Bai Shanshan grabbed him and asked with a frown, “You had a nightmare? What kind of dream?”
Wei Yao could only sit back down. Looking at his mother’s expression, he belatedly realized that something was wrong, and his tone became hesitant as well. “I don’t really remember clearly. It’s just that for the past few nights, I’ve always dreamed that someone was calling me, and then saying something about waiting for me or something…”
He hadn’t thought much of it at first, but his mother’s unusual expression made him feel a little uneasy. “Mom, it’s just a nightmare. Who hasn’t had nightmares before? Why does it feel like you’re even more nervous than I am?”
Realizing that she had let herself slip, Bai Shanshan forced a smile and patted her son’s head. “What nonsense are you talking about? All right, hurry up and go to sleep.”
Wei Yao said, “Oh,” then strode back to his room, completely unaware of the darkened expressions on his parents’ faces behind him.
Only after the sound of a door closing came from the second floor did Bai Shanshan look at her husband, worry filling her eyes. “What are we going to do? Didn’t you say we could still keep it hidden for the time being? How come they’ve already found Yao-Yao?”
Wei Jianguo’s expression wasn’t very good either. “Once Yao-Yao is sound asleep, we’ll go back to the old house. Dad might have a way. Yao-Yao will be fine.”
That last sentence, he didn’t know whether he was reassuring his wife or himself.
Bai Shanshan was obviously not reassured at all. She stared worriedly at the second floor. Only after the faint light coming through the crack beneath her son’s door had been extinguished for quite some time did she quietly leave with her husband and drive to the old house.
Wei Yao started dreaming again.
In the dream, he had returned to the old house. He seemed to be playing in the courtyard. He was riding on the large jujube tree in the middle of the yard, looking down at Wen Dajiang and the others as they searched everywhere for him.
Wen Dajiang was stupid as hell. All he knew how to do was wander around. He didn’t even know to look up. All he could do was keep calling Wei Yao’s name.
“Wei Yao…”
“Wei Yao…”
Wei Yao looked at them smugly, silently sliding down the trunk of the jujube tree. He was planning to sneak around behind Wen Dajiang and scare him.
But after he climbed down from the tree, the surroundings suddenly changed.
At some point, a thick fog had appeared in the courtyard. Wen Dajiang and the others’ figures were faintly visible within the white mist.
The few people stood with their backs to Wei Yao, forming a circle as they stared at something in the middle. He had no idea what they were doing.
Wei Yao tiptoed over to eavesdrop and discovered that they were actually counting.
Starting with Wen Dajiang, one after another:
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Five.”
After the five people finished counting, it seemed that the number was wrong. They began whispering and discussing among themselves, but for some reason their voices had become extremely indistinct. Even though Wei Yao was standing right behind them, he still felt as though he couldn’t hear them clearly.
He instinctively took another step forward, coincidentally crouching in the opening the five people had left.
This time, he finally heard what Wen Dajiang and the others were saying.
They were saying:
“How come one is missing?”
“One is missing.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Wei Yao is missing,” said Wen Dajiang, who was crouching beside Wei Yao.
The buzzing discussion abruptly stopped.
All five people suddenly turned their heads toward Wei Yao and asked him, “Wei Yao, why aren’t you counting?”
Wei Yao was stunned. He was just about to answer when he realized that the person crouching beside him wasn’t Wen Dajiang at all.
In fact, they weren’t even human.
They were shadows with completely blurred faces.
But right under Wei Yao’s gaze, the facial features of those originally featureless shadows suddenly began becoming clearer, bit by bit. They stared at Wei Yao without blinking and kept asking:
“Wei Yao, why aren’t you counting?”
“Wei Yao, you’re the only one missing.”
“Wei Yao, hurry up. Mom can’t wait any longer.”
“Hurry up and count…”
“Wei Yao.”
“Wei Yao.”
“Wei Yao”…
Countless voices calling “Wei Yao” made his head spin and his temper flare. He wanted to say, This is so damn annoying. Stop trying to summon my soul.
But what came out of his mouth was:
“Six.”
The whispers instantly stopped.
The other five people stared at Wei Yao. The features on their faces gradually became extremely clear—and they looked exactly like Wei Yao.
“We have everyone.”
“We can go.”
The five people each held onto the next person’s hand and began walking deeper into the old house. Wei Yao was also being led along, following them forward in a daze.
He kept feeling that something was wrong, but his mind was extremely muddled, with a sluggish sensation as though he were submerged in water and couldn’t think properly.
Just as he was about to cross through the hanging flower gate, he suddenly saw the face of the person in front of him.
That face, which was exactly identical to his own, gave him such a fright that he shuddered violently. His hazy mind seemed to clear up as well. The foot he had stepped forward with froze, and he took a step backward.
Sensing something strange, the five people in front of him all turned around together.
Five identical faces looked at Wei Yao and asked him, “Why did you stop? Keep going. We’re almost there.”
“Fuck!”
Wei Yao flung away the hand holding him and immediately sprinted in the opposite direction—
“I just kept running and running, and then I woke up.”
During the lunch break, Wei Yao told Wen Dajiang about last night’s nightmare in a corner of the cafeteria. As he spoke, he kept sucking in cold breaths.
“It was seriously fucking creepy. When I woke up this morning, my legs were so sore I could barely lift them. Even running three kilometers in the sports meet wasn’t this exhausting. It was like I’d actually been running all night.”
