Chapter 14: Night Opera

Gradually, a pattering sound arose outside; a night rain had arrived without warning.

A thin mist began to drift over the lake at some unknown moment. The mist came so suddenly that by the time Yang Xiao and the others discovered it, it had almost blanketed the entire surface of the lake.

Against the backdrop of the night, the mist took on an eerie leaden-gray hue. It seemed to possess a consciousness of its own as it enveloped the guest room where they were staying. Soon, the surroundings were plunged into a world of gray haze.

Looking out through a crack in the window, the other room had already been submerged in the mist. Even the candlelight could no longer be seen, as if it had vanished from this world.

"I can't see them anymore." Turning his face to the side, Xu Su's fair face looked rather unsightly.

"Check the doors and windows; don't let the mist blow in." This mist had risen too strangely; no one would believe there wasn't a problem. Kuang Hongyi stood guard behind the door, staring fixedly outside.

Outside, the mist swirled and the rain rustled. Inside the room, the candlelight flickered. Everyone stopped speaking; at this moment, only the firelight could provide a shred of security.

Su Tingting huddled tightly against the candle, wishing she could cradle that tiny flame in her arms.

After an unknown amount of time, Su Tingting's brows twitched. She vaguely heard a strange sound. The sound was sometimes near, sometimes far, ethereal and elusive. She could only roughly discern that it was coming from the lake.

Slowly, as the sound grew clearer, Su Tingting's body began to tremble, and the color drained from her face bit by bit.

She heard it clearly: it was the sound of someone singing opera. "Yi-ya-ya," it came from the direction of the lake. The singing style was mournful to the extreme, dragging out heavy notes—it was indescribably eerie.

Yang Xiao had watched many horror movies, and a similar singing style stirred his memories. He felt as if he had heard a sound slightly similar to it somewhere before.

He soon realized: he had once watched an old horror movie called *A Wicked Ghost*, and the singing style of the female ghost in it was just like this.

He vaguely remembered that the female ghost's name was Chu Renmei.

The eerie scene of the female ghost in a blue opera costume standing with her back turned in the lake water was a childhood trauma for many. After growing up and thinking they could handle it, they would try to revisit it for revenge, only for it to upgrade into an adult trauma.

Curling her body into a ball, Su Tingting used both hands to cover her ears as hard as she could, only to find it was completely useless. That eerie singing seemed to pierce through her palms and reach straight into her mind.

"Don't, don't come for me!" Su Tingting buried her head, her body trembling uncontrollably. She prayed in a low, uncontrolled voice. She was just an ordinary college student who had never done anything evil. Her wonderful life had only just begun; she didn't want to, and she didn't want to die here!

But things went contrary to her wishes. That eerie singing seemed to hear her prayers; it actually grew closer and closer, accompanied by a "splash-splash" sound.

It seemed... it seemed like the sound of paddling. This was Yang Xiao's first reaction. But as the water sound grew clearer, Yang Xiao knew he was wrong. It was the sound of rowing a boat. The oars were pushing the water, driving the boat forward, and judging by the sound of the water... this boat was not small.

The image in his mind gradually became clear: there was a fairly large boat on the lake, and... and someone on the boat was pinching their throat and singing opera.

Yet, in the evening, Yang Xiao had seen very clearly that there were no boats on the vast lake. Let alone a boat, there wasn't even a small wooden raft.

Just as Yang Xiao was wondering where this boat had popped out from, someone behind him nudged him. Yang Xiao turned his head instinctively, coming face-to-face with Kuang Hongyi's face.

By the faint candlelight, he could see the cold sweat on Kuang Hongyi's forehead. He pointed toward the position of the back window and then reached out to draw a semi-circle.

A moment later, Yang Xiao suddenly understood. A chill surged into his heart. The arc Kuang Hongyi drew was the boat's path, and now, that eerie singing had circled from the direction of their front door, where it had started, to the direction of the back window.

But the key was that there was no lake near the back window; that area was a patch of woodland shaded by trees.

There wasn't even any water, so how did that boat get up there?

Furthermore... the eerie singing was growing clearer. He could already tell that the person singing was a woman. The distance was closing, and the water sounds were mixed with a scraping noise. It was as if this boat was heading straight for them.

"It's the candle, quickly put out the candle!" Kuang Hongyi blew out the candle beside him. The nimble-bodied Xu Su stood up on her own initiative to extinguish the candle on the table.

They couldn't wait any longer; they had been exposed. Yang Xiao crouched on the ground and moved lightly, then reached out to touch Su Tingting, who was facing away from him. The last candle was still burning in front of her. "Quickly put out the candle," he whispered a reminder.

But Su Tingting seemed not to hear him. Her body trembled rhythmically. From behind, her arms were held against her chest, and other than that, she made no movement.

Yang Xiao grew anxious and circled around, intending to do it himself. But before he could blow out the candle, the scene before him shocked him to his core.

Under the dim candlelight, Su Tingting was bowing her head, holding a white candle in both hands and gnawing on it. Her mouth and fingers were covered in candle crumbs. Even more terrifying were Su Tingting's eyes; only the whites remained in her eye sockets.

Kuang Hongyi realized something was wrong and didn't care about exposure anymore. He yanked Su Tingting over. "Damn it, she's possessed!"

"She's the one who lured that thing outside here!" Xu Su understood now why that thing didn't go after the people in the other room but fixated on them instead.

Kuang Hongyi made a prompt decision, grabbed Su Tingting's chin, and was about to slap her twice, but was stopped by Xu Su. "Don't hit her, the sound is too loud."

"Then how do we wake her up?" Kuang Hongyi was also desperate. The singing outside was becoming increasingly eerie, as if the person singing was crying and laughing at the same time.

The next second, Yang Xiao snapped the candle off the candlestick. With one hand covering Su Tingting's mouth, he used the sharp spike on the candlestick to stab fiercely at Su Tingting's buttocks.

"Ugh...!"

The intense, sharp pain instantly caused her whole body to tense up, arching like a shrimp. Her eyeballs flipped back suddenly, and she finally woke up.

"Puchi! Puchi!"

"Ugh...! Woo-woo..."

To be safe, Yang Xiao stabbed her three times in succession. Only when he saw tears streaming from Su Tingting's eyes did he gently put down the candlestick.

A bizarre scene occurred: after Su Tingting woke up, the singing outside vanished along with her. At the same moment, the paddling sounds and the scraping sounds all disappeared. In just an instant, the night became deathly silent.

Everyone held their breath. Yang Xiao still hadn't let go of Su Tingting's mouth, covering it tightly. Everyone was waiting, though they didn't know what they were waiting for.

All the candles had been extinguished, and the room was pitch black. Only suppressed breathing could be heard. After an unknown amount of time, a bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the sky, followed immediately by a thunderclap.

The next second, Yang Xiao and the others were all stunned. By the momentary flash of the lightning, they saw a tall, hulking figure appearing at the back window.

The figure was extremely bloated, with a head twice the size of a normal person's. Judging by its movements, it was pressed tightly against the outside of the window, peering inside.