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墨書 Inktalez
She wanted to turn and leave, but found her feet seemed glued to the ground, unable to move at all. She remembered reading somewhere that when faced with something terrifying, one's feet would not obey, but she had never believed it. Now, experiencing it firsthand, she realized it was true; it wasn't that she didn't want to run, but her body simply wouldn't follow her brain's commands.
She breathed heavily, the faint metallic scent of blood lingering at the tip of her nose. Although it wasn't strong, she could still smell it. The girl's head began to move again, slowly turning toward her bit by bit. She widened her eyes in terror; that face was indeed like a piece of paper, with the nose, eyes, and mouth drawn on with a pen. Yet, surprisingly, there was a hint of expression on what should have been an emotionless face as it flashed an evil smile at Su Jin'er.
Then, astonishingly, it stood up and moved stiffly toward Su Jin'er. She wanted to back away, but her body still wouldn't obey. The Paper Man walked step by step until it was right in front of her and then stopped, staring silently at her. Su Jin'er could clearly smell the ink from its face, but a Paper Man couldn't move on its own unless someone was wearing clothes made of paper. Realizing this, she glared fiercely at the Paper Man before her. Its eyes were drawn on, yet she felt as if it could see her. Though fear still gripped her heart, she could only maintain eye contact with it since her body refused to move. Its arms remained straight up in the air. After about a minute, the Paper Man slowly collapsed onto the ground, truly becoming just a piece of paper. At that moment, Su Jin'er's body regained its ability to move, but her mind suddenly lost consciousness and she collapsed.
The next day, when she woke up, she found herself lying in her dorm room with Ruan Hongmei anxiously watching over her from beside the bed. She sat up abruptly.
"How did I end up here?"
"You ask me? I want to ask you! What were you doing at the construction site in the middle of the night?"
Remembering the Paper Man she had seen at the construction site last night made her face turn pale instantly.
"Did I see a Paper Man at the construction site yesterday?"
"Is this what you mean?" Ruan Hongmei picked up a Paper Man from the floor and placed it beside Su Jin'er.
Her eyes widened in terror. "How did you bring that back?"
"Please! You were holding onto it tightly! Last night when I got up to use the bathroom and noticed you weren't in bed and that the dorm room door was open, I went out looking for you. When I got downstairs and saw that your dorm room door was locked, I thought you hadn't gone out. When I returned to the dorm room and still didn't find you there, I went to the back door and saw it was open. So I went out looking for you! Eventually, I found you passed out on the ground tightly clutching this Paper Man! I originally planned to throw it away, but you were holding onto it too tightly, so I brought both you and it back with me. It wasn't until this morning that you finally let go of it! I'm still annoyed about that!"
Ruan Hongmei pouted in dissatisfaction.
I was holding onto it?
How is that possible?
She clearly remembered that it was the Paper Man that fell first, and then she lost consciousness as well. How could she be holding it? Was there really someone there at that time, someone who placed the Paper Man into her arms?
"When you found me, did you notice if anyone else was around?"
"No one. It was so late, besides you running out, who else would be out there? Plus, I was really scared at that moment and just wanted to bring you back quickly. Luckily, you weren't very heavy." She stood up and picked up a comb to start brushing her hair. "Why did you go to the construction site alone? Even though there’s no one there at night, don’t you know that workers are the scariest men?"
"I didn't think too much about it. Last night, I kept feeling like someone was singing in my ear, and then I woke up. Later, I heard someone singing outside, so I thought I'd go take a look! That’s when I saw the Paper Man." As she spoke, she glanced at the Paper Man lying quietly beside her. "It was facing away from me, then slowly turned its head, its arm eerily reaching into the air. After that, it walked over to me, and we stared at each other for about a minute. Then it fell down, and I fell down too. After that, I don't remember anything."
She spoke somewhat confusedly.
"Are you kidding? The Paper Man can't walk! You must have been sleepwalking," Ruan Hongmei said confidently.
Sleepwalking?
She had never sleepwalked before, and no one in her family had ever done so either. More importantly, a sleepwalker doesn't know what they're doing, but she was fully aware of her actions. So she knew for sure that she wasn't sleepwalking.
Her eyes inadvertently glanced at the Paper Man, and she gasped in surprise.
"Are you sure this is the Paper Man you brought back from the construction site?"
"Come on, it's yours! If you hadn't held onto it tightly, how could I have brought back such a disgusting thing?"
