158 The Sin of Beauty

 

A pretty girl occupied Bed No. 4. She came from a poor family but she would save on her daily expenses to purchase cosmetic products. It was not a fault to pursue beauty but the prettier she became, the more uncomfortable it made her roommates.

After the footsteps outside the door departed, Han Fei pried open the locked cupboard beside Bed No. 1. He found a diary hidden in a stack of old clothes. It detailed how envy turned 3 normal girls into demons. At the start, everyone was the same, they were all girls from non-spectacular families. However, after some time staying together, their individual personalities slowly revealed. Girl 4 was very kind, she was considered tall among her peers and she always had a smile for everyone.

The source of all conflict began from cosmetics. Girl 4 skimped and saved to purchase a set of cheap make-up, then she started to follow make-up tutorials online. During classes, the girl would not put on make-up because that was against the rules. She would only put on a very light touch of make-up during the weekends. Whenever there was a group outing, Girl 4 would often be the centre of attention. To be honest, the girl’s make-up skill was not that good, the reason she was well-loved was because she had a nice-going personality. People were naturally drawn towards her kindness but her roommates thought it was because she was the only one among them who used make-up. They were still too young to have mature thoughts.

Girl 4’s roommates would sometimes borrow Girl 4’s cosmetics. The girl rarely rejected them, she even volunteered to do their make-up. But when everyone had on the same-up, it was still Girl 4 who was the shiniest star wherever she went. For the first few times, it did not matter but slowly, her roommates thought Girl 4 purposely did a horrible make-up on them so that her beauty would be highlighted.

Her roommates stopped going out with Girl 4 but they would still borrow her make-up. There were not many chances for students to use make-up but even so, a set of cosmetics would not last long when it was shared by 4 people. Later one day, Girl 3 used Girl 4’s make-up without asking for the latter’s permission. After Girl 4 discovered it, she lost her temper for the first time and got into an argument with Girl 3. Even though they made up the next day, the harmony was only on the surface.

The girls in Room 304 started to ostracize Girl 4, they would purposely ‘forget’ about her during group outings; whenever she wanted to engage them in conversation, they’d turn away and pretend to be busy with something else; they spread nasty rumours behind her back, saying she had a sugar daddy who sponsored her make-ups and she would always come back on weekend nights. The rumors had their intended effect, people started to stray away from Girl 4, she did not know how to explain herself. Even the kindest and most well-loved Teacher Ma at the school started to look at her differently. She tried to go to the teachers for help but that only made things worse. The girls in Room 304 hated her even more after they were lectured by the teachers.

They mocked her more openly and resorted to harsher forms of emotional violence. Other girls joined in their ranks, they could not tell why Girl 4 was so hated, they assumed since so many people hated her, there must be something horrendous about her. It was thus right to hate her. The ostracization turned Girl 4 more introverted. Things got so bad that she considered dropping out from school.

The girl’s parents were just normal people and the tuition at Yi Ming Private Academy was not cheap. When they found out from the school and the girl’s friends that she would wear make-up like a slut and stay out late at night, the first emotion they felt was disappointment and anger. They had sacrificed so much to send her to a prestigious school. Instead of focusing on her studies, she instead became fixated on frivolous stuff like beauty and make-up. The girl’s father had an explosive temper, he almost hit her when he heard the news. They refused to allow the girl to quit and insisted on the girl staying at the school.

Then things only got worse. In the eyes of the girls in Room 304, no matter what Girl 4 did, it was wrong. They would feel disgusted just in her presence. Their failure to chase her away only escalated their actions even more. They turned to more extreme methods. First, they started by ruining the girl’s stuff, dirtying her clothes and then moved onto pouring glue into her cosmetics and onto her contact lenses. But that was not all. In the last few entries of the dairy, Han Fei read that one of the girls had found contraceptive pills, grounded them up into dusts and melted them into the girl’s water bottle and thermos. Malice was percolating, it consumed the 3 girls in Room 304 and pushed Girl 4 to her brink.

