest again. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Lin Wei.

"Hello!" Ningxia answered the phone listlessly.

"Ningxia? Are you alright?" Lin Wei's voice sounded somewhat anxious.

"It's alright!" Ningxia felt relieved as soon as she heard Lin Wei's voice.

"Your voice sounds a little strange! Are you really alright?" Lin Wei seemed a little worried.

"No...it's nothing! I'm perfectly fine! I just fell asleep!" Ningxia didn't know how to tell him about the terrifying phone call she had just received, so she just brushed it off.

"Alright! You should get some rest! I'm hanging up!" Lin Wei's voice was soft.

"You should get some rest too!" Ningxia felt refreshed upon hearing this, and her voice softened considerably.

After hanging up the phone, Ningxia quickly turned off her phone and went back to her bedroom. Still shaken by the earlier scare, she couldn't fall asleep. She got up and turned on her computer.

On the computer desktop, there was a newly created folder. Double-clicking it opened, and a photo of Liu Fang with a cold expression appeared on the entire screen. Ningxia carefully looked through several more of her photos, and then vaguely felt that Liu Fang seemed somewhat different from the woman in the portrait she had seen in the funerary shop in Black Town. She remembered the strange butterfly she had found in the old house during the day, and quickly took the tissue wrapped around the butterfly out of her backpack.

Under the warm glow of the desk lamp, the colors of the leather butterfly softened, seemingly gaining a touch of life under the light. But the eyes on the butterfly's head still shimmered with a strange, eerie light, as if truly alive, peering through Ningxia's eyes and into the depths of her heart. Avoiding the butterfly's strange eyes, she slowly brushed away the dust with a makeup brush. The fine brush removed most of the dust, revealing the butterfly's original clear texture and colors.

The butterfly's overall shape appears irregularly cut, with the right wing noticeably larger than the left, yet this doesn't detract from the exquisite patterns on its wings. The larger right wing depicts an abstract phoenix from the Qin and Han dynasties, while the left wing clearly shows a four-legged, short-tailed dragon, its shape resembling a giant lizard more so than the dragons of later Ming and Qing dynasties. This simple, abstract style originates from the Qin and Han periods; similar mythical creatures are frequently found on the coffins of the Warring States period tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng and the Western Han Mawangdui tombs. It seems this butterfly's history predates that of the ancient house. However, upon examining Liu Fang's photographs, no such butterfly-related items were found on her.

Browsing through thousands of websites would take a lot of time, and Ningxia didn't have the patience to check them all. She just flipped through a few pages and logged off.

Touching the delicate butterfly on the table, Ningxia felt a strange, inexplicable feeling. She seemed vaguely familiar with it, yet she also saw a hint of fear in its eyes. Strangely, Ningxia felt as if this seemingly living butterfly had witnessed something that made it tremble with unease. Remembering the woman who had collapsed in a pool of blood and wept during the day, her mournful cries seemed to echo in the quiet night, and a nameless sorrow welled up in Ningxia's heart.

She shut down the computer, put the butterfly in the dressing table drawer, lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes. But the image of the weeping woman and the woman in white whose face she couldn't see kept appearing before her eyes. The two figures alternated, like two thin pieces of paper, overlapping and fluttering in Ningxia's vision...

After a sleepless night, Ningxia woke up with a throbbing head and bloodshot eyes. She glanced at the time; it was already past 1 p.m. With two weeks until her first day back at work, Ningxia gave a bitter smile. How many more days could she endure this?

The weather was gloomy today, with a light drizzle falling outside the window. Ningxia didn't feel like going out, so she grabbed something quick and easy to eat, then sat down at her dressing table and took out the butterfly that had been haunting her all night. After looking at the butterfly repeatedly, she dialed Fang Jian's number.

"Ningxia! What's wrong?" Fang Jian's worried voice came from the other end of the phone.

"Don't be nervous. I have something here. Do you have time tomorrow to come and take a look?" Ningxia smiled. Fang Jian seemed to be too nervous.

The next day, around 6 p.m., Fang Jian rushed over. After looking at him for a while, he still had a furrowed brow and didn't say anything.

"Did you notice anything?" Ningxia brought out a few stir-fried dishes from the kitchen.

Fang Jian looked up at Ningxia and asked, "Was it found in that big house?"

"Didn't I tell you everything? What, didn't you see anything?" Ningxia served Fang Jian a bowl of rice.

Fang Jian put down the butterfly, picked up his rice bowl, and began to wolf down his food, mumbling indistinctly, "Yes, of course there is! It's not an antique!... It's something modern!"

"Modern things?" Ningxia was somewhat surprised.

Fang Jian nodded: "No more than twenty years old! It's animal skin, and the pattern is tattooed on!"

Ningxia suddenly lost her appetite; she vaguely felt that there was something wrong with the texture of the butterfly.

"It could be human skin!" Fang Jian still had a great appetite, eating as he spoke, seemingly without any reservations.

"What?" Ningxia put down her chopsticks and looked at the butterfly on the table. Suddenly, she felt nauseous.

Fang Jian seemed to have noticed, and said somewhat apologetically, "I'm sorry! It's just my professional habit!" He deals with ancient corpses all day long, so he didn't think much of it.

Ningxia could no longer eat. She just stared blankly at the butterfly on the table, a feeling of extreme sadness welling up inside her.

Fang Jian quickly finished the food, picked up the butterfly, and said, "Are you alright? Shall I put it away?"

"No need! Please continue!"

Fang Jian glanced at Ningxia's face and, finding nothing seriously wrong, continued, "Look, although the pattern here is in the style of the Qin and Han dynasties, the leather has shrunk somewhat, but not severely. It was probably treated with some preservatives, so it won't have been there for too long. This kind of leather is delicate and smooth; only human skin can achieve this effect! However, the person who tattooed the butterfly wasn't very skilled."

Ningxia remained silent, listening attentively to Fang Jian's analysis.