Hanging Shadow

The woman opposite hangs herself.

She calmly passed her neck through the noose like an elegant white swan.

“He’s hanging himself again.” the fat man whispered.

“Let me see.” I heard and snatched the telescope.

Although only the human figure could be seen reflected on the curtains, it was already night and the woman’s figure was particularly clear under the light. Her neck was tightly pulled by the rope hanging from the ceiling, and her long, straight legs were stretched taut and suspended in the air, but her body did not shake excessively, as if she had become accustomed to the feeling of being on the verge of death.

“How long can it last?” I asked.

“The human body’s limit is about thirty seconds. If you exceed that, you will faint.” The fat man raised his hand and looked at his watch: “It’s been twenty seconds.”

Before she could finish her words, the rope suddenly loosened and the woman fell down. Fortunately, the ceiling of the house was not high, and she just collapsed on the ground due to exhaustion and was not injured.

“This is the third time since we moved in here.” The fat man counted on his fingers.

“What is this doing?” I asked puzzledly.

“Tightening the neck will cause the vagus nerve to be blocked.” The fat man explained: “When she is on top, she can’t use any strength at all. She can only get out by external force.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” I looked at the fat man. “I mean, why does she keep pretending to hang herself?”

01

The first time I met this short-haired woman was on the subway a few days ago.

That day, Fatty and I ran from day to night in order to rent a cheap house again. We collapsed in the subway and were so tired that we couldn’t even lift our eyelids.

The real estate agency had all gone off work, and in order to find a house to live in earlier, we decided to go to a community called Huanglou Home to take a look at the environment there.

That’s when the woman appeared. She looked about the same height as me from a distance. After just one look, the fat guy and I followed her into the community like crazy.

We both watched the woman walk into the residential building silently in the garden downstairs until the lights in three households on the seventh floor came on.

“Vixen.” The fat man looked up at the building and smacked his lips.

“Are you a male fox?” I glanced at the fat man.

“A fox is good if it catches its prey,” the fat man said stubbornly.

“The environment in this community is okay.” I looked around and I didn’t know when the fat man and I were the only ones left in the community garden.

I originally planned to come and take a look at the environment, but I didn’t expect it to be so late, so the important thing was to quickly find a place to stay.

“Let me watch a little longer…” The fat man was still not satisfied.

I was about to reach out and pull him away, but I heard the fat man yell, “Fuck!”

“What’s wrong?” I looked up subconsciously.

Through the curtains, in the woman’s living room, a man was hanging upright in the air at some point in time.

“Why did she hang herself?” the fat man panicked.

“Help!” My mind went blank and I instinctively turned around and rushed into the building.

“Wait a minute!” The fat man suddenly grabbed me like crazy.

“You…” I was about to speak, but I saw the fat man pointing upstairs.

I looked up and the hanged woman was gone.

I thought I was hallucinating, but the next moment a figure stood up from the ground.

“Fuck.” The fat man cursed.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The rope is broken.” replied the fat man.

“It’s broken?” I was a little surprised: “Then should we go up there? I’m afraid she’ll commit suicide next.”

“She may not be committing suicide.” The fat man stretched out his hand to block me and said, “I feel that the rope is designed so that it will break by itself after hanging for a while.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

The fat man didn’t answer my question, but looked up thoughtfully.

“Sun Hao.” He suddenly said, “How long has it been since our official account had a hit?”

Fatty and I jointly run a curiosity-themed public account with a decent number of followers. I was just about to scold him for bringing up irrelevant issues. If the business was going well, would we have to go through the trouble of looking for a cheap house after the rent expires?

But I didn’t say that because I seemed to understand what the fat man meant.

“How about we rent this?” the fat man stared at the window and asked me in a low voice.

“The place is a bit remote, but the environment is okay and the rent is cheap.” I responded in a obsessed manner.

We moved in the next day.

02

[Huanglou Home] The community is a resettlement housing complex located in the suburbs. All the buildings are only built to seven floors, and for some reason they are painted an ugly khaki color. The scattered structures look like four strange load-bearing pillars of an old temple.

What is even more strange is that all the floors are not numbered, as if someone has deliberately erased the way to distinguish them. People with a weak sense of direction will definitely not be able to tell which floor is which.

The agent was a straightforward young man from Shandong. He told us directly that the biggest reason why there were many vacant houses and cheap rents in Huanglou Community, in addition to being an old community, was because of the bad feng shui here.

“If you mind, let’s look at other options.” The agent smiled and said, “Of course, the price will be relatively higher.”

“No need.” The fat man looked at No. 703 in the building opposite our house and shook his head like a rattle.

It’s been a long time since Fatty and I had a hit on our official account.

After that night, the fat man immediately determined that this hanged woman was the perfect material we were looking for.

“
Combined with previous observations, this woman is definitely not committing suicide.” The fat man said confidently: “The rope she used to hang herself was cut in advance, and it will break after a while. There should also be a mechanism designed so that she will fall down by herself after a period of time.”

“I don’t know why she hanged herself, but that’s not important.” The fat man put his arm around my shoulders and said, “I’ve already thought of a title. It’s called ‘The Hanged Woman’. It’s going to be a huge hit!”

Although I vaguely felt that it was a bit immoral, the fat man patted his chest and assured me that he was only using women as reference material and would never disclose her privacy to cause her trouble. Besides, the two of us were really running out of food.

