Free Web NovelThe “girl” reflected in the mirror was once again wrapped in a bath towel.
Her wet, silvery-white long hair hung down, sticking to her back, two or three drops of water dripped from her round, delicate shoulders, and her fair, rosy skin was as tempting as a skillfully made cherry blossom milk jelly.
Perhaps Lu Yibei wasn't very skilled at wrapping a lady's bath towel, or perhaps the girl's figure was truly too outstanding; one bath towel always struggled to cover everything, her graceful curves faintly visible, accompanied by the swirling white mist in the bathroom, adding a touch of unique charm.
Even with Ms. Wang Meili and Nanling Yaohua as stunning examples, Lu Yibei still felt that the “girl” in the mirror was absolutely one of the most beautiful Misses he had ever seen in his life.
If beautiful women were compared to flowers, and Nanling Yaohua was a sincere, noble white magnolia, then the “girl” in the mirror was a gloomy, enchanting urban legend.
Appreciating flowers should have been a pleasant experience, but the moment he thought it was his own reflection, Lu Yibei felt that the urban legend had also turned into red spider lilies, and he couldn't be happy at all.
“This is really ♦ unbelievable. I must not be fully awake yet, still dreaming, right?”
A mighty seven-foot Mr., whose reflection in the mirror turned into a beautiful girl—could there be anything more preposterous in this world?
And the sudden hot and cold flashes in his body just now... his body temperature was so high that his phone exploded, yet there was no protein denaturation. Was that a physique a normal carbon-based creature could possess?
“Just sleep a little more, just sleep a little more and everything will be fine...”
Standing in front of the mirror, stunned for a long time, his emotions finally calmed down slightly. He muttered to himself, turned around, went back to the room, collapsed onto the bed, wrapped himself in the blanket, and curled up into a ball.
After lying quietly on the bed like this for more than ten minutes, a heavy sigh from Lu Yibei echoed from under the covers.
They say a person pretending to be asleep can never be woken up, but the person pretending to be asleep can deceive others, yet it's difficult to deceive himself.
Lu Yibei tried to convince himself it was a dream, but his brain kept reminding him that he was awake.
He crawled out from under the covers, went to the bathroom, washed his face with cold water, and looked at the mirror in front of the sink.
Water droplets slid down his delicate face. He looked at himself in the mirror, hooked the corner of his mouth with two fingers, trying to force a smile, but found that he couldn't smile at all.
The scattered memories brought by the strange dream last night seemed clearer, and their influence on him seemed stronger. In the dream, he couldn't smile because of facial paralysis; in reality, he truly couldn't smile.
Mr. Joker, the famous spiritual leader of Arkham Asylum, once said, “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.”
Since having that bizarre dream last night, Lu Yibei felt like he was truly going crazy.
Lu Yibei went to the living room, turned on the TV, found a comedy variety show, and turned up the volume so that the laughter from the TV could spread throughout the house, trying to alleviate the helplessness and anxiety in his heart in this way.
He dimmed the TV's brightness, didn't turn on the lights, and drew the curtains, letting the darkness conceal the shadows.
Returning to the bedroom, he slumped onto the bed, pulled the blanket over his chest, and stared blankly at the ceiling. His mind was as blank as if it had crashed after being overworked.
If only the reflection in the mirror had turned into a girl, it would still be acceptable. At worst, he just wouldn't look in the mirror anymore; he hardly looked in the mirror a few times a week anyway.
However, what was even more terrifying was that when he came out of the bathroom again just now, Lu Yibei had already confirmed it.
Now, even the reflections on the windows, glass doors, and the shadows elongated by the light all had those graceful and tempting curves.
Everything he saw before him seemed to be whispering to him, “Although you think you're a tough Mr., you're actually a beautiful girl.”
It was trying to persuade him to give up resisting and accept reality.
Accept reality? What kind of reality can a normal person accept?
If he walked down the street on a sunny day, or passed by a glass storefront, and someone saw his shadow completely mismatching his actual physique, wouldn't that be terrible?
He would definitely be treated as a monster?! Lu Yibei thought fiercely.
He felt that the Doctor was right during the day; even if he didn't have a mental illness temporarily, he was about to develop one.
He should have known better than to throw away those medications on the way back; maybe he would need them soon.
After calming down slightly a moment later, Lu Yibei began to ponder in secret.
It's still unclear whether I'm having hallucinations or if my shadow has truly turned into a female. If I rashly call the police or seek help at the hospital, I'll definitely be treated as a lunatic.
I can only find someone I know and trust to confirm whether others can also see the abnormal changes happening to me before I can think of a way to get help.
