Ke Xun was still worried about Wei Dong, so she went up to 616 anyway, only to be helped back to 411 by Wei Dong.
Ke Xun looked at Mu Yiran, feeling dizzy, and even vaguely saw a hint of concern in his eyes.
"Ke'er, I really didn't expect you to react so strongly. Luckily, I live on the sixth floor, otherwise you would have gone straight up there last night." Wei Dong helped Ke Xun to the sofa.
Ke Xun opened the small green bottle given to him by the old man Li Taiyong, poured out a few Danshen pills, and put them in his mouth: "If I stayed up there for two more minutes, I would have exploded." He quickly corrected himself under Mu Yiran's gaze, "I meant my head."
"Perhaps this is also why you feel uncomfortable with the world inside the painting." Mu Yiran put down the mechanical theory book he was holding, having just tried to find some clues in it. "Is your discomfort directed at the entire sixth floor or just room 616?"
"The entire sixth floor." Ke Xun's mouth was still full of the bitter, cold taste of the pills, but his head and heart felt a little better than before. "The doorman's words were very accurate. It was really oppressive. My head felt as heavy as if I had an aircraft carrier on my shoulders, and I couldn't even lift my neck."
Wei Dong nodded repeatedly, reporting to his boss, "Me too, a little less severe than his, but it felt like I had a gas cylinder on my head."
Mu Yiran completely ignored these absurd metaphors and poured Ke Xun a glass of water from the thermos. "Has room 616 changed?"
Ke Xun saw the glass of water and immediately… With a beaming smile, she still answered the question first: "Of course, Zhu Haowen even demonstrated how to measure it for me with a ruler. The outer wall of the room is tilted inwards. The inner wall, the side with the door and small window, is fine."
Ke Xun picked up the glass on the table. Although the water inside was still a bit hot, Ke Xun still happily blew on it to cool it down: "Did you put orange powder in it for me?"
Mu Yiran lowered her eyelids: "The water here seems to be a light pink color by itself."
Wei Dong felt like he had been showered with another dose of PDA, and his eyes simply stepped from the room to the door.
"Everyone's here?" Sha Liu suddenly appeared at the door.
Wei Dong didn't know if this "everyone" included him.
Sha Liu walked into the room and closed the door behind her.
The three men in the room stared at her, wondering what important statement this woman was about to make.
Sha Liu leaned against the door: "Something terrible happened in our room last night."
Ke Xun slurped up a mouthful of scalding water: "Why didn't you tell us downstairs?"
"I was afraid of scaring Qiu Lu. She's easily frightened, and being startled would only make things worse." Sha Liu always had her own reasons for everything she did.
Mu Yiran asked directly: "What happened last night?"
Sha Liu glanced around the room briefly, her gaze landing on the red slippers on the shoe rack by the door. She subconsciously moved away from them: "Last night, those two girls from 402 came knocking on our door. I wasn't asleep yet, but I was too scared to move or answer the door. I just sat there in the dark, looking out the small window at the corridor—our room doesn't have curtains."
Everyone listened quietly to her story.
"Those two girls were really anxious. They shone their phone lights into our room, and they ended up illuminating things inside..."
Wei Dong, the most timid of them all, simply sat down on the sofa and squeezed in with Ke Xun: "Holy crap, what did you see?"
"There was someone sitting on the toilet by the window." Sha Liu's voice was a little low. "And from the angle outside the window, you can't see that person at all."
Not only Wei Dong, but Ke Xun was also startled: "What person?"
Wei Dong: "Holy crap, why is there a toilet in your room?"
Mu Yiran: "..."
Sha Liu adjusted her glasses, seemingly trying to compose herself: "I also think it's pretty weird. We have a big toilet in our room, like a commode. Last night, when the phone light came on, there was a woman sitting on that toilet, a... a woman with a full head of white hair, completely white."
Even after experiencing the horror of the previous two pictures, Wei Dong was still successfully frozen by this "white-haired, white-bodied" woman sitting on the toilet: "This... did you see it clearly?"
"I didn't dare look too long; I was so scared I immediately closed my eyes," Sha Liu said, still looking shaken. "After those two girls left, there was no sound in the room. It was a long time before I opened my eyes slightly, and the snow-white woman was gone."
Ke Xun took two more Danshen pills, cleared his throat, and asked, "Do you think that woman was a physical entity, or some kind of aura or field?"
"I'm not sure either; I only glanced at her," Sha Liu bit her lip. "However, I think I can be certain that the woman used to live in 410."
Wei Dong was scared, but he dared to make a connection: he guessed that the toilet was probably the white woman's private property…
Sha Liu continued, "When I first entered the room yesterday, I saw a few particularly long white hairs on the comb in front of the dressing table. Those hairs must have been hers."
"The dressing table?" Mu Yiran, though unfamiliar with these supernatural matters, still asked a traditional question: "Was there a reflection of that woman in the mirror?"
"No, there's no mirror on the dressing table at all," Sha Liu also found this strange. "It's obvious that the mirror that was originally integrated with the dressing table has been removed; there are still traces in some places."