Between morality and my stomach, I can only turn a blind eye.

03

“I still think it’s a bit bad to peek like this.”

I looked at the building opposite and the shadow on the curtain showed that she was holding her neck and breathing heavily. It was obvious that the act of hanging put a great strain on her body.

The fat man shrugged indifferently, handed me the telescope, walked back to the living room, sat on the sofa and started smoking.

I glanced across and suddenly found that the curtain had been opened at some point, but the woman was gone. I told the fat man and handed him the telescope, motioning him to put it in the suitcase.

“He just knows how to order me around.” The fat man muttered, a cigarette in his mouth, and reluctantly took the telescope.

Then he raised the telescope and looked across, as if he wanted to take one last look.

I ignored him and prepared to go back to the living room. After walking a few steps, I looked back and saw the fat man was still looking at something.

“Sun Hao.” The fat man suddenly called my name softly.

My heart skipped a beat. This guy has always called me by my nickname since I was a kid. Every time he calls me by my full name, something bad is bound to happen.

“Come and see.” The fat man’s tone was anxious.

04

The fat man handed me the telescope with a strange expression.

The curtains on the opposite side, which had been tightly drawn, were suddenly pulled open. The lights in the living room were on, but no one was seen.

“Where are the people?” I put down the telescope and asked the fat man.

The curtains have been drawn since the night we followed her here, and we have had no chance to see what her house looks like in the past few days.

Now looking at it, it is just a very ordinary decoration. There is a protruding ring in the middle of the ceiling, which seems to be used for hanging.

“Who told you to look at people?” The fat man pondered, “Look carefully at the wall in the living room. There are two photos.”

As the camera panned toward the photo and the magnification increased, my heart skipped a beat.

It’s not so much two photos as it is one photo divided into two.

The man’s head and body in the photo were cut off abruptly from the neck. One photo showed only the head, and the other showed only the part below the neck. It was very strange.

What’s even more terrifying is that the man’s face is exactly the same as the fat man’s.

“Why did she take a picture of you?” My brain seemed to have crashed and it took me a long time to utter a word.

“Cut me in half…are you trying to kill me?” The fat man was also stunned.

“I felt something was wrong with you that night. Tell me the truth.” I looked at the fat man: “Do you know each other?”

The fat man shook his head and raised his right hand and swore: “Absolutely impossible!”

“Maybe I am seeing things.” I thought about it and still found it incredible: “Maybe he just looks like you.”

The fat man raised the telescope again: “Not likely.”

He said: “The background of the photo is our home.”

05

When I heard that, I grabbed the telescope and almost subconsciously looked back at the living room. Sure enough, the decoration and layout were exactly the same as in the photo!

Considering that Fatty and I have only moved here a few days ago, the photos should have been taken in the past two days.

“Strange…” The fat man seemed to have thought of something: “Look at the clothes I’m wearing in the photo.”

I looked over – in the photo the fat guy was wearing a pure white short-sleeved shirt with a small Star Wars movie logo on the hem.

“When did you buy this clothes?” I also realized that I didn’t seem to have this clothes in my impression.

“The short-sleeved shirt is a co-branded model. I only tried it on in the mall half a month ago, but didn’t buy it.” The fat man said affirmatively.

“What’s with that photo?” I was also confused.

“This is really weird… Putting aside the clothes, do you think this is a warning?”

“What warning?” I asked.

“We peeped at her, so she cut my photos into pieces to warn us?” The fat man pursed his lips: “That’s not right, then why did she only take pictures of me and not you?”

“Maybe you look more like a pervert.” I said, “But we’ve only moved in two days ago and we’re together all day. It’s a bit difficult to take a photo of you without me.”

“What’s the meaning?”

“Two possibilities.” I looked at the fat man: “The first is that she has a crush on you.”

“Go to hell… But this situation cannot be completely ruled out, hehe.” The fat man scratched his head: “What about the other situation?”

“A trap.” I glanced at the other side subconsciously: “Just as you guessed, if that woman knew we were spying on her, then it would be only a matter of time before we discovered the photo with the telescope… What does this mean?”

“What does it mean? Does it mean that she is so skilled and bold that she changed the assassination attempt to an open one?”

“Are you a pig?” I gave the fat man a slap on the head. “It’s obvious that she wanted to arouse your curiosity and make you come to her on your own.”

“Are you saying that she took pictures of me to seduce me over here?” The fat guy was stunned by my picture and said with his eyes wide open.

“The curtains have been drawn for so many days, don’t you find it strange to open them now?” I asked him.

“What should we do now?” The fat man was confused by what I said.

It was completely dark, and the dim light from the living room opposite looked particularly dazzling in the pitch-black night. The woman must have gone out, as there was no one in the living room.

“I remember that I called the agent yesterday. I originally wanted to get some information about that woman indirectly. Now that I think about it, what the agent said was strange…”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He was stunned at first.” The fat man said, “Then he said it seemed like no one lived across the street.”

06

“What?” I instantly got goosebumps all over my body.

“He wasn’t sure either. He said he was new and not familiar with the place. I thought he might not want to disclose the privacy of his customers, so I didn’t think much about it.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” I blamed the fat man.

“How could I have imagined that something like this would happen?” the fat man looked aggrieved.

For some reason, I felt annoyed and walked over to draw the curtains.

