“Did you find anything?” Both Lee Guo Er and Xiao Jia could sense the change in Han Fei’s mood.
“Brother, weren’t we talking about the sedan ghost? Why are you bringing up something else instead?” Xiao Jia was confused.
“I will change every time I come to Happiness Neighborhood. The chaos in my heart will quiet down. Sentimentality will overcome rationality to consider things I normally won’t.” Han Fei held the paper doll’s eye and refused to let go.
“Then, your house maybe is really here. Perhaps we can come back in daylight to see if you can remember anything.” Lee Guo Er didn’t know Han Fei for long, but she treated him sincerely. Without knowing it, she had taken him as someone important to her.
“Alright.” Han Fei didn’t want to lead Lee Guo Er and Xiao Jia into danger.
“Actually, we’re really lucky tonight not to run into any Malice.” Lee Guo Er sighed. “Normally, I would go hide like a rat after 1 am. But tonight, I was driving down the street openly with twenty extra points.”
“I will help you clear the game,” Han Fei promised again.
“Are you sure you won’t regret it? If the reward is a wish granted. Are you sure you will give that chance to me?” Lee Guo Er knew that she could get that many points were due to Han Fei, so there were things she had to clarify.
“Don’t get your hopes up. What if the reward is having your memory wiped out?” Han Fei didn’t want to lie to Lee Guo Er.
“If it’s a punishment, I’ll take it. But if it’s a great benefit, I’ll never forget your part.” Lee Guo Er promised.
“What about me?” Xiao Jia raised his hand, but the taxi sunk into silence. “It feels like you’re purposely isolating me…”
“You’ll get the reward too.” Han Fei didn’t want to continue this conversation. He hid Company inside his sleeve and closed his eyes to rest.
The first ray of the sun rose over the horizon. The darkness faded away. Han Fei’s group survived the night.
“Player 00…”
The voice in his mind echoed. Han Fei opened the door. “Come on. Let’s go. This neighborhood shouldn’t be that scary in the day.” Han Fei stretched as he took in the morning air. The oppressive pressure disappeared. Everything was back to normal.
“Strange, why are the paper money and flowers still on the ground? Are they not an illusion?” Xiao Jia pointed at the alley between Building 1 and Building 10. The trail the sedan passed was covered in paper money. The trail was marked with rows of white candles.
“The flower children were standing exactly where the white candles are.” Han Fei picked up a white candle. “The white candle gives me a familiar feeling.”
“Don’t touch these things.” Lee Guo Er parked the car. The three entered Happiness Neighborhood around dawn. They walked down the alley and stood before Building 1. The dark red sky had returned to normal. The neighborhood now looked old and decrepit.
“I can’t believe the city has a neighborhood so old.” Xiao Jia came here for the first time. He still didn’t understand the severity of the situation.
“The white candles were arranged all the way to the door of Building 1. It’s like a guide. The sedan yesterday entered through this path, right?” Lee Guo Er stood beside Han Fei nervously.
“Yes.” Han Fei removed his mask. He looked at the old building and strode in.
“But what was the meaning of the ritual yesterday night?” Xiao Jia followed behind Han Fei. He was confused. “Did the bride we saw yesterday marry a man in this building?”
Han Fei ignored Xiao Jia. He walked forward. Even the height of each step was very familiar to him like he had raced up and down these stairs many times.
“Is my home really here?” Everything was so familiar and strange. This was the greatest pain of an amnesiac. Han Fei touched the doodling on the wall and stopped when he reached the 3rd floor.
An old man with a wrinkled face was sweeping the white candles before his door to the side. He grumbled. “Why haven’t they sent him to the hospital yet? Before he goes crazy, I’ll lose my mind first.”
“Sir, do you live here?” Han Fei hid Company. His real question was, are you a man or a ghost?
“Isn’t that a given? Why else would I be cleaning these things?” The elder had a temper. “I must be so unlucky to live at a place like this.”
“Sir, did you leave behind the candles on the floor? These are… fire hazard.” Han Fei didn’t act. Strangely enough, he felt like a community manager to the people here.
“Do you think I’m that crazy? They are left behind by the dummy on the fifth floor!”
“The tenant on the fifth floor?” Han Fei was intrigued. “But why?”
“You won’t believe me, but there used to be a couple living on the fifth floor. They got in a car accident. The girl died, and the man became a vegetable.” The old man started to tell the story. “The man was an orphan. He had no parents. He had saved quite a lot from his own hard work. After he became a cripple, his distant relatives and people from the charity center came to look after him.”
“Isn’t that quite warm?”
“Warm?” The old man sneered. “They were only after his money. Neither party cared about him. In fact, they even got into a fight over his custody.”
“So who won in the end?” Han Fei asked.
“The distant relatives won.” The old man sighed. “The family looked normal on the surface, but they were awful people. They barely treated the man as a human being.”
“No one stopped them?”
“No one knew, so how could anyone stop them? His relatives were polite to everyone. Who would have thought they would torture the man after they took over his house. They stabbed him with needles and dropped him on the ground. These were just the things we knew. Who knew what else we didn’t know.” The old man furrowed his brows.
“Then how did you find out about this? His relatives got captured by the police?”
“Captured? They all died!” The old man lowered his voice. There was a chill wind in the corridor.
“On the seventh night of his girlfriend’s death, the man’s relatives were killed. The police said they hadn’t encountered such a ghastly case for a long time already.” No one said anything so the old man continued, “I heard from the police that once they entered the room, they could hear laughter. It was the crippled man laughing. Can you imagine it? He had lost his ability to control his muscle, but he was laughing in the midst of his relatives’ bodies.”
“That is quite weird.” Han Fei nodded.
“No one knew what happened. Everyone guesses that it was his girlfriend who returned. She saw they were torturing her boyfriend. In her anger, she killed everyone.” The old man shook his head. “But of course, this is just a rumor.”
“And then? What happened to the man?”
“He died. He died on the same night the police came. According to legends, he was still laughing when he died. His eyes were fixed at a specific direction.” The old man then turned back to his cleaning.
“Since the man is dead, who placed these candles? Is there a new tenant on the fifth floor?” Han Fei was confused. In this city, the rituals had power.
“That’s right.” The old man nodded. “No one wants to get close to that haunted house. But some crazy man bought it, moved in, and kept doing these crazy things every night!”
1 comment:
laughter is everywhere
thank you for the chapter, Lonelytree!
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