Witchcraft

  That centipede was about twenty centimeters long, curled up in two circles in the small wooden box. At this moment, it received my shock and squirmed a little, slowly raising its head. I saw that the centipede's body had dense yellow legs on both sides, thinking to myself that this was indeed a centipede with hundreds of feet. I knew that centipedes were generally highly toxic, but when I was young, I wasn't particularly afraid of them because my family lived in the north and the largest centipede I had ever seen was only as big as a willow leaf. This large specimen was the first time I'd seen one, and I didn't dare look at it for long, hastily covering the wooden box with its lid.

  Although I knew it was dangerous, my curiosity still drove me to open another wooden box. This time, inside was a huge black hairy spider, with an unusually large head, and even made a "hissing" sound. When I looked at the other small wooden boxes, they also contained some poisonous insects, including one that had a purple-backed scorpion hidden inside. Although those things looked more terrifying than each other, at least I could call out their names, but when I opened the last wooden box, what was inside exceeded my expectations.

  I previously opened five or six small wooden boxes, each containing a large poisonous insect. However, when I picked up the last box, it felt heavier than the others. Upon opening it, I was shocked and felt nauseous to see that it was filled with hundreds of red larvae, about the size of maggots. They were crawling together, emitting a strong foul odor. As I looked closer, I felt my scalp tingling and a chill ran down my spine. Among the swarm of red larvae, I saw a giant beetle, similar to a cooked lobster, which seemed to be the adult form of the larvae. But what really horrified me was that the larvae were devouring the giant insect.

  I was staring blankly when I suddenly realized that because the box lid had been open for a while, some larvae had crawled along the edge of the box onto my wrist. My whole body shuddered and I quickly closed the lid. I felt itchy on my wrist, and upon closer inspection, I saw that the larva that had crawled onto my wrist was actually trying to burrow into my skin, and judging by its posture, its head had already gone in. I hastily pinched the tail of the larva with my fingertips and pulled, but unexpectedly, the larva's body broke into two pieces, while its head continued to dig into my flesh at a frantic pace, and before long, it was completely invisible.

  Just then, my shoulder was suddenly patted, and I quickly turned around to find that Bu Jin had woken up at some point and was now standing behind me with no expression on her face, staring at me. I remembered the look in her eyes earlier in the bathroom and couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy, but looking at her now, she seemed to have returned to her usual calm and composed self. However, it was clear that she had seen me secretly going through her things and felt somewhat displeased, so she walked up to me and rewrapped her bundle.

  I knew I was being rude, so I stuttered and said: "Uh, don't get me wrong, I'm just curious, just took a casual look."

  Nor did I know whether Bo Jin didn't understand what I said or was angry with me, she silently hugged her bundle and lay back on her bed to sleep.

  I saw her treating the cloth bag as a treasure, and I thought, these girls from ethnic minorities are really bold, why do they like ugly and poisonous things?

  I thought and thought, the strange things that happened earlier had already made me wide awake. I got up to go to the toilet to smoke a cigarette, but thinking of the black shadow in the toilet just now, I still had some lingering fear, so I walked out of the room and lit a cigarette in the corridor.

  After finishing the cigarette, I didn't want to go back to my room either, so I went downstairs and asked the waiter for two cans of beer. Although it was already after 10 pm now, the hotel lobby business was still booming, with many young people eating and drinking here, and there were also many middle-aged men negotiating business in the private rooms.

  A young male waiter in his twenties handed me two cans of beer, I gave him the money and casually asked: "Hey, brother, can I ask you something?"

  "What can I get for you?" the waiter asked.

  I thought for a moment about how to ask, and finally felt that being straightforward was better, so I directly asked: "Brother, has anyone died in this hotel?"

  The male waiter was shocked when he heard this and stared at me. He suddenly became stuttering, saying: "Y-you, who are you? Are you a police officer?"

  "Cough, what's going on with the police? Have you ever seen a policeman like me with such a rogue appearance?" I patted his back and said calmly: "I'm just casually asking around."

  "I don't know about this, if you want to ask around, go ask someone else." After saying that, the waiter stood up and was about to leave.

  I hastily stopped him, pulled him to a corner in the hotel and handed him 50 yuan, saying: "Brother, what's wrong with you? I'm just asking first. I've been curious since childhood, if you don't tell me, I'll be struggling with insomnia for the rest of my life."

  The waiter took the fifty yuan and thought for a moment before shoving it back to me, saying: "I don't know, I really don't know. You'd better ask someone else."

  When he said this, even a fool could understand that he must know the inside story of things. However, it was clear that he had some reservations about mentioning that matter, as if he was afraid of being known to be the one who revealed the secret. Seeing him like this, I made up my mind to make him speak out, and then took out another 100 yuan, along with the previous 50 yuan, and handed it over to him, saying: "Brother, don't you trust me? Are you afraid that I will leak the news? Don't worry, I absolutely won't say that you told me. To be honest with you, my family is from Northeast China, and we can't stay in Yunnan for long. We'll leave in a few days."

