Chapter 4: The Room Was Empty

The fact that someone was hiding in this locked room that had never been opened made Yu Sheng’s scalp tingle, and immediately after that, an uncontrollable series of conjectures came flooding out.

Who was that? When had the owner of that voice hidden in there? Had they sneaked in while he was asleep, or had they been there ever since he arrived two months ago?

If it was the second case, then he had spent a long time in this big house without going out, and he could be sure that during that time, the door to this second-floor room had never been opened. So the person in the room had been hiding in there all along? Was there another passage in the room, or…

Was that faint laughter really coming from a "person"?

All sorts of chaotic thoughts surged and churned wildly in his mind, but the expression on Yu Sheng’s face gradually calmed down—perhaps it was some change brought about by his earlier encounter with that "frog," or maybe it was the effect of having "come back from the dead." He felt that his current state of mind… was a bit strange.

He couldn’t tell whether that voice was kind or malicious, but he could definitely sense its eeriness. Yet Yu Sheng found that after that initial moment of scalp-tingling fear, all the terror and hesitation had vanished from his heart. All that remained now… was intense curiosity.

He wanted to figure out what was in that room.

He wanted to figure out what secrets this big house, which he had taken as his safe haven, held.

This was his safe house, his only "home" in this huge city—and there couldn’t be anything unsafe in a safe house.

He slowly approached, pressed his ear against the door, and thought he heard faint laughter still lingering inside, but it might also have been an illusion—perhaps just the hollow sound of wind swirling in his ear.

He curled his fingers and knocked on the door.

"Open up. I heard you."

The door naturally didn’t open, but the hollow laughter did indeed stop.

It was as expected. Yu Sheng said nothing, just turned and left—he went to the next room, which was cluttered with all sorts of junk, and grabbed an axe from inside.

Back at the locked door, he silently raised the axe high and brought it down with all his strength.

The sharp blade struck the thin wooden door, producing a piercing sound like metal colliding. Sparks flew from the axe’s edge, but the door, which looked like it could be kicked open with one blow, didn’t even have a scratch.

The faint laughter came again, muffled, but Yu Sheng paid it no attention. With a calm expression, he lifted the axe once more, as if engaged in a task that required great care, detail, and patience, and continued to chop, blow after blow.

He knew this door couldn’t be opened—even with a power drill or an electric saw—but despite knowing that, for the past two months he had tried almost every day to open it by various means. Today, the eerie voice from inside only fueled his determination to get it open.

And as each strike proved futile, that determination only grew stronger. Yu Sheng’s blows became more forceful, more natural, even… more in tune with his own will.

In his gradually emptying mind, some bizarre associations surfaced out of nowhere—he felt like that guy Wu Gang, chopping down the laurel tree on the moon. If he could just cut down that damn tree, then Chang’e, the Jade Rabbit, Bald Qiang, and Sisyphus, who were watching on the sidelines, would form a circle and applaud him…

He had no idea why Sisyphus had shown up in his imagination.

Meanwhile, the laughter from behind the door grew more piercing, more distinct, and closer, as if its owner had walked up and was pressing right against the wooden door, as if she knew full well that the door was indestructible and was mocking him without restraint through this wall of sighs.

But suddenly, another voice cut into that eerie, grating laughter—it sounded tense and annoyed: "Can you stop laughing! If he actually opens the door and comes in, I’m the first one he’s going to chop!"

The laughter inside immediately stopped.

Yu Sheng, who had been raising his axe to strike again, froze for a moment, and then he heard a crack from his waist.

With that crack, the axe he couldn’t stop came down, hitting a spot he hadn’t intended at all.

A crisp sound, completely different from the earlier harsh crashes, came from the door. The axe in Yu Sheng’s hand fell to the floor, and then he quickly raised his hand… and pressed it against his waist.

His waist hurt. He had thrown it out pretty badly—sharp, stabbing pain.

Holding his waist, he struggled over to the door and took two seconds to recover before focusing on the spot where his last blow had landed.

A "flash" lingered about two or three centimeters from the door panel, near one side of the door hinge. It looked like a spark thrown off when the axe struck, but it seemed frozen in the air at the moment the light burst.

And by that faint glow, Yu Sheng vaguely saw something on the nearby door panel.

He reached out to touch it.

