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

Chapitre 36

Chunyu fell silent, reaching out to stroke Gao Xuan's face. This face, which so many girls longed to touch, was now in her hands; her fingers slowly traced the tip of his nose down to his lips.

He suddenly spoke: "Let's go, we need to go back soon." Chunyu nodded obediently and crawled out of the tent.

They lit lamps, packed their belongings in the cave, and then left the ancient cave. It was already bright outside; their eyes, having been in the cave for so long, took a long time to adjust to the natural light. Chunyu took one last look around and said affectionately, "Goodbye."

Although the mountain air was unusually cold in the early morning, breathing in the fresh forest air immediately made them feel refreshed. Carrying their backpacks, they walked through the bamboo forest and returned to the ruins of the Bamboo Forest Hermitage.

They quickly found the path they had come from. They walked along the forest trail for more than an hour before finally returning to the winding mountain road, where the Passat was still parked safely on the side of the road.

They ate some dry food and then drove down the mountain. The road down the mountain was even more difficult, but Gao Xuan held the steering wheel tightly, and Chunyu trusted him completely. They arrived at the mountain resort before noon.

In the afternoon, they drove back to Shanghai along the highway. The spring rain remained incessant the entire way, and as they looked at the winter fields, they wondered what they would encounter in the next level of hell.

When they returned to Shanghai, it was already getting dark. A cold front had reportedly arrived, and the streets were noticeably less crowded. Gao Xuan didn't drive directly back to the school parking lot, but instead stopped at the school's back gate. They were all hungry, so they went to "Love in the City" for dinner.

Dinner was quickly devoured, and Chunyu wiped her mouth with a tissue, saying, "Let's go."

But Gao Xuan remained seated, his gaze somewhat strange. After hesitating for a long time, he finally spoke: "Chunyu, now that we're all back, I might as well tell you what will happen next."

"What about the future?" Chunyu didn't understand his words, but she immediately became nervous. "What do you mean by the future?"

"It happened after Mazzolini returned to Shanghai from Tiancang Mountain."

"Do you know?"

"Yes, but I didn't tell you before. That's because I was worried that you would be very scared if you knew these things. I originally wanted to tell you after we went to Tiancang Mountain and discovered the secret of the nineteenth level of hell."

"But we have gained nothing yet."

Gao Xuan sighed: "So, I have to tell you those things—in August 1902, Mazzolini returned to Shanghai with a beautiful Chinese woman, and within a few months, he held an art exhibition in the concession. The entire exhibition only had one oil painting, and the painting was called 'The Nineteenth Level of Hell'."

"Like those hellish paintings he used to draw?"

"No, it's completely different from the past. It's said that Mazzolini's painting depicts all 19 levels of hell, especially the nineteenth level."

"What exactly does the nineteenth level of hell look like?"

"My Italian friend told me in an email that Mazzolini's exhibition in Shanghai only lasted three days, and only a few dozen people went to see it, all of them foreigners in the foreign concessions. However, within a month of the exhibition ending, everyone who saw the paintings mysteriously committed suicide."

Upon hearing this, Chunyu almost stood up: "Are you saying that anyone who has read 'The Nineteenth Level of Hell' will commit suicide?"

Suddenly, she remembered a piano piece called "Friday the 13th," a piece that had driven many who heard it to suicide because they couldn't bear its sorrowful melody. It was a true piece of music, and a true story.

“That’s right, everyone who saw the painting died. No one knows the cause of their deaths. Since everyone who saw the painting except Mazzolini is dead, no one knows what the painting depicts. Was it because the content was too horrific, or because some other accident occurred during the exhibition? In any case, it remains a mystery.”

"Most importantly, we still don't know what the 'Nineteenth Level of Hell' actually is."

Gao Xuan continued, "Because all the dead had seen the art exhibition, the concession concluded that the painting had killed them, and Mazzolini was therefore expelled from the concession."

"Mazzolini was driven out of the concession, so where did he go?"

"Of course, he returned to Europe. However, not long after he returned to Europe, he became mentally unstable. Perhaps it was because he was too engrossed in painting, or perhaps he suffered an unexpected shock in China. In any case, he had strong hallucinations and believed that everyone should be judged by hell in advance."

"Crazy? It seems like painters all like to go crazy, like Van Gogh, right?"

“No, Mazzolini’s situation is different from Van Gogh’s. He committed several murders in Europe and was later exposed and imprisoned.”

"My God, he went from being a painter to a murderous monster."

