Chapter 88 The Five Living Souls
When Xu Caifeng was young, she became close to a girl in her class named Meilan. The two of them were inseparable and did everything together.
Meilan was incredibly beautiful, the undisputed campus belle of the 1990s. Xu Caifeng didn't think anything of it at first, but starting in high school, she and Meilan would go shopping together, and the boys she liked would only look at her. When they took photo booths, the shopkeepers would give them free meals just because of her. When they first started dating, classmates would rush to request Meilan's number. Meilan was like the brightest star, shining brightly during Xu Caifeng's darkest years of high school.
After graduating from high school, few of the students in the small town continue to go to college in other places. Most of them go back to run their own businesses or find jobs in state-owned enterprises in the town.
Xu Caifeng and Meilan went to work in a local leather factory together. They got married one after another, and their lives seemed to be heading towards a warm and peaceful life.
But one day, the illusion of this beautiful life was shattered.
Meilan, weeping, secretly found her and confided in her husband about the domestic violence he was experiencing. She rolled up her sleeves, revealing scars streaking across her wrists, and bruises on her ribs and waist from being whipped with a leather belt.
Xu Caifeng was struck by lightning. Meilan's husband was their high school classmate, handsome and gentle. His parents were executives at a leather factory, and he had become the sales manager at a young age. How could such a well-known and perfect man do such a thing?!
But the scars on Meilan's body couldn't lie.
The once glamorous school beauty became haggard and withered in just a few years after marriage. This is something no one can accept.
However, after learning about the other party's misfortune, Xu Caifeng despicably developed a secret sense of gloating. At a certain moment, she actually had such a thought: it turns out that her life was not always smooth sailing.
How does that saying go? Old friend, I hope you have a good life, but not better than me.
Xu Caifeng deeply agrees with this.
Her heart was filled with a twisted sense of "victory," and driven by this distorted emotion, she gently and earnestly counseled him, "Isn't that just how life is? Everyone has flaws. Just be tolerant and patient. It's not easy for men to socialize outside either. He was just like that because he was drunk. Look, he apologized to you the next day! This is all for your own good."
Meilan stared at her friend, speechless.
After that, Meilan didn't go to work at the factory for a long time. It was two years later that she heard her name from a colleague again. Her husband happily distributed candy at the company, saying that his wife was pregnant.
Xu Caifeng looked at the high-spirited sales manager and former classmate with mixed feelings. Her colleagues' faces were filled with envy and kindness, but she was the only one present who knew that this seemingly glamorous man might have another side.
Would he still attack Meilan now? Could such a polite and well-spoken man really turn violent and become a devil after drinking? - It's impossible to tell.
Perhaps, God bless this man and let him change his ways.
Perhaps because of this unspeakable guilt, Xu Caifeng bought a lot of supplements and fruits to visit her old classmate.
When she opened the door, Meilan's eyes flashed with a long-lost eagerness and joy. Her belly was already noticeable, probably five or six months pregnant. She was wearing a long-sleeved maternity dress. Her face was a little swollen due to the pregnancy, but she looked much more energetic than before.
Xu Caifeng secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and as if defending herself, she thought: See, it's a good thing that I didn't persuade her to divorce. Life requires adjustment. The man has indeed become mature and stable after becoming a father. Maybe the two of them have reconciled as before. She should be very happy now.
Thinking of this, Xu Caifeng sat down and looked down at a flyer on the coffee table.
This happened several years ago, so she wouldn't remember a flyer so clearly, but she was still deeply impressed by this advertisement - probably because the phone number in the lower right corner was heavily circled more than ten times with a marker, and the force left a dent on the paper. Compared with Meilan's gentle and quiet smiling face, it seemed a little crazy and out of place.
"All-round housekeeping, your universal helper in life."
There was nothing special about the advertisement. Xu Caifeng just glanced at it and saw that it was just about home cleaning, air conditioner repair, old furniture recycling, etc.
"Does your family want to recycle old furniture?" Xu Caifeng asked casually, her eyes passing over a piece of furniture covered with a blanket that looked out of place in the living room.
Meilan suddenly smiled, put down her teacup, and said, "Yes, do you want to see it?"
