After a long bout of anxious thought, Jiang Chenxin still couldn’t come up with any leads. Her knowledge of ghosts was limited to horror movies and ghost stories. She couldn’t even be sure whether what she had seen was really a ghost—after all, there was no one she could discuss it with.
“Well, I might as well go online and see if I can find someone who knows something.”
She chose a popular message board and posted:
[Urgent! Seeking anyone in the know: Did a girl at Nanan University ever hang herself in a dorm room?]
If she openly said she might have seen a ghost, the thread would probably just become a joke. It was better to ask from another angle.
To her disappointment, only a handful of replies appeared, and most contained nothing useful.
2nd floor: Just marking my spot.
3rd floor: Here to bump the thread.
4th floor: Little sis, want to have sex? Add me on QQ for a video chat: xxxxxxxx.
5th floor: If it benefits…
6th floor: …the nation.
…
11th floor: You people are always trying to make some big news and tear me apart. What kind of stunt is this?
12th floor: Huh?
13th floor: Are you really a student at Nanan University? I’m an alumnus from way back; I graduated more than ten years ago. When I was still a student, a girl in our department really did hang herself in her dorm. The school kept the news tightly under wraps, though, so I don’t know much about the details.
When Jiang saw that reply, she immediately perked up and hurriedly sent the user a private message. As luck would have it, he was online too.
In their private chat, Jiang used the username Witty Little Fish, while the alumnus went by No. 1 Fat Otaku.
Witty Little Fish: “Hey, bro, are you there?”
No. 1 Fat Otaku: “Yeah. What’s up?”
Witty Little Fish: “Could you tell me more about that hanging incident?”
No. 1 Fat Otaku: “Oh, that? I was a third-year environmental engineering student at the time. I heard from my classmates that a girl from our department had hanged herself in her dorm. But the school kept the matter tightly sealed, so I know very little. And it’s been so many years—I can’t remember much anymore.”
Witty Little Fish: “Do you remember which building it happened in?”
No. 1 Fat Otaku: “It’s been fifteen years. I really can’t remember the details. Maybe it was one of the women’s dorm buildings on the west side? But I do remember that my counselor back then was Cao Cenrong. She handled the incident, so she should know everything.”
Witty Little Fish: “Can’t you tell me anything else?”
No. 1 Fat Otaku: “That girl and I only happened to be in the same major, so we weren’t close. And it’s been so many years that I can’t even remember her name.”
Apparently, the other user really didn’t know much more. After chatting for a few more messages, he said he had something to do and logged off.
Cao Cenrong’s information was easy to find on the university’s official website. It turned out she had been transferred to the General Affairs Office five years earlier, and both her office location and phone number were listed.
But it was already the middle of the night, so she certainly wouldn’t be in the office to answer a call. It would be better to go find her in person tomorrow and ask about what had happened back then.
After closing her laptop, Jiang lay restlessly in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling light above her.
Would something happen to Yingying and the others? She had already told them everything she could, but they simply refused to believe her. If she kept insisting, people would only take her for a madwoman.
The image of the female ghost’s neck, more than half a meter long, suddenly flashed before her eyes again, along with the terrifying, twisted grin barely visible beneath the veil of her long hair. She shuddered and hurriedly pulled the quilt tightly around herself.
As midnight approached, the lights in the residential building’s windows went out one by one. Sleepiness swept over Jiang Chenxin, but the night wind outside seemed strangely cold and desolate.
She got out of bed and closed all the windows in the living room and kitchen, then crawled back under the covers. She placed her phone on the nightstand, yawned widely, switched off the bedside lamp, and went to sleep…
* * *
“Ring… ring… ring…”
In the middle of the night, the phone on her nightstand suddenly rang, each note like a death knell.
Jiang Chenxin woke with a start and rubbed her bleary eyes, wondering who would call at such an hour. When she picked up the phone, she was surprised to see that it was her best friend, Zhou Ziying.
It was already three in the morning. Why wasn’t Yingying asleep?
As soon as she answered, a piercing buzz blasted from the phone. Wincing, Jiang covered her ears and pulled the phone away, then switched on speakerphone. A familiar voice came through immediately, panting hard:
“Xiaoxin, you know something, don’t you? You have to know!…”
Most of Jiang’s sleepiness vanished.
“Hello? Hello? Yingying, slow down! What happened?”
The next moment, another burst of noise erupted from the other end. Through it, she could vaguely make out several girls screaming. The despair and terror in their voices were so intense that Jiang could feel them even over the phone, and her body began trembling uncontrollably.
She could only shout into the phone:
“Yingying, what happened? Tell me!”
But the din on the other end grew worse, like a radio with terrible reception. The voices were almost impossible to make out, though some strange sound seemed to be mixed in with the girls’ screams.
Just as anxiety and panic overtook her, every sound vanished at once, as if someone had suddenly switched off a radio.
*Had the call been disconnected? Then why did the screen still say “In Call”?*
Suddenly, an icy, rasping voice drifted over. It did not sound as if it came from the phone’s receiver. It was more like something had attached itself to her ear and was whispering there:
“I… want… you… hee hee hee hee…”
With a clack, the phone fell from Jiang Chenxin’s hand. Its screen displayed: “Call Ended.”
She was wide awake now. Panicking, she hurriedly changed into outdoor clothes and threw on a jacket, preparing to rush back to Room 414.
