Chapter 32

  Yu Yu brushed her teeth several times, making sure the zongzi flavor in her mouth was thoroughly washed away before she walked out of the bathroom. On this troublesome evening, she didn't feel sleepy at all, but instead was enveloped by an uneasy mood, her body tense.

  She walked out of the living room, brought back an OK band-aid and stuck it on her injured finger, then cleaned up the zongzi and scattered paper towels on the coffee table. The still-on TV was still showing a snowy screen, the hissing sound seemed like rain outside in the dark night.

  Suddenly, she felt a deepening chill spreading through the house. It wasn't raining outside, but a gloomy wind seemed to blow in from the cracks of the dark night, stirring up the light air inside and making it feel damp. A faintly musty and rotten smell rose slowly in the air, gradually enveloping her.

  The fluorescent tube flickered a few times and then returned to its usual pale face. Youyou observed the surroundings nervously, the room was still very quiet, this kind of silence in the middle of the night made people feel uneasy.

  Like a monster that cannot be escaped, lurking in the dark, accumulating momentum! Waiting for the opportunity to suddenly jump out from behind her!

  Youyou couldn't calm the fear that kept welling up inside her, so she decided to tidy up and hurry back to her room to continue sleeping, closing the windows and door tightly shut, not letting anything in.

  Just then, the snowflakes on the TV screen suddenly disappeared. Youyou heard a mournful voice coming from the TV behind her. The voice said sorrowfully: "Eleventh Shao, why haven't you come yet? I've been waiting for you for so long..."

  Her heart skipped a beat, her spine was covered with a layer of thin ice, cool to the point of numbness. She turned back stiffly, only to see a classical woman in cheongsam appearing on the TV screen. The woman sighed at the night sky, with a faint sorrow flowing in her pupils, and tears streaming down her eyes were pulled into long lines by the wind.

  That's "Blood Rouge" starring Fang Yanmei. Youyou glanced at the time, 12:05 in the dead of night.

  This must be the program for the midnight theater show. She thought.

  It's a common practice for TV stations to air classic episodes at midnight, and since Fang Yanmin just passed away, the TV station decided to air her classic episodes, probably as a way of paying tribute.

  Only saw Fang Yan's familiar fairy-like appearance on TV, slowly chanting "The Emperor's Daughter": "Flowers fall all over the sky, blocking the moonlight, borrowing a cup to recommend the Phoenix Platform, the emperor's daughter brings tears and incense, wishing to die and thank her parents... I secretly look at him, secretly miss him, with tears and hidden sorrow..."

  The dark night seemed to gather a bewildering fog, blurring her vision.

  She gazed intently at Fang Yanmei singing Cantonese opera on TV, feeling something was off, but couldn't quite put it into words. She recalled the night before she left the hospital, when she had a dream that Fang Yanmei was dressed like this in the corridor, singing "The Empress Dowager". In fact, to this day, she still wasn't sure if it was just a dream or something that had actually happened.

  It must be a dream. Such a bizarre and terrifying scene, how could it possibly happen in reality?

  Youyou was reminiscing about that night, thinking of all the things she had seen or dreamed of, when suddenly a voice emerged from her chaotic thoughts:

  "Be careful, it's watching you."

  She was startled, came to herself, and immediately looked around vigilantly. Naturally, there was only her in the room. Youyou knew that the sound she had just heard seemed to be right next to her, but the empty room made it impossible for her to find the source of the sound.

  Unless it was her own hallucination, or unless it came from the TV. Two possibilities, take your pick. Youyou's eyes widened as she listened carefully. If that sound appeared again, she would definitely catch it. But that sound seemed to have known her trap and escaped far away.

  She couldn't tell if the voice was her own hallucination or coming from the TV. From what she heard, it did sound a bit like Fang Yanni's voice, with a hint of sorrow and melancholy, but Youyou remembered that there was no such line in "Blood Plum Rose".

  "Be careful, it's watching you."