Chapter 450: I’m Stuck

The “girl” in the mirror had already wrapped herself up again in a bath towel.

Her damp, silvery-white long hair hung down, clinging to her back, with two or three drops of water falling from her round, delicate shoulders. Her skin, white tinged with red, was as tempting as a skillfully made sakura milk pudding.

Whether it was that Lu Yibei wasn’t very skilled at wrapping a woman’s bath towel, or the girl’s figure was simply too impressive, a single towel could never cover everything, always leaving something exposed. Her graceful curves were faintly visible, mingling with the swirling mist in the bathroom, adding a unique allure.

Even with Ms. Wang Meili and Nanling Rao Hua as pearls before, Lu Yibei still felt that the “girl” in the mirror was definitely one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life.

If beautiful women were compared to flowers, Nanling Rao Hua would be a sincere and noble white magnolia, while the “girl” in the mirror would be a gloomy and enchanting red spider lily.

Admiring flowers should be a pleasant thing, but just thinking that this was his own reflection, Lu Yibei felt that the red spider lily had turned into a Lycoris radiata, and he couldn’t be happy at all.

“Goddamn, this is insane. I must still be dreaming, not fully awake yet, right?”

I’m a bona fide tough guy, and yet my reflection in the mirror has turned into a beautiful girl. Is there anything more absurd in this world?

And that sudden hot and cold feeling in my body just now… My body temperature got so high my phone exploded, and yet my proteins didn’t denature. Is that something a normal carbon-based organism could have?

“Sleep, just sleep a bit more and it’ll be fine…”

Standing in front of the mirror, dazed for a long while, his emotions finally calmed down a little. Muttering to himself, he turned and went back to his room, collapsed onto the bed, wrapped himself tightly in the blanket, curling up into a ball.

After lying quietly on the bed for more than ten minutes, a heavy sigh came from under the covers-Lu Yibei.

They say a person pretending to sleep can never be woken up, but while that person can fool others, it’s hard to fool themselves.

Lu Yibei tried to convince himself this was a dream, but his brain kept reminding him that he was wide awake.

Crawling out from under the covers, he went to the bathroom and washed his face with cold water, then looked at himself in the mirror above the sink.

Water droplets slid down his delicate face. He looked at himself in the mirror, hooked his mouth with two fingers, trying to force a smile, but found he simply couldn’t smile.

The scattered memories from last night’s strange dream seemed even clearer now, and their impact on him felt even stronger. In the dream, he couldn’t smile because of facial paralysis, and now, in reality, he truly couldn’t smile.

The famous spiritual leader of Arkham Asylum, Mr. Joker, once said: “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.”

Ever since he had that bizarre dream last night, up to now, Lu Yibei felt he was really about to go crazy.

Lu Yibei went to the living room, turned on the TV, found a comedy variety show, and turned up the volume so the laughter from the TV could fill the whole house, trying to ease his helplessness and anxiety this way.

He dimmed the TV brightness, didn’t turn on the lights, and drew the curtains, letting the darkness hide his shadow.

Returning to the bedroom, he collapsed onto the bed, pulled the quilt over his chest, and stared blankly at the ceiling. His mind felt like it had crashed from overloading, completely blank.

If it were just his reflection in the mirror turning into a girl, he could still accept it-he could just avoid mirrors from now on, since he barely looked in one a few times a week anyway.

But what was even scarier was, when he came out of the bathroom again just now, Lu Yibei had already confirmed it.

Now, even on the windows, the glass doors, and the shadows stretched by the lights, there were those graceful, alluring curves.

Everything he saw seemed to whisper to him, “Even if you think you’re a tough guy, you’re really a beautiful girl.”

Trying to persuade him to give up resisting and accept reality.

Accept my ass, what kind of normal person could accept this?

If he walked down the street on a sunny day, or passed by a glass shop window and someone saw that his shadow didn’t match his actual body at all, what then?

He’d absolutely be treated as a monster, right?! Lu Yibei thought fiercely.

He felt that the doctor was right during the day-even if he didn’t have a mental illness yet, he was about to develop one.

If he’d known, he wouldn’t have thrown away those meds on the way home; maybe he’d need them soon.

After calming down a bit, Lu Yibei began to think quietly.

He still wasn’t sure whether he was hallucinating, or if his shadow had really turned female. If he rashly called the police or went to the hospital for help, he’d definitely be seen as crazy.