As soon as he thought about whether others could see it, the image of the girl he met at the intersection during the day reappeared in Lu Yibei's mind.
That girl, who everyone except him couldn't see, like a ghost.
That's right, a ghost!
Could the various strange occurrences happening today be urban legend events? Lu Yibei wondered.
Although, he was half an atheist, the kind of atheist who believed that “a twitching left eye means wealth, a twitching right eye means... go to ♦ hell with feudal superstition.”
However, in the strange dream last night, seemingly real urban legend events appeared multiple times. If that dream was some kind of projection of reality, then urban legend might actually exist in this world.
Thinking this way, Lu Yibei suddenly felt that his experience made sense.
Anyway, encountering these messed-up things means either this world has gone crazy or he has. Compared to the latter, he's more willing to believe that this world is the one with the problem.
If he were still in his rebellious phase, he would undoubtedly raise his arms and shout, “It's not me who's wrong, it's this world!”
But at the same time, a chill subtly rose from behind him.
He was a little worried. If everything he encountered was because he could suddenly see urban legend, then would those terrifying entities come looking for him?
Based on the information from the strange dream, most urban legend were malevolent; there was no such thing as “if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't fear ghosts knocking on your door.”
urban legend harmed people simply because they “caught their eye,” acting on a whim.
Except for... that solemn and sacred towering tree whose name he couldn't recall for a moment.
Was it called something like sister?
But how could a person's sister be a tree?
Maybe it was a dry sister? Lu Yibei thought.
His gaze drifted out from the open bedroom door. The house was dark, all the furniture just deep black outlines, as if they could move on their own at any moment.
All sounds of human activity were blocked by the tightly drawn curtains.
But they were also like stubborn bubbles in water, floating upwards one after another, until they surfaced and reached another world, only to suddenly burst, bringing a hint of noise. freewebnøvel.coɱ
The TV was still on, and as the picture changed, the light flickered like a giant eye peering in the dark, the pale light spilling onto the walnut-colored wooden floor like a layer of frost.
The whole house felt very oppressive.
The synthetic laughter from the speakers, accompanying the variety show, suddenly became eerie, devoid of any life, as if hiding something.
It made one feel that “they” weren't amused by the comedy show, but rather couldn't hold back, their laughter containing mockery towards the living.
Lu Yibei stared intently at the living room, not daring to blink, as if something would crawl out of the TV if he did, or a figure would appear on the sofa.
That figure should look handsome, but it had no mouth, so it never made a sound.
After staring for a long time, drowsiness gradually set in.
Just as Lu Yibei was dozing off, he suddenly and inexplicably thought of a urban legend legend from his hometown that an old man in the Teaching Staff Compound had told him.
He said that in their place, families must live together. If a person lived alone for too long, they would be targeted by something called “Black Old Lady.”
The Black Old Lady would sneak into their home on a night without lights, when the person was about to fall asleep, come to their bedside, and softly hum a hypnotic lullaby next to their ear. If they fell asleep at this time, the Black Old Lady would suck the person's brain out through their ear...
Suddenly remembering the urban legend legend the old man had told him, Lu Yibei instantly became alert. He shot up from the bed with a swift movement, subconsciously reaching for his phone to call Nanling Yaohua.
Although calling his girlfriend to come over and accompany him because he was home alone at night and afraid of the dark and urban legend sounded a bit embarrassing, he couldn't care about that much now.
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Besides, couldn't I make up an excuse?
For example: “Are you there? Got time for a drink and maybe roll in the sheets?” Lu Yibei thought.
However, when his hand reached the bedside and found nothing, he suddenly remembered that his phone had exploded in the evening.
Although they were just upstairs and downstairs, it felt like they were separated by a chasm.
“Thump, thump, thump...”
Just as Lu Yibei was hesitating whether to leave the covers, cross the entire living room, and go downstairs to find Nanling Yaohua directly, a faint sound came from outside the window behind him.
The sound of lightly tapping on the glass was very weak, soft and powerless, like an... old lady.
A chill immediately ran down Lu Yibei's spine, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
He lived on the fifth floor, his bedroom window was locked, and there was no protective railing outside the window.
What kind of existence could be clinging to the window outside, lightly tapping on it?
————
Half an hour ago.
Inside the Huacheng Institute of Technology Teaching Staff Compound, a round-faced girl with chestnut long hair lay in the green belt of the compound square.
Motionless, like she was dead.
Although a berserker's combat power is astonishing when in a blood rage, it often has a time limit.
It had been over an hour since Gu Qianqian snuck into the compound in the evening, and she could no longer hold on.
