The Haunted House - Chapter 1

I have a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment for rent, located in the suburb on the Northern Section of Shenlong Road. The apartment comes with heating, air conditioning, a TV, refrigerator, washing machine, and other basic home appliances. The living conditions are good. However, due to rumors of the place being haunted, I am offering it free to one resident to dispel the gossip. Anyone who moves in now can enjoy free rent and utilities, and those who can stay for over three months will be rewarded with a cash bonus of 10,000 yuan. If interested, please contact 153xxxx8608.

Note: To ensure the rumors are dispelled, only females under the age of 30 will be considered. Serious inquiries only.

Bai Qingqing could hardly believe her eyes. She felt as shocked as the little match girl stumbling upon a vision in the snow. At the most difficult moment of her life, she saw this advertisement. Despite the strange formatting, despite the suspicious terms of the rental, and even if it turned out to be a total scam, she couldn’t wait to dive in!

In a flurry, Bai Qingqing rummaged through her belongings and pulled out her old Nokia¹ phone. Nervously, she entered the number displayed on the screen, and with trembling hands, pressed the call button.

“Beep, beep-hello?” An unfamiliar, low male voice sounded on the other end. Bai Qingqing was so overwhelmed with excitement that she could hardly control herself. She shouted into the phone, “Hi! I saw your advertisement! I want to rent the apartment-can I?”

“Of course you can. You can come over to view the place right now,” the voice replied. There was a strange, indiscernible gloominess to his tone, as though he was speaking from far away from the phone. However, Bai Qingqing, swept up in a sudden rush of joy, ignored the odd feeling entirely. Nearly screaming, she replied, “Great! I’ll head over right away!”

Frantically, Bai Qingqing freshened up her pale face. Her bloodshot eyes, reddened from too many sleepless nights, mirrored her exhaustion. Without wasting another moment, she boarded a bus heading toward the suburbs.

The bus was crowded. Among the passengers was an elderly man with a face full of wrinkles and snow-white hair, a silent woman holding a baby, a young man dressed sharply in a business suit yet pale and drained of energy, and a disheveled schoolgirl with a vacant stare. People got on; people got off. Everything seemed exactly as it always was, yet something about it all felt inexplicably different.

Everyone remained silent. Apart from the droning hum of the bus engine, the entire vehicle descended into an eerie, oppressive quiet.

Even Bai Qingqing, who was lost in her swirling thoughts, couldn’t help but notice the weight of the silence. The bus felt frozen in time, and the passengers sat as if they had been chilled solid by a draft of icy wind. No one spoke. Everyone wore stiff, emotionless expressions. Against this suffocating atmosphere, even the most mundane setting turned unsettlingly surreal.

Bai Qingqing began to feel a flicker of fear in her heart. She suddenly recalled the advertisement-“haunted house.” Why were there such rumors? And why did the landlord only allow young women to move in? She started to realize how impulsive she had been. This kind of advertisement was clearly suspicious; how could she have rushed into it so recklessly? Images from a news story she’d read a few days ago flashed through her mind: A young woman had gone to a bar late at night, had too much to drink, and left with a stranger to a hotel. She was drugged, and when she woke up, two of her kidneys had been surgically removed. Bai Qingqing couldn’t believe her own foolishness. She felt like a naive, brave fool, walking straight into a trap.

But what other options did she have? Would she really go back home, failing to uphold her promise to her father, only to marry a man she didn’t love and spend the rest of her life with him? As someone who made her living writing romance novels, she’d never experienced love herself. Wasn’t that the cruelest irony life could throw at her?

No. She couldn’t allow that to happen. She couldn’t tie her life to an ordinary man and live the rest of her days begging a stingy husband for money just to survive. She couldn’t imagine being mocked or treated as a cautionary tale for giving up on her dreams and bowing to life’s pressures. No, she absolutely couldn’t let it happen!

