Weird Mom

I suspected that my mom wasn’t my mom and that my real mom had disappeared.

1. Mother

The first time I started to have doubts was at lunch a week ago. My mother prepared lunch and called me to eat. There were four dishes on the table: stir-fried meat with green peppers, stir-fried tofu, stir-fried pork liver, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

I was confused and turned to ask my mother who came out of the kitchen with dishes and chopsticks: “Mom, why are you cooking pork liver? I never eat pork liver!”

Mom put down her bowl and chopsticks, smiled and said, “You are still picky about food at this age. Be obedient and eat.”

“But…oh, forget it.” I swallowed my words. What I wanted to say was that my mother herself hated eating pig liver…

I thought at the time that my mother might have punished me by making dishes that I didn’t like because I didn’t do well in the final exam.

But later I began to realize that things were getting more and more wrong.

Mom behaves differently in her daily life than before.

In the past, my mother would go out to play mahjong with her group of sisters, but now it’s been a week since we had a holiday, and I haven’t seen her go out.

She calls to have the food and drinking water delivered to her door, and although she doesn’t go out, she puts on makeup every day at home.

During this long vacation, she never asked me about my winter homework.

In the past, she was particularly nagging about my studies. Even during the holidays, she required me to study seriously for two hours every day before I could play with my phone or watch TV.

She suddenly began to like humming songs, and as long as it was not time to go to bed at night, you could always hear her humming songs from time to time.

She stayed in her room most of the day. I shouted at her door, “Mom, I’m going out to play with my friends.” She just responded with a single word and didn’t even come out to see me.

When I got home, she was still in the room.

It’s just that these daily things have become particularly strange, but this can’t prove anything. The doubts in my heart are just getting deeper and deeper, and I’m slowly feeling uneasy: “Maybe I just lost money playing cards recently, so I deliberately changed some of my habits in order to quit.” I gave myself a very far-fetched reason to comfort myself.

But one night, all the psychological hints disappeared, and I was sure that the person now was not my mother.

In the middle of the night, I was awakened by thunder. When I was about to turn over and change to a comfortable position to continue sleeping, I discovered something that shocked me extremely. I was so scared that my body froze and I dared not move. It was the first time I felt fear and my scalp was numb.

Because I got a pimple today, before going to bed I took a mirror and observed the condition of my pimple on the bed. After looking at it, I casually put the mirror on the bedside table.

When I was sleeping, I had my back to the door. When I was awakened by the thunder and was about to turn over, a flash of lightning illuminated the room. I saw a person in the mirror on the bedside table. It was my mother.

No, at that time I was no longer sure whether she was still my mother.

In the mirror, “Mom” was standing straight at the door, staring at me on the bed.

She was wearing a sundress, but it was winter, 0 degrees.

There is no indoor heating in the south…

When did she come?

Why are you staring at me at the door in the middle of the night?

Why isn’t she afraid of the cold?

What does she want to do?

Countless questions flashed through my mind, and considering the strange behavior of “Mom” recently, I was sure of one thing: this person was not my mom! !

Then who is she?

Why do you look exactly like my mom?

What do you want to do to me?

I still maintained the same posture with my back to the door, pretending to sleep, and listened attentively to the movement at the door.

I don’t know how long it took, but I heard the sound of footsteps at the door, and then the sound of “Mom’s” room door closing.

My tense body relaxed, and I slowly turned around to look at the door where “Mom” had just stood. The more I thought about it, the more scared I became. My body began to tremble slightly. I took out my phone from under the pillow and checked the time.

It was 3am in the morning… How long had she been standing at the door?

Has he been staring at the door since I fell asleep?

I couldn’t sleep all night, and at five in the morning, I got up slowly, afraid to make any noise.

I found a cloth bag, put a few clothes and necessities in it, stood on tiptoe, slowly moved to the door, and stuck my head out.

I glanced at my mother’s room next door and saw that the door was closed. I walked out of the room and walked towards the front door of my house, looking back from time to time, fearing that “Mom” would appear behind me.

When I reached the entrance, I gently opened the door and walked out, then gently closed the door again.

After closing the door, I immediately ran away. I don’t know if “Mom” noticed me, but I was too scared. This unknown fear made me unable to stay in that room any longer.

I ran out of the neighborhood and stopped to catch my breath. It was dark all around me and the streets were empty.

Where should I go now?

Strolling along the empty streets, I began to calmly think about the current situation. Should I call the police?

Definitely not, I don’t have any evidence.

Who is this person?

What I have learned tells me that there are no two people in this world who look exactly the same.

Where was my real mother?

There were too many questions. At the age of sixteen, I was unable to answer them and did not dare to verify them.

“When it’s daybreak, I’ll go to my uncle’s house and discuss it with him,” I said to myself.

I found an Internet cafe and planned to stay there until dawn and then go to see my uncle.

It was already half past eight when I woke up from the Internet cafe. I quickly picked up my bag and left the Internet cafe, hailed a taxi, and told the address of my uncle’s house.

My uncle’s house is not far from my house, and it only takes more than ten minutes to get there.

I quickly ran to my uncle’s house and rang the doorbell. After a while, the door opened.

Without waiting for my uncle to speak, I walked in and said as I took off my shoes, “Uncle, I have something very important to tell you.”

“What is it?” a female voice answered.

I looked up at the living room in astonishment. My “mom” was sitting on the sofa, staring at me expressionlessly.

2. Imprisonment

I never thought that my mother would show up at my uncle’s house so early. She didn’t seem surprised at all by my appearance, as if… as if she knew I would come, so she was waiting for me…

It was so terrible. My own daughter disappeared from home early in the morning without saying anything. As a mother, she didn’t even call me. Instead, she showed up at my uncle’s house calmly, not showing any sign of being anxious.

This further confirmed my guess that she was not my mother.

Seeing me standing at the door in a daze, my uncle took my bag and said, “What’s wrong? Come in.”

“You two, mother and daughter, are really weird. You come here so early in the morning, and you’re all together.” Uncle muttered as he walked towards the living room.

I hesitated for a moment, but still followed my uncle into the living room. I chose a seat on the sofa farthest from “Mom” and sat down.

I kept my head down as I entered the room, not daring to look at “Mom”.

But I felt like “Mom” had been staring at me since I walked in the door.

This made me feel very oppressed, but I couldn’t just run away. At the age of sixteen, I was separated from my family and had nowhere to go. I could only pin my hopes on my uncle.

“Haven’t you had breakfast yet?” said my uncle as he walked to the door of the room near the living room. “Honey, don’t sleep any more. Yiyi and her mother are here. Get up and make some breakfast.” Then he returned to the living room, sat on the sofa and asked me, “What’s the important thing you just mentioned?”

I subconsciously looked up at “Mom”, and sure enough, she was still staring at me. There was no emotion in her eyes, just staring straight at me.

I quickly turned to look at my uncle and said, “Uncle, I want to stay at your house during the winter vacation.”

“Sleeping at my house? That’s not a big deal. If you want to stay, just come over anytime.”

“Brother, Yiyi is just joking. She still has a lot of homework to do.” The “mom” who had been staring at me finally looked away and looked at my uncle.

“I can write at my uncle’s house.” I said quickly.

“Isn’t your sister coming over today? She will probably be home soon. Don’t you care about your sister anymore?” “Mom” started staring at me again, but this time there was a smile on her face.

My cousin lives in another city. She made an appointment to come to my house before the holiday. The time was indeed today. During this period, I was always puzzled by “Mom’s” behavior, which caused me to forget about this matter.

“You should listen to your mother. Why don’t you play with your sister and let me play with her?” “Mom” still looked at me with a smile.

At this moment, she looked very normal. If I told my uncle about my suspicion, he would definitely not believe me and would probably think that I was having a tantrum with “Mom”. And I really couldn’t let my sister be alone with “Mom”, so I simply waited until “Mom” fell asleep at night, took my sister and sneaked away to hide in her house.

After having breakfast at my uncle’s house, I took a taxi home with “Mom”. In the car, I didn’t say a word to her.

After I got home, I quickly went into my room and locked the door. During the whole process, “Mom” did not show any abnormality.

I hid under the quilt, took out my cell phone and called my cousin. After the call was connected, she asked in a low voice: “Hey, Tiantian, are you almost at my house?”

“Eh? Your mom called me and told me that you were attending a closed training session and didn’t have time to accompany me, so I didn’t go to your place today.”

After listening to what my cousin said, my heart skipped a beat.

I realized I was in a bad situation. Who was she and what did she want to do?

I hung up the phone without speaking to my sister again, and started thinking about my escape plan for the evening.

In the evening, there was a knock on my door. I opened the door with gritted teeth. “Mom” was standing at the door of the room, still standing straight, without any emotion.

“It’s time to eat.”

“I’m not hungry. You eat. I won’t eat anymore.” I didn’t dare look at her. I lowered my head and added, “I need to do my homework.”

“Let’s eat first.” A cold voice came from her mouth. She stood at the door motionless, with no intention of leaving at all.

I plucked up the courage to raise my head and was about to solemnly say that I didn’t want to eat, but when I saw her expression, I didn’t dare say anything.

She stood at the door, with the corners of her lips raised, as if she was smiling, but the muscles on her face were tense. This was probably what is meant by a fake smile.

I was terrified. I was afraid that if I went against her wishes, she would do something to me. So I had no choice but to follow her to the restaurant for dinner. There were the same four dishes on the table. I symbolically took two bites of the meal and prepared to go back to my room.

“Eat more, you can’t be hungry.” “Mom” picked up a piece of pork liver and put it in my bowl.

It sounds normal, like a mother’s words of concern for her daughter, but I felt a chill down my spine when I heard it, and I felt that there was a deeper meaning to this sentence.

After dinner, I quickly returned to my room, locked the door, and prepared to find my cell phone to call my uncle for help, but I searched the whole room but couldn’t find it.

“Where did it go? I just left it on the table.” I had a bad feeling in my heart. If my phone was lost, I would not be able to contact the outside world. I always keep my phone with me. I only left it in my room when I went out to eat. But “Mom” never came into my room. I saw her not leaving the dining table when we were eating. How could my phone be gone?

No, I have to get out of here! I started packing my bag and saw a pair of scissors in the drawer, so I put them in my bag too.

The alarm clock pointed to 9
o’clock in the evening, and “Mom” returned to her room. I heard her humming a tune I had never heard before in the room, heard her open the closet, and heard her talking. I could only hear the sound and couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it didn’t sound like she was talking to herself.

Is he on the phone?

I kept staring at the alarm clock by the bed, counting the time. At about 11pm, there was no sound from the next room, and it seemed that the person had fallen asleep. I decided to wait a little longer, and sneak away at 2am, which would be safer. I continued to stare at the alarm clock, praying that time would pass quickly, and that I could successfully leave here.

Maybe because I didn’t get much sleep last night and was too tired, I actually fell asleep while waiting.

Suddenly, I opened my eyes and looked around the room. Because I was scared, I hadn’t turned off the lights, so I could see every corner of the room clearly. The door was still closed, and there was nothing unusual in the room. However, I just felt a pair of eyes staring at me in my dream. I didn’t dream about anything, it was a sudden feeling that woke me up immediately. I looked at the time, it was 2:30 in the morning, I had to leave here immediately.

I got out of bed quietly, put on my backpack, walked barefoot on the ground, slowly approached the door, slowly opened the door, and then gently closed it, and walked towards the entrance of the living room. The living room was very dark and I couldn’t see anything clearly, but I had lived in this house for more than ten years and was very familiar with the structure of the house. The darkness did not affect me finding the door to the living room.

“Yiyi, where are you going?” Just as I was about to pass the living room and reach the door, the voice of “Mom” sounded in the darkness.

My heart was in my throat, sweat started to form on my forehead, and my body was shaking slightly. I turned my head to look in the direction of the sound. In the darkness, I could only see a figure sitting on the sofa.

“You can’t make your mother worry like this anymore.” The voice sounded again, and the figure on the sofa seemed to stand up and slowly walked towards me.

My nerves have been extremely tense for the past two days. At this moment, I couldn’t control myself anymore and completely collapsed. I yelled at the shadow, “You are not my mother, who are you?”

The figure didn’t say anything and continued to approach me…

3. Hide and Seek

The figure kept approaching me, and I kept moving towards the living room door. I said to the figure in a trembling voice: “You…you don’t come over…”

The figure stopped, and actually laughed twice, then said, “Silly child, of course I am your mother.”

The two laughs instantly gave me goose bumps all over my body. They were clearly familiar voices that I had heard for more than ten years, but that laugh was something I had never heard before. It was sharp and piercing, and it even had a hint of an accent.

The figure turned and walked towards my room. She opened the door and said, “My daughter should be obedient. Go back to your room and sleep.” The light in the room that I had not turned off shone on “Mom”. She was wearing a white suspender skirt, her hair was tied up, and her face was heavily made up.

I looked around and saw that she was about four meters away from me. I was already standing in front of the door. If I opened the door and ran away now, she would definitely not be able to catch up with me. Thinking that I was about to escape from this terrible place, I was not so scared anymore. I mustered up the courage to yell at the terrible woman, “Go to hell, you old witch.” After saying that, I immediately turned around to open the door, but it wouldn’t open…

The fear that had just dissipated came back again. I anxiously turned the door switch, but it wouldn’t open… I slowly turned around and found that “Mom” was walking towards me. She didn’t seem to be angry about the words I just said to her. Instead, she had a smile on her face.

Are you admiring my panicked look?

“Help! Help! There’s a fire here!” I started shouting. If I just shouted for help, people might not dare to come to help out of fear, but if there was a fire, they would be in danger. I hoped that other residents in the building would hear the call for help and come to see the situation, and someone would call the police, so that I would have a chance to be saved…

However, I shouted for a long time, but there was no response. It was very quiet both inside and outside the house. I could even hear the sound of water dripping in the kitchen.

It’s impossible that I didn’t hear it, so why…

“Mom” had stopped in front of me. I leaned against the door, looking at her in fear. My legs went limp and I slid down the door and sat on the ground…

“Be good, go back to your room and sleep.”

The tone was emotionless and had a mechanical feel.

I got up, staggered back to my room, and locked the door.

I lay in bed, thinking about what happened in the past two days, and a myriad of emotions surged up, helplessness, discomfort, fear, confusion…

“Mom, where have you been? I’m so scared now.”

I mumbled to the air and began to cry.

A face exactly like my mother’s, not afraid of the cold winter, a door that couldn’t be opened, and cries for help that the neighbors couldn’t hear… All of this seemed unusual, she seemed to have some kind of ability… Maybe, she wasn’t a human at all! !

If I had been at my uncle’s house at the time, I would have just said it directly, and I wouldn’t be in this situation now… I am isolated and helpless, and my life is uncertain…

Let’s wait and see what happens.

For the next three days, there was nothing unusual. Apart from calling me to eat on time every day, I had no communication with my “mom”. Except for eating and going to the toilet, I stayed in my room.

There were only four days left before the Chinese New Year. On this day, I suddenly heard the sound of the living room door opening and closing in my room. I secretly opened the door and looked out.

Could it be that “Mom” just went out? This was the first time I saw her go out since the holiday, except for the time she went to my uncle’s house.

I looked towards my mother’s room on the right and saw that the door was closed. Then I walked towards the entrance of the living room and tried to open the door, but failed.

I turned around dejectedly and prepared to go back to my room, when I caught a glimpse of the closed door of my mother’s room. The seeds of curiosity sprouted in my heart, and I hesitated for a moment, walked straight to my mother’s room, took a deep breath, opened the door and walked in.

The layout of the room has not changed much from before, except for a new smell. It’s not smelly, but it smells a bit unpleasant.

The curtains in the room were closed, so it was a little dark. I walked around the room and didn’t find anything special. I remembered that I could hear her opening the closet every night. There were two closets in her room, so I opened one of them. It was full of clothes, neatly hung. Then, I opened the second closet.

There was no clothing in the closet. There was only a lifelike doll in the middle of the closet. The doll was about the height of a tablet computer. It was a little girl wearing a skirt and a ponytail. There seemed to be words written on the clothes. I picked it up and took a look. It said “April
11″.

I frowned: “April 11th, isn’t it my birthday?” At this moment, I looked at the puppet in my hand and began to feel a little weird. The puppet’s eyes looked at me with a smile on its face. The more I looked at it, the creepier it felt.

“Bang!” There was a sound of a door closing outside. Oh no, “Mom” is back. I quickly put the doll back into the cabinet and gently closed it. Then I looked left and right in the room and hid under the bed.

The door of the room opened, and “Mom” came in, humming some unfamiliar tunes. She walked to the closet, opened it, took out the doll, and sat on the bed.

All I could see under the bed were her bare feet.

“Guess what mom brought you back? It’s your favorite rainbow candy. Were you good at home? Don’t be naughty, or next time mom will bring you a kitten you like…”

She was actually talking to a doll! I heard her talking in the room every day, and it turned out that she was talking to this doll!! She also called herself a mother to a doll.

I covered my mouth, afraid that I would make any sound out of fear. This discovery was too shocking for me, and it made me even more afraid of the woman staring at my mother’s face.

I lay motionless under the bed, listening to her talking to the doll in a very gentle tone, thinking that when she went to make dinner, I would slip back to my own room.

Suddenly, the conversation above stopped and the room became quiet. I also became nervous. My heart beat faster and sweat started to appear on my forehead.

“Mom”‘s feet moved, and there was a little movement on the bed, as if she stood up, but she didn’t move, but just stood there…

I don’t know how many minutes passed, but I saw her suddenly kneeling on the ground with her legs bent, her head pressed against the floor, her face facing the bottom of the bed, looking at me and smiling, “Yiyi, so you like playing hide-and-seek.”

4. Hospital

“Doctor, come and have a look, my grandpa has started vomiting again.”

“Ward 3, the patient is experiencing a stress reaction, go get Dr. Lu.”

“Doctor, please save my grandpa… wuwuwu, grandpa, hold on.”

Footsteps, wheelchair rolling, crying, talking…

I was awakened by the noisy noises. I opened my eyes and found my uncle and grandmother sitting next to me.

“Uncle, grandma… why am I in the hospital?” Looking around, I found myself lying on a hospital bed. It was very strange. Wasn’t I at home?

“Yiyi, you’re awake! My poor Yiyi…” When my grandma saw me wake up, she was happy at first, then she stroked my face with her hand and began to cry.

“It’s good that you woke up. It’s good that you woke up. I’ll get you a glass of water.” There was obvious joy in my uncle’s tone.

“Grandma… woooooooo, I miss you so much.”

I was locked up in that horrible house for a while, living in fear every day, feeling like something bad might happen at any time. I hadn’t seen my relatives for a long time. When I finally saw them after surviving the disaster, I began to cry loudly.

I shuddered as I recalled the time when my mother found me under the bed in her room. I turned to my uncle and asked, “Uncle, what happened? Why am I in the hospital?”

“I felt very strange. I called you and your mother for a few days but no one answered. It’s almost Chinese New Year. In previous years, you and your mother always came to my house for Chinese New Year. I had to ask about your plans. You didn’t answer the phone, so I ran to your house to see if anything happened. Fortunately, when I walked in, I found you and your mother fainted on the ground, so I sent you to the hospital.” The uncle thought of something and added, “By the way, what happened to you? Why did you faint?”

I frowned and didn’t answer. Instead, I asked, “What about her? …Oh, I mean, where is my mom? Where is she now?”

“It’s right next to you.” Uncle pointed to my left.

I looked sideways and there seemed to be a bed over there, but there was a distance of two bedside tables between my bed and that bed, and there was a drawn curtain in the middle, so I couldn’t see what was on the bed.

My uncle walked over and pulled open the curtain. “Your mother’s condition is more serious than yours. The doctor said her vital signs are very weak, her heart rate is very slow, and her breathing is much weaker than a normal person. Because of severe malnutrition, your mother’s body functions have not been supplemented with nutrients. Her whole body is now very weak. Doesn’t your mother usually skip meals? She has actually fainted due to severe malnutrition!”

Behind the curtain is “Mom”, she lies on the hospital bed with her eyes closed. Dieting? It seems so, every time at the table, she only eats a little bit…

“Uncle, grandma, I want to tell you something…you must believe me.” I planned to tell them everything that had happened to me recently.

“Silly child, of course we will believe you.” Grandma touched my forehead and smiled lovingly.

“This woman is not my mother.” I said firmly, pointing at the hospital bed next to me.

“What are you talking about?” My uncle seemed a little angry.

“Listen to me. After I went home for winter break… I fainted. I was so scared that I fainted.”

I told them everything that had happened in the past few days, including what happened before I fainted.

“Haha, Yiyi, are you writing a novel? It sounds so mysterious. If your mother was so powerful, how could she be lying there now?” My uncle really didn’t believe it and said, pointing at my mother who was lying on the bed and hadn’t woken up yet.

“I said, she is not my mother!” I was also a little angry. Why couldn’t you believe me?

“Yiyi.” The grandmother who had been silent beside suddenly spoke.

“I believe you, but the person lying there now is indeed your mother. The one who was at home before was not your mother, but she could also be said to be your mother.” Grandma’s face became very solemn. She looked at me, then at the “mother” lying over there, then lowered her head, as if thinking about something.

“Grandma, I don’t understand.” Why is she my mother and not my mother and can be said to be my mother? What is all this?

“Mom, why are you following Yiyi in making trouble?” My uncle seemed to have not expected grandma to say that, and was confused by her words.

“Yiyi, believe me, your mother came out of my belly. I know every inch of her skin and where there are moles. The person lying there is indeed your mother. As for what happened before, there are indeed big problems. I need to clarify a few things and then I will explain to you.”

“Second brother, take good care of the mother and daughter. I have something to do and will come back tomorrow.” This is how my grandmother always called my uncle. After she gave me the instructions, she looked at me, then got up and left the ward.

Hospital, late at night.

My uncle went to the toilet to wash up. The toilet is on the far right side of this floor. My uncle has been out for five minutes.

I began to recall what happened before I fainted.

I hid under the bed, and “Mom” found me and smiled at me: “Yiyi, so you like playing hide-and-seek?”

The moment I saw her face, I stopped breathing. I didn’t make any sound, so how did she know I was hiding here? Would she kill me just because I heard her conversation with the doll?

I shrank to the other side of the bed in fear, and “Mom” also got on the ground and crawled under the bed, saying as she crawled, “Then I’ll catch you.”

“Ah!!” I screamed and quickly crawled out from the other side of the bed, going around the bed and trying to leave the room.

I ran to the door of the room and opened it quickly. Because I ran so fast, before I could react when I opened the door and saw the scene in front of me, I bumped into the person standing at the door. The person who was just under the bed appeared at the door at this time.

It was my “mom”. I bumped into her, but she didn’t back off at all. Instead, she held my hands with both of hers and said with a smile, “I caught you! Then you have to be my daughter!”

Finally, I couldn’t bear it anymore, my eyes went dark, I passed out, and when I woke up I was in the hospital. My uncle found that he couldn’t contact us, so he came to my house. Because my mother and I were the only two living together, my uncle was worried, so he took a key to my house and put it with him, so he could come in at any time. Fortunately, he came that day, otherwise the consequences would be… But why did my mother faint?

Thinking of this, I turned my head to look at the hospital bed where “Mom” was lying next to me, and my scalp tingled again for an instant.

This is a three-person ward, but there are only two patients in the room, me and my “mom”. My uncle thought I was asleep, so he turned off the light in the ward when he left. But I was not asleep, but recalling what happened before. The moonlight outside the window is very bright, and you can see things clearly in the room. When I turned my head to look at my mother, she was also looking at me sideways.

When did she wake up?

I remembered what my grandmother said during the day: the woman lying on the bed was my mother.

So I plucked up the courage to look back.

It was very quiet at night, so quiet that I could hear my own heartbeat. However, it was so quiet that I did not hear the sound of her turning over. The bed I was lying on would make a creaking sound every time I turned over.

My “mother” and I looked into each other’s eyes. Perhaps it was because I knew this was a hospital and my uncle would be back soon, and she couldn’t do anything to me, so this time I didn’t back down when facing her gaze.

“Yiyi.”

A faint voice was heard in the ward. It was very soft, but I could hear it clearly, as if someone was talking in my ear.

“You… will always be my daughter.” The “mom” on the hospital bed looked at me without blinking, with a smile on her face and her lips slightly parted, and slowly said this sentence.