“Wait until that woman is home tomorrow, I’ll go over and ask her.” The fat man said quickly when he saw that I looked unhappy.

“Let’s go together. This is a bit weird, it’s safer with two people.”

The fat man nodded: “I’m going to take a shower. This damn weather is so hot that it can kill people.”

“Let me take a shower first.” I couldn’t tell if it was because of the heat or the fear, but I was all sticky and sweaty.

“Then you wash, I’ll have a cigarette.” The fat man said and lay down on the sofa with a cigarette in his mouth.

Taking a shower is soothing and I close my eyes and feel the water rushing over my body.

“Fatty,” I yelled from the bathroom.

The fat man responded dazedly and seemed to have fallen asleep.

I felt much more at ease. It was obviously not a wise choice to go there alone without knowing the other party’s background.

In fact, compared to the photo of only the fat guy, I care more about the short-sleeved shirt the fat guy is wearing in the photo.

If what the fat guy said was true, he never bought that short-sleeved shirt, so how could the woman opposite have a photo of him wearing a short-sleeved shirt?

The most likely possibility is that the fat man is lying, but the fat man seems to have no reason to lie.

After thinking it over, I still had no clue. When I came to my senses, I realized that I had been standing under the shower for too long.

“Fatty, take a shower.” I shouted to the outside of the door.

There was no response, so I thought he was asleep, so I dried myself and went out.

The living room was empty and the door was ajar.

The curtains were drawn open at some point, revealing the inky night.

The fat man is gone.

07

I was in a trance for a few seconds. When I came to my senses, I almost trembled as I called Fatty, but the cold female voice in the phone reminded me that the user I called was out of service area.

There was more than half a pack of newly bought Yun cigarettes on the table, and a half-lit cigarette was placed in the ashtray.

The house opposite was still pitch black, and I wasn’t sure if anyone was inside.

I was completely confused.

Although the fat guy was usually playful, he would never make such a boring joke. Even if he was an old smoker, he would not forget to bring cigarettes even if he hid them.

This means that the incident was urgent and sudden, and he didn’t even have time to tell me.

I looked towards the window and saw that the curtains that I had just closed were opened by someone.

I put myself in the fat man’s shoes and tried to reproduce his actions as best as possible: the fat man was originally sitting on the sofa smoking, and suddenly he noticed something unusual opposite him, so he put down the cigarette, walked to the window, opened the curtains, and wanted to take a look.

I went to the balcony while thinking, and sure enough, the window was opened a little. The fat man must have seen something, and in order to see more clearly, he opened the window.

I looked into the corner and saw no signs that the telescope had been tampered with. But if I didn’t use the telescope, what could I see with my eyes alone in such a dark night?

And the door was ajar, so the fat man finally went out.

I went to the door again. The lights in the corridor were broken and darkness spread to the door. I couldn’t help but shiver.

“Don’t mess with me, Fatty.” I turned around and slumped on the sofa.

The fat guy’s phone still has no signal.

A place where there is no cell phone signal? Is it an underground garage? But there is no underground garage in this old community.

The fat guy’s 190 pounds of fat were not gained in vain, he wouldn’t be kidnapped, right?

My heart suddenly tightened, and I turned to look at the building opposite as if I had a premonition.

The whole building was dark, as if no one lived there.

Maybe I was overthinking it. I rubbed my head hard, vaguely feeling that something had been overlooked by me.

It should be a very important detail.

Just as I was getting restless, the light opposite came on.

08

I quickly got up and rushed to the balcony. A dim light was coming from the room opposite.

Like a guilty thief, I turned off the light in my room.

The curtains opposite were drawn, and I could only see a blurry figure in the living room. The figure walked around the living room and then sat down. I lay on the balcony and watched. After the figure sat for a while, he bent down to pick up a rope from the ground and threw it into the air. Then he put his head into the rope with ease, and finally lifted his feet off the ground.

“Fatty!” Looking at the familiar figure, I couldn’t help but shout loudly.

That shadow is a fat man, I can’t be mistaken.

Without thinking too much, I rushed out of the house and stumbled down the seventh floor in the dark.

It was too late, the street lights were turned off, and the entire neighborhood was empty.

I was worried about the situation in the building opposite. My brain seemed to be filled with paste. I ran towards the building opposite in the darkness where I could only hear my own rapid breathing.

The state stipulates that elevators must be installed above the seventh floor, so when building buildings in these older communities, they are very cunning and only build up to the seventh floor, so as to save the cost of installing elevators.

I didn’t have time to rest and ran to the seventh floor along the handrail.

Why did the fat man appear in the short-haired woman’s house, and how did he get in? Could they really have some relationship? I ran and thought about it.

The door of Room 703 was closed, and a dim light shone through the gap.

I reached for the door handle and yanked it open.

09

The room is empty.

There are no short-haired women and no fat people.

I put the picture of the fat man on the wall into my pocket.

The room was so clean that it looked like no one lived there, and the dim light shone on my skin.

I looked at the hemp ropes stacked next to the sofa and suddenly felt dizzy.

Is it an illusion?

No, I might make a mistake with others, but the fat guy is my childhood friend, and I definitely wouldn’t make a mistake with the familiarity in that shadow’s every move.

It took no more than five minutes from going downstairs to coming up. I sat on the sofa and looked at the door that was pushed open, imagining that the fat man and the woman would suddenly jump out from behind the door and say in unison:

“Happy April Fools’ Day!”

