Dead End
The light on snowy days is often more bleak, a somber scene, but at least it hasn't lost its ability to illuminate. The inside of the doorway is an ancient, dim gloom.
When Lai's mother opened the door, what hit them wasn't just the overwhelming darkness, but also the accumulated dust particles that took shape in the dim light, swirling and fluttering. Even Lai Wenyi, standing behind Wen Dai and Chen Sizhe, was choked by the gloom, coughing incessantly while covering her nose and mouth.
Lai's mother, who was blocking the way, waved her hand to clear the dust that was being poured into people's nostrils. She tilted her head back, tilted her neck back, coughed a few times, and said, "Oh dear, we should have taken care of this place earlier. Now there's such a thick layer of dust."
Holding her breath, Wen Dai reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a mask, and slowly put it on. She then grabbed a handful of masks from inside a plastic bag and held them up. Her peach blossom eyes, which were exposed, blinked a few times, and her voice came out muffledly from inside the mask: "Perhaps you will need this."
After distributing the masks and escaping the dust storm, Lai Wenyi rushed to the front. She casually linked arms with Wen Dai, leaning half her body against Wen Dai's side arm. "How come you have everything? When we first met, you just pulled a talisman out of your pocket like that. And now you've pulled out so many masks. It's hard not to be curious if your pockets are a treasure bag."
Feeling a little uncomfortable from her intimacy, Wen Dai instinctively shrank her shoulders. However, Lai Wenyi didn't notice this detail. Instead, she hugged Wen Dai's arm even tighter, tilted her head back, and looked around at the environment inside the door. "Wow... so many spider webs! I wonder if there are any spider spirits inside—let me tell you, I once saw a spider this big in my room!" She stretched out a hand and exaggerated her tone.
"...Ugh, that's terrifying." The warmth clinging to her body made Wen Dai feel uneasy. She gave a hesitant reply, then quickly took out her phone, found the flashlight, and turned it on. She looked up at the others who were already wearing masks and urgently brought up the important matter: "Let's hurry down. It's almost noon, and the yin energy will be very strong between 12 pm and 2 pm. Just in case, let's go as soon as possible."
The stairs leading to the basement were rather narrow. Since Lai's parents had never been through the basement before, Wen Dai decided to go ahead with Chen Sizhe, while Lai Wenyi was arranged to walk in the middle of the group.
Before entering, an inexplicable intuition led Wen Dai to stop Lai's mother at the door. She stood at the door and looked at Lai's mother, "Let's not all go down. To be honest, I have a bad feeling. There are some things I want to talk about after we come out... Auntie, you should stay up here. If something happens, at least someone who knows will know."
The preemptive warning made Lai's mother anxious. She reached out and grasped Wen Dai's hands, asking nervously, "Is there something unclean down there?"
Wen Dai raised her eyelids and met Chen Sizhe's gaze, then smiled and shook her head, saying, "No, I haven't even gone down yet. I just thought it would be safer this way. Actually, ghosts and supernatural events in real life aren't as scary as they are in the movies; those are all exaggerated." The truth is, supernatural events are extremely rare; most people rarely encounter them, and if an extraordinary person does, they're bound to have bad luck—some ghosts aren't scary at all, of course, only some.
In the end, Lai's mother was persuaded to stay outside and prepare lunch, while only Lai Yuan and Lai Wenyi followed her inside.
The flashlight on her phone was far less effective than a professional flashlight, and Wen Dai could only make out the surroundings within two meters. The dust motes swaying in the light were inescapable. With each step she took down the stairs, she heard the clatter of her shoes on the steps. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the stairwell, and then a sudden "bang" came from behind—the basement door had been slammed shut.
The group stopped in their tracks, turned around, and turned their gazes toward the door that moved without a breeze, without uttering a word.
The quiet space grew even more tranquil after they fell silent; even if you strained your ears, you could only hear their breathing.
A moment later, the basement door was pounded on. It was probably Lai's mother rushing out of the kitchen. Her anxious shouts came through the door: "Are you alright? Are you okay? If you're alright, please answer me!"