Ruan Hongmei looked at the Paper Man with disgust. The reason she called it disgusting was that this Paper Man was meant for the dead. In rural areas, when someone dies, their family buys paper items to burn as offerings for the deceased in the afterlife. If they fear that the deceased might feel lonely in another world, they would buy some Paper Men to burn so that these Paper Men could accompany them in another time. And this Paper Man was indeed meant for the dead.
"This Paper Man is not the one I saw last night," Su Jin'er said firmly.
"No way! Don't scare me, okay?" Ruan Hongmei tied her hair into a ponytail and then sat down on the bed.
Su Jin'er looked seriously at the Paper Man. The facial features of the one she saw yesterday were drawn with black ink, while this one had red lips. She remembered clearly that the Paper Man she saw had a white face, but this one had red cheeks. More importantly, its hair was also painted, whereas the Paper Man she saw had real hair.
"The facial features of the Paper Man I saw were drawn with black ink, and it smelled terrible, like the stench of a corpse."
Listening to Su Jin'er, Ruan Hongmei made a disgusted expression. "Alright, no matter which Paper Man you saw yesterday, we should just throw this one away! It's so unlucky to have something like this in our dorm."
Her grandfather had once said that it's best not to touch things related to the dead; otherwise, it would bring bad luck. She didn't want to be unlucky, especially with exams coming up in a week. If bad luck meant failing her classes, that would be disastrous.
Although Su Jin'er still felt puzzled and wasn't superstitious, keeping a Paper Man in their dorm did feel strange. However, it was daytime now. If they walked out holding a Paper Man nearly the size of an adult, people would definitely think they were crazy.
"Let's just throw it away tonight," she said, then kicked the Paper Man under the bed.
"Don't—" Ruan Hongmei's words hadn't even left her mouth before the Paper Man was already under the bed.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" Seeing that Su Jin'er had already kicked it, Ruan Hongmei didn't want to say anything further; she didn't want to scare her.
"Then let's go to class! I really don't want to fail next week's exam." Saying this, she took out her textbooks for today's classes and prepared to leave the dorm. Then she noticed her phone on the pillow and remembered Chu Feifan.
She picked up the phone and saw there were no missed calls, only one text message. She opened it; it was from Zuo Yi.
A Night of Uncertainty!
Su Jin'er felt her heart skip a beat, her heartbeat quickening as she realized that he hadn’t returned all night.
Seeing Su Jin'er's suddenly pale face, Ruan Hongmei looked at her phone in surprise and said, "Chu Feifan hasn’t come back all night?"
Su Jin'er didn’t respond; her hands were trembling, and she could barely hold her phone. She dialed Zuo Yi's number, and after a few rings, he picked up.
"Hello, Jin'er," Zuo Yi's voice sounded a bit lazy, as if he was still half-asleep.
"Has Chu Feifan not returned all night?" Her voice trembled, and her body shook.
There was silence on the other end for a few seconds before he replied with a soft "Mm."
"What about now?"
"Still hasn’t come back," Zuo Yi's tone was calm.
Su Jin'er’s heart raced, as if it might leap out of her mouth at any moment. A sense of dread washed over her mind. She took a deep breath and said, "Okay, I understand."
Just as she was about to hang up, she heard knocking on the door from the other side, followed by Zuo Yi asking who it was.
It seemed Zuo Yi had placed the phone on the bed. She intended to end the call but her intuition told her that the person knocking might be Chu Feifan.
"Where have you been?" Zuo Yi's voice came through the phone.
After a few seconds, Chu Feifan's voice came through.
"Hotel!" His voice was calm, devoid of any emotion.
Su Jin'er felt her heart drop into an ice pit. The reason he hadn't returned all night was that he went to a hotel. Why would he go to a hotel, and who was he with? Was it Qin Yu?
A series of questions flooded her mind, making her head spin.
Next, Zuo Yi asked the question she wanted to know.
"What did you go to the hotel for?"
"Nothing," Chu Feifan replied impatiently.
"Did you do something to hurt Jin'er?" Zuo Yi's voice rose; he must be angry.
"I don't know, don't ask me."
"You jerk."
Then she heard the sounds of a fight. She hung up the phone and sat weakly on the bed.
"What's wrong? Did something happen to Chu Feifan?"
Ruan Hongmei asked with concern upon seeing her pale face.
Is something wrong?
At this moment, she actually had the thought that she would rather let something happen to him.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she weakly leaned against the wall.
"What happened?" Seeing her tears, Ruan Hongmei asked in panic. Aside from when Linyuan had just died, she had never seen her cry again.
"Jin'er, tell me, what happened?"
Su Jin'er shook her head and said, "Don't mind me, it will be fine soon."
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