Bai Qingqing bit her lower lip hard. She had already made up her mind-whatever lay ahead, even if it led her straight to hell, she would dive in without hesitation!

Outside the bus window, dry leaves swirled in the wind, almost as if they were sneering at her.

The bustling cityscape slowly faded away, replaced by desolation. The view beyond the window had turned barren as the bus moved farther into the suburb. In the distance, structures under construction dotted the landscape, all steel and concrete skeletons. People had grown sparse.

Bai Qingqing’s heart pounded with anxiety. She couldn’t stop imagining all the possible scenarios awaiting her at her destination. Perhaps she’d find an overgrown, decrepit house with a stingy, creepy old man waiting for her. Maybe it would be an unfinished construction site where a gang of human traffickers eagerly anticipated her arrival. Or worse-perhaps it really would be an old, ghostly apartment complex with shadows that danced unnaturally in the dark. Her mind was full of bizarre and terrifying possibilities. After years of navigating a world full of uncertainties and dangers, she knew there was no such thing as a free lunch. To reap rewards, one must first pay a hefty price.

Even though she understood this truth all too well, Bai Qingqing still couldn’t stop herself from walking toward danger. She didn’t understand what was driving her, what had emboldened her enough to leap headfirst into the firepit. Was this what people called “a death wish”?

Screeeech-screeeech- The bus let out a long, abrupt screech as it came to a halt. Bai Qingqing snapped out of her swirling thoughts and realized, to her shock, that she was the only passenger left on the otherwise enormous bus. The driver, expressionless and cold, watched her through the rearview mirror. Only then did it dawn on her-the final stop had arrived.

Having lived in this city for nearly two years, Bai Qingqing never knew there was such a desolate part of it. Stepping off the bus, she scanned her surroundings. Rolling, barren hills stretched far into the distance, an endless sea of desolation. In the middle of the wasteland stood a small, dark-gray, three-story building. It was completely isolated, like a forgotten tombstone marking an ancient, abandoned grave. Bai Qingqing’s heart, already uneasy, climbed straight into her throat. She didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly, a thought struck her-should she just get back on the bus and head back? Why walk into such an obvious trap? Without giving it another thought, Bai Qingqing spun on her heels and bolted toward the bus she had just exited. But the driver had no intention of waiting for her. With a heavy roar of the engine, he floored the gas pedal and drove away. Bai Qingqing chased after the bus, running as fast as she could, but the driver only watched her coldly through the rearview mirror, his face as expressionless as a statue.

Out of breath, Bai Qingqing finally stopped running, watching helplessly as the bus grew smaller and smaller, eventually disappearing into the horizon. She felt abandoned-like the entire world had cast her aside.

She walked back to the bus stop sign, her figure small and forlorn under the wide, empty sky. It had been an absolutely bizarre day. The silent atmosphere of the long bus ride had already unnerved her, leaving her jittery and uneasy. Stranger still was the fact that the final bus stop, in her experience, should always have at least one or two buses stationed while others arrived and departed. But today, the moment Bai Qingqing got off, her bus sped away. Even though the driver clearly saw her chasing after him, he chose not to stop. It was all so suspicious, as if someone-or something-had orchestrated the entire situation to lure her here.

Looking again at the gray building in the distance, Bai Qingqing felt a fresh wave of cold creep through her body. The suburb’s weather was far chillier than in the urban area, and her once feverish mind had now completely sobered. She replayed the entire sequence of events leading to this moment in her head, and the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that it was a setup. She had been blindsided by a fleeting moment of joy and foolishly let herself be swept onto a strange bus, all the way to an unfamiliar, desolate place. Now, she absolutely had to stop and turn back-before it was too late.

Standing alone beneath the bus stop sign, Bai Qingqing’s figure looked even more lonely against the vast emptiness around her. Fear spread through her like wildfire, coursing along every vein and capillary. She was filled with regret-regret for her impulsiveness, regret for her naivety. She had come to realize, once again, the harsh truth that the world offered no free lunches. All she had gained from this reckless escapade was a cruel lesson, one that left her with nowhere to go.

