The Unfindable Radio (Revised)

Fang Xiu had not expected this female ghost to reveal herself right in front of him. What was she trying to do? The show had barely begun, and she was already starting the final battle?

According to horror movie logic, shouldn't there be several rounds of terrifying scenes, clues left behind, the story gradually revealed, followed by the exposure of her true identity and tragic past? Then there should be a few dramatic chases between human and ghost before it all ended.

They were already starting the final plot now? How were they supposed to fill an hour and a half?

"What are you doing here?" Fang Xiu asked calmly. He looked over the secret room and found that the other two extraordinary items were still inside the cabinet. The Deceitful Clown's Face alone was not aggressive, so he decided to talk to this ghost who looked like a little girl first.

However, he was currently holding a sledgehammer in his left hand, a crowbar in his right, and had an electric drill tucked under his arm. He looked rather ridiculous.

"I'm sick. Right, I have a very serious illness."

"I can't go outside. I can't see anyone. I can't let anyone know that I have this illness."

"It's so scary. Don't put up mirrors, don't... I've become so ugly."

As she spoke, she looked fearfully around her. The mask on her face wore a terrified expression, and even her eyes had shrunk into pinpoints.

She looked at Fang Xiu, as if she had suddenly forgotten that she was wearing a mask.

"Don't look at me! Don't look at me!" she screamed in terror, her tiny body trembling without pause.

"Don't look at my face!" She turned away and covered her face. Her whole body slowly drifted and rotated in silence, as if she were floating in space—or resting in her mother's embrace.

"Mother, Mother! I'm here, I'm here..."

She kept murmuring fragmented words, searching for things and phrases that could make her feel safe. Only after a long while did she gradually settle down. Yet she seemed to have forgotten what had just happened, as well as her conversation with Fang Xiu. It was as though her memories could not connect.

"Right, my radio is gone. Where did my radio go? Why is my home different too? A man is lying in Mother's bed, but where is Mother?" Halfway through, her train of thought suddenly jumped to another question for no apparent reason.

Fang Xiu roughly understood that the man she mentioned was probably him. No wonder he had not slept soundly these past few days. This ghost had likely been circling around him at night. His subconscious must have sensed it, leaving him under constant stress.

Her gaze wandered as she spoke, her words coming in broken fragments like a poorly tuned radio. Her thoughts were like the wind—who knew where they would drift off to next?

"Is your mother Fifth Miss Chen? Is she at home too? Is there anyone else in the house?" Fang Xiu asked carefully. He first wanted to confirm whether she was currently the only ghost born from the influence of extraordinary power in this house.

"Right! Where is Mother? Where did Mother go?" Like a frightened little rabbit, she became panicked. It was unclear whether she feared her mother or feared being unable to find her.

"Were you the one who cleared the weeds in the yard? And everything in the house, including my shoes?" Fang Xiu more or less understood that she was probably the only ghost here, so he continued asking.

She lowered her hands and revealed her eyes, peeking at Fang Xiu. "I watched you pull weeds through the window. I hate it when the garden is such a mess. I hate it..."

"I... I..."

At that moment, her eyes turned blank again. "Eh? Where did my radio go?"

"Do you know where my radio is? I want to listen to Xihua Mei Radio Station. Today there's...?"

"Eh, what happened today?"

Fang Xiu found her extremely difficult to communicate with, but she did not seem hostile. This was a ghost with confused memories and a weak sense of self.

Fang Xiu suddenly spoke. He realized that this ghost seemed not to know that she was dead. "Do you know you're dead?"

Upon hearing Fang Xiu's words, she suddenly twisted her head toward him. Unbelieving terror appeared in her eyes.

"No! No! No!"

"I'm so scared. It's so dark. Mother, why did you turn off the lights?"

"Someone save me! Someone save me! Ah!"

As she hugged herself and curled into a ball, she let out a scream and vanished into thin air. The Deceitful Clown's Face that she had worn also fell to the floor.

Fang Xiu bent down and picked up the Deceitful Clown's Face. He looked around. Everything was as quiet as before; nothing had happened. That figure from earlier seemed to have completely dispersed.

