The exhausted Xie Xishu curled up in the gap between the coffee table and the sofa in the living room. Before he knew it, his eyelids had grown heavy, and he drifted off to sleep.
Then, he had a dream.
In this dream, the first thing he heard was a series of hurried footsteps.
The footsteps were heavy, the heels of high-heeled shoes clattering loudly on the floor, the sound traveling through the poorly insulated walls and directly into Xie Xishu’s ears.
He heard the electronic beeping of the door lock being opened, and the next moment, the door to his house was forcefully pushed open from the outside. The handle of the security door banged against the wall, creating a loud noise.
In the dream, Xie Xishu was startled by the noise. He paused, somewhat bewildered, and stopped working on the practice book in front of him, then hurriedly rushed out of the room.
“Mom?”
The figure standing at the door came into his view—it was his mother, whom he hadn’t seen for a long time.
However, his mother looked somewhat unfamiliar.
But in Xie Xishu’s memory, his mother had always paid great attention to her appearance and demeanor. Even though she had a child in high school, she still looked much younger than her peers.
But now, the mother in front of him appeared extremely haggard, extremely… extremely aged.
Upon hearing the noise, the woman immediately turned her head. Her eyes were wide, her pupils trembling slightly, and the light from the living room shone on her face. Every muscle on her face sagged toward her mouth, while her brows were tightly furrowed. The hair, always meticulously tied at the back, had long since come loose, and the sparse strands clung messily to her sweat-drenched forehead, making her look extremely disheveled.
Xie Xishu had never seen his mother look like this before.
“Why are you back? Didn’t you say your vacation was next month?”
He couldn’t help but ask.
“… How many days will you be staying at home this time?”
Despite his confusion, the sight of his long-absent mother filled Xie Xishu’s heart with a faint joy.
His mother didn’t immediately respond. She merely raised her chin slightly, as if acknowledging that she had heard him.
“Oh, by the way, I made it to the finals of the Math Olympiad this time. The teacher said that if I win an award, I could get extra points for the college entrance exam. I think I have a pretty good chance—”
Seeing how utterly exhausted his mother looked, Xie Xishu went to the kitchen to pour a glass of water and handed it to her. At the same time, he couldn’t help but share the good news from recent days.
However, before he could finish his sentence, the woman didn’t even wait for him to set the cup down on the coffee table. His shoulder suddenly throbbed in pain—it was his mother who had pressed down on his shoulder and shoved him aside.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?!”
The woman, sitting on the couch, reprimanded Xie Xishu in a low, furious voice, her expression becoming increasingly ferocious and irritable.
“Go to your room first, don’t bother me…” She immediately turned her face away and focused intently on talking into the tablet on her lap. But her tone changed instantly when speaking to someone else, becoming much more calm and composed. “Sorry, Director Xu, I had a brief interruption here… Please continue.”
Only then did Xie Xishu notice the Bluetooth headset hanging from his mother’s ear, which was flashing a small blue light, indicating she was on a call.
“… I’m sorry.”
Knowing full well that his mother probably wouldn’t even notice, Xie Xishu still muttered an apology, his head lowered.
As he was about to retreat, he heard the heavy sound of something dragging against the floor from the entryway.
Then, the door opened once again.
This time, it was his father—who came home even less often than his mother—standing at the entrance.
Now, Xie Xishu was truly astonished.
“Dad? What’s going on? Why are you back too?”
Father Xie’s neck seemed barely able to support his head, drooping very low.
And his complexion was even worse than Mother Xie’s, looking completely ashen.
He was dragging a heavy suitcase, stumbling as he walked, completely out of it like a man whose soul had been drained.
After hearing Xie Xishu call out, it took several seconds before he slowly lifted his head.
Seeing the anxious, somewhat lost boy in the living room, the man furrowed his brows tightly.
“It’s so late, why aren’t you asleep yet?”
He asked sharply.
“I, I… I was working on some problems. I was just about to go to sleep, but then I heard some noise outside, so I came out to take a look. Dad, Mom, why are you both home? What happened…”
Xie Xishu tried to explain, but his father cut him off abruptly and harshly.