“Can you please let me go, let my mother go? Please, give my mother back to me.”

Thinking that the person in front of me that my grandmother said was my mother, but she was doing things that might hurt me, I yelled at her hysterically.

“Yiyi, Yiyi, what’s wrong with you?”

The door of the ward was pushed open, and my uncle hurried in and stood between my bed and “Mom’s”, looking at me anxiously.

I continued crying and pointed behind my uncle.

My uncle looked back in confusion, then looked back at me in confusion and said, “What’s the matter? What happened?”

I sat up and walked around my uncle’s body to look at “Mom”.

I saw “Mom” lying peacefully on the hospital bed with her eyes closed, as if she had never woken up.

“She’s just pretending! She just spoke to me!”

I looked at my uncle and cried, hoping he could believe me.

“Don’t cry, Yiyi. You might have had a nightmare. The doctor said your mother is too weak to wake up for a while.”

“Oh, you really won’t believe me.”

I lay down again and buried my head in the quilt. I didn’t want to say anything anymore because he wouldn’t believe me anyway.

In the second half of the night, my uncle stayed by my bedside.

The next day, grandma came over.

She first walked to the bedside of “Mom”, picked up her right hand and looked at it carefully for a while, then looked behind “Mom’s” ear, then frowned and said, “Sure enough… Oh! What a sin!”

“Grandma, what’s wrong?”

Looking at my grandmother’s expression, she seemed to know something, so I asked anxiously.

“Hey, I’ll talk to you later. You should be discharged from the hospital today. Tomorrow is the New Year.”

My grandmother came to me, held my hand, and then stroked my hand, then stroked my forehead, with tears in her eyes.

“Okay.” Seeing my grandma like this, I didn’t want to continue asking. It’s safer to go to my uncle’s house. We can talk about it later if there is anything.

5. New Year’s Eve

At the New Year’s Eve dinner, my uncle, aunt, grandmother, Yiming, and I sat at the table. No one mentioned my mother. We talked and laughed at the table, discussing my studies, the upcoming Spring Festival Gala, and when Yiming (my uncle’s son) would bring a girlfriend home…

Suddenly, my uncle’s cell phone rang.

“Hello, what? I’ll be right there.”

My uncle hung up the phone, looking very anxious.

“Mom, my third sister is missing. She was still there when the nurse changed the IV solution this afternoon. I just went to the ward to check and found that she was missing.”

I didn’t feel any waves in my heart, and this matter is not strange to me at all now.

Grandma was very anxious. She put down her chopsticks and said, “Hurry, let’s go and check it out. Second brother, you go to the hospital and I’ll go to Yiyi’s house to check on her. Fangyi, you stay at home. I’m afraid that third sister will find her here.” Fangyi is my aunt.

My home is so scary, I don’t feel comfortable letting my grandma go alone: ​​“Grandma, let me go with you.”

Grandma looked at me in silence, as if she was considering something.

Although I was very scared, my grandmother said that at least the body of that person was my real mother. I was also worried that something might happen to her. Besides, my grandmother was old and she might get frightened.

“You don’t need to go. Just stay here. Don’t worry, grandma is very strong now. Nothing will happen to her.”

My grandmother has always lived in her hometown in the countryside. She is very prestigious in the village. Sometimes when there is a funeral in the village, some villagers would ask my grandmother to preside over it. She would always teach us some taboos, but we didn’t take it seriously.

I have always been disdainful of these things, thinking that those people and my grandmother are feudal, superstitious, ignorant and foolish.

But after experiencing these things recently, I realized that not everything in this world can be explained by science. Who can help me explain what happened to me recently?

So, this time I put my hope on my grandmother. Maybe she was the only one who could deal with this matter.

My grandma and uncle left, and my aunt and I cleaned up the dishes together.

“Yiyi, I’ll clean up, you go watch TV.”

“It’s okay, I’ll help collect it, I’ll feel better.”

After we cleaned up, we sat on the sofa together to watch the Spring Festival Gala and wait for their news.

At this time, my aunt’s cell phone also rang.

“Okay, okay, I’ll be right over, wait a minute.”

After my aunt hung up the phone, she told me, “Your uncle wants me to go over there and send his ID card over to fill out some paperwork.”

“Okay, go ahead, I’ll stay at home.”

After saying that, my aunt got up and went to her room, and after a while she went out again with her things.

I continued to eat melon seeds and watch TV. After a few minutes, the doorbell rang.

My hand holding the melon seeds paused, and I looked up at the tightly closed door of the living room. I held my breath, not daring to make a sound, and stared at the door of the living room nervously.

“Yiyi, I forgot to take the key. My uncle wants us to go to grandma’s place first. Grandma is not feeling well, so he wants us to go pick her up first.”

My aunt’s voice was heard at the door.

“Huh!” I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought…

“Okay, Aunt, I’ll go with you.”

I was worried about my grandma, so I quickly got up to open the door. My aunt turned her back to me and walked forward, saying, “Hurry up, hurry up, don’t keep grandma waiting for too long.”

I followed closely behind her. She walked so fast that I had to jog to keep up with her.

We got in a taxi, my aunt sat in the front and I sat in the back.

“Aunt, what’s wrong with grandma?” It was a little dark outside and I couldn’t see my aunt’s face clearly.

“I sprained my ankle at your house.” My aunt didn’t look back, but looked outside the car.

After getting off the car, my aunt still walked in front and I followed closely behind. When we arrived at my house, she skillfully opened the door with the key and I hurried in.

“Grandma! Grandma!” The house was pitch black and I couldn’t see anything. I got anxious and started looking for grandma as soon as I came in without even turning on the lights.

There was no response.

“Bang!” The sound of a door closing was heard.

“Yiyi, do you miss me?”

A familiar voice sounded behind me, and then the lights were turned on.

There was no grandmother’s voice in the house, and the voice behind was… not my aunt’s voice, but…

I slowly turned around, and after seeing the person behind me, I stumbled and fell to the ground.

Behind me, my “mom” was wearing my aunt’s clothes, with her hair tied up like my aunt’s, and she was grinning with her head tilted.

“I told you that you will always be my daughter.”

6. Birthday

Finally, I returned to this house again… I was too worried about my grandma just now, so I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t expect that “Mom” would dress up as my aunt to trick me. After going through so much, I was no longer as scared as before. I turned around, faced her, and asked calmly, “Where is my grandma?”

“Mom.” She stood at the door and didn’t answer me, but just looked at me with interest. Maybe it was a surprise that I didn’t scream out of fear like before.

“Who are you? What do you want to do?” I continued to ask.

“I told you, I’m your mother.” She walked towards me slowly, stopped in front of me, reached out and touched my face. There was a small red dot on the inside of her right thumb.

I remembered my grandmother’s behavior in the hospital.

Grandma walked into the hospital, took up “Mom’s” right hand and carefully examined it in front of her bed. She looked at the area behind her ear and said to me, “What a sin!”

At this time, I also looked behind my “mother’s” ears, but she was facing me, and I couldn’t see clearly what was behind her ears.

“I treat you as my mother, will you be nice to me?” I asked, looking straight into her eyes.

“Of course. How can a mother be bad to her daughter? Just be obedient in the future.”

“Okay, I’ll go back to my room then.”

I turned around and walked into my room, closing the door behind me, but not tightly, leaving a gap. I hid behind the door and looked out through the gap.

At this time, the footsteps of “Mom” were approaching my room, and I wanted to take a look behind her ears when she passed by.

The footsteps stopped a little to the left of my room. “Mom” hadn’t appeared in my sight yet. After waiting for a while, there was still no sound. My waist was a little tired from being bent, so I straightened up and rubbed my waist. Why didn’t she go back to the room?

I bent down and put my head close to the crack in the door again, and looked out with my right eye.

It was a bit strange. Why did it get dark in front of me? I couldn’t see the floor and walls outside the room. It was like something was stuck to the door.

Sticking to the door! I realized something, raised my head, looked up, and immediately stepped back in fear.

“Mom” was standing outside the crack of the door, looking into the room. When I bent down just now, I saw “Mom”‘s clothes. When I looked up, I found that “Mom”‘s head was also pressed against the crack of the door, looking at me through the crack.

“Haha, haha.” The joyful laughter of “Mom” and the sound of footsteps leaving came from outside the door.

I quickly locked the door of the room and lay on the bed gasping for breath.

My grandmother and uncle will definitely come to my house to look for me when they find out I’m missing! I just need to not anger them and wait for them to come and rescue me.

But things didn’t turn out as I expected, and everything became strange after returning to this house.

I couldn’t see the exact time. The alarm clock on the bedside table was gone. Outside, there was only night and gray day. Looking out the window of the room, there were no pedestrians, no cars, only a gray sky. I stretched out my hand, but I couldn’t even feel the wind.

“Something’s not right.” I stood by the window in the room, looking out, and began to realize that there was something strange about returning home this time. I seemed to be trying to grasp what that strange feeling was, but I just couldn’t.

I don’t know how long I have been back in this home, and no one has come to see me… This “mother” has not done anything for me. She just eats with me every day, and doesn’t communicate with me at other times.

Night. “Yiyi.” The voice of “Mom” sounded at the door.

It’s strange that “Mom” never comes to see me at night.

“What’s the matter?” I didn’t open the door, but sat on the bed and asked the door.

“Your birthday will be here soon, and Mom has prepared new clothes for you.”

It turned out that I had been tricked from my uncle’s house to my own home for two months…but something was wrong…what was wrong?

I opened the door of the room, and “Mom” was standing at the door with a smile on her face, holding a piece of clothing in her hand. I took the clothing and spread it out. It was a pink dress. It looked a little familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen it.

“Can I not wear it? I don’t like pink.” I handed the clothes back to “Mom”.

The smile on “Mom”‘s face disappeared instantly. She didn’t take my clothes. She stared at me and asked, “Yiyi is disobedient again. Mom will be unhappy.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll wear it.” I was a little annoyed, but I didn’t dare to disobey her, for fear that she would do something to me.

After I changed my clothes and left the room, “Mom” was sitting on the sofa in the living room. When she saw me coming out in a skirt, a smile returned to her face.

“Yiyi looks so beautiful in this skirt.”

I didn’t reply to her, but just stood there blankly, waiting for her arrangements. I always felt that something would happen today.

“Come, let’s eat, and then we’ll go out and celebrate your birthday.”

Go out? I instantly became alert, and a glimmer of hope rose in my heart.

I walked to the dining table and sat down, ready to eat something to get by.

The skirt had long sleeves and a big bow at the cuff, which I found very troublesome and wanted to untie the bow, so when I bent my elbow and prepared to untie it with my other hand, my bent elbow knocked over the bowl on the table, and the bowl slipped off the table and landed on my feet, then rolled from my feet to the ground.

I quickly bent down to pick up the bowl. When my hand touched the bowl, the feeling I had these days suddenly came back to me. I looked down at my foot that had just been hit by the bowl, and suddenly I realized what had happened.

Just now the bowl fell directly on my foot. Although I was wearing socks and slippers, it must have hurt when the bowl fell from the table and hit my foot. But I didn’t feel anything just now. I thought about the fact that I hadn’t seen the sun or rain in the past few days, only gray skies, and my grandma and uncle hadn’t come to see me. Time passed quickly, and in a blink of an eye it was from New Year’s Eve to my birthday… All this was not going to happen in reality.

I must be in a dream!!

When did I start dreaming? In the hospital? At my aunt’s house? Or during the holidays?

Perhaps, I can get the answer in this dream, the answer to all these things.

I picked up the bowl without making a sound, stood up and said to “Mom”, “Where are we going to celebrate my birthday later?”

“Mom” didn’t answer me, but lowered her head and continued to eat in small bites.

After finishing her meal, “Mom” went back to her room for a while and came out after a while with a big handbag in her hands.

The handbag was bulging, and I was curious about what was inside, but I didn’t dare to ask.

“Let’s go, let’s celebrate your birthday.” After saying that, she opened the door of my house. I went back to my room, got my backpack and followed her.

It was strange, no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t open the door, but she could open it easily every time. How strong could this supernatural power be?

We walked out of the neighborhood. There was not a single pedestrian or vehicle on the street, and all the shops were closed… The sky was still gray, as if the end of the world was coming.

“Mom.” She continued walking forward, and I followed behind her, looking around and memorizing the shops and road signs we passed.

Suddenly, the “mom” in front suddenly arched her body and screamed.

“Ah!!! Who!! Ah!!!” She bent her body and covered her ears, gradually squatting down, then fell to the ground and began to roll, her body becoming more and more twisted.

I went over to check on her. Her face was in great pain, her face was twisted into a ball, her mouth was wide open, and she kept moaning. I noticed that the red spot on her right hand had expanded, and the color gradually darkened to blood red. A blood red spot also gradually spread behind her ear, and the spot gradually expanded and became eroded.

“Yiyi, kill her.”

I heard my grandmother’s voice coming from the sky. I turned around and looked in all directions, but I didn’t see my grandmother.

“Hurry up!” the voice came again.

I fished out a pair of scissors from my bag that I had put there the second time I tried to sneak away from home, and moved closer to “Mom”.

My hands holding the scissors were shaking so badly. I had never even killed a chicken, and now I was going to kill a person, someone who looked like my mother.

“Mom” was screaming in pain on the ground, and the blood-red spots on her hands and behind her ears were getting bigger and bigger. I stood by and was a little overwhelmed, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“Yiyi, if you don’t kill her with your own hands, once she is devoured by her life hole, you will remain in the dream forever.”

Grandma’s voice came from the sky, and her voice sounded a little anxious.

“Yes, this is a dream! This is a dream, everything is fake! I want to leave here!” I talked to myself to encourage myself, raised the scissors high, and stabbed hard into the heart of “Mom” who was groaning in pain on the ground.

The “mom” on the ground stopped moaning and stared at me with her eyes wide open. Then her body began to disappear from her feet, and when only her head was left, the corners of her mouth raised.

Her eyes were staring at me, a smile played on her lips… the image was etched in my mind before she completely disappeared.

7. Yard

“Mom” disappeared completely, and I was the only one left on the street. Everything that had just happened was too incredible. Maybe this was just a dream, and after waking up, I might be able to return to my normal life.

I looked at the empty space where “Mom” had just disappeared, and suddenly noticed the handbag on the ground that “Mom” was carrying when she went out… What would be inside?

I walked over, squatted, opened my bag, and a lifelike doll appeared in front of me. I took the doll out of my bag and looked around. Isn’t this the doll I found in my mother’s room before? I finally understood why the skirt that “mom” gave me today looked familiar. The skirt I’m wearing now is the same as the doll’s!

“What is this!” Seeing the doll wearing the same clothes as me, I felt a chill in my heart and quickly threw the doll back into the bag as if it were a hot potato.

“Yiyi, Yiyi.” Grandma’s call rang out from the sky again. I just stood up, but didn’t know where to look.

“Yiyi, Yiyi.” Grandma continued to call. My head began to feel dizzy and the street scene in front of me became more and more blurry. I lowered my head, covered my ears with my hands and shook my head. Suddenly, my eyes swept across the doll in the bag.

Hey, there are two more words on the doll’s clothes where it originally said “April 11
“. I just took it in my hand and was shocked to see the same skirt as mine, so I didn’t notice the extra words on the clothes. I slowly squatted down and wanted to take out the doll to see what was written, but my head hurt more and more, and my vision became more and more blurred. I blinked hard to see the words on the doll. Finally, the sight in front of me turned completely black.

When I woke up again, I was lying in a strange house. I was lying on a wooden bed, surrounded by simple wooden furniture. The walls that should have been white had turned yellow. On the uneven cement floor, there was a small bench and a bamboo basket. The basket was covered with a black cloth, and there seemed to be something inside. The room was not big. There was a window on the wall opposite the wooden bed where I was lying. The window frame, where the paint had completely fallen off, was sandwiched between two thin pieces of glass. It felt like the window would completely stop working if the wind blew. I could only see another room opposite from the window. Through the window, I couldn’t tell where it was. The whole house gave me the feeling of being shabby.

Where am I? Why do I keep encountering strange things recently… Wasn’t I just with my mother?

“By the way, I heard grandma’s voice, is she nearby?”

I got up from the wooden bed, got out of the bed quietly, and approached the wooden door of the house carefully.

“Click…” Although I opened the door very carefully, this old wooden door still made a sound and broke the tranquility of this space.

Because of the sound made by the door, I did not go out immediately, but waited behind the door for a while. After there was no other movement, I stuck half of my head out of the door to observe the situation outside.

This is an open courtyard, a bit like a low-profile courtyard house. There is a room less than four meters away, with the door closed. What’s a bit strange is that the window of the opposite room is covered with a black cloth. There is a water tank in the middle of the room I am in and the room opposite. There is a door not far to my left, which should be the door to the outside, and there are two rooms on the right.

我抬头朝上看去，天色已经有点暗了，不安的感觉又涌上来了。我不知道这是哪，我甚至不知道，我现在是在现实世界里还是在梦里。以往看恐怖电影的经验告诉我，好奇心不要太重，对于水缸、对面奇怪的房间、我房间用黑布盖着的篮子、右边的两个房间，我一点也不好奇，我只想离开这个让我不安的地方。

I walked out of the room and headed towards the door on the left. I had to find a place where there were people before dark so that I could feel at ease.

“Why can’t I open it?” I have been studying the door of this courtyard for a long time. I turned the door handle left and right but it just wouldn’t open. Could it be the same as when I was at home with my “mother”… Is there also a person with special abilities here? Or a ghost?

“You have to open the latch at the top.”

I looked up and saw, sure enough, there was a bolt on the door. I reached out to unbolt it, and the door snapped inward.

“Thank you.” I subconsciously said thank you and prepared to walk out. I took a step and was stunned again. Only then did I realize that someone had just spoken to me, and it was a very hoarse male voice.

It was getting dark, and the surroundings were blurry. I mustered my courage and slowly turned around. Behind me stood an old man with gray hair, wrinkles all over his face, and skinny as a stick. The old man had a pair of eyes that did not match his age. They were bright and energetic, and even sharp. He stared at me expressionlessly.

“You… who are you?” I asked stutteringly. After what happened with my “mother”, my reaction now has become calmer and calmer, but I still feel nervous and uneasy when facing a strange old man in this environment.

“I’m your savior. Come in. Your grandmother will be here soon.”

After the old man finished speaking, he turned and walked towards the room I was just in. Hearing grandma, my heart was relieved. It seemed that this old man would not harm me.

8. The Second Doll

The old man just mentioned my grandmother. I did hear my grandmother’s voice before I woke up. I looked at the unfamiliar environment outside the door and the darkening sky. I hesitated and followed him into the room. At this time, the old man was sitting on a small bench in the middle of the house with his back to me. Next to him was the basket I had seen before. The black cloth covering the basket had been lifted. I took a step forward and looked into the basket. It was empty, with nothing in it.

The old man sat with his back to me, with his hands in front of him. The shabby room, the dim light, and the skinny old man made me feel a little uneasy, and a feeling of uneasiness surged up.

“What do you mean when you said you were my savior?” I asked the old man from behind.

I stood at the door with my hand on the door handle so that I could close the door and run away at any time if anything happened.

The old man didn’t say anything and continued to sit there motionless.

Seeing that he didn’t respond, I continued to ask, “Do you know my grandmother?”

This time the old man responded. He slowly turned his body on the small stool and finally faced me.

When I saw the old man’s face, I took a step back in fear.

The old man was holding a doll in his arms. I couldn’t see what the doll looked like, but I could tell it was a female doll. The old man’s eyes were closed, and his mouth was opening and closing. He seemed to be talking, but I couldn’t hear any sound. This doll reminded me of the doll I found in my mother’s room. The scene in front of me was too weird. I was already full of fear of dolls, and now the old man’s strange behavior shocked me even more. I let go of my hand holding the door handle and turned around to leave, wanting to escape from this weird place and this weird old man.

“Say hello to your mother.” As I turned around, the old man’s voice sounded behind me. Hearing the old man’s words, I stopped and turned around to look at the old man in astonishment.

At this time, the old man’s eyes were open and he raised the doll with both hands.

Now I can see the doll’s specific appearance. It is a doll that looks like a middle-aged woman, with her hair tied up and wearing a red dress. There is a small mole under her left eye, and the corners of her eyes are slightly upturned, which are a pair of fascinating fox eyes. The nose is straight, but the tip of the pen is very small. This doll’s face is really beautiful. If it is a doll made in imitation of a real person, then this person must have a face that makes people fall in love at first sight.

“My mother? Don’t joke with me, where is my grandmother?” I stood back at the door. This doll was so beautiful that for a moment, I no longer felt how scary it was. I even felt a sense of familiarity for some reason.

“I’m not kidding, this is your mother.”

“Are you trying to say that this doll is made in the image of my mother? But my mother doesn’t look like this.”

“No, the doll now contains your mother. The ‘mother’ you saw some time ago was a ghost.”

After going through so much, I was no longer a materialist, and I began to believe that there were some things in this world that could not be explained. However, the word “ghost” appeared directly for the first time, and it still made me stunned.

“Ghost…?” I stood at the door and looked at the old man in confusion.

The old man stood up and walked to me, handing the doll to me.

“Your mother’s spirit is locked inside this doll.”

I didn’t take the doll. Instead, I took a few steps back when the old man approached, keeping a safe distance.

The old man seemed to see that I didn’t trust him, so he waved his hand and said, “I’ll explain it to you when your grandmother comes over. I don’t want to bother with a little brat like you anymore.”

“When will my grandma come? It’s already evening.” When I heard the word grandma, I came to my senses and asked quickly.

“Call and ask, and tell her you’re awake so she can rest assured.” After saying that, the old man took out a straight-screen cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number.

“Hey, girl, your girl is awake.”

Um, it’s a bit awkward to hear people call my grandmother “sister”.

I hurried forward and looked at the old man eagerly. The old man understood what I meant and handed me the phone.

“Hello?” I picked up the phone and didn’t call grandma directly because, up to now, I still didn’t quite trust this old woman.

“Yiyi, are you okay? Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere? Have you eaten?” I heard my grandmother’s familiar voice on the phone, and my tears immediately fell. I don’t know how much time had passed in reality, but in my dream, I was suffering for several months, living in fear every day.

“Grandma…” I called out grandma with sobs, unable to utter anything, and began to cry.

“Oh, my poor Yiyi, don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s okay now, you can sleep at Old Man Zhang’s house today, grandma will stay with your mother in the hospital today, and will come to see you tomorrow.”

“Mom…what’s wrong with her?” Combining what grandma said before and what Old Man Zhang said today, the “mom” I was with some time ago should only be my mother in physical form.

“Your mother’s condition is a little complicated, but don’t worry, Yiyi, your mother will be fine.”

“Well… grandma, don’t be too tired. You must take good care of yourself.” Grandma must have been busy during this period.

“I’m fine. You can stay at old man Zhang’s house without any worries. It’s safe there.”

“Grandma, who is this Grandpa Zhang?” I asked while secretly glancing at the old man, who turned his head away arrogantly and ignored me.

“Oh, this old man has been your grandmother’s friend for decades. You may not remember him, but you actually met him when you were a child. He even bought you maltose.”

After hanging up the phone and returning the phone to the old lady, I felt a lot more relaxed. My grandmother dispelled my worries.

“Grandpa Zhang, can I ask you a question?” After letting down his guard, the old man’s tone became softer.

“Well, go ahead and ask.” The old man didn’t care that I had suspected him before.

“Why do all these strange things happen? How did my mother get into the doll? Can she recover to her previous state? Where is the ghost now? What happened to me that I was tricked into going home on New Year’s Eve? What day is today? My mother…”

“Stop, stop, stop. Is this a question? Why are you firing like a machine gun? You’re confusing me.”

Grandpa Zhang interrupted my series of questions and covered his head with his hands. It seemed as if he was really confused by the series of questions I had just asked.

“Oh… I’m sorry. I’m still confused about what happened during this period of time. I have so many questions I want to ask.” I also realized that I shouldn’t be so anxious, so I stuck out my tongue and apologized quickly.

“Today is the second day of the Chinese New Year. You were not tricked out on New Year’s Eve and fainted at the door of your uncle’s house. Then your grandmother sent you to me and I saved you. You can ask your grandmother for the rest. I have to go and rest now.”

