With a "click," the bathroom light was switched on.
The mirror embedded in the wall reflected a soft, lustrous light.
Jiang Jianwei glanced at it unintentionally, then froze on the spot, an expression of disbelief appearing on her face, and large beads of sweat rolling down her forehead.
The mirror only reflected the structure of the bathroom; there was no one in sight!
A sense of fear instantly gripped her heart.
Before she could react, a pale hand suddenly reached out from the mirror and grabbed Jiang Jianwei's hair.
"Ah--"
Jiang Jianwei only let out a scream before being forcefully pulled into the mirror by that hand.
Then, the pale-faced "Jiang Jianwei" stepped out of the mirror again, with a bright smile on her face.
"Knock knock--"
There was a knock on the door, and a neighbor's worried voice came from outside. "Xiaowei, I heard you calling. What happened? Should we call the police?"
"I'm fine. I just saw a Rat and it startled me..." Jiang Jianwei replied.
"That's good." The neighbor breathed a sigh of relief. She was also a typical office worker and saw Jiang Jianwei all the time, but they weren't particularly close.
But as a single woman living alone, she couldn't ignore Jiang Jianwei's screams.
Fortunately, it was just a Rat infestation.
Etc!
What is she celebrating?
Rats are scary too!
Back in her own bed, just as the neighbor was about to fall asleep, she suddenly realized that Jiang Jianwei's voice had sounded a bit strange earlier—lacking intonation and somewhat disjointed, almost like an AI reading aloud...
The next day at noon, the sun shone brightly; it was a beautiful sunny day.
Several police officers arrived in front of a dilapidated rental apartment.
"Captain, why are you so nervous?" a young police officer asked, his tone tinged with a hint of complaint.
The captain explained, "Recently, there have been many unusual cases. I heard some information from a friend about what's going on up there. It's a very complex situation with significant implications, so it's best to be cautious when dealing with these kinds of suspicious cases."
The young police officer curled his lip, thinking to himself, "Isn't it just supernatural power?"
He'd heard this rumor too.
As a materialist fighter who had received nine years of compulsory education, he never believed that anything supernatural existed in the world. Even if there were abnormal phenomena, he believed that they could be clearly explained by science.
Modern science and technology, if placed in the ignorance of ancient times, would be hailed as "divine intervention."
The incident occurred in an old rental apartment. The caller was a single female resident who had heard her neighbor scream the previous night. When she went to ask her what was wrong, her neighbor only said that there were Rats.
She felt that her neighbor's tone of voice was a bit strange, but she didn't think much of it last night. However, early this morning, she heard a series of banging sounds coming from Jiang Jianwei's room, as if something was knocking on it.
She tried to contact Jiang Jianwei, but couldn't reach her at all. Then she told her landlord about it, and the landlord said he would go to Jiang Jianwei's house to check on her. In the end, the landlord also disappeared.
Around noon, she couldn't contact either Jiang Jianwei or the landlord, so she called the police.
The police captain, accompanied by several subordinates, stood in front of Jiang Jianwei's rented apartment, listening intently.
"Bang..."
Just then, a knocking sound came from inside the room, like someone was punching the wall.
A moment later, another sound rang out.
"According to the complainant's description, the knocking sound was very intense at first, but then gradually subsided. I suspect someone is trapped inside the room," the captain said softly.
While he was speaking, a locksmith was already working on the lock, and soon the door was opened.
The officers cautiously entered and found the room to be messy, with fast food delivery boxes scattered everywhere, but the floor and furniture were relatively clean, the trash cans were empty, and there was no odor.
"Bang bang--"
It seemed as if someone had broken into the room, causing the knocking to suddenly become more intense.
The knocking sound was coming from the bathroom.
The police captain cautiously pushed open the bathroom door, and the metal hinges creaked as he gripped the handle.
The restroom was dimly lit, and the mirror embedded in the wall seemed veiled in a thin mist. The mirror, which should have reflected the officers' cautious faces, now resembled a surveillance video paused on time—the captain noticed his reflection in the mirror appeared only after a long delay, and then he saw something incomprehensible...
In the mirror image, a dark red stain suddenly appeared on the captain's collar. The blood-red color meandered across the shirt like a living thing, and in the blink of an eye, it covered the entire mirror. Then, the outlines of two hands suddenly appeared on the mirror.
There was a man and a woman. The woman was wearing pajamas and was Jiang Jianwei. The man was wearing casual clothes and was the landlord.
The two stared wide-eyed, their eyeballs bulging so much they seemed about to pop out of their sockets, their mouths agape as if shouting. As soon as they saw someone enter the bathroom, they frantically banged on the mirror.
The "bang bang bang" sound was from them banging on the mirror; they were trying to get someone's attention to rescue them.
Even more bizarre was the scene in the bathroom behind them—the grout between the tiles was covered with bluish-black mold, and the showerhead was constantly dripping a viscous, asphalt-like substance.
All the police officers present were stunned by the scene, cold sweat beading on the back of their necks. The woman in the mirror opened and closed her lips repeatedly, but no sound came out.
After a long while, seeing that the police couldn't save her either, Jiang Jianwei seemed to despair and suddenly slammed her forehead against the mirror.
Bright red liquid flowed down her forehead, leaving a bloodstain on the mirror. She then collapsed limply, losing consciousness.
The landlord suddenly became terrified and pointed towards the bathtub.
Following his trembling fingertips, the officers could vaguely see a grayish-white hand through the gap in the shower curtain, with what appeared to be dark red debris stuck under the fingernails.
Then, the shower curtain suddenly fell down, revealing a person standing quietly in the bathtub.
Jiang Jianwei, dressed in pajamas, stood silently in the bathtub, startling the police officers.
Her face was pale, her eyes were empty and numb, and she seemed to have no breath at all, visibly different from Jiang Jianwei in the mirror who was struggling to survive.
Based on intuition alone, the officers could intuitively sense that there was something wrong with the "Jiang Jianwei" standing in the bathtub.
Upon seeing her, everyone felt an uncontrollable surge of fear, as if they were facing a natural enemy or an alien. Moreover, when the officers entered the bathroom, they hadn't even noticed that there was someone standing in the bathtub!
That's terrifying!