Chapter Eleven I Am You

  "Must?" Several people looked at me, I looked at them, and from time to time a few words popped out of their mouths, only to find that they didn't seem to convey the meaning of this note. In the middle of the night, knocking on the door, the note, the word "must", the mysterious events made them even forget to eat instant noodles, racking their brains in distress.

  Was it an ominous sign? Hong Jun felt a strong sense of foreboding in his heart.

  "It won't be, if it's really the female ghost's doing, she wouldn't have put it outside the door. With her abilities, she could have made this note appear in front of us without us noticing." Xu Ming negated Hong Jun's idea, "I think this person gave us this note to help us, or to tell us something, and it must be very important."

  "What could it be? I remember the first time I saw this character, it wasn't anything good." Hong Jun scratched his head.

  Pang Chen held up the paper and raised it to the top of his head. The energy-saving lamp on the ceiling emitted white light, making the paper slightly bright and transparent.

  Apart from this, he didn't find anything unusual about the note. He puffed out his cheeks and handed the note back to Hong Jun. "Forget it, I don't want to think about it anymore. I'm most annoyed by these sneaky things. If you have something to say, either say it clearly to everyone or don't say it at all. What's the point of secretly putting a note outside the door?" He muttered to himself.

  "Maybe the person who put up the note has something they can't say out loud and doesn't want us to see," said Xu Ming. "You also can't expect everyone to dare to act openly and honestly."

  "No matter what, the person who sent the note is definitely our friend. And since he came in the middle of the night and there's only this one word on the note, I think it must have a great connection to the strange things that have been happening to me." Hong Jun looked at the note again and again, but couldn't make any sense of it.

  "Hmm." Several people nodded and, since they were related to Hong Jun, they also regained their spirits and gathered around in a circle to study again.

  Half an hour later, Fat Chen first rubbed his sour and numb eyes: "I give up, I'm relatively stupid, can't see anything."

  Five minutes later, Lin Jie also gave up: "I'm a girl, long hair and short sight, can't see anything."

  Another ten minutes passed, and Hong Jun and Xu Ming simultaneously lifted their heads: "Forget it, can't figure it out. Not looking anymore, I'm hungry, let's eat." He casually threw the note on the coffee table, and several people picked up the already cold instant noodles on the table and started devouring them.

  "No, we haven't found the little snake yet." Hong Jun had just eaten two mouthfuls of instant noodles when he realized that the piece of paper from earlier had messed with his head and he had actually forgotten about finding the little snake, which was a very important thing.

  So, several people put down the instant noodles they had just eaten a few mouthfuls of, pulled out their phones and started calling their colleagues one by one according to the number. Ten or so minutes later, as everyone hung up the phone one after another, the disappointed expressions on each other's faces already told the result: no one found Little Snake. To be exact, no one had seen Little Snake since work ended.

  "You guys think the little snake will run into the female ghost? Maybe this afternoon, the female ghost came to our dormitory looking for me, and as a result..." Hong Jun was nervous and worried, three roommates, now two of them have already been implicated by him, he feared that Xiaoshe would also not be able to escape the disaster.

  "It can't be, that female ghost is mainly looking for you. We got involved with your affairs because she was looking for you when we were together with you. Little Snake wasn't by your side all day today, so it shouldn't have anything to do with you. I reckon that female ghost isn't in the mood to bother people who don't want to get involved." Xu Ming couldn't help but tease a bit, and his heart was also racing as he subconsciously glanced around the room without finding anything unusual, secretly letting out a sigh of relief.

  "Or else, shall we call the police?" After another silence, Fat Chen asked Hong Jun. He had always respected Hong Jun's opinion and let him make decisions on important matters.

  "Let's wait a bit, if we rashly go to report to the police now, they may not even accept it. He has only been missing for a few hours, and we don't have any evidence to prove that he is missing, so far we can only say that we temporarily can't contact him. I remember that reporting a missing person usually requires at least 4 hours before the police will take action. If you call the police now, they may not take action, they might ask us to look for him ourselves first. It's pointless, besides, Xiaoshe's disappearance could be due to various reasons, some things you tell the police and they won't believe it either. I think we should wait another day or two."

  Hong Jun told everyone that several people have not yet recovered from the shock, and if they call the police, it's easy to slip up and say something wrong. Of course, the police won't believe in ghosts or monsters, but if several people can't come up with a coherent story, the police will definitely suspect that they are involved in Xiaoshe's disappearance. They might even think that they made Xiaoshe disappear. In that case, they will focus their investigation on these few people, repeatedly questioning them, which would not only be useless but also delay their own search for Xiaoshe, leading to the opposite effect. So, it's better to wait until everyone has calmed down and come up with a plausible excuse before calling the police.

  Pang Chen put down the phone dejectedly. Since reporting to the police for now can't get the expected effect and may cause trouble, they decided not to report it for the time being. However, regarding Xiaoshe's disappearance and how to find Xiaoshe, after asking everyone around them, there was no other good way, and they could only wait dryly, waiting for Xiaoshe to suddenly return to the dormitory.