Lai Wenyi spoke first, clenching her fists and shouting loudly, "We're fine! Mom, go cook first, I'll call you if anything happens! If we don't get out for a long time, call the fire department!"
"Okay!"
After Lai's mother agreed, Lai Wenyi, who had fallen silent, pursed her lips and looked at Wen Dai. The person who had just shouted that everything was alright now had a worried look on her face. "Wen Dai... are we really alright? That door just now..."
"It'll be alright, don't worry. There are no spirits in this area where we are now. As for why the door was closed... it's probably because—" Wen Dai held her phone and shone the flashlight forward again. She couldn't see the end of the stairs yet; below the gray dust-covered stairs was pure blackness.
She shrugged, tilting her head to glance in that direction. "The thing in the basement is up to no good."
Before venturing deeper, Wen Dai first offered some reassurance to Lai Wenyi and Lai Yuan. She stopped on the last step, looked up at them, and said, "You can rest assured. In reality, ghosts and monsters aren't as powerful as people imagine. They can't and won't kill people casually. At most, they'll just get unlucky and bump into things. Most people would run away as soon as they sensed something was wrong. Usually, those who die are bound by some kind of obstacle; ordinary people wouldn't be like that."
Just as she was about to turn her head back and continue walking inside, she suddenly turned around and stared at Lai Yuan.
The bewildered man met her gaze, then moved his head to look at Lai Wenyi and Chen Sizhe, who were following Wen Dai's gaze toward him. "What's wrong with me?"
Upon receiving the news, Wen Dai pressed her tongue against her cheek; she was so angry she wanted to laugh.
Just as she was about to turn her head away, a message from the spirit suddenly popped into her mind—"Lai Yuan's journey is likely to be mortal danger." She should have kept the Lai family outside; her original intention was merely to check the feng shui!
Annoyed, she exhaled through her teeth, her brow furrowing. She had never imagined that her trip would become a link in Lai Yuan's path to death. How was this any different from killing him? Her resentment grew ever stronger.
"What's wrong?" Chen Sizhe, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke, glancing down at Wen Dai's troubled expression.
In the cramped and quiet environment, whispering was out of the question, but they could communicate by typing on their phones. Wen Dai held her phone and quickly typed a line, shining the screen in front of Chen Sizhe. In the dim light, her dark eyes shone brightly.
Taking in the text on the screen, Chen Sizhe blinked, and Wen Dai, who was looking at him, put her phone away.
Unlike her father, Lai Wenyi, who had watched the whole thing, was not calm. She took a step down, and her fear outweighed her curiosity. Her smile seemed forced. "What message are you secretly passing on? Is there really some danger ahead? But my parents have lived here for almost twenty years, and I grew up here. Nothing has ever happened in all these years."
This was also something Wen Dai couldn't understand. She turned to look at Lai Wenyi and Lai Yuan, who hadn't moved behind them, and emphasized, "After we go in, you two must not move anything. Just follow us. Actually, it would be best if you turned back and left now, but I don't think that door can be opened. So, you must stay close and not move anything."
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she could clearly see wisps of black mist emerging from the darkness spreading outwards. The mist reached out and rolled around her wrist without any sense of boundaries.
Wen Dai weighed her options and didn't rashly attack the wisp of mist that had wrapped around her. She couldn't determine what had caused it or how long it had been there, but she knew that the being that couldn't leave this door was quite powerful, and she wasn't sure if she could subdue it.
Perhaps it was because Wen Dai's expression was too serious when she gave them instructions that Lai Wenyi and Lai Yuan were both stunned into silence at first, and then nodded in agreement.
The black mist hanging on Wen Dai's wrist seemed to have a guiding meaning. If its owner didn't intend to kill, Wen Dai might even have praised it as cute. Holding her phone, she walked down the steps and chose to stand close to the wall, using the flashlight to illuminate it. Instinctively, she stopped in front of the wall and carefully examined the patterns.
The walls were made of carved bricks, and at first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Wen Dai stood in front of the brick wall, and several people coming down the stairs gathered around her. She placed her hand on the wall and felt the patterns beneath with her fingertips.
