L'affaire du messager fantôme - Le récit d'une âme qui quitte son corps

Chapitre 31

After her father died, she and her mother were left to depend on each other. Every night, the two slept together, and she could feel her mother's trembling. Two years later, her mother was laid off, and the family's life suddenly became much more difficult. Just when they were at their wits' end, a tall man entered their family and became Chunyu's stepfather. The man was a businessman. When he first came home, he bought Chunyu many beautiful clothes and added many appliances to the house. He was also quite kind to her mother. However, her stepfather always had a strange smell about him, an indescribable odor—whether it was the smell of alcohol, cigarettes, or a chemical reaction from long-term exposure to tobacco and alcohol. Therefore, although her stepfather always demanded that Chunyu call him "Dad," Chunyu refused no matter what, only looking at him coldly with a frightening gaze. But at this time, Chunyu merely disliked her stepfather; she hadn't yet come to hate him. She simply kept reminiscing about her father, recalling that snowy afternoon. If she hadn't gone to the street, her father wouldn't have died for her, the family's fate wouldn't have been changed so drastically, and that strange-smelling man wouldn't have entered her life.

Chunyu suddenly snapped out of her reverie and said blankly, "If it weren't for me, Dad wouldn't have died, and nothing would have changed."

Since she was eleven, misfortune seemed to have never left her: a detestable stepfather; her mother's permanent departure; and the nightmare of the deserted village six months ago… Now, her best friend Qingyou is dead, and her other two roommates, Xu Wenya and Nan Xiaoqin, are in different states—one has developed schizophrenia, and the other was in a car accident and remains unconscious. "Misfortune has always been with me, and I have brought misfortune to those around me—"

Yes, from her father to her mother, from Qingyou to Xu Wenya, they were all the closest people to her, yet one by one they left her, leaving Chunyu all alone now. "Those girls are right, I'm a born jinx, anyone who gets close to me will be unlucky. Maybe I shouldn't have been born into this world at all!"

Just as Chunyu was crying in despair, her text message ringtone suddenly went off.

It was already midnight, and it was still that hellish number, still that same text message—"You have entered the 14th level of hell. You will choose: 1. Your worst nightmare; 2. The place you most want to go; 3. Your most painful memory."

Chunyu's gaze fell on the word "nightmare." She had already experienced the most terrifying nightmare, so what nightmare in the world could frighten her? Thus, she boldly chose "1: Your most terrifying nightmare."

After waiting a few seconds, she received this reply: "You will relive the nightmare."

Upon seeing the text message, Chunyu's heart skipped a beat—a replay of the nightmare? What did this mean? Chunyu was somewhat flustered and hurriedly turned off her phone.

Nightmare? Which nightmare?

At this moment, in the cold night outside the window, a nightmare is brewing.

In the dark room, a strange smell wafted from somewhere, slowly stimulating the sleeping Chunyu. The smell spread through her nostrils, throat, and trachea, reaching her entire lungs, waking her from the darkness.

The source of the scent was right in front of her; a dark shadow covered her forehead and moved closer...closer...

Chunyu opened her eyes, but it was pitch black and she couldn't see anything. But the strong smell told her that the person had arrived, only a few centimeters away from her.

Although she couldn't see the person, Chunyu's heart was pounding. She desperately held her breath, trying to keep the person's warm breath from touching her face. She let out soft moans, but couldn't manage to cry out loud.

Suddenly, a sliver of light shone through the window in the darkness, entering her wide-open pupils and allowing her to instantly see that terrifying face.

She finally screamed, and with a strength she didn't know she possessed, she struggled violently and slapped the man across the face. He let out a terrible scream, and a stench filled her nostrils. His strong hand gripped her forearm, and she immediately felt a piercing pain. But she kicked him, finally managing to jump off the bed and fight him in the dark, cramped room.

But Chunyu's weak arms were no match for the attack, and she could only retreat to the window. Somehow, the window had opened. She climbed onto the windowsill, but the hand gripped her ankle tightly. She kicked the person away and jumped out the window…

She fell into a dark, deep well, feeling herself falling endlessly, as if there was no end in sight, until she screamed and opened her eyes.

The morning light illuminated Chunyu's eyes. She rubbed her eyelids and realized that she was not in a dark well, but in a quiet girls' dormitory.

