4
Ngô Lam didn’t notice the look on my face at all.
She bent down to finish mopping the floor, then straightened up. “I’ll go wash the mop.”
Tần Tiếu took her washcloth and toothbrush from the rack. “Perfect timing. I haven’t brushed my teeth or washed my face yet. Let’s go together.”
They pushed open the dorm door and headed for the bathroom together.
The hallway was still deathly quiet, but neither Ngô Lam nor Tần Tiếu seemed to find this strange. They walked shoulder to shoulder toward the bathroom in silence.
I watched them walk away, trembling all over.
What was going on? Tonight, every one of my roommates seemed extremely strange.
Everything Tần Tiếu did was steeped in the eerie.
Even Ngô Lam, the person I trusted most, was lying to me.
And my last roommate…
I looked up at Mạnh Lệ Nhi’s bed and suddenly felt that something was wrong.
When Ngô Lam dropped the teacup just now, it had made a tremendous crash.
Normally, given Mạnh Lệ Nhi’s personality, she would have stuck her head out long ago to complain about us disturbing her sleep.
But this time, Mạnh Lệ Nhi had been silent the whole time.
I hesitated, then tried calling to her from below the bed. “Lệ Nhi?”
No one answered.
Tiểu Nhiên’s comment appeared on my phone again: [This is really bad. The tomb owner’s energy has become very strong. Find somewhere to hide, quickly!]
I was getting anxious too. I swept my phone around the dorm. “Can you come up with something useful? There’s nowhere in our dorm to hide!”
The cramped dorm had four bunk beds and nothing else but four wardrobes—but they were so small that even a six-year-old couldn’t fit inside.
Tiểu Nhiên looked around through my camera, then quickly typed: [Hide on Mạnh Lệ Nhi’s bed and draw the curtain.]
As if there wasn’t time to explain, she quickly typed one huge red word: [Hurry!!!]
Actually, I didn’t need Tiểu Nhiên to hurry me along.
Because almost at that very moment, I heard footsteps outside the door.
One step, then another.
The footsteps echoed down the empty hallway, drawing closer and closer to the dorm.
The most terrifying thing was…
There was only one person’s footsteps.
Ngô Lam and Tần Tiếu had gone to the bathroom together.
But now, only one of them was coming back.
Where was the other one?
I didn’t dare think about it.
…
When people are terrified, enormous reserves of potential can suddenly burst forth.
I lunged to the ladder almost instantly, scrambled up to Mạnh Lệ Nhi’s bed in two or three steps, yanked the curtain shut, climbed inside, and quickly zipped it up.
In the pitch darkness, Mạnh Lệ Nhi lay with her back to me, curled up under the covers as if fast asleep.
Outside, the footsteps continued, steady and unhurried.
I was afraid Mạnh Lệ Nhi would suddenly wake up, find me in her bed, and scream, so I whispered, [Lệ Nhi, wake up.]
Mạnh Lệ Nhi didn’t answer.
I had no choice but to tug hard at her and roll her over.
The next second, I was face-to-face with a shattered human face.
…
I’d rolled Mạnh Lệ Nhi onto her back. On the narrow bed, we lay facing each other, our faces almost touching.
Her black hair was matted to her face with something sticky—who knew whether it was brains or blood. Her skull was caved in, making her look like a broken doll.
From her empty eye sockets, where her eyeballs were gone, two streams of bloody tears ran down as she stared at me without blinking.
Mạnh Lệ Nhi seemed to have one last breath in her. She opened her mouth, but her throat could no longer make a sound. Her lips only moved, forming a shape.
I recognized that shape.
She was saying:
“Nguyễn Nguyễn, run!”
Nguyễn Nguyễn.
Run!
…
Almost at that exact moment.
The dorm door opened.
A woman’s voice came from the doorway:
“Nguyễn Nguyễn, where are you?”
5
I thought I was going to faint.
But I didn’t.
Every cell in my brain was screaming. I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep myself from crying out.
I lay rigid on the bed, facing Mạnh Lệ Nhi, who no longer looked human at all, and listened to the footsteps ceaselessly pacing below.
“Nguyễn Nguyễn, where are you?”
My phone was right beside me. The camera must have caught Mạnh Lệ Nhi’s face just now, because the livestream had been shut down.
I couldn’t see Tiểu Nhiên’s comments anymore.
I was overwhelmed by a despair I’d never felt before. I knew no one could save me now.
But I couldn’t let her find me.
If she found me, she would kill me just like Mạnh Lệ Nhi.
“Nguyễn Nguyễn, where are you?”
