Chapter 48#
Those Who Listen to Stories (Part 15)#
“Tell a story?” Xia Wenshi was stunned. He was ready to summon the Pen Fairy, so why did the host suddenly ask them to tell stories?
The music playing on the radio was gentle and soft, like white noise used for sleep aid. Like a boat sailing on water in a quiet night, with a bright moon and a gentle breeze, and murmuring water, making people feel relaxed and happy. Such beautiful and peaceful music slowly stabilized people’s emotions.
The windows in the room were not closed, and the wind blew in, moving the candles on the ground. The flickering orange candlelight illuminated the stunned faces of everyone.
“Why tell stories?”
“Didn’t the organizer say we would play games?”
“If it’s telling stories, then why prepare these props?”
The host ignored the restlessness in the room, and the distorted and hoarse voice continued: “Tell a strange story that happened around you.”
“Do not lie or fabricate, the owner of the house will know your inner thoughts. So, everyone, let’s begin.”
Click. The host turned off the microphone, leaving the entire stage to everyone.
The room fell into a dead silence. Su Wanluo bit her lip, her plain and delicate face showing a strange calmness.
She had just taken the initiative to find props and arrange games, and many people had already started to follow her lead. It was hard to imagine that such a petite and quiet girl would become the leader in the haunted house exploration.
Facing everyone’s gaze, Su Wanluo spoke.
“Since it’s the host’s request, let’s do it. Tell stories, one by one.”
Her voice was very light, echoing in the light night: “I’ll start first.”
The music on the broadcast had stopped, but the faint sound of water seemed to still linger in everyone’s ears.
Su Wanluo’s appearance was delicate and gentle, but when she raised her hand, everyone realized that there were significant calluses on her knuckles and fingertips. She was not the delicate young lady who never did heavy work as they had judged by appearance.
“I said during my self-introduction earlier that my father worked on a construction site, so I often went to play there when I was a child.”
“This story happened at the construction site when I was in the first grade of elementary school.”
Su Wanluo pursed her lips.
“I come from a single-parent family and was raised by my father alone. My father was a construction site supervisor and was very busy during the day. When I went to find him, he was always busy, so he entrusted me to the cafeteria auntie to take care of me.”
“The cafeteria auntie had a daughter of my age. Every time I finished my homework, my favorite thing to do was to play hide-and-seek with her at the construction site.”
“That day was Friday. After the game started, I ran very far and hid behind a very hidden mud pile. Next to the mud pile was a very high red brick wall. I didn’t take a nap during the day, and the weather was nice in the evening, so I fell asleep in a daze. Halfway through my sleep, I felt my face was a little itchy. I opened my eyes and found someone brushing my face with a foxtail grass. Squatting in front of me was a boy wearing a red safety helmet. He was about eleven or twelve years old, very thin and dark, just a little bit older than me, but wearing worker clothes full of mud spots.”
“My father didn’t allow me to play in the construction site. I was afraid he would tell on me, so I quickly invited him to join the game and play hide-and-seek with me. The boy agreed and said he had a place that was harder to find and wanted to take me there to hide. I followed him happily. Soon, he took me over the red brick wall, where there was actually an underground passage.”
“While walking towards the underground passage, the boy proudly told me that he could also perform magic tricks and asked if I wanted to see. I was very bold when I was a child, so I nodded quickly. So he performed several magic tricks for me: he could walk by jumping on his knees; he could turn his entire palm over 180 degrees against his arm; he could also turn his eyeballs until only the whites were showing and bulging out of the sockets. The most amazing thing was that he could breathe fire, the kind of fire that really came out of his mouth. I was stunned and kept clapping. The boy asked me if I wanted to be good friends with him. I said, we are friends now. The boy asked me again if I wanted to learn these magic tricks. I said yes. The boy smiled in the cellar. Immediately his expression became particularly terrifying, and blood began to seep from the edges of his eyes. I sensed something was wrong and my face turned pale. At this time, my father’s voice came from outside. My father came to find me.”
When Su Wanluo said this, everyone got goosebumps all over their bodies.
But her expression was slightly stunned, as if reminiscing.
Su Wanluo said: “Later I woke up. When I woke up, I was sleeping under the red brick wall. My father picked me up, both angry and happy. I thought everything was a nightmare, so I told my father about it at dinner. Unexpectedly, my father’s face changed, his tone trembled a little, and he asked me very seriously what the boy looked like and if he had a mole on his nose. I said in surprise, yes.”
“Three days later, the Lianggang County government found a boy’s body under that red wall. The twelve-year-old boy was wearing a safety helmet, his wrists were folded, his legs were broken, and his eyeballs fell on the bridge of his nose. His mouth was bloody and charred, caused by someone stuffing a red-hot iron block down his throat before he died.”
The room was silent.
Su Wanluo was silent for a long time before speaking in a hoarse voice.
“Later, I learned from the cafeteria auntie that this little boy was trafficked here to be a child laborer. My father discovered him on the first day he arrived at the construction site, but due to the evil forces in Lianggang County, he dared not alert the enemy, so he could only take care of him secretly and help him find his family. But the boy didn’t have the patience to wait. He escaped one night and disappeared. My father thought he had escaped, but actually he didn’t, he was caught back.”
