Chapter 4: The Strange Figure in the Small Budget Inn

The Strange Figure in the Small Budget Inn

Even now, I still do not dare casually bring up what happened to me while I was working in Shenzhen three years ago. The strange figure in that cheap little inn became a shadow I could not shake whenever I woke from dreams at midnight. It also made me completely believe that some things truly go beyond what science can explain.

That winter was especially cold. I had just changed jobs, and there was not much money left in my pocket, so I could only find the cheapest small inn in an urban village to stay in.

The inn was terribly run-down. The wall paint was mottled and peeling, and the corridor was filled with a damp smell of mildew. The room used an old-fashioned brass key. When I inserted it and turned it, it made a dry, clicking sound.

The moment I pushed the door open, a bone-piercing chill rushed toward me. It was clearly a southern winter, yet the room was colder than outside.

The bathroom door stood open. A large mirror with peeling paint around it faced the room door directly. As soon as I stepped inside, I came face to face with my own reflection in the mirror. In that instant, I kept feeling that the shadow in the mirror was a little wrong, but I could not say exactly what was strange.

There were two yellowed pillows on the bed, and the quilt also gave off an old, stale smell. But when I thought of the price—only thirty yuan a night—I did not fuss over it any further. Dragging my exhausted body with me, I lay down and fell asleep.

I do not know how long I had slept when I suddenly woke at two in the morning.

My mind was still muddled, and my eyelids were so heavy I could barely open them. Yet, without thinking, I looked toward the bathroom.

By the faint moonlight coming in through the window, I saw a woman standing in front of the mirror.

She was wearing a long garment. I could not tell whether it was a kimono or mourning clothes. The fabric looked gray and dim, clinging to her body.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to see her clearly.

But in the next second, she slowly turned around.

I froze instantly.

She had blunt bangs cut level with her eyebrows, and her hair was so black it seemed eerie. The most frightening thing was her face.

She had no eyeballs.

Her eye sockets were black and hollow, like two bottomless holes, so large that they exceeded the proportions of a normal person.

Her expression was even stranger. Her lips were pressed together, as if she were forcefully sucking the flesh on both sides of her cheeks. Her cheeks had sunk inward, giving off an indescribable sinister air.

She seemed to notice that I was looking at her.

Her head suddenly began to sway from side to side.

The motion grew wider and wider, and a creak-creak sound rang out with particular clarity in the silent room.

But at the time, I was truly too tired. My mind felt clogged with paste, and I somehow did not realize I should be afraid. I only thought it was a dream, turned over, and sank heavily back to sleep.

When I woke again, it was four in the morning.

This time, I had been sleeping deeply, and when I woke, my mind was unusually clear.

The moment I opened my eyes, it felt as if my heart had been grabbed by an invisible hand, stopping for half a beat.

That woman was actually standing at the head of my bed.

She was less than a meter away from me. Her black, hollow eye sockets stared straight at me, and her face still held that same strange expression.

Every hair on my body stood up in an instant. My hands and feet turned icy cold. I wanted to shout, but no sound came out. I wanted to move, but I could not move at all.

Just then, her head began to sway from side to side again.

It was the same as before, and the creaking sounded beside my ear, carrying a chill that drilled into the cracks of my bones.

I stared at her fixedly, not daring to blink, afraid that the moment I closed my eyes, she would pounce on me.

I could be certain that this was not a hallucination. I had no mental illness. Everything before my eyes was terrifyingly real.

She kept swaying for a full five minutes.

My eyes became so sore that I could not stand it, and without thinking, I blinked.

In that very instant, she suddenly disappeared, as if she had never appeared at all.

The room was still cold, but that pressure had not vanished. I did not dare sleep again, afraid that the next time I opened my eyes, she would be lying beside me.

I sat up abruptly.

Then I remembered the over-the-shoulder dragon tattoo I had pricked into my skin with a needle when I was young. As a child, I had heard old people say that dragons could ward off evil. As if possessed, I took off my shirt, stared at the dragon pattern on my arm, and silently repeated in my heart, Protect me.

Without realizing it, I fell asleep again.

This time, I slept for only half an hour before I was startled awake by a strange chill.

This time, I completely broke down.

That woman had actually climbed onto my bed.

She was standing on the right side of the bed, only one step away from me. Her figure was a little blurrier than before, as if covered by a layer of mist. But the black, hollow eye sockets, the strange expression, and the head that kept swaying were exactly the same as before.

When fear reaches its limit, it can stir up the urge to fight back instead.

I could not endure it anymore.

I sprang up from the bed, grabbed the backpack by the head of the bed, and pulled out the long knife I kept inside for self-defense. It was the knife I had used for shaving wood back when I worked on construction sites, and I had always carried it with me.

I closed my eyes and slashed hard in the woman’s direction.

But the instant the blade swung out, a powerful electric current suddenly spread through my entire body. My whole body went numb, stars burst before my eyes, and it felt like a sudden attack of low blood sugar. My head was heavy, my feet felt light, and immediately afterward, I lost consciousness.

When I woke again, the alarm was ringing.

It was already seven in the morning.

Sunlight came through the window and drove away a little of the chill. I sat up abruptly and looked around. The woman was gone. Everything in the room was normal, as if everything from the night before had only been an absurd nightmare.

I did not dare think about it any further. I washed up in a hurry and went to work.

When I came back from work that evening, I hesitated for a long time. In the end, I still did not ask to change rooms. I truly could not bear to spend the extra ten or twenty yuan.

But from then on, I never saw that woman again.

Later, I changed jobs and moved out of that small inn. I never went back.

But I will always remember that freezing night, the eyeless woman with the swaying head, and the feeling of my whole body going numb when I swung that knife.

Some people say I was too tired and hallucinated. Others say that room in the inn was unclean.

But only I know that all of it was real.

To this day, I no longer dare stay in cheap, old, run-down inns. I am even more afraid of letting a mirror face the bed.

Some fears, once carved into the bones, can never be shaken off.