After Grandpa Zhang finished speaking, he turned and walked out. I quickly stepped forward and grabbed his arm.

“Come on, Grandpa Zhang, just tell me.”

“Girl, your grandmother knows the whole thing best, so you should wait until she comes back and ask her. And the most important thing you should do now is to talk to your mother. She misses you very much.”

After Grandpa Zhang finished speaking, he handed the doll to me again. I took the doll and observed it carefully for a long time, but I couldn’t see any difference between it and an ordinary doll.

“Is my mom really in here? Can she hear me?”

“She can hear you and you can talk, but she can’t respond to you.”

“Then my mother…”

“Bang!”

I was about to continue asking my mother if she could return to her own body from the doll, when I heard a door close. I turned around and found that my grandfather had left.

“Hey!” I sighed and walked to the bed and sat down. I picked up the doll and looked at it for a while before saying, “Mom, are you really my mom?…”

I talked a lot with my mother, telling her about what I had experienced during this period, my fear and loneliness, and how much I missed her. During this time, Grandpa Zhang brought some food over, but didn’t say much to me. He just put down the food and left.

9. Fright

“Da da…da da…da da…”

What’s that noise? Who’s knocking?

In my sleep, I vaguely heard a rhythmic knocking sound. I couldn’t tell whether it was a real sound or a dream. When I was still struggling whether to wake up to confirm the sound, the sound stopped abruptly and the world became quiet again. I turned over, adjusted a comfortable position and continued to sleep.

“Da Da Da… Da Da Da…” The sound rang out again, this time with a much faster rhythm than before. This time I could tell that the sound was real and not a dream. I opened my eyes and sat up on the bed. I looked around. The room was shrouded in darkness and I couldn’t see anything. The only light source was a faint light coming through the window. I hugged the quilt tightly and huddled in the corner of the bed, looking around nervously.

“Da da da…da da da…” The sound rang again. This time I heard clearly the source of the sound. It was near the window.

I blinked and then stared at where the window was.

“Knock… knock… knock…” As the sound rang again, I saw a hand outside the window knocking gently on the lower right corner of the window, as if knocking on the door. There was only a hand, nothing else.

I hugged the quilt tighter and asked in a trembling voice, “Who, who… is outside.”

After I made the sound, the hand that was knocking on the window quickly shrank back under the window. Then I heard footsteps leaving outside the window, and the footsteps stopped after a while.

Judging from the direction of the footsteps just now, they should be walking towards the opposite side of me. However, even though they are directly opposite me, I don’t see anyone passing by through the window. If they want to go to the room opposite, they must pass through my window.

I plucked up my courage, got out of bed and slowly approached the window, leaned against the wall beside the window, took a few deep breaths, then turned around and leaned over to look out through the window.

​It was also dark outside, but because it was an open-air yard, there was still some light to see the scenery outside.

The large water tank placed in the middle looked extremely mysterious in the night. A thick stone slab covered the water tank, as if it was covering something inside.

The door of the room opposite was open! I stood up straight, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily. The door was closed during the day, so why was it open so late at night? Was it Grandpa Zhang who opened it?

I calmed down, took a deep breath, turned around and leaned over to look out the window. There was no light in the room, and it was dark inside the open door. My sight shifted from the door to the window covered with black cloth opposite the window in front of me, and then looked at the room on the right where Grandpa Zhang lived.

No! There’s something wrong with that window!

Just now, when I quickly glanced at the window looking at Grandpa Zhang’s room, I suddenly realized something was wrong, and I locked my gaze again on the window opposite.

The window that was tightly covered with black cloth during the day now had a corner lifted at the lower right corner, and a pair of eyes were looking at me through that corner!

“Ah!” I screamed and stepped back repeatedly, my heart felt like it was about to jump out.

“What are you arguing about so late at night, little brat.”

Grandpa Zhang’s voice came from outside, followed by the sound of footsteps coming towards me.

“What’s the matter?” Grandpa Zhang didn’t come in, but just stood at the door and asked me.

“Grandpa Zhang, you…is there anyone else in your family?”

I walked to the door, turned on the light, and asked outside.

“Oh, are you talking about the house opposite? The person living there is also your savior. Oh no, it should be your life-savior ghost. Hahaha, it’s okay, stop making noise and go to sleep. I’m old and can’t stand the tossing and turning.” After he finished speaking, Grandpa Zhang outside the door left.

Help…Engui?

10. Water Tank

After the old man left, I didn’t dare stay at the door for long. I went back to the bed, took down two pillowcases, and hung them on the nails on both sides of the window. Although it couldn’t cover the entire window, it still made me feel a lot more at ease.

I lay back on the bed and began to recall what Grandpa Zhang said. Because of what had just happened, I didn’t dare turn off the lights and let myself fall into darkness again.

I lay on the bed, looking at the tiled roof, and began to think about the series of incredible things that had happened during this period.

After returning home from the holidays, I found that “Mom” was abnormal, and then realized that I was in danger. I tried to escape several times, but was eventually discovered. There were strange dolls in Mom’s room, and “Mom” talked to the dolls. On New Year’s Eve, I was deceived and fell into a dream. In the dream, my birthday soon came. “Mom” seemed to want to do something to me on my birthday. My grandmother also sent me a message through the dream. In the dream, I killed “Mom”, and then “” disappeared in front of me. After waking up, I was in a completely unfamiliar environment. The somewhat strange Grandpa Zhang locked up my real mother’s doll…

Everything that has happened recently is playing in my mind like a movie. I feel dizzy after recalling it. So many strange things have happened to me, but I can’t understand anything.

“Can anyone tell me what is going on?” I helplessly said to the air what I had always wanted to say.

My grandma is coming tomorrow and I will make sure to find out everything.

I couldn’t fall asleep the whole time, maybe because my mind was full of thoughts and there were too many things confusing me, plus the “life-saving ghost” that Grandpa Zhang mentioned… that meant that there was a ghost living opposite me!

Thinking of this, I shuddered and hugged the quilt tighter.

I didn’t sleep the whole night, and my toes were scratching the sheets because I had to pee. I didn’t go out to the bathroom, but I recited the preface to the Lanting Poems to kill time and relieve the urge to pee…

Finally, it was dawn. Through the gap in the window blocked by the pillowcase, I could see that the sky outside was already turning white. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Finally, I can solve the major issues in my life.”

I let out a breath, jumped out of bed, ran to the door, opened it, and stuck my head out. The door of the house opposite was closed and the windows were covered. Reassured, I walked out and prepared to go to the bathroom.

As soon as I walked out of the door, I found Grandpa Zhang standing in front of the water tank in the middle of the yard with his back to me. When he heard the sound of me opening the door, he remained motionless.

“Grandpa Zhang, good morning.” I walked forward and stood in front of him to greet him.

Grandpa Zhang ignored me and stared blankly at the water tank. I followed his gaze and looked at the water tank.

The water tank was about the size of a washing machine, and was covered with a thick layer of stone slabs. I really couldn’t see anything. When I was thinking about what the secret of this water tank was, I felt a discomfort in my lower abdomen. Oh no, I forgot something important.

I ignored Grandpa Zhang and quickly ran to a small room on the right. Yes, I knew where the toilet was without even thinking about it. The smell that belonged to the toilet gave me an olfactory guide.

After I finished using the toilet and returned to the yard, Grandpa Zhang was no longer in front of the water tank. I glanced at the innermost room, which should be Grandpa Zhang’s room. There was a red “Fu” character pasted on the door. I walked to the door of the room and pushed it. It was closed and the curtains were drawn. I couldn’t see inside the room. I knocked on the door and shouted inside, “Grandpa Zhang, are you there?” I waited for a long time, but there was no response from inside.

Did you go out so early? I pouted and left Grandpa Zhang’s room, walking towards my own room. When I passed the water tank, I stopped and slowly approached it, looking at it curiously, and began to think in my mind.

This water tank is placed in the middle of the yard. All rooms can see the water tank directly through the windows. The water tank faces the sky and the sun shines on it every day, especially at noon. Why is the water tank placed in the middle of the yard? Placing it in this place where it is exposed to the sun every day, it is very likely that a very scary thing is sealed inside. However, my ghost mother was fine during the day. When she was collecting clothes on the balcony at home and was exposed to the sun, there was nothing unusual…

Oh, I see. There must be a zombie inside, or the real body of some evil ghost who died unjustly. After carefully looking at the structure of this courtyard, it really feels like a formation. In addition, there is indeed a ghost living in the house opposite Grandpa Zhang’s house, so it is not surprising that there is something scary in this water tank.

I walked around the water tank, and based on the information I had gained from watching movies and recent events, I deduced in my mind that there might be a horrible zombie or evil spirit suppressed in the water tank.

After deducing this result, I was impressed by myself, but also began to get scared. Grandpa Zhang’s yard was no safer than my original home. I quickly returned to my room and locked the door.

When Grandpa Zhang comes back, I must ask him when my grandma will come over. I don’t want to stay here for a moment.

Not long after I returned to the room, I heard the sound of a door opening and closing in the yard. Then, there was a knock on my door, and Grandpa Zhang’s voice came from the door.

“Little guy, come out for breakfast.”

As if in response to Grandpa Zhang’s words, my stomach also growled. I am indeed a little hungry…

I swallowed, thought for a moment, then walked to the door and opened it. In my situation, I could only trust this long-time friend of my grandmother.

Grandpa Zhang was standing at the door with a transparent plastic bag in his hand. The bag seemed to contain steamed buns and eggs. It turned out that Grandpa Zhang had just gone out to buy breakfast.

Grandpa Zhang handed me the bag and said, “Eat some of these in the morning. When your grandma comes over at noon, I’ll make you two something delicious.”

“Thank you, Grandpa Zhang.” After I took the breakfast and thanked him, I suddenly thought of what happened last night and asked quickly, “Grandpa Zhang, what do you mean by the life-saving ghost you mentioned yesterday?”

“Oh, that one is the soul of a child I found by the river. He might have drowned while playing in the water. Since we couldn’t find his body, he couldn’t be reincarnated. So I kept him as my grandson. Anyway, I was bored by myself, and he was pretty pitiful.”

Grandpa Zhang spoke in a relaxed tone, saying that raising a ghost child was just like adopting a pet, and he didn’t think at all that his words would shock others.

My worldview has been refreshed once again. I have gone further and further away from materialism.

My grandfather’s attitude of raising ghosts further confirmed my guess that there were zombies or evil spirits suppressed in the water tank. Thinking of this, I timidly glanced at the water tank again, then looked away and asked:

“Then why do you say you are my life-saving ghost?”

“He saved you. We humans don’t have the ability to enter a dream created by a ghost. He entered the dream and found your location, helping grandma pass on a message to you.”

“But I clearly heard my grandmother’s voice. Is he so powerful that he can turn into my grandmother’s voice?”

“Of course not. He’s just a wandering spirit, not that powerful. Your grandmother was speaking to your mother’s real body, but he went in and opened the barrier, so you could hear it.”

“It still feels magical. What’s the principle? How is this done?” Grandpa Zhang’s words opened up a new world for me. Although I was a little scared that ghosts could enter my dreams, I was more curious.

“How should I know? Why do some people become ghosts after they die? There is no principle to explain this.”

Uh… why is it different from what I imagined? Aren’t those Taoist priests and wizards on TV very powerful… They can subdue demons and monsters with all their skills.

“Grandpa Zhang, I have more questions to ask.” I started to sort out all the questions I wanted to ask in my mind. When I was about to continue asking, Grandpa Zhang waved his hand and said in a somewhat hasty tone: “No, I know what you want to ask. There are some things I don’t understand, and I’m too lazy to explain. It’s a headache. I won’t talk to you anymore. I’m going to prepare the dishes for lunch first.”

After Grandpa Zhang finished speaking, he turned and left without waiting for my reaction, but he did not go to the kitchen, but to the water tank.

He stopped in front of the water tank and started staring at it motionlessly, in the same posture as when I went to the toilet in the morning. I looked at Grandpa Zhang in confusion, thinking to myself, is he casting a spell on the water tank?

I don’t know how much time had passed, but I heard Grandpa Zhang sigh, and then I saw him raise his hand and reach for the stone slab of the water tank.

What…does he want to do?

I subconsciously took a step back and held the door handle with one hand.

I saw Grandpa Zhang seemed to be about to lift the stone slab of the water tank. I asked nervously from behind, “Grandpa Zhang, what are you doing?”

Grandpa Zhang stopped what he was doing and looked back at me with a puzzled expression: “I’m going to prepare lunch for you.”

The food for lunch… Thinking of my previous speculation, my forehead began to sweat, and I said with trembling mouth: “Grandpa Zhang, I… I don’t like meat, I don’t like to eat weird things, just some vegetables will do…”

“You don’t like it, but your grandma likes it.” Grandpa Zhang said, then turned around and started moving the stone slabs.

“Grandma?” I was wondering what Grandpa Zhang said, when I heard a snap. The stone slab was lifted up and placed on the ground by Grandpa Zhang. At this time, Grandpa Zhang’s hand was reaching towards the water tank.

“Wow! Grandpa Zhang, please don’t do this. I don’t want to eat.” I was so scared that I burst into tears, threw away the breakfast in my hand, and ran to the gate of the yard, ready to open it and escape.

“Is it that serious? I asked you to eat a piece of bacon and you started crying.” Grandpa Zhang’s words came to me when I was about to open the yard door.

“Salmon?” I was stunned at the door, then slowly turned around and looked at Grandpa Zhang behind me.

At this time, he stood in front of the water tank, holding a rope in his hand, with a piece of meat tied to it. Judging from the color, it really looked like bacon…

“Is there something wrong with you kid?”

11. Mom wakes up

Everything that has happened recently has been so weird that it has made me nervous and I have been imagining all sorts of things.

“Grandpa Zhang, you are so weird. Why do you use a water tank to store bacon and put it in the middle of the yard?”

I went back to the yard, walked to the water tank and took a look inside.

In addition to bacon, there are also some cured chicken and duck.

“Why do you care what I use to pack the meat?” Grandpa Zhang ignored me and walked towards the kitchen with the meat.

I followed him and continued to ask, “Why were you staring at the water tank this morning and just now?”

Grandpa Zhang stopped, turned around, looked at me seriously and said, “I’m thinking about whether to make bacon for you and your grandmother at noon. This is my favorite food. I’ll have one less piece of meat for a meal.”

“Ah…haha, so that’s how it is!” I laughed awkwardly twice and muttered to myself, how stingy.

At noon, my grandma, whom I had been thinking about, finally showed up. She looked much more haggard and was still wearing the same clothes she wore on New Year’s Eve.

As soon as I saw my grandmother, I ran over crying and threw myself into her arms.

“Grandma… in my dream, I thought I would never have the chance to see you again.”

“Silly child, what nonsense are you talking about!” Grandma patted my back gently to comfort me.

At noon, Grandpa Zhang cooked a few simple dishes. At the table, Grandpa Zhang kept talking to my grandmother about gossip about other elderly people in the village. My grandmother mostly just listened to him without saying anything, and occasionally responded.

Grandpa Zhang is really a strange person. He has a sharp face that makes people feel a little scared, but when he speaks, he feels like an old child. Especially in front of my grandmother, he instantly becomes a chatterbox. When he is with me, he gets a headache if he talks to me for a few more words…

After dinner, I immediately pulled my grandmother into the room where I lived, took the doll out of the cabinet and handed it to her.

“Grandma, Grandpa Zhang said that my mother’s soul is locked inside this.”

Grandma took the doll, stroked its face, tears welled up in her eyes, and choked up as she said, “Yes, that’s your mother inside. My poor daughter, you really suffered this time.”

My heart was in a knot. I didn’t know how long my mother had been trapped, nor how much pain she was suffering.

“Grandma… let’s save mom!”

“Well, it’s okay now. Your mother has been in the hospital for two days. Her body has recovered a little. Now we can let your mother’s soul return to her body. You can take the doll and go to the hospital with me later.”

“Really? Great, let’s go now!” This moment was the happiest moment I had since the vacation.

After saying goodbye to Grandpa Zhang, my grandmother and I walked for more than ten minutes before reaching the roadside, then waited for a long time on the roadside for the bus to the county town. After arriving at the county town, we took a taxi to the hospital where my mother was.

Grandpa Zhang lives in the countryside, far from my mother’s hospital. We spent more than an hour on the road. During this hour, I asked my grandmother many questions.

My grandmother didn’t know everything, for example, why a ghost found my mother and what the ghost wanted to do to me. But my grandmother told me that there were red spots on the inside of my mother’s hands and behind her ears. It was when she saw the red spots in the hospital that she confirmed that my mother was possessed by a ghost.

On New Year’s Eve, my grandmother saw that my aunt also went to the hospital. She was worried about me, so she rushed back to my uncle’s house to find me. After entering the house, she found me lying at the door. No matter how she called me, I couldn’t wake up. My grandmother asked Grandpa Zhang for help. After seeing me, Grandpa Zhang asked my grandmother and uncle to look for my mother nearby, because ghosts can only affect me when they are near me, so if they can bring me into the dream, they must be not far away. Later, my mother was found in the rooftop warehouse of my uncle’s community. When she was found, she was also in a coma. Later, with the help of Grandpa Zhang and the ghost child he raised, you were rescued. ​

“Then grandma, will it be okay if I don’t open the door that day?”

“If we don’t destroy that damn ghost, she will keep trying to take you away, so even if you didn’t open the door that day, you wouldn’t be safe. Now that it’s like this, I’m completely relieved.”

My grandmother and I arrived at the hospital. My mother was still lying in bed and hadn’t woken up. My grandmother put the doll next to my mother’s pillow, and then put the doll’s hair and my mother’s hair together and tied them into a knot.

“Grandma, what are you doing?” I was very confused as I looked at my grandma’s actions.

“Old man Zhang said that in order to connect your mother’s body to the doll that holds her soul, hair is one way to connect them. I don’t know the details, but he either didn’t say it, or if he did, it must be right.”

“Oh, why hasn’t my mother woken up yet?” Looking at my mother, who was as thin as a bamboo pole and lying there lifelessly, I felt heartbroken.

“It will take some time. Your mother’s health has been very bad due to all the suffering she has endured recently. It will take some time for her soul to return to her body and adjust.”

Grandma looked at my mother with tears in her eyes. This is also her daughter. Grandma might be feeling even worse than I am right now.

Hospital, night.

My grandmother and I were still staying in my mother’s ward. There was an empty bed in the ward, so I let my grandmother rest on the bed while I sat on a chair and lay beside my mother’s bed to rest.

“Yiyi…” A familiar voice came, and I slowly raised my head and looked at my mother on the hospital bed. She was also looking at me, but this time her eyes were completely different from the previous time.

This time it was joy, touching, and tender.

“Mom, you’re awake!” I jumped up from my chair excitedly. My grandmother was also awakened by the noise from my side, and she quickly got up and came to my mother’s bedside.

“My daughter, my daughter, my poor daughter.” Grandma cried loudly, then lay on my mother and kept calling her mother.

I stood by and cried too, patting my grandmother’s back to comfort her, and keeping my eyes on my mother. My mother’s eyes and behavior became what I was familiar with before.

Great, my real mom is back.

My grandmother and I did not go home at night. We stayed in the hospital with my mother because she was still weak and had an IV drip. My grandmother and I squeezed on a bed to rest. After my grandmother calmed down, she began to ask my mother: “How did you get involved with these things? When were you locked in the doll?”

“Mom, one Sunday before Yiyi went on holiday, I went to her school to bring her food and stayed with her for the whole afternoon. It was already evening when I got home. I wanted to take a walk on the way, so I didn’t take a taxi directly. I wanted to walk around the river and then take a taxi home. When I was walking by the river, someone behind me called my name. I turned around, but I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t take it seriously and continued to walk forward. Someone behind me called my name again. I turned around again. This time, my eyes suddenly went black and I didn’t know anything. When I woke up, I was in a very small space. I didn’t know what was around me. It was pitch black, but there were obstacles like walls on all sides. I couldn’t move and could only turn over. I could hear voices, I could hear my own voice and Yiyi’s voice. I realized in my heart that I had been replaced…”

For so many days, there was endless darkness, the space was so narrow that it was only enough for me to turn over, and I had to listen to other people’s voices endangering my own daughter. How desperate my mother must have felt for so many days!

My grandmother and I burst into tears again.

“Go to sleep. Your mother needs to take good care of herself. The day after tomorrow is your father’s memorial day. We have to go and pay our respects.” Grandma wiped her tears and said to my mother and me.

My father passed away on the fifth day of the Chinese New Year ten years ago in a car accident.

12. Dad

My mother was discharged from the hospital today, and my uncle came to the hospital to pick us up. He still doesn’t know what happened. My grandmother didn’t tell him. But since I fainted on New Year’s Eve and couldn’t be woken up, and my grandmother didn’t let him take me to the hospital, he began to believe what I said to him in the hospital before.

After returning home, my grandmother and I started to clean up the house. Because my mother was still a little weak, we let her lie down and rest and didn’t let her do anything. In the evening, my grandmother prepared dinner and the family sat together to eat. The whole atmosphere was warm but a little cautious.

“Sister, you…ah!” Uncle wanted to say something, but in the end he didn’t say it and just sighed.

“Come on, eat more meat and gain weight.” Grandma picked up a piece of meat and put it in Mom’s bowl.

My mother smiled at my grandmother. I looked at my mother and remembered what she said yesterday. I always felt that there was something strange about her words yesterday, but I never figured out what was wrong. Looking at my mother’s gentle smile, the doubts in my heart were put aside. Maybe it was the recent events that made me suspicious.

After dinner, my uncle went home and my grandmother stayed to take care of my mother and me. In the evening, the three of us sat on the sofa in the living room, talking and laughing, with the TV on. In this warm atmosphere, I was in a trance for a while. Was everything that happened some time ago just a dream? Nothing happened?

On the morning of the fourth day of the New Year, my grandmother, mother and I had breakfast and set off for my father’s grave. No one spoke along the way. This day is heavy every year. My mother loved my father very much. After my father died in a car accident when I was six years old, my mother never remarried. In the past, my mother would be very sad and cry very sadly.

The sky was covered with dark clouds and the weather was gray, making people feel very depressed.

“It looks like it’s going to rain.” Grandma looked up at the sky, then took out the prepared incense, candles and paper money. Grandma lit three incense sticks and two candles, and inserted them in front of Dad’s grave. Then she bowed three times towards Dad’s grave.

After my grandmother bowed, she stepped aside. I walked forward, knelt on the ground, and kowtowed to the grave.

“You were so unfair to them when you were alive and left them. Now they are alone and helpless, being bullied by some wild ghosts. You must protect them.” Grandma spoke to the grave.

After I finished bowing, I stood up and stepped aside to make room for my mother. My mother was standing aside looking at my father’s tombstone. Her face looked very gloomy and her body seemed to be trembling a little. She stood there without moving, staring at my father’s tombstone with tears in her eyes, as if she had a lot to say to my father.

“What’s wrong? It looks like it’s going to rain soon. Please worship quickly so we can go back quickly.”

Seeing that my mother was standing there without moving, my grandmother urged her to do something.

After grandma finished speaking, mother withdrew her gaze from the tombstone, turned to look at grandma and me, then bent her body forward slightly, covered her forehead with her hands, and swayed slightly, as if she couldn’t stand up. I hurried forward to support mother, and mother leaned half of her body on me.

“Mom, I feel so uncomfortable and dizzy…” Mom said as she leaned her head on me.

“Mom, what’s wrong with you?” I shouted to my mother anxiously.

“Third sister, oh, you haven’t recovered yet, I shouldn’t have called you here today.” Grandma also walked to the other side of my mother and supported her, then took out her mobile phone with her other hand to call my uncle, asking him to pick us up.

When my uncle came, he saw my mother was weakly supported by my grandmother and me. He walked over to take my mother from us and asked anxiously, “What’s wrong? Do you want to go to the hospital?”

“No need, brother. I just feel a little uncomfortable. You can just take me home to rest.” Mom said weakly, leaning on uncle’s arms.

“Mom, it’s better for you to go to the hospital.” Seeing my mother like this, I was a little worried.

“Really, no need. I don’t want to go to the hospital. Just take me home.”

In the end, we listened to our mother and did not send her to the hospital. Instead, we sent her back home. After putting her in bed, my uncle went back to his own home, and my grandmother stayed to take care of us.

