At eleven p.m., the lights in the boys' dormitory of Xinhai No. 1 High School went out.
The three students in Room 408 had already closed the doors and windows and gotten into bed long before lights-out.
"Lao Cao, are you sure you really saw five people in the dorm last night?" A stocky student sat on the second bunk by the window, wearing a basketball jersey. A poster of some NBA star was taped to the wall beside his bed.
"Why would I lie to you?" The student on the top bunk was shirtless, with two emergency lamps beside his pillow and a jade pendant hanging around his neck. "I thought the cursed letter was just a joke at first — didn't take it seriously at all. Who knew someone would actually appear in our dorm last night?"
Cao Fei on the top bunk pointed toward the window next to the second bunk. "That person's face was pressed right against the glass. I watched him open the balcony door and come inside, and the whole time, he just stared at me."
"Then he was standing right next to my bed? Damn! Why didn't you say something?!"
"I wanted to talk, but no sound would come out — sleep paralysis, you know? That's exactly what it felt like!" Cao Fei gesticulated wildly with both hands.
"Can you describe what he looked like?" The thin, tall student on the third bunk took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. His name — Tian Yuan — was written on the textbook beside his bed.
"I can't really remember clearly. I just felt like it was a person, and he kept staring at me, slowly walking toward me." Cao Fei spoke as he switched on an emergency lamp. "I'm sleeping with the light on tonight. You guys don't mind, do you?"
"Look at you, scared out of your wits. I think you've done too many shady things and you're just scaring yourself." Tian Yuan picked up his book again and continued reading. He was a hardworking student, but he was also a bully. "By the way, who gave you that cursed letter? Someone who can't stand you and wants to report you?"
"My girlfriend got the letter. I was afraid she'd be scared, so I took it from her. Who knew the stuff written on it would actually come true." The emergency lamp's glow fell across Cao Fei's face, and the mere thought of it made cold sweat bead on his forehead.
"You rush to the front when it's time to play the hero, but now that you're in trouble, you've dragged us all down with you. Really something." The student on the second bunk, still in his basketball jersey, spoke in a sour tone. "Sigh, when will I ever find a girlfriend? Do girls not like athletic types anymore?"
"Zhuang-ge, I haven't dragged you guys into anything. I already gave the letter to Hu Yuan, and he's not in the dorm tonight, so the ghost should've followed him home." Cao Fei lowered his voice. "When he comes to class tomorrow, we'll feel him out, mess with him a bit, and try to keep him from coming back to the dorm for a few days. Let that ghost stay at his place."
"What if he insists on coming back?" Tian Yuan put his glasses back on.
"That weakling probably wouldn't dare resist. And even if he did, so what?" Cao Fei clearly looked down on Hu Yuan. "The only thing about him that's even worth looking at is that his sister's pretty good-looking."
"What time is it! Still not sleeping! Turn off the lights!" Someone knocked on the dormitory door, and the dorm supervisor shouted from outside.
The occupants quickly turned off the lights. After the supervisor left, Cao Fei draped a blanket over the emergency lamp and whispered, "I'm not sleeping tonight, guys. Phone's gonna be on the whole time — I'm getting a photo of that ghost for you."
"Good luck with that. Wake us up if you get anything."
The dorm fell silent. Not another word was spoken.
Cao Fei pulled the blanket over his head and started chatting with his girlfriend.
Young lovebirds in the honeymoon phase always had endless things to talk about. Before he knew it, past midnight had come and gone.
Glancing at his phone's battery, Cao Fei was about to say goodnight to his girlfriend. The high school dormitory had no charging outlets — they'd have to wait until they got to the classroom tomorrow to charge up.
His finger hovered over the screen. Before he could even type "goodnight," he heard a strange sound — as if the door had shifted slightly.
He immediately threw off the blanket and looked toward the dormitory door.
The door was shut tight. Nothing out of the ordinary.
