Chapter 5

A single 'hmm' seemed to give Old Zhou a new kind of strength, and he began to describe his initial feelings upon entering the basement.

He couldn't accurately describe these feelings; his words were very disordered, filled with a sense of confusion and bewilderment. He almost pieced together a jumbled narrative for me.

But I still understood, because from his description, I already knew what was going on. Despite Old Zhou's scattered words, I could clearly outline in my mind what he had experienced.

He said that upon entering the basement, he felt cold. He glanced at the basement's pale, glaring fluorescent lights and began to feel dazed.

"Old Three, do you know that feeling of the lights flickering? I don't know how to describe it, but just one look at the fluorescent lights in the basement, and I felt the entire room start to flicker. I was very confused, but it was just a metaphor; the lights obviously can't flicker. Damn, I swear I've started to dislike fluorescent lights since yesterday. They're so bright, yet they look so pale. In a confined, quiet environment, the long corridor and the cold, penetrating light made me feel uneasy," Old Zhou said, clearly in a very unstable mental state.

He kept fidgeting, occasionally rubbing his face, scratching his head, or anxiously tugging at his clothes. All I could do was light a cigarette and put it in his mouth, hoping the smoke would help calm him down.

I understood that it wasn't the lights flickering; it was that his entire mental state had been affected at that moment.

Or perhaps, a magnetic force had found him, directly influencing his brain.

I'm being abstract, because people might find this easier to accept. If I put it another way, many would be terrified and more easily influenced.

Because another way to put it is—Old Zhou encountered something unclean when he entered the basement, something that made him see ghosts.

Old Zhou is a person with a low life force, so I'm not surprised he can sense these things. However, Old Zhou is also a very determined person. For him to be so affected and fall into fear, even when he had no fear and was focused on other things, is quite alarming.

Thinking about this, I felt a chill inside. I wasn't afraid of the thing being fierce; I had encountered something even fiercer on a certain day of a certain month. I wasn't concerned. I was just relieved that my friend was still sitting in front of me.

Old Zhou's disordered words continued as he described the feeling after the lights flickered: "Old Three, do you believe me? At that moment, I was very dazed. I noticed the corridor in front of me had become longer, much longer, and the further away it went, the darker it got. For a moment, I couldn't find the room where the bodies were stored. I was a bit anxious, yet I felt I was seeing something that wasn't real. At that time, I wasn't really afraid; I was a bit confused, and even a bit silly. Do you know what? I was still standing in the same spot, turning around. I remember touching my arm, and there were goosebumps. I was wondering why I had goosebumps. Then, before I could figure it out, I felt the light above me turn green."

As he said this, Old Zhou's face turned pale again. Clearly, his situation was similar to many others who, without any mental preparation, encountered something and didn't realize they were afraid until later, when they recalled the unusual events.

But this situation was fortunate because it only meant that the ghost had no intention of harming him or that he was not the one it was looking for.

As for Old Zhou's situation, I rubbed my chin, thinking it wasn't that simple. It seemed the ghost didn't want to harm him but wanted him to feel its presence, perhaps to convey a message.

The light couldn't really turn green; Old Zhou was in a hallucination. His description of this hallucination was very disordered, but I roughly organized it as follows:

In the moment the light turned green, Old Zhou finally felt a bit of fear, but for some reason, he was determined to move forward. As he walked, he wondered why he didn't turn around and leave the cold, dark corridor with the greenish light. Why did he keep moving forward?

This lack of self-control was very bad. Even the slow-witted Old Zhou felt something was wrong at this point.

Worse still, he heard a vague, suppressed woman's voice: "Help me find him, please help me find him." The voice was very unclear, like someone singing in another room, and you couldn't tell where it was coming from, but you knew it was there.

Old Zhou was on the verge of breaking down. "Find him? Who? Where is this voice coming from?"

"I'm not sure if I spoke at the time. Old Three, my memory is very disordered. I think I was talking to myself, asking, 'Who is he? Why find him?' I repeated these words a few times, but I'm not sure if I really said them," Old Zhou began to laugh bitterly, his expression very helpless. The fear in his eyes was almost tangible.