Smelling the tempting aroma of communal meals wafting through the air, her consciousness drifted, and before her eyes seemed to float, assorted sausages, crispy oil rolls, braised crows, stir-fried fresh mushrooms, stir-fried fish fillets, stir-fried fish maw, stir-fried fish slices, sweet and sour pork slices, braised pigeon eggs, stir-fried shrimp...
It was as if there was food everywhere!
She tremblingly reached out and barely managed to grab the blanched Chinese cabbage floating in front of her, shoving it into her mouth without hesitation.
Then...
The bitterness of the green vegetation juice spread throughout her mouth, and she suddenly woke up, breaking free from her state of seeing food everywhere.
“Ptooey, ptooey! Ugh, ugh!”
Spitting out the mouthful of leaves, she gagged a few times. The previously dying Gu Qianqian inexplicably regained some strength and cheered up again.
“Only two buildings left. Keep it up, Gu Qianqian, you'll find Lu Yibei soon!”
————
The sound of light tapping on the window outside continued for who knows how long, and then disappeared when Lu Yibei wasn't paying attention.
Suddenly, only the monotonous repetition of TV commercials and the ticking of the living room clock remained in the house.
However, this “quiet” did not relax Lu Yibei at all; his nerves became even more tense.
The sound outside the window disappeared. The best case scenario was that “it” had left, while the worst case scenario was that “it” had somehow entered the house.
Perhaps, at this moment, “it” was hiding in a dark corner of the room, crouching, grinning and peering at me, waiting for an opportunity to come to my side and suck my brain matter out through my ears. Lu Yibei thought.
“Squeak—!”
A faint sound came from the direction of the bathroom.
Lu Yibei's eyelids twitched violently, and he turned his head to look in the direction of the bathroom, his pupils contracting.
Earlier, when he drew the curtains, he had locked almost all the windows in the house, only forgetting the bathroom's ventilation window.
“Click, click! Click, click!”
The ventilation window, which hadn't been moved for a long time, seemed to have rusted hinges. Now, it was being pushed, making a grating sound that set teeth on edge.
Immediately after, a faint, almost breathless whisper came from the bathroom.
“Lu Yibei, I know you're home. I finally found you...”
“Lu Yibei... I haven't eaten in a long time, I'm so hungry...”
“...”
The intermittent voice, like it came from a dark, damp, silent grave, carried the whimpers of someone on the verge of death, sending shivers down his spine.
Staring in the direction of the bathroom, cold sweat dripped down his cheeks, his heart pounding. Lu Yibei didn't know when he had put his fingers in his mouth, gently biting them to keep himself from making a sound.
He felt that if he made even the slightest sound, the “thing” calling his name would suddenly rush out of the bathroom.
Calm down, you must calm down!
Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly. Just then, he suddenly heard that voice say, “Lu Yibei... quickly help me, my chest is stuck, I'm hanging on the window...”
Lu Yibei, “???”
What kind of urban legend is this ♦?
Is it this unprofessional?
Can it get stuck climbing through a window?
After complaining a few times in his mind, Lu Yibei immediately felt that the fear the “thing” had brought him had dissipated by more than half.
If it can be foolish, even if it's a urban legend, it doesn't seem that scary anymore.
Imagine if Sadako got stuck on the TV screen because her chest was too big when she crawled ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) out of the television, would she still be that terrifying?
Thinking this, Lu Yibei crawled out from under the covers and tiptoed towards the bathroom, then stopped at the bathroom door, pressed his side against the wall, and peeked inside through the crack in the door.
Then...
He saw the familiar-faced “female ghost” hanging on the ventilation window.
Huh? Isn't this the one from the daytime?
I didn't expect that after I pretended not to see her and left, this fellow would actually follow me home!
Thinking this, Lu Yibei silently bent down, picked up the toilet plunger that hadn't been used for a long time from the bottom shelf by the bathroom door, then took a deep breath, turned on the light, and pushed the door open in one fluid motion.
————
When she was little, when Gu Qianqian played with her older brother, he told her that wherever her head could fit through, her body could also fit through.
Gu Qianqian always kept this in mind until she tried to go through the ventilation window of Lu Yibei's bathroom and realized that her brother's words seemed to be wrong.
She was stuck.
Just when she had been calling out for a long time, thinking that Lu Yibei wasn't home, and secretly preparing to hang on the window all night, the bathroom light came on.
A figure flashed in from outside the bathroom door, holding a broken sword, and swung it directly towards her forehead.
“Duang, Duang, Duang—!”
After three muffled thuds, her vision went black, and she lost consciousness...