He felt that he had been overly tense and cautious before. She was just a pitiful little girl. She might have died in this secret room, and the one who had awakened her from her slumber was Fang Xiu himself.

Come to think of it, Fang Xiu was the true culprit who had disturbed her rest.

"She's just a child," Fang Xiu sighed.

He took out his tools and began hammering away inside the secret room. He tore down the wall that had originally divided it into two rooms, opening up the entire space. He also dismantled the stone bed made of green bricks, but still found nothing strange.

Before tearing it apart, he had lain on that green-brick bed and imagined the dark, moldy room from before, like a prison cell. That girl ghost might have lived there all along.

Yet after searching everywhere, knocking and probing through every corner, he still found none of what he had imagined. Fang Xiu had previously thought that since the girl's ghost had been born here, it could not have appeared out of nowhere. An extraordinary item could not create a ghost from nothing; there had to be some underlying factor. The most likely possibility was her corpse.

But after examining the room, Fang Xiu found that things were not quite as he had imagined. There truly was nothing in this underground secret room.

Fang Xiu returned upstairs and began going through the old newspapers and books he had brought back. At the same time, he used his computer to search online for news about this street and the surrounding area.

Then he found a ghost-story rumor online concerning this street. It mentioned Xinhe Road in Harbor District, though it did not specify which house. It said that someone had bought an old residence and, while renovating it, accidentally discovered an underground passage.

Inside the passage, they found the corpse of a girl around ten years old. Because too much time had passed, the police could no longer identify her. They simply took the body away. After discovering the corpse and the secret room, the homeowner no longer dared to live there and sold the house again less than a year later.

That was probably why, when Fang Xiu had opened the basement earlier, the stone slab above it had already been pried open a little. At first, that basement door should have been bolted shut.

After reviewing enough material and considering his earlier conversation with the little girl along with the state of the basement, Fang Xiu could roughly reconstruct the whole incident.

That girl had been Fifth Miss Chen's illegitimate child while she was studying abroad. After returning to the country with Fifth Miss Chen, perhaps due to a drastic emotional upheaval or changes in her life, Fifth Miss Chen's personality changed tremendously. She began living recklessly and mingling with the prominent figures and wealthy elites of Weigang City. Naturally, this illegitimate child became someone she despised.

Later, the girl seemed to have contracted some kind of illness, likely a very serious one. Fifth Miss Chen locked her in the basement, treating her while forbidding her from coming out. In the end, the girl still died. Perhaps she died of illness; perhaps Fifth Miss Chen killed her in despair. Then Fifth Miss Chen herself committed suicide inside this house.

Fang Xiu could only imagine a rough outline of the events. After so many years, there was no way he could ever uncover the exact circumstances.

Fang Xiu suddenly recalled what the girl ghost had said. "A radio? A radio?"

He suddenly remembered that when he had cleared out the storage room containing the entrance to the underground secret room, he had disposed of quite a bit of junk. Among it seemed to have been an ancient crystal radio.

Fang Xiu immediately found the radio among the boxes and brooms piled to one side of the storage room.

He took the radio, which looked like a brown suitcase, out of a cardboard box. Something seemed to be written on it in traditional Chinese characters, but it had long since faded beyond recognition. Its tuning used a knob, and only by adjusting the dial needle could one receive broadcasts.

Fang Xiu wiped the radio spotless with a towel. "Looks like this was the thing she treasured and loved most in life. Was it also the reason she came into being? Maybe she was clutching this radio when she died?"

Fang Xiu carried the radio down to the basement and placed it on the table. He spoke softly, "Hey! I found your radio for you!"

Yet even after a long while, there was still no response. Fang Xiu felt strangely disappointed, as though he had begun to look forward to seeing her again. "Don't tell me she disappeared just because I told her she was already dead?"

That night, perhaps because Fang Xiu had figured out the cause of the entire supernatural incident, or perhaps because he felt there was no longer any threat, his subconscious finally relaxed. For the first time that day, he slept soundly.