Chapter 3 He pestered me

  The light is too dim, I'm not quite sure what's pressing down on me. The blurry image looks like a person, but this is my basement, with several large iron doors locked outside, and only I have the key. How could anyone possibly get in?!

  Maybe I was just dreaming! Last night, that's how I comforted myself, but I was wrong. When a pair of cold and wide palms stroked my waist all the way to my butt and grabbed it forcefully, my brain suddenly got scared out of its wits. Fear instantly swarmed in my heart like millions of ants crawling around! Now pressing down on me is a man! It's winter now, the chilly sensation tightly clinging to my skin keeps reminding me that this isn't just my imagination!

  My heart was about to jump out of my chest, I wanted to scream but my throat felt like it was blocked by a thick cotton ball, not even a hoarse cry could come out. Although I'm not married yet, even if I really did sleep with another man for one night, it's not unforgivable. But the truth is, I want to keep myself pure for Su Huai Feng! Because I couldn't let Su Huai Feng have any reason to abandon me, if this thing got to his ears, my nearly ten years of feelings would be all for nothing, and I would regret it for a lifetime. But now, I couldn't move or scream, at that moment, the only two words that came out of my mind were: It's over.

  In the second half of the night, I stiffened my nerves and let that man press on me for half a night. I didn't sleep all night. Finally, this morning, when it was almost dawn, that man got up from my body, which had been pressed into a pancake, did nothing, and left in the dark. Tragically, I didn't even see the back of that man!

  I don't understand where this man came from, I was frozen in bed and didn't dare move. It wasn't until he had been gone for a long time that I dared to get out of bed, trembling with fear, and turned on all the lights in the basement. I quickly checked the doors and windows, thinking that maybe it was him who had pried them open. But what I couldn't have imagined was that after searching every nook and cranny of the store's doors and windows, and every floorboard, I didn't find any signs of damage, not even a small hole for a mouse to squeeze through. So how did that man get in last night?!

  I don't dare to imagine what I would do if this man comes in again next time. Even though I'm independent, I'm still a woman and I'll be scared. If something like this happens, I mustn't panic or call the police. If this gets out and reaches Su Huai Feng's ears, his mother will say that I'm not decent and not suitable to marry her noble son. My family is in a small city with strong feudal traditions, if this gets out my parents will lose face. To get to the bottom of this as soon as possible, I need to find some clues quickly.

  That man appeared in my basement, unless he was a ghost, otherwise, he must have left some clues. After I calmed down, I carefully examined the surroundings of the basement, thinking about how that man came and went, but every idea seemed unrealistic. Just when I sat down to rest in despair, I suddenly discovered that on the wooden puppet standing in front of me, there were a few strands of long hair tangled between its fingers. This hair was from a woman, and judging by the color and length of the hair, it was mine!

  In an instant, goosebumps surged up on my back. I couldn't give myself a reason why this hair was stuck in the puppet's fingers yesterday, because the puppet's fingers were closed, and now my hair is neatly wrapped around several of his fingers, tightly grasped by him. Without any external help, the only possibility is that his fingers had opened up and wrapped my hair around his finger joints!

  I was so shocked by this idea that I couldn't speak, and when I looked up at the wooden puppet's face, I saw that its slightly raised lips from yesterday now seemed to be curled up even more, revealing a hint of a smile.

  My heart was racing violently, I was so scared that I couldn't even stand still, and I stumbled to grab my phone to contact Master Wang, wanting to ask him what's going on. But at this moment, Master Wang's phone was unreachable! I was stunned, staring blankly at the eerie wooden puppet in front of me. The drop of blood I had dripped into its eye yesterday still hadn't coagulated, and it looked like a bright red eyeball in its socket. And just as I stood there dazed, I seemed to see that blood-stained red eye move slightly!

  It was as if I had a hallucination, but it felt real, and in an instant, my whole body was electrified. I don't know where the courage came from, or if I was just stunned into madness, but I immediately grabbed the wooden puppet, quickly opened the shop door, and threw it into the car that was loaded with goods. With the fastest speed I've ever driven, I drove to the riverbank on the outskirts of town, without thinking twice, and tossed the puppet into the river. Then, at top speed again, I drove back to the shop. The whole trip, including loading and unloading the puppet, took less than ten minutes! It's a miracle that no one was killed!

  I've never been so excited, even when I saw that girl in the hotel stabbing her own stomach with chopsticks until she died, I wasn't this tense and excited. Now thinking calmly, I lost the wooden puppet, what if people from Ma Ling Slope come to ask me about it? The old folks and kids in that village all think I took the puppet back to the county for research, and they even promised me that if they came to the city, they would definitely come to my store to see the puppet. What should I say to them then? Should I tell them the puppet became a spirit and I threw it into the river? That's definitely not an explanation that will work. If I run into some villagers with ulterior motives, they might even accuse me of selling the puppet at a high price.

  There are all kinds of people in the world, and it's impossible to be too careful. I don't dare guarantee that nothing like this will happen again in the future. After all, this wooden puppet is a treasure for everyone in their village. If they were to demand money from me later on, I would really have no way to explain myself. The thought of spending so much money just because of a wooden puppet is really heart-wrenching. Thinking about it some more, I think it's possible that I was mistaken - how could a wooden puppet possibly move? The hair on his hand must have been something I accidentally left there when I cleaned him yesterday.

  I believe everyone has this mentality, people sometimes are just so cheap, once the wound heals, they forget the pain, and only after suffering a loss do they know to repent. I decided to retrieve the wooden puppet for a sum of money that didn't need to be wasted, and contacted Master Wang, telling him to hurry up and transport it back.

  This month, the sky is cold, and the river water is icy. I went back to the basement, wanting to put on a raincoat for rainy days. However, when I opened the door of the basement, the wooden puppet that I had just thrown into the river was still standing upright in the middle of my basement. Its red eyes stared at me, and its mouth curled up, revealing a strange smile!

  At this moment, I can no longer conceal the panic in my heart, scared to tears, and my whole body is as soft as noodles on the ground. I dare guarantee that I really threw this wooden puppet into the river with my own hands, and there are still water marks on my body from throwing the puppet. But what's going on with this puppet in front of me now? The only explanation is that I've encountered something unclean! And it's even clinging to me!