One Saturday night, just like the rumors suggested, Girl 4 did come home late that day. The 3 other girls could not have been happier, they giggled among themselves as they came up with the stories to spread the next day. One of the girls even moved the table to block behind the door. They made a pact that no matter what happened that night, they would not open the door. That way even if the girl had the key, she could not come in. Girl 4 was still nowhere to be seen after 11 pm. The girls were not worried, in fact, they took out their phones and recorded Girl 4’s empty bed. This time, they would have ‘evidence’ that Girl 4 had been spending her nights outside of school. The implication was that she was with her sugar daddy.

At around 3 am, the sound of strange footsteps and water dripping came from the corridor. Then the lock of Room 304 twisted, someone was trying to open the door with the key. The person jiggled with the lock for a long time but it refused to open. The sound had woken up the 3 girls inside the room. They were holding their hands over their mouths, chuckling.

The door did not open and the footsteps slowly moved away from Room 304. She paced for a long time in the corridor before she returned to Room 304 to try the door again. This was repeated for several times until the footsteps faded away completely.

The next morning, the 3 girls hurried excitedly to the classrooms. The gossip started almost instantly. Negative implications about Girl 4 flew everywhere. They showed ‘evidence’ of her empty bed to support their stories. The rumors spread like wildfire. The students criticized the girl, no one had anything good to say about her. No one cared about her feelings, they only cared that it was not them who was under mockery and scrutiny. Everything changed after the teacher walked into the classroom. The teacher ordered the girls from Room 304 out from the room because he needed to talk to them.

The teacher informed them that Girl 4 had drowned herself in the river yesterday night. She died around 11 pm. The girl’s footsteps were found on the bank which suggested that she paced repeatedly before she finally came to the decision to kill herself. At the last moment of her life, she was still hesitating. If someone had shown her kindness, she probably would have been saved. Hearing that, the 3 girls looked at each other and they captured fear in each other’s eyes.

If the girl had already died at 11 pm, then who was the one who came back to try to enter their room yesterday night at 3 am? The 3 girls were very afraid, they did not dare to tell this to others. That night, the girls were unable to sleep. Once they closed their eyes, they could see Girl 4 waving her hands at them at the bottom of the river. At 3 am, the strange footsteps returned at the corridor. The 3 girls widened their eyes. The lock was jimmied with again. The sound was like a hand closing over the girls’ hearts. They were fearful and no one dared to get down from bed. They curled up under the sheet. The door remained closed but soon there was a series of knocking. It carried a certain rhythm with it.

The knocking fell on the girls’ heart. They started to complain about each other, to push the blame onto the next but that did nothing to lessen the fear in their hearts. The key was once again inserted into the keyhole but this time, after a few turns, the door opened. The door knocked into the table which blocked behind it. Someone was standing outside the door!

Unable to stand it anymore, one of the girls screamed at the top of her lungs. The lights on the corridor flickered and soon the hostel manager’s voice arrived. The auntie thought something had happened so she came to check up on the girls. When the girls heard the hostel manager, they quickly moved the table away. The girls did not want to reveal the horrible deeds that they had done, so they merely said that Girl 4 had returned. The hostel manager resisted her urge to roll her eyes at these young girls. She comforted them half-heartedly before she went back to the office.

After the hostel manager left, the girls replaced the door. For some reason, the strange footsteps disappeared. The 3 girls finally relaxed. They were exhausted from their high-strung emotions. They slowly drifted off to bed.

But in their dreams, the footsteps returned to haunt them. However, this time the footsteps did not echo outside the corridor but inside Room 304. One of the girls opened her eyes blurrily and she heard something rustling inside the room. She turned her eyes to the source and her entire body froze.

There was a figure standing beside Bed No. 4. Her entire body was dripping wet, her soaked clothes stuck against her skin. The pretty face which was the other girls’ object of jealousy had been ruined beyond recognition.