At night, I woke up because of thirst, turned on the bedside lamp, and checked the time. It was 01:35. My grandmother was sleeping next to me. I got up and walked out of the room to get some water in the dining room. After drinking the water, I turned off the light in the dining room and turned to go back to the room when I suddenly heard a “pop” sound from the living room, as if something had fallen to the ground.

I looked towards the living room, but because the lights were not on, I couldn’t see clearly what was going on in the living room. The sound really scared me.

This moment reminded me of the time when I tried to sneak away in the middle of the night, but was caught by the ghost mother who was guarding the living room. Could it be… that my mother is in the living room now? At this time…

The thought gave me a chill, and I nervously asked towards the living room, “Is anyone there? Is it Mom?”

No response.

Maybe I heard it wrong? Although I was curious, I didn’t dare to go to the living room to check the situation. I could only comfort myself in this way. So I ignored the living room and walked towards my room. Just when I was about to reach my room, I heard the sound of something falling to the ground in the living room again.

“Pah!”

At this point, I couldn’t comfort myself anymore that I had heard it wrong. I didn’t know what was going on in the living room or who was there, and I didn’t want to go and see for myself. I had to hurry back to my room, wake up my grandmother and tell her what was going on. So I quickened my pace towards the room and soon reached out to open the door.

The door won’t open. Oh, I didn’t close the door when I came out to drink water just now…

“Grandma! Grandma!” Regardless of the fact that it was already late at night, I shouted at the top of my lungs towards the room and banged hard on the door with my hands, but my grandma seemed not to hear me and did not respond at all. I hesitated for a moment, but still ran to my mother’s door and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t open.

“Bang!” Another sound came, but this time the sound did not come from the living room, but right behind me.

I slowly turned around and saw nothing behind me, then looked at the ground again.

There was something on the ground. Because the lights were off and it was very dark, I couldn’t see clearly what it was. I walked closely to the wall to the light switch in the corridor outside my mother’s room, reached out and turned on the light. The bright light cut through the darkness, and my tense nerves relaxed a little.

There was a small Doraemon schoolbag on the ground, and the sound just now should be the sound of the schoolbag falling to the ground.

“This schoolbag…” I approached the schoolbag and tilted my head to look at it on the ground. Isn’t this the small schoolbag my father gave me on my fifth birthday? This… is also the last birthday gift my father gave me. I have kept it all the time, why is it here now? The sound came from the living room just now, and now it is here again, falling to the ground several times, as if to attract me over.

Do you want me to pick up this schoolbag?

I squatted down puzzledly, reached out to pick up the schoolbag, and observed carefully. It was indeed my schoolbag. There was a small sign on it that read “Little Princess Yiyi, grow up happily.”

Suddenly, a pair of men’s leather shoes appeared in my peripheral vision. I was so scared that I immediately stood up, quickly backed away and leaned against the wall.

A man appeared in front of where the schoolbag had just fallen. He was about thirty-five or thirty-six years old, with slightly bald hair at the temples, thick and neat eyebrows, and a pair of sparkling eyes.

“Dad…?” I looked at the man in front of me. He was looking at me, still the same as I remembered. My memory of my father was only a few fragments, but they were very deep.

“Yiyi.” The man spoke, his voice a little hoarse. When I heard his voice, my nose felt sore, my eyes were dry, and then tears fell.

This is a familiar and distant voice, a voice I often think of, and the first voice that came after the door of my house was opened at around 6 o’clock every afternoon many years ago…

“Dad, how could you…” Although I was excited to see my father again, why would I see a relative who had been dead for many years?

“Yiyi…” Dad called me softly and walked towards me. When he was close to me, he suddenly stopped. At this time, Dad’s face suddenly became solemn and his brows were knitted. He approached me again, but his face became worse and worse. He looked like a normal person, but now his face was pale. Dad had walked in front of me. He stretched out his hand to touch my head, just like when he came home from get off work when I was a child, he would pat my head gently a few times, but his hand only stopped a few centimeters above my head and disappeared. His whole body was dissipating. Before completely disappearing, he left a sentence anxiously: “Yiyi, don’t believe her!”

“Dad! Dad!” I cried loudly, but there was nothing in front of me, including the schoolbag.

“Yiyi, Yiyi, wake up!” I heard my grandmother’s voice. I opened my eyes and saw my grandmother’s face. Seeing that I woke up, she asked with concern, “Why are you crying? Did you have a nightmare?”

I stood up and looked around. It was my room, and my grandma was sitting next to me. It turned out that I was just dreaming…

“Wow, grandma, I dreamed of my dad.” After waking up, I realized that I didn’t have a father in real life. Sadness surged up and I lay on my grandma’s body and cried loudly.

Dad wanted to touch my head, but his hand didn’t fall down…

13. Weird

“Yiyi, get up and eat.”

I heard my grandma’s voice in a daze, I opened my eyes, stretched and looked towards the door of the room. My grandma was standing at the door wearing an apron, looking at me with doting in her eyes.

“Grandma is here, and you still like to sleep in.” As my mother’s voice came, she walked to grandma’s side. They smiled at each other, and then looked at me together.

Looking at my mother and grandmother at the door, my mood became very happy. It feels so good!

“Okay, okayI’ll get up right away!” I acted coquettishly to the two people at the door, forgetting all those troubles, we are just an ordinary and beautiful little family

After breakfast, grandma had to go back to her hometown for a few days. She needed to feed the chickens, ducks and pigs at home. Before leaving, grandma told me to take good care of my mother.

After grandma left, mom started to clean up the house. Seeing her mopping the floor, I wanted to go over and help: “Mom, let me do it. You’ve just recovered. You should rest more.”

“No, go watch TV. I’ve been resting for a few days! If I don’t move, I feel like my limbs are going to degenerate.”

Watching my mother busy at home reminds me of the past. This was my mother and I’s daily life at home.

I smiled, went back to my room, took out my winter vacation homework and started doing it. School will start in ten days. I haven’t done my homework in some time, so I have to hurry up.

In the evening, my mother prepared dinner and we ate and chatted naturally at the dining table. My mother picked up some food for me. I looked at the fish in the bowl and said with a smile, “I love the braised fish made by my mother the most. That’s why every time you go to school to bring me food, you always bring me fish.” As I said that, I picked up the fish and put it in my mouth. Suddenly, I remembered something, stopped chewing, and looked at my mother blankly.

“If you like it, eat more. Eating more fish will make you smarter.” Mom said as she put another piece of fish in my bowl. Noticing my abnormality, she put down her bowl and chopsticks and asked, “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me? Is the food not tasty?”

“Hmm…it’s nothing, it’s delicious.” I withdrew my gaze from my mother and lowered my head to look at the fish in my bowl. I poked my chopsticks in the bowl and didn’t eat anything else.

I remembered that on the day when my mother woke up, when my grandmother asked my mother what happened, my mother’s answer made me feel a little strange at the time. That day, my mother said that she brought me food on the Sunday before the holiday, and then stayed with me all afternoon, and the accident happened when she went home in the evening. On the day when she brought me food, my mother sent me a text message saying that she would bring me lunch, but later because of something, my mother did not come at noon, and called me to say that she would bring me food in the evening. In other words, my mother, who originally planned to come at noon, actually came to school at dinner that day, but “Mom” said in the hospital that day that she came in the afternoon and stayed with me all afternoon…

Did she… remember it wrongly? Or…

I didn’t dare to think any further and quietly looked up at my “mom” who was eating with a calm expression.

After dinner, I returned to my room, locked the door, and began to carefully recall all the details after my mother woke up. Except for the wrong time when she delivered food to me and some abnormality in front of my father’s grave, the rest of the time was no different from my mother in the past.

At night, my mind was full of thoughts and I couldn’t fall asleep. Suddenly, I heard some movement in my mother’s room. The sound of her door opening, followed by faint footsteps. The footsteps stopped in front of my door and then disappeared.

I turned my back to the door, my body tense, not daring to move. I was sure that “Mom” was standing at my door at that moment. Was she looking at me through the crack in the door?

Thinking back to the dream I had last night, the words “Don’t trust her” that my father said before he disappeared in the dream were a reminder for me not to trust this “mom”? I had always thought it was just a dream, but considering my current situation, it seemed to be a reminder from my father.

Finally, I heard footsteps at the door again, but they were not the footsteps going back to the room, but walking towards the living room, and then there was the sound of the door opening and closing, and then everything was quiet again. I turned on the light in the room and checked the time. It was 02:30. It was so late. Where was she going?

It’s very strange, there is a big problem with this “mother”, maybe, my mother never came back at all, and this is still the same ghost!

What should I do? Should I run away now? Go find my grandma?

Thinking about it, I started to pack my things with my backpack, walked to the door of my house, opened the door and prepared to leave, took a step and stopped, I hesitated at the door for a long time, and finally closed the door, returned to my room, put the packed clothes back into the closet, and lay down on the bed again.

Since she took so much trouble to disguise herself as my mother and make me believe her, she will not hurt me in the short term. If I run away now, she will know that she is exposed. I still don’t know what this ghost wants to do or what the truth is, and she will definitely think of other ways to get close to me again. In this case, I might as well pretend that I know nothing and play along with her to see what she really wants to do. Besides, I have to save my real mother!

This time, I didn’t think about escaping. Instead, I chose to face it bravely, to uncover the truth and save my mother.

At around 4
a.m., I heard the sound of doors opening and closing in the living room, followed by familiar footsteps, which still stayed at the door of my room. In my mind, there appeared a picture of “Mom” hunching over, her face pressed against the crack of the door, her eyes looking hard into the room. My heart was pounding, and I unconsciously held the quilt tightly. A few minutes later, I heard the footsteps of “Mom” leaving the room, followed by the sound of the door closing.

The next day, I pretended that I knew nothing and ate and chatted with “Mom”, but I was more careful and paid attention to her micro-expressions all the time. After dinner, I went back to my room to do my homework.

At night, I lay on the bed wearing my cotton jacket and pants, covered with a quilt, and waited quietly.

Sure enough, the door of my mother’s room opened, and she still stayed at the door of my room. After a while, I heard her open the door. I lifted the quilt, got up and stood at the door of my room. When I heard the sound of the door closing in the living room, I opened the door of my room and walked out. I went to the entrance of the living room and put on a pair of snow boots. The soles of these shoes are very soft and not easy to make noise.

I opened the door to the living room and went out. The light on the stairs was still on. I stood at the door without moving, waiting for the light on the stairs to go out automatically, and then I walked quietly towards the stairs.

My home is on the second floor. My “mother” should have gone down the stairs just now. The floor lamp in the stairwell is voice-activated and will light up when there is sound or weight on the floor at the entrance of the stairs. I walked over without making any sound, crossed the sensing area, and went downstairs carefully to avoid the light coming on and attracting the attention of “mother” downstairs.

After going downstairs, I saw “Mom”‘s back. She was walking towards the gate of the community. She walked very slowly. If it wasn’t so late at night, it would really feel like she was just taking a walk after dinner.

I followed her, always keeping a safe distance, and tried my best to take a route where I could hide at any time.

“Mom” left the community and walked across the street. There was a very narrow alley further across the street. “Mom” walked into the alley. The alley was too narrow and very dark. I was a little worried and didn’t dare to follow her directly. I stood at the entrance of the alley for about two or three minutes, and finally plucked up the courage to go in.

The alley was dark, I couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t know where “Mom” had gone. I could only walk forward by feeling. I came to a fork in the road. There were alleys on the left and right, but there seemed to be a house deep in the alley on the left. I could see lights on in the windows. It was two or three in the morning, and the lights were still on…

I walked towards the alley on the left and came to the lighted window. I used the wall next to the window to cover my body, quietly stuck my head out and looked inside the window.

The scene inside the window was the most shocking and terrifying thing I have ever seen in my life. I will never forget it.

“Mom” and a man were kneeling on the ground with their backs to each other. In front of them was a table with five dolls on it. I had seen two of them before. One was the little girl doll in Mom’s room, and the other was a very beautiful doll I had seen at Grandpa Zhang’s house. I had not seen the other three before. Judging from their clothes, they should be two female dolls and one male doll. The dolls were surrounded by some colorful paper-made things, and I could not see what they were. There was also a wooden basin in front of the dolls, which seemed to be filled with liquid. There was something on the forehead of the male doll, which seemed to be a big nail nailed to the forehead. There was a photo on the wall behind the row of dolls. It was of a man. The corners of the man’s mouth were full of blood, and there was a big scratch on the right side of his face. His eyes were open and his face was blue. This… looked like a photo of a dead person!

The man in the photo is my dad! Why is there a photo of my dad with scars all over his face here?

And who are the men next to “Mom”? Why are they kneeling?

14. Temptation

Everything I saw shocked me. I covered my mouth with my hands, afraid of accidentally making a sound. The early morning in winter was bitterly cold. I stood outside the window shivering, perhaps because of the cold, or perhaps because of fear.

The dim light illuminated everything in the house. “Mom” and the mysterious man knelt on the ground with their backs to the window. The house was silent. The two did not speak. After about three or four minutes, the man stood up and turned sideways to “Mom” and said, “Meizhen, please bear with it for a while.”

The “mom” kneeling on the ground did not respond, but just nodded.

Meizhen? Is it the ghost that possessed my mother?

The man walked up to the row of dolls, picked up the male doll with a nail on its forehead, reached out and took out the nail, then sneered at the doll and said, “It’s almost over!” As soon as he finished speaking, the man raised the nail in his hand behind his head, and then stabbed it heavily into the doll’s forehead.

Although he was facing me sideways and I couldn’t see his face clearly, I could clearly feel the hatred and ferocity in his eyes when he stabbed the nail into the doll.

After he did this strange thing, I subconsciously looked up at the photo on the wall. My father in the photo seemed a little different from when I first saw him. I looked carefully and suddenly found that the empty eyes in the photo should have been looking straight ahead, but at this moment, the eyeballs of the eyes were tilted to the left, and the direction the eyes were looking at was exactly where I was! The person in the photo was looking at me!

This discovery startled me. I opened my mouth and took a deep breath, then immediately covered my mouth with my hands. I almost screamed, but because I was frightened just now, my foot took a step back uncontrollably. This step stepped on the gravel on the ground, making a little sound. This sound was very abrupt in the quiet night, and of course it also attracted the attention of the two people in the room.

“Who?” A man’s voice rang out from inside the house, followed by the sound of someone walking towards the window.

I squatted in the corner next to the window, pressed tightly against the wall. The light didn’t shine on me, and I wore a black outfit tonight, so he didn’t notice me. But I knew I couldn’t stay here any longer. After hearing the man leave the window, I turned around and ran out of the alley. While running, I was careful not to make any noise.

When I ran back home and went upstairs, I did the same thing as when I came out, I stepped over the sensing area, went upstairs quietly without turning on the sensor light, opened the door with the key, closed it gently, took off my snow boots, took them into my room, hid them, quickly took off my cotton jacket, hung it in the closet, then changed into my pajamas, and when I was about to take off my pants, I heard the sound of keys at the door.

Oh no, she’s back. I didn’t even bother to take off my pants and immediately got into bed, covered myself with the quilt, turned my back to the door, and lay down on my side.

The door of the living room opened and closed, and the footsteps of “Mom” sounded in the living room, walking towards my room, and stopped at the door like the previous two days, but this time she did not leave after stopping, but opened my door.

I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

I heard “Mom” walking towards the bed from the door. She walked around the bed to the side where I slept and stopped at the head of the bed.

My heart was really about to jump out of my chest at this moment, but I had to stay calm. I couldn’t let her find out that I was not asleep, otherwise I didn’t know what she would do to me. She would definitely suspect that the sound outside the room just now was made by me.

Several minutes passed without any movement. I didn’t know what expression she was looking at me with, and I didn’t know if my attempt to be calm and asleep had been seen through. In these few short minutes, I felt like I was being roasted on an oven, making me feel extremely anxious and uncomfortable.

“Hiss~” There was the sound of clothes rubbing against each other. She seemed to be doing something, and the clothes on her body made a series of friction sounds. Then I felt that the mattress next to the pillow where I slept was sinking a little.

She sat next to my pillow?

No, why did I feel a cool breeze on my face? She should be squatting at the head of my bed, supporting her face with her hands and looking at me. The breeze I felt on my face was the breath she was breathing.

Oh my god! This is really a test for me! She was testing my reaction. She knew I was timid. I fainted from the shock of the previous incident under the bed. She must have thought that if I wasn’t asleep at all, I would show it when she did this.

I was also really scared, realizing that her face was only a few centimeters away from me, but… I had to stay calm! I had to stay calm! I couldn’t be discovered! As long as I wasn’t discovered, I would be safe for the time being. I kept comforting myself in my heart, not letting myself get flustered and be discovered.

After a while, a small corner of the quilt I was covering myself with was lifted up, and then something reached out from outside the quilt and touched my clothes. It was “Mom’s” hand. She touched my clothes with her hand, and then took her hand back.

Finally, I heard the sound of clothes rubbing against each other again, followed by the footsteps of “Mom” leaving. After the sound of my room door closing came, I opened my eyes and let out a long breath.

It was a close call. If I hadn’t changed into pajamas just now… I’ll try to go to my grandma’s house tomorrow and tell her about this.

The next day, I pretended nothing happened and ate and chatted with “Mom”, and then I said naturally while eating: “Mom, I want to go to grandma’s house later.”

“Why do you suddenly want to go to grandma’s house to play?” “Mom” put down her bowl and chopsticks, looked at me thoughtfully and asked.

“I go there every Chinese New Year! I want to see Wangwang. Wangwang must miss me too.” I continued eating with a natural expression, because I was telling the truth. Every Chinese New Year I would go to my grandmother’s house to play for two days. Wangwang is my grandmother’s dog.

“Wangwang…” This ghost “mother” obviously doesn’t know Wangwang.

“Mom! You forgot! This is the dog we bought for grandma! You were afraid that grandma would be lonely in her hometown, so you bought a dog for her.” I deliberately said to “Mom” in a very exaggerated tone.

“Oh, Wangwang! Look at my memory, I remember it, I remember it.” “Mom” acted as if she had suddenly realized something and slapped her forehead.

“Yes, Mom, I’ll go there after I finish eating and go home tomorrow.”

“Mom” didn’t answer me, but lowered her head as if she was thinking about something. I was not in a hurry and waited for her response while eating.

“Let me go with you. I also want to see Wangwang.” Finally, “Mom” responded to me.

Her response also made me stunned for a moment. I thought about it and felt that it was okay to go together. As long as I could see grandma, everything would be fine. So I nodded and said, “Okay!”

“grandmothergrandmother“When I arrived at my grandmother’s house, I shouted loudly at the door, but there was no response after a long time.

“Strange, grandma is not at home? Mom, can you give grandma a call and ask?” I said to “Mom” who was standing next to me.

“Mom” took out her cell phone and called grandma.

“Good luck is coming~that good luck is coming!” The ringtone of grandma’s cell phone rang in the room. Grandma used one of those old-fashioned phones, and the ringtone was very loud. We could hear it clearly outside the door. It rang for a long time but no one answered.

What’s going on?

15. Grandma

After ringing for a long time, grandma’s cell phone suddenly stopped ringing. “Mom” put the phone back into her pocket, walked to a window, bent over and looked inside, then turned back and said to me, “It seems she’s not home.”

My grandmother’s house is a bungalow. Except for the curtains in the room, which are drawn, the curtains in the living room and kitchen are open. The window that “Mom” just looked at is the kitchen window. I went around to the other side of the house and looked inside through the living room window. The lights were still on in the living room, and a half-eaten sweet potato was placed on the wooden coffee table.

At this moment my mind was in a mess, as if there were hundreds of bees buzzing around my head.

I have always been an optimistic person. I grew up in a single-parent family, but I am optimistic and cheerful. There is almost no thing that can bother me for two days. Even if there is something unhappy, I will let it go after a good sleep. Even though I found out some time ago that my mother was replaced and a series of panic and desperate things happened, I still held on to hope, looking forward to escaping, looking forward to my family to save me, mustering up the courage to face it, to find out the truth, and to save my mother… But now, I am really a little at a loss, my heart is anxious, and there is a feeling of despair.

I ignored “Mom” and turned around and walked straight to my grandmother’s house. My grandmother and Grandpa Zhang both lived in a relatively remote countryside. Grandpa Zhang lived in the village next to my grandmother’s, not far from my grandmother’s house, about four or five kilometers away.

“Mom” didn’t ask me what I was doing, she just followed me. After I walked for a while on the country road, I was stunned at a three-way intersection. I had no idea how to get from Grandma’s house to Grandpa Zhang’s house.

Hesitating at the intersection, “Mom” finally couldn’t help it, she walked up to me and asked, “Where are you going?”

I had no choice now. I calmed down and tried to speak to my “mom” in a natural tone: “Mom, can you lend me your phone?”

“Cellphone? What do you want to do?”

“Mom” obviously wouldn’t give me the phone easily. She frowned and asked me in confusion.

“Oh, I’m going to go check on my grandma’s friend. Maybe she’s gone to see him.”

In fact, grandma must have encountered some trouble, because she is old and she doesn’t want to live with my uncle. She just wants to stay in the small home she built with grandpa. We are worried about her living alone in the countryside, so we specifically told her to keep her cell phone with her so that we can contact her at any time. Grandma will not go out alone without her cell phone. And we just saw the situation in the living room. How could grandma, such a thrifty person, go out with the lights on around ten in the morning? Even if she didn’t finish eating the sweet potatoes, she would definitely put them away and not just leave them like that… The only person I can find now is Grandpa Zhang.

“Do you remember the number?” “Mom” still didn’t give me the phone.

“I don’t remember, but I know what his place is called. I’ll use your phone to find out the directions.”

“Just tell me the address and I’ll guide you.”

You really are worried about me… Since this fake mother is going to pretend, can she pretend to be more convincing…

“Yanghe Village, No. 625.” I rolled my eyes with my back to “Mom” and then gave the address of Grandpa Zhang’s house.

“So far? Are we going to walk there?” After searching for the address on her mobile phone, “Mom” gave me a dissatisfied look.

We took a taxi when we came here, but it is not easy to get a taxi here.

“Yes, it’s a bit far to walk there. I want Uncle Mo Yin in front to take us there on his motorcycle.” The two old people in Uncle Mo Yin’s family have been friends with my grandparents for decades. The two families have a good relationship and I am quite familiar with them.

“Motorcycle?” “Mom” raised her tone and asked me with a little disbelief.

“Hmm, what’s wrong?”

I could see that “Mom” didn’t want to ride the motorcycle, and even looked a little disgusted. This reminded me of the time when I first returned home, when I put on exquisite makeup every day. She must be a ghost who loves beauty and pays a lot of attention to her image.

“It’s too cold to ride a motorcycle, so let’s take a taxi. Although it’s hard to get a taxi here, if you pay a little extra fee, there should still be a driver who will accept the order.” “Mom” said, and started to call a taxi using the taxi app on her mobile phone.

I was speechless. Now that I am occupying my mother’s body, I really don’t feel bad about spending money…

“Mom” gave the driver an extra thirty yuan as a thank-you fee before he accepted the order. The driver could not come directly here, so we had to walk some distance forward and get to the main road before we could get on the bus.

It took a long time, and when we reached the path leading to Grandpa Zhang’s house, it was almost noon. After getting off the car, “Mom” and I walked along the path towards Grandpa Zhang’s house. I walked a little hurriedly because I was worried about my grandmother and wanted to find Grandpa Zhang quickly.

When I arrived at the gate of Grandpa Zhang’s yard and was about to go in, “Mom” called me: “Yiyi, wait a moment.”

I looked back at “Mom” who was about ten meters away from me and asked with a puzzled look on my face, “What’s wrong?”

“Is this the house of grandma’s friend that you mentioned?” “Mom” looked around the yard with an indescribable emotion in her eyes. Perhaps, it could be said that she was a little afraid?

“Yes, Grandpa Zhang, he is a good friend of grandma. Let’s go in and ask Grandpa Zhang if grandma is with him.” After saying that, I turned around and prepared to open the door to the yard.

“Yiyi, Mom suddenly has something very important to do, so I have to leave for a while. Remember to come home in the evening.” “Mom” called me again, but when I turned around, I saw her back as she hurriedly walked out.

