DA chapter 13

 

Lin Jia gave two examples of how a “death” could be materialized. No matter which one it was, neither was something everyone could afford to bear.

His examples frightened everyone. The incident had not yet occurred, but imagining it was enough to make one shiver.

“Yile Apartments has three floors and nine rooms. Who would know where a murder would happen?” The high school boy looked terrible. He scanned the surroundings and said nervously, “Maybe it’s this room…”

Beside him, Xiao Mei’s face turned pale. Terrified, she said, “Don’t talk nonsense.”

Buzzcut turned back and glared at the high school boy. “Shut your damn crow’s mouth. If you can’t control that mouth of yours, I’ll damn well sew it shut.”

Among those present, the high school boy was the youngest, and this was his first time entering Fish Belly. After experiencing two consecutive deaths, his nerves were on edge, and he began to sob and tremble uncontrollably.

It wasn’t out of compassion—at a time like this, negative emotions were like a plague. Anyone’s breakdown could become the hidden danger that capsizes the boat.

Lin Jia asked, “Is there water? Give him some.”

Sister Fang responded the fastest: “Yes.”

She hurried to get water and let the high school boy drink it.

Seeing the high school boy’s cracked lips moisten with clean water, Lin Jia finally spoke up. “The location where the incident happened is most likely the stairwell.”

Everyone suddenly looked at him.

The high school boy wanted to ask something, but forgot that he was still drinking water. He choked and his face turned red.

Buzzcut seized the chance to speak. “Because the white shadow appeared in the stairwell?”

He immediately answered himself. “Yes, the incident should have happened in the stairwell! The white shadow is smoke from burning sacrificial items. If not, why burn them there? There are so many other places where they could have burned the sacrificial items—the lobby, outside the apartments… anywhere!”

This was good news. Knowing the location meant they could avoid ‘the death’. However, if they wanted to go upstairs in Yile Apartments later, they would need to find another way. But that was fine—as long as people were alive, there would always be a solution.

As long as…

Buzzcut had barely been happy before his face fell again.

As long as it wasn’t the materialized of “the dead returning,” they could avoid death by not stepping into the stairwell. But who could say for sure what form the materialized “the death” would take?

Buzzcut rubbed his face and asked Lin Jia without much hope, “Do you know which kind it is?”

Unexpectedly, he got an answer from Lin Jia.

Buzzcut heard Lin Jia say, “Wait.”

“Wait?” Even Liu Ying, who usually didn’t like to talk, couldn’t help but ask.

These people were bound to ask more questions. Lin Jia took the initiative to explain. “Wait for rain.”

Sister Fang lowered her head and thought for a moment, then suddenly understood. “The white shadow appeared during rain and at night. That means a human life likely happened on a rainy night. The white shadow exists to commemorate the dead. If it’s a manifestation of the dead returning, then they will most likely appear on a rainy night.”

With Sister Fang’s reminder, Liu Ying also understood. “If it rains, then the materialized form of ‘the death’ is the dead returning. If it doesn’t rain, then the materialized form is the stairwell reenacting death.”

At this point, everyone looked at each other.

As if by unspoken agreement, they all looked at the window.

Lin Jia’s gaze was already fixed on the outside of the window. A cat squatted on the windowsill, its eyes staring at the sky.

It was the third day since they had entered Fish Belly, but it was the first time they had looked outside their apartments. The daylight was dim. Thick clouds hung low in the sky. Lin Jia pushed open the window, and a damp smell drifted in from outside.

Groups of ants moved along the corner of the wall—ants moving house.

“Ants moving house, snakes crossing the road…heavy rain will arrive soon…” Sister Fang thought of the old saying.

In an instant, everyone’s faces turned ashen—the dead were returning.

The weather before an imminent rainstorm was heavy and oppressive. The sky was dim, as if it were already nighttime, with no indication of when it would turn completely dark.

Since the materialized form of “the death” had already occurred, Lin Jia felt there was no need to stay any longer.

He planned to leave.

Everyone looked at him hesitantly, wanting to say something but ultimately remaining silent.

