Chapter Nine   Only Two?

Hearing the screaming,Xia an w.a.n.gyazhi both stooped naturally.

The voice came from the behind of them.

"I seem to hear Fengwei screaming." 

w.a.n.gyazhi looked back with fear,getting close to Xia that Xia could even felt the cold emitting from her.

She was not the only one who was scared.Xia,either.

"Yes,I have heard it,too."

Being very low when it met their ears,the sound was still clear due to the dead silence in the bookstore.

Xia didn't know what had happened on them,but he thought the advent of the evil spirit could be the most possible thing.

No matter what truth was it,he didn't want to meddle in.Prayed the sissy man have good luck.

"They get their way,and we get ours.But,we need to be more careful.Don't make much noises when walking.Can you do it? "

"Yes—"

w.a.n.gyazhi approved Xia's decision.She had truly felt the great spooky of this place,though she had not seen it.

"I want to have a try to call my friends--"

w.a.n.gyazhi requested suddenly.

At the same time,on the other side of the building,Fengwei was rubbing his eyes which he could hardly believe,because what he had seen was so strange.

Something perched on the whole window and there was liquid much like blood permeating into the room.

"What's that?"

Fengwei swallowed hardly,calling Zhaoshuang at the top of his voice.

"Hey!Zhaoshuang?Where are you?Hurry!Come here and see!"

"Zhao--Zhaohsuang?"

Such odd sense was beyond his tolerance that it evoked his lizard brain to call Zhaoshuang to came.

But,Zhaoshuang didn't responded.

"Hey?Zhaoshuang?Are you here,can't you speak a word?Don't scare me!"

As his loud voice and such quiet here,even people on the third or forth floor could hear him clearly.Zhaoshuang couldn't have not heard.

"Gurgle--"

While Fengwei was calling Zhaoshuang's name,the b.l.o.o.d.y red liquid permeating from the window began to spread to the ground and a shadow was wriggling on it.

Fengwei realized something and was about to look at the window,when suddenly a beam of ghastly light hit his face.

"Ah---!"

Maybe because of the sudden light,or the sustained tension,he started and began to scream.

"Can't you be calm? "

Zhaoshuang came with expressionless face and the"rat-at,rat-at"sound her high heels made.

Seeing Zhaoshuang again,Fengwei exhaled with release.

"Where are you going？You didn't answer me that I thought you have left."

Fengwei said with a little unhappy when suddenly he recalled the strange window and reminded Zhaoshuang.

"Oh,hurry!Look at this window.It is so strange from which oozes red liquid like blood continually. "

"What liquid?"

Zhaoshuang looked at the window and asked with confuse.

"It's--why？"

Fengwei was about to say it was on the window,but he swallowed his words when it had just reach his throats.

The window was covered with thick curtains and he couldn't see the window,not to mention the liquid.

"Was it you who drew the curtain?"

Fengwei looked at Zhaoshuang dubiously.

"What are you saying.I have just came."

Zhaoshuang threw him a contemptuous eye and turned around.

"It doesn't make sense,I have opened the curtain before and only we two are here.You didn't move it and I neither.Was it the Ghost?"

Fengwei scratched his scurf with confuse and murmured.

"Anyway,I'll show you now."

Then,he suddenly throw open the curtains,but which made him more confused was there was no liquid on the window he saw before.

Just a ordinary window witch couldn't be more ordinary,in the moonlight,reflecting the s.h.i.+mmer.

"It is impossible--I have seen it clearly--"

"What clear!It is indeed clear there is nothing!"

Fengwei was about to explain more but interrupted by Zhaoshuang who felt annoyed about his finding trouble.

"Well,maybe I was wrong. It could be some reflection of the sight outside the window."

Fengwei murmured to find a excuse,then he realized something and asked.

"Oh,where were you just now?Why did you ignored me before?"

"I've been over there."Zhaoshang pointed at the stairway nearby.

Fengwei s.h.i.+ned the stairway with the flashlight and asked skeptically.

"Have you gone upstairs?"

"Yes."Zhaohsuang nodded,then leaned in his ear and lower her voice designedly.

"I found out a secret there."

Xia took w.a.n.gyazhi for a walk around formally.The situation was at worst that they didn't find any switches and at best that they didn't encounter any ghost either.

During this time,w.a.n.gyazhi tried to call her friends but all could not connect.

What was more strange,although the signal bar was full,Xia have tried to call the police,like the same,couldn't connect.

The abnormal thing overwhelmed w.a.n.gyazhi and aggravated Xia's mind.

The darkness abounded deathly stillness oppressed everyone's nerve.

"I don't want to stay here.I want to go back to my dorm!"

Maybe she was too scared that she grabbed Xia's arm and implored in sob.

"Good idea.We can have a try."Xia answered dryly,then s.h.i.+fted the subject and asked.

"Even if you can escaped tonight.Don't you return tomorrow?

Unless you have been killed before your returning here.

Haven't I told you my encountering last two days?"

He said this not so much because he hoped that she would survive due to his favor of her as because he would be left alone if w.a.n.gyazhi had escaped now.

"Don't scare me--I didn't want to die--"

w.a.n.gyazhi stared to cry with more and more agitating mood.

"I just want to earn more money to send remittances to my parents--so I leaved the school finding the job--"

"Why do I encounter the doom--I don't want to die--"

The harder w.a.n.gyazhi cried,the louder noise she made.It seemed to lost control.

In fact,Xia could neither live with woman's crying nor could deal with it.

It was a tough situation outside,and especially in here.He thought for a while and could only add more solemn into his voice and threatened.

"If you want to be alive and don't want to die quickly,shut up your mouth tightly!Your crying will led them directly here,by then,we both would f.u.c.king die!"

