Chapter 8: Room 1303 (Part 8)
Seizing on the secondhand shop owner’s weakness, the store owner managed to buy the wedding dress at a very low price. That very evening, he eagerly dressed the plastic mannequin in the wedding dress. Just as he expected, right when he was about to close up for the night, a young woman walked into the store.
As usual, the girl’s eyes were immediately drawn to the wedding dress on the mannequin. She insisted on buying it without even asking the price.
The store owner, thrilled, named an absurdly high price without hesitation. He believed the dress’s craftsmanship warranted it and didn’t think it was too unreasonable to mark it up a bit.
After hearing the price, the girl called a few friends, managed to scrape together the required amount, and paid for it, leaving with the dress. Her face shone with joy as she carried it out of the store.
One sale richer, the store owner happily closed up shop, humming a tune on his way out.
The next day, he opened the store as usual, but as he went about his cleaning routine, something felt off—the female mannequin seemed to have moved. Alarmed, he worried that a thief might have broken in. Rushing over to check on the mannequin, he recalled that it was his store’s main attraction.
But when he finally got a good look at the mannequin dressed in the wedding gown, a chilling thought struck him. Hadn’t he sold that wedding dress yesterday? How was it back in the store?
The store owner remembered what the secondhand shop owner had told him about the dress, and a cold sweat formed on his brow. Trembling, he attempted to take the wedding dress off the mannequin to inspect it, but as soon as he touched the mannequin’s hand, he froze in place.
The mannequin’s hand was warm, with the texture of human skin instead of plastic…
Fighting his fear, he slowly turned the mannequin around to face him. The moment he saw its face, he screamed in terror: “How could this be?!”
The plastic mannequin was gone. In its place stood the young woman who had bought the wedding dress. She wore the dress, her face locked in a plastic-like, rigid smile, her vacant eyes open wide, lifeless like a statue.
They say that day, many people saw the store owner tumble out of his shop, stumbling and scrambling in panic.
Afterward, the shop closed down, and the plastic mannequin was nowhere to be found. This story became an urban legend.
Once Song Qingluo finished speaking, he fell silent. Lin Banxia and Ji Leshui, who had been listening intently, looked visibly intrigued, both with expressions that suggested they wanted to hear more.
“Wait a minute,” Ji Leshui said. “If everyone who saw this mannequin felt compelled to wear her clothes, then why didn’t Lin Banxia wear them? Or you, for that matter?”
“It depends on a person’s sensitivity,” Song Qingluo explained. “Some people are more susceptible to unusual influences and can be affected easily. Others, not so much.”
“Oh.” Ji Leshui scratched his head, suddenly realizing he was still wearing the traditional bridal headpiece, which made him feel slightly awkward. “I’m going to change out of this.”
Once Ji Leshui went into the bedroom to change, Lin Banxia looked at Song Qingluo and asked, “Are there many objects like that out there?”
Song Qingluo replied, “Not too many, but not too few either.”
Lin Banxia asked, “Would you say the house we’re living in now is one of those?”
Song Qingluo responded, “Yes.”
Lin Banxia hesitated. “And the chest in your living room… is it also…”
Song Qingluo raised a finger to his lips, gesturing for silence. Lin Banxia pressed his lips together, swallowing his questions.
When Ji Leshui finished changing and came back out, he avoided looking directly at the mannequin. Luckily, Song Qingluo reassured him, explaining that the mannequin could only enchant someone three times. Except for the wedding dress, any other clothes on it would lose their effect after three days. So there was no real danger—just a little spookiness.
Lin Banxia asked, “So, how long does the effect of this wedding dress last?”
Song Qingluo replied calmly, “If uninterrupted, it lasts until death.”
Lin Banxia: “…”
Ji Leshui, hearing this, thought back to the store and the girl in Song Qingluo’s story. A chilling realization dawned on him: how did Song Qingluo know that the wedding dress could last until death…?
After the brief scare, evening had completely fallen, and Song Qingluo put the plastic mannequin in his bedroom.
Although Ji Leshui still felt a little unsettled being left alone, he had indeed stopped seeing frightening visions in the afternoon. With Lin Banxia’s reassurance, he reluctantly agreed to stay by himself in Song Qingluo’s room.
Song Qingluo didn’t mind either way. If Ji Leshui had refused, he would have just accepted it as fate. After all, he wasn’t one to force a rescue on anyone.
With Ji Leshui settled, Song Qingluo and Lin Banxia left him to rest nearby.
Tonight was another moonless night, with dark clouds pressing down like a heavy curtain over the sky. The wind howled outside the window as Lin Banxia and Song Qingluo sat in front of the television, sharing a comfortable silence without any conversation.
