DA chapter 15

 

After rehearsing once, they prepared to go on stage.

Before the power cut, Lin Jia took out his phone. He had chosen “low power mode” so that the battery would drain as little as possible while ensuring that the light could be used immediately when needed, without the trouble of having to turn it on first.

Some of battery had been used up in the heavy rain just now, leaving 30%.

Lin Jia was unsure whether the remaining battery would last until blogger Xiao Wu was attracted by the traffic material.

He asked Buzzcut for his phone as a backup.

A power outage would plunge the apartment into darkness immediately, so Lin Jia had to prepare in advance. He turned on the flashlight early.

Therefore, the matter of cutting the power was left to Buzzcut and the others.

Pa—

Buzzcut stepped on Liu Ying’s back, opened the electrical box, and cut the circuit.

The voice-activated light in the corridor immediately went out. The only remaining light came from Lin Jia’s phone flashlight, which was set to its lowest setting and merely illuminated the small area in front of him.

The others were not as sensitive to darkness as Lin Jia was. With such little light, they could barely make out the outlines of things by widening their eyes.

They went up the corridor to the third floor.

Buzzcut glanced at Room 303. Everyone looked uneasily at its tightly shut door and the silent surveillance camera.

After looking, Buzzcut rubbed his face and said, “Don’t waste time, let’s start.”

Everyone nodded.

Thus, the performance that had only been rehearsed once officially began.

Xiao Mei nervously opened her mouth. “Why are you here…”

Buzzcut’s voice was several times louder than Xiao Mei’s. Suddenly, he raised his voice: “Why did you come here!”

Although the tone was strange and completely lacked a sense of disaster from being “caught cheating,” Xiao Mei, under Buzzcut’s lead, also raised her voice and questioned according to the script. “Who is he?”

It was Liu Ying’s turn to speak. He glanced at Lin Jia, who was expressionlessly watching the gossip drama, then looked at Room 303 before swallowing and finally speaking his line.

The noise began. Gradually, the few people got into the mood from the initial nervousness and finally attracted blogger Xiao Wu.

Lin Jia heard footsteps behind Room 303’s door. He lifted his chin, instructing them to act more exaggeratedly.

Since the behind-the-scenes director had instructed them to do so, everyone could only obey, quarreling even harder and adding body movements such as pushing.

Soon, the door to Room 303 opened a crack with a click, and blogger Xiao Wu peeked outside through the gap.

Lin Jia quietly put his hand on the doorknob. Before Xiao Wu could be startled, Lin Jia spoke in a natural tone, as if he had found a fellow gossip watcher. He shared what he saw: “A woman caught cheating, and caught the male third party.”

Blogger Xiao Wu paused, and Lin Jia continued, explaining the earlier plot that the latecomer had missed, ending with: “Looks like they’re about to fight.”

This was an exciting highlight. Blogger Xiao Wu retreated into the room and brought out a camera.

Just as blogger Xiao Wu aimed the lens at the scene outside, the door was suddenly pulled open from the outside, catching him off guard. Before blogger Xiao Wu could react, the camera in his hand was snatched away.

An icy hand grabbed his collar. The hand pulled lightly, and his whole body stumbled forward.

After steadying himself, blogger Xiao Wu turned his head and saw a tall figure walk into his room. The figure turned around, revealing an indifferent face, completely different from when he had shared gossip with him.

Bang—

Someone openly broke into blogger Xiao Wu’s home and locked him outside.

Blogger Xiao Wu: “…”

Since blogger Xiao Wu had already fallen into the trap, there was no need for the others to continue acting. Buzzcut stepped forward and snatched the room key from Xiao Wu, stopping him from opening the door.

After entering Room 303, Lin Jia handed the phone to Cat. “Hold it steady.”

Last time, Cat had failed to hold the phone steady in Room 303, leaving Lin Jia in darkness.

Cat held the phone and lit for Lin Jia.

While doing so, Cat looked around the room vigilantly.

Lin Jia was not in a hurry to look for evidence. Whether Room 303 had traces of the dead was still uncertain, but there must be more evidence in the camera—videos shot by blogger Xiao Wu—and it had to be the original footage.

He operated the camera a few times and opened the storage.

As expected, the camera stored a large number of videos. Even if each video was watched for only one second, it would still take a while to finish watching them all.

Lin Jia could only watch selectively. He searched through the video thumbnails for what he wanted, watched suspicious videos for a few seconds longer, and closed those with no issue.

After quite a while, Lin Jia finally found what he was looking for.

“It’s about to rain. Today, I’m taking everyone to see the ants moving house.”