She closed her eyes, trying to visualize the patterns on the brick wall perfectly in her mind through touch—
"Ha! What a beautiful picture of a locked coffin." She withdrew her hand, glanced at Chen Sizhe, and the person standing next to her also placed his hand on hers after hearing her words. The indentation between his already furrowed brows became even more pronounced.
He lowered his hand, turned his head to look at the two people who were standing awkwardly to the side, and asked, "Have any unusual things happened since you moved in? For example, if you have a wish in your heart, even if the wish is insignificant, it will suddenly be fulfilled—but you will be unlucky afterwards, and the degree of bad luck depends on the size of the wish."
Clenching her fists tightly, Lai Wenyi hesitated for a moment, her head tilted to one side, biting her lips inside her mask. But she finally raised her face and confessed, "Yes, it was me. When I was little, I just hoped I could get good grades, so I prayed at home. I never really thought it would come true, but it did. Afterwards, I accidentally lost a hair tie that I really liked. From then on, I remembered this way of fulfilling my wish."
“Actually, before I went to you for help to solve my problem, it was right after I came back from Liche Island. I went home first, and while I was sleeping with my mom, I made a wish in my heart that I could get rid of it smoothly.” Her eyes gradually reddened, her fists trembled from the force, and a look of self-reproach covered her face.
She stared into Wen Dai's eyes and asked in a trembling voice, "Wen Dai, just tell me, you suddenly turned around and looked at my dad, and then used your phone to send a message to Mr. Chen next to you, emphasizing that we must not move. Is it because you saw that something might happen to my dad?"
Lai Wenyi's keen insight exceeded Wen Dai's expectations. She reached out and patted Lai Wenyi's arm, raising her hand and laughing, "You're too nervous. This doesn't need to be attributed to wishes. It's not necessarily caused by you, and it's not necessarily true that making a wish will lead to bad things happening. I can help you get rid of that trouble even if you don't make a wish."
Lai Yuan, who was deep in thought, suddenly interjected, "I also made a wish." He glanced at his daughter beside him, pursed his lips, and said, "I made it on the day Wenyi returned from Liche Island. My wish is that my family can be safe and happy, and that we can have a joyful family reunion."
Wen Dai's smile faded. She glanced at Lai Yuan with a complicated expression, and after a long while, she managed to utter, "You really know how to make wishes... But these are the wishes of many people with families. You will have them granted." Enduring the tightening black mist on her wrist, the intense pain on her soul level made her face pale.
What the hell? Why is this thing angry for no reason?
Or rather, what is its owner angry about—is it that he can't stand seeing others happy, or that he can't stand seeing Lai Yuan happy?
A guess began to form in her mind. Wen Dai nudged Chen Sizhe with her elbow and raised her eyebrows, saying, "Go with Uncle Lai and try to catch him."
She raised her hand and waved it in front of him, and some more of the black mist curled up. "See? I really envy people like you with such strong yang energy."
This time, the communication wasn't secretive, but to Lai Yuan and Lai Wenyi, it still sounded like a encrypted call. The tears that Lai Wenyi had been holding back dried up in her eyes. She looked blankly at Chen Sizhe and Wen Dai, her gaze lingering on Wen Dai's exposed wrist for a while before she blinked and asked, "Is there something on your hand?"
With her hands hanging down, Wen Daigeng continued walking, holding her phone in her hand. The flashlight beam illuminated the dust-covered ground, revealing no footprints ahead.
As she walked down the corridor, her voice rang out with exceptional clarity: "Hmm... this is something that's hard to explain, but you have it too."
"Huh?" Lai Wenyi raised her hand, touching and looking at it, but couldn't find anything wrong with it.
Suddenly, a black, unidentified object crawled out of the shadows ahead at incredible speed, leaping from the ground to the wall right in front of Wen Dai and the others, and vanished without a trace.
Wen Dai, who had been closest to the black unidentified object, raised her hand to her chest, clutching her pounding heart.
They may not have seen it clearly, but she did.
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