Seeing Ghosts

One in the morning.

The second-floor hallway of the quiet hotel lay in darkness.

A faint, eerie chill hung in the air.

A strange figure wandered back and forth along the corridor.

His body was covered in blood, and his deathly pale face wore a bewildered expression.

Where was this place?

Who was he?

He seemed to have no memory at all of what had happened before.

He kept pacing back and forth, staring blankly at his surroundings. It took him a long while to realize that he seemed to be in a hotel hallway.

His thoughts felt sluggish. He could no longer remember many things.

He also felt tired and weak. He needed a good night's sleep.

He started toward his room. He made the motions of opening the door, then walked inside.

In reality, his body passed straight through the door, as if it had turned into something insubstantial.

It was a double room, and he had a colleague staying with him.

Suddenly, he remembered. He was a mechanical engineer, and he had come to Dongning City with a senior mechanic from his company to inspect a client's faulty machinery.

His colleague was still awake, tossing and turning in bed as if unable to sleep.

As he looked at his colleague, for some reason, a powerful resentment gradually welled up inside him.

His calm face twisted into something fierce and hideous.

"Ghost!"

A piercing scream rang through the entire hallway.

The next moment, the door flew open with a bang. "Help! Somebody, come quick!"

Chen Shouyi jolted awake at the scream.

Shell Girl, curled up beside him, was also roused. She cracked open one eye, glanced at Chen Shouyi, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

What happened?

He hesitated for a moment, then quickly got dressed.

He picked up his phone and switched on the flashlight.

As soon as he opened the door, he sensed a strange chill in the air, as if cold air were blowing through the hallway.

But only for a moment. The frigid aura dissipated around him.

Not far away, a man in his fifties or sixties was sprawled on the floor. He seemed terrified out of his wits, clutching his head as he desperately backed toward the wall.

He was saying something in a tearful voice, his whole body trembling.

"Please, don't come any closer!"

"Xiao Zhang, there's a debt for every crime, and a debtor for every debt. I wasn't the one who got you killed! When we get back, I'll burn incense and kowtow to you to make amends."

"I didn't help you, but I have old parents and young children to support. I was scared too!"

In the chilly depths of the night, the old man's voice was unnerving.

But Chen Shouyi found it strange that he couldn't see anyone the old man was talking to. It was as if an invisible figure stood right in front of him.

By now, quite a few people had cracked their doors open and were peering out.

After a while, perhaps because they saw Chen Shouyi standing in the hallway without a scratch, a few people finally dared to come out. They whispered and pointed at the old man.

"Wasn't he a colleague of the guy who died earlier?"

"I think so. Has he gone crazy? Ghosts? What ghosts? I've never seen one."

"Maybe he's got a guilty conscience!"

There was never a shortage of people eager to watch a spectacle. The hallway soon grew lively, but no one dared approach the old man. They only watched from a distance.

Better to believe it than dismiss it—that was what most people thought.

To be honest, even Chen Shouyi found this bizarre situation creepy.

Ever since last night's upheaval, the world had started to feel different.

But his unease was only slight. After all, he had killed more than a dozen barbarians and even carried their corpses himself. He was naturally braver than ordinary people.

Chen Shouyi gritted his teeth and boldly walked toward the old man. He wanted to see what the ghost looked like.

Fear came from the unknown. Since he was always venturing into another world, sooner or later he would have to face this sort of thing.

Besides, he believed that with the mysterious force field still at such a low concentration, it was impossible for a powerful Ghost to appear—not to mention one that had only recently become a ghost.

"Hey, brother, don't go over there. What if there really is a ghost?" A young man beside him offered a worried warning when he saw Chen Shouyi getting ready to approach.

"It's fine. I've never seen a ghost in my life. I'll go see what's going on," Chen Shouyi said with a smile.

Ignoring the others as they tried to talk him out of it,

he walked forward.

As he drew closer, the icy aura ahead quickly dissipated.

His blood and qi were now surging with vitality. To these chilly forces, he was like a blazing sun.

Before he could even reach the old man,

his mind wavered slightly. The next moment, he faintly heard a venomous, despairing scream.

Huh? It seemed to be gone!

The hallway was still the same as before, but the eerie, sinister atmosphere seemed to have vanished, leaving behind a hint of warmth and life.

As Chen Shouyi had approached, he'd been tense, his heart full of apprehension.

Who would have thought it would be so easy? He hadn't even exerted himself, and the other party was already down.

"Sir, are you all right?"

He patted the old man, who was still trembling in terror. A strong smell of urine came from him. The poor man had clearly wet himself in fright.

"Don't... don't kill me!"

"Sir, you must have had a nightmare. What ghosts? There aren't any ghosts."

Hearing Chen Shouyi's voice, the old man took a long while to finally raise his head, trembling and glancing around with a somewhat deranged look.

He was a little on the plump side, with heavy bags under his eyes and an unhealthy puffiness to his face. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days.

After the commotion, Chen Shouyi returned to his room.

He checked the time. It was already half past one in the morning.

Seeing Shell Girl still sleeping peacefully, he couldn't help laughing at how nervous he'd been.

Compared to the other world, this sort of ghost was probably nothing.

He guessed that even if he hadn't gone over, it likely wouldn't have been able to hurt anyone.

He was just a little puzzled. Why could the old man see it when he and the others couldn't?

For some reason, he couldn't help thinking of those rumors online about what kinds of people were more likely to see ghosts.

Most of them were nonsense, but the old man fit two of the supposed conditions.

For instance, the old, frail, and sick; and those with weak spirits who often suffered from insomnia. The old man fit both descriptions. And since the ghost had targeted him directly, that was probably why he could see it.

Forget it. No point thinking about it!

Back to sleep.

The night passed without further incident.

The next morning, Chen Shouyi got up and found that the power still hadn't come back. The phone signal and internet were still down.

He went to the bathroom with a heavy heart and washed up.

Afterward, he got dressed, put Shell Girl in his briefcase, and headed out.

The streets were still jammed with cars. A night had passed, but there was still no sign of the roads clearing.

Chen Shouyi noticed many workers repairing lines along the roadside.

Besides the police, fully armed soldiers had also appeared on the streets.

The atmosphere was heavy, as though a storm were about to break.

With his briefcase in hand, Chen Shouyi walked along with heavy steps. Before long, he arrived at a newsstand.

With no internet and no television, the only way to get information from the outside world was through the newspapers.

The newsstand, usually quiet and deserted, now had an unusually long line.

Everyone was asking one another about rumors. People were saying all sorts of things.

Some claimed a giant underground Space Channel was interfering with things.

Others blamed a sunspot storm.

There were even people saying the world was coming to an end.

While waiting in line, Chen Shouyi overheard a few conversations. He waited several minutes before finally buying that day's newspaper.

But after flipping through it quickly, he found nothing useful.

The paper merely mentioned the power outage and the internet disruption, saying that emergency repairs were underway to restore public services.

But it gave no specific timeline. As for the situation beyond Dongning, it didn't say a word.

Most of the newspaper was devoted to reporting that supplies of all kinds were plentiful across the city, and reminding the public not to panic or hoard goods.