“I found a spectacular place with a lot of ants. If you haven’t seen it, you won’t know how spectacular it is. Too bad I didn’t bring the camera last time, but luckily it’s about to rain again… ah… ah fuck…”

The camera fell, making a loud noise. A white shadow flashed past, and the lens pointed at the white wall of the corridor.

Afterward, blogger Xiao Wu picked up the camera, and the recording continued.

Still shaken, blogger Xiao Wu painfully checked the camera. After confirming that only the shell had been bumped, he sighed with relief and pointed the lens at the “white shadow.” “Are you sick? Why are you burning things in the corridor?”

This time, Lin Jia clearly saw the white shadow.

It was indeed white smoke rising from the fire, distorted by the wind. With the camera angle, it looked very much like a ghostly shadow at first glance.

Not only was the white shadow completely and clearly recorded in this video, but the lens also recorded the burned object. Sacrificial items not yet fully melted by firelight—Lin Jia watched for a few seconds and realized it was paper clothing.

Not ordinary colorful paper clothing, but paper clothing made in the style of a white long dress. Paper products burned very quickly, and in the next second they were completely swallowed by flames, leaving only a drifting mist.

The video played aloud. The cat heard it and asked, “The video already recorded the white shadow, so why did blogger Xiao Wu still chase it?”

Lin Jia switched to the next video and said flatly, “What he chased was not the white shadow.”

“If not the white shadow, then what?” Cat thought carefully and recalled the performance from earlier: “Could it be… traffic?”

“Exactly, traffic!” Cat affirmed immediately.

It was obvious. Blogger Xiao Wu had a complete video recording of the white shadow, but the version he uploaded online was edited. If not deliberately creating highlights and suspense to attract viewers, then what else?

“But why did he delete all the videos? If the videos are deleted, then there’s no traffic. He even posted a clarification video. Did he suddenly grow a conscience? Is it related to the disappeared neighbor?” Cat could not understand and could only ask Lin Jia for help.

Lin Jia lowered his eyes to the video and said without emotion, “He never clarified what the white shadow actually was.”

He saw more clearly than Cat. “Why post a clarification video? You have to ask the netizens.”

Cat: “Netizens?”

Almost all of the stored videos on the camera had been watched, and there were no more discoveries.

Lin Jia stood up and walked to the desk.

Cat quickly followed while lighting. “What does the clarification video have to do with netizens?”

Lin Jia turned on blogger Xiao Wu’s computer. First, he increased the screen brightness. Then, he opened the webpage. “Forgot that things outside the lens were materialized? In the clarification video, he kept looking outside the lens. Do you think his video has anything to do with netizens?”

Cat was shocked. “You…”

You can connect that too.

On the video platform webpage, blogger Xiao Wu had not logged out of his account.

Cat tilted its head and asked, “Can we look at the comments under the clarification video?”

“There is no such video.” Lin Jia clicked the mouse. “His account has started posting new videos. Will he still keep the clarification video?”

Cat: “If the video is deleted, can it count as if he never clarified?”

Lin Jia: “It really can.”

After deleting the videos about them one by one from blogger Xiao Wu’s account to completely eliminate the danger of bad comments becoming real, Lin Jia pushed open the window and threw the computer and camera out.

This was on the third floor. The computer and camera shattered beyond recognition.

As he closed the window, his elbow accidentally touched the green plant beside it.

It was a pot of a spider plant.

Lin Jia stared at it for two seconds. The spider plant’s growth was uneven; the part near the window was vigorous, while the part near the room had dried leaf tips.

He looked again at the wall behind the plant, below the window frame. There was a small, mottled, pale green patch on the white wall that looked as if the spider plant had rubbed color onto it.

Lin Jia called Cat over and pointed to the withered area of the spider plant, telling Cat to dig the soil.

To avoid getting his clothes dirty, Lin Jia stepped back.

Cat returned the phone to Lin Jia. “Here?”

Jumping onto the windowsill, Cat dug into the soil with its claws. “Is something wrong?”

Before Lin Jia could answer, Cat’s claw paused mid-air. Cat touched something and immediately sped up digging the soil.

The cat’s claws dug in so hard they were almost smoking as they finally uncovered it. Lin Jia approached.

It was a photo. Because mud was stuck to it, the image was unclear. Cat brushed away the dirt with its paw pads, and one person and one cat gazed at the photo.

The photo showed girl wearing a long white dress. She was a very beautiful girl. However, most of her dress was smeared red. No matter how Cat wiped, the red stain would not come off.

Cat gave up and asked, “This can’t be blogger Xiao Wu, can it?”

Lin Jia said: “The dead.”

The photo showed a woman, with the background inside Room 303. The two tenants of Room 303 were only Xiao Wu and the dead.

