Haunted House, Piano Room.
The piano room was located on the west side of the St. Maria Charity Institute. Unlike other buildings, it was the only place that showed no traces of being burned by fire. Pushing open the door to the piano room, the first thing that greeted the eyes was a white wooden piano.
“Shao Wei, have you found the switch yet?”
“Almost, almost.” Faced with Lin Dangdang’s urging, Shao Wei wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Fifteen minutes earlier, the two had entered the piano room together. Lin Dangdang displayed an excitement and bravery that was extremely disproportionate to her height, running straight towards the piano as soon as they entered. She knocked and tapped around the room with an unusual familiarity, and within five minutes, found a diary with messy handwriting from the drawer behind the piano, which was a prop on the clue card.
The diary belonged to a girl named Xiao Ai. She was a third-grade student at the St. Maria Charity Institute, having lost her parents at a young age and was raised by the headmaster. Due to her ugly appearance, Xiao Ai was often mocked by her classmates. They called her a devil, throwing trash bins over her. They locked her in the bathroom, telling her that devils should stay where people can’t see them.
The diary entries, though written with a childlike innocence, were gloomily chilling. Shao Wei and Lin Dangdang flipped through the diary by the light of a flashlight, keeping an eye on the window while discussing softly.
“According to the general logic of haunted houses, this Xiao Ai is the real ghost,” Lin Dangdang said.
“Why is that?”
“The three major principles of becoming a ghost: school bullying, supernatural abilities, and leaving a diary,” Lin Dangdang counted on her fingers, “This is the so-called trope.”
Despite the beautiful people disliking Xiao Ai, she did not hate beautiful things. In the central square of the St. Maria Charity Institute, there was a beautiful garden. On clear days, the teachers would cancel classes for the day and take the young children to play in the garden.
But Xiao Ai was never allowed to join the playgroup. The children feared and disliked her. They said that Xiao Ai’s parents were killed by her. Her ugly birthmark and unpleasant voice would bring misfortune to everyone.
But Xiao Ai was not jealous of them, because she had her own garden. Her garden was a secret base located behind the headmaster’s office. Inside the glasshouse were flowers of extremely vibrant colors.
The secret base was securely surrounded by a wall, and except for the headmaster and the dean, no one could enter. But Xiao Ai knew that on the east side of the wall, deep in the bushes, there was a dog hole for people to come and go.
Xiao Ai knew the schedules of the headmaster and the dean. They would leave the school every Friday to go about their busy lives. Adults always had a lot to do. Every time this happened, she would enter the secret base through the small door, and through the glass, look at her flowers.
She did not have a beautiful appearance, nor joyful friends. She had nothing, only those mesmerizingly beautiful flowers that were the best things she owned.
Until one day, a new substitute music teacher came to the school. The teacher was a student from a nearby music high school, with skin as white as snow.
Xiao Ai called her Xue’er.
“Xue’er is a very beautiful person, but she doesn’t dislike me, she’s different from those people.”
“She said I have very beautiful eyes, played the piano for me, and her smile was really beautiful.”
“I think I can like this world a little more for her.”
“She said the world is big and beautiful, and when July comes for summer vacation, she would take me to Yunnan to play, she said there are many beautiful flowers in Yunnan.”
“June 1st is Xue’er’s birthday, everyone likes Xue’er, they all prepared gifts for her.”
“But I have no money, nor beautiful gifts, I have nothing.”
“I can only show Xue’er the only, best thing I have.”
The diary stopped on that day. Lin Dangdang flipped through the diary, but there was no new content after that.
Shao Wei asked her, “What happened next?”
Lin Dangdang lowered her head, turned her back to him, and didn’t speak. Shao Wei then leaned forward a bit, asking her, “And then?”
“Later… they all died!”
The next moment, Shao Wei saw a face with blood flowing from its eyes looking at him. He screamed in fright and fell backward. Lin Dangdang, having succeeded in her prank, was laughing uncontrollably as she twisted the lipstick back into its cap: “Hahahaha, you’re so lame, hahahaha!”
She casually wiped off the lipstick she had smeared on her face. Shao Wei, embarrassed and annoyed by his own clumsiness, stuttered, “You… you…”
“What are you scared of, there are no real ghosts in a haunted house,” Lin Dangdang shrugged, “Let’s go, we have to gather in ten minutes. This…” she waved the diary in her hand, “the clues here are enough.”
The two walked out of the piano room one after the other. As they were about to reach the gathering point, Lin Dangdang patted her pocket and exclaimed, “I lost my lipstick!”
With that, she turned back to look for it. Shao Wei stopped her, saying, “It’s just a lipstick, if it’s lost, it’s lost.”
“You don’t understand,” Lin Dangdang said, “That’s a TF lipstick, it’s very expensive!”
Seeing that Lu Jin and the others were already waiting ahead, Shao Wei, recalling his earlier embarrassment, suddenly saw a new opportunity to show off. He then said, “Then you go ahead and join them, organize the clues. I’ll go back and find your lipstick.”
