Under the puzzled gazes of Lu Mian and Su Qing’s mother, Xu Xia hesitated for a long moment before finally gritting her teeth and laying her suspicions bare: “Auntie, there’s something I wasn’t quite comfortable saying this morning.”
“Everyone was here this morning, and I was afraid speaking up might cause trouble in the dorm. But last night, as I was half-asleep, I thought I saw Lin Yue standing by Qingqing’s bed, and…”
At this point, Xu Xia paused. After a moment’s hesitation, she continued: “I think I faintly heard Qingqing crying.”
Xu Xia knew her words were rather misleading, as if implying that Lin Yue had bullied Su Qing, but she had indeed seen these things last night.
“Are you suggesting that Qingqing was harmed by that girl in your dorm called Lin Yue?” Su Qing’s mother became instantly wary, her mind conjuring up all manner of cases of roommates poisoning one another.
“No, I’m calling the police! I’m going to call the police to get to the bottom of this!” Su Qing’s mother pulled out her mobile phone, looking as though she genuinely intended to make a report.
“Auntie!” Xu Xia hurried to stop Su Qing’s mother. She had merely offered a clue based on what she knew; she had no evidence to prove that Lin Yue had harmed Su Qing. If Su Qing’s mother really did call the police, how would Lin Yue view her?
“Auntie, Lin Yue was indeed standing by Su Qing’s bed last night, but I sent her back to her place. Besides, online sources say her symptoms are consistent with sleepwalking,” Lu Mian quickly interjected, simultaneously opening her phone to show the two women the photos she’d taken the previous night.
Thank goodness she’d taken photos last night; she hadn’t expected they’d come in handy. It was painful enough that Lin Yue was ill; to be falsely accused of harming a classmate on top of that would be utterly tragic.
The background of the photo was dim. A woman with dishevelled hair faced the camera; her exposed skin was a pale, bluish-white, and through her thick hair, her protruding black eyes were faintly visible.
“This… this…” Su Qing’s mother paused mid-gesture as she was about to call the police. Was the ghost-like figure in the photo Lin Yue, who had appeared earlier that morning?!
Xu Xia was also a little frightened; no matter how she looked at it, the Lin Yue in the photo did not look like a normal person.
“Lin Yue is just ill. I’ve told her to see a doctor. Perhaps she startled Su Qing last night? “Why don’t we wait until Su Qing wakes up and ask her? If she really was frightened by Lin Yue, we can have her apologise then.” Lu Mian cautiously offered her suggestion.
Seeing that neither of them replied, Lu Mian turned to look at Su Qing, who was still unconscious. Her complexion was still very pale, though she looked much better than she had this morning; yet there was still no sign of her regaining consciousness. Could a fright-induced fainting spell really last this long?
Lu Mian suddenly recalled the scene she’d witnessed upon waking that morning.
“Auntie, does Su Qing perhaps have some sort of mental illness? When I woke up this morning, I saw her slumped against the ladder, head down, feet up. I’m not trying to jinx Su Qing, but a normal person wouldn’t sleep in a position like that.” Lu Mian watched the expressions on both their faces with great care.
Su Qing’s mother’s face went pale in an instant. Combined with the photograph still hanging there, a preposterous and terrifying thought sprang to her mind—her daughter had encountered a ghost!
Xu Xia had averted her gaze long ago; the photograph frightened her. But upon hearing Lu Mian’s words, she looked at it again. Those bulging eyeballs were strikingly jarring. For some reason, Xu Xia recalled a phrase—Xiao Mu died of fright.
“We listened to a ghost story before bed last night. Lin Yue was the storyteller, and the first person to die in the story died of sheer terror.” ” Xu Xia uttered these words in a daze.
In an instant, a chill ran down the spines of both Su Qing’s mother and Xu Xia.
Lu Mian silently put her phone away. Help! She’d only wanted to avoid wrongly accusing Lin Yue without proper grounds; how had the conversation suddenly veered into the realm of the supernatural?
Shouldn’t they first check whether Su Qing has a mental illness?!
“Auntie, it’s getting late, so I’ll be off now.” Noticing the awkward silence, Lu Mian took her leave; she’d said all she knew, and if she stayed any longer, she’d be unable to resist explaining the science behind it all.
“All right, take your time. I won’t see you out, but do be careful on your way home,” Su Qing’s mother said instinctively.
“Right, goodbye, Auntie.”
Xu Xia chose not to leave the ward with Lu Mian, instead standing there watching her go.
Lu Mian left the hospital on her own. As the hospital wasn’t far from the university, she was back at her dormitory within ten minutes. Then it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t thrown away the hair this morning.
Lu Mian immediately went to check the bin. The bag she’d left beside it the night before was still there, but the hair inside had vanished without a trace.
Where’s the hair?!
Had some kind soul thrown it away for her?!
Lu Mian poked her head into the dormitory from the balcony. “Dear dear roommates, which one of you threw my hair away for me?”
Her roommates, who had all been playing on their phones, looked up in unison. The answer was the same from every one of them—no one had thrown the hair away.
Lu Mian walked back to the balcony, leaned over the railing and looked down, but it wasn’t there either. So where had that huge clump of hair gone?
It had been a bit windy yesterday—had the wind blown it away?!
That wind was quite considerate, saving her a bin bag.
Having sorted things out, Lu Mian stopped worrying about it and went back to bed for a nap.
…………
“Auntie, could Su Qing… have encountered a ghost?” In the hospital, Xu Xia uttered these words in a trembling voice.
“Xu Xia, tell Auntie everything that happened yesterday.” Su Qing’s mother took Xu Xia’s hand; her voice was equally unsteady.
“Last night…” Xu Xia tried hard to recall the events of the previous evening. “We were all doing our own thing, when Lin Yue suddenly said she’d seen a horror story and wanted to tell it to us. Qingqing has always loved hearing those, so she was the first to agree. After that, we all gathered together to listen to the horror story…”
Xu Xia slowly recounted the events of the previous night to Su Qing’s mother, and the more she listened, the paler Su Qing’s mother’s face grew.
She was now even more convinced that her daughter had encountered a ghost.
Her daughter had loved listening to such tales since she was little, yet she was also terrified of them. Every time she listened, she would sleep poorly and have recurring nightmares. Later on, whenever her daughter had nightmares, her mother-in-law would call upon a shaman to ‘call back her soul’. At the time, the shaman had remarked that her daughter’s spirit was fragile and easily beset by unclean entities, but as her daughter had been fine all these years, she hadn’t given it a second thought.
Now, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a ghostly encounter!
Su Qing’s mother, her hands trembling, took out her mobile and rang her mother-in-law. If it really was a case of being possessed, she’d have to ask her mother-in-law to call the shaman to try and sort it out.
Hearing the conversation, Xu Xia looked at Su Qing’s mother with a hopeful gaze. After all, if there really was something wrong with Lin Yue, who knew if she might be the next to die? In Lin Yue’s story, six people had died during that summoning ritual.
There were exactly six of them in their dormitory. Lin Yue had already become a ‘little wood’—what about the remaining five? Were they even human anymore?
Over the phone, Su Qing’s grandmother’s aged voice was tinged with terror. “Why is Qingqing such a disobedient child! The shaman has already warned that her spirit is weak; once possessed, she’ll die that very night! It’s a miracle she’s still alive, but she won’t survive past tonight at the latest. I’m going to fetch the shaman right away. Tell her father to come and get me—I’m coming straight to the hospital!”