“Is anyone there?”

“Is anyone there, ah? Mr. Wei? Mr. Wen?”

“Huh? The door is open? Ah! Ouch…..it’s so dark, ah…..”

The young guard accidentally bumps into something, and when he avoids it, he steps on some shards of glass and almost slips.

The interior structures of these houses are mostly the same, and the guards have received sufficient on-the-job training in advance, so they are relatively proficient at finding the indoor light switches.

There is a click, but no change in the room.

Is the light broken?

It is a dark and windy night, and the villa is filled with bottomless darkness. The owner of the villa had been laying in the attic asking for help, and the courtyard door has layers and layers of locks. In contrast, the house door is completely unlocked, there is broken glass on the ground, the lights aren’t working…..

This all looks unusual, and the young guard smells danger. His expression becomes serious as he looks around warily. He tries to call the captain and tell him to send more manpower, but finds that his mobile phone has lost signal.

He chooses the pager, but finds that this thing also doesn’t have a signal.

“Damn it!”

There is no telling what kind of danger lurks in the dark rooms. The young guard curses and turns on the high-power flashlight with a scowl.

In an instant, bright light pierces the darkness like a sword.

The interior on the first floor is quiet, but for some reason a glass bowl is broken at the door with water flowing everywhere. There is a quilt thrown on the sofa, all the drawers in the room have been thrown on the ground, and things are scattered in a mess.

“Holy shit, a home invasion?!”

The bold young man walks into the room with his baton and checks the first floor. Then he turns his eyes to the second floor and shouts loudly.

“I’m telling you — I have a one hundred thousand volt electric baton that can electrocute you! If you have any sense, release the owner immediately. Otherwise, I’ll teach you a lesson first and then call a bunch of people over!”

It is silent upstairs.

The guard shines his flashlight toward the second floor, and at that moment, the flashlight suddenly goes out.

The young guard stares at his flashlight in confusion, absolutely speechless. “Society is so messed up. How can the things provided by such a big company be worse than garbage?”

He throws the flashlight to the ground haphazardly and walks toward the second floor with the electric baton.

At this moment, a faint sound comes from the second floor.

When he walks up quickly, he finds that the second floor is even darker than the first floor. In desperation, he chooses to use his mobile phone for light.

The weak light of the mobile phone sweeps across the dark second floor corridor.

Exquisite oil paintings are hung in the corridor. This is a gallery. In addition to these Western oil paintings, there are also Eastern ink paintings. If someone was invited in by the owner during the day, this would be a feast of art, but now in the dark environment, the people in these paintings make the atmosphere a bit eerie.

The paintings look like ghosts waiting for an unsuspecting human.

The young man senses an unusual atmosphere in the air and suddenly begins to feel nervous. Standing on the stairs, he is a little afraid to go that way, but there is no signal on his mobile phone and his pager seems to be dead.

Then he discovers that the doors to these rooms are all open, so he boldly checks them one after another.

“Is anyone there?”

“Is there nobody here, ah?”

“Why is this house so big…..”

In fact, from the moment he entered this house, he’s had an anxious feeling in his heart that is hard to describe. It isn’t the sort of fear he would feel toward a heinous criminal, but a creepy feeling that is difficult to name.

He doesn’t understand why, but instinct causes him to look around warily, his hand holding the baton already wet with sweat.

Suddenly, a subtle sound comes from the room on his right.

“Who is it!”

The young man turns his head quickly with a gulp, regretting that he had walked in alone.

His sixth sense tells him that there is something wrong with this house!

It is as if something has been watching him ever since he came in.

How supernatural!

He shines his phone light around, but sees nothing.

Only the figures in the oil paintings on the wall with their differently-shaped eyes open, laughing or happy, sad or angry, and shocked or frightened.

He tentatively walks toward the room on the right with the electric baton in his hand already raised, ready to attack at any time.

Although his biological instincts scream at him to run away, he enters the room out of duty and conscience.

Swish.

