Deserted Village Apartments

Chapter 15 No.12
The next morning, I left the house on time.

Still arrived at Han Xiaofeng's school in a taxi, sneaked into the campus carefully, and came to the downstairs of the girls' dormitory where she was.It was exactly nine o'clock, the sun shone on my forehead, and the embarrassment of the girl downstairs made me retreat quietly under the shade of the tree.I watched the girls come out of the building one by one, their expressions were a little flustered, and they whispered to each other.When they walked past me, some of them couldn't help staring at me, which made me a little embarrassed.

I waited for more than ten minutes, but Han Xiaofeng didn't come out, so I called her mobile phone, but no one answered her phone after it rang for a long time.I became more and more confused, so I couldn't help but boldly walked to the door of the building, and looked inside carefully——

Suddenly, a hand was placed on my back, and I jumped up immediately.But what I never expected was that the person who slapped me on the back was actually my cousin, Police Officer Ye Xiao.

I opened my mouth wide and asked, "Why are you?"

"That's the question I want to ask you too." Ye Xiao looked at me suspiciously, pointed to the corridor inside and said, "Let's go up and talk."

Ye Xiao and I walked up the stairs of the girls' dormitory, and there were girls running down face to face, all of them panicked.We came to the corridor on the second floor, and at the door of one of the dormitories, there were a few teachers who looked like teachers, talking nervously.

My heartbeat speeded up inexplicably, and my legs involuntarily followed Ye Xiao to the door.Ye Xiao showed them his police ID, and I followed behind.

It was that strange smell again, just like in Huo Qiang's bedroom last night.Ye Xiao glanced around sternly, and his eyes fell on a bed by the window—it turned out that there was a girl lying on the lower bunk, curled up with her body arched, her face facing the wall.

Ye Xiao immediately put on a pair of white gloves, carefully reached out to the lying girl, and slowly turned her face around.

—I saw that face.

God, I almost screamed.I have never seen a person with such a frightened expression, that mouth opened so wide that it almost swallowed his own eyeballs.

What kind of fear is this?I'm sorry, I really can't describe her face in words, I can only say that if you look at it, it will be unforgettable, and it will become the scariest scene in your nightmare.

After staring blankly for more than ten seconds, I suddenly realized——I know this girl, even her name——Han Xiaofeng.

Han Xiaofeng died.

I couldn't believe my eyes, and subconsciously retreated to the door.I sniffed again, yes, this is the smell, the smell of death in Huo Qiang's bedroom.

Ye Xiao checked Han Xiaofeng carefully again, then left the body that was not stiff yet, turned to a teacher and asked, "Is she Han Xiaofeng?"

The teacher didn't dare to approach, and wiped the sweat from his forehead and replied: "Yes. This morning, the students in the same dormitory woke up and found that Han Xiaofeng was still asleep. They thought she was sleeping late, so they ignored her. About eight It was only after one o'clock that she was found dead."

"Is there anything unusual last night?"

"No, the students said that she fell asleep at 12:30 in the middle of the night. It was very quiet at night. There were five students in the dormitory, and no one found anything unusual."

Ye Xiao said coldly: "It's exactly the same as Huo Qiang yesterday."

Was she also frightened to death by the nightmare?

At this time, several other policemen came in, and they began to investigate the scene.Ye Xiao pushed me and the teacher out of the dormitory and said, "No one is allowed to enter this room until the investigation is over."

Then, Ye Xiao came out by himself, found a place where no one was around, and said to me: "You can tell me now, why did you appear here?"

I can no longer hide from him, I can only tell Ye Xiao that I found Huo Qiang's dormitory last night, and then Han Xiaofeng called me again.

Ye Xiao said seriously: "Why didn't you listen to my advice?"

"No, it's my responsibility, everything started because of my novel."

"What is this? Guilt, or self-blame? Remember, it's none of your business."

But I shook my head and said in a daze, "I must find out the secret of the deserted village."

Before the words fell, I quickly ran out of the girls' dormitory.I want to find the remaining two people - Su Tianping and Chunyu.