He could only first find someone familiar and trustworthy to confirm whether others could also see the abnormal changes happening to him, then figure out how to seek help.

Thinking about whether others could see this, Lu Yibei’s mind drifted back to the girl he met at the crossroads during the day.

That girl, whom no one but him could see, like a ghost.

Right, the ghost!

All the strange things that happened today-could they be haunting incidents? Lu Yibei wondered.

Although he was half an atheist, the kind who’d say, “Left eye twitches for fortune, right eye… screw that superstitious nonsense.”

But in last night’s bizarre dream, haunting incidents appeared again and again, as real as life. If that dream was some kind of projection of reality, maybe hauntings really did exist in this world.

Thinking this way, Lu Yibei suddenly felt that his experiences made sense.

After all, with all this weirdness, either the world had gone mad, or he had. Between the two, he’d much rather believe that something was wrong with the world.

If it were his chuunibyou days, he’d probably have thrown his fist in the air and shouted, “It’s not me who’s wrong, it’s the world!”

But at the same time, a chill crept up his back.

He was a little worried-if everything he’d encountered was because he could suddenly see hauntings, would those terrifying beings come looking for him?

From what he’d gathered in his strange dream, most hauntings were malicious. There was no such thing as “a clear conscience fears no ghost knocking at the door.”

If a haunting wanted to harm someone, all it took was “locking eyes,” a whim, and it would strike.

Except for… that solemn, sacred, towering tree whose name he couldn’t recall for the moment.

Was it called little sister or something?

But how could someone’s little sister be a tree?

His gaze drifted out through the open bedroom door. The house was pitch black, all the furniture reduced to deep, dark silhouettes, as if they might start moving on their own at any moment.

All sounds of human activity were blocked by the tightly drawn curtains.

But those sounds were like stubborn bubbles in water, rising one by one, until they broke the surface and burst into another world, bringing a faint trace of noise.

The TV was still on. As the images shifted, the flickering light was like a giant eye watching in secret, its pale glow spilling across the walnut floor like a layer of frost.

The whole house felt suffocating.

The laughter piped in from the variety show, paired with the speakers, suddenly sounded eerie-utterly lifeless, as if hiding something.

It felt as if “they” weren’t laughing at the comedy, but simply couldn’t hold it in any longer, their laughter laced with mockery for the living.

Lu Yibei stared fixedly toward the living room, not daring to blink, as if the moment he did, something would crawl out of the TV, or a shadow would appear on the sofa.

That shadow would probably be handsome, but have no mouth, and never make a sound.

The longer he stared, the sleepier he became.

Just as Lu Yibei was drifting off, he suddenly remembered a haunting legend an old man in the faculty compound had once told him, one from his hometown.

He’d said that back home, families always had to live together. If someone lived alone for too long, they’d be targeted by something called the “Black Old Lady.”

On a night with no lights, when the person was about to fall asleep, the Black Old Lady would sneak into their home, come to their bedside, and softly hum a lullaby in their ear. If they fell asleep at that moment, the Black Old Lady would suck their brains out through their ear…

The sudden memory of the old man’s haunting legend jolted Lu Yibei awake. He shot up from bed like a carp, instinctively reaching for his phone to call Nanling Rao Hua.

Sure, calling his girlfriend to come over because he was home alone at night, afraid of the dark and hauntings, sounded a little embarrassing, but at this point, he couldn’t care less.

Besides, couldn’t he just make up an excuse?

Like: “Hey, are you free for a drink? Maybe roll around in bed a bit?” Lu Yibei thought.

But when his hand reached for the bedside and found nothing, he suddenly remembered-his phone had exploded earlier that evening.

They were just upstairs and downstairs, yet it felt like an unbridgeable chasm separated them.

“Bang, bang, bang…”

Just as Lu Yibei was hesitating about whether to leave his covers, cross the living room, and go downstairs to find Nanling Rao Hua, a faint sound came from outside the window behind him.

The gentle tapping on the glass was weak and feeble, like… an old lady.

A chill shot down Lu Yibei’s spine, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

He lived on the fifth floor. The bedroom window was locked, and there was no security grille outside.

What kind of being could be outside his window, tapping on the glass?

—-

Half an hour earlier.

In the family housing complex of Hua City University of Technology, a round-faced girl with chestnut hair lay motionless in the greenery of the plaza.

She didn’t move at all, as if she were dead.

Though a berserker’s battle power was astonishing during a rage, it always had its limits.

