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墨書 Inktalez
Reservoir:
One sunny afternoon in the spring of 2013, I was napping on the sofa in the living room when the doorbell rang. It was the doorbell for the downstairs lobby, and through the screen, I saw six or seven people. Among them were two security guards, while the others were mostly bare-chested and looked quite intimidating. Their stances and expressions suggested that there had been some minor conflict with the security guards.
Seeing this scene left me a bit bewildered. I thought to myself, I haven't wronged anyone, so why are all these bare-chested guys suddenly here? Are they looking for trouble?
As the saying goes, "What is meant to be will be." I quickly asked, "Hello, who are you looking for?" Upon hearing my voice, they ceased their conflict. One of the security guards stepped up to the screen and said, "Hello, a few workers came here saying they need to see you. They couldn't provide your phone number, so we stopped them from coming in. Do you know these people?"
Before I could respond, a bare-chested young man squeezed in front of the screen and exclaimed, "X Gu! It's me! Do you remember me?"
I scrutinized him closely and felt he looked familiar, but I couldn't place him right away. Noticing my silence, he added, "It's Bing Gu! Hua Bin!"
Suddenly it clicked; he was my childhood neighbor who lived next door. After growing up, we all got busy with our own lives and hadn't seen each other in many years. We had a common nickname system when we were kids: boys would take a character from their name and add "Gu," while girls would add "Sister Mei." There was also a gender-neutral suffix "Wu Zi," so kids in the village were generally called X Gu or Sister Mei. It sounded quite endearing.
Once I remembered who he was, I said, "Oh, now I remember! Come on up!" After thanking the security guard, I opened the door.
Once they arrived upstairs, I greeted them casually. After some small talk, I learned that Hua Bin had gone to work at a construction site after finishing junior high school. He was now married with several children and had moved away from our hometown, so it was rare to see him during the holidays.
Among those who came with him, aside from Hua Bin, everyone else was unfamiliar to me. However, judging by their dark skin, they were likely his coworkers from the construction site.
Since we all came from rural backgrounds, it felt particularly warm and friendly. I invited everyone in and took out a few cans of beer from the fridge for them to enjoy. After chatting for a while without getting to any serious matters, I found it a bit strange and finally asked, "Friends, you must have come to see me for a reason. Hua Bin, if there's something you need to discuss, just say it. I won't refuse if it's something I can help with."
They exchanged a few glances, and then Hua Bin hesitantly said, "Something strange happened at our construction site. It might be haunted. My mom said you deal with this kind of stuff, so I came to ask if you could help. I don't really know how to explain it, Shunzi, why don't you talk to Brother Liu about it? You both were there. Just explain it clearly."
I turned to Shunzi and said, "Brother Shunzi, just say what's on your mind. I'm in this line of work, and even if I can't solve it, I can help analyze the situation. Don't hold back; speak freely."
Shunzi took a can of beer in his hand and downed it in one go. Then he began to tell me about what happened at their construction site. He was also hesitant and lacked coherence, but after sorting through it, it seemed to be something like this.
They were just a small construction team, usually taking on minor projects in rural towns—repairing irrigation channels, small country roads, and water reservoir dams. This time, however, they had taken on a large project to build a dam for a reservoir. Like many urban contractors, they went wherever the work was available. The construction team rented two container houses; wherever the project was located, the container houses would be transported there for them to live in. They truly had no fixed residence and considered the whole world their home. For convenience this time, they set up the container houses on a patch of grass east of the reservoir, only about thirty meters away from it. Although there were quite a few mosquitoes, it was cool being near the water.
Due to an early rainy season that year, their originally planned schedule was shortened by nearly a third. Thus, the construction team began working day and night in two shifts to speed up the dam's construction. Shunzi and his crew worked the day shift from nine in the morning until eight in the evening and all stayed in Container House No. 2. The first three days went by without incident; everything was normal. However, on the fourth day, something very strange happened.