However, when I finally found their dormitory after several inquiries, I found that both of them had disappeared, and their classmates hadn't seen their shadow since this morning.

Maybe they have already heard about Han Xiaofeng's death?But where to find them now?

I scratched my head and thought about it for a long time, but I couldn't think of a way out, so I could only go home wearily.

When I got home, I was still fidgeting, and I spent the whole day in cranky thinking, and I didn't have the heart to write novels at all.I lay on the sofa with my eyes closed, thinking back to the first time I saw Han Xiaofeng, that was the first day of this story, and also in this room, she seemed full of energy and fearlessness, and that girl named Chunyu formed a stark contrast.But the phone call she made in the deserted village was so frightening and abnormal. I'm [-]% sure that she must have seen something, but for some reason, she couldn't or didn't dare to say it.

What kind of force made Huo Qiang and Han Xiaofeng die unexpectedly?Do nightmares really kill?

Suddenly, four words flashed through my mind——

"A deserted village nightmare."

My back is cold, perhaps, no one can escape this dream.

But are there really nightmare murders in the world?If there is, there must be relevant information.Yes, finding information has always been my strong point. I immediately turned on the computer and searched wildly on GOOGLE.

However, I searched the Internet for 10 minutes, all of which were boring webpages, and I went offline when I couldn't bear it.

Maybe find it in a bookstore?I immediately ran out of the house and walked into the nearby subway station in the dark. There is a bookstore I often go to, and it is also the place where I wrote book signings in the novel and then met "Xiaozhi".

It is eight o'clock in the evening, and there are not many people in the bookstore. I stand alone in front of the bookshelf of psychology and criminology, flipping through books describing crime and death.

But I still haven't found what I need. Perhaps, there has never been such a bizarre case in ancient and modern China and abroad, right?
Suddenly, I heard footsteps as thin as gossamer, coming from behind the bookshelf in front of me.

For some reason, my heart skipped a beat.So, I took down the book in front of me, and there was a gap on the bookshelf, allowing me to see the pair of eyes behind the bookshelf.

These are a pair of young woman's eyes, with lowered face curtains, flipping through some book.

Suddenly, she realized that someone was watching her, so she raised her head slowly, and the soft gaze hit my eyes.For a moment, both she and I were stunned.

——Nie Xiaoqian.

Through the gap of the bookshelf, I looked into her fox-like eyes, as if I was looking at a comic strip that came out of nowhere.

She suddenly smiled at me, and then disappeared in a flash.

Disappear like smoke?
I leaned nervously on the bookshelf, and continued to look forward through the gap until a hand patted my back.

I turned around tremblingly, only to find that she had turned behind me.

"Xiao Qian? Why are you here?"

She replied flatly: "You can come here to read, but can't I?"

"You just came over from get off work, what book are you reading?"

She held up a book in her hand, which turned out to be Suskind's novel "Perfume", which tells the story of a murderer who is addicted to perfume.

I nodded: "I also like this book very much, a very good novel."

She seemed a little reserved, and said softly, "I should go."

Then, I followed her to the cashier, and she bought the book. When I was about to leave, I suddenly stopped her: "I'm sorry, can I still talk to you?"

She hesitated for a while and said, "Okay, I'll give you 10 minutes, where are you?"

I looked around and said, "Just here—"

It turned out that there is a book bar in the corner of this bookstore, with a few tables and chairs, where you can drink tea and chat while reading books.

We sat in an inconspicuous corner, and a white candle was lit on the table. Under the flickering candlelight, I hesitated for a long time but was speechless.

She glanced at me and said, "The time given to you is limited, so please tell me if you have anything to do?"

There are so many things about the deserted village, I really don't know where to start, so I blurted out: "Two people have died."

"What did you say? Who died?" She was obviously taken aback too.

"The people who went to the deserted village were two college students. They just returned to Shanghai the night before yesterday, and they died yesterday and early this morning respectively."

In an instant, her face also turned pale, and she covered her mouth with her hands and said, "You said, someone died soon after returning from the barren village?"

