Chapter 3 Nightmare Comes Knocking

  Just then, I heard the "thud" sound coming from the other village, the sound was not loud, but it was quite dense, feeling like there were many people moving wood over there. However, there was no voice of anyone speaking, only the occasional collision of those woods. Is someone there? Impossible! When we entered the village, there was no one else inside. If you say that one or two or three or four people are still alive, it is also impossible to make such a dense sound of moving wood.

  Among them, there was even the sound of rolling logs. That beam is so heavy that even if it had been burned, it should still be very heavy. What moved it? It's impossible for one person to do it alone. If it were multiple people, why wasn't there any sound of voices?

  The "dada" sound of knocking on wood grew louder. It seemed that the things moving around in the village were also increasing in number.

  He looked over there and I followed suit. In the darkness, all I could see were a few blurry figures emerging from the ruins.

  Suddenly my head got big and I was stunned. What were those under the ruins? Living people? Corpses? Ghosts?

  Not only did we see this scene, but the boss on the other side of the bonfire also saw it. Ah Beng pushed me towards the boss and said: "Go stop him! Don't let him pass!"

  I was so scared that my legs were trembling, but I still ran towards the boss. "Boss! Boss! Don't go over there!"

  The boss's gaze was fixed on the figure in the darkness, which was hard to make out. Without even looking at me, he yelled: "She's over there! She's over there! Let me through!"

  "Don't go! Don't go! That side is all dead people! They're all dead already! Boss, don't go!" I'm just a girl, how can I possibly hold back such a big man? All I could do was hug him tightly with my own body to stop him from walking that way. At the same time, I cried anxiously, perhaps it's more accurate to say I cried out of fear.

  Those corpses that crawled out from under the ruins of the village, one by one, stood up. It was too dark, I couldn't see where they went at all. I could only vaguely feel that they were moving, moving in another direction, and finally disappeared completely into the darkness.

  And in the last of these disappearing corpses, I saw the figure of that Ah Beng. He was dressed differently from others and he walked past from behind that tree not far from us. I'm sure that black shadow was him. He followed those corpses and disappeared into the darkness.

  That night, I couldn't remember what happened later. All I knew was that the boss knelt down on the ground crying, and I also fell beside him crying.

  When daylight broke, I woke up. The boss didn't insist on entering the village to search anymore, but instead took us back and got on the train, returning to D City. In front of us, the ruins of that village already had very obvious signs of being disturbed by someone. Maybe the boss had already accepted that his girlfriend was dead.

  On the way back, Kakashi sat next to me and curiously asked if anything had happened between me and the boss that night. How did he wake up to see us two hugging and already asleep?

  My heart was heavy, and I didn't answer his question. The Ah-bing-ge I saw that night might have been my illusion, and the corpses crawling out from under the ruins were probably just my auditory hallucinations combined with illusions. Everything around me was dark, and maybe I was just blindly thinking too.

  On the train, the boss sitting opposite me leaned his head against the window, his eyes unfocused, I don't know if he also thought what we saw that night was just an illusion.

  ***

  In the darkness, I once again heard the sound of wooden logs rolling behind me. I once again saw those dark figures crawling out from under the ruins of the village. They were just vague shadows that stood up and slowly walked towards an even darker place.

  Suddenly, a figure emerged from behind me. Judging from the silhouette, he was wearing camouflage clothing and military boots, with short hair. The surroundings were dark, but I seemed to be able to see his facial features clearly. He was staring at me, gazing intensely at me.

  "Ah!" I woke up with a start and sat up straight from the desk. I was just resting my head on the desk for a while, how could I have had that dream?

  It's already mid-October, and it's been over a month since we returned to D University from that village. In this past month, I still feel like my soul is stuck in those ruins, and almost every day I dream of that scene. The old man said that the more you see something, the less you'll be afraid of it. But even though I see that scene almost every day now, I'm still scared. It's beyond my control - my heart just keeps replaying that same feeling of fear from back then.

  Today Kaka Xi was still playing with his tablet. His desk is just opposite mine, seeing that I woke up, he smiled and said: "Sister 41, you had another nightmare?"

  "It's just a dream."

  "Can a dream startle you awake, make your whole body tremble?" He put down his tablet and leaned over to say to me, "Si Yī Jiě, have you been possessed by a ghost?"

  I quickly pushed him away: "Go die somewhere else. Just can't speak properly! I... this afternoon help me ask the boss for a leave, I... I'll take a half-day off." I didn't wait for his response and stood up, rubbing my temples. I thought I needed to go talk to the school's psychological counselor. If I keep having nightmares like this, one day I won't be able to hold on and will have a mental breakdown.

  Kakaxi said behind me, "Sister, I think you're being haunted by a ghost. It can't be that last time we went to that village, your confession to that dead Abingge was felt by him, right? Isn't it written like this?"

  I don't want to talk to him anymore. But just as I walked in, another classmate struck up a conversation. "Chen Siyi? Are you okay, your face is so pale? Won't it be true that Kaka's crow mouth was right and you bumped into something? My neighbor Aunt Ba is a fortune teller, do you want me to take you to ask her?"

  This classmate is called Wang Yaoming, wearing a floral shirt. From the first day we became classmates, he has been chasing me. However, unfortunately, I like our boss. And he's not a good guy either, having gone out overnight with several girls. A typical playboy.

  In Kaka Xi's words, Wang Yaoming is chasing me because he can't catch up with me. When he finally catches up, the woman he loves will have become a rag that he can casually discard.

  So when Wang Yaoming said these words to me, I still warned him: "No need, I don't believe in these things. I'm just not feeling well physically during this period and didn't sleep well. I probably slept with my head on the table earlier and had a nightmare because of poor breathing. I'll go back first."

  I skirted around Wang Yaoming and opened the door to our studio. But the man standing outside, who was just about to knock on the door, made me freeze for two seconds before I let out a scream, which I quickly muffled with my hand. My breathing even forgot itself at that moment.

  "Just then, Wang Yaoming asked the newcomer, 'Hello, this is Teacher Shen Jian's studio. Who are you looking for?'"

  That man looked at me, and his eyebrows were just a few minutes ago, I still saw them clearly in my dream! He said: "I'm looking for Chen Siyi!"

  His voice I will never forget, that night the light was too dim, he was speaking in my ear, his voice seemed to appear in my mind, how could I possibly remember it wrong!

  He! It's Su Haicheng! That Ah Beng who died in the village! The man who walked into the darkness with a corpse that crawled out of the ruins. He had no heartbeat, no breathing, he was a dead man. But now this dead man has found his way here to me.

  Wang Yaoming looked at me with a puzzled expression, I thought my current expression was really scary, and Wang Yaoming took a step forward to block my way. "I'm Siyi's boyfriend, what do you want from him?"

  Kaka Xi walked out at this time, holding his tablet and patted Wang Yaoming's shoulder: "When did Sister 41 become your girlfriend?" He turned to Su Haicheng again and asked: "Excuse me, what brings you to our Sister 41? You scared her so much that her face is white."

  What I want most now is to faint, and if I just faint, I won't have to think about anything. But why are my nerves so strong that I didn't faint?

  "Chen Siyi, come out! Let's have a talk!"