chapter 5

Immediately, the hair on my hands rose, making me grab his arm and look around suspiciously. Big-Back said: “I walked from the first floor to the eleventh floor, and I never saw the exit. Do you see any exit?”

“I, I didn’t notice, master, what should we do?” I stuttered, “Big …”

“It’s not like I live in this place, you do!” I looked at him and said: “The exit is on the twelfth floor! Let’s go!”

He brushed his fingers through his hair again, and then walked up step by step. I pulled on his arm tightly, for fear that he would leave me alone and run away.

When I reached the twelfth floor, I really saw the door. I was going for it, but he stopped me, holding me and saying, “What are you going to do? How do you get out from here, how do you get to the 11th floor? Do you want to make a hole in the house on this floor?”

I froze and said, “What should I do?”

Big-Back thought about it: “I’m just reminding you not to be reckless and listen to my instructions. Let’s go out, look at the situation and then talk!”

Big Back pushed the door open with me, and as soon as I came out, a chill ran down my spine. The light in the room turned on instantly. I saw that the door of 1201 was open, the room very cold, just like a refrigerator.

I said, “Why is the door open! It’s too cold.”

When I said this, I realized what was … in this room.

Big-Back walked in front, I followed behind. We entered the 1201 house, and what greeted us was the dead old man standing in the living room, his eyes staring at the master bedroom, wearing a pair of shoes on his feet – shoes! Bloody!

This frightened me, and my head buzzed. But I watched him getting lifted into a hearse! Why was he back again? This world was really too fucking ghostly!

Big-Back pulled me out. Then we quickly closed the fire door and he commanded, “Don’t ask anything, follow me.”

We started to go downstairs, and as soon as we reached the eleventh floor, I found that the fire door on the eleventh floor appeared, the fire door was open. Jiajia was standing on the stairs, waving at me from time to time.

I grabbed the master and shouted, “Master, look! The door is open. That’s my daughter!”

Big-Back pushed me to the stairs, but he didn’t come out himself. He looked at me and said, “I’ll come again tomorrow. After I go back, throw a handful of rice at the door, open all the windows, don’t pull the curtains. The main thing is to cover all the mirrors with cloth, understand?”

I repeated his words in my heart, and when I thought I had committed them to my memory, I looked up. Big-Back was gone.

I looked back at Jiajia, who smiled disdainfully and turned back to the room.

I no longer cared about my daughter’s weirdness, but quickly returned to the room, grabbed a handful of rice and scattered it at the door, opened all the windows, and then covered all the mirrors in the house with a bed sheet cover.

When I was sitting on the couch, my wife reached out and grabbed my hand. At this time, Jiajia was sitting on the sofa, her eyes rolled up, staring at the ceiling, saying, “The whole family can’t live past tonight!”

After a while, she started shifting her line of sight, as if the person on the 12th floor was moving. We followed her line of sight.

From what Jiajia was looking at, we could tell that the other party exited the door on the 12th floor, came down the stairs, and finally seemed to stop at the door of my house. My wife’s hands were sweaty, and she asked with a tremble in her voice, “What happened to Jiajia? What will happen to our family?”

I didn’t know how to explain it, and said, “Wife, we are in trouble. Jiajia may be entangled with something, but now we have some hope, the master will help us.”

“Master? Is he reliable? I think we should go to the hospital!”

I grabbed my wife’s shoulders and pulled her firmly into my arms.

She looked up at me and said, “Do you really think there’s anything supernatural in this world? It could be that we’re having hallucinations from just a gas leak in the house! We might be poisoned because of the gas. Don’t forget, you are a graduate from the Department of Philosophy, I am a female engineering undergraduate student. This is ridiculous!”

At this moment, my wife took a deep breath and looked at the door and said, “Do you really believe that there is a ghost outside the door? I’ll go and open it. Don’t you often say? Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid of the ghost knocking on the door!…”

As soon as the words fell, I heard the doorbell ring!

*weng! weng! weng! …*

He knocked on the door rhythmically. This knock was more like a tap, and the interval was a little long, two seconds.

My wife grunted and looked at Jiajia and said, “Jiajia, let’s go!”

Jiajia came down from the sofa, reached us, and stretched out her hand, pulling me and her mother into our bedroom. Then she went to bed, lying between both of us and closed her eyes.

The knocking on the outside door continued, but the frequency of the knocking was getting lower and lower. After about five minutes, the knocking came to an abrupt end. My wife said at this time: “Did he leave?”