Wei Dong initially thought living on the sixth floor was the worst luck, but now he felt that the other rooms were even more dangerous. "About that white, white girl… you said she was all white, was it because she was wearing a white dress?"
"I don't know, and I didn't dare to look closely, but her whole body was white, and her face was probably white too, like a snowman." Sha Liu suddenly felt a little nauseous.
"Besides these, are there any other strange signs?" Mu Yiran asked.
Sha Liu couldn't help but gag twice. "I didn't sleep all night. In the middle of the night, I heard our door open and close twice. Although it was very quiet, I could still hear it in the night."
"The door opened and closed twice? You mean someone went out and then came back in?" Mu Yiran frowned slightly.
"It's also possible that someone came in and then went out." Ke Xun took a sip of hot water that wasn't of good quality.
Sha Liu: "That's unlikely. The door is locked from the inside; it's improbable someone from the outside could get in."
Wei Dong: "The problem is... someone who can freely come and go in the middle of the night... can't be an ordinary human."
Sha Liu thought for a moment and then said, "I asked the old lady next door, and the last person who lived in our house was named Ya Fen. Apparently, she lived in 410 for over ten years, and her parents recently took her to live in the city center."
"You mean, this Ya Fen is still alive?" Ke Xun also felt his question was a bit strange, but he believed everyone would understand.
"Judging from the old lady, she probably moved away." Sha Liu thought of the thousands of romance novels in the room, wondering why Ya Fen hadn't taken all her books.
If the white woman wasn't Ya Fen, then who could she be?
Sha Liu cleared her throat awkwardly: "Qiu Lu and I have discussed it, and tonight we'll spend the night on the sofa in the outer room. If anything happens, we'll run to the corridor immediately. Please look after us then." "
Okay," Ke Xun agreed.
Sha Liu breathed a slight sigh of relief: "It's getting late, let's meet downstairs."
The group walked out of the house and saw Qiu Lu waving up from the third floor: "Come down for lunch!"
Qiu Lu had been with her two companions, and Xin Miao was walking beside her.
They all went downstairs together. Qin Ci was already waiting at the restaurant entrance with Elder Li Taiyong, and Zhu Haowen stood beside him with a blank expression.
Mu Yiran looked at Qin Ci, who nodded: "I've told the old man the truth, and he didn't react strongly."
Elder Li Taiyong wasn't deaf; upon hearing Qin Ci's words, he slowly said, "Everything has a cause and effect. Although this matter is supernatural, it's not without reason."
People's expressions varied upon hearing this. Qiu Lu wanted to retort, but considering the man was over seventy, she had to refrain.
Lunch was a simple home-cooked meal, and everyone decided to discuss things afterward, so as not to let hearing certain things affect their meal.
After everyone had put down their chopsticks, Qin Ci said, "There's nothing wrong with the furnishings in our room 307, and it hasn't tilted like in 616. However, I heard some strange noises last night, I don't know if this counts."
"What kind of noises?" Sha Liu asked first.
Qin Ci thought carefully for a moment, "It sounded a bit like someone making a sucking sound. Sometimes when we feed small animals, we make similar sounds."
Xin Miao, the most timid, hugged her arms to force herself not to tremble.
"I heard that sound too," said Li Taiyong, the old man who shared a room with Qin Ci, "like calling a cat or dog over. If it were a sound, it would probably be something like a 'doo doo doo' sound."
Everyone understood, but no one dared to demonstrate or imitate it, afraid that if they learned the sound, they would be followed by it.
It was a kind of insidious terror, different from the terror of a monster suddenly appearing. It was like being unexpectedly tickled by a ghostly hand—it didn't hurt, just felt unsettling.
"Where is everyone else?" Sha Liu looked at everyone.
Zhishao, who lives in 317, shook her head: "We talked until very late last night and didn't find anything unusual."
Qiu Lu, who lives in 410, said: "We were fine last night too..."
Ke Xun, Sha Liu, and the other two looked at each other and no one said anything.
Then Qiu Lu added, "But I dreamt of a Yuki-onna (snow woman) last night."
Ke Xun and Wei Dong asked in unison, "What Yuki-onna?"
"It's a kind of yokai (supernatural creature) in Japanese mythology. It appears in snowy mountains and freezes any man it likes, then displays them all in a cave to be treasured and admired," Qiu Lu explained. "The Yuki-onna I dreamt of last night was completely white, wearing white clothes, and very beautiful."
Wei Dong and Sha Liu's faces turned grim, and the others didn't feel comfortable hearing about the dream either. Only Shou Zhu smiled, "Many Japanese yokai legends are very romantic."
Qin Ci looked at Mu Yiran and Ke Xun, "Is there any noise in room 411, you two?"
Although Ke Xun hadn't slept very well last night, he hadn't heard or seen anything strange. He looked at Mu Yiran, feeling that the other person hadn't had a chance to tell him something.
Sure enough, Mu Yiran calmly said, "I also heard some noise last night, it seemed to be coming from under the bed."
"Under the bed?" Everyone showed the expected fear.
There was a sound under the bed, like someone was looking for something.