In fact, Gu Mian wanted to explore a question.
If two Sadakos crawled out of two different televisions, what interesting events would occur if you put the two television screens together?
Unfortunately, his place didn’t have two televisions.
Unable to explore this question, Gu Mian opened a bag of popcorn and began to eat it while watching a movie.
But not long after the disc started playing, just as the face of the first extra to die of fright magnified on the screen, the TV suddenly froze.
Gu Mian choked on his popcorn, staring face to face with the terrifying expression on the screen.
Just then, a slow knocking sound suddenly began at the door.
The place where Gu Mian lived was very old, a crumbling apartment building.
There weren’t many tenants upstairs, just five households including him and the landlord.
The hallway was filthy. Many of the voice-activated lights were broken and had never been repaired. No one ever cleaned up, and one of the windows had a large crack, letting in whistling drafts.
No one would normally wander the hallway, let alone knock rhythmically at his door for no reason.
Gu Mian set down his popcorn and went to the door.
The door was also very old, covered with peeling wallpaper, and the lock looked flimsy, as if one could kick it open with a single shove.
Above the door was a transom window that could be opened. It was transparent but covered with translucent paper, so if someone outside were peering through it, you could vaguely see inside.
The knocking continued incessantly.
There was a peephole in the door at about eye-level, and Gu Mian leaned forward to look through it.
Just as his eye reached the peephole, the noise abruptly stopped.
There was nothing outside, save for half a ’fu’ character sticker, fallen from the opposite door, flapping against the door panel in the night wind.
The voice-activated light hanging on the wall had been broken for a long time. He could only rely on the moonlight to see outside, but after peering for a while, he couldn’t make out any sign of a person.
"Strange, looks like I’ll have to find a flashlight..." Gu Mian muttered as he returned to the TV.
The screen was still frozen on that horrible face, but the face itself seemed somewhat different from before. Its gaze appeared to have shifted direction.
Without a care for where its eyes were looking, Gu Mian reached out and slapped the top of the TV.
That was how he used to fix it when the TV at the orphanage froze.
After two slaps, the screen remained stuck.
Gu Mian stared at the screen and reached out again. This time, he used considerable force; the impact of his slap made the table beneath the TV shudder a few times.
A brief whirring sound, like a stuck disc, passed, and the picture finally started playing smoothly again.
Gu Mian contentedly sat back on the couch and picked up his popcorn.
"My teammates haven’t called me yet," he murmured to himself while watching the screen. "Looks like tonight is going to be a peaceful one."
But no sooner had he put some popcorn in his mouth than that eerie knock sounded again.
It had the same rhythm as before: slow and drawn-out. Each knock seemed to linger in the dark night, sounding utterly eerie.
Gu Mian went to the door again and put his eye to the peephole.
And, just as his eye reached the peephole, the sound outside stopped.
Outside remained bleak and empty.
The howling night wind whistled into the stairwell, creating strange sounds that echoed through the corridor, making one feel uneasy.
He turned to leave the doorway.
But at that moment, the eerie knock came again from behind.
This time, Gu Mian was prepared. He spun around and yanked the door open. A cool night breeze instantly poured into the living room from the doorway, but apart from the wind, there was nothing else.
The ’fu’ character sticker on the opposite door was still flapping against it. Gu Mian glanced left and right; there wasn’t a single soul in sight.
There was only darkness and cold wind outside.
He closed the door again.
Perhaps because Gu Mian had opened the door so unexpectedly this time, the knocking remained silent for a good while.
For a long time, the only sounds in the corridor were the wind and the ’fu’ character sticker flapping against the door.
But the silence didn’t last too long before that eerie knocking started up again.
The drawn-out sound echoed in the dark corridor.
But before a fourth knock could sound, a beam of white light shattered the eerie atmosphere.
A sinister-looking face, holding a flashlight, slowly peeked out from above the door.
Gu Mian stood on a stool, half of his face deathly pale in the flashlight’s beam, peering outside.
"I’m gonna see which bastard keeps fucking knocking on my door!"
「Meanwhile, Yuwen Hao was sitting restlessly on his bed.」
He had most of his body covered with his quilt, occasionally twisting his neck to examine his surroundings.
His bedroom door was wide open. He had already switched off the lights in the living room, so it was pitch black out there.
He felt somewhat restless; for some reason, he always had the feeling someone was watching him.
It was as if the gaze came from the side of the bed, from the shadows under his desk, or even from the dark living room outside.
Yuwen Hao looked out his bedroom door.
At night, in the pitch-black living room beyond the door, it seemed as if someone was standing ramrod straight, staring intently at him.
He shrank back, rigid, glancing once again at the living room outside the door. There was no one there, only darkness.
Yuwen Hao stared intently at his bedroom door. After a long internal struggle, he finally dared to move his leg out from under the quilt.
He quickly put on his slippers, went to the door, and shut it.
"PHEW—" Only after closing the door did he let out a long sigh of relief. "That’s much better."
Just then, a sudden noise jolted him half to death.
It was the phone on his bedside table. The caller ID showed Lin Yue’er.
Yuwen Hao quickly returned to his bedside to answer the phone, once again pulling the quilt over most of his body.
"Hello? Yue’er?" He gripped the receiver tightly.
The other end was silent for a good while, then came the sound of somewhat heavy breathing. After several breaths, Lin Yue’er’s faint voice finally came through the receiver.
"Yuwen Hao...? I... I’m a little scared right now. I don’t dare to speak too loudly..."
Yuwen Hao frowned, his own voice instinctively lowering. "What’s wrong?"
"It seems... It seems there’s someone under my bed...
"I didn’t dare turn off the lights tonight... I was just lying in bed, covered with my quilt, and then... then I heard it. It sounded like there was a noise coming from under the bed...
"That rustling sound... like clothes rubbing against the floor. At first, I thought I’d misheard it... but then it happened again...
"It was right behind my back, the sound coming from under the bed... almost right next to my ear..."
Lin Yue’er paused again at this point.
Yuwen Hao waited for a long time before her voice came through again. "It just happened again!"
"Don’t be scared," Yuwen Hao reassured in a whisper. "Where are you now, still on the bed?"
"Mm-hmm... I don’t dare to move. I wanted to get out of bed just now, but I saw a hand pull back under the bed... (she sniffled) I’m scared I’ll be dragged under if I get down. I only dared to grab the phone from the nightstand to call you..."