Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror
Don’t Look Back
Head Return Don’t1
They couldn’t find any food delivery apps on their phones, so they could only go downstairs to buy food and bring it back. The sky was already dark. The entrance to Building 16 was bustling with people coming and going, waiting for food, chatting idly, courting lovers… the myriad forms of sentient beings2, extraordinarily lively.
But when they walked to the entrance of Building 18, this liveliness was swept away until nothing remained.
There was no one in front of Building 18. The dim yellow lightbulb in the lobby flickered from time to time, its alternating light and shadow creating a deeply oppressive atmosphere. The roll-up door of the small convenience store was pulled down; for some unknown reason, it had closed so early, making the already not-so-spacious area even more cramped and giving people a faint feeling of being unable to breathe.
The wind fills the tower before the mountain rain arrives3. The strong wind swept up sand and gravel, not to mention the willow catkins that had little weight to begin with.
Everyone felt that the mirror was a bit sinister, so they didn’t linger at the entrance for long, walking past one after another with their eyes not looking sideways.
Two people were standing on the windowsill next to 3056. The moment they saw them, they came over to greet them. It was the little newcomer and Wu Mei.
The little newcomer, with her shoulders hunched and back stooped, looked at them timidly, as if her body had been crushed by this eerie energy. “How… how is your consideration coming along?”
Bai Lu was just about to speak when Wu Mei, beside her, beat her to it. “If you don’t want to take her in, I can also move back and let her have my spot.”
The little newcomer nodded furiously behind her.
The current situation was indeed quite awkward. Wu Mei had moved out of her original dorm to accompany the little newcomer. If the newcomer moved into her old spot, even if Wu Mei didn’t say anything, she would probably feel pretty disgusted inside. So, she played a little trick, planting the seed of “they don’t want to take you in” in the newcomer’s head, thereby achieving the result of moving back herself.
In an instant, Hai Dongqing unraveled the twists and turns4 of the situation, but she just stood behind the crowd with her arms crossed, quietly watching Shen Maomao, not speaking or expressing any opinion.
As for Bai Lu, compared to the newcomer who understood nothing, she was more inclined toward Wu Mei, who was determined to be a Holy Mother5 and sprinkle love upon the world. At the very least, this kind of person wouldn’t drag the back leg6, nor would they store up thoughts and accumulate plans to harm you.
She looked back at the group. Peng Xiaorui was the first to show her support for her xuejie7. Gan Ze also nodded indifferently.
The vote was already three to two. Shen Maomao had no other objections and settled the matter directly.
The little newcomer thanked them gratefully several times, then diligently helped Wu Mei move her things to 3058.
By the time they finished, the sky had turned completely dark.
The newcomer turned and went back to her own dorm. Shen Maomao saw her off, locked the main door, and even imitated Hai Dongqing by hanging a glass water cup on the doorknob.
The newly arrived Wu Mei was somewhat clashing and not fitting in8 with the dorm’s atmosphere, so she had no intention of making awkward chat with them and crawled into her quilt early.
Shen Maomao hadn’t given up on browsing posts yet. She continued to scroll through the forum, searching for information related to those two girls.
From the posts, she could roughly gather that Wu Huiling and Zhan Xin were from dorm 3056 and dorm 3058 respectively. Both were students in the Han Jiao9 program at the School of Humanities of Jiang University10, and both were in Class 1701. Not only did they share the same class, but they also shared the same fate: both were ostracized by other classmates for certain reasons.
She felt it was highly likely that the two deceased individuals Zhang Xiao had mentioned were them.
She thought back to the three-story post from the afternoon. If the two involved ghosts suddenly appeared, she didn’t know how badly the little warriors of justice on that thread would be scared.
However, judging from the straightforward way these two people spoke, they didn’t seem like the type to be ostracized or bullied at all, nor did they seem like people who were afraid of trouble——could it be that their personalities became the complete opposite after turning into ghosts?
With this thought, she clicked on that floating red11 post again, this time clicking to view in reverse order.
Sure enough, several more floors had been added after 3058, all questioning who the person behind these two floors was. Some people even aggressively stated not to joke about the dead.
It seemed her deduction was correct: Wu Huiling and Zhan Xin were already dead.
She continued scrolling up, once again reaching those three abrupt floors. Her finger suddenly paused, and her eyebrows furrowed.
She had only just realized… the first character of each of these three floors, when put together, formed “头回别” (tóu huí bié). And she was viewing it in reverse order…
别回头 (bié huítóu)——
Don’t look back——
A chill surged into her heart. Shen Maomao’s scalp went numb, and she couldn’t help but swallow. Perhaps it was psychological, but she suddenly felt a wave of cold air on her neck, making her shiver involuntarily.
Swoosh——without any warning, all the lights in the dorm went out in an instant. The thick darkness enveloped her. She felt her shoulders suddenly grow heavy, as if something icy was resting on them, blowing cold air onto the back of her neck.
Don’t look back.
Thinking of those three words, she truly didn’t dare to turn her head. She could only move her eyeballs to look to the side. Nothing… there was really no light at all. Her roommates seemed to have all fallen into a dead sleep; not a single one was playing on their phone.
No, that’s not right.
Shen Maomao pricked up her ears. Other than the faint sound of breathing on the back of her neck, she couldn’t hear anyone else’s respiration. The only thing illuminating the entire dorm was the ghastly white light of her phone, but it could only light up a small area around her, an area not even as large as her bed. Looking any further, she couldn’t see anything at all, as if someone had knocked over an ink bottle.