Wei Yao rubbed the goosebumps rising on his arms and lowered his voice. “You don’t think I really ran into a ghost, do you? I’ve been having similar dreams for four or five days in a row. And in the dreams, those people keep getting closer and closer to me. At first, I only dreamed that I saw several people with their backs to me, and I didn’t know what they were doing…”
Wen Dajiang slurped his iced cola. He didn’t think it was a big deal at all. He rolled his eyes and said, “Weren’t you the one who never believed in this stuff? What happened to you?”
Wei Yao had no way to explain himself. He certainly couldn’t say that he had only been pretending to act cool.
Actually, he didn’t even dare watch horror movies normally. Wouldn’t he lose all face if people found out?
Wei Yao secretly glared at his completely useless childhood friend. Then, from the corner of his eye, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure and immediately called out, “Little Blind Guy, come sit over here.”
Xu Muchan seemed not to hear him and continued using his white cane to search for a seat.
Wei Yao had no choice but to get up and pull him over. “Xu Muchan, sit here. I have something to ask you.”
This time, Xu Muchan didn’t pretend not to hear. He followed him over and sat down, slowly taking a bite of food as he waited for Wei Yao to speak first.
Wei Yao cleared his throat and stammered, “Why did you say five yesterday?”
He spoke somewhat vaguely, but Xu Muchan understood. “Because I heard five voi—”
Halfway through his sentence, Xu Muchan abruptly stopped and asked Wei Yao, “You responded to them?”
That creepy, prickling feeling appeared again.
Wei Yao became somewhat restless. “I—I guess you could say I didn’t exactly respond? They were counting… They asked me why I wasn’t counting. I originally wanted to leave, but for some reason, I said ‘six’…”
“Are you really knowledgeable about this kind of thing? I’m not actually being haunted by some ghost or something, am I?”
Wei Yao was still rambling, but Xu Muchan had already fumbled for the white cane beside him. He immediately stood up and left without even taking his tray.
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were both dumbfounded.
Wei Yao reached out to grab him, his tone unhappy. “What do you mean by that? Why are you leaving before you’ve finished talking?”
Xu Muchan brushed his hand away, his nerves taut. “They’ve come.”
After saying that, he was about to leave, but because he couldn’t see, he collided with someone coming from the opposite direction.
The other person’s tray fell to the floor with a series of crisp clang-clangs.
“Sorry, I didn’t see…” He Jiaqi hurriedly picked up the tray. Fortunately, she had already finished the food inside, so it hadn’t made too much of a mess.
She held the tray and looked up. When she saw who she had bumped into, she was somewhat surprised.
“Xu Muchan?”
Xu Muchan didn’t answer.
He stood frozen in place, his entire body tense.
The noisy sounds of the cafeteria had disappeared the moment the tray hit the floor.
The surroundings became eerily quiet.
The air seemed to have become damp as well.
From somewhere in the distance came the sound of footsteps—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
They were getting closer and closer…
Xu Muchan grabbed He Jiaqi by the shoulders and lowered his voice. “Look behind me. Are Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang still there?”
He Jiaqi looked behind him somewhat confusedly and said quietly, “They’re there. Wei Yao doesn’t look too happy. Did you upset him?”
Xu Muchan shook his head.
He turned around and, without any explanation, said to Wei Yao, “They’re here. You’d better hide quickly. If they catch you, you won’t be able to leave.”
After saying that, he turned to He Jiaqi. “I can’t see. Can you help lead me? I want to go over there.”
Xu Muchan pointed in the direction opposite the footsteps.
He Jiaqi was also completely confused, but for some reason, she believed Xu Muchan. Without asking any more questions, she nodded and lightly took hold of his arm, leading him out of the cafeteria.
Wen Dajiang watched the two of them leave just like that, completely baffled. He asked Wei Yao, “What did he mean? Who’s coming? Why do we have to hide?”
For some reason, Wei Yao’s face had gone deathly pale.
He didn’t answer Wen Dajiang.
“Old Wei? What are you spacing out for?”
Wen Dajiang gave him a shove.
The moment Wei Yao was touched, he snapped back to reality as though electrocuted. Seeing that Xu Muchan and He Jiaqi were already almost out of the cafeteria, he cursed, “Fuck!”
He hurriedly grabbed Wen Dajiang and chased after them.
“We’re really seeing ghosts in broad daylight. We’re following them!”
Wen Dajiang was caught completely off guard by the sudden pull. He knocked the table crooked and sucked in a breath from the pain, cursing as he stumbled along.
“Old Wei, what the hell are you doing?”
Wei Yao covered his mouth and dragged him along, lowering his voice.
“Stop fucking barking. Didn’t you notice something’s wrong with the cafeteria?”
“Where is something wro—”
Wen Dajiang’s gaze swept across the cafeteria, his speech becoming slower and more hesitant.
“I don’t know if it’s just me…”
The faces of the students sitting around the tables seemed to have become extremely blurry.
There was a hazy, foggy feeling, as though he couldn’t see them clearly.
Wen Dajiang rubbed his eyes.
This time, he could see things a little more clearly.
And then he fucking lost it.
His voice instinctively dropped to a whisper.
“Fuck, Old Wei… why do I feel like they’re all secretly watching us…?”