In Fish Belly, everyone was struggling just to survive. Moreover, everyone clearly understood—Lin Jia was not a good person. He was only willing to share his thoughts for the sake of the Fish Spirit. Besides, if these people died within the materialized “the death,” it might become trouble for him.

Lin Jia left the room. One by one, people followed him out.

With the dead returning, some were afraid to be alone in a room, while others refused to huddle together for warmth for fear that they would become a burden to someone else.

Lin Jia turned back and glanced around. Buzzcut, Liu Ying, and the high school boy had all come out of the room.

Buzzcut headed toward the second floor. Because the high school boy’s mental state was on the verge of collapse, Liu Ying refused his request to stay in the same room.

With a “bang,” the door closed, leaving the high school boy outside.

The high school boy knocked on the door and called out, “Brother Liu Ying…”

Inside the room, it was quiet. Liu Ying gave no response. The boy’s knocking gradually slowed until it finally stopped, leaving only despair. He looked up at Lin Jia, then at Buzzcut.

Without hesitating, the high school boy ran and threw himself at Buzzcut, begging him to let him stay.

Cat: “…”

Sure enough, anyone could see that Lin Jia was cold.

Naturally, Buzzcut didn’t want to stay in the same room with the high school boy and said viciously, “Get lost.”

Buzzcut was fierce, but he was still human. The high school boy gathered his courage and followed Buzzcut.

After watching them walk safely through the hallway, Lin Jia withdrew his gaze and headed toward his room.

He waited for the cat to come in and then closed the door.

The cat noticed that Lin Jia had forgotten to lock the door. Its body sprang up and nimbly completed the locking motion in reverse. When it turned around, it found Lin Jia seated at the table, opening the toast packaging and tearing off the crusts. Each movement carried an air of elegance, as if he were not eating toast but savoring a rare delicacy.

He didn’t spare the cat a glance, yet he knew perfectly well that the cat was sizing him up.

Lin Jia’s voice was low and faint. “If the dead appear inside the room, locking the door—cutting off our own retreat?”

Because of that sentence, the cat was startled enough that its fur almost stood on end. It sprang up again and adjusted the lock properly.

Just as the cat was about to say something, suddenly—

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

The continuous sounds of something rolling down the stairs echoed abruptly and eerily in the empty apartment.

The cat instantly fell silent and glanced out the window. It didn’t know when it had started raining. At first, the rain wasn’t heavy, and the droplets slowly soaking into the ground. But once the ground was fully drenched, the downpour came in sheets, and thunder cracked across the sky.

The sky was too dark to tell whether it was day or night, but the cat knew…

It had come.

The dead had returned to Yile Apartments.

Of all the people in the apartment, Lin Jia was probably the only one who could remain calm at a time like this. His expression showed no change. He merely frowned slightly, considering whether to put the torn toast crusts on the table or throw them on the floor. He quickly decided to put them on the table when he noticed that the floor had inexplicably developed wet patches, with dry and damp areas mixed together in an eerie mottled pattern.

He tapped the tabletop with his finger, signaling the cat to come eat the crusts.

The cat didn’t move. Not everyone could be like him, still in the mood to eat at a time like this.

Lin Jia stopped paying attention to the cat. After finishing the toast, he stood up to wash the stickiness from his fingers. The sound of water blending with the noise of the torrential rain and the rolling sounds in his ears. He rinsed his long, beautiful fingers under the water until they were no longer sticky, and only then did he tighten the faucet.

When he turned back, he saw the cat watching him from not far away with a complicated expression, clearly thinking about something. But Lin Jia didn’t care what a cat with a brain no bigger than a fist was thinking.

Outside the door, the rolling sounds of “bang bang bang” grew clearer and came at intervals. The rhythm helped Lin Jia understand the scene outside—the continuous “bang, bang, bang” was something rolling down from higher steps, tumbling all the way to the end and stopping. The pause wasn’t very long—just enough time to walk back from the bottom of the stairs to the starting point—and then the “bang bang bang” started again, repeating over and over. The dead were reenacting their own deaths.

He turned his head to glance at the torrential rain outside the window. The rainstorm showed no sign of letting up, and it was unclear when it would stop. Before the rain subsided, they could only stay inside the room. With nothing else to do, Lin Jia took off his watch and planned to sleep.

