"In the end, the woman fell into a puddle of water?" The shadow interrupted Feng Bujue then by asking this question.
"Huh? You've heard it before?" Feng Bujue said.
"I want to hear a story that can really scare me, not a joke," the shadow replied.
"Hmm…" Feng Bujue gave a long sigh. "Then let me try another one."
There were plenty such stories in his mind. It would be no problem for him to rattle off one hundred of them.
You want a scary one, do you? he mumbled internally. Then again, this thing itself is a ghost and wants me to tell him a ghost story. This sure is… funny.
This time, Feng Bujue looked like he was really prepared. The shorter the story, the better, and it needed to be scary. With limited word count, scaring someone else with just the power of words was quite challenging.
"That day, I was sitting on the bench in the garden."
Like a schizophrenic patient, Feng Bujue suddenly put on a strange expression and started the new story with himself as the main character.
"There was a fountain before me. I saw the water rise into the sky before falling again. The sky of the late afternoon made me feel rather cold."
The shadow listened to his story silently. From an outsider's perspective, Brother Jue played his role well. Using a first-person perspective, the story felt more real and immediate.
"I listened to the water rushing from the fountain and opened the two or three newspapers next to me. Regardless of the publisher, none of them carried an article that interested me."
A puff of white escaped from Feng Bujue's lips.
"About two weeks ago, a girl was found inside an abandoned empty house. I was looking for articles related to this incident."
A strange smile then materialized on his lips.
"I had been in a relationship with that girl for some time… I still remember that day. It was an afternoon. She came to meet me and had her hair in a ponytail. She was still wearing her school uniform and short skirt… She looked so beautiful. She took my breath away."
At this point, there was fire in Feng Bujue's eyes. His breathing became heavy, and the corner of his lips even twitched maniacally.
"Therefore… without even realizing it, I took her to an empty house near the highway, and then I strangled this panicked little thing to her death."
He paused and widened his eyes to meet the shadow's gaze.
"It felt like a weight had slid off my shoulders… If I didn't do that, I would definitely have gone mad. Ha… ha ha ha…"
He laughed several times. There was a satisfaction in his voice like he was still reliving the memory of that day.
"I removed her belt and hung her from the beam, setting up the scene to look like she had committed suicide by hanging. Even though I returned home that day, acting like nothing had happened, ever since that day, I go to that garden every late evening, buy two or three different newspapers, sit on this bench, and flip through them…"
Feng Bujue scoffed.
"Young girl found hanging from the rafters, I've been waiting for a headline like that to appear."
He suddenly reached out to grab at the air next to him like there was really something there.
"Suddenly, I saw it. Next to my feet, there was a page from the newspaper, an abandoned newspaper. It was the centerfold. There was such a headline. The words flowed into my eyes like electricity…
"Unknown body found inside empty house.
"Inside an abandoned home near the highway, a body about two weeks old was found.
"The victim was a young male dressed in formal attire."
Feng Bujue's face was filled with horror like he had just seen a ghost, which he technically did.
"I picked up the paper and ran out of the garden like crazy. Somehow, I found myself by the highway, standing before the empty house.
"I looked around in a panic, and after ensuring that there was no one around this crime scene, I opened the front door and walked in…
"The place was so dark. I sought my way to the place where the body should have been hanging. I lit a match and looked up…"
Feng Bujue used the flashlight to light up his face as he leaned forward. "The belt dangled from the beam, and it was my own body that was hanging there. At the same time, behind me, from the darkness came that girl's voice.
"Ohohoho… You've finally returned to me…"
Feng Bujue's story ended there.
Then, one second later, he returned to normal, to his usual expression. "What do you think?"
"Er…" The blue eyes of the shadow seemed to become less radiant. "I think the change of expression you adopted is far scarier than the plot of the story itself…"
"Stop wasting my time!" Feng Bujue lifted the gun. "It has been eight minutes since I've entered this place, around twenty-six minutes since the scenario started. If you want me to tell another story…"
"Fine, I will take you to the prison." The shadow did not wait for Feng Bujue to finish and lifted a finger. "Don't worry about what happens next. They are all harmless, so try not to struggle."
This was definitely necessary. If he did not say that, Feng Bujue would definitely have struggled against what happened next…
The next second, a pinprick of light appeared on the shadow's fingertip. The light grew into a ball of light, and many strange little things swam out from it. The things' color and consistency felt like peeled boiled eggs. But their size and shape were closer to small bugs, those maggot-like bug that writhed about…
Their number grew and floated about in space in a whirlpool motion. Even though they moved in a group, it seemed like each of them had their own consciousness. Those translucent, milky white creatures chased after and consumed each other. It looked chaotic, but there was an underlying rule to everything.
Feng Bujue felt like he was observing a drop of water under powerful microscope. But as he studied it, something bad happened. Those things swam toward him, and they started to circle around Feng Bujue. More of them gathered, and they swam faster and faster…
They attached themselves to Feng Bujue and wiggled on his body. They gathered… until his whole person was covered in them, including his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
Just as Feng Bujue felt like things were getting out of control and suspected that he had fallen into a trap, he felt the pressure around him disappear instantly, and the chill vanished. Even though his eyes were still closed, he realized that the area around him had turned brighter.
He opened his eyes and saw…