Wang Ji wandered around the third floor of the old office building for four or five laps, counting the door numbers again and again, before finally finding Room 404 at the very end of the corridor.
The door number was quite odd; on a floor with over twenty units, 404 was oddly placed at the end. Many of the businesses in the building had closed down, and those that were still open looked desolate, with hardly a soul in sight.
All he could hear on the entire floor was the squeaking sound of his sneakers against the tiles.
Shanhai Town was a small place. In its earlier, more backward days, there were only a few small shops in the town center. Later, as the economy improved, it tried to emulate the big cities, building a few malls and office buildings, with high-rises springing up. The days of poverty seemed like a distant dream.
But in the end, none of them could hold on; those that closed did so, and those that ran away did just that. The owners had changed hands several times, and those that barely managed to stay open were like this one, struggling to survive.
Shanhai Town was quite an old-fashioned place.
Outside Room 404, a white A4 paper was taped to the door. It didn’t seem to be a taboo; the paper had five large black characters printed in Song font: “Xishan Studio.”
Aside from that, there was nothing else, and compared to the colorful signs of the nearby nail salon filled with advertisements and price lists, it seemed rather inexplicable.
Wang Ji released his grip, the business card in his palm crumpled. After carefully comparing the name and address once more, he confirmed it was the right place before knocking on the door.
The door was only slightly ajar; after knocking two or three times, it creaked open by itself.
The room was dark, with no lights on and the curtains drawn. The computer on the nearby desk was still on, the screen displaying a faint blue light.
The light mingled with the surrounding darkness, providing very little illumination.
Seeing no one respond, Wang Ji knocked again and called out,
“Is anyone there?”
Still, there was no answer. Wang Ji felt a bit uneasy; why was no one responding when the door was open? Had they gone out to get takeout?
He called out again, his voice echoing into the silent darkness without stirring so much as a ripple.
The overly quiet environment and the surrounding darkness made him feel uneasy. He thought about waiting outside, perhaps the person would return soon, when suddenly he heard a creaking sound from the corner behind him, startling him so much that he jumped, cold sweat breaking out.
He quickly turned to look, the blue light from the computer and the sunlight streaming in from outside only revealing a vague outline. In that corner, a shadow had emerged, standing still against the wall.
The shadow was quite strange; it only reached his waist but seemed to have a human shape.
In such situations, curiosity often arises unexpectedly. Before Wang Ji’s mind could catch up, his eyes were drawn to it involuntarily.
He could only see a silhouette; the head and body were clear, but there was no neck. The shoulders connected at the midpoint of a normal person’s head, as if everything above the collarbone had grown together. The body was bulging, looking nothing like a person, but resembling some kind of alien creature from a foreign film.
The more he looked, the more frightened he became. He wanted to scream, but the breath caught in his chest wouldn’t come out. In a panic, he tried to run, but his legs felt weak. After stumbling a few steps, he fell directly to the ground, landing hard on his tailbone.
It seemed that the sound of his fall finally caught the shadow’s attention. It moved, extending what looked like a long arm, and then…
With a “pop,” the lights turned on.
The sudden brightness made Wang Ji instinctively close his eyes. He blinked a few times, struggling to adjust to the light, and then found himself looking back at that corner.
In the corner was a low folding bed, and there was no monster, only a person wrapped up tightly.
The person wore an oversized gray hoodie, the hood pulled over their head, the drawstrings tightly tied around their nose, completely covering their head except for a pair of bright, wide eyes that were now staring at him in shock as he sat sprawled on the floor.
He opened his mouth but couldn’t find the words.
* * *
Jiang Zhi felt a bit embarrassed and somewhat speechless.
Getting caught slacking off at work was one thing, but nearly scaring a customer half to death was another.
Who knew how terrifying it was to be abruptly awakened from a dream to find someone standing by the bed? He hadn’t reacted in time, sitting there in shock as he watched this seemingly tall and imposing man fall to the ground with a “thud.”
If he had to blame someone, it would be his utterly unreliable boss, who had dragged him out of his dreams in the middle of the night to work overtime, making him draw talismans until five in the morning, and then left without a word about the overtime pay he had hinted at.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. While making tea for the customer, Jiang Zhi deliberately grabbed a handful of the boss’s expensive tea leaves, which cost 800 yuan per ounce, and made himself a cup as well.
Carrying two cups of tea into the reception room, he found Wang Ji sitting on the sofa, rubbing his waist. He must have fallen hard; his face was still pale.
Wang Ji’s posture on the sofa was strange; he was only half-sitting, as if ready to get up and leave at any moment. He hunched slightly, appearing both alert and fearful, his gaze somewhat unfocused.
When Jiang Zhi pushed the door open, Wang Ji quickly straightened up, placing his hands on his knees, unconsciously gripping his pants tightly.
Jiang Zhi set the two cups of tea on the table. Wang Ji said “thank you” and reached for a cup, but as soon as his fingers touched the rim, he recoiled as if burned.
The tea Jiang Zhi had made was intentionally cooled with a few ice cubes, and it wasn’t hot at all.
He observed Wang Ji’s expression, which clearly showed signs of fear.
Wang Ji smiled awkwardly, placing his hands back on his knees, gripping the fabric of his pants:
“I came to see Boss Yin.”
Jiang Zhi sat down across from him. “Our boss is out of town on business; he just left this morning.”
“When will he be back?”
