At 1 AM, when I tossed and turned again in misery but still had no sleepiness whatsoever, I knew something was terribly wrong.
I rarely suffered from insomnia since childhood. Even if I had to catch a flight to France the next day, I would oversleep. The few times I couldn’t sleep could all be attributed to one reason.
I was truly scared.
Looking back, the last time I was frightened like this was after my sister’s divorce when she vented by forcing me to watch “Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum” with her. She was fine—halfway through, she got drunk and fell asleep, leaving me alone on her big sofa hugging a pillow and trembling. In the end, I had to make cakes all night, working until sunrise before I could sleep.
I could say that since entering No. 29, my psychological endurance had improved somewhat, but between not being scared to death and not being afraid lay an entire Mariana Trench. I had planned to wait until dawn to discuss No. 29’s problems with Han Sha and the others, but it seemed my brain wasn’t buying it.
And fundamentally, all of this had to start from three hours ago when I had Song Nanshi put on makeup.
The biggest advantage of dogs is that they’re easy to coax.
Originally, I had Song Nanshi put on makeup just hoping to quickly divert her attention. After all, if it were my sister, there’d be no possibility of coaxing without four bottles of beer. But fortunately, Song Nanshi was far less complicated than Bai Liu. Upon hearing my suggestion, she immediately stopped crying. I even felt that if this girl had a tail, it would already be wagging like a propeller.
“Boss, give me some time.”
Song Nanshi said as she began arranging things on the table, her technique seemingly quite skilled.
As someone who grew up watching my sister put on makeup, I knew well that girls applying makeup was delicate work requiring time. To avoid putting too much pressure on her, I intentionally lowered my head to play with my phone for a while, wanting to give her enough time. However, Song Nanshi’s hand speed was quite fast.
Before I could finish two games, Song Nanshi had already cheerfully called out: “Boss, I’m done.”
I was stunned and instinctively checked the time—only just over ten minutes had passed.
I hadn’t expected this girl’s makeup speed to be as fast as her dishwashing. Putting down my phone with a smile: “That’s quite efficient. Let me see how it looks—”
Before I could finish speaking, I looked up to meet Song Nanshi’s painted snow-white face and those enormous black pupils. My neck went cold, and the rest of my words were naturally stuck in my throat.
Now I finally understood why Song Nanshi didn’t wear makeup.
With only one lamp in the room, even though Song Nanshi was just looking at me very innocently, I couldn’t help but start playing horror movie scenes in my head. A chill ran up my spine as I struggled to make a sound.
“Xiao Song… who did you learn this makeup technique from?”
Song Nanshi blinked: “My master? The first lesson he taught me was to apply evenly, but I accidentally bought contact lenses that were too big. I spent a lot of effort learning to wear them.”
“…”
I silently turned on her bedside lamp, trying hard to find something praiseworthy: “…I see the foundation you use is different from what my sister uses. What brand is it?”
Hearing this, Song Nanshi excitedly pulled me to the vanity, like a big dog showing me her treasured bone: “Makeup products for corpses are too oily for living people, so I later bought some similar ones from counters according to color charts, didn’t pick brands… It feels a bit white, but once I buy blush later, it should be fine.”
“Should be fine.”
I thought, although, blush clearly couldn’t solve the problem between the world of the living and the dead.
I was fine with teaching people to make cakes, but makeup—I’d have to let Bai Liu worry about that later.
I sighed inwardly and casually picked up a small white jar from the box, preparing to change the subject: “What’s this?”
Song Nanshi answered readily: “This is mortuary wax. If there are facial defects, we use this to fill them. Now some people also use it for nose jobs… But technology has improved these years. More often we use silicone 3D printing. For things like fires and car accidents, if there’s a lot missing from the face, we directly print masks and assemble them.”
Speaking of this, I couldn’t help being curious: “So your fake hand is also…”
“That…” Inexplicably, Song Nanshi showed a trace of guilt on her face. “Boss, could you promise me first not to get angry?”
“Angry?”
“Mm… didn’t I want to become an internet celebrity when I first came to No. 29?”
Song Nanshi looked at me pitifully: “That’s what I said, but actually… I didn’t really believe in these things, and my colleagues also said internet celebrities have to rely on acting, so I got this fake hand, originally planning to use it as a prop.”
I suddenly understood: “You were afraid this haunted house wouldn’t live up to its name, so you bought a fake hand planning to perform hauntings to gain some fans and traffic?”
Song Nanshi nodded vigorously: “But later I discovered there was no need to perform at all! Because No. 29 really has ghosts! I knew as soon as I moved in. Boss, you really got great value buying this house!”
“…”
In this regard, this house was indeed worth every penny… Manager Hu hadn’t deceived me. No. 29 was genuinely priced from people jumping off buildings, and had even “jumped” two people to death before.
Seeing my silence, Song Nanshi asked quietly: “Boss, you’re really not angry, right… I indeed initially wanted to be an internet celebrity. That day when Brother Han had me deceive you, I also agreed because I wanted to practice acting and makeup. It’s just that later I discovered I’m not cut out for this at all, so now I really wholeheartedly just want to be a pastry chef.”
Seeing her worried appearance, I thought I hadn’t fallen so low as to become like Old Han—an iron-blooded capitalist image in employees’ hearts. I said helplessly: “You’ve already turned over a new leaf. What’s there for me to mind? Besides, Han and I don’t mind, so how could I mind this with you?”
