Section 29 What he saw was a mass of black, a towering black figure shaped like a giant carrot, with water from the showerhead streaming down from the top of this black 'giant carrot.' The black mass was made up of countless slender strands of hair, clearly visible under the pale light of the bathroom heater, so clear that it seemed possible to see each hair as a tiny cylinder, with mirror-like reflections caused by the water on its surface… so clear it was like a shampoo commercial on TV… so clear that Wang Fei began to question his own existence. The sound of water continued, the showerhead water still flowing down from the top of the 'giant carrot' along its dense hair, while the entire 'carrot' maintained a slight sway, appearing completely unaware that someone was standing there holding a kitchen knife, staring at it in shock. But after just a few seconds, a feeling began to invade Wang Fei's mind, the same feeling he had when Xin Jie disappeared—a sense of oppression. An unprecedented sense of oppression, overwhelming, making Wang Fei feel suffocated just like back then. In that moment, Wang Fei truly felt suffocated. He forgot to speak, forgot about the kitchen knife in his hand, forgot whether to reach out and flip the 'giant carrot' over to see its 'front'… he had completely forgotten what he should do. Because the 'giant carrot' was a full head taller than Wang Fei. Although he couldn't see its eyes, it felt to Wang Fei as if it were a statue looking down at him, and he felt as tiny as an ant in front of it. Clearly, this couldn't be his wife, and even more clearly, his wife didn't have hair this long or in such quantity. Moreover, it radiated an almost visible aura, an aura of extreme terror, and he smelled something within it—violence and death… Run! The only word in Wang Fei's mind was this. He stepped back in panic but suddenly sensed something was wrong, so he stepped forward to try to close the shower door. But his hands were shaking too much, causing the glass door to swing violently. Just as he was about to close it, a crisp 'click' sound came from below, and the glass door seemed to have come off its track and jutted out. Wang Fei tugged hard at the door again, but it didn't budge. He had no choice but to give up and turned to escape from the bathroom. Plop!But just as Wang Fei turned around and hadn't yet managed to pull his hand back from the glass door handle, a cold object landed on his hand, holding him tightly.
Date: 2010-6-7 13:14:00
Wang Fei struggled, but couldn't break free. He turned to look and saw a hand, pale and bloodless, stretching out from the shower, clawing into the flesh on the back of his hand.
In panic, he picked up a kitchen knife nearby and swung it at the arm several times. Soon, fresh red blood appeared on the arm, and as it retracted, Wang Fei hurried to the bathroom door, closing it behind him. Finally, he glanced back and saw that the shower door had been completely opened, and at the base of the 'giant carrot,' among thick hair, a face appeared—a face completely without blood or expression, looking at him upside down.
The upside-down face flashed before Wang Fei's eyes for a moment; he ran frantically through the living room, out the front door, down the corridor, across the lawn, all the way to the security booth at the entrance of the residential area.
Two security guards were sleeping inside the booth. Wang Fei frantically banged on the booth's window, finally waking the two guards...
Date: 2010-6-7 13:27:00
During Wang Fei's recounting, I restrained myself several times from interrupting him, constantly reminding myself to maintain an expression of neutrality, so that he could not accurately judge whether I believed his story.
But, just like his voice, his retelling was so vivid, so vivid that it felt as if I, the listener, was the camera documenting everything that happened at that time. Of course, this might also have been because I knew so well the room I had lived in for three years, and because I had recently had a personal experience similar to his.The things he mentioned in his story were too closely related to what I had seen: the same bathroom, the same wet hair, just like the long strand of hair Ling Zhijie found on the shower wall, just like the ones I dreamed about on several nights, lying on the bed and wrapped around me, just like the hair I dug out of the fridge in room 702… The most, most important thing, was that ghastly pale face, lifeless and bloodless, which was exactly what I saw in the ventilation duct on the shower ceiling. So, in the end, I couldn't restrain myself, and interrupted him with a question: ‘What exactly is that clump of hair you were talking about?' Wang Fei stopped, looked into my eyes, and said one word: ‘Ghost.'