But today is August 7th, and I stared blankly outside the dark door, and nothing happened.

The structure of the house is the same as the one Fatty and I live in, a simple two-bedroom apartment.

The bedroom near the front door was open with the light on. There was only a bed and a table in the bedroom. It should be a guest room.

There is a diary with a red cover on the table.

The best option was to pretend I didn’t see it and leave immediately, but after thinking about the missing fat man, I hesitated for a long time and finally opened the diary.

10

“Is there a ghost in the neighborhood?”

The first page of the diary was written in marker.

The first sentence made me regret opening it. What does “there are ghosts” mean? Are all these strange things I’m experiencing now caused by ghosts?

Without time to think about it, I quickly turned to the second page:

“Don’t trust tension.”

Zhang Li is the fat man’s name. I looked at the words on the paper and cold sweat soaked my back.

There is no such coincidence. Does the person who wrote this sentence think there is something wrong with fat people? Looking at the familiar handwriting on the paper, I suddenly looked towards the door nervously. The whole building seemed to be dead silent as if even the air was stagnant.

There was another sentence next to the word that had been smeared out. I resisted the inexplicable dizziness and turned to the back of the paper and held it up to the light:

“Don’t trust anyone.” The words that were erased were printed on the back of the paper.

“Don’t open the door to the next bedroom!!!” On the third page, there are three exclamation marks after this sentence.

I flipped the page again, and as the diary shook, a piece of paper fell out.

The last words on the note were: “After midnight, the owner of the house will gain eternal life.”

The handwriting was twisted like a skull, and it didn’t look like it was written by the same person as the words on the previous pages.

There were signs of tearing between the first page and the cover, which meant that what I saw might not be the real first page. Apart from these, signs of paper tearing could be seen at the junctions of almost every subsequent page.

There are probably more than five sentences in the message, and some words have been torn out. These words seem to have been written by several people in turn.

So who are these people?

What do the crooked words “After midnight, the owner of the house will have eternal life” mean?

[The owner of the house] should refer to that woman. Combined with the first sentence [There is a ghost in the community], does it mean that the woman is a ghost?

11

I bit my nails and wondered what kind of incredible thing happened to the person who wrote this paragraph that made him feel that ghosts and gods were behind all this?

“Eternal life”, does it mean literally?

I looked around, but couldn’t find any useful clues except bare walls.

An inexplicable fear fermented in my mind. I walked out of the bedroom, looked around the empty and strange room, and pinched my arm hard to make sure I was not dreaming.

From the moment the fat man saw the photo, what has happened so far is obviously beyond my understanding.

Perhaps influenced by the diary, I selectively ignored the other bedroom and walked to the balcony. The cool breeze in the early morning calmed my mind a lot.

No matter what, staying in someone else’s house is not a solution. What if the woman comes back and I can’t explain myself clearly? I took a deep breath and closed the window.

Just as I closed the window, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind like an electric shock, and then the hairs on my back stood up – when did the lights in the house turn on?

I clearly remember that I turned off the lights while opening the curtains because I was afraid that the woman opposite would see me. After seeing the fat man, I rushed out of the house directly.

But now, the curtains are drawn and the lights are turned on.

My legs felt a little weak, and I saw a figure walking from the living room to the balcony, stretching and pulling open the curtains.

Fatty! When did he go back?

12

The fat man stood on the balcony for a while and then turned back to the living room.

I took out my cell phone to call Fatty but found that there was no signal.

My mind gradually calmed down, but I was filled with more and more doubts. I ran here from home because I saw the fat man hanging himself, but at this moment, the fat man appeared in the house opposite as if he had a clone.

These old buildings obviously don’t have secret passages or back doors. In other words, if Fatty wanted to leave here and go back to our own home, we would have met just now.

But the fact is that the fat man returned home without me noticing.

“There’s a ghost in the neighborhood.” The words in the diary lingered in my mind.

Apart from “ghost”, I couldn’t think of a more reasonable explanation for the moment.

There is a second sentence in the diary: “Don’t believe in tension.”

My mind was a mess and I sat on the sofa staring at the snow-white wall.

This neighborhood does have problems.

From the time I came downstairs till now, not only was there no one, but there was no sound either. The whole neighborhood seemed to be dead silent.

Just when I was in a dilemma, there was a loud “bang” from the locked room next door.

13

I was so scared that I almost suffocated. Then a noisy sound similar to electromagnetic interference came from behind the door. The sound became louder and louder, as if it was playing in a loop in my ears.

“Don’t open the door to the next bedroom!!!”

The third sentence in the diary exploded in my mind like thunder. I turned around and ran out of the house in a hurry. The corridor was too dark to see the road ahead, so I grabbed the handrail and ran downstairs.

This feeling of being at a loss was not relieved until I ran out of the stairs.

I wandered back and forth between the two buildings, and finally decided to go and ask about the fat man’s situation first.

When I opened the door, the fat man was looking at me with a confused expression.

“Come in, why are you standing there?” The fat man laughed dryly.

I stared at the fat man and decided to run away without looking back if I noticed anything unusual about him.

“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I tried to make my tone sound calm.

“I’m going to buy cigarettes.” He shook the Yunyan cigarette he had just opened in his hand and said, “The convenience store downstairs doesn’t have an ashtray. When you go out, buy one for our family.”