The university had a nighttime curfew, but her campus card and a signature would be enough to get her inside. Then she could wake the dorm supervisor and have her accompany Jiang there to see what had happened.
Because everything had happened so suddenly, she didn’t even have time to fix her tousled hair. She slipped on a pair of sneakers and reached for the door.
But just as her hand closed around the doorknob, a knock sounded from outside.
Tap, tap, tap, tap…
The knocks were very soft, but in the silent night they sounded unnervingly clear.
Jiang pulled her hand back.
Who would come over at this hour? Could it be Sister Duan, the older woman she shared the apartment with? Probably not. She had only just left on a business trip; there was no way she could be back so soon. Besides, she had a key and wouldn’t need to knock like this.
One of her friends? Definitely not. Only her three roommates knew she’d moved here, and she’d just spoken to them on the phone.
Then it might be one of Sister Duan’s friends. But why would anyone come at this hour?
“Excuse me, who is it? Are you one of Sister Duan’s friends?”
Tap, tap, tap, tap…
There was no answer. Four more soft knocks followed.
Jiang was a young woman, after all; she wasn’t careless enough to open the door for a stranger in the dead of night. She repeated patiently:
“Who are you, exactly? If you don’t tell me, I won’t open the door.”
Still no answer. Four more knocks followed, this time a little harder, their sound echoing again and again down the empty corridor.
At that moment, Jiang suddenly realized something. The apartment building had controlled access at its main entrance, and only residents had keys. How had the person outside gotten in? Or did the visitor live in this building too?
While she was thinking, four more knocks came, harder than before.
A sliver of fear crept into her heart and spread rapidly like poison.
Why did the person outside keep knocking without answering? And who would come knocking at three in the morning?
*The peephole!*
There was a peephole in the middle of the door, with a small metal cover on the inside. Sliding the cover aside would let her see what was happening outside.
But if she already knew whatever was outside might be something evil, did she really dare look?
Tap, tap, tap, tap…
This time the knocks were much louder, echoing again and again through the silent, hollow night.
Jiang Chenxin’s face was pale as she looked down at the phone in her pocket. Something had happened to Zhou Ziying and the others. She had to get back. If she wanted to return to campus, she had to get out through this door first.
Concern for her friends temporarily pushed down the fear in her heart. Trembling, she lifted the small cover over the peephole and tried to peer outside.
The hallway was pitch-black. She couldn’t see a thing.
Something was wrong. Where was the motion-sensor light? Every floor in this building had one, and the sensors were extremely sensitive. She had confirmed that herself when she came home earlier.
Why hadn’t the light reacted, no matter how loudly the visitor knocked?
The next instant, a blood-red eyeball filled Jiang Chenxin’s entire field of vision.
A shrill, eerie cackle followed, as grating as fingernails scraping across a blackboard.
“Aah!”
Jiang Chenxin let out a scream and stumbled backward several steps, all the way to the living-room wall.
The knocking outside suddenly became rapid and frantic.
No—at that volume and force, it was no longer knocking. It was pounding on the door, as if someone outside were wielding a hammer and smashing it over and over like a madman.
The thick, sturdy security door shook like a sieve, and a violent barrage of thuds thundered in her ears like a summons from death.
Jiang had no idea what color her face had turned. Her calves had gone weak, and she could barely stay on her feet with one hand braced against the wall.
Why? There were so many residents in this building—why wasn’t a single person reacting? Why was everything outside the living-room window pitch-black, as if it had been covered by a sheet of black cloth? What kind of ghostly thing was outside her door?
The immense terror gnawed at her sanity. Summoning the last of her strength, she dashed into the bedroom and shut the door tight behind her.
The moment she got inside, the pounding at the front door stopped dead. Jiang leaned against the bedroom door, switched on the light, and patted her chest, still too shaken to calm down.
Since she had only just moved in, the bedroom was still rather bare. The basic furniture was all there, though, probably left by the previous tenant.
A large pink curtain hung before the window, covered in tiny floral prints. The previous tenant seemed to have been a girl as well.
Along with the neatly arranged desk and bed, clean floor, and bright ceiling light, it made the small bedroom feel warm and peaceful.
Just as Jiang began to relax a little, an eerie shadow appeared behind the curtain.
It slowly crept upward. At first there was only an oval shape. Then a long, slender support appeared beneath it, resembling a human arm lifting something up.
Or rather, it looked like the woman who had hanged herself in the dorm—the one with the impossibly long neck.
In the next instant, the oval that seemed to be a head began smashing into the window. The glass vibrated violently beside her ears.
“Aaaah!”
Unable to stop herself, Jiang Chenxin screamed and curled into a ball by the door.
This was the ninth floor! What could possibly climb up nine stories and knock on the window?
The impacts grew stronger. The bedroom floor began to tremble, and the window glass seemed ready to shatter at any moment.
If the thing outside got in… Jiang Chenxin didn’t dare imagine what would happen, but she was powerless to stop it.
She was just an ordinary first-year college student. The only things that really set her apart were probably her good grades and pretty face; when it came to ghosts and monsters, she knew absolutely nothing.
All she could do now was sit by the door, trembling violently. Her roommates had nearly slipped from her mind. Only one thought remained:
*I have to survive. I have to live. I don’t want to die!*