If Xu Caifeng had observed her old classmate carefully, she would have found that her expression at this moment was very strange. It should have been a casual compliment, but her face was full of eagerness, as if she was a magician who was about to unveil the show and waiting for the audience's applause.
Xu Caifeng didn't think much of it. The two of them hadn't been in touch for many days, and their relationship had become estranged. She desperately needed some interaction to fill the awkwardness, so she nodded and said, "Okay."
Meilan walked over and peeled back the sheets, revealing a leather massage chair underneath. "It's taking up a lot of space at home. I'm going to have someone come and recycle it."
It was a popular massage chair, made of liver-colored soft leather. The overall look was a bit bulky and heavy, and the deeply recessed seat could only accommodate one person. Somehow, Xu Caifeng always felt that this chair gave people a sinister feeling. The folds and grooves that were not illuminated by light were dark, forming hideous lines. She always felt that there was something bad hidden inside.
Xu Caifeng complimented him a few times: "It looks quite high-end. It seems to be a batch of trial sales products released by the factory a while ago?" This is quite common in the workplace. Occasionally, there are some defective products, which will be distributed to employees to take home. For someone in a position like Meilan's husband, it is not a problem to get some new goods for free.
Meilan, however, was curiously eager. She pressed Xu Caifeng's shoulders and insisted that she sit down and feel it for herself. "It might get a little stuck, but it won't affect the use."
Xu Caifeng didn't have time to refuse, as Meilan pressed her whole body onto the narrow massage chair. It was the first time she felt how strong her old classmate was. She didn't have time to frown at the pain in her shoulder, as her body suddenly felt like it was wrapped by something huge, tightly and a little crowded.
Not exactly comfortable.
The back massage program started, and through the surface of the chair, Xu Caifeng felt a pair of invisible hands tightening around her, then slowly and with difficulty, she began to move. This chair was strange. Far from being comfortable or relaxing, it even gave Xu Caifeng the illusion that she was being entangled by a python, trying to strangle her alive.
Xu Caifeng showed a panic expression. She asked Meilan for help, but the eagerness in her eyes became more intense, even turning into madness. Meilan kicked the side of the chair several times, just like people would knock on a TV with a bad signal a long time ago. The next second, the suffocating feeling really disappeared, and the chair returned to normal.
Meilan said, "Defective products are like this, just bear with it."
This sentence sounded a little familiar, but Xu Caifeng was not in the mood to think about it. She was even a little annoyed because she subconsciously felt that the other party was taking revenge on her for "not helping" in the past.
She struggled to stand up from the strangely narrow chair, and at that moment, she suddenly screamed and jumped away, looking back in disbelief: "It...it! He's touching me!"
"Caifeng, what's wrong with you?" Meilan looked at her suspiciously: "That's a massage chair."
"No, no..." Xu Caifeng herself couldn't explain it. She was almost certain that a pair of hands had just touched her palms. It was the touch of skin, and the massage chair... wait, she suddenly felt that there was something wrong with the softness of this chair. That delicate, slightly warm texture, it was like...
Human skin.
Thinking of this, Xu Caifeng felt a little nauseous. She could no longer look at the chair. She found an excuse and hurriedly left Meilan's house. The moment she closed the door, strange questions were still popping up in her mind one by one.
For example, the chair just now didn't seem to be connected to electricity.
Xu Caifeng shuddered and quickened her pace with an embarrassed and annoyed expression as if she had been teased. She just wanted to leave 501 and Cuihu Community as quickly as possible, and get as far away from Meilan and that strange massage chair as possible!
…
"And what happened next?"
Lin Zhou asked.
"Then..." Xu Caifeng finished the story, feeling as if all the energy in her body had been drained away. She leaned against the side dejectedly. "A few days later, I heard that Meilan's husband, the sales manager, had disappeared."
"Missing?"
"Yes, his parents were also devastated and are now living in a nursing home. The police have come to their workplace three or four times just to collect evidence. I don't know if they've gotten anything out of Meilan, but he's never been found, so he's probably gone," Xu Caifeng laughed briefly. "It's impossible for such a grown man to be kidnapped, right? His family isn't particularly wealthy, so even if he was tricked into joining a pyramid scheme, there's no way we haven't heard from him in all these years. I guess something unexpected happened."
As for the other guess, she kept it in her heart and didn't say it.
After all, it was so unbelievable, who would dare to believe it?!
