Chapter 154 Four Directions 1 Four Short Stories
The door won't open, no matter how hard I kick it!
You stare at the rapidly spreading crimson bloodstains around you, your heart pounding so hard your eardrums are ringing.
You know you can't just sit and wait to die, so what else can you do but negotiate with "it" based on the rules you just set for yourself?
You took a deep breath, turned around to face the dark figure in the corner of the classroom, and said respectfully, forcing back a trembling voice, "We invited you here simply to verify your existence. Now that we know you exist, we have nothing but utmost respect for you. We are just children, please be magnanimous and let us go."
The shadows in the classroom trembled slightly, and along with them, a faint sound seemed to drift over.
A low, slow buzzing sound, like the flapping of wings of some enormous insect.
After a while, a deep, hoarse voice slowly drifted out from the darkness: "Let you go? Didn't you want to see me?"
The speech was interspersed with languages you couldn't understand, the sound quality was noisy and unpleasant, and every phoneme sounded like it was being scraped by a rusty machine, rubbing against your cochlea over and over again.
You dared not show the slightest hesitation or impatience, and immediately bowed your head sincerely: "We were ignorant and offended you, please forgive us." — I don't know if you've gone crazy, but you feel like there might be a chance! At least the other person is someone you can talk to!
"Forgiveness?" A chilling laugh came from somewhere. "I've come, so naturally I'll take something with me."
What would you like?
The dark figure swayed slightly and said in a hoarse voice, "Tonight, each of you must retrieve something for me. If you succeed, I will not take any of you with me."
Meiling's voice suddenly broke in: "What if...we can't do it?"
“Those who can’t do it, I’ll take them away myself,” the shadowy figure said coldly.
You stare at that dark, inky shadow. To be honest, you've seen plenty of big scenes, but never before have you felt so physically and mentally trembling as you do now.
You feel like you're completely immersed in ice water, freezing little by little.
The buzzing sound still lingered in my ears, like millions of wasps building a nest inside my head.
You grit your teeth and try your best to think of other possibilities.
The shadowy figure remained silent, but left four slowly seeping, dark red liquid drops on the ground, rolling and reflecting eerie colors in the candlelight. Each drop spun and struggled on the floor, eventually transforming into different shapes: a mirror, a bell, a broken Buddha statue, and a sealed earthenware jar.
“This is your contract,” the shadowy figure said hoarsely, “four offerings, four messengers.”
You wanted to say something, but the sudden chill choked you up.
"You." The shadowy figure's voice suddenly deepened, and the air tightened.
!
"Ha...ha..." Although you don't feel anything in your body, you see your shadow getting thinner and thinner from the middle, as if someone is pulling it.
Next, it's yourself! An irresistible force pulls you toward the mirror: "Go behind the mirror at the very back of your women's restroom and bring that red rope back."
A red rope? Your eyes widen.
That was something that flashed through your mind in an instant when you were crafting this ritual to scare Meiling and the others: it happened so fast that you didn't even remember it at the time.
But now, you've remembered!
Before you could even think it through, His attention had already shifted to Meiling, and His tone carried a hint of mockery and warning: "You, go to the rooftop and take down that bronze bell hanging in the corner... if you can get close to it."
"And you too." His voice flowed like water in suffocation. "The Buddha's head is under the tree roots, and the pottery jar is deep in the storeroom. You must learn to take it and respect it, otherwise, even gods and Buddhas will open their mouths and eat people."
As the last sentence fell, the floor creaked, and the whole classroom seemed to come alive, shaking slightly.
The air—no, the tables and chairs, the windowpanes, the curtains swaying even without wind—they were all laughing. Everywhere, everywhere, was the shrill laughter, hahahahaha!
You looked up listlessly in the direction of the shadowy figure, only to suddenly realize that the shadow was no longer still, but had resumed its slow infiltration of the four of you.
Like ink spreading on rice paper, it slowly and viscously flows towards you.
He has little patience and must act immediately!
While Meiling and the others were still in a daze, you gritted your teeth and stood up, your legs... feeling a little weak, and your shoulders feeling like they were filled with lead.
The sooner you finish the task, the safer you are – that's the first thing that comes to mind. But whether this "early" and "safe" approach is reliable or not, you have no idea.
You tried pushing the door, and it opened.
"We can go now!" Glasses heard the voice and dragged his weak, sore legs toward the door.
Before you could stop her, Meiling had already slapped her and yelled, "You can't run away! We have to do these things!"
Both Glasses and Curly Hair were stunned by Meiling's slap, while Meiling looked up at you in a panic.
You didn't know what to say, and you had no interest in thinking about them. You could only nod to Meiling and rush out first.