“Enough, just go to sleep. Since you know you’re not in good health, you should learn some self-discipline. As for us… don’t worry about adult matters.”
With that, he turned directly to Mother Xie, who was sitting on the sofa.
“Finished the call?” he asked, “Any solutions?”
Mother Xie ended the call and, pressing her temples, muttered softly, “I don’t know…”
…
Neither Father Xie nor Mother Xie spared even a sliver of attention for their only child.
“Well, I’m going to bed then. Good night, Dad, Mom.”
Xie Xishu’s voice became increasingly timid as he murmured softly, pursing his lips, then obediently retreated back to his room.
By then, Father Xie and mother had already huddled together on the couch, intently staring at the complex data and documents on the tablet. From time to time, they would lower their voices to discuss something. Clearly, whatever they were talking about wasn’t pleasant, as their expressions remained frightening throughout.
This made Xie Xishu feel even more anxious and unsettled.
In the depths of his mind, it felt like there was a voice screaming, warning him that something wasn’t right.
So after closing the door, he stood in place for a few seconds, unable to resist. He quietly opened the door just a crack.
The boy hunched his back, cautiously peering into the living room through the narrow gap.
In the shadows of the living room, his parents seemed to have merged into one. Xie Xishu saw his mother trembling as she rolled up her sleeves, seemingly showing something to his father.
Unable to help himself, Xie Xishu opened the door a bit wider, trying to get a better look.
And it was at that moment that the woman on the couch suddenly twisted her head 180 degrees, staring directly at Xie Xishu.
Her voice became abnormally sharp and shrill.
“What are you looking at?!”
Xie Xishu let out a low scream, stumbled back uncontrollably, and fell directly to the floor.
—The mother who turned around was no longer the mother.
The familiar face of Xie Xishu suddenly twisted and distorted in the dream, turning into a form that was completely unacceptable.
On the woman’s face appeared deep red slits, one after another. The edges of the slits were dotted with pitch-black eyelashes.
And those slits, the moment they met Xie Xishu’s gaze, all opened simultaneously.
Each slit became an eye.
But they were not the eyes of a normal human.
Xie Xishu had never seen such eyes before.
The eyes were filled with madness and despair, the bulging eyeballs looked like they could pop out of their sockets at any moment. The pupils were large, dark, and devoid of any light, filled with pitch-blackness, while the whites of the eyes were lined with dense, crimson blood vessels.
So many of them.
So densely packed.
Mother Xie’s face was like a bunch of grapes, crowded with those grotesque eyeballs.
And each eyeball stared unblinkingly at Xie Xishu.
“Didn’t I tell you? You should go back to your room and sleep.”
He heard his mother’s voice, emerging from deep within the body that was slowly crawling towards him.
…
Waking up from the nightmare once again, Xie Xishu was not surprised to find that his clothes were already soaked with cold sweat.
He was collapsed on the ground, his hands and feet ice cold, almost numb. But when he raised his hand to touch his cheeks and forehead, the temperature on the back of his stiff hand was so hot that it felt as if it could burn him.
Xie Xishu knew that he had a fever again.
He had thought he was used to high fevers by now, but this time the discomfort was particularly intense. Every breath he took felt as if lava was spewing out of his nasal passages, and his body felt incredibly weak when he tried to get up from the ground, as if someone had secretly crept in while he was sleeping and stolen the bones from beneath his skin and muscles.
Just the simple action of crawling from the floor to the sofa left Xie Xishu panting heavily, his vision repeatedly blacking out.
As he gathered the strength to move again, he could only lie on the sofa, staring blankly ahead.
The living room was unusually dim.
Xie Xishu had slept straight through until the dead of night, and because no one had turned on the lights in the house, it now seemed especially silent and dark, like a grave awaiting the burial of a corpse.
And it was precisely because the house was so dim that Xie Xishu noticed a small glimmer of light on the front door.
It was the light coming through the peephole.
Xie Xishu stared blankly at that point of light.
…Then his heart suddenly clenched tightly.
*
Like all modern apartment complexes, the hallway outside Xie Xishu’s door was equipped with motion-activated lights installed by the developer.
The light would only come on when someone was there.