“There’s no fucking store open right now!” I was so emotional that I yelled in despair.

“Did you take the wrong medicine?” The fat man stood up and asked, “Why close the door at 7 o’clock in the evening?”

“Seven o’clock?” I said tremblingly.

“Yeah.” The fat man took out his cell phone: “Fuck, there’s no signal in this crappy house.”

“Look.” The fat man pointed at the screen and said word by word, “Beijing time, August 6, 7:23 p.m.”

I subconsciously took out my cell phone, and the time on it stopped at the early morning of August 7th.

14

“If you’re tired, go to sleep now, don’t be so nervous here.” The fat man said, “By the way, did the woman across the street hang herself after I left?”

“You go to sleep and I’ll keep an eye on it. Don’t worry, as long as we study it well, this article will definitely be a huge hit.” Seeing that I didn’t react, the fat man continued.

He had already said this yesterday.

“Fatty.” I looked at him and said, “We may be possessed by evil spirits.”

I told the fat man what happened on the seventh floor opposite.

The fat man just smiled and said, “Look up and see what’s happening on the other side?”

I turned my head sharply and looked towards the balcony. The building opposite was completely dark.

“It was like this across the street when I was smoking on the balcony just now. Not a single light was on,” said the fat man.

“Is it really August 6th now?” I asked the fat man weakly, my head dizzy.

“I’m so tired. I’m going to take a shower.” The fat man obviously didn’t want to talk to me more.

I also hesitated. Was everything just an illusion?

I sat on the balcony. I didn’t turn off the lights when I escaped, but now they were off and even the curtains were drawn.

Just like it had just started yesterday afternoon.

I thought of the locked bedroom and the noisy electronic music coming from it, and my heart was filled with confusion.

I don’t know how long it took, but the lights on the opposite side came on again.

“That woman is back?” The fat man ran from the living room to the balcony after taking a shower, pushed me away excitedly, and turned off the lights in the room.

“Why did you turn off the lights?” My nerves were already tense and I was startled by him.

“Nonsense, what if we are discovered?” the fat man said as he picked up the telescope.

The figure opposite threw the rope into the air and looked like he was about to hang himself again.

“This is really sick.” The fat man was shocked as he watched.

I tried my best to isolate myself from the implications of what was written in my diary.

But looking at the fat man’s back in the white short-sleeved shirt he had just changed into, the more he looked, the more uneasy he felt. The fat man in front of him was like a stranger.

“Fatty,” I called him.

The fat man turned around in the dark, and the short-sleeved shirt he was wearing was the non-existent “Star Wars” co-branded model.

15

“What’s wrong?” The fat man in the dark smiled wryly.

“I want to go downstairs for a walk.” I forced myself to say this in the calmest tone.

“I’ll go with you after you finish watching.” The fat man smiled crookedly in the darkness, turned around and looked at the opposite side.

“No thanks.” I said, turning my back and walking towards the door.

“Yes.” The fat man said with his back to me in a low and irrefutable voice.

Something was wrong, really wrong, both with that woman and the fat man.

Suggested by the words in the diary, I don’t believe the fat man in the house, or the “thing” that looks exactly like the fat man.

Fortunately, the fat man didn’t catch up with me when I went downstairs, but there was no one downstairs.

If this is what the “fat guy” upstairs said about seven o’clock in the middle of summer, it is too deserted.

This time I didn’t hesitate and ran quickly towards the gate of the community. But no matter how long I ran, the neon lights in front of me were always so far away, and the sound of car horns did not get closer.

Nothing has changed.

I’m trapped in this neighborhood.

Is it a ghost wall?

If the woman who kept hanging herself was the “ghost” mentioned in the diary, then what was her intention?

Do you want me to starve to death in this community after I eat grass?

I picked up a half-broken iron rod in the garden. I don’t know if ghosts can be physically liberated, but holding the rod makes me feel more at ease.

One floor, two floors, three floors…the whole building was as quiet as death.

When I arrived at the door of the seventh floor, it was still ajar, as if it was waiting for me.

I wiped the sweat from my palms, clenched the iron rod, and carefully used the front end of the stick to pry open the security door.

I turned on the light and looked around. Nothing had changed since I arrived.

The house opposite was dark, and I suddenly had a sense of spatial dislocation, as if everything that had just happened was happening again. It seemed that I had never left this house and had never met the fat man.

The pile of ropes was still neatly piled on the ground. I put the stick aside, sat on the sofa and looked at the ropes quietly, trying to find a reasonable explanation for what happened, but all thinking was in vain.

Thinking soon made me tired. I bent down and supported my cheeks with my hands to resist the sleepiness. My consciousness gradually became blurred. In a trance, I felt as if I was floating, and the pressure on my neck became heavier and heavier… I forced myself to open my eyes
and found that I was hanging in mid-air. The lights in the house opposite were on again .

Just when I felt my eyeballs were about to be squeezed out, accompanied by a sharp pain, my body paused, and I fell from the air.

16

I woke up again on the sofa at home. I climbed up with difficulty and felt a sharp pain in my neck. I reached out to touch my neck and the pain became even more intense.

The fat guy in the Star Wars T-shirt stood next to me, staring at me with a complicated expression: “What’s wrong with you? Are you really possessed?”