Since they lived right next to the reservoir, they had developed a habit of going for a bath in the reservoir after work each evening—it was convenient. On the fourth night, six of them went together to bathe. There was one spot in the reservoir that was suitable for swimming but quite far from the container houses—about five hundred meters away—requiring them to walk across a field ridge on the north side of the reservoir. The field ridge was narrow; they could only walk in single file. At that time, one of Shunzi's cousins was at the back of the line with five others ahead of him. As they walked along, he noticed someone following behind him. Tired from a day's work, he didn't pay much attention and assumed it was another worker who had joined them. The person even bumped into him twice from behind, but he thought nothing of it.
That night, with a bright moon overhead, no one brought flashlights; they only carried basins, shampoo, and soap with them. When they reached their bathing spot, Shunzi's cousin counted again and confirmed that there were indeed only six people present. Yet he distinctly remembered that someone had been following him earlier; now that person had vanished. He mentioned this to everyone else, but they insisted he must have been seeing things since aside from their group of six day workers, everyone else was on night shift—there shouldn't have been anyone else around before their shift started—and those on night shift were already working.
Shunzi reassured him: "You must be exhausted from working all day and imagining things." Everyone dismissed it and quietly continued bathing.
Shunzi's cousin accepted their explanation; perhaps he really had just imagined it. With so many people around, there wasn't much to fear anyway, so he stripped down and got into the water. Since everyone needed to wash their hair and because the water wasn't flowing in the reservoir, they couldn't stand too close together—so they spaced themselves out every few meters. Shunzi's cousin ended up being one of the last to enter the water and found himself without a good spot; not being a strong swimmer either, he didn't dare venture too far out into deeper water. Instead, he started washing himself at a position below the field ridge—not too far from shore but not right at the edge either. Shunzi and another worker were standing closer to shore than he was.
Everyone hummed songs while bathing; occasionally someone would dive underwater and pop up next to others with a loud shout for fun. It was all very entertaining. Everyone knew that Shunzi's cousin wasn't a good swimmer; no one teased him about it.
Just as everyone was enjoying themselves amidst laughter and splashing around, suddenly Shunzi's cousin let out a scream before plunging underwater while frantically splashing at the surface with his hands as his body slowly drifted toward the center of the reservoir.
Shunzi panicked and shouted: "Who is that? Don't mess with him! He can't swim! Stop joking around!"
But no one rushed out from beside his cousin; instead, his cousin's splashing grew more frantic while his head remained above water as he continued screaming in sheer terror.
Shunzi felt anger rising within him as everyone gathered closer; it looked like his cousin would be pulled under towards deeper water any moment now. Some workers even laughed aloud at what they thought was just his cousin being silly—clearly believing it was merely some prank by another worker—but Shunzi knew better; his cousin had an aversion to water and couldn't swim well at all. His uncle had repeatedly warned him not to let his cousin near water when they came out to work.
Though he thought bathing in shallow water would be fine since they'd done it before without incident, seeing his cousin being tormented made him realize how scared he must be.
Shunzi nearly shouted: "Who the hell is messing with my cousin? I'll kill you!"
As he began to look around at the people beside him under the moonlight, he wondered who was missing. However, this glance proved to be alarming. After looking around, Shunzi almost went mad as he rushed over to Cousin's side, shouting, "Everyone come help! It wasn't one of us who pulled him in!"
Everyone exchanged glances, and indeed, aside from Cousin, all five others were present. No one was missing. If that was the case, then who had grabbed Cousin's leg? Shunzi hurried over, and they quickly ran towards him because the water inside was getting deeper. If they didn't act fast, Cousin would surely be pulled underwater and drown.
At that moment, Shunzi was not far from Cousin, whose head had just submerged beneath the surface. The cries for help began to mix with the sound of bubbling water, becoming increasingly unclear.
He grabbed Cousin's hand and pulled towards the shore. However, to his surprise, even with all his strength pulling outward, he could not stop Cousin's feet from moving further into the reservoir; it only slightly slowed down the pace.
Within a few seconds, the other workers arrived one by one, linking hands and starting to pull together. Shunzi held onto Cousin while they all moved outward.
After a long struggle, they finally managed to pull Cousin up. Everyone was exhausted as if they had just fought a tough battle, lying on the ground gasping for breath. At that moment, Cousin showed no signs of struggle; his face was pale and completely still.
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