Moreover, Xie’s house was at the end of the hall, an enclosed space used solely by his family.
Unless a neighbor or a staff member came to visit, no one would ever pass by their door.
But now, the motion-activated light outside his door had turned on.
This could only mean one thing—someone was standing at his door. If it was a neighbor or property staff, they would have immediately pressed the doorbell and explained their reason for coming.
Yet, several minutes had passed, and the light from the peephole had not gone out. The doorbell at Xie Xishu’s house remained silent.
Xie Xishu’s heartbeat grew faster and faster, his breathing became more rapid.
After all the strange events that had happened, he was like a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow. Everything seemed so strange, so wrong. But he wasn’t sure if this was just his mind playing tricks on him, a delusion brought on by a mental breakdown.
“Who…who is it?”
Xie Xishu tried to call out toward the door, but the moment the words left his mouth, he realized that his “shout” was barely more than a whisper.
Struggling against the grip of fear, Xie Xishu forced himself to stand. Supporting himself against the wall, he slowly shuffled toward the door.
【It’s probably just a wrong delivery.】
【Or maybe it’s property staff checking the hallway.】
【There’s nothing to be afraid of.】
【I’m just too tense.】
【Don’t be afraid.】
【Don’t be afraid.】
【Don’t be afraid.】
…
Xie Xishu trembled as he whispered to himself, then slowly brought his eye up to the peephole—no matter what, he needed to see who was outside his door.
But just at that moment, the light outside the door went out… After a period of inactivity, the motion-activated light would indeed turn off automatically.
In Xie Xishu’s field of vision, everything beyond the peephole was pitch black; he could see nothing.
【Yes, there’s no one outside the door.】
【I was just overthinking things.】
“…I’ll have to call property in a couple of days to get that motion sensor fixed.”
Xie Xishu heard himself mutter aloud.
The boy’s hoarse mumbling echoed in the pitch-black entryway, sounding especially unhinged.
And almost as soon as his words fell, a familiar melody suddenly rang out from behind the security door.
Xie Xishu’s movements immediately froze.
It was his phone’s ringtone.
When choosing a ringtone, Xie Xishu had deliberately picked a particularly obscure tune. Not only did no one else use it, most people had never even heard it.
As the phone’s ringtone vibrated, the motion-activated light turned on again, but Xie Xishu saw nothing.
The area outside his door was empty, yet the phone’s ringtone was right there, impossibly close and crystal clear.
“Who is it?”
“Who’s out there?”
“I’m going to call security.”
Xie Xishu’s legs gave out, and he fell to the floor.
Terrified, he called out several times toward the door—but outside, there was only the sound of his phone’s ringtone, endlessly repeating.
Back when Xie Xishu chose this ringtone, it was because he really liked the ethereal and mysterious melody, but in this moment, it felt like the ringtone was dragging him into a deep, cold swamp.
【Stop.】
【Please stop!】
His heart pounded wildly, as if it could burst out of his chest at any moment. Xie Xishu could feel a dull pain spreading across his chest, and the cold terror seemed to freeze his very bones.
He desperately prayed in his heart for the ringtone to stop.
But each time the ringtone paused briefly, it stubbornly started up again not long after.
Again and again, over and over.
The ringtone repeated so many times that Xie Xishu’s mind finally shattered.
He ran straight into the kitchen, pulled open a drawer, grabbed a sharp, gleaming fruit knife, and returned to the front door, his eyes red as he flung it open.
“What do you want—?”
He screamed at the empty air outside.
*
But at that moment, outside his door…
There was no one.
*
Xie Xishu trembled violently, his eyes wide open as he frantically scanned his surroundings.
Everything in front of him was as familiar as ever, just like any other time he had opened his front door.
On the shoe rack in the hallway were the sneakers he had casually kicked off when he came home.
The doormat at the door still had the simple words “Welcome Home” written on it.
And his phone was neatly placed in front of the doormat.
Just as Xie Xishu had pushed open the door, the ringtone had stopped.
His phone had returned to its idle, screen-off state.
*
“Hoo…”
Xie Xishu stared intensely at the phone.