Jiang Zhi took a sip of tea. He didn’t know how to brew tea properly; he just added hot water to the leaves. He couldn’t tell the difference between the 800 yuan per ounce tea and the 8 yuan per pound tea; it all tasted bitter to him:
“That’s hard to say; it depends on how quickly things can be wrapped up.”
Wang Ji couldn’t help but feel a bit disheartened, his expression tinged with anxiety and embarrassment as he muttered, “But I really have an urgent matter…”
Jiang Zhi set down his cup, his eyes subtly scanning the room before suddenly breaking into a friendly smile, speaking sincerely:
“I may not be the boss, but I’ve been in this line of work for five or six years. If you’re really in a hurry, you can talk to me just the same.”
In truth, it was not the same. If the person who introduced Wang Ji had been a bit more reliable and had said a few more words, he would likely have realized that Jiang Zhi was just a low-level worker with no cultivation, whose daily tasks involved serving tea, tidying up tools, and drawing talismans, with no knowledge beyond that.
In this era where being a Tianshi was a common profession, with both real and fake Tianshi everywhere, he was just an ordinary person, plain and simple.
But his smile was so disarming, and his eyes sparkled like stars twinkling in the deep night.
After pulling down his hood, Jiang Zhi revealed a clean, fresh face that showed no hint of cunning. He had a buzz cut, and his features were delicate; his deep-set eyes lacked any guile, and his slightly thin lips didn’t appear harsh. When he smiled at you, it gave the impression that “he looks so bright and handsome, he can’t possibly be trying to deceive me.”
He was used to using his looks to deceive people, but he couldn’t really be blamed. After his boss left that morning, he learned from the landlord that the rent for the previous month hadn’t been paid, and the studio’s account was completely empty. His calls went unanswered.
If he hadn’t been holding on to the boss’s invaluable treasure as “hostage,” Jiang Zhi might have thought the man had run off with the money.
The landlord demanded that he pay two months’ rent within the week, or they would come to reclaim the property. Jiang Zhi was living on a tight budget; this place was where he lived, and to avoid sleeping on the streets, he was willing to earn whatever he could.
There was no sense in turning away money that had all but knocked on his door.
If it were someone else, he wouldn’t dare to boast so casually, but looking at the man in front of him, with a full forehead and thick earlobes, he didn’t seem like someone who would cause any major trouble. Although he looked a bit haggard and his complexion wasn’t great, it seemed like it was just a matter of a few talismans to ward off evil.
Wang Ji was indeed swayed by Jiang Zhi’s candid demeanor, slowly revealing the strange occurrences he had encountered recently.
Wang Ji was a local of Shanhai Town. A few years ago, he had gone out of town for work. After his parents passed away, they left him an old house.
The house was located in a very remote area of the old city, a place that hadn’t even been included in the urban renewal plans. It was a house allocated by his grandfather’s workplace, and he didn’t even have a property deed.
He was sentimental and too lazy to return to handle the paperwork to sell it, so he entrusted the house to a real estate agent for rental.
Two months ago, he resigned and returned to Shanhai Town. His newly purchased house was still under renovation, so he temporarily moved into the old house.
Having been rented out for several years, the rent had always been deposited into his account on time, and since the agent hadn’t called him, he hadn’t thought there was anything strange about the house.
It wasn’t until the second day after moving in that Wang Ji noticed something was off.
At first, he just felt that the house was very cold, unusually cold.
Because the buildings surrounding the old city were not tall, sunlight could shine directly into his living room all year round. However, it felt as if the house had a barrier; even though light came in, warmth did not penetrate at all.
Initially, Wang Ji thought it was due to the aging of the house and didn’t pay much attention until the second day when he started having dreams.
In his dreams, he stood on the ruins burned by a great fire, yet he could still feel a scorching heat, as if the fire had not yet been extinguished, burning his body in an invisible form.
Before him, at the top of the ruins, stood a girl whose face he couldn’t see, dressed in tattered clothes, seemingly speaking to him.
Wang Ji couldn’t hear her clearly; the pain of being burned by flames took away most of his attention, but he could barely make out that the girl seemed to mention an address.
“Zichou Road No. 671.”
After that, he couldn’t hear anything else. The pain made him faint, and he woke up in his bed, drenched in sweat.
He had the same dream for a whole week, the pain of being engulfed in flames each time feeling so real that he couldn’t escape it. He began to fear anything that had warmth; even a little heat seemed to burn his body.
That unusually cold house had clearly become his most satisfactory refuge; he hadn’t stepped outside for several weeks.
Until one of his friends came looking for him due to his sudden disappearance. Concerned about his state, the friend stayed the night and slept beside him to keep watch.
After that night, his friend suddenly became obsessed, insisting on going to the place he had heard about in his dreams, claiming that everything had to be resolved there.
Wang Ji thought his friend had also had that dream, but his friend refused to say anything, stubbornly insisting on going there.
Wang Ji naturally refused and didn’t want his friend to go; the prolonged torment of the strange dreams had instilled a deep fear of that place in him.
But his friend wouldn’t listen to anything he said, as if he were possessed, insisting on going. While Wang Ji was asleep, his friend went there alone.
“He went three days ago and sent me a message before he left.”
Wang Ji pulled out his phone, showing the chat interface between him and his friend, the last message timestamped at three forty-two in the morning three days ago.
“He’s gone missing.”