Could it be that “Mom” was afraid of Grandpa Zhang? Or was there something in Grandpa Zhang’s yard that she was afraid of?

The yard door was not locked. I pushed it gently and it opened. The scene that came into my sight made me laugh and cry.

In the middle of the yard, Grandpa Zhang was standing motionless in front of the water tank, his eyes staring at the tank, one fist clenched in front of his mouth, looking like he was thinking seriously. Even when the yard door opened, he didn’t react at all.

“Grandpa Zhang.” I walked over to him and called him.

“Oh my god, you scared me. When did you come here?” Grandpa Zhang didn’t look scared at all. He was as steady as a rock. He didn’t even look at me.

“Grandpa Zhang, my grandma…” I hurriedly wanted to talk about my grandma.

“Wait a minute, let me think about it.” Grandpa Zhang raised a hand towards me and interrupted me.

“What’s wrong?” I was a little confused.

“It’s settled. We’ll eat one cured pig’s trotter today and not eat any for the next three days.” Grandpa Zhang seemed to have made an important decision. He took a deep breath and said something that made me frown.

“Grandpa Zhang, now is not the time to think about what to eat! My grandma, my grandma is missing!” I stood between Grandpa Zhang and the water tank, and told him anxiously about my grandma.

“What? My sister is missing?” Grandpa Zhang finally took his eyes off the water tank and looked at me, with some surprise in his eyes.

“Yes! That’s right. This morning at around ten o’clock, my mother and I went to look for my grandmother, but her cell phone was still at home, but she was not there.”

“Let’s go to your grandma’s house right away.” After saying this, Grandpa Zhang hurriedly walked to his own room and soon came out with a black cloth bag.

“But I don’t have the key to grandma’s house.” I stood there, saying a little embarrassedly.

“What key do you need? Call someone to knock on the door!”

“How do we get there? It might be harder to get a taxi here, and I don’t have a cell phone…” I lowered my head and rubbed my hands back and forth.

“Ride my motorcycle.” Grandpa Zhang had already walked to the door.

“Ah! I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle!”

“Who said you should ride a bike? I’ll ride it, hurry up!”

I suddenly looked up at Grandpa Zhang. He had a lean body and a face full of wrinkles from the years. I looked at him in disbelief: “You…you ride a motorcycle?”

“Yeah, you don’t believe it? Erniu can’t even ride better than me, and I can still race.” Grandpa Zhang raised his voice, expressing his dissatisfaction with my questioning.

“Grandpa Zhang… you are such a fierce man!”

Although Grandpa Zhang said that, he still rode very steadily on the road, perhaps because he was concerned about me sitting on the back seat.

When we got to my grandmother’s house, we called two uncles from next door to help us and asked them to knock on the door. When they were knocking on the door, Grandpa Zhang called me aside and asked, “You just said that you came here with your mother, so where is she now?”

“Grandpa Zhang, that person is not my mother, it’s still the original ghost.” I said to Grandpa Zhang with a serious expression.

“Why do you say that?” Grandpa Zhang frowned, pursed his lips, and looked sharp and serious.

“What she said in the hospital when she woke up didn’t match the actual situation. What’s more, I found out…” When I was about to tell Grandpa Zhang what I found out when I followed “Mom” the night before, my uncle came over by knocking on the door.

“Yiyi, the door is open, let’s go in and take a look.”

I didn’t say anything else. I looked at Grandpa Zhang and then walked towards my grandmother’s room together. When we reached the door, Grandpa Zhang suddenly turned to me and said, “Yiyi, I miscalculated this matter. It seems to be much more serious than I thought. You must be mentally prepared.” After Grandpa Zhang finished speaking, he walked into the house before I could react, and I quickly followed him in.

16. Everything is man-made

After entering my grandmother’s house, Grandpa Zhang first opened the door of my grandmother’s room. After the door opened, Grandpa Zhang took a look inside and immediately closed it again. He turned around and said to me who was following behind and the uncle who knocked on the door, “You go first. Her grandmother is sleeping in there.”

Just now when I was following behind and trying to go inside, Grandpa Zhang was moving so fast that I didn’t see anything. I wanted to go around Grandpa Zhang to open the door, but Grandpa Zhang stopped me, gently pushed me a little to the side, and then he faced the two uncles who were banging on the door.

“Grandpa, is grandma okay? Do you want to take her to the hospital?” The uncle next door looked very concerned.

“No, she’s fine. Just let Yiyi go in and keep her company.” Grandpa Zhang’s tone was firm and his expression looked solemn. Looking at him, I knew that the situation in grandma’s room was not simple at all. I took a step forward and said to the two uncles who were knocking on the door, “Uncle Gu, Uncle Wei, don’t worry. Grandma is fine. She just fell asleep in there. I knocked on the door but didn’t wake her up. I was anxious and thought something happened, so I asked you to knock on the door.”

The two uncles looked at me with some doubt in their eyes, but since a relative of mine had said so, they didn’t know what to say. They could only say a few words and then left.

After the two uncles left, Grandpa Zhang quickly opened the door and entered the room, and I followed closely behind him.

Although I have seen enough scary and weird scenes during this period of time, and although I did a lot of mental preparation before entering the room, after seeing the scene in the room, I was still scared and gasped and stepped back repeatedly. If Grandpa Zhang hadn’t grabbed me, I would have fallen to the ground.

Grandma was lying flat on her bed, her eyes wide open, her eyeballs rolled up, her mouth open, as if there was something in her mouth, her cheeks were red, as if two pieces of red paper were stuck on them, her hands were placed on both sides of her body, palms facing up, her ten fingers slightly bent inward, her legs tightly together, her feet tied together with a red rope. Opposite the bed where she slept there was a black coffin standing upright, the coffin lid was opened, and no one knew where it had gone. The coffin opening was facing the lying grandma, and next to the coffin was a small table with a doll on the table, the doll’s hands stretched forward, and its feet were tied together with a red rope. The doll’s eyes were closed, but it was obvious that it was an old lady.

The curtains in the room were drawn, and only a little light from outside came in. Although that little light still made the room look very dark, it was enough to see the scene in front of me clearly…

I was supported by Grandpa Zhang and stood there staring at my grandmother for a long time. Finally, I recovered from the shock. I opened Grandpa Zhang’s hand and rushed over. I squatted on the ground, lay on the side of my grandmother’s bed, and shouted loudly: “Grandma, Grandma!”

I wanted to shake grandma to wake her up, but Grandpa Zhang rushed over and grabbed me, stopping me: “Don’t touch it yet, it will hurt your grandma.”

“Grandpa Zhang, my grandma, what’s wrong with my grandma?” My tears streamed down my face and I grabbed Grandpa Zhang’s arm and cried.

“Don’t cry for now, your grandma is still alive. She must have been possessed by someone.” Grandpa Zhang patted the back of my hand gently to comfort me, but his expression was not very good.

“Then…then…what should I do? Grandpa Zhang, please save my grandma.”

“Looking at this, it seems that some oriental secret technique was used. I don’t know what kind of forbidden technique was used, but only humans know how to operate this kind of thing. Your grandma is such a good person, how could someone do such a cruel thing to her?” Grandpa Zhang said, spread the quilt next to her and covered her, then reached out to wipe her eyes. After grandma closed her eyes, I wanted to reach out and take out the ball of things in her mouth and let her mouth close, but was stopped by Grandpa Zhang.

“Don’t touch that thing yet. Let me go back and look through the book to see if I can find the forbidden technique for this technique, and then I’ll see how to do it.”

Grandpa Zhang’s words reminded me of what I discovered when I followed “Mom” that day. I quickly said to Grandpa Zhang, “Grandpa Zhang, I have something to tell you. The night before last, I followed Mom and found out…” I told Grandpa Zhang all the details I discovered that day, and then I recalled them carefully again, fearing that any details might have been missed.

“If I’m not mistaken, the doll that was nailed with nails should contain your father. Now it seems that the ghost that possessed your mother is also controlled by this man. I said, ordinary ghosts don’t have such ability.”

“Grandpa Zhang, I don’t quite understand…”

“At first I thought your mother was unlucky enough to have offended a greedy ghost who wanted to replace your mother as a human. So, after rescuing you from the dream, I thought everything would be fine. This is because most ghosts would be shattered if they were killed in the dream they created themselves. But you told me that your mother’s body is still the same ghost, so someone must be controlling all this. Most people actually dissipate after death. Some people with strong obsessions form souls that wander around in this world, but only a few souls can have consciousness and can have some influence on the things around them. They can also send dreams, create dreams, and give you some illusions. The door you couldn’t open before was not really unopenable, but she made you think you couldn’t open it. It’s the first time I’ve seen someone who can come and go freely like the ghost in your mother’s body.”

“Then… why are there so many dolls… why are they looking for my mother, why are they pretending to be by my side, why…”

Just when I was about to throw out all my questions, I was interrupted by Grandpa Zhang: “Stop! Why are you here again? I’m not a god, how can I know these things? My family used to make a living by feng shui and fortune telling, and I happened to learn a little bit from them. I learned some tricks to fool people, but I don’t know gossip and fortune telling…”

“So…what should we do now?”

“I don’t know either. I’ll go back and look through the book to see if there’s any solution.”

“Oh…” I lowered my head in disappointment, because the current situation is that I have placed all my hopes on Grandpa Zhang, but I feel that this Grandpa Zhang is very unreliable.

“The man you saw that night is very problematic. He is most likely the one who did all this.”

After listening to Grandpa Zhang’s words, I had a plan in mind. I looked up at Grandpa Zhang and said, “Grandpa Zhang, I know what I’m going to do.”

Grandpa Zhang looked me up and down for a moment, then said in a very disdainful tone: “What can a little girl like you do?”

I paid attention to Grandpa Zhang’s tone, and said word by word very seriously: “I want to go to that man’s house!”

17. The life-saving ghost

“I’m going to that man’s house to look for clues!”

After hearing me say that I was going to the mysterious man’s house, Grandpa Zhang just stood there staring at me without responding for a long time. I raised my voice and repeated my thoughts again.

“Tsk!” Grandpa Zhang looked at me for a moment, then his mouth twisted, his eyes rolled up, a note popped out of his mouth, and he walked around me and towards the door.

“What? What do you mean? Don’t you believe me? Do you look down on me?” I was irritated by Grandpa Zhang’s expression and tone just now. I followed Grandpa Zhang and had to find out the truth.

“Alright, alright, why are you always making such a fuss? If you were my granddaughter, I would probably live ten years less.” Grandpa Zhang had already come into the living room after saying this.

“That’s too much! Grandpa Zhang, be careful when grandma wakes up or I’ll tell her about you and she’ll never talk to you again.” I walked to Grandpa Zhang angrily and took out my trump card.

“You’re killing me. How could I be afraid of threats from a little brat like you?” Grandpa Zhang’s tone became a little unnatural, as if he was trying to hide his emotions. He sat down on the sofa, turning his head around, looking around, but not looking at me.

“Of course you are afraid, you like my grandma.” I said with a raised eyebrow.

“Who… who… who told you that I like your grandmother?” Grandpa Zhang became flustered. He sat on the sofa, one leg shaking up and down, his hands tightly grasping the edge of the sofa, and his speech became hesitant.

“My grandmother told me a story about her youth a long time ago. She said there was a man who loved her very much, but her parents arranged for her to get married. That man never married. So, isn’t that you?”

“By the way, you just said that you were going to the mysterious man’s house. What are you going to do?” Grandpa Zhang suddenly became serious and turned the topic to the mysterious man. Humph, now you know you can’t underestimate me, I was very proud in my heart, I finally have a way to deal with this Grandpa Zhang.

“I thought about it. That mother has never done anything to me. Instead, she has tried her best to stay with me. I guess they are waiting for an opportunity. What this opportunity is probably related to that man. That day, ‘Mom’ came with me to see grandma. Looking at her expression, I felt that she didn’t know that something had happened to grandma. If it was that man who did it, she would definitely go to find that man today. I know where they met, and I can take this opportunity to listen to what they said.” I walked to Grandpa Zhang and sat on the sofa, squinting my eyes slightly to make myself look very wise.

“Your mother, is she going to wait until you get home? She will discuss their plan with you after you get home? Won’t she go to discuss things with that man right now? Hey, brats are brats.”

“But to get to the truth, we have to start with that man! My mother is missing and my grandmother is in a coma. I can’t just sit there and wait for death. I have to take the initiative! I have to save them!”

Thinking of my mother and grandmother, I became emotional again. I could no longer think about escaping out of fear. I must save them!

“Of course we have to save him, but we have to think long and hard. You can’t act rashly. I’m trying to find a solution. Please be patient.”

“Grandpa Zhang, I don’t think you are powerful at all. I thought you were an accomplished person!” I turned my face away and complained to Grandpa Zhang with a pout.

“Hmph! You’re not cute at all!” Grandpa Zhang turned his head away and responded to me in a high-pitched voice.

Grandpa Zhang and I sat on the sofa, ignoring each other for a long time. Finally, Grandpa Zhang compromised, stood up from the sofa and said, “Forget it, forget it. I won’t be angry with you, kid. Just follow me to my home first.”

“Then…what about grandma?” I wasn’t really angry with Grandpa Zhang, I just felt very upset and wanted to vent.

“Your grandmother has to stay here for now. We can’t move her until I find the cause. We have to find a solution as soon as possible, otherwise she won’t be able to take it if she keeps not eating.”

Yes, grandma’s health can’t be delayed any longer, and the problem must be resolved as soon as possible. I have no other choice now and can only rely on Grandpa Zhang.

After we locked grandma’s door, we went back to Grandpa Zhang’s house together. Grandpa Zhang casually threw me some cooked corn to fill my stomach, and then he went straight into his room, drew the curtains, and locked the door. I had no idea what he was doing in there.

After I finished eating, I was bored and wandered around Grandpa Zhang’s small yard. I walked to the door of the room with the window covered with black cloth and stopped.

Grandpa Zhang said that there is a little ghost inside that saved me. I am so curious about what the little ghost looks like. I only know that there is a ghost in my mother’s body, but I have never seen what a real ghost looks like.

It seemed as if he sensed my desire to see him… The door in front of me opened automatically with a “click”. I stood at the door and looked at the darkness inside, not knowing what to do. I wanted to go in and take a look, but I was a little scared. However, I was really curious, so after hesitating for a moment, I stepped forward and slowly walked towards the door.

It was a little dark inside the room, but because the door was still open, I could still see the general situation inside the room with the light from the door. There was a table, a chair, a bed, and sitting on the bed was a person who looked very much like a human… a ghost?

“Oh, you’re so cute!” I exclaimed when I saw the ghost sitting on the bed.

Sitting on the bed was a child, who looked about six or seven years old, wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and shorts. He had big round eyes, a small nose and a straight nose bridge. At this moment, he was tilting his head and looking at me with blinking eyes.

What a handsome little boy, he looks no different from a human, except that the color and shape of his skin are different from ours. It looks extremely white, like a wall, and the shape is different from the feeling of our flesh. It seems a little transparent and a little glowing. It looks like there are
LED lights installed inside his body, and a hazy light is emitted from the outside of his body.

“You’re the one who saved me?” Seeing him winking at me cutely, I was not scared at all. Instead, I walked forward and stretched out my hand to pinch his face. I carefully stretched out a finger to poke his face.

So nervous, what would it feel like to be touched by a ghost?

My hand was getting closer and closer to the kid’s face, and just when it was about to touch his face, it was stopped by a resistance. I looked at my hand, and the kid’s hand was standing next to his cheek, with the back of his hand blocking my fingers.

“Sister, what are you going to do?” The little kid looked at me with his big innocent eyes.

“Wow, so this is what a ghost’s touch feels like! Your voice is so nice too.” The little ghost’s hand was cold and soft, completely different from a human’s touch, like a sponge that had been frozen for a long time!

“Sister, you scare me like this…” The little ghost put down his hand, moved to the side, and sat farther away from me.

“Ah, I scared you with my appearance. Hehe, I’m sorry, because it was the first time I saw a real ghost, and I lost my composure a little. Hahaha!” I stood there awkwardly and laughed twice.

“Why are you in this dark room? Why don’t you go out and play?” I looked around the room and found it so dark.

“I can’t go out. I can’t be outside during the day. I’ll disappear.”

“That’s not right. The ghost mother I met before was fine hanging clothes on the balcony in the bright sunshine.” I thought of the days I spent with the ghost mother, and she was not afraid of the daytime.

“She’s not afraid because she’s inside your mother. We can’t go out in our original state. In fact, we are like ice cream. We can’t be exposed to the sun or the heat.”

No wonder the ghost mother wore so little in the winter…

“Then you can only stay in this dark room during the day, so pitiful. I will come to see you often and play with you, okay?”

“Really? That’s great.” The little ghost laughed happily. He was originally sitting far away from me, but now he moved next to me.

“Well…but I have to save my mom and grandma first before I can play with you.” Thinking of my grandma and mom, my mood became heavy again.

“Sister, don’t be sad. Grandpa will definitely find a way to save your mother and grandmother.” The little ghost stood up and walked to my side, patted my arm to comfort me.

“Well, I won’t talk to you for now. I’m going to go see what the situation is over at Grandpa Zhang’s place.” After saying that, I turned around and left the little ghost’s room, closed the door, and walked towards Grandpa Zhang’s room.

“Grandpa Zhang, Grandpa Zhang, how is it? Have you found a solution?”

I stood at the door of Grandpa Zhang’s room and shouted loudly into the room, but there was no response.

“Grandpa Zhang, say something! It’s almost evening!” Seeing that Grandpa Zhang didn’t respond, I shouted at the door again.

“Don’t disturb me, go to sleep first. I will call you when I find a way.” Finally, Grandpa Zhang in the room responded to me.

How can I sleep, how can I sleep now?

I paced back and forth at Grandpa Zhang’s door and knocked on the door a few more times anxiously, but Grandpa Zhang ignored me. I looked at the sky and it was getting dark, which meant that grandma hadn’t eaten for at least a whole day. I was extremely anxious at this time and thought of that mysterious man. I knew that only by finding him could I get closer to the truth and find a way to save my mother and grandma. After considering for a long time, I decided to go to that place again at night to inquire.

I turned around and left Grandpa Zhang’s door, heading out of the yard. When I passed the little ghost’s room, I opened the door and walked in. When the little ghost saw me coming in, his eyes were filled with joy. He excitedly stood up from the bed and shouted at me, “Sister!”

“Little friend, I’m going to find a way to save mom and grandma. I’ll play with you another day.” I walked over and pinched his face, then turned and walked out the door. When I reached the door, I heard the little ghost shouting behind me: “Sister…”

I didn’t stop, just closed the door and walked out of the yard.

I know how dangerous it is for me to go to the mysterious man’s house alone this time, but I have no choice but to save my relatives. No matter how dangerous it is, I have to go.

18. Thrilling

When I arrived at the entrance of the alley, it was still early. There were a lot of pedestrians on both sides of the street, cars coming and going on the street, and shops on the street were open. Some shops had speakers playing music at the door to attract passers-by, and some shops had people standing at the door shouting. It was a very lively scene, which was a very common scene, but I felt it was very unreal, as if darkness and terror should be the world I live in. I stood in front of a small shop next to the alley, looking at the clock hanging on the wall of the shop: 20:45.

What should I do? I actually had no idea. I came here only because I was eager to save people. I took a deep breath, left the store, and walked towards the alley.

After entering the alley, I started to get nervous, as if my heart beat faster with every step I took closer to the house. At the corner of the alley, I stopped for a while, and after some mental struggle, I turned into the alley leading to the mysterious man’s house.

At the innermost part of the alley is the home of the mysterious man. I walked towards that direction. The door of the house was on the far right. When I passed by, the door was closed, but I could see through the windows on the wall that the lights inside were on.

I carefully walked along the wall to the window and quietly stuck my head out to look inside. It was still a familiar scene: a table, dolls, and a photo of my father hanging on the wall. Apart from these, there was nothing else. There was also a door next to the table, and it was closed. This should be just a room in the house. I didn’t know what structure was behind the door.

Just when I was thinking about what to do, I suddenly heard some movement coming from the rightmost door, the cabinet opened, and then shoes fell to the ground…the person in the house was about to go out!

I quickly ran to the innermost part, ran to the gap between the leftmost wall of the house and the alley wall, and then crawled in sideways.

Sure enough, as soon as I hid inside, I heard the sound of a door opening, followed by footsteps walking in the opposite direction of me.

I walked out of the gap between the two walls carefully and saw the back of the man walking out of the alley. He looked a bit strong. After he turned out of the alley, I also moved my feet and walked out of the alley. I wanted to follow him and see. When I passed the door of the house, I found that the door was not closed tightly, but just ajar. I could see a narrow gap in the door, and it was this gap that seemed to have great magic and made me stop. I looked at the gap in the door, swallowed my saliva, and walked to the door.

I knew it was dangerous, I knew that mysterious man could come back at any time, and I didn’t know what I could solve by going in, but I still opened the door and walked in.

The room was pitch black. He had turned off all the lights when he went out. I fumbled on the wall next to the door for a while and found a light switch. After turning on the light, I quickly scanned everything in the room.

The house is not big, and you can see the whole picture of the house at a glance. It is a small two-bedroom house. It can be said that this house has basically not been decorated. It has a cement floor and white walls. The only furniture in the living room is a worn-out cloth sofa and a wooden table. There is a door on the left not far from the entrance. The door should be the room where the dolls and my father’s photos are placed. There is also a closed door on the right. If I guess correctly, it should be the bedroom. There is also a door directly opposite, which is the kind of door that you can see at a glance as a toilet. After roughly understanding the structure of the house, I quickly turned off the lights, and then walked along the left wall to the door with the dolls and my father’s photos, opened the door and walked in.

This room faces the alley outside directly, so I dare not turn on the light rashly. However, because it faces the alley, the moonlight outside shines in through the window, so I can see the room clearly.

I walked to the row of dolls and carefully observed each one. I picked up the doll with a nail on its forehead. The doll’s facial features were made very ugly, even distorted. It can be seen that the person who made this doll made it with disgust. Thinking of Grandpa Zhang’s words, my father might be locked inside this doll. My mood became heavy. I looked up at the photo. The father in the photo was lifeless, his eyes looking straight ahead. Last time, his eyes squinted at me. Was I seeing things? Or…daddy felt dangerous and wanted to drive me away?

“Oh…” I sighed, retracted my gaze, and looked at the doll again. I reached out and touched the doll’s forehead, wanting to take out the nail on the doll’s forehead. When my hand touched the nail and wanted to take it out, the doll seemed to have its own strength and broke free from my hand and fell to the ground.

I was startled, but I quickly picked up the doll and put it back to its original place. I intuitively knew that I couldn’t pull out the nail now. The doll fell down, not because I didn’t hold it tightly, but because it broke free. Maybe… Dad was reminding me not to pull it out… I looked at the other dolls, and the two dolls in the middle looked familiar. I picked up the two dolls in the middle and looked at them carefully.

Isn’t this… the doll in my mother’s room? I remembered that in my dream, before “Mom” disappeared, I saw two more words on the doll’s clothes. I took the doll to the window and wanted to use the moonlight outside to see what the two extra words were, but I still couldn’t see them clearly. The words were too small…

I reluctantly put the doll back to its place, then raised my other hand to hold the doll and took a closer look.

Perfect facial features, a breathtakingly beautiful face… Isn’t this the doll that was in Grandpa Zhang’s house when I woke up from my dream? ! ! After we took it to the hospital, it seemed that Grandpa Zhang asked someone to take the doll back to him, as if to say, don’t leave this kind of thing around people casually…

Then this doll should be at Grandpa Zhang’s house! Why is it here?

Could it be that Grandpa Zhang…?

Suddenly, I felt something was wrong, as if someone was staring at me. I stood where I was, not daring to make a sound. I moved my eyes from left to right to make sure there was nothing on either side, but the feeling was very strong.

Oh, the window! There were no curtains on the windows of this room. I was facing away from the window. My scalp went numb and my legs started to tremble. I slowly turned my head and looked toward the window.

There is nothing outside the window…

“Huh!” I let out a long breath.

If there is no one outside the window, then there is only one possibility. I turned around again, faced the row of dolls, and then looked up at my father’s photo.