Time dragged on, ticking slowly amidst the biting autumn wind. But the bus she was hoping for-any bus-never appeared.

Bai Qingqing felt like she was on the verge of collapsing. She had lost count of how many laps she had made around the bus stop. The station’s name on the sign as well as the content of the small advertisements pasted haphazardly on its pole were now practically etched into her memory. She could recite them without even looking.

As her anxiety mounted while waiting, Bai Qingqing found herself once again staring at the little advertisements. A thought popped into her mind: Could the people behind these scams dare to post advertisements on the bus stop pole at their so-called “criminal base”? Suddenly, something caught her eye-a piece of A4 paper, with tiny font, that she could swear wasn’t there before. It was almost as if it had materialized out of thin air. Bai Qingqing leaned in to examine the notice carefully.

Notice

Yesterday, the Public Transportation Management Office of XX City issued a notice. From July 31, 2012, to January 31, 2013, Shenlong Road will be completely closed for road repair and maintenance. Motor vehicle access is strictly prohibited.

Stamped at the bottom was the bright red seal of the Municipal Road Management Bureau. Bai Qingqing’s heart instantly sank into her chest. Today was September 7, 2012. That meant at this very moment, this road was supposed to be completely inaccessible to vehicles. So… how had she gotten here?

Had she been dreaming this entire time? Maybe she had been so sleep-deprived recently that her brain cooked up an impossible scenario. But if this was a dream, why did it feel so cold? Did she kick the covers off? That couldn’t be it-she never had the habit of kicking off her blankets. Then another horrifying thought crept in: Was she already dead in her sleep?

But… why? How had she died? Oh right, she remembered reading in the newspaper just a few days ago about people dying from overwork. Could she have worked herself to death? All that late-night writing, day after day, until her body just gave out?

But no… how tragic would that be? She wasn’t even successful. She was just a struggling writer earning less than a thousand yuan a month. She hadn’t produced an earth-shattering bestseller, nor did she have treasure chests full of gold and silver to show for all her effort. She was still relying on her aging parents for living expenses! And now what? She had worked herself to death and achieved nothing? How utterly embarrassing would that be?

Her mind spiraled into all sorts of bizarre, fantastical thoughts until, at last, she successfully convinced herself that she must already be dead. At that moment, Bai Qingqing couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at herself. No wonder she had been waiting so long with no sign of another bus. She must have boarded a nonexistent bus, which took her down a nonexistent road, and now… she was stuck here.

Could it be that this road was actually… the road to the underworld²?

While Bai Qingqing was still standing there, lost in her absurd imagination, her phone suddenly rang, cutting through the eerie, desolate silence of the countryside. The unexpected ringtone startled her so much that she flinched.

It was an unfamiliar number. Bai Qingqing hesitated for a moment, then cautiously picked up.

“Hello? Who’s this?”

“Hello, Miss Bai Qingqing. I’m the landlord you called this morning. Are you still planning to come today to view the apartment?”

Bai Qingqing froze for a moment. “Oh… uh… about that. Something came up, so I might not be able to make it today. Also, I looked it up online-I saw that the road to your place is under repair and closed off, so I can’t get through. Maybe we should cancel, and I’ll look for somewhere else instead.”

Footnote:

1. Nokia(诺基亚):A classic brand of mobile phones known for their durability, popular in the early 2000s.
2. The Road to the Underworld(黄泉路):“The road to the underworld” refers to “黄泉路” (Huangquan Road) in Chinese mythology. It is believed to be the path that souls take after death to reach the “阴曹地府” (Yin Cao Di Fu), which is the underworld or the realm of the dead in Chinese folklore. This path is often depicted as a journey that the deceased must undertake to face judgment and enter the afterlife.