I shivered and nodded: "Yes."

"What happened? Can you tell me more about it?"

In the white candlelight, I thought about it carefully, from the first day of this story: those four college students made a sudden visit, until this morning when I found Han Xiaofeng's death.Then, with a sip of my tea, I told her all of this.

My narration far exceeded 10 minutes, but she had already forgotten the time limit given to me, and she let out a long breath when I finished all the narration, and I found that her face under the candlelight was more like " Nie Xiaoqian".

She said quietly: "Thank you."

I was a little confused: "Thank me for what?"

"Thank you for telling me these things. I think we can discover the secret of the deserted village from those few college students."

"Are you looking for this secret too?"

Her expression was a little weird: "I'm sorry, I can't explain it clearly."

"However, I have one more thing to ask you - the night before yesterday, when you were parting, you warned me not to answer the phone. But the phone call did come that night, and it was Huo Qiang who just came back from the deserted village. That's weird, how did you know he was going to call me?"

She stared into my eyes, and after a moment of silence, she suddenly said: "Feeling, do you believe in feeling? The night before yesterday, at that moment by the side of the road, when I looked into your eyes, I suddenly heard—"

"What did you hear?"

She looked away from mine, stared blankly at the white candle and said, "The phone is ringing."

"No, that's impossible. I don't believe in such things."

"Because you write so many of these things in your novels, you think it's all contrived, don't you?"

"Who do you think you are? Nie Xiaoqian from Lanruo Temple? A psychic? Or a shaman?" After speaking, I realized that I had lost my composure, "I'm sorry, Xiaoqian—"

She snorted lightly: "Forget it, I know what you're thinking now, you think I'm just a crazy girl who messes around, and that everything I say is just fantasy."

"But you have no way to prove that your words are true. For example, how did you know about the deserted village?"

"Do you have to answer?"

I replied decisively: "Yes, you must answer, just tonight, now, NOW. If you don't answer, I will consider you a liar and will never pay attention to your harassment again."

"But—" She took a deep breath, "I can't say."

"Since this is the case, then you have no way to make others believe in you."

I stood up abruptly, my appearance must have been a little scary.She looked at me coldly, her eyes, which only appeared in Liaozhai stories, looked a little scary under the candlelight.I was standing, she was sitting, the eyes of the two sides refused to give up, and they faced each other for more than ten seconds.

Finally, her eyes softened, she lowered her eyes and said, "Okay, I'll tell you—"

I nodded and sat back gently on the chair.

Through the ambiguous flickering candlelight, she said faintly: "It's my grandma——everything about the deserted village was told to me by my grandma."

"Your grandmother is from a deserted village?"

"I don't know." She became a little restless and said with her head down, "I only vaguely remember when I was a child, my grandmother held me in her arms and told me the story of the deserted village softly."

"I see. Where is your grandmother now?" I immediately asked anxiously. If her grandmother was still alive, I would definitely visit her.

"My grandmother died a long time ago, and it has been more than ten years."

Alas, the hope that just popped up was extinguished again, and I foolishly said "I'm sorry".

But I continued to ask: "Why do I still remember the stories I heard when I was a child so clearly?"

"I don't know why." She raised her head and said with a soft sigh, "You may not believe it, I can't even remember what my grandma looked like, only those stories are clearly remembered, like a deserted village. The story of has replaced grandma and has been stubbornly growing in my mind."

"Well, if those stories are true, then your grandma must have a deep connection with the deserted village."

She sighed noncommittally: "Who knows?"

"I'll know." I looked into her eyes coldly, as if I wanted to dig out all the secrets in her eyes.

Finally, she looked at her watch and said, "It's time for me to go, it's already past the time given to you."

"excuse me, I--"

"Goodbye." She interrupted me and hurried out of the bookstore.

I followed closely behind and shouted loudly: "Wait a minute."

But as if she didn't hear it, she ran into the subway ticket gate like the wind, and disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye, leaving me standing alone in the empty hall.

(End of this chapter)