Just as the clasp made a soft click, a huge peal of thunder followed immediately, and the room’s lights suddenly went out.

The lightning had caused the apartment’s electrical system to shut down. During the thunderstorm, there was no light, and everything around them plunged into darkness.

Lin Jia’s pupils suddenly tightened. His heart felt as if it had dropped into a bottomless pit. The sensation of weightlessness made him grip the watch in his hand tightly.

The hard casing pressed into his palm, leaving faint marks.

“Light…”

Total darkness filled his vision. Lin Jia gasped for breath. “Light…”

The cat hurried over and leaped agilely onto the table, reaching its paw toward the light switch.

The switch crackled under the cat’s touch, but the room remained dark—there was a power outage.

Lin Jia’s breathing became tight. “Light…”

Just as the cat was about to tell Lin Jia that there was a power outage, it suddenly sensed that something was wrong.

The repeated falling sounds outside the door stopped. It was an abrupt stop, not a pause before resuming.

Immediately after—

Rustle, rustle, rustle…

A sound like something crawling replaced the falling sounds.

It no longer reenacted death; instead, it began to crawl slowly. It dragged a cumbersome body, using two elbows to rub against the ground, alternating elbows—left, right, left, right.

Rustle, rustle, rustle…

Step by step, alternating elbows, until it stopped at the door of Room 103.

But Lin Jia seemed completely unaware of all this. He was trapped in his fear of the dark.

Seeing his lips move just before he was about to murmur aloud, the cat moved with lightning speed, pouncing onto him.

The dead were already at the door. The cat was terrified that if Lin Jia murmured again, it would reveal that someone was in the room.

Although there was a huge size difference between humans and cats, at that moment, the cat was extremely strong. Behind Lin Jia was the bed. Lin Jia was completely unguarded, so he and the cat fell onto the bed together.

A dull sound rang out.

For a brief moment, the cat’s heart stopped beating. It pressed its belly against Lin Jia’s face to keep him from making a sound. Then, still shaken, it turned its head to stare at the door.

The door wasn’t locked!

However, there was no movement outside for the moment.

The cat knew the dead hadn’t left yet, so it didn’t dare make any large movements. It could only press tightly against Lin Jia’s face. Afraid of suffocating him, it arched its back from time to time so Lin Jia could breathe air.

This went on for a long time. The cat grew exhausted. But thanks to its vigilance, Lin Jia made no sound, and eventually the rustling resumed.

Only after the sound had faded away did the cat dare relax for a moment, though it still didn’t dare let its guard down completely.

Even though the dead had left, the cat was afraid that, after being trapped in the darkness for so long, Lin Jia might suddenly do something to draw the dead back.

The cat scanned the room, looking for Lin Jia’s phone.

After spotting it by the pillow, the cat extended its long forelimbs. Fortunately, the cat was flexible, so it didn’t take much effort to grab the phone.

Using its paw pads, the cat swiped across the phone screen and found the “flashlight” shortcut. The phone’s flashlight lit up instantly.

Only then did the cat release Lin Jia. It didn’t dare block the light and hurriedly moved aside.

With light now present, the cat knew Lin Jia would slowly recover, so it simply jumped off the bed.

Its original intention was to lock the door. It ran to the door and was just about to leap up and lock it when it suddenly noticed two red points of light under the door.

Finding this strange, the cat looked toward the bottom of the door.

A cat’s eyes are structured to see clearly at night, yet the cat stared at these two red lights for quite a while and still couldn’t tell what they were.

Worried that they were some kind of mark left behind by the dead or camera lights, the cat stretched its paw under the door gap and pushed the red points farther away.

The paw extended out and touched the red points. The sensation was unpleasant—stiff and wet, with the added sensation of writhing sinews.

The cat paused, then withdrew its paw.

It lowered its body, keeping its eyes level with the gap in the door.

With that single look, the cat’s heart instantly went numb.

They weren’t light points at all. They were the dead, guarding the door of Room 103 and peering inside through the gap beneath the door—

A pair of blood-red eyes.

 

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