Xiao Zhu's mind went completely blank. A familiar cold sensation crept up her wrist.
She felt the water rising over her mouth and nose, flooding into her lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
Her limbs flailed desperately. She tried to cry out, but no one answered. All she could see was the woman in the mirror slowly lifting her head, revealing a face that was hard to describe.
Under normal circumstances, the woman in the mirror might have been considered a beauty — but unfortunately, all of her features were swollen from the water.
What was even more unsettling was that the woman's face kept changing. Her black hair spread out, and after a while, Xiao Zhu slowly began to find it disturbingly familiar. With growing terror, she realized the features of the woman in the mirror were starting to look like her own.
She waved her hands, but she couldn't control her body. The sound of rushing water filled her ears. Xiao Zhu felt as though she had been trapped inside the mirror — her body and the female ghost had swapped places!
"Help me! Help me! Help—" She gasped for air, but no oxygen entered her lungs. Just before suffocation overtook her, her face contorted with a primal, animal instinct. She hurled herself forward into the glass mirror in front of her!
"Crack!"
A sharp sound rang out. Blood blurred her vision, but the suffocating feeling vanished.
"Xiao Zhu!" Ah Cheng's voice reached her ears, and the woman's consciousness finally returned. Her body swayed, and she collapsed backward.
"What happened?" The man caught Xiao Zhu from behind. Blood seeped from her forehead, staining her eyes crimson.
"The mirror — there's someone in the mirror!" Xiao Zhu clung to Ah Cheng's arm, pointing at the mirror and screaming.
The bathroom mirror had been cracked by her impact, and bloodstained shards of glass fell from the wall one by one.
Ah Cheng held Xiao Zhu, brushing the glass fragments from her hair. He was thoroughly shaken by what she had just done.
"Don't be afraid, I'm here. I'm still here." Ah Cheng guided the woman backward. He realized there was something wrong with this bathroom.
The black hair in the sink's drain swayed like seaweed, and the water level kept rising, slowly overflowing from the basin.
Drops of water fell to the floor, making the atmosphere in the room even more terrifying. The quietly flowing water was like a suicide victim dragging a blade across their own wrist — what dripped to the ground was not water, but blood.
"Let's get out of here first." Ah Cheng picked up Xiao Zhu and forcibly dragged her out of the room.
"The water isn't turned off yet…" Xiao Zhu's voice sounded weak.
"There's no time. I'll get some people to come back later. I'm taking you to the hospital first." Ah Cheng hadn't thought it was that terrifying at first, but the woman's sudden episode had sent his heart racing.
He was like a bird startled by the twine of a bow. When he glanced back toward the bathroom, he suddenly saw the bloodstains on the broken mirror shards writhing — like tiny worms in a river — slowly converging into a few words.
I'm in the mirror! She's in your arms!
The moment he saw those words, Ah Cheng nearly let go of the woman in his arms. He now understood this was no prank. Something truly eerie was happening at this rehabilitation school.
Blood still trickled from his forehead. Xiao Zhu looked nothing like her usual, adorable self — with no treatment for the wound, she looked downright frightening.
The hallway lights flickered faster. The school had decorated the walls with cartoon pictures and animal drawings to encourage the children's recovery.
Now, under the shifting light and shadow, those cartoon figures looked grotesque, their smiling faces appearing especially nightmarish.
More and more water spilled from the sink in the bathroom, flowing out as if the water itself were alive, pouring into the hallway and following behind Ah Cheng's heels.
Ah Cheng didn't notice. No ordinary person would think to look. His entire attention was fixed on the cartoon faces on the wall.
"I never realized how terrifying these things look at night. I'll have to tell the principal — we need to replace every last one of them."
The words that had appeared in the mirror kept surfacing in Ah Cheng's mind. He supported Xiao Zhu with her head hanging low, feeling the softness of her body but unable to sense any warmth.
"Xiao Zhu?"
He tried calling out. The woman in his arms lifted her head. The wound on her forehead split open in both directions, blood running from her brow down over her nose and across her entire face. She looked utterly grotesque. "Ah Cheng… I feel so tired. My head is spinning."
Her words were drawn out, her voice thick with a nasal quality, as though her nasal cavity were packed full of water.
The girlfriend he had once loved so deeply now looked like a stranger. The feeling was impossible to put into words.
"Just hang on a little longer. I'll get you to a doctor." Ah Cheng bit the tip of his tongue. His girlfriend was in so much pain, and yet he was having thoughts of abandoning her — what kind of person did that make him?
He quickened his pace, but after walking for a while, he noticed the hallway in the rehabilitation school seemed to have grown longer.
"I've been walking for quite some time…" The sense of foreboding in his chest grew stronger. Gritting his teeth, he broke into a full sprint with Xiao Zhu in his arms.
But the moment he took his next step, his foot slipped on something, and he went down hard.
Both he and Xiao Zhu crashed to the ground. Looking back, he discovered the hallway floor had been soaked with water at some point — a stream followed behind him like a venomous serpent.
His gaze drifted further. The door to the single room beside the bathroom was slowly opening.
A short figure appeared behind the door, leaning against it at an angle. Even though the light wasn't that dim, he couldn't make out her face — he could only tell she was wearing a soaked outer garment.
"Wenwen?"