Lin Dangdang looked at him suspiciously, “Can you do it alone? Or should I go back, and you give them the diary?”
Being so doubted by a girl, Shao Wei felt that his dignity as a man was being challenged. He puffed out his chest and said, “What can’t I do? In our street dance club, I’m also…”
Lin Dangdang said, “I feel like you’re only good at singing, dancing, and rapping, nothing else.”
Shao Wei, dealt a devastating blow to his confidence, immediately cooled down and said, “Give me the light.”
As soon as he said this, he realized the light had always been in his hand. But his strong psychological quality prompted him to continue, “You, go over and give them the diary. I, will go back and find the lipstick for you. Don’t wait for me, I’ll be back within ten minutes.”
After saying this, he walked towards the piano room with the posture of “a hero never looks back at the explosion.” Before he had gone two steps, he heard Lin Dangdang’s voice from behind, “Shao Wei…”
Is she impressed? Impressed by my manliness?
Feeling secretly pleased, Shao Wei heard Lin Dangdang’s second sentence, “If you can’t handle it, remember to press the alarm, it’s okay if you can’t find the lipstick.”
Shao Wei: …
When Shao Wei returned to the piano room, it was already five minutes later. When he came, he was with Lin Dangdang, his heart filled with a strong desire to impress, so the eerie atmosphere of the haunted house didn’t bother him. Now, going back alone, he saw ghostly shadows all around him, as if all the malice in the world was surging towards him.
As soon as he pushed open the wooden door of the piano room, he heard the sound of “Für Elise” coming from the piano. His hair standing on end, he thought of his dignity as a man, swallowed his saliva, and continued to walk inside.
Sure enough, there was a person sitting on the piano stool. The person had long hair draped over their head, only giving him a back view. Gathering his courage, he patted the person’s shoulder, “Hey, staff member, have you seen a TF boys endorsed lipstick?”
He just gave a light push, and the person had already fallen to the other side, landing heavily on the ground. A round object rolled straight towards him, it was a bloody head. The mouth part of the head was a toothless void, opening and closing as if saying something.
Shao Wei couldn’t hold on any longer, he screamed and rushed out the door, but as he pushed the door open, he ran straight into someone.
That person’s body was cold and as hard as a rock. Shao Wei was about to scream again, but he heard a chilling “shh”.
He looked down and saw Lin Huai’s expressionless face in the dim light, then his heart settled a bit, “Lin Huai! There’s a ghost in that room!”
As soon as he finished speaking, he remembered his duty again—to help Lin Dangdang find the lipstick. He said tremblingly, “My… my lipstick fell inside.”
The person he had caught had not spoken for a long time. Shao Wei looked down again, only to see the handsome young man looking at him even more expressionlessly.
Lin Huai: “You’re so girly.”
Shao Wei: “No, it’s not like that! Actually, that’s Lin Dangdang’s lipstick, I just…”
Lin Huai: “Why are you wearing Lin Dangdang’s clothes, and using her stuff?”
Shao Wei had no way to argue, Lin Huai walked ahead into the piano room, carrying the light to look for the lipstick. Shao Wei saw the head again, screamed once more, and begged Lin Huai to kick it out. Lin Huai looked at him screaming like a ghost, picked up the TF16 on the ground, put it in his bag, stood up and said, “This thing is obviously fake, why are you screaming so loudly, go find the property management.”
Shao Wei: “But but but, where does it look like it’s not real!”
Upholding the bond of father and son, Lin Huai decided to be patient with him. He squatted down, put the head and half a body together, and pointed it out to Shao Wei, “Look, the cut line of this wound is not right first of all, and the blood on this head is super fake.”
He sincerely explained for three minutes, and Shao Wei finally calmed down a bit. Lin Huai continued, “Next time you see such a fake ghost, don’t just scream like a ghost, use your brain to think, how could a mere haunted house hire real ghosts to perform.”
“But,” Shao Wei stubbornly retorted, “I’ve never seen a real one, how would I know the difference between fake and real!”
Lin Huai silently looked at him, then glanced up at the monitor. A blood-red murderous glint flashed in his eyes, and the next moment, the red dot that originally belonged to the monitor went dark.
In the central building, Chen Shu was still pondering the contents of the monitor. Lin Huai’s words had given him a lot of inspiration.
‘This person is really amazing,’ he thought, ‘it’s almost as if he has killed someone himself…’
The next moment, the screen went dark. He turned to Zhou Ming, “What’s wrong with your monitor?”
Zhou Ming looked at the monitor, also feeling a bit strange, “It’s really strange, it was just serviced yesterday…”
Meanwhile, Lin Huai hooked his finger at Shao Wei, “Come closer.”
Shao Wei looked at him.
“Thud!”
The next moment, a spherical object fell to the ground.
The head was lifted up by hands, placed on the chest, the mouth still opening and closing towards Shao Wei.
“Now, do you see clearly?”
Shao Wei’s eyes rolled back, and he fainted.