I tried to open my mouth, but my throat seemed to be blocked by something. Seeing this, the fat man hurriedly handed me a glass of water.

It still hurt as the water went down my throat, but it felt much better.

“Your neck is all blue.” said the fat man with concern.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked, rubbing my head. The only scene I could remember was the last moment I fell from the air.

“Are you possessed?” The fat man took the cup and put it on the table. “I just looked at that woman for a while, and when I turned around, I saw you lying on the sofa, strangling yourself.”

“What do you mean?” I suddenly felt a sharp pain on my left cheek. I touched it with my hand and found that it was swollen.

“You wanted to strangle yourself to death, but you couldn’t wake yourself up no matter what I did. I could only slap you to wake you up.” The fat man said dissatisfiedly, “If I had come back one minute later, you would have strangled yourself to death, don’t you understand?”

“So I was dreaming just now?” I was a little confused.

“Is what you said yesterday true?” The fat man hesitated as if he remembered something, “You…really saw a ghost?”

“Fatty.” I didn’t care about my random thoughts and looked at the fat man: “Where did you get this short-sleeved shirt?”

“I bought it.” The fat man looked like he had no idea what I was talking about: “Isn’t this the co-branded item I bought with you at the mall half a month ago?”

“I never bought it from you.” My heart skipped a beat when I heard him say that it was half a month ago. “Tell me honestly, do you have any relationship with that woman?”

“No.” The fat man answered immediately, “What relationship do I have with her?”

I looked at the fat man’s face carefully. “Every wrong has its perpetrator, and we can’t be entangled with these things for no reason.”

“I think you were cursed. If we talk about karma, it’s because we peeped at others, so we are both responsible.”

“Then why did she only put up a photo of you?” I asked back.

The fat man was stunned and asked, “What photo?”

“The one in the living room…” I was about to speak but suddenly remembered: “The photo in the living room opposite was taken away by me.”

“What photo are you talking about?” the fat man asked.

“There was a photo of you on the wall of the living room across from me.” I said weakly, “The one with your head and body separated.”

“Is this true? Why didn’t I notice it just now?” the fat man said in shock, stood up and walked towards the balcony.

I turned my head and looked towards the balcony. The lights opposite were still on, but I didn’t want to look at that place anymore, so I lay on the sofa and looked at the ceiling.

“Sun Hao, come and take a look.” After a moment, the fat man’s trembling voice came from the balcony:

“Why is there a picture of you on the other side?”

17

I stood up and rushed to the balcony, snatching the telescope from the fat man’s hand.

In the camera, my photo was nailed to the opposite wall, with my head and body deliberately cut off.

For a moment I thought I was dazzled, and reluctantly looked again to make sure.

In the empty living room, the photo was nailed abruptly in the middle of the wall.

“What’s going on? Didn’t you say it was me in the photo?”

Before I could answer him, my stomach suddenly churned and I couldn’t help but vomit on the balcony.

The fat man didn’t say much. He walked into the house silently, picked up the tissue and handed it to me.

“Sun Hao, what is going on?” the fat man asked softly.

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know! I’ve said everything I need to say…” My throat felt sore and my voice became hoarse. I stood up weakly, not caring about the pile of filth on the balcony, and walked straight to the sofa.

“I don’t know much about these things, but if it’s really as you said,” the fat man said slowly, “you traveled back to August 6 from the early morning of August 7.”

“It’s not speculation.” I looked at my neck in the mirror, which was bruised by the rope. “All of this really happened.”

“What about you in this world? What about you who was bathing at home?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head and pointed to the other side. “The only thing I know is that originally in my world, you didn’t have this Star Wars co-branded piece, and the picture on the wall was yours.”

“So I’m not ‘me’ now, and you’re not ‘you’ in my world?” The fat man pointed at himself and said in disbelief: “You’re almost confusing me.”

“This is the only answer I can think of.” I handed him the photo of the fat man in my pocket.

The fat man’s body was visibly shocked, and then he returned the photo to me.

“I have another question: Can ghosts take pictures?” The fat man asked, “Using a Ghost brand camera?”

I am speechless.

“One of us has to go crazy.” The fat man sighed.

“It’s also possible that both of them are crazy.” I said with a wry smile.

“Then you said that we have no grudge against her and we were just peeping at her. There is no need for her to retaliate like this, right?” said the fat man.

“It seems that I am the only one who has been retaliated against at the moment,” I said.

“Not necessarily. You said you went out because of my disappearance, right? Maybe the other me is the same as you are now?” said the fat man.

“Whatever happens.” I looked at the puddle of filth on the balcony. “I just want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“How to leave?” asked the fat man.

18

The fat man and I stood in the middle of the empty community garden. Four ochre-colored buildings stood quietly, surrounding us.

Just like before, no matter which way I walked, the neon lights in front of me were always so far away, and the sound of car horns did not get any closer.

Nothing has changed.

“A ghost wall?” The fat man whispered, “If I had known I would have listened to the agent and not rented this place.”

I looked up and saw that among the four buildings, only the one opposite ours had a yellow light on.

It’s the woman’s room.

“What do you think?” the fat man looked at me.

“If that woman is really a ‘ghost’.” I looked at the fat man: “Why didn’t she kill us both at once, but let us keep wandering here?”

“She wants us to starve to death in this garden by eating grass?” The fat man looked around and scratched his head. “The taller lawn on the east side belongs to me.”

