Chapter 4: No One in the Room

The fact that a person was hidden inside this locked room that had always been impossible to open made Yu Sheng instantly feel his scalp go numb, and what followed immediately was a series of uncontrollable guesses.

Who was that? When did the owner of that voice hide inside? Did they sneak in while he was asleep, or were they already there when he arrived here two months ago?

If it was the second scenario, then since he had stayed inside this big house for a long time without going out, he could confirm that this room on the second floor had never been opened during that period; so, had the person inside been hiding there the whole time? Was there another passage within the room, or was it that...

Was the one emitting that soft laugh really a "person"?

Chaotic thoughts surged wildly in his mind, yet the expression on Yu Sheng's face gradually calmed down—it seemed that the experience of encountering that "frog" earlier had brought about some changes, or perhaps it was the influence of "coming back to life after death"; he felt his current state of mind was... somewhat strange.

That voice revealed neither goodwill nor malice, but one could clearly hear its eerie nature; yet Yu Sheng discovered that after the initial moment of scalp-numbing sensation, all fear and hesitation had vanished from his heart; what remained in him now was... only intense curiosity.

He wanted to figure out exactly what was inside the room.

He wanted to figure out exactly what secrets lay within this big house that he had taken as his base.

This was his safe house, his only "home" in this huge city—in a safe house, there could be nothing unsafe.

He slowly leaned closer, pressing his ear against the door, hearing what seemed to be a low laugh still hidden inside, but it might have been an illusion; perhaps it was just the hollow sound of wind swirling in his ears.

He curled his fingers and knocked on the door.

"Open up, I heard you."

The door naturally did not open, but that hollow soft laugh had indeed disappeared.

It was an expected situation; Yu Sheng said nothing, simply turned and left—he went to the adjacent room where many miscellaneous items were piled up and fetched an axe from inside.

Returning to the locked room door, he silently raised the axe high and swung it down with all his strength.

The sharp axe struck the thin wooden door, emitting a sharp sound like metal colliding; sparks flew from the blade's edge, yet not even a single mark was left on the door that looked like it could be kicked open with one foot.

That soft laugh came through again, vaguely, but Yu Sheng paid it no attention at all; with a calm expression, he raised the axe again, as if performing a task that required exceptional seriousness, meticulousness, and patience, continuing to chop down, axe blow after axe blow.

He knew this door could not be opened; neither a power drill nor a chainsaw could open it, but even knowing this, over the past two months, he had almost tried every method to open this door every single day—today, an eerie sound coming from inside the door had only further stimulated his motivation to open this door today.

And with each failed chopping attempt, this motivation grew even stronger; every chop from Yu Sheng's hand became more forceful, more fluid, and even... more in tune with his own will.

Even in his gradually emptying brain, some strange associations arose out of nowhere—he felt as if he were Wu Gang chopping the tree on the moon; once he chopped down that damn osmanthus tree, Chang'e, the Jade Rabbit, Guangtou Qiang, and Sisyphus watching the show nearby would gather in a circle to applaud him...

He didn't even know why Sisyphus had appeared in his associations.

Meanwhile, the soft laugh coming from behind the door grew increasingly grating, even becoming clearer and closer, as if the owner of the voice had walked over step by step, pressing right against the back of that wooden door; as if she fully knew the door's indestructibility, she was mocking Yu Sheng, who was outside waving the axe, with complete disregard across this wall of sighs.

But suddenly, another voice appeared within that eerie, grating soft laugh, sounding tense and annoyed: "Can you stop laughing? If he really opens the door and comes in, the first one he'll chop is me!"

The soft laugh from inside the door immediately stopped being happy.

Yu Sheng, who was raising the axe to smash down, instantly froze, then heard a crack sound come from his own waist.

Accompanying the crack sound, the axe in his hand, unable to stop its force, also fell, chopping down at a location completely outside his plan.

A certain crisp sound, completely different from the previous grating collision noise, came from the door; the axe in Yu Sheng's hand fell to the ground, and immediately after, he suddenly raised his hand... and supported his own waist.

His waist hurt; he had twisted it quite severely; it throbbed with a sharp, stinging pain.

Supporting his waist, he struggled to lean close to the door, waited two seconds, and only then focused his attention on the spot where his very last axe blow had struck.

A "flash of light" lingered about two or three centimeters away from the door panel, positioned on the side of the door hinge; it looked like sparks splashed up when the axe struck, yet it seemed frozen in the air, suspended at the very instant the firelight exploded bright.

And borrowing that bit of brightness, Yu Sheng vaguely saw something on the door panel nearby.

