Chapter 4: Nobody in the Room
Chapter 4: Nobody in the Room
The fact that a person was hiding inside this locked room that could never be opened instantly made Yu Sheng’s scalp go numb. What followed immediately was an uncontrollable chain of speculation.
Who was that?
When had the owner of that voice hidden inside?
Had they sneaked in while he was asleep, or had they already been there when he first arrived here two months ago?
If it was the second possibility, then he could be certain that during the long periods when he stayed inside this large house without going out, the room on the second floor had never once been opened. Did that mean the person inside had remained hidden there the entire time? Was there another passage inside the room, or...
Was the one who had let out that soft laugh really a “person”?
Chaotic thoughts surged wildly through his mind, yet the expression on Yu Sheng’s face gradually calmed down.
Perhaps his encounter with that “frog” had changed something. Or perhaps it was the effect of having died and come back to life. He felt that his current mentality was... somewhat strange.
He could not hear either goodwill or malice in that voice, but he could clearly hear how eerie it was. Yet after the initial scalp-tingling shock, all fear and hesitation had vanished from his heart.
What remained was only intense curiosity.
He wanted to find out what exactly was inside the room.
He wanted to find out what secrets this large house, which he had treated as a foothold, was hiding.
This was his safe house, his only “home” in this enormous city.
There could not be unsafe things inside a safe house.
Slowly, he moved closer and pressed his ear against the door. He seemed to hear faint laughter still hidden within, though it might have been an illusion. Perhaps it was only the sound of hollow 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 laugh did indeed disappear.
As expected.
Yu Sheng said nothing. He simply turned and left.
He went to the adjacent room where various odds and ends were stored and retrieved an axe.
Returning to the locked door, he silently raised the axe high and swung it down with all his strength.
The sharp axe struck the thin wooden door and produced the shrill sound of colliding metal. Sparks flew from the blade. Yet the door, which looked as though it could be kicked open with a single boot, did not even gain the slightest scratch.
That faint laughter drifted over again, but Yu Sheng paid it no attention. With a calm expression, he raised the axe once more.
As though performing an exceptionally serious, meticulous task that required patience, he continued chopping again and again.
He knew this door could not be opened. Neither drills nor chainsaws had worked.
Yet despite knowing that, during the past two months he had still tried almost every day to open it by various methods.
And today, the eerie voice coming from inside the room only strengthened his determination to open it.
As every strike ended in failure, that determination only grew stronger.
Each swing became more forceful, more natural, and even...
More in tune with his own will.
His gradually emptying mind even began producing strange associations.
He felt like Wu Gang, chopping away at the moon’s tree. If he could just cut down that damned cassia tree, then Chang’e, the Jade Rabbit, Bald Qiang, and Sisyphus would gather in a circle and applaud him.
He had no idea why Sisyphus had appeared in his imagination.
Meanwhile, the laughter from behind the door became increasingly irritating.
It grew clearer and closer, as though its owner had walked step by step toward the door and was now standing directly behind it.
As though she knew perfectly well that the door was indestructible.
As though she were fearlessly mocking Yu Sheng through this wall of despair while he swung his axe outside.
But suddenly, another voice appeared amidst the eerie laughter.
It sounded nervous and annoyed.
“Could you stop laughing already?! If he really breaks the door down and comes in, the first thing he’ll chop is me!”
The laughter behind the door immediately stopped.
Yu Sheng, who was in the middle of bringing the axe down, froze instantly.
Then he heard a loud Crack. from his lower back.
Along with that sound, the axe he could no longer control continued downward and struck a completely unintended spot.
A crisp sound, entirely different from the previous metallic collisions, came from the door.
The axe slipped from Yu Sheng’s hand and fell to the floor.
Then he abruptly raised a hand...
And grabbed his lower back.
His back hurt.
He had strained it badly.
Sharp waves of pain shot through him.
Supporting his waist, he painfully hobbled toward the door. After two seconds of recovery, he finally focused on the spot where his last strike had landed.
A “spark” remained suspended roughly two or three centimetres (about 1 inch) away from the door panel near the hinge.
It looked like a spark thrown off by the axe strike, yet it seemed frozen in the air at the exact instant it had burst into existence.
And by that faint light, Yu Sheng vaguely saw something near that section of the door.