Sure enough… Dad’s eyes in the photo should have been looking straight ahead, but now they were looking downwards at me. Although the picture was weird and creepy, I felt that he had no ill intentions.

I had a bad feeling in my heart, so I hurried to the door, opened it, and prepared to leave. As soon as I arrived in the living room, I heard footsteps coming from the alley outside.

Oh no, he’s back. It’s too late to get out now. I can’t hide in this room, nor in the living room, nor in the bathroom. So I can only…

I quickly ran to the door on the right, opened it and rushed in, then closed the door gently. Without even having time to check the bedroom, I opened a wardrobe and hid inside.

Just as I closed the closet door, I heard the sound of the door closing at the door. He came back.

My heart was pounding, my whole body was shaking, and my breathing became rapid due to nervousness.

Yiyi, calm down, you must calm down, don’t get caught, find a chance to escape, you still have to save your grandma and mom!

I encouraged myself in my heart, forced myself to calm down, and listened carefully to the noise outside.

“Click!” The door opened, and then the light in the room came on. Footsteps walked a few steps into the room and then stopped. After a few seconds, there was a sound of people walking out of the room. I hid in the closet and vaguely heard the sound of another door opening and closing, and then there was the sound of footsteps entering the room.

“That crazy mother-in-law of yours insisted on meddling in other people’s business, and now she’s in my hands. I don’t think she’ll last a few more days.”

A man’s voice sounded, this was the voice I heard last time. I leaned forward a little and looked out through the small gap in the middle of the cabinet door. A man was sitting on the bed with his back to me. There was a cabinet in front of him, and a doll on the cabinet was facing him. This doll was the one with the nail on its forehead.

“Li Molin, Li Molin! You are so hateful! Look at how many people have suffered because of you. Your wife and mother-in-law are now suffering because of you. Your daughter will be next.”

Li Molin is my father’s name! What is the relationship between this man and my father?

“You deserve to die! You really deserve to die! Even if you die a hundred times or ten thousand times, it won’t relieve the hatred in my heart. You killed my wife and my daughter! I will make you and your family pay a hundred times or a thousand times the price!”

The mysterious man’s tone became agitated. He picked up the doll, pulled out the nail on the doll’s forehead, and then stabbed it back in again, pulling it out and stabbing it back in again, saying viciously, “You deserve to die! You deserve to die! You deserve to die!

“It will be soon. Soon I will let your daughter come to see you. Ah! No, people like you don’t deserve to see my daughter. You should be locked up in this dark place alone, never seeing the light of day, and never being able to be reborn! All of this is your own fault. People should pay the price for their mistakes. When you were in school, your teachers taught you that people who do wrong will be punished, so you have to bear all the consequences yourself.

“Am I right, Yiyi?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the man with his back to me suddenly laughed strangely and turned his head to look in my direction…

19. Mysterious Man

If what happened some time ago brought me the feeling of awakening the pores of my whole body, then now this man brought me a suffocating feeling of oppression through a cabinet door. Yes, oppression. For a moment, I didn’t know how to breathe, and even forgot what fear felt like. The man walked towards me until the cabinet door opened and he stood in front of me, and I didn’t react at all.

“Hello, Li Yiyi!”

The man squatted down and looked at me in the cabinet with interest. The man’s skin was slightly rough, with a standard square face, single eyelids, a straight nose, a hump on the nose bridge, and thick lips. The man had a face like the fathers who came to the school to bring lunch to their children after school every Sunday. You would forget him after one look, but would feel familiar when you saw him again, but you couldn’t think of which classmate’s father he was.

“Yiyi is so beautiful, just like my daughter.”

The man reached out his hand, smoothed my hair in front of my face and tucked it behind my ear, and his fingers touched my face. I pushed his hand away as if I had received an electric shock, and moved my body to the innermost part of the cabinet.

“You… who are you?” He opened his mouth with difficulty, his lips trembling uncontrollably as he spoke.

“You may not know me, but I have known you since you were six years old. When you went to school every day when you were little, I followed you behind. Also, when you went to cram school and went to the amusement park, I would say that you grew up under my eyes, hahahaha!” As he spoke, the man suddenly laughed, and his laughter became more and more weird. Then, the man touched the tears oozing from the corners of his eyes, blinked, looked at me and said, “Just like my own daughter!”

This is a madman. What should I do? All these things seem to be related to my father’s death ten years ago. According to what happened during this period, the ghost who called “Meizhen” entered my mother’s body and pretended to be my mother by my side. Even though he was driven away by Grandpa Zhang and Grandma once, he was still pretending by my side. If he wanted to harm me, he had countless opportunities to do it in these days. Why did he go to so much trouble to do all this? In other words, at least I am safe now. They seem to be waiting for an opportunity to do something… Thinking of this, I breathed a sigh of relief, raised my head calmly, and looked straight into his eyes: “Uncle, you have been following me for so many years, is it because I look like your daughter?”

The man obviously didn’t expect me to ask him this question so calmly. He was slightly stunned for a moment, then smiled: “Like… and not like, you are both kind and lovely, but you are braver than her. I am very satisfied with your performance.”

After the man finished speaking, he stood up, turned around, walked to the table, picked up the toy with the nail on the forehead, and walked out of the room. I also came out of the closet and saw the whole picture of the room clearly.

The structure of this room is no different from that of an ordinary bedroom. There is a bed, a table, a wardrobe, a bedside table, and a photo frame on the bedside table. The photo in the photo frame seems to be a family of three. The father and mother are sitting on a chair, and a little girl is hugging the father and mother and grinning. The father in the photo is this man. The other woman is very beautiful and looks familiar. However, I have never seen such a beautiful woman in my life. Why does she look so familiar? The little girl standing behind them has two braids and her eyes are as beautiful as her mother’s.

It looks like a happy family, but the walls of the room are covered with photos of human faces, which destroys the warmth brought by the photo frame.

The walls were covered with faces cut out of newspapers. There was no newspaper content, only a face that appeared in a news report, and next to the face were just a few words: “Driver Li xx, Wu xx and their daughter Yao xx
died on the spot.” The rest of the content was cut out.

That face is my father. The wall is covered with this photo and that sentence. In every photo, there are a lot of red crosses drawn on my father’s face…

It seems that the truth is right in front of me, and I roughly know something.

I walked out of the room and looked towards the living room. The door was closed, but the door to the doll’s room was open and the light inside was on. I gently lifted my foot, put my heel on the ground, and then slowly pressed my foot down, trying to move towards the living room door as quietly as possible.

When I passed the doll room, I glanced sideways and saw the man standing in front of the row of dolls, looking down at the dolls in his hands. He didn’t seem to notice me. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued to move towards the door. When I reached the door, I slowly pressed down the door handle and then carefully opened the door.

“Yiyi, I told you to go home, why are you here?” After opening the door, what I saw was not the alley, but my “mom”. She was standing at the door with a smile on her face.

I didn’t expect “Mom” to appear at the door. I was so scared that I stepped back repeatedly. After taking a few steps back, I bumped into something. I turned around and saw that it was that man. He was standing behind me with his arms folded across his chest, looking at me with the same smile on his face.

“Of course my daughter should be with her mother all the time!” “Mom” said, walked in from outside and closed the door behind her.

“I think I know why you did this. Ten years ago, my father hit and killed you and your daughter with his car, so you have been holding a grudge against him. But my father also died in that accident. My mother and grandmother are innocent. Why can’t you let innocent people go?”

I swallowed and spoke my thoughts in a trembling voice.

“Accident? Hahahahahahahahahahaha, accident? It seems your mother didn’t let you know the truth!” After listening to what I said, the man made that strange laugh again, while “mom” shed tears and looked at me fiercely. It was the first time she looked at me with this look.

“Isn’t it… an accident?”

How could that be? For so many years, I always thought that my father died in an accident. Could it be that my father hit them on purpose? How could that be possible? In my impression, my father was a very good person. He was also very kind to the people around him. Everyone said that he was a good man.

I stood between the two of them, lowered my head and thought about what they said, recalled the comments about my father by people around me over the years, recalled my mother’s feelings for my father, recalled my father’s smile when he was a child, remembered that my father would buy all the oranges in the basket of the old man selling oranges and give him extra money…

The father in my memory is a very good person… Such a good person actually…

“What on earth do you want to do?” Thinking of how my father was so good, yet even after his death he was tortured by this man, anger welled up in my heart. I put away my fear, held my head high, looked straight at the two of them, and asked coldly.

“Since you are here, why not stay here for a few days!” the man said, and suddenly pulled my arm towards him. I wanted to break free, but he was too strong. During the struggle, I fell to the ground, and he dragged me to the doll’s room by my hand.

“Let me go, you lunatic!” I struggled on the ground, hitting him with my hands.

“Help! Help!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, hoping to attract the attention of people outside.

“There’s only one house in this alley. Do you think anyone can hear your screams?” The man continued to drag me. I had already been dragged to the door of the doll room. I didn’t know why he was going to drag me in. I could only struggle continuously. I grabbed his hand with my other hand and bit it hard.

“Hiss…” The man cried out in pain and let me go. I quickly got up and ran towards the door. After taking only two steps, I felt a tearing pain in the hair on the back of my head. The man grabbed my hair and pulled it back. I was forced to keep backing away. My scalp was torn and the pain made me cry.

“Be gentle and don’t hurt her.” “Mom” reminded the man beside me. The man let go of my hair and grabbed my hand again and dragged me to the doll’s room.

Of course I know that this “mother” is not concerned about whether I am in pain or not. She just doesn’t want my body to get hurt, just like when she said “You can’t go hungry” during dinner before. It’s not out of concern for me personally…

I was dragged into the room and thrown heavily to the ground.

“Li Molin, look, your daughter has come to your door on her own initiative. Your family will be reunited soon.” The man had a hideous look on his face and spoke hysterically to the doll with a nail on its forehead on the table. Then he looked up at the photo of her father on the wall and said, “Look, this is your daughter, hahahaha!”

The man laughed crazily, and suddenly, he turned his head and stared at me fiercely. He walked towards me step by step and said in a weird tone: “It’s all your damn father’s fault. It’s all your damn father who caused me to lose my wife and children…” His eyes were fierce, and they became red due to congestion. He stretched out his hands and strangled my neck. I couldn’t breathe in an instant, and my chest and brain felt more and more uncomfortable. I used my hands and feet to try to break free, but I was getting less and less powerful.

“Tujun, calm down, you can’t hurt her yet.” “Mom” stepped forward and tried to pull the man away, but the man seemed to have completely lost his mind. He grabbed my neck tightly with both hands and said, “Go to hell, Li Molin, go to hell, Li Molin.”

Just when I thought I was about to suffocate to death, a figure rushed towards me quickly from the corner of my eye. The man was knocked down by the figure. I struggled to sit up, supporting myself with my hands and gasping for breath. After the lack of oxygen was relieved a little, I raised my head and looked forward.

The man was lying on the ground, and a little boy in white clothes was sitting on him. The little boy pressed the man’s hands with his hands and lowered his head to bite the man’s shoulder.

“Little devil!” I shouted in surprise to the little boy.

20. Biting

I thought I would be safe, but I didn’t expect that this man was actually a madman. When he went crazy, he completely forgot his original plan. I almost died at the hands of this madman.

Before I had time to feel grateful for surviving a disaster, I heard a roar coming from not far away. The sound was sharp and piercing, like someone scratching a blackboard with fingernails. It made me feel uncomfortable all over. I covered my ears and looked towards the source of the sound.

Right next to the little ghost and the man, “Mom” was grabbing her head and making strange noises. She was sometimes bending forward, sometimes leaning back, and her whole body was twisting rapidly. The scene looked very creepy.

The little devil was still biting the man’s shoulder. The man lay on the ground and struggled. Even though he was as burly as he was, he couldn’t break free from the little devil’s restraints. The man could only curse and shout: “You little devil, I’m going to kill you!”

I didn’t expect the little ghost to have this kind of power. I got up from the ground, walked to the row of dolls, picked up the doll with the nail on its forehead, and then turned to the little ghost and said, “Little ghost, let’s go quickly.”

The little ghost let go of the man’s shoulder, but still held his hand. He looked at me hesitantly. At this moment, the strange voice of “Mom” stopped, and then he collapsed to the ground. A figure jumped out of “Mom”‘s body.

A woman came out of the “mother”, wearing a white suspender skirt, and her appearance was a bit similar to that of the little ghost, with a slightly transparent feeling. However, the woman’s face was very beautiful. Even though her long hair was scattered, covering most of her face, and her face was completely bloodless, it could be seen that she was an extremely beautiful woman. She was the “mother” of the family of three in the bedroom! ! Moreover, the beautiful doll found in Grandpa Zhang’s house seemed to be made according to this face.

At this moment, she was like an animal, with her legs bent, her hands on the ground, her five fingers spread out, her fingertips grabbing the floor, and her head tilted, looking at the little ghost with the expression of a wild beast finding its prey.

No… I have a very uneasy feeling.

“Sister, hurry up!” the little ghost shouted at me, then pounced on the woman. At the same time, the woman pounced on the little ghost. The two ghosts collided, but the little ghost was obviously no match for the woman. The little ghost was knocked to the ground and slid a long distance. The female ghost pounced on the little ghost and bit him. I could clearly see the wounds on the little ghost. Unlike when people are bitten by animals, there was no blood flowing out of his wounds, but that area became more transparent, as if there was a piece missing there.

I rushed over and tried to push the woman away, but my strength had no effect on her. The biting continued. The little ghost protected his head and neck, but multiple transparent gaps had appeared on his shoulders and arms.

I was extremely anxious. I walked to the row of dolls and wanted to use another doll to hit the woman, but as soon as I reached out my hand, the man grabbed my hand, pulled it away, and forced me to face the direction of the little ghost.

“Look, their fight is so spectacular. Who else in this world can see two ghosts fighting? Enjoy it!”

The man grinned evilly, looked in the direction where the kid and the woman were fighting, and grabbed me with his hands, making me unable to move.

“Crazy man, isn’t that your wife? Aren’t you worried that she might get hurt?” I had no other choice but to provoke him with words.

After hearing what I said, the man laughed disdainfully and said, “Oh, I spent ten years raising her, turning her from a residual soul into a ghost with independent consciousness. It took me so much effort, how could I not be able to deal with a mere little ghost?”

I looked at the little ghost. He was already covered with scars, with more and more transparent gaps. He no longer looked like a complete human being. I was very anxious and tears were streaming down my face. I grabbed the man’s hand and bit it hard. The man let go in pain. I ran towards the little ghost, but after only two steps, I was grabbed by the man. He slapped me in anger with such force that I fell to the ground.

“Sister!” When the little devil saw me being beaten, he ignored the woman who was fighting with him and looked at me anxiously. The man walked towards me, picked me up from the ground, held my collar, and raised his other hand high, wanting to slap me again.

“Don’t touch her!” As soon as the words fell, the little ghost pushed the woman away with strength from nowhere, then quickly rushed to my side, knocked the man to the ground again, and lowered his head to bite the man.

I collapsed to the ground, looking at the little ghost, tears streaming down my face. There was no intact part of the little ghost’s body. It looked like a human, but now it felt like a piece of flesh was missing everywhere, and the uninjured parts had become more transparent than before…

It’s all my fault…it’s all my fault…

Although the little ghost couldn’t deal with the female ghost, he could easily suppress the man. I looked worriedly in the direction of the female ghost who had just been pushed away. She maintained the posture she had just been in after coming out of her “mother”, with her five fingers spread out, her ten fingertips grasping the ground, her legs bent, and her eyes staring at the little ghost. I saw that her legs were pressed down a little more, and her arms were bent even more.

Oh no, she is going to attack the little ghost!

“Little ghost, get out of the way!” I shouted at the little ghost. The little ghost understood what I meant, climbed up from the man, and retreated to the corner of the wall on the side of the window.

He looked at me, then looked towards the door of the room, and I followed his eyes and looked towards the door.

I understood what the kid meant. He retreated to the corner, the place farthest from the door. He wanted to attract their attention and give me a chance to escape.

The man got up from the ground, looked at the little ghost fiercely, and then said to the female ghost: “Meizhen, deal with this annoying ghost.”

What should I do? I can’t just leave the little ghost alone! I have to think of a way… If the doll is drawn according to the appearance of the female ghost, could it be that the doll is very important to the female ghost? Maybe it can affect something? I have no other choice but to try!

The man didn’t pay attention to me at this time. I stepped back a little and got closer to the row of dolls. At this time, the female ghost also pounced on the little ghost.

21. I’m sorry, little ghost

While they were not paying attention, I came to the table where the dolls were placed and picked up the most beautiful doll. At this time, the little ghost screamed. The little ghost had fought against the female ghost before, and although he had always been suppressed and bitten by the female ghost, he never made a sound. This time the scream was so tragic that I widened my eyes in horror and turned to look at the corner.

The female ghost pressed the little ghost to the ground. She was biting a broken arm in her mouth. The broken arm flashed a few times in her mouth, then turned into a wisp of black smoke and dissipated. The right arm of the little ghost lying on the ground became completely transparent. After the arm in the female ghost’s mouth disappeared, she opened her mouth and pretended to bite the little ghost’s other arm.

“Stop, or I’ll smash it!” I shouted quickly and raised the doll high.

My words attracted the female ghost and the man. They looked at me at the same time. The female ghost had a confused expression and tilted her head to look at the doll in my hand. The man frowned at first, then smiled contemptuously.

“Yiyi, do you think that if you drop this doll, it will hurt Meizhen?”

“Whether it can hurt or not, we won’t know until we try.” I took a few steps back and kept a distance from the man, afraid that he would suddenly come over and snatch the doll.

“Do you think I would put something so important in such a conspicuous place?”

The man’s face was full of disdain, but I knew that I had won the bet because he was disguising himself with words. He could have said nothing and just run over to catch me, and the female ghost could have continued to attack the little ghost, and neither of them would have taken any action.

“This doll is so beautiful. I’ve never seen such a pretty doll. Its face is more delicate than that of a star. It would be a shame if it were to break into pieces like this.” I put the doll in front of my eyes, then stroked its cheek with my hand, frowned, pursed my lips, and spoke to them with a regretful expression.

“If you break it, I will make you and that devil kid live a life worse than death.” The man put away his disdainful smile and his face became gloomy.

“If I don’t break it, will we be able to reap the rewards?” This time, it was my turn to respond with disdain.

“You try it!” the man said as he walked towards me.

“You… don’t come over here, I’m really going to fall!” I swallowed, and began to stutter nervously. I kept backing away. I had already reached the wall, with no way to retreat, and the man was still approaching.

The man was getting closer and closer to me. I took a deep breath, lifted the doll high up, and then threw it heavily to the ground. The doll hit the ground with a “bang”.

The doll did not break. It turned twice on the ground and rolled to the man’s feet. The man bent down to pick up the doll, wiped it with his sleeve, and said to me, “Oh, I forgot to tell you, these dolls cannot be broken.”

“What’s going on, you just…” I looked at the man in disbelief. He clearly seemed very nervous about this doll just now.

“I was just teasing you. Hahahaha. It’s so funny.” The man started laughing. The female ghost looked at me and giggled too.

It turned out that the man was just teasing me, and the female ghost stopped just to watch the show.

“Meizhen, get rid of this little ghost.” After laughing, the man turned around and said to the female ghost.

“No!” I rushed to the corner desperately. The little ghost was completely paralyzed on the ground at this time, without any resistance. The female ghost leaned over and opened her mouth to bite the little ghost’s neck.

The man grabbed me and held me in place.

“Please, let him go!” I cried to the man, but he remained indifferent and looked at the corner with pleasure.

The female ghost bit off a piece of flesh from the little ghost’s neck, and a transparent gap appeared on the little ghost’s neck. The little ghost was already lying on the ground without any reaction.

“Bang, bang, bang! Bang, bang, bang!” There was a deafening knock on the door. The man frowned and looked towards the door.

“Bang, bang, bang!”

“Open the door, police!” The voice coming from the door was the most beautiful voice I have ever heard in my life.

“Meizhen, you go back first and look after Yiyi.” After the man said that, he opened the door of the room and walked towards the door of the living room. The female ghost got up from the little ghost and whooshed back into the body of “mother”. Then “mother” lying on the ground opened her eyes and sat up, looking at me and smiling. She hugged me and covered my mouth with her hands.

“Comrade police officer, is there anything I can help you with?” The door to the living room opened, and three police officers and an old man stood opposite the man.

“Excuse me sir, we are disturbing you so late at night. This old man called the police and said that his granddaughter has been missing for a few days. She disappeared in this alley. We came here to ask if you have seen this little girl around here in the past two days?”

“Comrade Police Officer, I didn’t…”

“Save me, save me, police uncle, save me!” The man tried to deny at the door. I broke free from “mother’s” hand and shouted loudly.

“Lock him up and go in and take a look!” A policeman outside the room gave an order. Then the sound of handcuffs was heard, and then two policemen quickly rushed in and carefully looked around the room.

“Yiyi, Yiyi, I finally found you, woooo.” An old man jumped out from behind the police. The police had no time to stop him. He ran to my side, grabbed my hand, and howled dryly. It was really just a dry howl, without a single tear…

“If anything happens to you, how am I going to explain it to your grandmother?”

“Grandpa Zhang…” I looked at Grandpa Zhang, then turned to look at the unconscious kid in the corner. Grandpa Zhang also followed my gaze, and when he looked, he slipped. I immediately supported Grandpa Zhang, who almost lost his balance. A rare look of sadness appeared on Grandpa Zhang’s usually sharp face. His lips turned pale and trembled slightly.

“What’s wrong?” A policeman restrained my “mom”, and another policeman noticed some movement on our side and came over to check the situation.

By the way, if the police see the little ghost, how should they explain this?

I was a little worried about how this would end, but the policeman glanced at the corner behind us and said to Grandpa Zhang with concern, “Are you okay?”

“I… am fine.” Grandpa Zhang hid his sadness, held my hand and patted it gently, as if telling me not to worry.

Can’t the police see the little ghost? That’s right… There are very few people in this world who can see ghosts.

“Brothers, police officers, what’s going on?” “Mom” spoke up from the side.

“How did the missing girl appear here? She was just asking for help. I suspect you of kidnapping. Please come back to the police station with us.” Another policeman appeared at the door of the room, and next to him was the man, with handcuffs on his hands.

“Missing? Kidnapped? Police officer, do you have any misunderstanding? I am Yiyi’s mother.”

“What?” The two policemen in the room asked at the same time, and the policeman at the door was obviously stunned.

“She is not…” I was just about to say that the woman was not my mother, but Grandpa Zhang pinched my hand hard. I swallowed the words and looked at Grandpa Zhang in confusion. He shook his head at me and motioned me not to say it.

“Yes, I still have photos of the two of us in my phone. And you can check it in your system and you will know whether she and I are mother and daughter.” “Mom” said, feeling around her body, “My phone is not with me, otherwise I could show you the photos right now.”

The three policemen looked at each other, as if they had never expected this to happen. For a moment, they didn’t know how to start.

“Yes, she is Yiyi’s mother.” Grandpa Zhang who was standing nearby spoke up to break the awkwardness.

“Then, Uncle Zhang, why did you come to see me?” The policeman, who had just been very concerned about Grandpa Zhang, showed a helpless expression on his face.

“This girl was at her grandmother’s house, and suddenly she disappeared. She didn’t tell us that she was looking for her mother. We couldn’t get through to her mother, and we couldn’t find her at her house. We were so worried that her grandmother fainted from worry. I asked around near her house, and they said Yiyi had appeared in this alley. I was worried that something had happened to her, so I came to you for help.”

It seems that Grandpa Zhang is very familiar with this policeman.

“So…is this man…her father?” the policeman at the door asked, pointing at the man.

“He’s not my father!” I immediately retorted when I saw the police mistook him for my father.

“Oh, this is my lover. Yiyi’s father passed away ten years ago. Yiyi is this old now, so I found a lover.” “Mom” said, lowering her head a little embarrassedly.

Bah, so shameless, talking nonsense in front of my mother’s face. I really wanted to rush over and slap her a few times, but Grandpa Zhang kept holding my hand tightly to prevent me from doing anything rash.

“Then why did the little girl scream for help just now?” A question was thrown out, and this question made the room fall into silence instantly.

Yes, how to explain this… I thought about it, and there was no good explanation, so I could only make up a reason.

