“Boom boom boom.”
“Boom boom boom.”
No one answered the banging sound of the door, and as a result, the person on the other side continued to knock loudly.
Meanwhile, inside the room, Bai Yan could hear Liu Kui’s loud snoring and Li Hao’s meaningless sleep talking. It could be said that apart from him, no one else could stand up and open the door to let the outside in.
Who was knocking on the door?
In the dead of the night and this unfamiliar environment, Bai Yan couldn’t help but remember An Qing’s retelling of the story earlier. The one with the horror story about the door-knocking ghost.
“Boom, boom, boom.”
The banging on the door persisted.
After a while, he slightly opened his tightly shut eyes again, quietly observing his surroundings with his fingers covering his eyes…
Bai Yan’s eyesight was not very good, plus he couldn’t risk opening his eyes too widely, so he could only barely see through the small seams of his fingers.
However, just a small glance through his fingers was already terrifying enough.
Through the ambient moonlight flowing into the room, he vaguely saw a figure of a ‘person,’ not knowing when this entity had quietly entered the room and stood at his bedside.
Because of his limited field of vision, Bai Yan could not tell if the “man” was looking down and watching his eyes through his fingers.
For how long was it standing near his bed?
Did it come in when the door knocking stopped?
All kinds of horrific assumptions suddenly poured into his mind, making Bai Yan’s heart skip a beat and almost forgetting to maintain his steady breathing.
He tried his best to stabilize his breath frequency, but the door-knocking ghost was no longer satisfied with just standing there and watching him. Its body came to a halt for a short period and began to shake violently.
Bai Yan looked ahead without blinking, but in the end, his view was still limited. He had to rely on his vivid imagination to guess what was happening before him. But before he could think about it too much, he found a ball-shaped object emerging from his sight, gradually becoming bigger and bigger…
Bai Yan immediately realized what it was and closed his eyes at once.
And almost at the same time, he felt a solid object touching the space in between his fingers, and a brush-like sensation that gently opened and closed. A soft bead rolled on top of his fingers.
He knew that this was the door-knocking ghost’s eye.
The door-knocking ghost took off its head and had its eyes… tightly pressed against Bai Yan’s fingers as if trying to see if his eyes were open.
Despite his eyes being covered by his fingers and his long eyelashes, if he still had his eyes open at that time, even if it were just a slit, he would certainly not escape the sight of the ghost.
In a split second, Bai Yan suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
At the very moment, he didn’t need to open his eyes to visualize a complete picture of what was happening in his mind.
The door-knocking ghost used its hand to carry its head. It continued to stare at his eyes motionlessly through the narrow slits of his fingers and listened to his breath with its head up close. Its hand was moving along his chest, seeming to find a change in his heartbeat. As long as it could find something amiss, it would touch anything without the slightest hesitation.
“Thump, thump, thump…”
His heart was beating fast.
After the loud knocking on the door, the room reverted into its quiet state.
In addition to the rustling of rubbing clothes, the loud snoring and mumbled sleep talking have completely ceased for a long time, and only the successive sounds of people’s breaths could be heard.
From start to finish, the door-knocking ghost didn’t say a word.
Time passed as the ghost and the person went into a stalemate. After a long while, the door-knocking ghost seemed to have given up to scare him awake. As a result, Bai Yan felt his pillow sink. There seemed to be something beside his head. Then, a series of rustling footsteps slowly went away as if the door-knocking ghost had finally left.
Bai Yan wanted to celebrate but couldn’t stand up.
…
With the door-knocking ghost sharing a pillow with him, Bai Yan also didn’t know how he stayed still until morning.
As dawn broke, the door-knocking ghost came back and took its head away, but Bai Yan remained motionless, fearing that it was just an act and would return halfway.
After a rough night, when he finally heard the sounds of Li Hao waking up and the alarm clock’s ring that he had set last night, Bai Yan cautiously opened his eyes a bit.
As he confirmed that the knocking ghost did not wait for another opportunity to kill him and the other head on his pillow had disappeared, Bai Yan then got up and sighed quietly.
Seeing the sunlight outside the window, for the first time in his life, he was extremely grateful for dawn to arrive. He sincerely hoped that the door-knocking ghost didn’t pick him as the lucky one during its next visit.
Having another head rest on his pillow completely affected the quality of his sleep.
After going to the bathroom and washing up, Bai Yan neatly put on his tuxedo and nibbled on a strip of compressed biscuits for breakfast.
In the morning, like any qualified and dutiful butler, Bai Yan first prepared today’s newspaper for the master and then respectfully brought the newspaper and breakfast into his bedroom. The master seemed to be the reincarnated version of the starving ghost as he distastefully gorged the hodgepodge of rotten snake, cat, and rat meat.
While smoothing out the newspaper, Bai Yan secretly peeked at the newspaper’s contents, but unfortunately, it did not contain any valuable information.
He has never seen any of the popular stars in the entertainment section; he was also unfamiliar with the influential powers that shifted the world in the international news.
Even the date printed in the newspaper, March 22, 2010, was different from the real-world time.
Nothing reminded him more clearly that this was already another world than this newspaper.
At eight o’clock in the morning, the master had finished his disgusting breakfast and dressed himself. Bai Yan followed by Lu Tianyi and Liu Kui were behind their master, preparing to accompany him outside.
The master’s car was a luxurious one that doesn’t have a recognizable brand. Liu Kui knew nothing about the conditions of the local roads. But fortunately for him, the car had a clear navigation system. With its help, the old driver successfully drove the car to the destination with nothing particular happening along the way.
When they had reached their destination, the time was almost ten o’clock.
The place where they arrived was a remote and desolate rural area. The purpose of the master’s trip was to participate in a club formed by the local rich folk.
Before coming here, the master did not disclose to Bai Yan what the club was for nor did he ask him to prepare anything for the trip, only bringing a normal-looking book with him.
When the four people got out of the car and walked towards the big gate, a nameless man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and embraced the master warmly.
The two happily reminisced about their past and went inside. Upon seeing this, the three followed suit and stepped into the club one after another.
After entering, the three people couldn’t look around their surroundings freely, so they all observed the club’s details out of the corners of their eyes.
Not long after following their master, the three saw an eye-catching sign with the three big distinguishable words written on it, ‘Decapitating Devils Club.’
Seeing those words, Bai Yan suddenly had a bad feeling.
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