He reached toward it.
A suppressed shriek suddenly came from behind the door.
“Yah!”
Yu Sheng abruptly opened his eyes.
The brightly lit lamp in the living room felt somewhat dazzling. Falling asleep on the sofa had left his entire body sore. The clock on the wall ticked steadily in the distance. According to the time displayed on its face, he had slept for less than forty minutes.
Yu Sheng lay there blankly for a while before the numb memories in his mind gradually became clear.
He had fallen asleep...
Had everything just now been a dream?
He stared blankly.
But suddenly, he felt something was wrong.
The dream had been far too realistic.
The details were too clear and complete.
He could distinctly remember the feel of the axe in his hands.
He remembered the frozen spark on the door.
He remembered...
Suddenly, he sat upright on the sofa and abruptly raised a hand...
To support his lower back.
His back hurt.
He had strained it badly.
Sharp waves of pain shot through him.
“Holy... Hiss...... hell...”
Yu Sheng could not help offering words of praise.
The strained back, combined with suddenly sitting up and the soreness from sleeping on the sofa, produced a combined effect that made him feel it would have been better to let that frog stab him through the heart. At least that had only hurt for two seconds.
Only then did he slowly stand while holding his waist.
At the same time, he became increasingly convinced that it had definitely not been an ordinary dream.
A strained back from a dream could not hurt in reality.
Something genuinely strange had appeared.
That thing had invaded his safe house.
He adjusted both his posture and mindset so the pain would not interfere too much with his movements.
After some thought, he grimaced and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Holding a telescopic baton in one hand, he returned to the storage room and found the same axe he had used in the dream.
He gripped it in his right hand.
The feel of the handle was exactly the same as in the dream.
It even seemed as though the wooden shaft still retained the warmth of his palm.
He arrived before the sealed door.
The door remained as pristine as ever.
Nor was there any sign of the glowing mark left by the dream’s axe strike.
Everything behind the door was silent.
As though nothing had happened at all.
But Yu Sheng clearly remembered where that glowing mark had been.
He hung the telescopic baton at his waist, transferred the axe to his left hand, and extended his right hand to feel along the door.
He searched for the spot where the spark from the dream had appeared.
He remembered it being near the hinge.
At the time he had vaguely seen a...
The next second, he touched a handle.
A handle that could not be seen with the naked eye.
Yet he clearly remembered that there had never been a handle there.
Back when he first discovered the sealed door on his first day in the house, he had inspected every detail and every surface of it.
He could be certain that he had never touched any “nonexistent handle.”
Why?
Was it because he had observed it in the dream?
Had he somehow pierced through a disguise with the axe?
Because he had confirmed its existence, had it therefore become real?
Countless explanations from movies, television shows, games, and novels flashed through Yu Sheng’s mind.
Yet his hands did not hesitate at all.
He had already grasped the invisible handle and gently turned it.
The indestructible locked door opened effortlessly.
It opened from the hinge side.
The room beyond was completely empty.
Looking through the widening gap, he saw only walls and floor. The light spilling in from the doorway gradually illuminated the dim interior.
Yet even after carefully opening the door all the way, Yu Sheng did not see the owner of the mocking voice.
Gripping the axe tightly in one hand, he cautiously examined the room.
There was genuinely nothing inside.
Not even a bed or a chair.
Only cold moonlight filtered through gaps in the old curtains, leaving mottled patches across the floor.
But suddenly, something entered the corner of his vision.
There was indeed something in the room.
A painting hung on the wall directly opposite the door.
It had an exquisite frame decorated along the edges with intricate classical vine patterns.
At the centre was a seat covered with a soft red carpet serving as the background.
And that was all.
There was no cursed ghost sitting inside the painting and watching intruders with a mocking smile.
Frowning, Yu Sheng stared at the painting, whose frame stood roughly half a metre (about 1.6 ft) tall, for quite some time.
Without taking his eyes off it, he felt around until he found the light switch beside the doorframe and turned on the room’s lights.
Under the illumination, the painting’s details became even clearer.
He cautiously approached and observed it for a long while.
Then he noticed an extremely, extremely inconspicuous...
Hem of a skirt.
“...”
After thinking for a moment, he spoke with a strange expression.
“Are you there?”
“I’m not!”
A guilty voice came from inside the painting.