The footsteps landed on the floor by the classroom door with a sticky sound.
*smack*
You look down and see that the pool of blood on the floor is no longer where it was, but is slowly crawling towards the podium like a living thing. You dare not look anymore and slip into the corridor.
The school corridors were long and dark, with faded certificates of merit and warning signs made up of language that looked like tadpoles or bean sprouts pasted on the walls. Rows of old chandeliers hung overhead, making you feel like a gloomy ghost.
Walking underneath, you're more afraid it will fall and smash your head in.
The lights flickered on and off, like a beating heart.
Oh, it's your own heart beating. You can hear your own breathing, and you can also hear something deeper—a whisper.
It's like behind your eardrum, inside your eyeball, or behind your throat.
Muttering and speaking... that language again! Sharp, with the vocalizations positioned towards the front... You've experienced many exotic cultures in the dungeons, but you've never hated a place or a language as much as you do now!
You can't understand a word! But you just know! Every syllable is saying your name!
You feel so much hatred, so much anger... You suddenly realize that you have been completely overwhelmed by fear of the unknown and rage at your own powerlessness.
Calm down, calm down, things will be alright, things will be alright.
It will be alright.
You ran incredibly fast, but your fingertips were still icy cold. Cold sweat trickled down your spine, and you bit your lip, forcing yourself not to stop.
Silently encouraging yourself, you seem to be feeling a bit better.
The toilet door is getting closer.
At the end of the corridor, a door with blue painted patterns stood alone, its glass frame cracked into a spiderweb pattern, and judging by its size, it was just big enough to trap your head.
You suddenly pull your face, which had somehow gotten too close, back. Just millimeters away, your skin would have been caught and peeled off by sharp shards of glass.
Take a break, things will get better.
You reach out your hand, your fingertips just touching the doorknob, when a gust of wind blows in from the crack in the door.
It's cold, so cold, so cold everywhere. You hold your warm breath and push open the door.
The door creaked open with a piercing, mournful sound.
The toilet was just as you'd expect: dilapidated, slippery, and terribly smelly.
Several wires hung from the ceiling, and the lights were still on, sometimes bright and sometimes dim.
You can't help but think: Oh, maybe someone is hesitating whether or not to light your way.
Every step you take lands on water stains, the soles of your shoes slipping and splashing. Only then do you notice that you're wearing those fabric indoor shoes, the kind that offer absolutely no slip resistance.
You need to be careful and stand firm.
Look here again.
More than the ultimate goal of the mirror, you're interested in these cubicles where you don't know what's hidden behind the doors.
The doors to each cubicle were crooked; some were half-open, while others were tightly shut.
You didn't walk too fast, nor did you dare to, glancing at each doorway out of the corner of your eye.
You're both relieved that you didn't see anything, and also afraid that something might have happened. Perhaps there really was something you didn't see.
Oh no, the scariest thing is that there's clearly nothing here—yet you hear something.
Splash—
You almost jumped up.
You slowly, from head to neck, and then reluctantly move your feet. You lean over and see the door to the fourth cubicle suddenly move by itself.
You immediately stopped, pressed against the wall. Your heart was pounding so hard you felt like you were going to throw up.
"Calm down," you whisper to yourself, "calm down, go to the very back."
You force yourself to keep going; you have no choice but to keep going.
You feel like you're walking on a tightrope, and if you slip, you're dead.
Finally, you've reached the innermost part.
Squeak~
The door opened by itself.
You closed your eyes.
You heard violent, irregular, death-like breathing.
After a while, your world opened up. Oh, there was nothing there, only yourself breathing.
Behind the door was just an ordinary cubicle. No one was there. No ghosts. It was just a little darker than the rest of the room.
Okay, the environment is set. So you turn around—and a lot of random, mystical knowledge pops into your head, like not turning your head quickly in the dark, because that will blow away the fire on your shoulder, and if you do, you'll be taken away by a ghost.
So slowly, slowly, like a puppet with its feet stuck in the ground, you spun around in place and faced the mirror.
You look up at the top of the sink.
Your face is reflected in the mirror.
Good heavens! When have you ever been so pale? Your hair and temples are all wet, and you're clenching your lips tightly.
So you look really scared.
Your gaze shifts away from your face, so you see your shoulders trembling slightly, growing larger and trembling more and more.
The red string hung obediently and brightly in the upper right corner of the mirror.
It just hung there so realistically.
Okay, as long as we get it, at least this matter will be over for today...
The instant you reach out your hand, your fingertips brushing against the red string—
Click.
You hear a soft sound, like teeth grinding something.
Then, the mirror cracked.
Starting from the point where your finger touches the mirror, spiderweb-like cracks quickly spread across the entire surface.