  The wait was long, and a few people sat dully on the sofa, no one in the mood to sleep, just sitting there thinking silently about their own thoughts. Occasionally, they would say a few words to boost their spirits, but soon they would fall back into silence. Time passed slowly, until finally, after a series of yawns, the dark night outside the window turned into a pale white, and the snake still hadn't appeared, instead turning several people into giant pandas.

  In such a state, it was impossible to go to work. In the midst of constant yawning, Hong Jun casually made up an excuse and told his boss that someone in his dormitory had eaten something bad and got diarrhea, so he asked for leave for everyone. Fortunately, he and his boss were from the same village and clan, so the boss didn't say much, only concernedly asking if they needed help contacting a hospital, while also reminding him to pay attention to food hygiene on hot days.

  "No big deal, just diarrhea, we've already seen a doctor and taken medicine." Hong Jun lied.

  The sun slowly rose, and the sunlight shone into the room through the curtains. By daybreak, everyone's courage had grown under the benevolence of the sunlight, and the matter of the female ghost was thrown far away. They were no longer as worried about the small snake as they were at night. Fat Chen led Lin Jie outside to find a place to stay. Hong Jun and Xu Ming climbed onto their respective beds, preparing to meet Lord Zhou.

  It so happened that Duke Zhou was expecting a visit from Hong Jun at this time.

  Then Hong Jun had a dream. It's normal for people to fall asleep and have dreams when they're tired. Especially since Zhou Gong had been waiting for him for a long time.

  He didn't get to see Zhou Gong because Zhou Gong felt that every day there were people like him seeking an audience, and he had already satisfied the partial demands of many people. However, up until now, he hadn't had a face-to-face meeting with anyone. How could he meet Hong Jun now? It would be equivalent to breaking his long-standing rule of not becoming a routine. So, he temporarily changed his mind and arranged an unfamiliar plot for Hong Jun's visit.

  Then, in his dream, Hong Jun unknowingly arrived at a strange garden. The garden was of unknown size, because no matter where Hong Jun looked, there were endless flowers everywhere. These flowers were as red as fresh blood, dazzlingly bright and emitted a unique smell, similar to the smell of burning corpses in a crematorium.

  Is it the彼岸花？Hong Jun thought of the legend about彼岸花：彼岸花 is also known as金灯、赤箭 or无义草 in China. It was first seen in the Tang Dynasty. Perennial herb; underground spherical scales, wrapped in dark brown membranous scales. Leaves are lance-shaped and narrow, deep green, growing from the base, emerging in late autumn, and falling in early summer. Flowering period is from mid-to-late summer to early autumn, around July to September. The flower stem is 30-60 cm long, usually with 4-6 flowers arranged in an umbrella shape, blooming at the top of the flower stem, petals are inverted lance-shaped, flowers are red, curved and curled backwards, edges are wavy, and the floral tube is extremely short; stamens and pistils protrude, flower type is relatively small, circumference is over 6 cm. Due to the characteristic that the flowers and leaves cannot be seen together,石蒜 is also called the emotionless and ruthless flower. In Duang Chengshi's "酉阳杂俎" Volume 19: "金灯, also known as九形, flowers and leaves do not see each other, people dislike planting it at home, also known as无义草. The root is like a potato, with twelve rings of游子, they need each other to live, but are not connected in reality, they belong to each other by air, also known as独摇 or离母, it is said that the food eaten by scholars is called赤箭 when combined."

  The poinsettia is poisonous, eating it can cause poisoning and death. Therefore, in different countries, the poinsettia has multiple names, such as "Flower of the Dead", "Hell Flower", "Ghost Flower", "Yellow Spring Flower", "Death Flower" and "Three Paths River Flower".

  Have I arrived in the underworld? Hong Jun told himself that nightmares were terrifying, he had to wake up and couldn't keep dreaming. However, the self in his dream turned around, smiled coldly, and said, "No way, we have to move forward, I want you to see something."

  Hong Jun once again saw another self in his dream.

  Hong Jun suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, and he was very cold. Immediately afterwards, an even greater sense of fear suddenly came over him, but this fear did not come from the other side of the flower, but rather from his own thoughts. He suddenly realized that his brain was extremely clear while he was fast asleep.

  Of course, this is not the root cause of his horror.

  The fundamental reason is that he found that the self in his dreams could communicate with the sleeping self, and the self in his dreams had completely different thoughts and behaviors from the sleeping self.

  The person in his dream had thoughts that were beyond his control and instead controlled him. He found this to be the most terrifying place.

  While he was fast asleep, his mind sensed him in a dream and asked: "Who are you?"

  "Me?" He smiled, "I am you."

  "Are you me?" He looked confused for a moment. "Yes, we are the same entity, what's different is that in specific environments, you and I will have different thoughts." That him was still smiling.