“I… was just joking because I hate this man.”

…The room fell silent again.

“Misunderstanding, misunderstanding. Yiyi just came here to play with her mother and forgot to tell her grandmother. Thank you for your concern, policeman.”

The man next to me broke the silence with a grin, then looked at me and laughed. To me, this laugh seemed to be telling me: What can happen if the police come?

“Xiao Chen, I was too worried this time and caused you trouble. I will treat you to a drink some other day to make amends.” Grandpa Zhang patted the back of the policeman standing next to us and said to him.

“It’s okay, Uncle Zhang. The best outcome is that everyone is fine. Thank you, brothers, for coming here with me today.” The policeman named Xiao Chen scratched his head, looking honest.

“It’s okay, safety is the most important thing, let’s go back to the team!” The policeman standing at the door said as he uncuffed the man. After the handcuffs were removed, the man rubbed his hands and looked at me with a proud look on his face.

Grandpa Zhang held Officer Xiao Chen’s hand and said, “Xiao Chen, I have one more favor to ask of you. Send Yi Yi and I back home.”

“Grandpa, Yiyi’s mother is here. What do she need to go back with you?” The man said as he entered the room and stood beside “Mom”.

“Yes, Yiyi, just follow me, you can go home first.” The “mom” at the side also added.

“Yiyi, I must take you away today. If you insist on stopping me, let’s give it a try?” Grandpa Zhang, who had never looked at them straight in the eye, now glared at them. His tone seemed very peaceful, but it made people feel very majestic. This was probably what is meant by “awe-inspiring without anger.”

“Mom” looked at the man, then “Mom” turned around and wanted to say something, but after looking at Grandpa Zhang, she immediately lowered her head and didn’t say another word.

“Yes, I want to go back with Grandpa Zhang to see my grandma. Police officer, take me away.” I quickly echoed from the side.

“This…Uncle Zhang…I don’t have the authority to take the girl away from her biological mother.” Policeman Chen looked at Grandpa Zhang in embarrassment.

“Uncle Chen, I want to go see my grandma. She’s still lying unconscious in bed because she’s worried about me. I have to go see her!” I grabbed Officer Chen’s hand and brought up my grandma. Besides, I was really worried about her.

“This…” Policeman Chen looked embarrassed. He looked at me and then at “Mom”.

“If Yiyi’s mother agrees, we can send you away.” said the policeman standing at the door.

“She won’t disagree.” Grandpa Zhang said, and then he ignored us and walked to the corner, took out a black cloth bag, and put it on the little ghost lying on the ground. Then the little ghost disappeared. Grandpa Zhang put the cloth bag on his arm again, and then walked to my side and said to me, “Let’s go, Yiyi.”

Grandpa Zhang grabbed my hand and walked out. The three policemen stood there in a daze, not knowing what to do. When Grandpa Zhang and I passed by the man and “Mom”, the man whispered to me, “We will see each other again soon.”

Grandpa Zhang and I ignored him and walked out of the room. When the police saw that my “mom” did not stop us, they followed us out.

Policeman Xiao Chen drove Grandpa Zhang and me, and the other two policemen went back to the police station first. On the way back to Grandpa Zhang’s house, Grandpa Zhang and I didn’t say a word. Grandpa Zhang kept looking out the window. I couldn’t see his expression clearly, but I knew he was very sad.

“Grandpa Zhang… I’m sorry, I was too impulsive and hurt the little ghost…” I apologized to Grandpa Zhang in a low voice.

“Wenwen is a very pitiful child… Alas!” Grandpa Zhang sighed and said nothing more.

Wenwen should be the name of the little ghost. The name is as cute as the little ghost and very likable.

When we arrived at Grandpa Zhang’s house, Policeman Chen left first and I followed Grandpa Zhang into the yard. I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask Grandpa Zhang, and a lot of things I wanted to tell Grandpa Zhang… I also had a lot of apologies I wanted to say, but looking at Grandpa Zhang’s slightly hunched back, I didn’t know how to start.

After entering the yard, Grandpa Zhang came to the little ghost’s room, turned on the lights in the room, and then put the black cloth bag on the bed. After a while, the little ghost appeared on the bed.

He closed his eyes and lay there quietly. His right arm was completely transparent, and there was a piece missing from his neck. There was no intact place around his entire body. What worried me even more was that although the little ghost had a hazy sense of transparency before, he could still be clearly seen as a human being. But now he no longer looked like a human being and was becoming more and more transparent…

“Wow, Grandpa Zhang, the little ghost, the little ghost tried to save me, Grandpa Zhang, I’m sorry, please save him, Grandpa Zhang, wuwuwu…” Looking at the little ghost like this, my emotions completely broke down, I burst into tears, and my speech became incoherent.

“Oh…Wenwen, this silly child.” Grandpa Zhang’s tone was also a little tearful at this time.

“Sister, Grandpa.” The little ghost slowly opened his eyes. He looked at me and Grandpa Zhang with a big smile on his face.

“Little ghost! You’re awake!” Seeing the little ghost wake up, I immediately squatted down and lay by the window, trying to grab his hand, but I grabbed nothing. Then I realized that his arm was gone… I started crying sadly again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, kid. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“It’s okay, sister. I’m not hurt. I’m so happy to see you’re safe.” The little ghost grinned, revealing dimples on both sides of his cheeks.

“Grandpa, don’t blame my sister. In the past eight years, your appearance made me feel for the first time that I existed in this world. Although you accompanied me every day, I was always in this dark room and never spoke to anyone except you. I knew I was special, but I didn’t know what I was. I faced the dark room every day, and sometimes I stayed by your side. I had never seen the outside world and had no friends. I always thought I was just a thing imagined by Grandpa. It wasn’t until my sister appeared that I felt that I really existed. This feeling is really good.”

“Oh…” Grandpa Zhang sighed heavily.

“Little boy, that’s not right, Wenwen, you have to hold on. Sister will play with you every day from now on. You have to take good care of your injuries!” I wiped my tears and forced a smile to encourage Wenwen.

“Okay, sister, you have to keep your word…you have to tell me more about the outside world…” The little ghost’s voice became smaller and smaller, and the smile on his face slowly disappeared. In the end, before he finished speaking, his eyes closed again…

“Wenwen!!”

22. Play games

“Wenwen was found by me when I was walking by the river eight years ago. It was already dark and there was no one by the river. I saw him sitting alone by the river from a distance. When I got closer, I found that he was just a ghost. I went over to ask him and found out that he had been waiting for his mother to find him. I felt sorry for him, so I brought him back. If I hadn’t brought him back, he would have disappeared when the sun rose. Later, I went to the area for several days to inquire about the situation. I found out that a child had drowned, but no one had claimed the body. His family was so cruel. From then on, I kept him in my home.

“People generally can’t see the residual soul. So, for all the years he has been with me, I, an old man, have been the only one to play with him every day. But after all, I am old, so how can I understand the fun of children? So, every time someone comes to visit my house, he will secretly watch. When you were rescued from the dream and sent to my house, he also secretly went to see you, and scared you in the middle of the night.”

Grandpa Zhang sat by the bed and recalled the past. He reached out and patted the head of the little ghost lying on the bed. However, Grandpa Zhang’s hand did not fall on the little ghost’s head, but went straight through it.

At this time, the little ghost had become completely transparent, and he was lying there as if he was an image projected by a projector.

“Then… didn’t you go find Wenwen’s family and ask about the situation? Wenwen must miss her family very much.”

“I asked him the next day after he came back with me, but he refused to say anything. Perhaps he didn’t want to face the hurt his family had caused him anymore.”

“Okay, go to sleep. You’ve been tossing and turning for a long time.” Grandpa Zhang said as he got up from the chair and walked out of the room. I looked back at the transparent little ghost on the bed, my nose felt sore, my eyes became dry again, and my heart ached.

“Grandpa Zhang… I’m sorry, I hurt the little ghost.” I followed Grandpa Zhang and apologized to him quietly. I have been saying “I’m sorry” since I came back. I know saying sorry is useless, but if I don’t say it, I feel like I will be unable to breathe and I will be driven crazy by guilt.

“The little ghost won’t blame you, and I… won’t blame you either. Besides, the little ghost is under my protection now, so he won’t disappear completely, so don’t worry.”

Grandpa Zhang spoke to me in a hoarse voice as he walked forward.

“When will the little devil wake up?”

“It will take at least five years… maybe ten years.” Grandpa Zhang stopped at the door of his room, lowered his head and sighed, and added softly, “At my age, can I still wait until he wakes up?”

“Grandpa Zhang…” I called him from behind him, but I didn’t know what else to say except “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve found a way to save your grandma. I’ll be there now. Just go to sleep and don’t go anywhere. Do you hear me?” Grandpa Zhang took out his black cloth bag from the room and instructed me.

“How about I go with you? It’s not safe for you to go alone this late.”

“You’ve been busy for so long. If you don’t rest, you’ll be exhausted and I’ll have to take care of you and grandma. Don’t worry, I’m better than you think.”

“Okay, Grandpa Zhang, be careful.” I really wanted to go over, but when I thought about how I had caused such a big disaster because of my own impulse and had harmed the little kid like this, I didn’t dare to disobey Grandpa Zhang’s advice.

I have hardly had a good sleep these days and have been extremely nervous. Plus, I cried a lot today, so I feel really tired and dizzy. After Grandpa Zhang left, I locked the door, went to see the little ghost, and finally went back to the room opposite the little ghost and went to sleep.

“Hehe…hehehehe…hehe.”

Where does the laughter come from? It sounds like a child’s voice. Is he dreaming?

“Hey, let’s play games together!”

Someone! I opened my eyes suddenly, got up, turned on the light in the room, looked around, everything was normal in the room, but I just heard voices and laughter… It sounded like a little girl.

“Can we play games together?” A sweet voice came from outside the yard. There was only this one voice and no answer. So, was this voice spoken to me?

“Who’s outside?” I sat on the bed without moving and shouted outside.

“What do you like to play? Hide and seek or statues?”

It’s so late… The girl talking outside must not be a human… Thinking of this, my scalp tingled. What’s wrong with me? Are all the ghosts in the world going to come after me?

“Why don’t you say anything? Let’s play statues first.”

I remembered that when I brought “Mom” to see Grandpa Zhang before, “Mom” turned around and left as soon as she reached the gate of the yard. She looked like she was a little afraid of this yard. Plus, Grandpa Zhang just told me not to go out before he left, so I thought, this yard should be safe.

“1…2…3…Fuck!!” The little girl counted the numbers slowly, and then shouted “Fuck” in an excited tone.

I seemed to be infected. After the wooden man finished speaking, I also sat there motionless. There was no more talking outside. After a long time, I found it a little funny. Why should I listen to a little girl? So I reached out and pounded my shoulders. My shoulders were a little sore from keeping the same posture.

“Hehe…you moved! You lose and must accept the punishment.” The little girl’s voice sounded again, but this time the voice was excited and eerie.

“Hmm…we’ll do the punishment together after the game is over. Let’s play the second game, hide and seek.”

I really admire the little girl outside. I didn’t say a word, but she was having so much fun playing by herself. I’m not so scared now because I feel the yard is safe. But there is always a little girl saying some inexplicable things next to me, which still makes me feel a little scared.

“I’ll count to 10, and I’ll come and catch you in 10 seconds.

“1, 2, 3, 4…” The little girl counted slowly. I sat on the bed and began to feel uneasy. She just said she was going to catch me. She shouldn’t be able to get in. So what did she mean?

“5, 6, 7, 8…” The little girl’s voice became more and more excited. At the same time, I felt that the wind started to blow outside the yard, and the windows were rustling. Before, “Mom” did show that she was afraid to enter the yard, but what if she was pretending at that time? In other words, “Mom”‘s fear does not mean that the little girl outside will be afraid?

“9, 10…are you hiding? I’m here to catch you.”

After the little girl finished speaking, the wind outside stopped, and in an instant, it became very quiet. This silence made me feel very uneasy, and my body unconsciously began to tremble slightly, but I didn’t dare to move, for fear of making any noise and disturbing her.

With a “click”, the lights in the room went out. I covered my mouth to prevent myself from screaming. I still sat there, not daring to move. I hoped that the little girl was scary and she couldn’t come in. I hoped that Grandpa Zhang would come back soon. I prayed in my heart.

Suddenly I felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of my neck, and then I felt something touching my waist. I lowered my head and saw through the moonlight through the window that a pair of hands were reaching out from behind me. Their hands were on both sides of my waist and slowly moved towards my waist in a hugging posture. The chill on my neck became heavier and heavier. In my peripheral vision, a head popped out from the back of my head, with black hair blocking its face and sticking tightly to the side of my face.

“Hey, I caught you.” The little girl’s voice sounded, and it was spoken right next to my ear.

23. Little girl

A huge feeling of fear came over me, my scalp went numb, and my whole body felt like tens of thousands of ants were crawling. I held my breath, and seeing those hands were about to hug me completely, I screamed and jumped up from the bed. Then, because of my huge reaction, I fell directly off the bed. I didn’t dare look back to see what was on the bed. I crawled up from the ground and rushed towards the door.

“Hehe, now let’s play the third game, the game of tag. I’m here to catch you.”

As I opened the door, I heard the eerie voice of a little girl behind me. After I rushed out of the door, I wanted to run out of the yard, but I paused, turned around and ran towards Grandpa Zhang’s room.

The situation outside is not safe now. Maybe we can still save him if we wait in the yard until Grandpa Zhang comes back. I rushed into Grandpa Zhang’s room, locked the door, hid behind it, and nervously observed the situation outside.

“The stars in the sky are twinkling, there is a rag doll on the roadside, rag doll, rag doll, why don’t you go home? Is it because you have no home, no father and mother, rag doll, don’t be sad, don’t be afraid, let me lend you half of your mother, and we will have a home together, let me lend you half of your father, and we will have a home together.”

The little girl sang a strange nursery rhyme that echoed throughout the yard. The lyrics of the nursery rhyme gave me a chill behind the door. What good fortune will I have this year? How many ghosts will I encounter in a few days…

“The stars in the sky are blinking…” The little girl repeated the same nursery rhyme. The voice was getting closer and closer to me. It was already in front of Grandpa Zhang’s room. I was so nervous that I grabbed my clothes with both hands and held my breath unconsciously, waiting for the little girl to arrive.

She didn’t come in, but kept singing the nursery rhyme repeatedly in front of Grandpa Zhang’s room. After singing for the fourth time, the sound stopped and silence returned outside the door. The sudden silence did not relax my nervous mood at all, but made me more uneasy. I plucked up my courage, moved a little to the side of the door, bent down and looked out the window, but there was nothing outside the door.

Could it be that she left?

Hey, why is my head a little itchy? I raised my hand and touched the top of my head, scratching it a few times.

No, this tuft of hair is not mine! I stopped scratching, and for a moment I felt my heart stop beating, and I slowly looked up.

In the darkness, a pale face was facing me with a weird smile. Its body was hanging upside down on the roof, its head was only a fist away from me, and its long hair was hanging down and scattered on top of my head.

“I caught you again, hehe…” The little girl hung upside down above my head, smiling at me with her pale face.

“ah!!!”

I screamed with all my strength, my feet went weak, and I fell to the ground. The little girl hanging upside down on the roof slowly descended, her face getting closer and closer to me. I took a deep breath, got up from the ground, opened the door and ran out. This house was not safe, so I had to go out. I ran to the gate of the yard, but I couldn’t open the door when I got there. I looked back and saw the little girl grinning and walking towards me slowly.

I leaned against the wall and looked at the little girl, watching her position slowly move. I tried to keep the farthest distance from her, and moved to the left until I reached the door of the little ghost’s room. I glanced at the closed door and immediately moved away from the little ghost’s room. I couldn’t let the little girl discover the little ghost and hurt him.

The little girl was still approaching me. I leaned against the wall, not knowing what to do. Am I going to die here today?

“Hehe, hehe, I’m going to speed up.” The little girl stopped, tilted her head to look at me, said something with a smile, and suddenly accelerated towards me.

I quickly left the wall and ran towards the middle of the yard. Because I ran too fast, I didn’t pay attention to the water tank in the middle of the yard. When I found it, I had already bumped into it. I was forced to fall to the ground after hitting the water tank. I didn’t care about my hurt knee and quickly got up and wanted to continue running away. But as soon as I got up, I heard a scream behind me.

“Ah…” I looked back and found that the little girl was bounced off by something and hit the wall, falling from the wall. She lay on the ground with a painful expression, looking at me viciously.

What’s going on? Is Grandpa Zhang back? I turned to look at the gate of the yard. The door was still closed. I looked back at the little girl. She had already climbed up from the ground and regained her weird smile. She rushed towards me again. She was so fast that I didn’t have time to react. But just as she was about to get close to me, she screamed again, and then was inexplicably bounced away and hit the wall behind her heavily.

I watched all this in confusion, not understanding why. She seemed to be suppressed by something. I glanced around the yard but didn’t find anything special. Finally, my eyes were fixed on the water tank next to me. It was she who bumped into the water tank and fell to the ground. Then the little girl was restrained by the mysterious force.

Could it be… this water tank? Isn’t there bacon in it? I saw Grandpa Zhang take a piece of bacon out of the water tank with my own eyes.

Is there something else in it besides bacon?

Thinking of this, I hugged the water tank tightly and looked at the little girl by the wall. She looked at me expressionlessly. From her actions, she seemed unwilling and wanted to come over, but after she glanced at the water tank, she gave up. She stood up, put her hands on her hips, stamped her feet, and said angrily: “Huh! It’s not fun at all!” After she finished speaking, she walked towards the gate of the yard. When she reached the gate of the yard, she looked back at me and said, “I’ll play with you next time.” After that, she disappeared at the door.

“Who wants to play with a little brat like you!” Maybe it was because of the treasure, the water tank, that I suddenly felt emboldened and shouted angrily at the gate of the yard. The little girl had disappeared and no one responded to me, but I still held the water tank and didn’t dare to leave it at all, for fear that the little girl would come back and play some scary games with me.

I held the water jar all the time. Even though my arms were sore, I still held it. I don’t know how long it was before the door to the yard opened. I was a little drowsy, but I was instantly awakened and held the water jar tighter with both hands.

The sky was already turning a little light, and a figure could be clearly seen at the door. It was a thin old man. The old man stood at the door as if he had seen an incredible scene. He stood there for a long time without saying a word.

“Oh, Grandpa Zhang, it’s you. You scared me.” When I saw it was Grandpa Zhang at the door, my nervous mood relaxed and I no longer held the water tank so tightly.

“What are you doing, little girl? Are you going to steal my bacon while I’m away?” Grandpa Zhang entered the yard, walked to the water tank, opened the lid, looked inside, raised one hand and gestured up and down, muttering: “1, 2, 3, 4…”

“What? Grandpa Zhang? I almost lost my life, and you’re still worried that I would steal your bacon.” I sat on the ground speechlessly, looking at Grandpa Zhang who was counting.

“8, 9, yeah, not less. What did you just say?” After counting the bacon, Grandpa Zhang breathed a sigh of relief and finally looked at me sitting on the ground. Only then did he start to pay attention to what I had just said.

“Grandpa Zhang!” I called Grandpa Zhang in a bad mood, but finally I compromised and told him what happened late at night.

“Little girl… why is there another little one?” Grandpa Zhang put his hands behind his back, frowned, and looked solemn.

“Grandpa Zhang, what exactly is this water tank of yours? It seems that the little girl was very afraid of this water tank. The water tank saved me!” I touched the water tank and asked Grandpa Zhang.

“This is an heirloom from our ancestors. It can be used to catch and kill ghosts, and it can also be used to raise ghosts. Wenwen was brought back by me before, and I raised him in this jar for a long time, which is why he became intelligent so quickly.” Grandpa Zhang seemed to be talking about something very ordinary.

“Grandpa Zhang…you use your ancestral treasure…to store bacon?” I really can’t understand Grandpa Zhang’s behavior. He is so nervous about the bacon in the water tank, but doesn’t care about the water tank at all.

“Yes, it’s convenient and there’s plenty of space.” Grandpa Zhang raised his eyebrows and answered nonchalantly.

“Forget it, I won’t talk to you about this. Where’s my grandma?” I remembered that Grandpa Zhang went out at night to rescue my grandma, so I hurriedly asked about my grandma’s situation.

“Your grandma is fine. I sent her to the hospital overnight. She has been in a coma for so long, she needs to be checked by a doctor.” When talking about grandma, Grandpa Zhang’s tone became different, and his tone was unusually serious.

“How did you save her? I want to go see grandma.” Hearing Grandpa Zhang say this, I felt relieved and hurriedly got up from the ground to go see grandma. Because so many things happened recently, I hardly slept well, and I was so scared last night. When I got up, I had no strength, staggered, and almost fell again.

“Hey, come on! Go to bed now, girl. Don’t think about anything and go to sleep. I also need to rest for a while. It’s almost dawn now. We still have things to do at night. Go to bed now.”

“Grandpa Zhang, what are you going to do tonight?”

“Go save your mother, and settle the score with those ghosts!” Grandpa Zhang said and walked towards his room.

24. Ceremony

I finally had a good sleep, without any panic or nightmares. I slept from the time the sky gradually turned white in the early morning to the time when the moonlight was bright outside the window. I rubbed my eyes, stretched myself, sat up from the bed, put on my coat and walked out of the room.

After what happened last night, I feel very relieved looking at the water tank in the middle of the yard. I look up at the kitchen on the right opposite the water tank. The light in the kitchen is on. I walk over and see Grandpa Zhang busy in the kitchen. There are already two dishes on the small table in the kitchen, and something is cooking in the pot, with hot smoke coming out.

“Wow, it smells so good!” I exclaimed sincerely as I smelled the aroma of food filling the room, and my stomach growled a few times in response.

“Girl, you’re awake. Go wash up and you can eat soon.” Grandpa Zhang looked back at me and continued to stir the food in the pot.

“Okay!”

“Grandpa Zhang, I didn’t expect you to be such a good cook.” I wolfed down the dishes on the table, praising Grandpa Zhang from time to time.

“Alright, alright, you’ve been flattering me all night, so hurry up and eat.”

“By the way, Grandpa Zhang, shall we go downstairs to see grandma?”

“Grandma is in the hospital now. I asked someone to look after her. Don’t worry, she’s safe. We have more important things to do.”

Thinking of Grandpa Zhang’s last words last night, I couldn’t help but get nervous, but I still asked, “What…important thing?”

“I’ll take you to catch ghosts!” Grandpa Zhang stuffed a mouthful of rice into his mouth and said it in a relaxed manner. I was so scared that I forgot to chew the rice in my mouth.

“Ah… How can you make it sound so easy? How can we, an old man and a young boy, catch ghosts?”

“You’ll know when the time comes. Eat first and stop talking. Save your energy for later.”

“Oh…” Although I really wanted to ask Grandpa Zhang what he planned to do, seeing his attitude, I couldn’t ask anything and could only shut up unwillingly.

After dinner, Grandpa Zhang went straight back to his room. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat at the table with random thoughts: “The war is about to begin. Can Grandpa Zhang deal with those ghosts? Can I help? How does Grandpa Zhang plan to deal with them? Will it hurt Mom’s body…?” Countless questions swirled in my mind. My mood was indescribable. I was excited about what was about to happen, but also worried about the battle. But it had come to this point. I had to resolve everything and save my mom!

I talked to myself in my heart and cheered myself up. Grandpa Zhang had finished cleaning up and was standing at the kitchen door, still holding the black cloth bag in his hand.

“Why are you daydreaming? Let’s go.” Grandpa Zhang said, and turned to walk out of the yard. I hurriedly followed him, still worried in my heart, asking: “Um… Grandpa Zhang, what do I need to do later? Can I help you?”

“Of course, you are the key to successfully dealing with them this time, so don’t let me down when the time comes!”

“W…what?” Grandpa Zhang’s words made me freeze in place for a moment. What can I do? Can I deal with those ghosts?

When Grandpa Zhang saw that I hadn’t caught up, he turned around, frowned, and said a little unhappily, “What are you doing? We have to hurry.”

“Grandpa Zhang… why don’t we take this water tank with us? This water tank is very powerful. I saw it with my own eyes last night.” I hugged the water tank beside me and said embarrassedly.

