Chapter 11 A gloomy old house

　　I went to the cafeteria, packed some food, and brought it back to accompany Fang Yingwen in eating it. However, Fang Yingwen didn't eat a single bite.

　　She stared at the ceiling with a pair of vacant, lifeless eyes.

　　After I finished my meal, I comforted Fang Yingwen a few more times, urging her to eat something since skipping meals wasn't good for her health.

　　When I was about to leave the Household Registration Section, Fang Yingwen called out to me, "Jay, I think I need to tell you what exactly happened to my niece."

　　"I'm all ears," I said, sitting back down.

　　Then, with an obvious sense of fear, Fang Yingwen began to tell me her niece's story, which left me utterly astonished.

　　Fang Yingwen's niece was named Fang Zijun. They say a niece takes after her aunt, and Fang Zijun was almost the spitting image of Fang Yingwen. With her delicate eyebrows and big eyes, she was a very pretty girl. Although she was only sixteen, she had a well-developed figure. Her family kept a strict eye on her, fearing that she might get into trouble with bad boys outside.

　　Perhaps it was due to this overly strict upbringing that Fang Zijun had a slightly rebellious streak. She was curious about and eager to participate in things she hadn't tried in real life. Just a few days ago, she and a few classmates had played a terrifying spiritual game.

　　Here's how the game was played: You needed 6 to 10 people, preferably more girls since they were considered to have a stronger yin energy. Then, find a room that didn't get much sunlight and have everyone enter after dark. Assign numbers to each person and draw lots to determine the order. Everything should happen naturally to avoid human interference.

　　You could have lights on inside the room and outside as well, but there shouldn't be too much foot traffic outside. Person number 1 would first open the door, go out, close it, face the door, count silently to ten, and then knock three times. Person number 2 would open the door to let person number 1 in, then go out and close the door again.

　　This continued in sequence. When opening and closing the door, those inside the room shouldn't make a noise or get too close to the door, keeping a distance of five steps. Eventually, when a certain person opened the door for the one waiting outside, something unexpected would appear behind that person. It was crucial not to close the door; otherwise, the person outside would be in mortal danger.

　　Once the people inside saw the ghost, they shouldn't scatter and run but should blow outwards together until the ghost was no longer visible. The person outside shouldn't turn around, and the one opening the door shouldn't leave the door's side.

　　Fang Zijun was number 5. When it was her turn to open the door, she clearly saw that person number 4 outside had a woman with only half a face perched on her back. The other half of the woman's face was charred black, giving off an indescribably eerie and terrifying vibe. In a state of extreme fear, Fang Zijun completely forgot the game's taboos and instinctively slammed the door shut with a "bang".

　　"When everyone reopened the door, person number 4 outside was nowhere to be found. They hurried to search for her but couldn't find her anywhere. Instead, they lost track of Fang Zijun..."

　　At this point, the fear on Fang Yingwen's face grew more intense. I quickly poured her a glass of water and told her to take a breather.

　　"Fang, did you hear all this from Fang Zijun's classmates?" I asked after Fang Yingwen had taken a few sips of water and calmed down a bit.

　　Fang Yingwen nodded and said, "Yes. I wouldn't have believed such an absurd story normally, but the problem is that several of her classmates who were in the room at the time all claimed to have seen the woman with only half a face. That made me think there must be something unusual going on."

　　"It's normal to have illusions when it's dark during a game," I tried to comfort Fang Yingwen.

　　Fang Yingwen shook her head, and fear crept back onto her face. After a long pause, she said, "In the morning, I received a call from Fang Zijun. I rode my motorcycle to the sunless room where they had played the game. When I opened the door, I saw Fang Zijun lying on the ground, clutching her throat with both hands, looking extremely agonized. I rushed over to grab her hands, and do you know what I felt?"

　　I stared wide-eyed at Fang Yingwen, who was also staring back at me, breathing heavily, and said word by word, "I felt a pair of invisible hands!"

　　"You must have grabbed Fang Zijun's hands. You were just in a panic and had an illusion," I said, trying to reassure her.