“So boss, you’re really not angry?”
“Really, want me to swear an oath?”
I was about to raise three fingers when Song Nanshi pressed my hand down: “No, boss! I originally didn’t believe, but since moving into this house I’ve become superstitious! Boss, you said you won’t be angry. If you’re not angry, then I… I dare show you what comes next.”
I was stunned: “There’s still more?”
Now that she mentioned it, Song Nanshi pulling me into her room at this hour did seem overly serious.
I belatedly realized, my heart skipping a beat, immediately thinking of the worst scenario: “Don’t tell me you’ve already signed up for some reality show livestream and a director is about to contact me?”
When someone gets unlucky to a certain degree, I’d believe if you told me the FBI was about to kick down my door. Fortunately, Song Nanshi immediately shook her head: “No… I couldn’t find any incubation company that would take me on, so I originally planned to record some works to put online first, earn some traffic, but… later boss, you were so good to me and even gave me cakes, so I didn’t dare put them online. The things I recorded are all still with me.”
As she spoke, Song Nanshi took out her computer and opened a folder on the desktop named “Show boss when he’s not angry anymore wuu QAQ,” containing over twenty video clips.
Song Nanshi looked at me expectantly: “I often heard noises before, so I set up a GoPro in my room, originally just to try it out. If there was nothing, I’d perform myself, but I didn’t expect…”
“Didn’t expect?”
I suddenly had a very bad premonition.
Song Nanshi’s eyes blazed: “Didn’t expect No. 29 really has ghosts. Boss, I filmed it!”
“You…”
My head heated up.
I originally thought Han Sha risking himself to get revenge on my dad was already absurd enough. I didn’t expect there was someone here who filmed haunting activity but kept quiet about it.
What the hell were these people raised on, baking powder? How could their hearts be so big?
I couldn’t catch my breath, my face turning green: “You… are you sure that was…”
“Definitely! If you don’t believe me, boss, look!”
Song Nanshi, afraid I wouldn’t believe her confession, directly opened a video she had annotated. The camera was placed on her wardrobe, showing Song Nanshi wrapped in a blanket lying on her bed from a downward angle. It appeared to be the early morning hours.
Song Nanshi said: “This was a few days before you came into my room last time, boss… also the last time I recorded video. Previously, I would occasionally stay up late to record this.”
She scrubbed through the video and stopped precisely around 3 AM.
“Pay attention, boss. Bottom right corner.”
Under Song Nanshi’s instruction, even though I desperately didn’t want to look, my gaze involuntarily drifted toward that corner. Soon, the hair on my back stood up one by one.
At 3:02 AM, in one corner of the frame, a hunched shadow appeared, slowly crawling toward Song Nanshi in a bizarre posture.
Even in the low-quality night vision video, it wasn’t hard to see this thing’s face was extremely pale. Though blurry, I could be certain after one glance.
This was most likely the thing I had seen under Song Nanshi’s bed.
My palms immediately began sweating.
If this were a horror movie, I would definitely have turned away by now. However, just thinking that this was my house, my adjacent room…
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to continue watching.
In the frame, “that thing” crawled toward Song Nanshi, its movements human yet inhuman, the entire process very slow. It took a full four or five minutes to reach the bedside, supporting itself on the bed frame to slowly raise its body.
Just as it seemed about to climb onto the bed, my heart was nearly jumping out of my throat. I couldn’t help but press pause: “Xiao Song, aren’t you scared?”
“Why should I be scared?”
Song Nanshi’s expression was normal: “It didn’t harm me. I don’t even know if it has a physical form. After all, if this hadn’t been recorded, I would have only heard some sounds.”
I was shocked: “The haunting reached your bedside, why didn’t you show me this before? Were you just afraid I’d blame you for wanting to be an internet celebrity?”
Mentioning this, Song Nanshi became somewhat timid, saying anxiously: “Although it’s haunting, it didn’t harm me, so comparatively, I was more afraid boss would kick me out… After all, boss, your matters—I mean… people’s matters are more important than ghosts, right?”
“…”
Thinking that this thing had been harassing my female employee right under my nose for so long, my head began to ache. Taking a deep breath to suppress complex emotions, I rubbed Song Nanshi’s head.
“Next time you should know to be afraid. You said it yourself—people’s matters are more important. What if this thing wanted to harm you? I’d be angry, but I could be coaxed. But if this thing really hurt you, that would be irreversible.”
“Boss…”
Hearing this, Song Nanshi stared at me blankly. After a long moment, as if coming to her senses, she nodded frantically and began playing the video again: “You should finish watching first. It indeed left without harming me.”
So my gaze reluctantly returned to the screen.
As Song Nanshi fast-forwarded the video three times, the thing in the frame first approached Song Nanshi for a look, then played with a doll she had placed beside her bed, and finally crawled out of the bottom right corner just as slowly as it had arrived.
Around 4 AM, it disappeared.
After watching the entire thing, I felt like someone had poured a basin of cold water over my head. Looking at Song Nanshi’s folder again, four or five videos had red markers beside them, and cold sweat broke out on my back.
“Xiao Song… how many times did you film it?” I asked.
“Five times.”
Song Nanshi looked at me directly with those eyes propped up by huge contact lenses: “Most times, it would come in, make a round, and leave. But I recorded one particularly close encounter that showed the face… Boss, do you want to see it?”