A draft blows countless pieces of drawing paper at him, and the white papers whirl in the wind like a flock of frightened white doves.

When the wind stops, there is nothing.

“Huff, huff, huff, ha…..fuck, fuck, that scared me to death…..”

The young man breathes a sigh of relief, his body feeling a bit weak. He wipes his face and sits down on the floor to take a rest and contact the captain.

So he takes his phone out to examine its situation.

But it still has no signal, and still doesn’t work after restarting.

He clicks it randomly in anger, and can’t help scolding the company for taking so much money from the owners and giving them junk. In the end, he gives up.

After his eyes stay on the phone for a while, they are drawn to something else, and his gaze follows his instincts to slowly…..slowly……

Fall to his side.

Wait.

What…..is this?

It is so dark that it is difficult to see clearly. He rubs his eyes.

This is…..

A pair of legs??

There is somebody standing next to him!

Terrified, he immediately turns over and stood up, and a figure quickly passes by him.

There is actually a person!

Who is it? A criminal?

“Stop!” He runs after the figure and kicks open the room it had flashed into…..

. . . . . .

I don’t know where I am, or when I lost consciousness.

My body and soul seem to be bound.

It seems like someone is calling out to me, but I can’t understand.

But his noise revives my soul a little. I take a deep breath, open my mouth, and my body instinctively begins to gasp violently.

It’s as if I’m beginning to exist in this world again. The feeling in my limbs is starting to return.

All of my limbs hurt a lot. It isn’t a severe pain like something is broken, but soreness. I don’t know why, and can’t remember what I experienced.

I feel very uncomfortable inside and outside of my body.

Out of instinct, I put my hands on my stomach to relieve the discomfort, but can’t figure it out.

The noisy sound nearby slowly amplifies in my mind.

“Mr. Wei! Mr. Wei, how are you?”

It seems like someone is pinching me, and my upper lip hurts.

“It’s strange, you just ran away so fast, so why are you unconscious now?”

“Wake up! Are you still alive?”

He lays me flat on the ground again and presses hard on my heart to perform CPR on me. Now my chest hurts too.

I didn’t die, but I was tormented.

And I finally awake from the torment.

When I wake up, I’m lying on the floor in my favorite pajamas, and the person holding me up is an unfamiliar young man. He looks around nineteen or twenty years old, and his face is still very immature.

If I were clear-headed, I would immediately recognize the guard uniform he is wearing, and that he should be a patrolling guard here. But my mind is numb, so I just lay there and stare at him blankly.

When he sees that I’m awake, he also stares at me blankly.

“You…..” In the darkness, I see him scratching his head in embarrassment. His young face seems to turn a little red. “Is your family not here? Let me take you to the hospital, are you hurt anywhere? Someone said they saw you asking for help. Mr. Wei, what’s wrong with you?”

It’s like I’m a half-dead plant, and as his series of concerned inquiries swirl around in my mind, I can only understand the sentence “take you to the hospital.”

Take me away?

As if suddenly coming to life, I grab his hand and beg him: “Take me out…..”

When I open my mouth, I realize that my voice is very weak and hoarse.

“Okay.” The young man helps me up and half-carries me out.

At this time, a gust of wind blows by. I don’t dare to think about what it was, but my body begins to tremble in a familiar way.

Realizing that I’m shivering, the young man asks conscientiously: “Are you cold? Mr. Wei.”

He puts me on the floor and walks toward the door without waiting for me to stop him. “There seemed to be clothes in the next room. I’ll get some for you. Don’t run around, your house seems to have been robbed.”

Having said this, he walks out. I try to stop him, but his steps are too fast. I put my hands on the floor and stare at his back, intending to wait for him to return.

But the moment he walks out the door, I suddenly see a tall black figure appear next to him.

The figure slowly takes a step forward. His skin is cold and white, his features deep, his lips raised without a smile. However, such a handsome face is expressionless at the moment, looking down at the young man beside him with his gaze lowered condescendingly, his crow-black eyes the same color as the darkness.