Looking at the sunrise outside the window, and catching my breath a few times, I realized that it was just a dream.

"Reliving the nightmare?"

Several minutes later, Chunyu uttered these words with trembling lips: "Is this another arrangement from hell?"

Suddenly, she felt a burning pain in her arm and noticed several obvious marks on her left forearm, which looked red and swollen, as if someone had scratched her with their fingers.

Another cold sweat broke out. If it was just a nightmare, how could there really be scratches on my arm?

Are there really "real nightmares" in the world?

Spring Rain couldn't bear to think about it anymore. She leaned against the wall of the upper bunk, tightly covering the scratches on her hands, and tears silently streamed down her face.

Through the iron bars of the window, Xu Wenya quietly gazed at the winter sky outside. Although her skin was still as white as the wall, her complexion had improved significantly, and her eyes were no longer dull and lifeless.

A brand-new cell phone sat on the table, a gift from Dr. Wen a few days ago. Suddenly, the phone's text message alert rang. Xu Wenya quickly grabbed the phone and saw a message that read: "Xu Wenya, how are you today?"

Xu Wenya: "I'm fine, it's just that staying in this room all day is so boring."

The other person: "Why don't you play on your phone?"

Xu Wenya: "I've forgotten all the phone numbers I saved in my phone, so now I can only play games on my new phone."

The other person asked, "Do you really enjoy playing text messaging games?"

Xu Wenya: "Yes, I really like it."

The other person asked, "Which one is the most fun?"

Xu Wenya: "Hell Game".

The other person asked, "When did you start playing this game?"

Xu Wenya: "I can't tell the exact time now, but it was probably about a month ago."

The other person asked, "How did you find out about this game?"

Hsu Wen-ya: "Once, Su-lan was secretly playing on her phone. I saw how engrossed she was, and I thought it must be a lot of fun. I asked her what game she was playing, but she wouldn't tell me."

The other person: "And then?"

Xu Wenya: "I pressed Su Lan several times, and she couldn't hide it anymore, so she had to tell me the number. That's how I entered the hell game."

The other person: "Is it fun?"

Xu Wenya: "It was so much fun. But I was afraid of being discovered by my roommates, so I could only hide in the bathroom to play it every night. But I didn't expect that Qingyou would see me again."

The other party asked, "Who is Qingyou?"

Xu Wenya: "She's my roommate. She has to go to the bathroom every night in the middle of the night. That night, she happened to run into me, and I could only tell her how to play the Hell Game."

The other person: "And then what?"

Xu Wenya: "Qingyou is dead."

The text message on her phone screen suddenly stopped. Xu Wenya stared intently at the screen, as if she had seen something terrifying. She suddenly released her grip, and the phone fell to the ground, her body curling up like a monkey.

Upstairs in the ward, Dr. Wen was sitting in front of his computer, looking at the text messages displayed on the screen. It turned out that the person he had just been texting with Xu Wenya was Dr. Wen himself. Seeing that he hadn't replied to the last message, he knew there might be a problem downstairs.

Dr. Wen ran downstairs to Xu Wenya's ward and found her sleeping peacefully. Her phone lay on the floor, the screen displaying the last, unfinished text message. Relieved, Dr. Wen slowly left the ward and called Officer Ye Xiao, hoping he could come to the hospital as soon as possible.

More than half an hour later, Ye Xiao approached Dr. Wen with a suspicious look on his face.

Dr. Wen didn't say much, but first had Ye Xiao sit in front of the computer and look at the text message chat history. Ye Xiao didn't understand at first, but when he saw the second half, he remained silent for a long time—it turned out that the first person to play the Hell Game was Su Lan, and later Xu Wenya discovered it, and then Qing You discovered it, and the game spread among the girls.

Ye Xiao shook his head and said, "Isn't Xu Wenya crazy? How did you do that?"

Dr. Wen smiled slightly: "Yes, Xu Wenya has schizophrenia, and her symptoms are very strange, which is why I took it seriously. In the past few days, I have consulted many European experts via email, introduced Xu Wenya's special case to them, and inquired whether there were similar cases abroad. Although the European experts were also at a loss, they provided me with some treatment options."

What treatment method?

"Actually, this method is very simple. Our Chinese ancestors summarized it long ago in four words: 'fight poison with poison.'"