You see yourself looking enormous in the mirror—oh, that's because you're almost completely glued to the mirror surface!
You see yourself with only the whites of your eyes showing, no pupils, and you're holding your glasses frame with both hands, hitting the mirror hard with your head, once or twice.
You suddenly took a step back and stumbled into the cubicle door.
Then, you saw blood.
It didn't flow from you; it came from under the cubicle behind you.
Four streams of blood converged into a lake at your feet, quickly staining your cloth shoes red.
Drip, drip, drip.
A dark red liquid began to seep from the cracks in the mirror; it was thick, viscous, and sweet.
A strange sweetness. Extremely sweet.
It is said that even someone who has never seen a dead person can instinctively recognize the smell of a corpse the moment they smell it.
Just like you right now.
You're about to throw up. It's a completely instinctive feeling of nausea and shivering.
You dared not move. You stared at yourself in the mirror, then suddenly looked up.
It smiled.
That wasn't your smile; it was a sinister laugh that seemed to emanate from the corners of your mouth, a smile tinged with a strange yet profound hatred.
The corners of his mouth were split wider than you could imagine, revealing not teeth, but rows of taut, thin lines, like the stitching used to sew up a corpse.
"Will you come and keep me company?" you asked slowly in the mirror.
The sound was muffled, yet it came from all directions simultaneously.
Your legs buckled, and you almost collapsed.
No, that's not right. There's always a way to leave, there's always—
You raise your head and force yourself to say in the clearest, most resolute voice, "I'm just following orders to retrieve something. According to the agreement—the contract! You cannot harm me."
A fleeting look of surprise crossed your face in the mirror, as if your identity had been exposed, or as if you had an innate fear of the rules.
In that instant, you pull your hand from your side, take a few quick steps, and grab the red rope tightly. Tear it off!
The mirror shattered like water, making a hissing sound. Instead of flying everywhere, the glass shards grew and extended rapidly from the cracks like black vines, spreading towards you.
You frantically turn around and slam the toilet door open.
As you rush out, you can still hear countless feet running behind the mirror, the sound of sharp nails scraping the floor, and a voice almost right behind you, spitting out the words: "Don't think you can get far."
You practically stumbled back into the classroom.
The door wasn't locked. You stumbled inside, hitting your forehead on the corner of the podium, and your vision went black. You collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath.
He clutched the bright red rope tightly in his hand.
You look up at the podium; the blood is still on the ground, the shadowy figure is still in the corner, and Meiling and the others haven't returned yet.
But you know you came back first. You came back alive with the things.
Your hand holding the red string trembled slightly. Now, you were finally no longer cold, but for the first time, a sense of wavering arose in your heart.
You begin to doubt whether this scenario is something you can control at all.
**
When Mei-ling climbed to the rooftop alone, she realized that she was actually trembling.
She gripped the stair railing tightly; the old, corroded floorboards beneath her feet creaked like ghosts laughing.
The door on the rooftop rattled loudly in the wind. When she reached out to push it, the sign that read "Emergency Passage" broke in half from the word "Emergency".
If someone falls, will their broken neck and spine look like this?
She wanted to curse, to curse that damned Chinese guy, to curse this school, but an inexplicable fear made her not even dare to think about it.
Pushing open the door, a gust of cold wind howled in, like a gasp squeezed from someone's lungs, for this was by no means a natural path; instead, it carried a distinct damp, musty smell and a pungent odor mixed with incense ash.
She looked up. The night sky was pitch black, with dark clouds overhead, and not a single ray of moonlight could be seen. All the stars in the sky had disappeared, as if the whole world consisted only of this building, herself, her companions who might already be dead, and something she didn't know that was watching her.
Her school skirt was whipped up by the wind. She held down the hem with one hand and clung to the rusty edge of the railing with the other, slowly making her way across.
The copper bell is right at the very edge. It hangs from a curved steel bar, swaying gently and making a soft, tinkling sound.
The ringing wasn't music; instead, it was a rustling sound, slowly seeping into her ear canal, like... the kind of insects adults talk about crawling into children's ears.
She didn't dare turn around, but she couldn't help gritting her teeth.
"Ugh (damn crawler)!" She tried to suppress her anger, but still muttered under her breath, "Who told that brat to run so fast?"
That weirdo who just transferred to the school.
She believed that a third-rate Ajarn's child had come to such a small place just to scam them out of their own money.
She couldn't speak a word of Cantonese and hid in the corner like a dead buffalo, but today she suddenly seemed like a different person. And, how could she really have magic powers?