Just at this tense moment, a dull “thump——” suddenly came from the window. A face as large as the entire windowpane abruptly pressed against it, only a few steps away from her.
“HOLY FUCK!!!” Shen Maomao’s soul was nearly scared out of her body. Unable to see her surroundings clearly, she forgot where she was and jumped up with a start. As a result, her head once again slammed into the bed board above, knocking her completely silly.
The large face twisted and disappeared. Human voices and the sound of breathing re-entered her ears. Hai Dongqing was leaning over the side of the bed, looking at her. “Hit your head again? Want to switch beds with me?”
Shen Maomao’s vision was filled with blurry shadows. She clutched her forehead, dazed for a few seconds, before her sight finally focused, locking onto the window.
The dorm was dark, but not to the point where nothing was visible. The strong wind beat against the window, constantly creating the illusion that someone was knocking from outside. White light shone from the other beds; her other roommates, including Wu Mei, were all looking at her.
She rubbed her faintly aching forehead and replied, “I’m fine… I think I was just held down by something in a nightmare12.”
Hai Dongqing frowned. “What happened?”
So Shen Maomao recounted what she had just experienced, including the curse-like “Don’t look back.”
Peng Xiaorui said, “Woc13? Woc! Hearing you say that, I feel like my back is getting all creepy too…”
Wu Mei said in a soft tone, “How could that happen? Does that mean as long as you feel pain, you can wake up?”
Shen Maomao shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
Hai Dongqing patted her own bed, her attitude becoming firm. “Get up here and sleep.”
Shen Maomao asked her, “Then what about you?”
Hai Dongqing: “Together.”
“Tsk tsk tsk.” From bed number six came the teasing voice of a certain someone named Peng who wished to remain anonymous.
Hai Dongqing shot a cold glance in that direction. Peng Xiaorui quickly buried her head in her quilt, pretending to be an ostrich.
Bai Lu also pursed her lips uncomfortably, clearly recalling the scene from the afternoon where the two looked like they were about to kiss in the dorm. Wu Mei and Gan Ze had looks of utter confusion, not understanding what was so amusing.
The dorm beds were less than 90 centimeters wide, so it was obviously a bit of a squeeze for two adults. But Shen Maomao hesitated for only two seconds before grabbing her pillow and climbing up, stepping on the desk. The small bed let out a groan as if unable to bear the weight. Hai Dongqing pushed her inward. “You sleep on the inside.”
Shen Maomao climbed right over her body, and the small bed swayed again.
Peng Xiaorui said, “Behave, behave, there are other people here.”
Shen Maomao rolled a white eye14.
Hai Dongqing lay on her side, her eyes wide open, watching her unblinkingly in the darkness. She gave half of the quilt to her.
Shen Maomao also looked at her.
The two looked at each other in the darkness, then smiled at one another, their arms and legs tightly entangled like a pair of conjoined twins.
Shen Maomao didn’t feel sleepy. She took out the phone tucked in her pajama pocket, turned the brightness to the lowest setting, and continued browsing the post she hadn’t finished reading.
But she couldn’t find that post anymore. Perhaps the original poster had chosen to delete it out of fear.
However, there were some other posts. Most of them were exposing the deeds of Wu Huiling and Zhan Xin. What kind of people they were depended entirely on the mouths of the various anonymous posters; no solid hammer15 was seen, but the direction of the wind falls to one side16 in the threads, with everyone cursing the two girls.
After confirming that she couldn’t get any new information from these two names, she changed her approach and started searching for keywords like “jumping off a building” and “asthma”. As it turned out, she actually made a new discovery.
【If someone in the dorm jumps off a building, can the others in the dorm get guaranteed graduate school admission17?】
Shen Maomao clicked in to take a look. The post was from two months ago. Most people in the thread were telling the original poster not to have whimsical thoughts that open the heavens18. There were also people who appeared in person to explain the dharma19, claiming to be a graduate student at a certain university who got in precisely because their roommate jumped off a building, and they thoroughly thanked their deceased roommate in the forum.
She kept scrolling down. Two days had passed in the post’s timeline, and a reply inside caught her attention: 【Holy fuck?! Original Poster, did you already know that public bus20 wanted to kill herself? Are you Wu Huiling’s roommate? Have the school leaders contacted you guys? Did you get guaranteed admission?】
Another day later, that original poster replied: 【No, I don’t know Wu Huiling at all. I’ve just seen her mentioned a few times on Tieba. What happened to her? Did she jump off a building?】
【Anonymous】: Then you’re probably in another college and your information isn’t flowing smoothly21. Yesterday afternoon in the East District’s Building 18, Wu Huiling jumped. I heard she died on the spot. This time her roommates might actually get guaranteed admission.
Unsure if it was from looking at her phone for too long or for some other reason, Shen Maomao felt that her eyes were a little uncomfortable, and her heart was beating a bit fast.
She was overcome with an impulse, a desire to reply on the forum, to join them in cursing Wu Huiling or Zhan Xin.
But she knew this was wrong, so she forcefully turned off her phone, tossed it aside, and didn’t want to look at it anymore.
The author has something to say:
I didn’t expect that none of you would think too much about it _(:3」∠)_ Don’t say it’s filler, it’s like this every time, first time seeing this, I thought about it for a long time!
A Warm Sunny Little Cutie, you cried so miserably, hahahaha [laughing unscrupulously], it seems like everyone really likes the Quiet Bright Moon couple,
I’ll give a spoiler in advance, they will be together, but in a different form _(:3」∠)_
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