Cat froze for a moment. Its brain, smaller than Lin Jia’s fist, was filled with confusion. “Why did blogger Xiao Wu bury the dead’s photo in the soil?”

Lin Jia: “The person in the photo buried it.”

Cat: “Huh?”

Lin Jia glanced at the wet soil stuck to the cat’s claws. “Half of the spider plant is thriving, and half is withered. Obviously, it’s because of the buried photo. The soil in the withered part is wetter, probably because the blogger thought that watering it more would help. He didn’t know that there was a photo buried in the soil.”

Thus, it could be proven that the spider plant was left by the dead.

Cat was still thinking through the logic when Lin Jia held the light and walked deeper into the room.

It stopped thinking and asked, “What are you looking for?”

Lin Jia: “Other traces left by the dead.”

Cat began searching as well, but without a clear target. After searching in vain several times, it turned its head and saw Lin Jia stop in front of the dressing mirror.

The cat moved closer.

Knowing that Cat would ask about it, Lin Jia pointed to a spot on the mirror. At the edge of the frame was a faint, red oval mark.

Lin Jia: “Give me the photo.”

Cat offered it with both paws.

Lin Jia lowered his gaze and took a quick look. The red in the photo was not much different from the red rubbed on the dressing mirror.

Cat waited patiently, but Lin Jia still didn’t say anything.

Unable to connect the girl in the photo with those scarlet eyes, Cat asked: “What exactly happened to her?”

“Don’t know.” After Cat cleaned the photo, Lin Jia put it away. “Isn’t it almost dawn?”

Dawn meant new questions would refresh.

Cat asked, “What question are you planning to ask? You’re not really going to ask if what happened to her is related to the neighbors, are you?”

Thinking of the danger when the dead guarded the door during the rain and the high school boy’s death—the trail of blood in the corridor was still there—Cat felt that bringing up the neighbors again would be courting death.

Before finding a way to avoid being killed by the dead, Lin Jia would naturally avoid asking questions related to the neighbors. Otherwise, he would not have appeared in Room 303 looking for traces of the dead. However, the problem was that the traces he found did not provide a clear direction for further investigation.

Now, he could only use the clues at hand to make guesses and seek confirmation from Fishman.

However, Fishman only provided three safe questions and was about to mutate again. Since he was going to ask, he had to ask precisely. Ideally, after asking, he would grasp the core of Soup Base.

A question like “Is what happened to the dead related to the neighbors?” was not precise enough. Lin Jia already had an affirmative answer in mind, he only temporarily lacked clear evidence.

Lin Jia lowered his head and looked at Cat. Cat always had many questions. He wanted to use Cat to sort out the questions he was still uncertain about, integrate them, and refine them into precise questions to ask Fishman.

So he told Cat, “Now treat me as Fishman.”

Cat agreed, although it didn’t know what Lin Jia wanted to do, “Oh.”

Cat stopped talking and lowered its head to tidy its mud-clumped fur.

Lin Jia frowned. “What are you doing?”

Cat: “Licking fur.”

Lin Jia: “The questions?”

“What questions?” Cat looked blank. “I can’t talk in front of Fishman.”

After a short silence, Lin Jia let out a laugh. “My fault.”

His fault for only knowing Cat’s brain was bad, and not expecting Cat could still break the lower limit.

Lin Jia opened the door and walked out. When the others saw him, they released blogger Xiao Wu. The frightened blogger darted back into the room like a rabbit while the others stared at Lin Jia eagerly.

“Turn the power back on first,” Lin Jia said.

After Yile Apartments regained electricity, Lin Jia turned off the flashlight and saw that the battery was almost gone.

Back at the meeting place, Buzzcut hurriedly asked Lin Jia what he had found. After Lin Jia described the discoveries in Room 303, he repeated the question that had been like “playing lute to a cow” with Cat: “Treat me as Fishman. Without adding any new materialization, ask the questions you want to ask.”[mfn]對牛彈琴 → “playing the lute to a cow,” meaning doing something pointless because the other cannot understand.[/mfn]

He glanced at Cat and added, as if psychologically scarred, “Unlimited times.”

Buzzcut asked first, “Did the dead die by falling down the corridor?”

Judging from the high school boy’s death, Lin Jia answered affirmatively. “Yes.”

Buzzcut continued. “Was she pushed downstairs?”

“Push” only required one killer to commit the murder. However, judging from the neighbors’ evasive attitude toward the white shadow in blogger Xiao Wu’s videos, none of them were free of involvement.

Lin Jia thought briefly. “Most likely not.”

Buzzcut asked, “Did the dead accidentally fall downstairs?”