“Combined with my previous experiences.” I said without any intention of joking, “I think her ability to hang people is only useful to people who enter the house. Once outside the house, she can only do this at best.”

“And it’s only useful to one person at a time, so you didn’t get hurt when you went to save me,” I said.

“So?” the fat man said, “We really have to eat grass?”

“Let’s go to her house again.” I said to Fatty, “I have an idea.”

19

“Are you sure this method will work?” At the door of Room 703, the fat man said silently, “How about we go in together?”

“This house might cause hallucinations. If we get into trouble together, we’ll both die together.” I looked at the fishing line in my hand and said, “There’s no other way anyway.”

“Then I’ll go in.” said the fat man.

“I’ll go in.” I handed one end of the line to the fat man and said, “You stay at the door. If the same situation happens as in my dream last night, you can save me again.”

“Come on.” The fat man moved his shoulders. “If you stay outside, I can’t carry you.”

“I can’t even carry you,” I replied.

“Why are you as troublesome as you are in this world?” The fat man looked me up and down and said, “Will I never be able to win an argument with you?”

“It’s okay.” I patted his shoulder. “She failed to kill me in my dream last time, and she will definitely not be able to kill me this time.”

“That’s because your fat daddy protected you last time.” The fat man patted me and said, “Go quickly if you need to. Pull the rope if you need anything. I’ll smoke a cigarette at the door.”

“Okay.” I nodded, looked at the fat man in front of me who looked exactly the same as me but had an indescribable sense of strangeness, and pushed open the door.

20

The moment the door closed, I seemed to hear the sound of the fat man pressing the lighter, and then the world became quiet.

“Fatty?” I said to the outside.

The fat man outside the door responded with a “hmm”. I touched the knife that I had just put in my pocket and felt a lot more at ease.

There is about three meters between the door and the sofa. Fatty and I just went back home and took out a fishing line that is a little more than three meters long. I tied one end to my arm and the other end to Fatty’s hand. This way, when that woman appears and hangs me up, the fishing line will naturally become taut, and Fatty will rush in at the first opportunity.

I don’t know if two grown men can defeat a female ghost, but it’s better than being trapped to death in the community.

I sat on the sofa, and the fishing line on my arm was calculated to reach a perfect balance, so that as long as my body was slightly in the air, the fat man would be alerted.

I sat on the sofa and looked at the photo with a red cross on it on the opposite wall. In the photo, I was standing on the balcony smoking a cigarette, exactly the same as the photo of the fat man. Suddenly, an inexplicable sense of familiarity flashed through my mind, but I couldn’t figure out the relationship between the two.

I have heard of the so-called parallel space theory before: our world is not a straight line going straight forward. Every decision you make, even a simple choice of going left or right when you go out in the morning, will disperse countless parallel universes. If this world is not my original world, then such a difference is entirely possible.

But does this also mean that the original photo was not taken of the fat man, but the fat man just happened to be standing on the balcony at that time?

In fact, I am also confused about the fat man’s thoughts. Can ghosts also take pictures?

The rope on his arm was hanging neither tight nor loose. The fat man should have finished smoking. It had only been a minute or two since I came in, but I didn’t know why I was getting more and more anxious.

“Fatty?” I asked tentatively. It suddenly became quiet outside the door.

My heart tightened and I quickly stood up and pulled the fishing line, which instantly broke into a straight line.

“Fatty?” I yelled, running to the door and opening it.

It was pitch black outside the door, and the fishing line was tied to the door handle.

The fat guy ran away!

“Don’t believe in the tension.” I suddenly thought of the words in the diary. Just as I untied the fishing line on my arm, I felt a sudden chill on my back.

I turned around and saw the woman from across the building. She was standing behind me, almost touching my distance.

The woman stared at me with a smile. I wanted to speak but couldn’t open my mouth.

She just stared at me like that, and suddenly, her face began to rot, and her skin hung on the ground like mud, emitting heat and a strong fishy smell.

I was so shocked that I tried to run away but the woman grabbed my neck from behind.

21

In my panic, I don’t know where I got the courage from, but I turned around, grabbed her neck and started wrestling with her.

With the dim light in the living room, I unexpectedly felt that I had the upper hand in this fight amidst waves of dizziness.

When the brain regained control of the body, the female corpse was no longer moving.

I lay on the floor gasping for breath. The adrenaline that had built up during the fight quickly faded away, and then I realized how big a thing I had done: there was no female ghost at all. It was clearly the short-haired woman that Fatty and I saw on the subway that day. There was nothing scary about her face. At least in the eyes of the police, this would be a real female human corpse.

I wanted to get up and escape from this nightmarish place, but I heard someone coming up the stairs.

I hurriedly closed the door and the lights in the house, and through the peephole, I saw the neighbors across the street walking in, talking and laughing.

Maybe because the woman died, I finally escaped from that damn weird time and space.

But there was no time to be happy. What should I do with this body?

If I call the police, I will definitely be treated as a murderer.

Dismembering a body is a very stupid act. The old house is not well sealed, and the noise and blood are difficult to deal with. If you are not careful, it will inevitably arouse suspicion from others.

I turned off the lights in the house, and the moonlight at night shone through, illuminating the room.

I looked at the woman again. Although her neck was bruised from my pinching, it still couldn’t hide her beauty.

