Sound

"After taking the four keys the woman handed him, he put them in his left pocket," Jiang Cheng said calmly. "Then he kept his left hand in his pocket, doing who knows what, while constantly talking to distract us."

The Fatty felt like his brain was failing him again. He asked warily, "Did he do something to the keys?"

"I'm not sure yet," Jiang Cheng replied. "I checked them earlier and didn't find anything strange."

Nodding, the Fatty muttered in explanation, "So you sent Sleepwear Woman and the others over to interrupt whatever he was doing?"

Gritting his teeth, the Fatty said indignantly, "Doctor, that Suit Man seemed all right, but it turns out he's rotten to the core behind our backs. And he's retaliating against us by putting us in Room 404."

"I'm going to doze for a bit." Jiang Cheng ignored him and rolled over. "Remember to wake me in an hour."

"Okay." The Fatty caught the watch Jiang Cheng tossed him.

The strap was too short for him to wear, so he could only hold it in his palm.

He wasn't very sleepy, but to keep himself from nodding off without realizing it, he sat up and wrapped the blanket around himself.

The night was still. The entire campus seemed dead.

The Fatty figured there probably weren't any students living nearby. Otherwise, it wouldn't be this quiet.

When an hour had passed, the Fatty got out of bed and shook Jiang Cheng awake.

Jiang Cheng was a light sleeper. He'd woken as soon as the Fatty got out of bed, but still waited until the Fatty had nudged him a few times before groggily opening his eyes.

After sitting up, he rolled his neck and shoulders. The pillow here was uncomfortable. He was used to sleeping on the buckwheat pillow at home, and couldn't get used to soft cotton ones.

"Did anything strange happen while I was asleep?"

"No," the Fatty said. "Don't worry, Doctor. I'd wake you even if I spotted a cockroach. You know how alert I am."

Jiang Cheng stood up and went to the door first. He didn't get too close, just listened to the hallway from a short distance away.

After a while, he returned to his bed and lay facedown, listening to the room next door for a bit.

"Doctor," the Fatty said, "they should all be asleep by now. It's really quiet around here."

Jiang Cheng glanced at him without replying, took the watch from the Fatty, and put it on his own wrist.

The Fatty wasn't hungry anymore after eating the chocolate, but he was very thirsty.

Another half hour passed. Jiang Cheng estimated that it was about time to act. First, he warned the Fatty that no matter what happened, he had to pretend he knew nothing.

The Fatty looked utterly bewildered, but he trusted Jiang Cheng and agreed at once.

Jiang Cheng rummaged in a corner on the floor and dug out an old one-jiao coin. Then he picked it up, went to the wall beside his bed, and gently scraped the plaster with the edge of the coin.

"Scrape—"

"Scrape—"

Again and again.

He used just the right amount of force. The sound wasn't loud, but in the stillness of the night, it was perfectly clear.

"What are you doing?"

The faint scraping gave the Fatty goosebumps. Many people had an instinctive aversion to sounds like that.

Jiang Cheng didn't answer and kept scraping.

Gradually, sounds came from next door. They weren't loud, but their disorganized, chaotic quality made it clear that the person in there was panicking.

The room next door was Room 405.

It was the room shared by the Suit Man and Hat Man.

A little later, the sound of a door opening came from the hallway, followed by hurried, erratic footsteps.

Jiang Cheng immediately stopped scraping the plaster. He carefully wiped the bits of plaster from the coin, then tossed it into an inconspicuous corner on the floor.

But the footsteps headed away from Room 404, where Jiang Cheng was staying. Then they stopped, followed by a frantic series of knocks and the voices of the Suit Man and Hat Man.

Before long, the hallway grew lively again.

Jiang Cheng pretended he'd just woken up and slowly pushed open his door. As if surprised to find everyone outside, his face turned fearful in an instant. "What's going on? Did something happen?"

When Jiang Cheng came out, the Suit Man, who was leading the group, seemed to pause. After a moment, he asked strangely, "Did you hear a weird sound?"

"A weird sound?" Jiang Cheng scratched his head. "No. I just fell asleep. It's quiet around here."

"You didn't?" The Suit Man's expression darkened. As if he'd suddenly thought of something, he hurriedly asked, "Where's the Fatty in your room?"

"I'm here." The Fatty poked his big head out of the room, his hair a mess, as if he'd just woken up. "What do you need, buddy?"

The Suit Man got straight to the point. "Did you hear a very strange sound?"

He paused, then described it. "Like something scraping with a spoon or something?"

The Fatty widened his eyes and asked in confusion, "No. I've been awake this whole time. I didn't hear anything."

At Jiang Cheng and the Fatty's answers, the people in the other two rooms—everyone except the Suit Man and Hat Man—looked deeply relieved.

At the same time, they gave the Suit Man looks that spoke volumes.

Only the people in Room 405 had heard the strange sound. Did that mean they would be the first to encounter those things?

In other words, they would die first.

"We're going back," the Qipao Woman said first.

Then she went straight back to her room. The Dinosaur Pajamas Girl followed close behind, like a little tail, afraid she'd be abandoned.

Seeing how decisively the people in Room 407 had left, the three people from Room 406 didn't linger either. After exchanging a few polite remarks, they hurried back to their room.

They slammed the door shut, as if afraid something might follow them inside.

Now only the Suit Man and Hat Man remained in the hallway, their faces so dark they seemed about to drip with gloom.

Jiang Cheng leaned against the door, looking puzzled. Then, as if he'd suddenly realized something, he blurted out, "Could hearing that strange scraping sound be the trigger for the ghosts to kill? That's terrifying!"

"Fatty." Jiang Cheng turned around, his voice panicked. "Are you sure you didn't hear it?"

The Fatty played along perfectly. "Buddy, I really didn't. What about you?"

"I was asleep like everyone else. I didn't hear a thing." Jiang Cheng spread his hands, looking utterly innocent and pitiful.

"That's great," the Fatty said. "Then we don't have to die."

After saying that, the two of them shut the door, leaving the Suit Man and Hat Man alone in the hallway under the dim yellow lights.