I said, “Maybe he’s gone. I’ll get you a glass of water!”

When I came back, my wife was changing pajamas for Jiajia. After changing, she took the glass from me and said, “Xiao Yun, touch and check our daughter’s chest, it’s growing very fast. I am very worried, this will definitely cause problems. Once she’s fully mature, she won’t grow taller either. She’s only a meter tall right now. Let’s go to the hospital again tomorrow, this time to the endocrinology department.”

I touched my daughter’s chest over her clothes, but I could understand it even without touching it.

Then I went to bed thoughtfully, and I seemed to understand something. In Jiajia’s room, I opened her drawers, and my wife’s panties were inside. I slowly closed it and questioned myself whether it was a spiritual incident or was my daughter really sick! Was that knock real? Did otherworldly “beings” actually exist?

When I returned to the master bedroom, Jiajia was already asleep. My wife’s hand still stroked Jiajia’s body slowly, and she burst into tears, saying, “What’s wrong with the child?”

But I knew that everything was caused by me. These problems were the consequences from picking up the coffin. At this moment, I looked at the bracelet on Jiajia’s arm and the two golden bells, and there was unexplainable remorse in my heart. I thought I would feel better by removing these things.

I slowly reached out and grabbed Jiajia’s hand, and said, “It’s uncomfortable to sleep wearing these jewelry, just take it off!”

Jiajia’s eyes suddenly opened, staring at me. Pushing my hand back quickly, Jiajia slowly closed her eyes again.

Then my wife realized the problem and said, “Xiao Yun, tell me the truth, where did these gold bracelets and gold bells come from? You are hiding something from me, aren’t you?”

I wasn’t a good liar. When things got to this point, I could only tell the truth. When I put the bank card in front of my wife, my wife didn’t say anything else, but sighed and said, “We are poor and you are doing this for our family, so I can’t complain about you. But this won’t do. Jiajia was contaminated by something impure!”

” I think just taking off these jewelry can ease Jia Jia’s situation.”

My wife said, “Let’s talk tomorrow, didn’t you say the master will come back tomorrow? Let’s sleep.”

After the lights were turned off, I was just falling asleep when I suddenly felt that the bed moved. I opened my eyes and saw a woman sitting between me and my wife.

Wasn’t this woman the one I saw through the crack of the door?

She got out of bed in the darkness and opened the door.

My wife moved directly into my arms and said, “Xiao Yun, what the hell is going on here? Why is Jiajia so big now?”

I said, “No need to go to the hospital, I’m sure it’s a ghost. That’s not Jiajia, it’s another woman, the one who stole your underwear, we have a woman ghost in our house.”

“How can that be?”

I didn’t speak, and I didn’t know how to explain everything we saw, but I’m sure this was not a dream.

My wife and I got out of bed and went to the door. As soon as the door opened, a cold wind broke out. The wife asked, ” Is Jiajia outside?”

I couldn’t see anything, only felt a cold wind from the stairwell.

At this time, a hot wind blew in from the open window, and the cold wind was quickly swept away. I felt a lot better.

My wife was shaking with fright. She clutched my hand and said, “Xiao Yun, I think we should go back to our hometown and hide for a few days.”

Suddenly, her body started to tremble violently. She raised her hand to cover her mouth, and her eyes were widened to prevent herself from making a sound. When I went to look at the door again, I found a foot protruding from the outside. A pair of blood-stained leather shoes was worn on the foot.

Wasn’t this the leg of the old man who died upstairs? I gathered my guts and said, “You have a debt and a debtor, uncle. Go back!”

This foot didn’t retract, only stepped on the ground directly, but when it touched the rice on the ground, it suddenly retracted, and creamed, “It’s hot!”

The foot then went in tentatively, but retracted every time it stepped on the ground. After a few times, he seemed to be angry. His hand reached out for the door, and began to open and close the door again and again, making a loud bang each time.

My wife and I covered our ears. We looked at the door blankly, at a loss. But the woman in the darkness just stood quietly in the living room and watched the door, motionless. She was like a statue.

This situation continued for about half an hour before it was considered to be over. In the end, the person outside finally disappeared. My wife and I tried to be brave, standing together, huddled close. My wife hugged me tightly and said, “Xiao Yun , let’s go to our hometown and hide for a while. This place is really haunted! I’m so scared!”

The woman who had been lying dormant all this time, suddenly crawled back to Jiajia’s bedroom. I heard three words coming from the bedroom: “My feet hurt!”