There was silence in the room, no one spoke.
Everyone’s mood changed from initial fear to unspeakable heaviness.
Su Wanluo lowered her eyes and smiled bitterly: “After I grew up, I could still recall the details of the dream under the red brick wall. That boy probably really wanted to kill me in the end. His face was full of twisted hatred, and his skinny hands were about to strangle my neck. But hearing my father’s voice, he froze with me…”
“In the end, he let me go. Kneeling on the ground, he hopped away.”
Su Wanluo twitched the corner of her mouth weakly.
“This is probably good people getting good rewards, good causes bearing good fruits. And my father’s good fruit… was given solely to me.”
When she said the last sentence, her voice was very light, like talking to herself.
Liang Qingqing sensed her friend’s emotional instability, leaned over gently, put her arm around her shoulder and comforted her in a low voice: “Don’t be sad, Luo Luo, the bad guys got their retribution in the end.”
Su Wanluo didn’t speak, her eyes red, and smiled.
Good and evil will eventually be rewarded. With Su Wanluo’s story as a foundation, the fear in everyone’s hearts seemed to have dissipated a lot. Don’t do bad things, don’t be afraid of ghosts knocking on the door. Surrounding the five candles, in this quiet night, listening to the gentle sound of water outside, it really seemed like a night talk.
Liang Qingqing said: “Then I’ll go second.”
A slightly downcast expression appeared on her face. Holding Su Wanluo’s hand, she began: “Actually, like Luo Luo, I also come from a single-parent family. My mother passed away when I was two years old—she died on the operating table while giving birth to my second sibling. My grandfather and father were both famous obstetricians and gynecologists in Huaicheng, but they couldn’t save my mother’s life.”
“Coincidentally, my grandmother passed away because her health was greatly damaged after giving birth to my father. Childbirth is really a gate of hell for women, no one can predict what accidents will happen.”
“Grandfather often stared at grandmother’s photo in a daze. When I was young and ignorant, I would eagerly ask grandfather if he could travel back to the past, would he stop grandmother from giving birth to father. But grandfather smiled, touched my head sadly and told me, ‘Nannan, actually all mothers and children in the world are friends of life and death’.”
Liang Qingqing laughed, but her expression looked like she was crying: “Yes, really friends of life and death. For women, the gate of hell of childbirth, crossing it is the gate of life. In nature, life itself is a miracle. Grandfather said that if he went back to the beginning and explained all the dangers clearly, grandmother would still want to try. He wouldn’t refuse either, he respected her right to want to be a mother.”
“Just because of this sentence. I don’t plan to get married and have children in this life, but I still studied obstetrics and gynecology.”
Liang Qingqing wiped away her tears.
“Sorry, I digressed. The story I want to tell happened at my grandfather’s funeral.”
Liang Qingqing said: “Three years ago, my grandfather passed away.”
“It was a cloudy day. On the way back from the cemetery, I always felt sad in my heart. Father closed the car door, I couldn’t help opening the window and looking back. This look startled me. I saw something black densely pouring out from the bottom of grandfather’s tombstone. They looked like snakes, like worms, and like water. They condensed into a black ‘human’ shape in front of the tombstone. I screamed and wanted father to stop the car, but father was probably also in low spirits and didn’t hear my voice. He quickly drove the car out of the cemetery.”
“At first I thought it was an illusion, so I didn’t take it to heart. Until one day, a friend drove me to the mall to play. When we arrived at the parking lot, I was already sitting in the passenger seat, she suddenly told me she forgot to take something and asked me to wait in the car. The underground parking lot of the mall was very dark, very quiet, and very cold. At this time, I heard someone calling my name, again and again, coming from not far away. In the pitch black, there was a darker shadow standing quietly, looking exactly like the ‘person’ at grandfather’s tombstone. I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, but I just knew it was calling me. It led me out, but as soon as my hand grasped the car door handle, my brain suddenly hurt, and then I lost consciousness.”
Liang Qingqing still couldn’t help shivering when recalling this incident.
“Later, according to my friend, when she came back, I fainted in the passenger seat, my face was pale, and my breathing almost stopped. After returning from the mall, I fell seriously ill again, often vomiting and having diarrhea, and hallucinating the sound of a baby crying. After living in a muddle for a month, the illness inexplicably improved.”
Her story had no beginning and no end.
Unlike Su Wanluo’s story which had a beginning and an end, Liang Qingqing’s fearful pupils and pale face still made everyone shiver involuntarily.
Outside the window, the water flowed gently, the quiet night was silent, and twelve people sat facing each other around the candlelight. Starting from Su Wanluo, like passing the parcel, the night talk began.
When the host said “tell a story”, all of Ye Sheng’s vigilance was mobilized, and his sharp gaze stared at the direction of the camera. In the darkness, he couldn’t see anything.
It was common for Ye Sheng to multitask, observing the surrounding situation while listening to their stories.
