Xiao Qi then realized that there was a door in front of him, and a mirror inside. He smiled sheepishly. Bi Shenghua shook her head and said, "You should come with me." As she spoke, she walked into the doorway, looked around, but couldn't find the light switch.
The mirror was taller than a person, acting as a foyer, separating the inside from the outside. I originally thought there would be a room or a hall inside, but when I went around to the back of the mirror, I found that there was another mirror behind it.
The two mirrors were at approximately a 120-degree angle. Bi Shenghua saw herself in the mirror holding a phone, which emitted a dazzling light. When the light met her eyes, everything in front of her turned white.
She felt something was off, but after thinking about it for a long time without being able to figure it out, she continued walking forward.
Turning past the second mirror, she saw another mirror, also at a 120-degree angle to the second, about a meter apart, just enough for a person to walk through comfortably.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she finally realized what was wrong— Xiao Qi was gone from behind her.
" Xiao Qi!" she called back, turning around, "Why are you walking so slowly?"
She walked back between the second and first mirrors, but didn't see Xiao Qi. She then walked back behind the first mirror, where there should have been a door, but there she saw another mirror, reflecting her own surprised and uneasy face in the light shining in her hand.
" Xiao Qi!" she called again, but there was still no response.
She walked past another mirror, only to find it was still a mirror. After passing countless mirrors, she finally realized she was lost. There were countless mirrors here, and in each one, her reflection was mirrored; wherever her phone shone, her image appeared.
Bi Shenghua remembers walking through similar mirror mazes in science museums and amusement parks before, but to prevent people from getting lost for too long, the direction of the exit is usually marked on the ground. Also, the lighting in amusement parks is very bright, so people don't need to use their phones for illumination.
After walking for a long time without finding a way out, Bi Shenghua finally resorted to the ultimate trick of the Ruhua Bar Owner"—
"Fuck you!" she yelled, raising her leg and kicking the mirror in front of her with her sneaker.
The glass shattered on the floor, leaving only an empty frame behind the large mirror.
"Let's see how the hell you block my Shadowless Kick!" She sneered and walked straight through the frame.
Just as she turned around triumphantly, wanting to admire her domineering masterpiece once more, she suddenly froze.
The broken glass was right at her feet, and the empty frame had somehow turned into a mirror. The expression on her face in the mirror must have been a reflection of her current mood.
She reached for the center of the box, her hand trembling slightly—a rare occurrence for a skilled bartender.
Her reflection in the mirror also reached out her hand.
When her palms touched, Bi Shenghua felt nothing; there was no glass there. But it was precisely this feeling of not feeling anything that sent a chill down her spine.
Her hand continued forward, actually reaching inside, as if into water. Then, the two hands, which had been touching, slowly disappeared as if a chemical reaction had occurred. The more she reached in, the more disappeared; similarly, her arm in the mirror never emerged.
Startled, she quickly pulled her hand back. She held it up to her eyes and saw that it was still the same hand, without a single scratch.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them and stepped into the empty mirror. She watched as her body collided and merged with another version of herself... and then she found herself on the other side of the empty mirror.
The broken glass on the ground disappeared, and the mirror became a perfectly good mirror again.
Bi Shenghua dared not kick the mirrors anymore, so she walked along the path between them. Each time she passed a mirror, she saw a reflection of herself. She silently counted, wondering how many mirrors she would pass. When she counted to thirteen, she stopped and stared blankly at her face in the mirror.
It was an old, thin, and bloodless face. It was covered with a dense network of wrinkles, its cheeks were sunken, and its skin clung tightly to its cheekbones, like the bark of a dried-out old elm tree.
She had never seen this face before, but she knew at a glance that it was herself—what she looked like after death.
Xiao Qi followed the proprietress past the two mirrors and saw her stop and call his name. Thinking he had discovered something, Xiao Qi responded with "Hey, hey," and was about to go over to look when the proprietress suddenly turned back and walked past him as if she couldn't see him.
"Boss lady!" Xiao Qi called out twice, but when he realized the boss lady wasn't paying attention to him, he wandered around the mirrors like a lost soul.
He didn't know what was going on, so he could only follow behind. After walking for a while, the proprietress seemed to get angry. She kicked a piece of mirror and broke it, walked into the large frame that held the mirror in place, and then turned around and shone her phone at his location.
Xiao Qi thought she had seen him and said with a smile, "Boss lady, you're really something!"
He genuinely admired the landlady's boldness; she was truly commanding in crucial moments. It was a pity she was a woman, otherwise she would definitely be the boss. But what happened next terrified him so much that he couldn't utter a single word.
The proprietress stared intently, as if she had seen a ghost. Xiao Qi wondered if something had happened to him, and he and the proprietress stared at each other through an empty frame.
The proprietress took a picture of him with her phone, and he took a picture of her with his phone in return.
The proprietress extended her hand, as if gesturing for something. He also reached out to take her hand. The instant their palms touched, the proprietress recoiled as if electrocuted, then closed her eyes, seemingly trying to calm herself.
She took a couple of breaths to catch her breath, then suddenly opened her eyes. Xiao Qi saw her eyes glowing green like a wolf's, and with a shout, she pounced on him.
He was terrified and instinctively dodged to the side.
He thought the landlady would jump over and land where he had just been standing, but in the blink of an eye, the light from his phone was blocked by their bodies, so it went dark for a moment.
In that instant, Xiao Qi realized that the proprietress was gone.
Xiao Qi hurriedly stood up to look for it, only to find that there were mirrors everywhere around him. No matter where he went, all he could see were mirrors.
He suddenly realized something terrifying—his phone's light was very weak, it should only illuminate the mirror in front of him, but what he saw now were mirrors all around him, none of them dark, and each mirror reflected a version of himself.
"Boss lady! Boss lady..." Xiao Qi called anxiously, but received no response. His voice echoed and reverberated between the mirrors, as if his reflection in every mirror was calling out, "Boss lady... Boss lady..."
He suddenly saw a face that wasn't his own flash in a mirror. When he looked closely, he couldn't find it anywhere. Just as he was about to give up, the face reappeared in the corner of his eye.
Xiao Qi was so frightened that goosebumps rose all over his body, and a chilling cold air hissed and seeped into his pores.
He started running, trying to shake off that mysterious face.
He didn't know how long he ran, it felt like thousands of years had passed. In the mirror, he saw his hair turn white strand by strand, the wrinkles on his face increase one by one, and his muscles atrophy and rot until finally, the man in the mirror became a desiccated, rotting corpse running.
But no matter what, there was always a mirror in the corner of his eye that didn't reflect him.