Gao Duan's expression was unusually solemn: "Although the mental hospital was willing to admit him, the court still sentenced him to death for murder and soon sent him to the gallows."

"He just died like that? That means—the secret of the lost nineteenth floor was also taken to prison by Mazzolini?"

"Yes, no one in the world can unlock this secret now."

Chunyu gave a helpless, bitter smile: "Are we just supposed to wait to die?"

Gao Xuan didn't answer, keeping his head down in silence. Suddenly, he looked up and waved, signaling the waiter to pay the bill.

After seeing off Qingcheng Zhilian, Gao Suan still escorted Chunyu back to her dormitory. Sunday night, the girls' dormitory was a bit more lively. Many girls saw Gao Xuan, and they looked at Chunyu with a mixture of envy and jealousy, whispering among themselves.

Chunyu remained silent the entire way. When it was time to leave, she simply nodded slightly and hurriedly ran up the stairs.

Finally back in her dorm room, she put down her travel bag, looked at the lower bunk where Qingyou had slept, and said coldly, "Do you know what the nineteenth level of hell is?"

Having finally made it a long trip and spent the night in a cave, Chunyu was exhausted and went to bed early. She fell asleep quickly, but was suddenly awakened by a cell phone ringing.

It's still midnight.

She clutched her phone in a daze and opened the text message from hell—

"You have entered the seventeenth level of hell. You will choose 1. The one thing you most want to do."

This time there is only one option left, and "1" is Chunyu's only choice.

Shortly after the "1" was sent, the phone rang.

She answered the phone immediately and heard that strange voice: "I know what you want to do most, because of the person you hate the most, your stepfather, what did he do to you?"

In the dark dormitory, Chunyu felt as if she were still in an ancient cave. Her right hand, holding the phone, trembled slightly, and the image of that filthy face seemed to float before her eyes again. She quickly closed her eyes and said, "That man was a real beast. I was fifteen years old that year, and my body was still developing. That man's eyes never left me. My mother was very wary of him, protecting me at all times, preventing his evil hands from approaching me. But one time, my mother suddenly fell ill and was sent to the hospital. That night, only he and I were at home. While I was sleeping soundly, he actually sneaked onto my bed in the dark. His strange smell woke me up, but by then he had already grabbed my hands. I immediately screamed for help, struggling desperately, and finally kicked him away. Then I climbed onto the window and said to him, 'If he comes to save me, I'll jump!' He was finally stunned and had no choice but to leave my room. I climbed down from the window, clutching a utility knife, and curled up on the bed, crying all night long—I hated him! I hated him! At that moment, only one thought remained in my mind—to kill him."

“Kill him,”

The voice on the phone came out softly, like a needle piercing her brain.

"Yes, I wanted to kill my stepfather. In the summer when I was fifteen, I thought of countless ways to kill him. I read a lot of Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie novels because they contained many ingenious methods of murder. I drew on those classic murder methods and carefully devised several plans to kill him."

But Chunyu couldn't continue. She opened her eyes, looked at the dark dormitory, and her heart was pounding.

"You killed him."

The sound coming from the phone was chilling, but then the other party stopped the call.

She sat blankly on the bed, staring at her phone screen, unable to recover for a long time.

Outside the window, the night was long and the north wind howled, and it seemed as if something was drifting down.

Date added: 2005-02-18 12:45:08

"Did I kill him?"

The Eighteenth Level of Hell

As he groggily opened his eyes in the early morning rain, he was suddenly pierced by a blinding white light. He could only squint and look out the window, only to find a silvery-white world.

This is the first snowfall of the winter.

She immediately climbed out of bed and looked out the window. Countless tiny snowflakes were falling from the sky, gently drifting to the ground. The rooftops across the street were already covered in white, the branches of the trees below were also laden with snow, and the ground was covered with a layer of salt-like snowflakes. Several students had already run out to play in the snow.

Hun Yu felt a surge of excitement; the city hadn't seen such heavy snowfall in a long time. However, watching the swirling snowflakes, her heart turned cold again, for she remembered the winter she was eleven, that fatal snowy afternoon that took her father away forever. She remembered the snow that year vividly, exactly the same as this snowfall.

No, this snow terrified her even more.

She then remembered she had to go to work today. At 9:30 a.m., she wrapped herself in a thick ski jacket and went out. Stepping out of the school gate, she saw people playing in the snow everywhere. Snowflakes landed on her head, slowly melting into icy water that slid down her hair.