After what felt like an eternity, he cautiously reached out toward the phone as if it were a venomous insect.
It was indeed the phone he had lost earlier.
Just looking at its current state, it was clear how violently he had thrown it when he abandoned it.
One corner of the screen was cracked, and the charm that used to hang from the phone, embroidered with the words “Dreams Come True,” was nowhere to be found.
Xie Xishu, his hands trembling, unlocked the phone. Immediately, he noticed a red dot in the bottom-right corner showing “missed calls,” with the number “99” on it.
*
Xie Xishu didn’t even want to think about how many people had called him while he was hiding at home, asleep like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.
But what scared him even more… was how this phone had ended up outside his door.
Everything he had experienced felt like an absurd nightmare.
Yet he had no idea how to wake up from it.
*
“Ding dong, ding dong…”
While Xie Xishu was staring blankly at the phone, his hands and feet cold, his mind in a daze, the phone rang again.
For a split second, Xie Xishu almost dropped it, his instinct nearly driving him to throw the phone away.
But at the last moment, he snapped out of it and tightly gripped the phone.
The caller ID showed Teacher Li’s face flashing repeatedly—probably because, no matter what, he didn’t want to hear that suffocating ringtone again. Before he even realized it, he had already pressed the answer button.
“Xie Xishu?”
Even though he hadn’t activated the speaker, Xie Xishu could still hear Teacher Li’s voice clearly.
In that moment, Xie Xishu instinctively closed his eyes, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.
At this point, there was no way to escape. He was like a passenger on a sinking ship, with nowhere left to run, helplessly waiting for the inevitable storm—
Teacher Li’s voice, as always, was high-pitched and agitated.
“You finally decided to pick up the phone? Xie Xishu, I’m so disappointed in you!”
“Skipping class… I never thought that even you would start skipping class…”
“I thought you were different from those hopeless students at the Third High, you know that? I thought you were one of the few with a chance.”
“But now look at yourself—skipping school for no reason? Do you even realize what you’ve done? Have you thought about what this means for you? For your parents? For your grades?”
…
As Teacher Li’s sharp scolding continued, Xie Xishu’s expression slowly grew more confused.
The reason for Teacher Li’s call was not what he had expected.
At least, before he answered, Xie Xishu had never imagined that even at a time like this, Teacher Li would still be fixated on repeating the same meaningless reprimands.
Could it really be that Qi Wu’s body was still lying in the bathroom, completely unnoticed?
No, impossible.
His phone… his phone was left behind during that incident.
But now this phone had been delivered to his doorstep. Clearly, this was Qi Wu’s doing.
And it was certainly a cruel and effective way to intimidate him.
…
Did anyone else at school know about this?
Could he still continue attending the Third High after this?
Countless questions and worries flooded Xie Xishu’s mind.
Even though he knew that interrupting Teacher Li at this point would only make him angrier, he couldn’t help but ask:
“How… how is Qi Wu?”
Xie Xishu’s voice trembled violently.
Only he knew how much courage it took to ask that question.
“Qi Wu?”
Teacher Li’s voice paused for a brief moment on the other end, and Xie Xishu’s heart almost stopped beating.
But soon, he heard Teacher Li’s voice, cold and indifferent: “What does Qi Wu have to do with your behavior today? I don’t understand why you’re wasting your attention on someone so insignificant. Xie Xishu, you need to understand, people like him—those scum—might seem flashy now, playing the thug in school, but society and the law will deal with him eventually. But you’re different. Your most important task right now is studying. Studying should be your entire life. But look at you, skipping class during such a critical time in your senior year—”
Maybe he was still dreaming.
Teacher Li’s nagging continued, but to Xie Xishu, the voice had long faded into the distance.
Even though he had asked about Qi Wu, he was still utterly lost and uncertain about his own future.
During the time he had been on the phone, the sensor light, triggered by his stillness, had silently dimmed.
Darkness once again enveloped Xie Xishu.
Moreover, because there were no windows in this small area by the door, no light could filter in. The darkness here was much thicker than in the living room.
“Hoo…”
In this pitch-black void, Xie Xishu faintly felt a warm gust of air brush against the back of his neck.
