The weapon by the pillow

Chapter 6 The door... is locked.

All eyes were on him, but Cheng Tan found it difficult to speak.

What should he say?

What about those recurring nightmares of killing the same woman with your own hands every night?

Are you referring to the pair of pliers that happened to appear in both the dream and the drawer in reality?

Tell me about that old newspaper with such a chilling coincidence?

Who would believe that? They'd just think he was crazy, or... worse.

"It seems you know more than you said online." Shadow pressed on relentlessly, showing no intention of letting go of the instigator.

Just then, the usually timid and cowardly research enthusiast suddenly pointed to the area under the table with the missing leg against the wall and exclaimed, "What...what's that?"

The flashlight beam immediately moved over.

In the shadows between the table and the wall, there seemed to be an inconspicuous, strange object.

The lynx hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and carefully took it out with its gloved hand.

It was a faded pink hair clip. The style was old-fashioned, like the kind of old-fashioned item that little girls would wear more than ten years ago.

The hair clip was ordinary, but its appearance at the crime scene seemed somewhat out of place.

However, the moment Cheng Tan saw the hair clip, his brain went blank, as if something had exploded.

Fragmented, forgotten images flashed through his mind like film reels illuminated by lightning:

—On a sweltering summer afternoon, cicadas were chirping at their loudest in the narrow alley.

—A little girl in an old dress ran over crying, her hair disheveled, and the ice cream in her hand fell to the ground, melting into a sticky puddle.

A group of teenagers surrounded her, laughing and joking. One of them, the leader, was holding a pink object and waving it around smugly.

—That boy leading the group…is just like him! The mischievous, impulsive Cheng Tan of his youth, who didn’t care about being scolded by his parents!

—What he was holding seemed to be that pink hair clip! He remembered saying something sarcastic that made his companions laugh, and the girl cried even harder.

Then...then a simply dressed, pale-faced young woman rushed out from the stairwell next door, shielding the girl behind her, and staring at him with eyes that were filled with anger and...some indescribable sadness.

That woman...that face...

Cheng Tan suddenly took a step back and crashed into the wall behind him with a dull thud.

The dust that had accumulated on the walls fell down in a flurry.

is her!

The woman in my dream! She looks just like the deceased Li Wan!

Could it be that they had met before?

Not in a dream, but thirteen years ago! In this Anping!

Could the plot be that he bullied her...sister? daughter? neighbor's child?

This long-buried memory, like a burst dam, breached the barriers of his consciousness. Why did he have absolutely no recollection of it before? Was it a deliberate, subconscious forgetting, or was it because that memory was connected to something far more terrifying, forcibly sealed away by his brain?

"What's wrong with you?" Lin Qian keenly noticed Cheng Tan's violent reaction.

"N-nothing..." Cheng Tan's voice was hoarse, and cold sweat had soaked his back. He felt dizzy, as if every object in the room was twisting and deforming, pressing towards him.

Old K lit another cigarette and said quietly, "Looks like someone's remembered something."

The shadow did not speak, but his eyes became even more profound, as if he had already pieced together part of the truth.

Lynx placed the hair clip on the table and scratched his head in frustration: "Damn it, this place is creepy! I think we'd better get out of here! Who cares about weapons!"

His words expressed the thoughts of everyone except Shadow and Old K. Ah Zhe and Xiao Fei nodded quickly.

"Yes, let's go! I don't want to stay here for another minute!"

Lynx was the first to walk towards the door, and the others followed eagerly, wanting to leave this suffocating place as soon as possible.

However, the lynx, who was walking in the lead, had just stepped into the door of room 403 when he suddenly stopped and let out a low curse.

"Hold!"

"What's wrong?" asked the meticulous researcher who followed closely behind.

The lynx didn't answer, but instead tried to push hard against the dark green iron door that had been slightly ajar when they came in.

The door remained completely still.

When they came in earlier, the door was only slightly ajar and opened with a gentle push. But now, no matter how hard the lynx rammed and pulled, the seemingly dilapidated iron door remained firmly welded to the frame, unmoving.

"Locked? How is that possible!" Lynx was both shocked and furious. He raised his foot and kicked the door hard, making a loud "bang," but the door remained as solid as ever.

A chill instantly gripped everyone.

They were trapped. Trapped in this haunted house from thirteen years ago.

"Try the window!" Ah Zhe shouted.

Several people immediately rushed towards the window that was nailed shut with wooden planks. The planks were nailed in so firmly that they couldn't be moved by hand. Lynx took out a multi-tool from his backpack and tried to pry open the planks, but the planks were thick and the nails were deeply embedded in the window frame. Even with the combined efforts of several people, they still couldn't pry them open.

Cheng Tan leaned against the cold wall and slowly slid down to sit on the ground.

He didn't offer help; the overwhelming information overload and his current predicament nearly robbed him of his ability to think. Fragments of memory, the terror of dreams, and the eeriness of reality intertwined to form a vast web, tightly binding him.

Old K remained leaning against the doorframe, leisurely smoking, seemingly unconcerned about being trapped; a faint, eerie smile even played at the corners of his mouth. Shadow walked to the door, carefully examining the lock and frame. He ran his hand around the keyhole, then looked at the hinges, his brow furrowing deeply.

"It wasn't locked from the outside," Shadow said in a deep voice. "The hinges have fine scratches, as if it was jammed from the outside by something. It looks like it was done by someone."

It was man-made!

These three words, spoken, struck like a heavy hammer blow to everyone's heart.

Who is it? Who's outside? Who locked them in here?

Fear, like an icy tide, quickly engulfed the entire room. The thrill of adventure that the daring netizen had felt vanished, replaced by danger and fear slowly covering the messy little house.

Just then, Xiaofei let out another terrified scream, his finger trembling as he pointed to the crack in the window that had been nailed shut with wooden planks.

"Eyes...eyes! It looks like there are eyes outside!"

All eyes immediately turned to that direction.

Behind the narrow gaps between several intersecting wooden planks, in the heavy darkness outside the window, one could vaguely see... not just one pair, but countless pairs! Densely packed, silently, they clung to the outside of the glass window, peering into the room through the gaps in the wooden planks!

In the dim light, those eyes gleamed with an indescribable, cold light. There was no emotion, no fluctuation; they simply watched silently, greedily, with a focused intensity, observing everything inside the room, observing their terror and despair.

It was as if a group of long-waiting audience members had finally witnessed the climax of the stage play.