“The story I’m about to tell took place in 2011. I heard that in Room 404, six girls once played a summoning game together and summoned something truly terrifying. Not long after, all six girls met gruesome deaths one after the other…”
In the pitch-black dormitory, a girl held a torch up to her chin, the light shining upwards from her face. She spoke in a deliberately hushed voice, creating a spine-chilling atmosphere.
Opposite her sat four girls huddled together, clinging to one another, their faces etched with palpable fear.
“The first girl to die—let’s call her Xiao Mu for now—was an excellent student and a staunch atheist. After that night’s summoning game, she noticed nothing out of the ordinary and didn’t waver in her beliefs; she continued to stay in the study room until late every day as usual.”
“That evening, Xiao Mu studied in the study room until eleven o’clock. Having packed up her things, she switched off the light and began descending from the third-floor classroom, only to find that, despite walking for a long time, she had not left the stairwell.”
“Xiao Mu found this strange. At first, she thought it was a trick of her imagination and persisted in going down, but she walked for a long time and was still wandering around the stairwell. Now, Xiao Mu finally felt afraid. She dropped her schoolbag and ran down the stairs as if she had gone mad. After running round and round, her schoolbag appeared before her eyes.”
“Xiao Mu was terrified out of her wits. She began running back upstairs, desperate to escape that eerie stairwell. She did indeed find the exit, only to discover that the school building had changed. The familiar school building had become eerie and terrifying, with a faint green glow casting its light upon the empty corridors. This path had no exit, no end…”
“The next day, a teacher discovered Xiao Mu’s body in the third-floor study room. The cause of death was shock.”
“Aaaah! Lin Yue! Stop it, I’m scared!” One of the four girls huddled together suddenly let out a piercing scream.
The girl known as Lin Yue stopped telling the story and returned to her normal tone of voice: “Oh dear, Su Qing, you really are a scaredy-cat. I’ll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow.”
“Phew—” The four of them breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Lin Yue, your ghost stories really are terrifying,” someone remarked.
“I never said I was telling a ghost story, you know.” Lin Yue’s tone turned strange, sharp and grating. The dim light cast eerie shadows across her face, making her features appear slightly distorted. “It’s the truth—I am Xiao Mu.”
“Aaaah!”
“A ghost!”
The four girls screamed and huddled together, scrambling to scatter before they could even react.
“Click—”
The bright lights came on.
Lu Mian, backpack slung over her shoulder, looked at her roommate with utter exasperation. “Are you out of your minds? Why on earth wouldn’t you turn the lights on in the middle of the night?”
Su Qing, the most timid of the four, dashed straight over to Lu Mian. “Mian Mian, help! ‘Lin Yue, she, she…’
Su Qing kept saying ‘she’ for ages without getting to the point.
“She’s not a ghost,” Lu Mian finished Su Qing’s sentence, patting her hand reassuringly and gesturing for Su Qing to look at the floor. “See? She’s got a shadow. She was just trying to scare you.”
Su Qing followed Lu Mian’s gaze and saw that Lin Yue did indeed have a shadow. Without a moment’s hesitation, she gave Lin Yue a sharp tap on the shoulder. “You nearly gave me a heart attack! Telling such a terrifying story!”
Lin Yue put away her torch, shrugged, and didn’t argue.
Perhaps it was the reassuring light, but the other three also calmed down. The dorm monitor, Xu Xia, looked at the backpack on Lu Mian’s back. “Mianmian, has your part-time job only just finished?”
Lu Mian nodded as she put her bag down. “Yeah, the cleaning was a bit of a nightmare today. Someone must have stuffed red dye into the tap—the water coming out was all red, and it splashed all over the sink. It took me ages to wipe it all up!”
Just talking about it made Lu Mian furious. As a transmigrator, she’d ended up in this strange world for no apparent reason. Everyone else’s transmigration stories were either romance novels, redemption tales or stories where the protagonist is the centre of everyone’s affection, yet she’d ended up as a destitute orphan.
Even at university, she had to work hard to earn her tuition through part-time jobs. Well, since she was here, she might as well make the best of it. If working was what it took, then so be it.