Hearing Su Wanluo say “good causes bear good fruits”, Ye Sheng withdrew his gaze lightly and looked at the girl’s reddened eyes.
Su Wanluo’s fingers tightly grasped her skirt. When telling the story of this boy, there was a very deep emotion suppressed, absolutely not fear. Those eyes washed by tears revealed grief hidden deep in the soul.
As for Liang Qingqing’s story, from the moment she said her grandfather and father were famous “obstetricians and gynecologists” in Huaicheng, Ye Sheng listened more seriously than before.
A few illogical sentences made Ye Sheng’s eyes dark and thoughtful.
Obstetrician and gynecologist, gate of life and death, shadow… and the mall.
Xia Wenshi racked his brains, didn’t know what to say, and could only bring out the story of Lover’s Lake to make up the numbers.
Brother Hu and Qi Lan were both engaged in outdoor supernatural live broadcasting. They had heard many strange tales over the years and casually told one.
At this time, it was the turn of the other group of five. The boy in the couple looked particularly pale.
His girlfriend turned her head and asked him in a low voice: “A-Hao, are you okay?”
The boy barely said vaguely: “No, nothing.”
Brother Hu was warm-hearted and comforted: “Brother, don’t be afraid. Just treat it as everyone sitting together and chatting casually, just like when you turn off the lights in the dormitory.”
The boy’s face was pale. He swallowed, raised his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead, his voice very weak: “Okay. I… I rarely watch ghost movies and rarely listen to ghost stories. If I really have to tell a strange thing that happened around me, it was probably about a week ago.”
“I attend Huaicheng Jiaotong University. The main gate of Jiaotong University also has a curfew in the early morning. That night, my friend and I went to a bar to play. We came back late and thought about climbing over the wall to enter the school. Next to the school is a small forest. My phone ran out of battery at that time and I didn’t have anything for lighting. It was pitch black. Halfway through, I heard crying, like a bird call or a human voice.”
He swallowed, lowered his head and said quickly: “I turned my head to look, but didn’t see anything wrong. I thought it was an auditory hallucination and left. Immediately the next day, a female corpse appeared in the school’s small forest.”
His girlfriend went to the same school as him. Her eyes widened suddenly, looking at him in disbelief: “Tang Jiahao! So that night, you passed by that forest?”
Tang Jiahao seemed to have shed a layer of skin after telling this story, and was very impatient with his girlfriend’s questioning: “I passed by, but when I went there, the murderer had already committed the crime. I thought it was insects calling so I didn’t pay attention.”
His girlfriend’s eyes were still surprised: “But that girl was taken to the forest by her roommate and poisoned with laboratory poison… The poison didn’t take effect so quickly. She might have been alive at that time. If you heard…”
Tang Jiahao said annoyedly: “I said I thought it was a bird call. Stop talking, it’s your turn!”
His girlfriend’s lips trembled.
The murderer of the poisoning case by a roommate at Huaicheng Jiaotong University had been caught long ago. It was useless to say these things now.
The girl calmed down and told a story about an upside-down female corpse. This ghost story is a classic among campus stories. A female ghost who died by jumping off a building landed on her head and could only walk on her head.
Ye Sheng had received a pile of information about the Story King from the Non-Natural Bureau before, so he didn’t worry about not having ghost stories to tell. When it was his turn, he casually told a story about a person swinging on a swing, which scared everyone into goosebumps.
The twelve-person night talk soon reached Ning Weichen. Ye Sheng’s gaze turned to him along with everyone else.
Ning Weichen raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly, then turned his head and whispered something in Ye Sheng’s ear. They sat very close, their movements intimate and ambiguous. Two handsome young men together were particularly pleasing to the eye no matter what they did.
Ning Weichen’s voice was very low, with a smile: “Baby, you want to hear me tell a story?”
Ye Sheng’s tone was indifferent: “Everyone has told one. Wouldn’t you seem very unsociable if you don’t tell one?”
Ning Weichen put his hand on his shoulder and laughed incessantly. In the flickering candlelight, a pair of peach blossom eyes looked at him with a smile that was not a smile: “It’s rare that I actually heard the word ‘sociable’ from your mouth.”
“…”
You movie king, you are awesome.
Ye Sheng pushed him away expressionlessly.
Ning Weichen bit his ear with a smile: “Actually, I originally just wanted to tell a Bloody Mary story to perfunctory it, but since you want to hear it, I’ll change one.”
After Ning Weichen sat properly, he looked around at everyone and said lightly with a smile: “Is it my turn?”
He curled the corners of his lips, his tone lazy.
“I lived on an island abroad when I was a child. A kind of red butterfly lived on that island all year round.”
“If I really have to say something strange, it’s probably that these red butterflies are born from human bodies and feed on humans at the same time.”
The story he told was the shortest and most unrealistic.
No dead people, no murderers, no ghosts, no horror elements.
Just two simple sentences.
But the atmosphere in the whole room suddenly cooled down, solidified, motionless, as if falling into the cold deep sea.
Because the “host” was stunned.