　　"It was definitely not an illusion. Those hands were as cold and hard as thousand-year-old tree roots, while Fang Zijun, a girl, had soft and delicate hands. I recoiled as if electrocuted and actually saw a grayish shadow detach itself from Fang Zijun's body. Then Fang Zijun let go of her own throat.

　　At that moment, my brother also arrived. We rushed Fang Zijun to the hospital. The hospital tests showed that all her vital signs were normal, but she seemed to be in a daze, as if she had been extremely frightened. I didn't dare tell my brother about this incident for fear of scaring and worrying him. But I can't bear the fear all by myself. Jay, you're someone I trust. What do you think about this?"

　　I patted Fang Yingwen on the shoulder, not knowing how to comfort her. Fang Yingwen was a police officer, far more alert than the average person, and it was broad daylight. Even if she had misperceived something with her senses, her eyes shouldn't have been wrong. What was that grayish shadow? I decided to go to the scene and take a look.

　　...

　　A few days later, I arrived at No. 19 Hetong Lane in the southern district of Hongcheng City.

　　This was an old mansion with some history. It had eight floors, with eight rooms on each floor, totaling sixty-four rooms.

　　One of the rooms on the first floor of this mansion was where Fang Zijun and her classmates had played the game. The owner of the room was the father of one of the students who had played the game. After I showed my police badge, he gave me the key to the door.

　　He didn't go inside with me, obviously afraid of something.

　　I asked him, "Did anything happen in this house before?"

　　The man sighed and said, "A few years ago, a migrant worker girl died of carbon monoxide poisoning in this room."

　　I wanted to ask for more details, but the man really didn't know much. He rented out the house and collected the rent every month, rarely interfering otherwise. That migrant worker girl had somehow fallen onto the coal stove, and half of her face had been burned off.

　　Since then, it had been hard to rent out this room. Only a few people who didn't know the full story had rented it for a short period. But once they found out, they had坚决 [firmly; here, we keep the pinyin as it's a direct quote from the original text and conveys a specific tone, and "firmly" gives a close sense] moved out. Now, this room had been unoccupied for three months.

　　I entered the room. All signs indicated that it had been empty for some time. The room was dark and damp, filled with a musty smell.

　　It was noon, and I had taken advantage of my Sunday off to come here and investigate, hoping to find something. But deep down in my soul, I seemed to be avoiding something, which was why I had chosen to come at noon.

　　The room was just dark and damp, with nothing particularly special about it. Moreover, there were neighbors on both sides of the room, and I had already found out that none of them had heard any commotion on the night of the incident.

　　I sat in the room, smoking a cigarette and pondering. I couldn't understand. If only one person had seen the woman with only half a face, it could be explained as a hallucination. But the fact that several classmates had seen her made it truly baffling.

　　"That migrant worker girl fell onto the coal stove, and half of her face was burned off. Could she be the woman with only half a face?"

　　"Could there really be ghosts in this world?"

　　I stood up, startled by my own conjecture. As I looked around the room, in the dim light, I suddenly felt that the furnishings in the room seemed mysterious and elusive.

　　"It's not ghosts; it's just suspicion giving rise to imaginary ghosts!" I convinced myself of this guess.

　　Fang Zijun and her classmates had played this spiritual game out of curiosity and fear. They obviously knew something about the situation of this room. When person number 4 knocked on the door, due to the darkness of the night, there was actually nothing behind him. But from Fang Zijun's perspective, it had caused some kind of visual distortion, making her see the so-called "ghost". Naturally, she subconsciously associated it with the dead migrant worker girl. And the other classmates, influenced by Fang Zijun's description, had also materialized the ghost they subconsciously wanted to see, with the pitiful migrant worker girl with half a burned face becoming the natural carrier of this materialization.

　　"It must be like this!" I walked to the door, slammed it shut and then opened it forcefully. Dust filled the air in the room, and in the dim light, it created grayish shadows.

　　"What Fang saw might have been just the dust raised in this room."

　　Like Sherlock Holmes, I kept generating dust in the room to verify my conclusion.

　　At that moment, my phone rang. It was Zhao Junhua, an auxiliary police officer, and we had always been on good terms.

　　I pressed the answer button, and Zhao Junhua shouted anxiously, "Jay, come quickly! A floating body has been found under the Fuhe Bridge!"