Then he smiles at me, opening and closing his lips in silent words.

“I hate him.”

His figure disappears in the next second, and a huge oil painting suddenly falls from the air like the sharp blade of a guillotine.

When he hears the noise, the unknowing young man subconsciously looks up.

And right above his face, an oil painting weighing several dozen kilograms is about to hit his head.

“Ah—-”

“Stop!!”

. . . . . . . 

At the last second, I bend over the young man’s body.

The oil painting misses us strangely and hits the ground, its frame shattering instantly as it makes a huge crater in the marble floor. The loud noise practically shatters my eardrums.

The young guard is stunned and can’t rise from the floor for a long moment. “…..Was a screw loose?”

He is truly a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers. He only freezes for a moment before he helps me up, panting in shock. “This house is dangerous. Let me take you to the hospital first.”

After speaking, he prods his phone again.

“Why is there no phone signal in this place, ah?! So supernatural…..”

The last sentence stimulates me, and I push him away with all my strength. “Go, leave me alone.”

“How can I do that?!” He doesn’t understand, and stubbornly intends to take me to the hospital.

I am touched by his kindness, but this is not something I can decide. So I push him away hard, suppress the sadness in my heart, and turn around to refuse firmly: “You go away, I don’t need your help!”

He is a little confused when he sees me suddenly turn my back on him. “Why?”

Because if you stay any longer, you will die.

I have no way to tell him this. In desperation, I can only say to him in the most serious tone I have ever used throughout years of classes: “I don’t need your help. Please leave quickly, or I will call the police.”

Students will smile playfully at me most of the time, but are sometimes afraid of my serious appearance.

He is several years younger than my students, and is clearly dumbfounded.

“Mr. Wei…..”

“Leave!”

Seemingly hurt, the young man turns around and walks away.

Before leaving, he says to me: “I hope you’re okay, but I’m still going to come back.”

“Don’t ever come back,” I say.

I’m sorry.

After witnessing his ferocity and unblinking killing intent, I know that relying on others to enter the house and take me away is a very dangerous and harmful thing.

I must escape on my own.

After the man leaves, soft footsteps ring out and stop beside me…..

I don’t know how long it took, but it is dawn.

When the sunlight comes in, I still maintain my curled-up position, body and mind having become numb through a self-protection mechanism.

I just experienced the most terrifying and tormenting night of my life.

It is like part of my soul has been taken away. My mind is confused, my head muddled, and I can’t even remember what I just experienced. But from start to finish, I grit my teeth and remember one important thing, because it gives me a new hope.

At seven o’clock in the morning, the first rays of sunlight rise.

My husband’s impersonator abruptly stands, gives me a deep look, and then moves backward step by step.

Then he turns around and walks downstairs as if he can’t control himself.

I notice that something is wrong with him. He doesn’t seem to be moving of his own free will.

I realize something and use all of my strength to get up and follow him down. Then I see him walk outside and close the door with his own hands.

The moment the door closes, I see his bottomless eyes, filled with gloom and anger.

I fear that this is one of his methods of playing with me, so I sit in the corner of the stairway and watch him closely.

Hour after hour passes, and neither of us speak through the door.

Then my brain starts working and I recall our days together.

No matter what we went through during the night, whether it was pleasant or a quarrel, I wouldn’t see him the next day. When I thought he was Mingcheng, I thought this was an indication of him working seriously. 

But if not…..

Perhaps…..I think that perhaps I’ve found another constraint for him in this world.

Or a rule that must be followed.

. . . . . . .

July 27th.

I am home alone, planning my escape.

My husband has gone to work, but I know he actually hasn’t.

He is outside the door looking through the peephole at me, watching me all day long.

At 5:25 in the afternoon, he will open the door and enter the house.

I must escape.

Because he is not my husband. He is an imposter, and not only is he pretending to be my husband, but he is not a human being.

Now, I have three plans…..

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Chapter 13 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 15