He looked around. The dorm was quiet — so quiet he could hear his roommates breathing and his own heartbeat.
"Zhuang-ge? Yuan-ge? You guys asleep?"
No response. Cao Fei pulled the blanket back over his head, this time leaving only his eyes exposed.
His phone screen kept lighting up. His girlfriend had sent new messages. A nameless sense of dread crept into Cao Fei's heart. Right now, the only person he could talk to was his girlfriend.
"Cao Fei? Why'd you suddenly go quiet? Did you fall asleep? Stay up and chat with me a little longer, I'm kind of scared."
"Xiao Lu, our dorm just got really quiet all of a sudden. Even the mosquitoes stopped buzzing. It's so weird!"
"Don't scare me! Did you give the cursed letter away?"
"Gave it to someone in our dorm. He's not here tonight." As Cao Fei typed, he suddenly heard another strange sound — like a faucet that hadn't been turned off properly, with water dripping, dripping onto the floor.
"Then you should be fine. Don't worry, the curse has latched onto someone else now."
"Hopefully." Cao Fei sent the message and looked up from the screen, glancing toward the window.
The instant his eyes landed there, his gaze froze. There was a face outside the balcony!
He blinked, and in that brief flicker of his eyelids, the face was already pressed against the window glass.
Blood slid down the glass. The balcony door handle leading into the dorm began turning on its own.
Cao Fei gripped his phone with both hands, his heart pounding like a drum. His hands and feet went ice-cold, and a suffocating sensation washed over him.
The balcony door, locked from the inside, slowly swung open. The temperature in the room plummeted. Accompanied by the dripping of water, a figure drenched from head to toe and dressed in red appeared inside the dormitory.
He drew closer and closer. Cao Fei's expression twisted in terror, but his body wouldn't respond at all.
Bloody water slid off the figure, and a sharp stench of iron flooded his nostrils.
Sopping wet hair clung to the figure's face. A single eyeball — pure white with no iris — stared at Cao Fei through the gaps in the black hair.
"Why? I already gave the cursed letter away! Why is the ghost still showing up?!"
Cao Fei's heart felt as if a pair of hands had seized it in a crushing grip. His eyes were stretched as wide as they could go.
"Why do you always bully me?" Amid the dripping of water, a hoarse voice emerged from behind the black hair.
Every time Cao Fei blinked, the figure appeared closer to him.
"Why did you give me that letter?"
The drenched body pressed against the side of the bed. The all-white eyes stared straight at Cao Fei. "Why did you curse my sister? Why did you never leave me alone? Why? WHY?!"
The voice was savage and unhinged. The drenched red figure lunged right up to Cao Fei's face.
Sopping black hair pressed against Cao Fei's skin. A deathly pale face stared directly into his eyes: "Why did you kill me?!"
"You're Hu… Hu Yuan…" His back pressed flat against the bed board, Cao Fei was freezing cold from head to toe, his eyes rolling back. This sight had long since shattered his psychological limit. His body went limp on the bed, and a pungent smell of urine filled the air.
"When you were bullying someone weaker than you, you were like a vicious ghost. But now that you've met a real one, you're even worse off than the person you bullied." The drenched figure in red picked up Cao Fei's phone and read the messages on the screen.
"What are you doing? Why'd you stop replying to me again?"
"You're still worried about the cursed letter? As long as you give it to someone else, the curse will never come for you."
"Don't worry. That curse only kills the last unlucky person. Both of us will be fine."
Reading through the messages one by one, the figure in red revealed a ghastly grin.
…
It was nearly one a.m. Her roommates had all gone to bed, but Zhang Lu sat there with an emergency lamp blazing as if no one else existed.
She had her feet propped up on the desk, dabbing something onto her fingernails while scrolling through her phone screen.
"Why haven't you texted back?" Zhang Lu's fingers slid across the screen, typing out a message — Don't worry, that curse only kills the last unlucky person.