If the death had been accidental, the neighbors would not have been so evasive about the white shadow. They would openly mourn the dead.

Lin Jia: “No.”

Buzzcut pondered: “If it’s neither pushed nor an accidental fall, then it can only be… suicide?”

Sister Fang took over. “Probably not. The death of the dead should be related to the neighbors.”

Buzzcut said, “Just because it’s suicide doesn’t mean the neighbors are clean of it!”

The argument produced no answer, and everyone looked toward Lin Jia.

Lin Jia spoke the truth: “I cannot determine.”

Suicide was an inference from other questions, but there was still no sign that the dead had rolled down the corridor because of suicide.

Lin Jia looked at everyone and said, “Continue.”

Xiao Mei asked softly, “Was someone forcing the dead to roll down the corridor?”

Sister Fang immediately responded, “You can’t ask like that.”

“Someone” could also become materialized, just as Glasses’s accidental question materialized “things outside the lens.” Everyone clearly knew that “someone” meant the neighbors, and Fishman might directly materialize “someone.”

“Sorry.” Xiao Mei changed the subject. “Was the dead forced to roll down the corridor?”

There was no evidence. Lin Jia: “Cannot determine.”

“Cannot determine” meant neither denial nor affirmation—both were possible.

Xiao Mei shrank a little. “It was those neighbors forcing her, right? Otherwise, why would she fall for no reason?”

This was beyond the scope of the question-and-answer session. Lin Jia: “Continue.”

Sister Fang asked, “Was the dead unable to integrate into Yile Apartment?”

She was isolated because she could not fit in, and only then could she possibly be forced by the neighbors to fall down.

There was no evidence.

Lin Jia: “Can’t determine.”

Liu Ying: “Did the dead do something that angered Yile Apartment?”

After all, they were people who had gone through several Fish Belly incidents. They used “Yile Apartment” to refer to “neighbors.”

Still no evidence. Lin Jia: “Cannot determine.”

After several questions, all of Lin Jia’s answers were “cannot determine.” Without answers, it was difficult to formulate new questions, and no one knew what to ask next.

However, Lin Jia told them to continue.

Buzzcut said bitterly, “Give a direction?”

Lin Jia reminded him. “Photo.”

Everyone had seen the red smeared on the photo’s plastic cover.

Xiao Mei asked weakly, “Is that blood on the photo?”

Lin Jia had considered the red smear. “Most likely.”

“Is it the dead’s blood?” Xiao Mei asked again.

There was also a red stain by the dressing mirror. Thinking back, the shape looked like it was left by injured fingers touching it. Lin Jia: “Most likely.”

Liu Ying asked: “Did she hate her dress that much?”

The dress in the photo was smeared. Lin Jia: “Perhaps.”

Sister Fang said, “Did the dead fall down the corridor wearing the dress she hated?”

The burned object at the place where the white shadow appeared was a white paper dress—exactly the dress worn by the girl in the photo. Lin Jia: “Most likely.”

Everyone’s expressions changed. Buzzcut’s voice sank a little. “What does that mean? I hate it, but I still wear it…”

Sister Fang barely steadied herself. “Did the dead deliberately wear the white dress when they fell into the corridor?”

Lin Jia: “Perhaps.”

Liu Ying asked in a trembling voice, “Did the dead do this for revenge? Put on the hated white dress and choose a rainy night on purpose?”

Lin Jia: “I cannot determine.”

“It means…it’s revenge, right?” Xiao Mei’s tone was no longer calm. “In ghost movies, there are often scenes of people wearing red clothes and jumping off buildings to become fierce ghosts and claim lives…”

“Crazy.” Buzzcut cursed, then suddenly thought of something and asked, “Did the dead have an illness? Was she burying the photo in soil and smearing it with her own blood? What normal person would do that? I’m not insulting her. I mean, did the dead have mental problems?”

After brief thought, Lin Jia: “Perhaps.”

Everyone instantly fell silent, and a strange atmosphere spread soundlessly.

A person with mental problems deliberately wearing a white dress and rolling down the corridor to end her life…

Then materialized.

Holding onto the last bit of hope, Liu Ying asked, “Can the materialized dead with mental health issues distinguish who she truly wants revenge on?”

Is there a safe way to avoid being killed by the dead?” Liu Ying swallowed. “Or is there no safe behavior at all, and the dead is…”

Indiscriminate killing.

So, there was no overlap between sleeping, listening to music, crying, and comforting. The high school boy died not because he did something, but because he had bad luck and was chosen by the dead.

Lin Jia did not answer these questions. He silently looked toward the window.

Everyone followed his gaze—

At some point, it started drizzling outside.

It had started raining again.

 

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