  This time, the waiter took the money and was visibly moved. After hearing that I was from Northeast China and wouldn't stay in Yunnan, he became even more at ease. He led me to the staircase leading to the guest rooms in the hotel, then suddenly lowered his voice and said to me: "It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's just that I dare not say it, if things go wrong, I might lose my head."

  I handed him a cigarette and asked: "What did you say?"

  He looked around and found no one else was there, then continued: "Listen to me slowly tell you, our hotel has indeed had a death, and not long ago, just over three months ago. The dead person was a Miao ethnic minority girl."

  "Miao girl?" I was startled, and for some reason, I suddenly thought of Long Bu Jin.

  "Yes, indeed, someone died in the bathtub, and you asked at just the right time, as it happens I was one of the eyewitnesses."

  "How did that Miao girl die?" I asked.

  The waiter took a deep drag on his cigarette, seemingly still shaken as he said: "To be honest, I didn't want to bring up that matter because of the girl's death. What I mean is, the girl's death was really suspicious, and the real cause of her death was even more terrifying."

  "Oh? Tell me about it."

  "When we found the girl, she had probably been dead for several days. She was lying in the bathtub, and at first it was a female servant who discovered her, then I and a few others rushed over. The girl's expression of death was really... really..."

  I was listening to his narrative, and I almost got anxious to death. I thought to myself, "How can a big man like you be so sentimental?" But looking at his pale face, it seemed that he had indeed recalled something extremely terrible and frightening. So I didn't dare disturb him anymore, but just sat aside, smoking and patiently waiting.

  After a while, the waiter asked me for another cigarette and continued: "When that girl first came, we all saw her because her outfit was really eye-catching. She was wearing traditional Miao ethnic minority clothing with silver accessories on her head that jingled. Her figure was great, very slender. But when we found her dead body in the bathtub, we were all shocked. Because the girl in the bathtub didn't look like she used to at all. Her whole body was swollen and at first glance, it looked like she had become a big fat person. But looking again, that was definitely not a good thing because her entire body was swollen with a bluish discoloration.

  "Isn't there another wound?" I interrupted him.

  The waiter shook his head and said, "No, there was no blood in the bathtub either." Later, the police came to the hotel and investigated the body. They couldn't find any wounds that could have caused death, nor were there any signs of strangulation on her neck. However, just as the police were about to lift the body away, the corpse's belly suddenly swelled up. At first, we didn't pay much attention, thinking it was just the police moving the body. Two policemen, one holding the shoulders and the other holding the feet, used a bit of force, and then the girl's head suddenly dropped down.

  I was shocked and hastily said: "Wait a minute, wasn't it said that there were no fatal wounds?"

  The waiter nodded and said, "Indeed, there isn't one, because the real wound is inside."

  "What does it mean?"

  The waiter said: "In the girl's corpse, there were actually maggots everywhere. Those maggots had eaten away her internal organs and even her bones, so when the police lifted the body, the girl's head fell off immediately. Moreover, countless maggots crawled out of the girl's neck and mouth at once."

  I was horrified and immediately thought of the large insect that looked like a cooked lobster in Bo Jin's wooden box earlier, so I asked, "What happened next?"

  Later? Later, even the police were scared away, and that room was sealed off. It wasn't until the next day that a specialist in pest control arrived, but he couldn't identify what kind of insect it was either. What's more, ordinary pesticides had no effect on them. In the end, it was only by using foam fire extinguishers or something similar, combined with dry ice, that they were able to kill off the swarm of insects. But by then, the Miao girl was already nothing but a layer of human skin.

  I listened to the waiter's narrative, feeling more and more terrified, so I asked: "Was the case solved in the end?"

  "The problem is right here." The waiter took a drag on his cigarette and said, "All of us knew that the Miao woman came with a man, but after we found the girl's body, we never saw that man again. So, we all suspected that the killer was that man. Moreover, all the surveillance equipment in our hotel is working normally, which can provide reliable clues to the police. However, three days later, the police hastily announced the case closed, saying that the cause of death was still under investigation, so this case became a cold case." The waiter looked around and said to me, "To be honest, I think that man must be someone with power and influence, who used his connections to cover up the case. That's why nobody dares to investigate further. I'm just afraid that if you reveal what I told you, someone will come after me."

  "What happened to that room later?" I asked.

  "The room naturally became uninhabitable, and after being sealed for over a month, our store's business was severely impacted. Fortunately, our boss had a good relationship with the police, so the news was well-contained. After a month of sealing the room, the boss invited an elderly gentleman to perform some rituals, and then renovated it again before putting it back into normal use."

  "Is the room number 210?" I asked.

  The waiter looked at me in surprise and asked: "How did you know?"

  At this moment, my mood has become extremely calm, because from then on, my original worldview was impacted in an unprecedented way. I just calmly told him, saying: "I live in that guest room."