When I arrived at the company, everyone was talking about the snowfall. No one was in the mood to go to work anymore; everyone gathered in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down at the snow-covered city. Countless high-rise buildings were submerged in white snowflakes—a sight rarely seen in many years.

What Chunyu found strange was that the boss, Yan Mingliang, hadn't shown up at all today, but this made it convenient for everyone to slack off, and they all left work early as soon as the afternoon started.

As Chunyu walked out of the company building, her phone suddenly rang with a text message notification. The number displayed on the screen was *****741111.

Another text message from hell. She'd always seen this number in the dead of night before; why was it coming in broad daylight? She looked up at the white sky. Was it because of this sudden snowfall?

Chunyu quickly hid in a corner by the roadside and opened the text message—

"Please go to No. 999 Huangquan Road immediately. Reply with '1' upon arrival."

Unlike any previous text message, this one demanded she go to a certain place immediately. And the place name was so strange—"No. 999, Road to the Underworld"—could there be such a bizarre street name in the world? Road to the Underworld, No. 999—no wonder the people living on this street were terrified.

It looked more like a child's prank. Chunyu stood in the snow for a while before finally flagging down a taxi. She figured if there was a road to the underworld, she could just ask the taxi driver.

Unexpectedly, the taxi driver told her with certainty that the road existed. It turned out that the driver was a laid-off worker who had worked in a factory by that road before he was laid off.

Before Chunyu could make a decision, the taxi had already sped off down this road of no return to the underworld.

After driving for a full hour, we finally stopped on a remote road in the suburbs. The surrounding area looked like an old industrial zone, and the road sign did indeed read "Road to the Underworld".

As for "No. 999 Huangquan Road," it was the gate of a dilapidated factory, where Chunyu got off the bus. The factory's iron gate was tightly closed, and there was no sign of anyone. Snowflakes covered the dark factory buildings, making it feel like entering another mysterious world.

With many questions in her mind, she took out her phone and replied with '1'.

A few seconds later, a new text message arrived—

"You are at a crossroads. Turn right first, then keep going straight. After crossing a bridge, stop and then reply with '1'."

Sure enough, Chunyu found herself at a crossroads, with a road crossing the Yellow Springs Road. She quickly turned right and walked straight along the road. After about three minutes, she saw a small road bridge, only wide enough for small cars to pass through, with an unnamed country river flowing beneath it. Because it was so cold, a thin layer of ice had formed on the river, and snowflakes covered its surface.

After crossing the bridge, another intersection came into view. Chunyu quickly took out her phone and replied with '1'.

The echo from hell arrived soon—

"Turn left and keep walking until you see a large gate. Go inside and then return to '1'."

Without a second thought, Chunyu immediately complied. She walked along the road to the left, surrounded by deserted construction sites and farmland, barely seeing a soul. After about five or six minutes, a large gate appeared before her, with an elegant sign hanging above it bearing the calligraphy of a famous writer—"Academy of Talent."

She suddenly remembered the name; she'd seen it in the newspaper a few years ago. It was a very popular private university back then, but it closed down due to funding issues. So this was the former campus of the Talent Academy.

Chunyu paced back and forth around the academy's main gate several times. It was so desolate; there wasn't a trace of human habitation. With the academy built in such a place, it would be difficult for it not to be closed. But whatever might be hidden inside, she had to try. So she made up her mind and cautiously stepped through the gate.

It was indeed a campus, with several imposing teaching buildings and large, withered lawns. However, it was all covered in white, and there wasn't a soul in sight, making it look more like a ruin.

A snowflake slowly drifted into her eye, the icy water melting in her pupil. She suddenly thought of the legendary "ghost school".

Chunyu held her breath, took out her phone, and replied with '1'.

The sound of hell arrived immediately—

"You have entered the eighteenth level of hell."

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Ye Xiao stood at the foot of the towering office building. Snowflakes soaked his police uniform, and his gaze, like that of an eagle, pierced through the snowy sky, aiming at the window on the 19th floor.

Yes, Ye Xiao is still alive.

Early yesterday morning, he smashed his phone in despair and then lost consciousness.

He woke up slowly again in the early morning. He tried to clear his head, recalling the memory from seven years ago. He even called a colleague in Yunnan, and finally remembered everything—that year in Yunnan, he pointed a gun at a drug dealer's head, but he didn't fire. He slowly lowered the gun and took the drug dealer back to the police station.

The final scene in *Seven* didn't happen, and he didn't fire a shot in anger like Brad Pitt. In that life-or-death moment, he used reason to overcome hatred and fulfilled his duty as a police officer.