From behind the door came a suppressed, shrill scream: "Ah—"

Yu Sheng’s eyes flew open. The bright electric light in the living room was a bit glaring. Lying on the sofa to sleep had left his whole body sore. The clock on the wall not far away ticked, and the dial showed that he had been asleep for less than forty minutes.

Yu Sheng lay on the sofa, dazed for a moment, before the numb memories in his mind gradually became clear.

He had fallen asleep… and that was just a dream?

He stared blankly, but then suddenly felt something was wrong.

The process of that "dream" had been too real, the details too clear and complete. He could even clearly remember the feel of the axe handle in his hand, the frozen sparks on that door, remember…

He abruptly sat up from the sofa and quickly raised his hand… and pressed it against his waist.

His waist hurt. He had thrown it out pretty badly—sharp, stabbing pain.

"Fuck… sss… shit…" Yu Sheng couldn’t help but utter a string of praise, the combination of a freshly thrown-out waist, the sudden movement, and the general soreness from sleeping on the sofa creating a mixed effect that made him feel, for a moment, that it would have been better to just let that frog stab his heart—at least that had hurt for only two seconds. Then, while pressing his waist, he struggled to stand up, and at the same time became even more certain that it had definitely not been an ordinary "dream."

A thrown-out waist in a dream wouldn’t hurt in reality. Something really sinister had appeared.

That thing had invaded his "safe house."

He adjusted his posture and mindset to keep the waist pain from affecting his movement too much, then thought for a moment before, grimacing, heading up the stairs to the second floor.

With a telescopic baton in one hand, he went back to the cluttered room and found the same axe he had used in the dream. He gripped it in his right hand—the feel of the handle was exactly the same as in the dream, and it even seemed to retain the warmth of his own palm.

He came to the locked door. The door was still as intact and new as ever, without any trace of the "light mark" he had left while chopping in the dream.

Inside the door, it was completely quiet.

It was as if everything was normal, as if nothing had happened.

But Yu Sheng still clearly remembered the position of that light mark.

He hung the baton on his waist, switched the axe to his left hand, and reached out with his right to feel along the door, searching for the spot where he had cut that flash in the dream… He remembered it was near the door hinge. At that time, he had vaguely seen a…

The next second, he felt a handle. A handle that was invisible to the naked eye.

But he clearly remembered that there had been no handle here. From the very first day he discovered this locked door, he had examined every inch of it, felt every surface. He could be certain that he had never touched any "nonexistent handle!"

Why? Was it because he had observed it in the dream? Because he had "seen through" some kind of disguise with the axe? Because he had confirmed its existence, so it actually existed?

In his mind, Yu Sheng quickly ran through all the movies, TV shows, games, and novels he had ever seen, coming up with a bunch of possible explanations in an instant, but his hand didn’t hesitate for a moment. He had already grasped that invisible handle and gently turned it.

The indestructible, locked door opened as easily as that—opened from the side of the hinge.

It was an empty room. Peering through the gradually widening crack, there were only floor and walls. The light from outside the doorway slowly illuminated the dim space, but even after cautiously opening the door all the way, Yu Sheng didn’t see the owner of the mocking voice in the room.

Gripping the axe tightly, he carefully observed the room’s interior, only to find that there really was nothing inside—not even a bed or a chair.

Only the cold moonlight, filtering through the gaps in the old curtain, fell into the room, leaving a dappled pattern on the floor.

But suddenly, the corner of his eye caught something.

There was "something" in the room. On the wall directly opposite the door hung a painting.

An exquisite frame, the edges decorated with intricate, classical vine patterns. In the center of the painting, as a background, was a seat covered in soft red velvet.

But that was all. There was no cursed ghost sitting in the painting, laughing at the intruder.

Frowning, Yu Sheng stared intently at the painting, which was about half a meter tall, for a long time. Keeping his eyes fixed on it, he fumbled along the wall beside the doorframe, found the light switch, and turned on the room’s light.

Under the illumination, every detail of the painting was perfectly clear.

He carefully approached the painting and stared at it for a long time.

Then he noticed, in the very corner of the frame, an extremely faint… corner of a skirt.

"…"

He thought for a moment, then spoke with a strange expression: "Are you there?"

"No!"

A guilty voice came from within the painting.