He reached out his hand to feel there.

A suppressed, high-pitched scream came from behind the door: "Ah—"

Yu Sheng suddenly opened his eyes; the bright electric light in the living room seemed somewhat glaring; lying on the sofa to sleep made him feel sore all over; the wall clock not far away ticked away, and the time on the dial showed he had only slept for less than forty minutes.

Yu Sheng lay on the sofa, stunned for a while, before the somewhat numb memories in his mind finally gradually became clear.

He had fallen asleep... was what just happened merely a dream? He stared blankly, but suddenly, he felt something was wrong.

The process of that "dream" was too real, and the details were too clear and complete; he could even clearly remember the tactile sensation of the axe in his hand, remember the frozen firelight on that door, remember...

He suddenly sat up from the sofa, raised his hand sharply... and supported his own waist.

His waist hurt; he had twisted it quite severely; it throbbed with a sharp, stinging pain.

"Fuc... sss... k..." Yu Sheng couldn't help but utter a praise; the freshly twisted waist combined with the sudden rising motion plus the full-body soreness from sleeping on the sofa produced a mixed effect, instantly making him feel it would have been better to let that frog stab his heart; at least that only hurt for two seconds—then, while pressing his waist, he struggled to stand up, while at the same time becoming even more convinced in his heart that it absolutely was not an ordinary "dream."

A twisted waist in a dream couldn't hurt as much as in reality; something truly sinister had appeared.

That thing had invaded his "safe house."

He adjusted his posture and state of mind to prevent the waist pain from affecting his movements too much, then after a brief thought, he climbed the stairs to the second floor, gritting his teeth.

Holding a baton in one hand, he went again to the room where miscellaneous items were kept, found the axe used in the dream, and gripped it in his right hand—the feeling of the axe handle in his hand was exactly the same as in the dream; it even seemed that the wooden handle still retained the warmth of his own palm.

He arrived before that locked door; the door remained intact as new, and the "light mark" left during the chopping in the dream was nowhere to be seen.

!.

Inside the door, it was completely silent.

As if everything was normal, as if nothing had ever happened.

But Yu Sheng still clearly remembered the position of that light mark.

He hung the baton on his waist, switched the axe to his left hand, and extended his right hand to feel along the door, feeling for the position of the flash of light he had chopped out in the dream... he remembered it was near the door hinge; at that time, he had seen a vague...

The next second, he touched a handle, a handle invisible to the naked eye.

But he clearly remembered there was no handle here; on the very first day he discovered this locked door, he had inspected every inch of detail of this door, felt over every surface of it; he could be certain he had never touched any "non-existent handle"!

Why? Was it because he observed it in the dream? Was it because he used the axe to "see through" some kind of disguise? Because he confirmed its existence, so it truly existed?

Yu Sheng ran through all the movies, TV shows, games, and novels he had ever seen in his mind, instantly finding a huge pile of possible reasons, yet the actions of his hand showed no hesitation at all; he had already gripped that invisible door handle and then turned it gently.

The indestructible locked room door opened thus with ease, opening from the side of the door hinge.

It was an empty room; looking in through the gradually opening crack, there was only the floor and the walls; the light spilling in from the doorway gradually illuminated that dim place, yet until he carefully opened the door completely, Yu Sheng still did not see the owner of the mocking voice that had come from inside the room.

Holding the axe tightly in one hand, he carefully observed the situation inside the room, only to discover that there was truly nothing inside; not even a bed or a chair.

Only the cold moonlight, filtering through the gaps in the old curtains, spilled into the room, leaving a mottled patch on the floor.

But suddenly, his peripheral vision caught sight of something.

There was a "thing" in the room; on the wall directly facing the door, hung a painting.

An exquisite picture frame, its edges adorned with intricate, classical vine patterns, with a chair covered in a soft red carpet serving as the background at the center of the painting.

But beyond that, there was nothing else; no mocking, laughing cursed ghost sat within the oil painting, watching the intruder.

Yu Sheng frowned, staring intently at the roughly half-meter-high picture frame for a long while, and while keeping his gaze fixed, he fumbled to find the light switch beside the doorframe, turning on the room's lights.

Under the illumination of the lamps, the details on the oil painting became even more sharply visible.

He approached the painting cautiously and stared at it, observing for a long time.

Then he saw a very, very faint spot in the corner of the frame... the hem of a skirt.

"..."

He thought for a moment, then spoke with a somewhat strange expression: "Are you there?"

"Not here!"

A guilty voice came from within the painting.

Thanks to Baiyin Meng who doesn't eat vegetables from Charlie!

(End of this chapter)