From sneaking into the complex at dusk until now, over an hour had passed, and Gu Qianqian was at her limit.

The tempting aroma of home-cooked meals drifted through the air, making her mind hazy. In front of her eyes floated images of assorted sausages, crispy rolls, stewed crow, stir-fried mushrooms, fish fillet, fish maw, fish slices, vinegar pork slices, braised pigeon eggs, stir-fried shrimp…

Everything looked like food!

Trembling, she reached out and grabbed a passing stalk of blanched greens, stuffing it into her mouth without hesitation.

Then…

The bitter taste of plant sap exploded in her mouth, snapping her out of her food-induced trance.

“Ptooey, ptooey!!”

She spat out the leaves, gagged a few times, and somehow, the previously lifeless Gu Qianqian regained a bit of strength and perked up.

“Just two buildings left. Come on, Gu Qianqian, you’re about to find Lu Yibei!”

The gentle tapping on the window had gone on for who knows how long, then disappeared the moment Lu Yibei let his guard down.

Suddenly, the only sounds left in the room were the monotonous repetition of TV commercial lines and the ticking of the living room clock.

Yet, this kind of “silence” didn’t relax Lu Yibei at all; instead, his nerves grew even more taut.

The sound outside the window was gone. In the best case, “it” had already left, but in the worst case, “it” had found some way to get inside the house.

Maybe, at this very moment, “it” was hiding in some dark corner of the house, crouching, grinning wickedly as it watched me, waiting for a chance to come to my side and suck my brains out through my ear. Lu Yibei thought.

Creak-!

A faint sound came from the direction of the bathroom.

Lu Yibei’s eyelid twitched violently. He turned his head toward the bathroom, his pupils contracting.

Earlier, when he drew the curtains, he had locked almost every window in the house-except he forgot the bathroom’s ventilation window.

Clack! Clack!

The ventilation window, untouched for a long time, seemed to have rusted hinges. Now, as someone pushed it, it let out a series of grating, tooth-aching noises.

Immediately after, a weak, breathless whisper, as if someone was about to die, drifted out from the bathroom.

“Lu Yibei, I know you’re home. I finally found you…”

“Lu Yibei… I haven’t eaten in so long. I’m so hungry…”

…

That broken, intermittent voice sounded as if it came from a dark, damp, lifeless grave, carrying the whimper of someone on the verge of death, making one’s skin crawl.

Staring toward the bathroom, cold sweat slid down his cheeks, his heart pounding wildly. Lu Yibei didn’t know when he’d stuck his fingers in his mouth, biting down to keep himself from making a sound.

He felt that if he made even the slightest noise, that “thing” calling his name would suddenly burst out of the bathroom.

Stay calm, you must stay calm!

Lu Yibei muttered inwardly. Just then, he suddenly heard that voice say, “Lu Yibei… please help me, my chest is stuck, I’m hanging on the window…”

Lu Yibei: ???

What kind of haunting is this?

So unprofessional?

You can get stuck just climbing a window?

After a few complaints in his heart, Lu Yibei suddenly felt that the fear that “thing” brought him had mostly dissipated.

If it could be this dumb, even if it really was a haunting, it didn’t seem so scary anymore.

Just imagine, if Sadako crawled out of the TV, but got stuck on the TV because her chest was too big-would that still be scary?

Thinking this, Lu Yibei crawled out from under the covers, tiptoed toward the bathroom, then stopped at the door, pressed himself against the wall, and peered inside through the crack.

And then…

He saw the “female ghost” with the familiar face, hanging from the ventilation window.

Huh? Isn’t that the one from earlier today?

I pretended not to see her and left, and she actually followed me home!

Thinking this, Lu Yibei calmly bent down, reached under the bathroom shelf by the door, picked up the toilet plunger he hadn’t used in ages, took a deep breath, turned on the light, and pushed the door open in one go.

—-

When she was little, Gu Qianqian’s older brother once told her that as long as your head could fit through, your body could squeeze through too.

Gu Qianqian had always kept this in mind, until she tried to climb through the ventilation window in Lu Yibei’s bathroom and realized her brother might have been wrong.

She was stuck.

After calling out for a long time and thinking Lu Yibei wasn’t home, and even preparing herself to hang on the window all night, the bathroom light suddenly came on.

A figure flashed in from outside the bathroom, holding a Broken Sword, and walked straight up to knock her on the head.

Duang, duang, duang-!

After three dull thuds, her vision went black, and she lost consciousness…