We can’t just leave it there, the temperature is too high. If we leave it there, within three days the body will start to decompose and stink, and people will notice it then.

After killing the woman, can I really escape from this neighborhood?

There weren’t many people downstairs, but it was a rare sight for me who had experienced an empty space. The house opposite me and the fat guy’s was always dark, and I didn’t know where the fat guy had gone.

I was lying on the balcony and watching carefully, when suddenly my body felt like it was electrified and I became paralyzed.

There were two familiar figures standing downstairs, it was me and the fat man.

Even after experiencing so many absurd things, my brain was still stuck for a moment, but I quickly reacted.

It is now August 5th, the eve of our “rental”. The two people downstairs are looking upstairs and talking about something.

The moment I saw the other “me”, I had already decided: I definitely could not stay in this time and space. Not only because of the existence of the other “me”, but just because of the corpse in the living room, I should run as far away as possible.

But how to escape?

I looked at the two people downstairs. If I remember correctly, the fat man and I should be waiting for the woman to come upstairs, but the woman in this time and space has been killed by me, so they definitely won’t be able to wait.

Looking at the dark living room, I subconsciously let my tied hair down.

The curtains were drawn, and I used a knife to cut the rope to the right length, turned on the light, and hung myself up.

22

The woman and I had very similar body shapes, and we couldn’t tell them apart even through the curtains. This was something I noticed from the beginning.

Sure enough, the two people downstairs left the community, looking back every few steps. They will definitely move here tomorrow.

I couldn’t explain why I did this. I rubbed my aching neck, and a vague feeling of annoyance always lingered in my heart.

My head was buzzing, and what the real estate agent said was intriguing.

He said “the feng shui is bad”. Not only is the feng shui bad, the entire community is like the eighteenth level of hell.

In fact, from the very beginning when the fat man disappeared, I vaguely felt that something was wrong. Now that I think about it carefully, there is indeed something abnormal in these things, and it is this detail that has caused me to feel uncomfortable.

I pressed the sofa with my fingers, and the whole thing seemed clear but also shrouded in fog: If “I” was the woman that the fat man and I saw, then it would mean that all of this was caused by myself, but that didn’t make sense, because the woman’s body was now next to me, and what I had seen before was obviously not an illusion.

I looked nervously towards the closed bedroom door.

I decided not to open the door, since I could get out now. Even if it meant killing someone, it was better than being trapped to death in this endless space.

Endless space?

Suddenly I seemed to grasp something: the third sentence in the diary: “After midnight, the owner of the house will gain eternal life.”

From another perspective, doesn’t this eternal life mean that the woman who trapped us will not die, but that everyone who becomes the “master of the house” can obtain eternal life after midnight?

So who is the owner of the house now? I looked at my watch. It was already the early morning of August 6th. I didn’t know when the surroundings became dead silent again.

Feeling uneasy, I left the woman’s body openly in the living room, opened the door and rushed downstairs.

Sure enough, there was no one in the community. I tried to run to the gate of the community again and again, but it was as if I was trapped in a maze and returned to a farther point.

I was trapped in the community again.

After trying thirteen times, my spirit was close to collapse, and finally I couldn’t bear it anymore and stabbed my neck with a knife.

23

Wake up in the afternoon.

I stood up from the sofa in surprise. There was no wound on my neck.

I stared blankly across. It was the afternoon of August 6th. There was a light on the seventh floor opposite. “I” and “Fatty” had already moved in.

Some things suddenly dawned on me: [The owner of the house gets eternal life], but the price of eternal life is to be trapped in this community forever.

The fat man who escaped should have known the way to solve this deadlock, which is to find a scapegoat to voluntarily enter the room.

At least I can be free.

So, where is the scapegoat I’m looking for? I looked at the building opposite and pasted the fat man’s photo on the wall.

In fact, I had thought of it a long time ago, but I just didn’t want to admit it. When the fat man disappeared, the door was ajar.

When would the door be left ajar? If something happened outside the door, Fatty would at least tell me. If it was a stranger outside the door, Fatty would definitely call me out.

Then there is only one possibility, the fat man was called out by someone.

Who called you out?

I am the only person he knows in this city.

At nine o’clock, I turned off the lights in the house and went to the “home” opposite.

I opened the door and woke up the fat man who was sleeping soundly on the sofa.

“Fatty.” I waved at him from the door, trying to appear extremely anxious:

“Come out quickly, something’s happening over there!”

24

That’s it, I looked at the fat man following me, and as long as I locked him in the door, I would be free.

“What happened? I felt like the faucet in the bathroom was not turned off just now.” The fat man said as he followed me.

“You heard wrong.” I didn’t respond and led the fat man to the door of 703.

“Fatty, you go in first…” I turned around and was about to let the fat man go in first as planned, but I found that the fat man who had been following me was gone.

I pushed open the door, and the woman’s body on the ground was gone.

Just as I was about to close the door and go out, someone pushed me from behind and then the door was locked.

I got up and rushed to the door but couldn’t open it. Just as I was knocking on it, the locked door behind me suddenly made a click and the bedroom door opened.

I can’t describe how I felt at that moment.

There were countless corpses piled up in the room: me, the fat man, and the women, all collapsing towards me.

In the hands of “me” and “fat guy”, there are photos of each other wearing different clothes.

– over –