On the TV, a variety show was playing. It wasn’t particularly boring, but it wasn’t exactly interesting either. Lin Banxia suddenly felt a bit cold and reached for a cushion on the sofa to hug to his chest.
Perhaps it was the strong wind, but the window, which had been shut tight, suddenly rattled loudly. Lin Banxia initially intended to get up and close the window, but then he remembered that this window was the one that had frightened Ji Leshui a few days ago. At that time, he had wiped the bloody handprint off the glass’s inner side… Wait, the inner side?
Lin Banxia suddenly realized that if the bloody handprint was on the inside, did that mean the thing had left it from inside the house? Ji Leshui was gone now, but he was still sitting in the room… Goosebumps instantly prickled his back, and he felt his throat tighten uncomfortably.
Seeing him standing still, Song Qingluo asked softly, “What’s wrong?”
Lin Banxia quietly recounted the strange events he had encountered a few days earlier.
Song Qingluo replied, “So?”
Lin Banxia said, “So I’m a little scared. Could you please help me close the window?”
Song Qingluo: “…”
Lin Banxia: “0.0”
Song Qingluo looked at Lin Banxia’s wide, round eyes and said helplessly, “Why weren’t you scared back then?”
Lin Banxia: “0.0 I didn’t react in time.”
Song Qingluo: “…”
Lin Banxia added, “0.0 Now that I think about it, it’s really terrifying.”
Song Qingluo: “…” He finally gave up discussing the matter with Lin Banxia and silently walked over to the window to shut it tight.
Lin Banxia gratefully thanked Song Qingluo and mentioned that he wanted to take a shower since he had broken out in a cold sweat from fear.
Song Qingluo couldn’t help but say, “It’s been two or three days, and you’re just now reacting?”
Lin Banxia looked down at the clothes he had prepared to change into and replied, “That’s actually pretty quick. Normally, it would take a month.”
Song Qingluo: “…”
After Lin Banxia took a shower, he finally washed away the fear that had come with his sudden realization. He happily munched on a bowl of high-calorie nuts before going to bed. Of course, he was still conscientious and didn’t forget to call Ji Leshui before sleeping to ask how he was doing.
Ji Leshui answered the phone normally and said there was nothing serious, just that he kept hearing someone snoring next door and wondered if it was Song Qingluo.
Lin Banxia peeked out to see Song Qingluo still watching TV in the living room and, with a guilty conscience, replied that it was.
“Oh wow, it really is him! You scared me!” Ji Leshui said, “He looks so handsome and is so thin, yet he snores so loudly. You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Lin Banxia hummed and hawed, trying to dodge Ji Leshui’s comments, and asked if he felt uncomfortable anywhere else. Ji Leshui yawned and said he felt fine, mentioning that he had felt cold earlier, but now that he was at Song Qingluo’s place, it was much better. Although the snoring was a bit loud, it didn’t bother him; in fact, it felt like a sign of life.
Lin Banxia thought to himself that it was indeed a sign of life.
“Well, I’m going to sleep now.” Ji Leshui said, “You should get some rest too.”
“Goodnight,” Lin Banxia replied.
After hanging up, Lin Banxia turned off the light in the bedroom. He was sleeping in Ji Leshui’s room because when Song Qingluo arrived, he complained that Ji Leshui’s room had no windows, so Lin Banxia temporarily swapped with him. With the bedroom light off, only a faint glow remained from the living room. Lin Banxia stared at the ceiling, brewing a sense of drowsiness.
However, just as he was about to fall asleep, he seemed to faintly hear a strange chewing sound, sticky and slow, as if something was chewing on tough meat. The sound came from the wardrobe beside him, echoing right by Lin Banxia’s ear.
Lin Banxia lay motionless in bed.
The sound grew louder. The wardrobe door slowly revealed a dark crack, and within that crack appeared a blood-red eye, filled with malice, peering at the person on the bed.
Lin Banxia remained still.
The eyes in the wardrobe multiplied from one to two, then to three, until they densely filled every crevice of the wardrobe. Each eye was a vivid blood-red, with pupils as tiny as pinpricks.
“Hu… Hu…” A faint snoring sound came from the mouth of the person lying in bed.
The wardrobe, which had been expanding its crack, suddenly froze, as if shocked by the soft snoring. If they could speak, they would surely curse: “How the hell can you sleep through this?!”
Meanwhile, the person still sitting in the living room, idly watching TV, had a rich smile in their eyes.
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The author has something to say:
Lin Banxia, the IE browser of the human world.
Just to explain, a ten-sided die shows 0-9, with one representing the tens place and the other representing the units place. 00 means 100.
