Twenty years had passed. Wei Jiande had never imagined that this would be the only way he could see her again.
Not a trace of light remained in the sinister corridor. The open door at its far, shadowy end was steeped in horror and oppression.
Yet the man who had lost his wife and daughter shed a tear at this most incongruous moment.
He had only three bullets left, but he could barely resist firing another shot, just to see that faded photograph once more in the fleeting muzzle flash.
But he couldn't.
Wei Jiande's tear was not a sign of acceptance, but of his soul struggling.
He knew perfectly well that he was merely passing through. His objective was clear, and everything he had experienced here was false-a performance staged by a ghost.
He understood every last bit of it.
But for twenty years, he had spent his entire fortune, carried his wife's spirit tablet on his back, and traveled across half the country, following scraps of clues to find that one person.
And now, at this very moment, she had truly appeared here. Even though the way she appeared could not have been more obviously false, he found himself unable to turn away!
Wei Jiande knew the Eighteenth Floor was somewhere even Gu Xingjian would not lightly revisit. Its horrors were beyond anything he could imagine.
Yet precisely because of that, it instead presented him with a new choice.
Over the past fifty-odd years, Wei Jiande seemed to have taken the wrong road at every crossroads in his life. Now, it seemed no different.
There was little difference each time...
Room 1818 waited for him with its door open. It had revealed the photograph, offered a glimpse of the "kidnapping," and given him a false hope.
This room