Lin Zhou asked again: "Then, where is Aunt Meilan now?"
Xu Caifeng was silent for a moment: "He's dead. He fell into the river and died."
Lin Zhou was struck by lightning.
"It happened seven or eight years ago. The child was about five or six. Ever since her husband disappeared, our relationship inexplicably grew distant. She closed a shop and started a small business. Then one day, she was boating with the child on the Luhua River when she accidentally fell into the river and drowned..." Xu Caifeng sighed. "I don't know where the child went. Maybe they were sent to an orphanage. Then, look, your family moved in."
Lin Zhou returned home somewhat dazed. When he was closing the door, he found someone walking around in the building opposite. There had been no new visitors to Cuihu Community for years, and he recognized that they were several plainclothes policemen.
He ignored the other party's surveillance, silently opening and closing the door, and stared blankly in the dark living room for a while. Suddenly, he turned and opened the utility room, rummaging inside. Finally, he knocked on the wall partition and found a hollow board at the end. His heart skipped a beat, and without even covering his mouth and nose to avoid the dust, he hurriedly grabbed the edge of the wallboard and forcefully removed it.
——A dusty 1980s retro patterned bed sheet appeared in front of him. From its undulating shape, Lin Zhou vaguely guessed what was underneath.
He grabbed the bed sheet tremblingly and slowly pulled it off. The massage chair that originally existed only in Xu Caifeng's story had traveled through more than ten years and finally appeared before his eyes.
Lin Zhou staggered back a few steps, his breathing becoming rapid.
He was evidently thinking of the scattered diary pages in the tin box, one of which read: "He is alive!"
Does this "he" refer to the massage chair covered with cobwebs in front of me?
The chair is alive? How is that possible!
Lin Zhou took a few steps forward hesitantly, stretched out his hand in disbelief, and gently touched the leather surface of the massage chair back with nervousness and timidity.
A slightly warm touch came from the fingertips. Unlike inorganic leather products, it had "temperature". And when Lin Zhou relaxed his guard and pressed his entire palm on it, he clearly felt a faint pulsation under his palm!
"Ah!!!" A scream came out of his mouth, he fell to the ground, leaned back against the wall of the corridor, and looked into the depths of the utility room in shock and confusion.
It's really alive! This chair is really alive!
What on earth is it? Is there someone inside? Or...
The massage chair was leaning silently in the corner. The wrinkles on its leather formed some lines that resembled facial expressions, as if there was a face embedded in it, looking at the young boy in front of it with a ghostly look, and it would rush out with its bloody mouth wide open if something was wrong.
But the horrific scene that Lin Zhou imagined did not happen. The surroundings were quiet and the chair did not change at all. The feeling just now was too short. After calming down, he began to doubt whether it was his illusion.
But he didn't dare reach out again.
"Bang bang bang"!
There was a muffled knock on the door.
Lin Zhou asked: "Which one?"
The person outside the house didn't answer, but just paused and started fiddling with the door lock.
Lin Zhou suddenly felt terrified: "Who's outside?"
The noise outside stopped again.
Lin Zhou stepped forward and put up the security chain first, thinking that it would be difficult to see a ghost in broad daylight, and the police were guarding the other side, so he made up his mind and opened the door a crack.
Surprisingly, there was no one outside.
Lin Zhou mustered up his courage and shouted again, "Who's playing a prank?"
There was no one on either side of the corridor.
Lin Zhou, unconvinced, removed the anti-theft chain and cautiously stepped out to survey the area, but still couldn't see a single soul. There were five families on this floor, and the corridor faced the opposite building, leaving no corners or nooks where anyone could hide.
He muttered something, turned around, closed the door and went into the house.
As he locked the door again, his phone rang in his pocket. The caller ID showed it was the plainclothes policeman. There weren't many people in town, and they often dealt with tourists, so they'd occasionally run into disputes, and the people who came to deal with them were all familiar faces.
"Hello? Officer Zhang?" Lin Zhou asked in confusion. "What's going on? Any news about my dad?"
Officer Zhang's voice sounded anxious: "Let's put your father's story aside, who was that woman we just saw walking into your house across from you?!"
Lin Zhou felt a sudden chill on the back of his neck, and he began to stutter: "What, what woman?"
There was clearly nothing just now?!
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