I understood this feeling. Many years ago, my first experience was even more intense and bizarre. It started with the feeling that a troupe was performing downstairs, which was even more distressing.

"Calm down. You're a doctor; you know that in a hallucination, you need to be firm and confident to break free." As I spoke, I poured a glass of water for Old Zhou and handed it to him. Not all doctors are psychiatrists, but I said this to give Old Zhou some self-affirmation.

If necessary, I wouldn't mind saying that his white coat is a 'tool' filled with a certain aura that can help suppress ghosts in critical moments.

But I felt that saying this might give Old Zhou a greater psychological burden.

"Um, Old Three, you say it's a hallucination, and I feel much better. I think that day my mental state was unstable, and I was already a bit afraid of entering the basement, which triggered it," Old Zhou took a sip of water and began to try to analyze himself. Unfortunately, he is an internal medicine doctor, not a psychiatrist, so his analysis was not reliable.

But I listened patiently because only continuous self-affirmation and self-comfort could prevent him from collapsing under the intense pressure.

After a long self-analysis, Old Zhou finished his water and seemed a bit more comfortable. His words were less disordered as he told me: "If it was just the voice, it would be fine. When I wasn't sure if I was asking questions, I suddenly saw a bloodstain on the wall, extending continuously. Old Three, it was like this: you know when we were kids, and we got dirt on our hands, like mud, and there was no paper, so we put our hands on the wall and rubbed the dirt off as we walked. That mysterious bloodstain was a handprint, and it kept extending, as if someone was rubbing the blood off their hand on the wall."

"Um." I didn't know how to comment on this. My brows furrowed. If my previous judgment was correct, the entity that found Old Zhou had a purpose. What did it mean to make Old Zhou see such a scene?

"The blood was dark and sticky. You understand, right? It was definitely not fresh blood," Old Zhou became agitated again, scratching his head and continuing, "Then I saw a hand, a very blurry hand. I tried to see who it belonged to, who left that mark on the wall, but I couldn't see clearly. Yes, yes, I also heard a rhythmic 'click, click, click' sound, a person's, probably a man's. I wanted to follow the sound, and in the last moment, I vaguely saw a pair of shoes, not shoes, but the feet of a person walking. It was bizarre; I could only see the shoes and part of the legs. When I tried to see more clearly, I was very sure, very sure," Old Zhou became excited, standing up, placing his hands on the counter, and leaning forward to look at me, "Old Three, you have to believe me. I heard a cat's meow, like a cat in heat, very clearly, two or three times, and then I saw nothing."

"Like a cat in heat?" I couldn't help but start to piece together the entire event. For a moment, I didn't notice Old Zhou's feelings, but when I realized, I immediately reassured him, "Um, of course I believe you."

"I told you, cats ward off evil." Old Zhou, getting my affirmation, seemed like a child getting approval from a teacher, and he mumbled as he sat down. He didn't realize that by saying cats ward off evil, he was undermining his own firm belief.

Actually, I didn't want to remind him that the idea that cats ward off evil more than dogs was something I told him. I also didn't want to remind him that nothing is absolute, and hearing a cat's meow clearly in a basement is not normal.

Old Zhou rubbed his forehead, tired, and muttered, "Everything was normal, so I should be happy, right? But when I realized I was awake, I was already standing at the door of the basement where the bodies were stored. I wanted to leave, really wanted to, but Old Three, I was inexplicably calm, took out the key, and opened the door to the basement."

Old Zhou's expression was very painful. As he spoke, he suddenly looked up at me and said, "Then I saw that scene, a truly disgusting scene! In the entire basement where the bodies were stored, next to the large formaldehyde pool, it looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood, I'm not sure if there was any flesh, but there was a mutilated body right in front of me, very shocking."

"Afraid of bodies?" I was very puzzled. Why did this scene have such a strong psychological impact on Old Zhou?

"No, I'm not afraid. But when you see a human body treated like a dish, picked at by a picky child, how do you feel?" Old Zhou suddenly said to me, then dry heaved.

And for the first time, I felt shocked. What did this mean?

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