She’d finally managed to find a well-paid catering job that only required a few hours’ work in the evenings, but then some lunatic had gone and stuffed paint down the pipes. She’d have been off work by nine, but that mess meant she had to give the kitchen a thorough clean-up, dragging things out until ten o’clock!
“Ah-choo!” Lu Mian sneezed involuntarily.
Xu Xia immediately asked with concern, “Have you caught a cold?”
“No,” Lu Mian said, pulling out a tissue to wipe her nose. “It’s just my hay fever flaring up. My sense of smell’s been shot for the last couple of days, but it’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
“Glad to hear it.” Seeing that Lu Mian was alright, Xu Xia returned to her own desk. That horror story had certainly been terrifying; she needed to find a comedy to watch, otherwise she’d have nightmares tonight.
Her other two dormmates, one named Chen Jiaqi and the other Wang Ying, were on merely friendly terms with Lu Mian and wouldn’t go out of their way to approach her.
Lu Mian dug out her pyjamas and headed to the bathroom to have a shower. She still had to wash her hair tonight; she’d got back late, and if she didn’t hurry, it would disturb the others’ rest.
No one noticed Lin Yue, sitting alone at her desk, her gaze sweeping over everyone with a deep, inscrutable intensity.
Lu Mian quickly got everything ready, turned on the hot water tap, and began washing her hair with her eyes closed. She always preferred to wash her hair before taking a shower, and she had a habit of keeping her eyes shut whilst washing her hair, for fear of water getting in.
Under the bright lights, strands of hair rose up from the drain. A chill gradually crept into the shower cubicle, driving away almost all the warmth brought by the hot water.
A shiver ran through Lu Mian, and she couldn’t help but speed up her shower. “It’s just so cold showering this late at night.”
After washing her hair, Lu Mian looked down to see the drain firmly blocked by thick strands of hair. The soapy water from her wash lapped up at her feet, spilling over her slippers and dampening the tops of her feet.
Lu Mian: !!!
She really must be exhausted—had her hair started falling out this badly already?!
What happened to young people having plenty of vitality?! It’s all because life has worn her youth away!
She’ll go and buy some black sesame seeds to snack on tomorrow!
Lu Mian made a silent resolution to eat better from now on; she couldn’t let herself down!
At the same time, she showered even more quickly. The night air was bitterly cold, and it was easy for the chill to seep into her body. She had to take good care of herself; after all, getting sick costs money.
After her bath, Lu Yan stood at the sink washing her clothes.
The dormitories at Ningjiang University were divided into two sections: one where the students slept, and just beyond that was a balcony. The balcony was enclosed by a railing barely waist-high; there were no other safety barriers.
Directly opposite the railing were two sinks, where students usually washed their clothes.
Lu Mian was intently washing her clothes, rubbing her arms from time to time; she felt it was particularly cold tonight, with a biting wind that seemed to cut right through to the bone.
Suddenly, a white figure drifted past the balcony. Lu Mian turned her head sharply, but saw nothing.
Thinking it was a figment of her imagination, Lu Mian looked away and continued washing her clothes.
But in an instant, that white figure appeared once more.
Lu Mian turned to look again, but still saw nothing.
Lu Mian hastened her washing. While hanging the clothes out to dry, she stood by the railing and looked down; below lay a lush green lawn.
Strange. She had clearly seen something white flit past just now. Although the original owner was short-sighted, surely it couldn’t be that bad—she couldn’t even make out a single item of clothing.
Lu Mian leaned against the railing and continued to peer down. A delicate, feather-like sensation brushed against her scalp, as if a feather were caressing her skin.
Lu Mian looked up. A long white dress was hanging directly above her head, its hem brushing against her scalp with every breeze.
“Lu Mian.”
The hoarse voice made Lu Mian turn around immediately. Lin Yue was standing behind her, staring at her expressionlessly.
“What?” ” Lu Mian was puzzled; she hadn’t done anything, so why was she being looked at like that?
“Did you hear the story I was telling just now?” Lin Yue’s lips curved into a smirk, her voice thick with malice. “The third girl who died… she loved wearing white dresses.”
Lu Mian suddenly pointed at the dress hanging above her head. “This one?”