"Fighting poison with poison?"

“I gave her a new cell phone. Although Xu Wenya kept babbling incoherently and never answered people’s questions, she reacted when she saw the phone. I secretly sent her a text message, and her thumb immediately became active and replied to me.”

But Ye Xiao still shook his head: "Xu Wenya can't even speak clearly, how can she send text messages?"

“There’s absolutely no problem. Although she may have temporarily lost her ability to express herself verbally, her memory is still basically intact. Perhaps the ringtone and screen of her phone suddenly triggered a nerve in her brain, allowing her to pick up her phone and send a text message. These past few days, I’ve been using this computer to send and receive text messages, chatting with Xu Wenya via text as a patient. Now I’ve practically become her text message boyfriend.”

"Does Xu Wenya know you?"

"No, in her presence, I will always just be Dr. Wen. In reality, it's useless for anyone to talk to her, and she won't pay any attention to us. Only when she's facing text messages on her phone does she completely escape the shadow of schizophrenia and communicate with people with the thinking of a normal person. Of course, currently she can only communicate through text messages; face-to-face communication is completely ineffective."

Ye Xiao finally nodded: "Is this what they call 'fighting poison with poison'? Aren't you afraid she'll go play the hell game again?"

"Impossible, because the phone I gave her was modified by me; it can't access the mobile network at all. It's practically a cordless phone, only allowing communication with me."

"Isn't this the same concept as 'Little Smart'?" Ye Xiao suddenly remembered someone and tentatively asked, "Dr. Wen, do you think Xu Wenya has a chance of being cured? Like Chunyu did in the past?"

Dr. Wen squinted and thought for a moment before saying, "I think that although Xu Wenya's illness is rare, there is still hope for a cure. This girl suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and the main symptom is delusions."

"Another delusion?"

“Yes, through these days of text message conversations with her, I discovered that deep in her mind, a key word keeps appearing: monkey—isn't that strange? I don't know why monkeys terrify her, but monkeys are the root of her delusions. It must have been buried deep in her mind for at least two years, otherwise it couldn't have caused such serious consequences.”

"So—the monkey is a long-standing psychological trauma she's developed?"

"That's right, it's very likely related to a particular experience she had in the past. That experience caused her severe trauma, and the monkey was the most important part of that trauma, thus planting a deep fear in her heart."

Ye Xiao rubbed his forehead and asked, "But why was she always normal before, and only suddenly went crazy ten days ago?"

"Because everyone has the ability to self-regulate, even with strong psychological trauma, they can generally control themselves well. To be honest, none of us living in modern society can guarantee that we are free from psychological trauma. Frankly speaking, including you and me, probably no one can avoid it."

"You think this is normal?"

"However, some people encounter special events, or what psychology calls 'triggers,' which force the most fearful part of their hearts to be released. Once a certain threshold is crossed, schizophrenia may occur."

"Trigger?"

Dr. Wen glanced at the patients strolling in the garden outside the window and said, "Of course, this situation is extremely rare, but it is quite common in our hospital."

"Then what caused Xu Wenya's schizophrenia?" Ye Xiao paused for a long time, then answered himself, "Perhaps it was the 19th level of hell."

In the afternoon, Chunyu was at the company, about to leave work.

Friday finally arrived, and CoCo and the others couldn't hide their excitement, probably planning how to rip off their boyfriends over the weekend. Yan Mingliang stayed in his office all day, and Chunyu was extra careful when passing by his room, afraid that she would hear his voice behind her again.

The first week of her internship had passed just like that, and Chunyu didn't know how to describe her feelings. At least she had gained something from her graduation thesis. But today she gained something even more—when she first came in this morning, she saw CoCo changing the attendance board at the door, so Chunyu helped her change it.

On the old attendance board, Chunyu saw a familiar name—Sulan!

Why was Su Lan's name here? She immediately asked CoCo, "Who is this Su Lan? I don't think there's anyone like her in the company."

"Oh, that was a college student who used to work here. She only stayed here for less than a month. Two weeks ago, she left the company for some reason, and we haven't heard from her since."

Chunyu hurriedly asked, "Do you remember which university this Sulan went to?"

"She seems to be your classmate, and also a senior, a pretty girl."