“Nguyễn Nguyễn, are you hiding from me…”
The footsteps kept circling the cramped dorm. At last, they stopped in front of Mạnh Lệ Nhi’s bed.
My heart felt like it was about to leap out of my throat.
She’d found me!
There was no helping it. In the darkness, my heartbeat sounded terrifyingly loud, and I couldn’t control it at all.
She must have heard it.
Sure enough, the next second, a sinister laugh rang out.
“I found you, Nguyễn Nguyễn.”
I recognized that voice.
It was Ngô Lam.
Tears spilled uncontrollably from my eyes. I closed them and trembled all over, waiting for death.
Was Ngô Lam the tomb owner?
If so, she must have killed Tần Tiếu in the bathroom.
I was next.
I trembled nonstop, waiting for the bed curtain to be pulled open.
But half a minute passed, then a full minute.
The dorm was silent.
A moment later, the footsteps sounded again.
“Nguyễn Nguyễn, don’t be afraid. It’s Lam—your big sister Lam.”
“Why are you hiding from me? I told you I’d protect you.”
“Nguyễn Nguyễn, where are you…”
The footsteps moved away.
Ngô Lam left the dorm.
My whole body went cold. I couldn’t believe my ears.
She hadn’t found me after all. That “I found you” had been a deliberate attempt to scare me!
By then, Ngô Lam had left the dorm. Thinking I’d escaped, she started searching for me in the hallway.
I struggled to my feet, wrapped my sweat-soaked pajamas tightly around myself, and tried not to look at the corpse lying on the bed with its eyes open.
Suddenly, the corpse began to vibrate with a buzzing sound.
I was so terrified I nearly left my body again. Once I pulled myself together, I realized it was my phone vibrating.
An unfamiliar number, not saved under a name.
I hesitated, then touched my ear. The Bluetooth earpiece I’d worn while livestreaming was still in there; it hadn’t fallen out the whole way here.
I tried pressing the answer button.
A cool voice came from the other end. I could tell it belonged to a young woman.
“Hello, this is Tiểu Nhiên.”
In that moment, I almost cried.
It was like seeing my savior appear just when I was at my most desperate.
I didn’t know how she’d gotten my number. Tiểu Nhiên didn’t give me a chance to ask. Her voice was calm, but she spoke very quickly. “Don’t say anything. Don’t ask questions. Just listen to me.”
“I have a general idea of your situation. I went out earlier to find help. We’re on our way to rescue you now.”
“Don’t hang up. Add this number on WeChat, then tell me what’s happening in a message.”
I hurried to do as Tiểu Nhiên said. After adding her on WeChat, I explained what was happening.
In my panic, I made a ton of typos, but luckily Tiểu Nhiên could understand them.
She was silent for a moment, then spoke quietly to the person beside her. “This doesn’t look good. Quý Triệu, how much longer until we get to School A?”
“At least twenty minutes.”
The young man beside her was probably driving.
“Let me talk to her.”
Tiểu Nhiên held the phone near Quý Triệu’s mouth, and the young man’s voice came through much more clearly.
“Miss, I was called in to deal with a ghost, but as you can see, we’re still on the way. You’ll have to hold on by yourself for a little longer.”
“From what you’ve told us, you’re probably the last living sacrifice. If you’re killed too, the ritual will be complete. Once the tomb owner devours the souls of all three sacrifices, it will become an extremely powerful corpse. I’m afraid I can’t be sure I’ll be able to fight it then.”
“So no matter what, you have to find a way to stay alive until we get there.”
Obviously I wanted to stay alive! That went without saying!
The problem was, how was I supposed to stay alive?
As if he’d guessed what I was thinking, Quý Triệu quickly continued:
“I told you to climb onto your roommate’s bed because I noticed that it was surrounded by fresh corpse energy.”
I nearly fainted.
They’d noticed and hadn’t even warned me. I’d nearly had a heart attack from fright just now.
“Ghosts find people differently from the living. Their sight and hearing are extremely poor, so they rely on the smell of the living to find them. Since you’re with a corpse, the corpse energy will mask your living scent, so she can’t detect you for now.”
“But this isn’t a long-term solution. The corpse energy on this bed is spreading and getting thinner. Once it thins out enough, it won’t be able to mask your scent anymore.”
I quickly typed: “So I need to find something else to cover my scent?”
“Smart. There’s also one other way to save your life in an emergency: write the tomb owner’s birth date on red paper and carry it with you. It can help you escape death once when she tries to kill you.”
“While the tomb owner is still gone, hurry and act—quickly!”