Meiling is one of the few flower descendants in this school and even the whole city, but in fact her bloodline and beliefs have long since had nothing to do with the Flower Kingdom. It's just that her family still makes her learn the language of flowers.
She disliked the Flower Kingdom, disliked learning the language of flowers, and disliked the idea that a student from the Flower Kingdom would automatically be expected to teach them how to live.
But at this moment she had to admit that if that monster hadn't stepped forward, she might have been dead long ago.
"You beast!" she cursed, reciting every nasty word imaginable. "I should have never played those spirit communication games."
She was using swearing to embolden herself.
Finally, Meiling walked up to the copper bell.
It hung there, swaying, as if waiting for her to reach out.
She gritted her teeth and reached out—just a hair's breadth away, almost there—Meiling's eyebrows relaxed, she was about to regain her confidence and fearlessness.
But suddenly, a dense cacophony of whispers erupted in her ears, like a million mouths talking right next to her ear.
The voice wasn't loud at all; it was gentle and sticky, like someone whispering in her ear in her sleep.
She turned around abruptly.
The rooftop was now filled with rows of figures, all wearing the same school uniform as her, but their heads were completely obscured.
Each body was slumped over, hands hanging down below the thighs, their postures conveying a deathly stillness as if "waiting for orders."
She tried to call out, but no sound came out of her throat.
Her heartbeat became the only rhythm, one beat after another. Not only that, she could feel her carotid arteries responding to her heartbeat; her body had become a giant musical instrument.
A bell?
Thump, thump, thump.
Her legs went weak and she almost knelt down, but she gritted her teeth and squeezed out a breath: "...Don't try that."
Meiling had absolutely no idea how to write calmly. If she were good at analyzing pros and cons, she wouldn't have kept a shy and introverted new student at school to play some kind of psychic game.
She was terrified, scared to death, but she also knew... if you're really going to die, being afraid won't help.
She gritted her teeth, raised her hand again, and gripped the copper bell tightly.
In an instant, the headless figures all moved and turned their "faces" toward her, even though they had no faces.
Only that row of empty, severed necks—with white bone and trachea in the middle of the bloody mess—all looked up at her.
Meiling had no doubt that some black water would flow out of the cut, as if gushing from the bottom of a well.
She gripped the copper bell tightly and pulled it off with all her might.
The ringtone exploded in her ears.
It wasn't just one sound, but the sound of thousands of copper bells echoing in her eardrums, jingling and jingling, piercing her nerves, and she almost knelt down.
The wind picked up, and dark clouds pressed down from overhead, like a slap in the face, as if to bury the entire school in the mud.
The figures began to slowly approach her.
She was about to cry. She wanted to scream, but she knew it would be useless; she could only watch the monsters approach and wait to die.
But she didn't want to die. Wouldn't it be too ridiculous to die here like this?
"Bye Taisa! (Die!)"
She suddenly roared, raising the copper bell high above her head and shaking it at the headless figures while cursing, "Aipuwaheya! (You beasts!)"
"Come on! I did what you said! I don't care if you die! Now I'm going back, don't block my way!!"
Her voice was hoarse; she had almost screamed her throat out.
The wind seemed to freeze at that moment, and amidst her reckless and defiant curses, those figures... truly stopped.
She couldn't believe her eyes, but she had no time to hesitate. Grabbing the copper bell, she ran downstairs at breakneck speed.
With each step she took down the stairs, she could hear footsteps slowly following behind her. She dared not turn around; she wouldn't turn around—in horror movies, those who turn around die!
She ran back to the classroom with all her might, and when she flung open the door, her legs were almost numb.
She fell to the ground, scraping her knee and drawing blood down her leg.
You are squatting next to the podium, clutching a red rope in your hand, your face covered in sweat.
When she saw you, she felt a strange sense of relief—the relief of seeing a familiar face instead of a ghost.
She was panting, threw the copper bell on the ground, and grinned: "Hey... what's the big deal? I'm back."
"Congratulations," you said, without much emotional fluctuation.
Meiling looked up at the classroom ceiling; the lights were still flickering. She wanted to cry, but she just lay there and laughed out loud.
"Hey, I got it back, did you hear me? I got it back!"
Meiling yelled at the ceiling, she had a lot of nonsense to say, but she didn't dare to vent it to the shadow in the corner.
Instead, she quickly got up, approached the shadow with utmost respect, and said, "I have brought the things back to you. May I leave now?"
The shadow let out a strange laugh, and Meiling was flung to your side.
"It's no use, we have to wait for those two." You shrug helplessly.
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Author's Note: Scary, isn't it? [Yellow Heart][Pink Heart][Blue Heart][Cyan Heart][Green Heart][Orange Heart][Red Heart] Hehe~~
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