Translator: CinderTL
"No one lives there?" The writer paused, puzzled. "Then what was that knocking I heard on the wall?"
"I wouldn't know," the landlady replied, rummaging through her massive keychain. After a moment, she pulled out an antique copper key and handed it to him. "This is for the room next door. If you don't believe me, go check for yourself."
Seeing the landlady's unwavering confidence, the writer didn't press the matter. But that evening, when he reached into his pocket for his keys, he found two.
He immediately recognized the antique copper key as the one the landlady had given him that morning, claiming it was for the adjacent room.
Slowly, his gaze drifted toward the nearby door. Suddenly, a powerful, alluring force seemed to emanate from it, as if a voice whispered in his ear, urging him to open it.
Without hesitation, the writer threw the copper key as far as he could. He then unlocked his own door, hurried inside, and bolted it securely behind him.
Something's not right here. I'm moving out tomorrow, he muttered to himself.
Later that night, while taking a break from writing, he suddenly remembered it was his best friend's birthday the next day. He turned on his computer's webcam and recorded a birthday message in his study.
After scheduling the video to send precisely at midnight, the writer yawned and went to bed.
Lately, he'd been feeling off. His lower back ached, his shoulders felt dislocated, and he couldn't muster any strength.
He'd barely fallen asleep when a piercing phone ring jolted him awake. Groggily, he answered. His friend's voice came through immediately—the one whose birthday it was.
Before he could offer his well wishes, his friend launched into a tirade, his tone not just displeased but seething with anger, and even a hint of fear.
"What the hell did you send in the middle of the night?" his friend demanded breathlessly. "I know you write supernatural novels, but this isn't a joke, you understand?"
The writer was utterly bewildered. "What did I send?"
He'd simply recorded a straightforward birthday greeting video.
"Stop playing dumb! I'm forwarding it to you right now. Watch it yourself!" his friend snapped. "Let me tell you, I was watching it with my girlfriend, and now she's threatening to break up with me. You fix this!"
Moments later, a video appeared on his phone. The writer pressed play. The clip began with him sitting at his desk, delivering the usual corny birthday platitudes.
Just ten seconds later, the writer's pupils dilated. He noticed a dark shadow had appeared on the wall behind him.
But this was definitely not his own shadow!
His shadow was already there, and this new one was positioned far higher on the wall.
As the video continued, an even more terrifying scene unfolded. The shadow began to sway slowly, not in a normal side-to-side motion, but like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.
At the shadow's highest point, a familiar sound echoed through the video.
"Dong."
"Dong."
The writer's blood ran cold.
It was exactly the same sound he'd heard during the night!
The video abruptly ended, but a flicker of movement in the writer's peripheral vision caught his attention. He dragged the progress bar back and forth, frame by frame, meticulously adjusting the playback until the image froze on the final frame: the moment he stood up.
In the blurry image, a pair of icy, bluish-gray feet rested squarely on his shoulders.
Understanding struck him like a lightning bolt. He finally realized what the swaying shadow at the beginning of the video had been.
It was a person.
A person hanging from the ceiling!
Due to the angle, the dead man's feet had landed squarely on his shoulders.
And the "dong" sound? That was the sound of the corpse swaying and bumping against the wall.
The problem wasn't the neighboring apartment at all—it was his own room!
Dong.
The writer's hand jerked, and he immediately looked toward the study.
Dong.
Dong.
The sound grew faster and closer, no longer coming from the video but real, echoing from the study itself.
Creak—
The writer watched in horror as the bedroom door was pushed open, and half of a ghastly pale face peered out from behind it.
This was the story the tall, gaunt man had told. When he finished, the room fell silent. Fatty's face twitched involuntarily, as if beyond his control.
Telling the story seemed to have been an ordeal for the man. After finishing, he fell silent, standing alone, lost in thought.
"I'll go next," the woman in red offered when no one spoke. Her eyes were beautiful, but they held an unsettling emptiness.
"This story is called 'The Promise'."
"Xiao Lan had an enviable career and a devoted boyfriend. Compared to her peers, she was truly blessed."
"But everything shattered after an accident. Her leg was severely injured, and the doctor even warned of possible amputation. From then on, she was confined to a wheelchair, forced to recuperate at home."
Xiao Lan's temper grew increasingly volatile until one day, while on the balcony, she noticed another girl in the building across the street.
The girl was remarkably clean, bathed in sunlight that made her fair skin glow. For several days, Xiao Lan saw her at the same time each day.
Gradually, the other girl seemed to notice her too, and they began communicating through simple hand gestures.
Through these exchanges, Xiao Lan learned that the girl's situation was even more pitiable than her own. She had been disabled since childhood, and her family, worried about her safety, kept her confined indoors.
Xiao Lan encouraged her, assuring her that the world outside was wonderful and urging her to overcome her fear and come out to see it for herself.
They even made an unspoken pact: if the girl could overcome her fear and step outside, Xiao Lan would invite her over to her house.
As the days passed, Xiao Lan's condition steadily improved. Her remarkable recovery astonished even her doctor.
Xiao Lan's mother was overjoyed for her. Xiao Lan told her that it was the encouragement from the girl in the opposite building that had helped her emerge from her dark mood. She insisted that once her leg was fully healed, she would definitely invite the girl over to her house.
But that very evening, as Xiao Lan was reading, her mother suddenly returned, her face pale and strained. "The girl you saw across the street," she asked, "which floor was she on?"
"The thirteenth floor," Xiao Lan replied with a smile. "It's the apartment that hardly ever opens its curtains."
Her mother's face went deathly white. After a long silence, she spoke in a trembling voice filled with concern: "Lanlan, you mustn't frighten me like that. I asked around at the market today, and I heard that apartment used to have a girl living there, but something terrible happened to her."
"Apparently, it was a lovers' quarrel. Her boyfriend murdered her, nearly severing her body below the waist. Then he hid the corpse in the apartment. Neighbors only reported the stench after a long time. By the time the police found her, her body had decomposed so much that it was practically fused to the mattress."
(End of the Chapter)
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