“Okay, then you carry it.” Grandpa Zhang said, and turned around and continued to walk out. I used all my strength to try to move the water tank, but the water tank was really too heavy. After trying several times, I reluctantly gave up the idea of ​​carrying the water tank out, and chased after Grandpa Zhang dejectedly.

Grandpa Zhang and I drove to the entrance of the alley where the man lived. When we arrived at the alley, Grandpa Zhang did not move forward but stopped at the entrance, lost in thought. He frowned and stared into the depths of the alley. I followed his gaze and saw that the alley was shrouded in darkness and I could not see anything clearly. This darkness seemed particularly strange in the brightly lit streets, as if it was not an alley but another world. People were hurrying on the street and many people would pass by the alley, but no one noticed this alley, as if the alley did not exist at all. This alley seemed a little different from the last time I came here.

“Hold this, and if you encounter any danger, remember to smash it.” Grandpa Zhang said as he handed me a very small porcelain bowl. The entire bowl was pure white without any patterns. Apart from being a little smaller than a normal eating bowl, there was nothing special about it.

“Oh, okay.” Although he was a little confused about what Grandpa Zhang meant by danger, and was a little skeptical whether this bowl would really be useful in a critical moment, he still took the bowl and put it in his pocket.

“Let’s go, remember what I said.” Grandpa Zhang said and walked towards the alley, and I hurriedly followed him.

After entering the alley, I couldn’t see anything. It was really pitch dark. I turned around and looked behind me. The alley where we had just stood disappeared, and there was darkness behind me. At this moment, I started to get nervous. I began to realize that the war was about to begin. From the moment we entered the alley, we had entered their territory.

I have to follow Grandpa Nervous.

He turned around, quickened his pace and walked forward, following Grandpa Zhang closely.

“Grandpa Zhang, don’t you think we’ve been walking for a long time? Logically, we should be at the fork in the alley and turning now.”

“Rustle…rustle…rustle…” In the silent night, the sound of objects being dragged on the ground echoed in the empty alley, clear and rhythmic. When did Grandpa Zhang’s footsteps become like this?

“Grandpa Zhang, why are you suddenly silent?” I began to feel an inexplicable uneasiness in my heart. There was a rustling sound in front of me. It was obvious that this was not the footsteps of Grandpa Zhang. What was this sound? Was there something in front of me?

I reached my left hand into my pocket and held the porcelain bowl that Grandpa Zhang had handed me before he entered the alley. I slowly stretched my right hand forward. My hands couldn’t help but tremble as my heart beat faster. There was nothing in front of me, and the hand stretched forward didn’t touch anything, let alone Grandpa Zhang who was walking in front of me.

But there was a rustling sound right in front of me. What was it?

I stopped and didn’t move forward. Sure enough, after I stopped, the rustling sound also stopped.

“Yiyi, you have to calm down. You have been through so much. You can’t go back to the way you were before. You must stay calm and don’t be afraid!” I encouraged myself in my mind, but in this strange situation, my heart was still filled with uneasiness.

Since there is no one in front, there is only one possibility: the ground!

I lowered my head and looked at the ground in front of me, but it was too dark and I couldn’t see anything.

I slowly squatted down, then felt forward along the ground with my right hand, and not far ahead, I touched a mass of something.

It feels cool, smooth, and bumpy, with sunken places and raised places. This feeling is a bit familiar…

This sunken hole looks a bit like an eye, and this protruding hole looks a bit like a nose… Isn’t this a face? !

“Ah!” After realizing that I was touching a human face, I screamed, withdrew my hand, and fell to the ground.

“Hehehe, we’ve been discovered.” A creepy laugh, isn’t this the voice of the little girl who appeared last night? !

This is their territory, so even if Grandpa Zhang is right next to me, they can still find a way to deal with me. But I came in with Grandpa Zhang, so even though I can’t see Grandpa Zhang now, he must be near me, and something will definitely happen if I break that bowl!

Perhaps because I have experienced several frights, when faced with such a situation now, although I am afraid, I can calm down quickly. After calming down, I have a clear mind to analyze my situation. I reached into my pocket again, ready to take the bowl.

But just as my hand was about to touch the bowl, my whole body suddenly became stiff and I couldn’t move.

Oh no, has she discovered my intention?

I suddenly felt something was wrong, but I pretended to be calm and didn’t show it. I couldn’t show my fear and let the other party play with me anymore.

“Lanlan, stop making trouble and take her back. Don’t waste time.”

At this moment, a familiar voice came from the front. It was the voice of my “mother”. It was still pitch black around me and I couldn’t see anything clearly, but I was very familiar with this voice. My beloved relatives were gently calling someone else’s nickname, and I was being discussed by them like a stranger. How ironic was this?

“Hehe, okay, mom.”

These were the last words I heard before I lost consciousness.

It was so cold, freezing cold, I felt like I was in an ice cellar.

The extreme cold woke me up, and I slowly opened my eyes. The first thing that caught my eye was a doll. The doll was placed on a small table, facing me, and its eyes seemed to be looking at me with a smile. This was the little girl doll I found in my mother’s room before.

After seeing the puppet clearly, I became completely conscious and immediately realized that my current situation was very bad. My hands were tied behind my back with ropes and fixed to a chair, sitting face to face with the puppet. After looking around, I found that I was now in my own room!

I don’t know how they got me here. I clearly entered the alley with Grandpa Zhang. Now that I’m in this position, Grandpa Zhang won’t be able to find me. Isn’t my current situation very dangerous?

Oh, by the way, there is a bowl in my pocket that Grandpa Zhang gave me. This is my chance, but…

I twisted my body hard, but the rope was too tight and I couldn’t reach into my pocket to take the bowl.

Just as I was worrying about how to get the bowl and break it to save myself, I heard footsteps outside the door.

They are coming!

I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to be still asleep.

“Are you ready? We need to hurry and complete the ritual before that damn old man finds us.”

It was the voice of “Mom”, followed by the sound of the room door opening and closing. From the sound of footsteps, two people walked in.

“Meizhen, don’t worry, everything is ready.” As expected, it was the man’s voice.

“Lanlan, you will soon be able to live a normal life.”

“Mom” came a gentle voice, just like how my mother had called me Yiyi countless times before, gentle and full of love.

I couldn’t help but open my eyes slightly to observe the situation, and saw that “Mom” leaned over and stroked the doll. Seeing this scene, my nose couldn’t help but feel sore, and the doll stared at me straight, as if mocking me.

“It’s such a pity. We were supposed to hold the ceremony on April 11
, her birthday, when the gate of life opened. But now that old man has disrupted our plans, we can only force the time forward and use some trickery to open the gate of life and let Lanlan replace Yiyi. This is not the best time. Lanlan’s mental state will regress by at least two years. Oh, I really want to kill that old man.”

Although what happened during this period of time made me roughly guess why they wanted to arrest me, hearing the man’s words still made my scalp tingle.

They want my mother and I to disappear from this world completely, and for them to take our place and live a normal life!

“Forget it. The most important thing is that Lanlan has this body. We can slowly cultivate her mind. It’s already 11:40. There are only 20 minutes left. Let’s get started.”

What! The ceremony is starting now! What should I do? Who can save me?

25. Duel

I squinted my eyes and watched their actions. I didn’t dare to act rashly, but I was extremely anxious inside.

I saw the man walk up to the puppet, pick it up, and put it in a container next to it. I couldn’t see the shape of the container clearly, it was probably about the size of a medium-sized foot basin. I didn’t notice the container when I just woke up, and now I can’t see what’s in the container.

Soon after the doll was placed in the container, it began to smoke, and then the doll’s skin seemed to be peeling off. No, melting would be a more appropriate description. It felt like a wax figure gradually melting. The melting process made the originally cute and delicate face become hideous and terrifying. My body began to tremble unconsciously, and I was still scared.

After the doll had completely melted into the container, the little girl appeared on the ground next to the table. She was lying on the ground with her eyes closed, wearing the same clothes as the doll. Her hair, which had been loose when she came to find me before, was tied up in the same ponytail as the doll. She no longer had the eerie feeling she had before.

The man put his hand into the container, and when he took it out, there was a silver needle in his hand. Then he turned around and grinned in my direction. He slowly approached me with the silver needle, and finally stopped beside me. I closed my eyes and continued to pretend to be asleep, waiting for his next move.

My hand was held and lifted by one hand, and then the area between the thumb and index finger was stroked back and forth. It felt like the doctor wiping your arm repeatedly to find a blood vessel before going to the hospital for an injection. It reminded me of the time when my grandmother observed “Mom” in the hospital. They wanted to complete the ritual, so they should do something behind my ears and between my fingers. Now that I already knew what they were going to do, I couldn’t pretend to be asleep anymore.

I could feel that he had found the position and had aimed the needle at my finger. I sneezed at the perfect moment, and then two words came out of my mouth: “It’s so cold.”

When I sneezed, the noise was intentionally very loud. My whole body leaned forward, and my head hit the person next to me heavily. He was also frightened by my sudden action, and the needle in his hand fell to the ground and rolled under the bed in the room.

This is the opportunity I’m looking for, to catch them by surprise. I can’t defeat them by directly resisting. They will use some supernatural power to immobilize me. Only in this way can I have the time and opportunity to save myself.

The man and the “mother” immediately squatted down to check where the needle fell after it fell. I pretended to have just woken up and asked innocently, “Isn’t this my home? What do you want to do? Let me go!”

The little girl was still lying on the ground with her eyes closed. The man and the “mother” stood up and looked at me viciously. Although I could feel their anger, they would not do anything to me. After all, they needed my body to revive their daughter.

“What do you want to do to me? Please let me go. My father did something wrong, but my mother and I are innocent.” I continued to pretend that I knew nothing, acted pitiful, and tried to gain sympathy, with tears streaming down my face.

They were unmoved by my performance. “Mom” squatted down again and reached under the bed. The needle floated into “Mom’s” hand in an instant as if someone pulled it with a rope.

How could I forget that they are not human beings and have certain supernatural powers. How could a bed under the bed delay so much time?

“Every year, many people die in car accidents. The drivers don’t want to cause tragedy, and they don’t do it on purpose. Besides, my father has been punished. Why do you have to do this and hurt innocent people?” I continued, hoping to delay time as much as possible with words. I heard them say twelve o’clock when I was pretending to be asleep. If I could delay for ten minutes, maybe I would have a chance to escape.

“Innocent? Not intentional? If it was an ordinary car accident, I certainly wouldn’t hold your family accountable. But that car accident was completely avoidable. You can’t drive when you are drunk. Even elementary school students know that. Doesn’t your father know that? A person who drank two glasses of white wine and five bottles of beer dared to drive. What’s the difference between this and murder?! How can this be considered an accident?” The man became more and more excited as he spoke. His face turned red and he was hysterical by the end.

I was also shocked by his words. I always thought that the car accident was an accident, but I didn’t expect that the father was drunk driving and caused the death of both mother and daughter.

For a moment, I was speechless because I had no way to speak for my father. I lowered my head and was silent for a moment, then whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry is useless. I just want to be reunited with Meizhen and Lanlan. I have been preparing for this day for ten years.” The man calmed down, reached out to take the silver needle handed to him by “Mom”, and approached me again.

I hadn’t recovered from the shock yet when I felt a sharp pain between my thumb and index finger. Then I reacted and looked at my hand. There was a needle hole between my thumb and index finger, and a trace of blood oozed out. At this moment, the man was about to give me a second injection with the needle. I quickly pulled my hand back.

The man didn’t care about my behavior. He didn’t force me. Instead, he turned to “Mom” and said, “Meizhen, let this girl behave herself.”

As soon as I finished speaking, I felt like I was restrained by a force and couldn’t do anything. Seeing that the man was about to give me the second injection, I quickly said, “My stomach hurts so much, I need to go to the toilet.”

The man paused for a moment and replied, “It will pass in a moment, don’t delay.”

“No, my stomach really hurts and I’m about to poop my pants!” Although my body couldn’t move, I still made an anxious expression.

The man ignored me and held my hand to observe the location of the needle.

“What can I do in your territory? You have a daughter too. It’s so embarrassing for a girl to wet her pants!”

The man looked at me, and seemed a little hesitant. “Mom” checked her watch, confirmed the time, and stepped forward and said, “Forget it, let her go to the bathroom. I don’t want my daughter to wake up with dirty pants. Yiyi, I’ll give you three minutes. When the time is up, no matter what happens in the bathroom, I will go in and catch you.”

“Okay, please help me untie them.”

The man walked behind me and untied the rope. At the same time, the force that restrained my body disappeared. I kept muttering in my heart, I clearly have the ability to stop myself from moving, but I still have to go through the trouble of tying myself up with a rope like in the movies.

After being able to move freely, I stood up and walked towards the bathroom. As long as I could move, my chance would come.

After arriving at the toilet, I immediately took out the bowl that Grandpa Zhang gave me from my pocket and smashed it hard on the ground. I thought it would make a loud noise, but after the bowl touched the ground, it turned into a wisp of green smoke and disappeared, silently, and there was no change around it.

I stared blankly at the place where the bowl disappeared, and felt great despair for a moment. All my hopes were placed on this bowl. I thought that if the bowl was broken, Grandpa Zhang would immediately appear to rescue me, but the bowl actually disappeared out of thin air?

This is really over…

“Yiyi, are you okay?”

“Mom” outside the toilet door began to urge me, and my mind went blank. I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t respond, nor did I make any moves to escape. I just stood in the middle of the toilet, looking at the door.

Mom, I’m sorry, I can’t save you after all.

“Bang!” The toilet door was opened, and “Mom” stood at the door looking at me expressionlessly.

“Let’s go, don’t waste time.”

I followed “Mom” back to the room again. I had given up struggling and sat down on the chair obediently. The man walked towards me, grabbed my hand again, and inserted a needle into it. I could feel the pain, but I didn’t even frown.

When you are desperate, you are not afraid of anything.

The man pulled out the needle, leaned over to me, then turned my head to the side with his hand, and felt around behind my ear with his other hand.

I closed my eyes and waited for “death” to come. After two holes were pierced behind my ears, I would probably be like my mother and no longer have my own body.

“Yiyi, find a way to open the living room door.”

In a daze, I heard Grandpa Zhang’s voice. I suddenly opened my eyes and looked around the room. Grandpa Zhang was not there. “Mom” was looking at me, the little girl was still lying on the ground, and the man was next to me, preparing to pierce the back of my ear with a needle.

I definitely didn’t hear it wrong. It was Grandpa Zhang. He came to save me, but the door of the house was closed now, so he definitely couldn’t get in. Although he could deal with some ghosts, he didn’t have the magical ability to pass through walls.

“Wait, wait.”

I stretched out my hand to block the approaching silver needle, and while the man wasn’t able to react, I stood up from the chair and walked a few steps to the side.

“What do you want to do now?” The man’s expression was very unhappy, and it was obvious that he was extremely impatient with me.

“I know that I don’t have much time left. Soon, I will no longer be Yiyi. I don’t know how I will exist in this world, but before I disappear, can you fulfill my last wish?”

I tried to speak in a pitiful tone, hoping to impress them.

“Meizhen, hold her down, we don’t have much time.” The man was unmoved and asked “Mom” to use her strength to restrain me again.

“Wait, aunt and uncle, you also have a daughter. Look at Lanlan, she is the same age as me, a simple-minded little girl. I didn’t do anything wrong in the whole thing. I just hope that before I disappear, you can fulfill a small wish of mine without any regrets. Please.”

I begged them sincerely with tears in my eyes. “Mom” looked at the time and the man was a little hesitant. Seeing a little hope, I continued to beg: “I won’t waste your time. I just want you to take a last look at the photo of our family of three before I disappear. I want the last memory of my life to stay at the warmest moment of my life, which is a
photo of my family taken on my 5th birthday.”

“Where are the photos?” They also have daughters and love their daughters deeply. They couldn’t bear to see me like this. “Mom” finally gave in and responded to me.

“It’s in a photo album on the bedside table in my mother’s room. Can I go get it now?” I said, moving towards the door.

“Don’t move. Meizhen, go get it.” The man stopped me and turned to “Mom” and said.

“Okay, the photo is on page five or six, go look for it.” I didn’t move and deliberately provided a vague clue.

My goal is to let “Mom” find it.

“Mom” left the room without closing the door, and then I heard the sound of “Mom” opening a drawer in another room. I stood face to face with the man, and he was too lazy to look at me, but looked at Lanlan lying on the ground.

“Yiyi, which photo album?” “Mom” asked me in a hoarse voice in the other room.

There were three photo albums there. I deliberately didn’t tell her before because I was waiting for her to ask me.

“Oh, it seems to be the red one.” I responded with a louder voice.

“There is no red album!”

“Ah? Did I remember it wrong?”

“Hurry up, which one is it?” The voice of “Mom” on the other end began to become impatient.

“Ah, let me think, what do the three books you have look like? It’s been so long that I forgot.”

“You’re such a trouble. Just go and have a look yourself. If you can’t find it, forget it. We’ve done our best for Lanlan’s sake.” The man said from the side.

“Okay.” I was just waiting for him to say this. All the information I provided was deliberately vague. I took advantage of the fact that they loved their daughter and used family affection to make them give me this opportunity.

I quickly walked to the door of the room, then suddenly accelerated and ran in the opposite direction of my mother’s room – the living room. The man did not expect me to suddenly run towards the living room. When he reacted, he just shouted “Stop” from behind and immediately chased after me.

However, my house is not big, and the time he took to react was enough for me to run to the entrance of the living room. I quickly opened the door, and sure enough, there was a familiar person standing at the door – Grandpa Zhang.

“Little girl, you’re quite smart.” Grandpa Zhang grinned at the door and walked in.

It all happened very quickly. Only after Grandpa Zhang entered the house did “Mom” rush out of the room.

The moment I saw Grandpa Zhang, I really felt that my world became brighter. Is this the feeling of coming back to life?

I turned around triumphantly and looked at the man and “mom” who were standing there. They looked at me viciously, as if they wanted to cut me into pieces.

“I can knock down a skinny old man with one hand. Do you think his coming here can change anything?”

Although the man said this, I could tell from his tone that he was actually a little panicked.

But I looked at Grandpa Zhang in front of me who was almost as tall as me, and then looked at the strong man. There was indeed a huge gap in strength between the two. Such a thin Grandpa Zhang could make the man so afraid. It seemed that Grandpa Zhang was really a very capable man.

“Young man, I definitely can’t deal with you, but I can easily deal with your daughter and wife. My family has been doing this for generations.” Grandpa Zhang was not at all angry at the man’s provocation.

“Fuck you.” The man was irritated by Grandpa Zhang’s words. He rushed over angrily and grabbed the clothes on Grandpa Zhang’s chest. Grandpa Zhang was lifted up like a little chicken.

The man stretched out his fist as if to hit Grandpa Zhang. I was so scared that I quickly grabbed the man’s hand to stop him. However, the man was too strong and threw me to the ground with one flick of his hand.

As soon as I fell to the ground, I heard a scream from “Mom”. I looked in the direction of the sound. I saw “Mom” rolling on the ground holding her head, screaming “Ah” repeatedly.

Upon seeing this, the man immediately put Grandpa Zhang down and rushed over. He squatted down and picked up “Mom”, saying anxiously: “Meizhen, Meizhen, don’t be afraid, I’m here.”

“All these years, how did you keep the souls of the mother and daughter alive? How did you make them conscious and have memories? How did you plan to bring them back to life? I have already figured it out in the past few days, so give up. I will not allow you to do this.

“Using ancient evil magic to place the souls of the dead inside the dolls, and constantly nourishing them with my own blood, it must have taken a lot of effort over the past ten years.”

“Ah!” The man didn’t say anything. “Mom” still held her head and screamed in pain.

“Stop it. Those weird and evil techniques you have learned on your own cannot defeat the Taoist techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation.” Grandpa Zhang continued to persuade.

“Impossible! I’ve waited for so many years. Don’t even think about it.” The man yelled hysterically. He put “Mom” on the ground, then stood up and walked towards us.

Just as the man was about to approach me, screams were heard from the room.

“Ah!” The voice belonged to that little girl.

The man stopped and immediately turned around and rushed into the room, shouting, “Lanlan, Lanlan!”

“I think that the mother and daughter died in vain, and your family is also pitiful, so I can let them go, but you must let go of your hatred and release Yiyi and Yiyi’s mother.”

During the whole process, Grandpa Zhang did not move, nor was he seen taking any treasure. He just kept talking, but the entire situation was under his control.

“Stop it, I’ll listen to you, I’ll listen to you, just stop it!” The screams of “Mom” and the little girl made the man completely collapse, and he begged Grandpa Zhang in a crying voice.

The screaming stopped, “Mom” fainted on the ground, and the man walked out of the room with tears on his face and a trace of blood oozing from his lower lip, probably from biting himself just now.

“I can’t beat you. Leave my wife and children alone and I will leave here.” The man’s tone sounded desolate.

“I won’t touch them, but you know, they can’t stay in objects forever. They will only get more and more miserable as they get older. Let them rest in peace.”

“I will be with them forever.” The man said this and walked into the room. He came out after a while with two dolls in his hands. One was the beautiful doll, and the other was also a female doll. He handed the other doll to Grandpa Zhang and left with the beautiful doll.

After the man left, I ran to the door of the room and found that the little girl was gone. The doll of the little girl had melted into the container. Without the foster doll, could she still exist?

“Okay Yiyi, I’m going to call the emergency number now and send your mother to the hospital. She needs to stay in the hospital for a while to recover.”

“Okay, Grandpa Zhang, I’ll go to the hospital to see grandma too.”

After returning to the living room, I didn’t say anything more to Grandpa Zhang, but looked at the clock on the wall of the living room: 12:51.

Final Chapter

Two weeks later, at the airport.

“Mom, don’t worry. Yiyi’s school has already been sorted out. The educational environment in City C is better than here. Yiyi and I will take good care of ourselves there.”

Suyin held the old man’s hand to comfort him, while Yiyi stood beside him to support him.

“Don’t worry, grandma. I’m grown up now and I will take good care of mom.”

“Hey, why do you two have to leave home? I can’t bear to let you go!” The old man said with tears in his eyes, full of reluctance.

“Too much has happened here. We need a change of environment to live well. We will come back to see you often.”

“Let’s go, don’t miss the plane, and call me when you get there.” The old man let go of Suyin’s hand, turned around and began to wipe his tears. A man next to him handed her a tissue and complained, “Mom, you are such a fool. Transportation is so developed now, it’s very convenient to meet each other, and you can even video chat online. How can my sister and Yiyi leave with peace of mind if you’re crying here?”

“Brother, you have to take good care of mom. If anything happens, be sure to contact me in time.” Suyin looked at the old man who was crying with his back turned, and tears began to well up in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take mom home first. Remember to call me when you get there.”

“Grandma, remember to say thank you to Grandpa Zhang for me.” Yiyi shouted at the backs of the old woman and the man as they left.

After Suyin and Yiyi watched the old man and the man leave, they did not enter the waiting room. Instead, they came to the exit, hailed a taxi and got in. Twenty minutes later, the car stopped at the entrance of an alley. Suyin and Yiyi got out of the car hand in hand and walked into the alley.

April 11, City C.

“Yiyi, today is your birthday. Mom has prepared a lot of delicious food for you. Come out and eat.” Yiyi put down the phone in her hand, skipped out of the room, came to the dining room, looked at the table full of her favorite dishes, and shouted happily: “Wow, I love my mother the most!” When Suyin heard Yiyi say this, her face was full of happy smile.

“Ding Dong Ding Dong!” The doorbell rang. Yiyi ran to open the door. A man was standing at the door with a birthday cake in his hand.

“Happy birthday to my baby!” The man had a burly figure, dark skin, and a square face. He looked like a fierce and vicious man, but he appeared to be particularly gentle and amiable when facing Yi Yi.

“Thank you, Dad. I love you, Dad.” Yiyi took the cake from the man’s hand, called Dad sweetly, and then gave the man a bear hug.

Yiyi, Suyin and the man sat at the dining table eating, talking and laughing, having a great time. The sunset shone through the restaurant windows, reflecting the happy smiles on the three people’s faces.

In the corner of the house, there are three dolls. One doll is extremely ugly with a nail on its forehead. The other two dolls are a middle-aged woman and a young girl. The three dolls are placed side by side in the corner of the house. In a trance, you can even hear a hint of crying.