I reached out and pushed the door open.
The room behind the door was large, and its layout seemed completely different from the previous rooms.
The room was empty, except for an old piano in the center.
A figure sat with his back to us at the piano, his slender fingers gently pressing the keys without making a sound.
"Welcome to the music room," a clear child's voice rang out.
The figure in front of the piano slowly turned around; it was a little girl wearing a white dress.
Her face was clean, which seemed out of place with the horror of the place, but her eyes had no pupils at all; they were pure white.
I couldn't help but swallow hard. Logically speaking, this kind of situation only occurs when someone is possessed during a spirit summoning ritual, causing their eyes to turn completely white.
I stared intently into her eyes, my palms already sweating.
This situation is more complicated than I imagined. She is not an ordinary vengeful spirit; she may have been possessed by some more powerful being!
"My name is Xiaoya," she said with a smile, her pure white eyes seemingly able to see into our souls. "Are you here to hear me play?"
Luo Tianhe gripped my arm tightly and whispered, "Her eyes are exactly the same as those of those who are possessed!"
Nonsense, do you think I can't tell?!
I roared inwardly, but in reality, I nodded without changing my expression, watching the little girl warily:
“We’re not here to listen to your performance; we’re looking for a friend, a boy about our age.”
Xiaoya tilted her head, her pure white eyes unblinking: "The game of finding people is the most boring. Why don't you listen to me sing?"
She gently pressed the keys, and this time the piano produced a sound, not music, but a distorted, fragmented nursery rhyme:
The crescent moon hangs on the treetop.
The orphanage was quiet.
Children, hold hands.
We played together until dawn.
These nursery rhymes are very simple and seem no different from normal nursery rhymes, but they still give me the creeps.
After all, children are the noisiest, but she said the orphanage was quiet.
Is it possible that not a single child made a sound while they were playing a game?
Unless those children are all dead!
Only dead people play games at night!
Seeing our pale faces, Luo Tianhe and I suddenly stopped playing the piano, turned sharply to look at me, and said in an icy voice:
"Wasn't my nursery rhyme nice? Why are you all making that face?"
Suddenly, I remembered an urban legend I had read before: the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
She is depicted as a tall, beautiful woman with long, flowing hair, but she always covers her face with a mask and often wears a long trench coat.
She usually appears at night, stops a passerby, and asks:
Am I pretty?
This is a dilemma with no right answer!
If the answer is good, she will immediately take off her mask, revealing a huge gash that tears from the corner of her mouth to her ear, and then sternly press for answers:
"And now?"
Finally, she would use scissors to make the victim look like her, or simply kill her!
If you give a bad answer, you will enrage her on the spot and suffer an even worse fate!
We are now facing the same situation!
I grabbed Luo Tianhe, who was about to speak. With his brains, whatever he said would probably lead to our demise!
I racked my brains, and then, under her icy gaze, I forced myself to say:
"You sang very well, but the composition of this piece is not good."
Hearing my half-affirmation and half-denial answer, the ghost froze on the spot.
"If there's nothing else, we'll be going now. We need to see some friends."
I grabbed Luo Tianhe and tried to run away.
But the door was locked tight, just like before, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't open it.
"What you said makes some sense. Well then, sing me an even better song now, or else..."
At this point, the girl's voice abruptly stopped.
However, both Luo Tianhe and I could hear the terrifying killing intent contained within him.
At that moment, Luo Tianhe and I were both cursing Li Huai, that bastard, in our hearts.
If it weren't for him, how could we have encountered such terrifying ghosts one after another!
I turned around and, forcing myself to speak, said:
Neither of us can sing.
Luo Tianhe is the same. Although he frequents KTVs, he is really not good at singing!
After all, he didn't go to karaoke to sing.
"Then you two each sing me a song, and I'll see how it goes."
Surprisingly, the female ghost seemed quite agreeable and even lowered her demands further.
Upon hearing this, Luo Tianhe was no longer sleepy. Although he rarely sang, he had listened to quite a few songs.
Seeing that he was about to open his mouth and start asking for trouble again, I quickly grabbed him and pulled him behind me.
"Okay, I'll read it to you now."
I racked my brains trying to think of something.
"The spoon scrapes the edge of the empty bowl."
Who will sit next to me tonight?
It's neither Li Ming nor Zhang Jian.
It was that smiling wooden face.
They'll take away your food, they'll take away your life.
She will remain in the orphanage forever.
As soon as I finished speaking, the temperature in the room suddenly dropped.
The female ghost seemed to stop pretending and gradually became more and more ferocious.
I could smell a putrid stench emanating from her, as if her corpse had been buried for many years and had only been dug up now.
Then, her terrifying eyes stared straight at me.
The piano suddenly emitted piercing notes on its own, and then black blood oozed from under the keys.
The white plaster fell from the wall, revealing dirt and distorted symbols buried underground, seemingly scratched out bit by bit with fingernails.
Luo Tianhe took a step back in fright and whispered to me, "What the hell are you chanting? Damn it, it looks like this boss is about to start its second phase!"
"When I was drunk before, I heard Li Huai sing a nursery rhyme. Because it was a bit eerie, I still remember it now."
I stared intently at Xiaoya's reaction and realized that Xiaoya definitely knew Li Huai!
Xiaoya slowly stood up, her skirt fluttering even without wind: "Where did you hear that from?"
Her voice had changed; it was no longer that clear, childlike voice, but a strange harmony of multiple voices, including men and women, old and young.
“A friend told me,” I replied cautiously.
Xiaoya's body began to convulse unnaturally, her head tilting 180 degrees to one side, as if it were broken:
"Impossible! Everyone who knows this nursery rhyme is dead!"
She suddenly let out a shrill laugh, the sound echoing in the empty room, making everyone's eardrums ache.
"Since you know this nursery rhyme, you should know the rest of the story, right?"
Luo Tianhe and I exchanged a glance, and we both saw fear in each other's eyes.
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