Though it was not gallant to shout at a woman,when facing the crossroad of a matter of life and death,it was nothing.Besides,he was an opponent of gender discrimination.

And it indeed took effect.Hearing this，w.a.n.gyazhi covered her mouth with deep horror，as if she would be killed if she had made another vestige of voice.

As w.a.n.gyazhi's spirit was restored a few，Xia a.s.sured her with a soothing tone.

"There were always more keys than difficulties in the world.We will be all right！"

Xia said these word more to himself than to w.a.n.gyazhi.

In fact，he felt bad too.There was not a slight sound but them.Is the screaming they heard before suggested something?They didn't know if Zhaoshuang and Fengwei were alive yet.

Waiting like in the h.e.l.l was unsupportable，for they both didn't know whether there would came a pair of hands chocking their neck hardly at some point.

Perhaps it was Xia's influence that made w.a.n.gyazhi calmed down at the time.

And Xia suddenly catch a thought.

"Hey，I forget to ask you that if the bookstore was closed when you arrived here，or to say，did you see any stuff drawing curtains inside?"

"No，I don't think so.The bookstore was closed when Fengwei and I get here."

She said she was not clear about it with her head shaking，but she soon recalled something and said.

"Maybe Zhaoshuang knows something，for she has been working here for a long time."

"What？What do you mean?"Xia asked again as if he didn't hear it clearly.

"Weren't you brought together by that middle-aged man? " 

"No."w.a.n.gyazhi again shook her head and explained.

"Only Fengwei and I were brought by the man, as to Zhaoshuang，she went out after the man gone away."

A s.h.i.+ver ran through his frame when hearing this.

"I will take two recruits there later..."

It was not until now that he remembered the word that the man said to him before.

Chapter Twelve   Appalling Consequence

w.a.n.gyazhi would like to ask whether it was Xia or not,but her only remaining intellect perpetually reminded her not to do so,even to give out the slightest trace of sound.

With her hand on her mouth,w.a.n.gyzhi rounded her eyes widely,trying to catch something in the darkness.

But she could only see...the darkness.

"Clop-clop..."

Slight footsteps with the sound of dragging something soon arrived at her plot.

Though she couldn't see with her eyes,but she could clearly hear and accordingly figured out that the "person" was standing at a place very close to her.

Maybe it was beside her,or maybe was at the place...face to face!

And what was the"thing""he"dragged.

Some thing,or...

w.a.n.gyazhi hold herself not go on thinking,because she was afraid that she would overwhelmed by these thoughts.

At the same time,the"person"hiding in the darkness seemed to do the same as she did,holding his breathe and hearing.

Were not the feeling of the"person's" approaching before,she would never think of a "man"was hiding in this darkness...and was so close to her!

Without any sound,the almost dead silence made her not dare to breathe.

Because any little sound would be magnified at a great degree here.

It was not long before she reached her limit of holding her breathe,and she could only pray that the "person"would go far away.

Perhaps the pray took effect,just at the point she almost couldn't hold her breathe,the once stopped footstep and the sound of dragging something,at last went away gradually.

It was not until she was sure that the"person"had gone far away that she took a deep breath covetously.Never had she though that enabling to breath was so happy a thing.

Taking several heavy breathes,she felt much better and the chest same less pressed.She tried and stood up,of her sense of the direct,she walked towards the way against that"person".

But it was a long time that she was stopped by a wall.

That was to say,she only can went back,or stayed here.

She stopped to scout around and came to a conclusion that it was a woman's room.

The reason was that she touched the mirror and the faucet,besides there were no urinals for men.

Making sure it was a woman's room of any floor,she recalled the whole frame of the restroom through her memory of buying books here before.In fact,she had have a rough idea of this place by her scouting here just now.

Pandering for a while,w.a.n.gyazhi decided to stay here,because she thought she would be safe in one of so many compartment.The ghost wouldn't check every compartment,would he?

Having this though in mind,w.a.n.gyazhi stopped to grab the door,then pushed it open cautiously.

Because of the pit,she didn't go very deep,but stopped at the point near the door.

Turning around,she leaned against one side of the clapboard.She released a deep breath and thought she was transitory safe.

But it was not long before she heard a raucous toilet flush behind her back.

The abrupt flush startled her to a shutter.It made no sense why had there a flush.

She constrained herself not to suggest the horrible scenarios in scary movies.She tried to extend her arms and went towards the pit.Then...

She felt a face...saturated with viscous liquid!

"Ah—!"

In this flash,she froze like being in a ice caves.

She despairingly to feel for the door,trying to escape form the compartment as she screamed.Maybe she was too scared to find the shackle.She had to knock the door in horror over and over again.

But a pair of cold hands chocked her neck from behind before she could knock open the door!

At the same time,Xia couldn't help himself shuttering,and stoop up abruptly.He cast an unbidden glance at the direction of the screaming,nevertheless there was but the dame darkness.

"What's up...Is it w.a.n.gyazhi?" 

In a flash of time,he heard a vague shrill cries of a woman,though it disappeared soon.

Xia swallowed hard,feeling his back was emitting cold air.It was a good hour away form the middle-aged man's presence,but his news was lost like a stone lost in the sea.

If the man had deal with the ghost successfully,out of logical thought,he would have given some sign,but the fact was none.

What made the matter worse was the screaming.

In this bookstore,the only woman was w.a.n.gyazhi,that was to say,if a woman was killed,it probably would be her.

As for the killer,it only could be that ghost.

But it made no sense,because the ghost was fighting with the middle-aged man.How could the ghost came to kill w.a.n.gyazhi under this circ.u.mstance.

Unless...the man was slew too.

Despite the unwillingness of accepting this conclusion,the truth was probably similar with his thought,if the screaming was truly form w.a.n.gyazhi.

The man didn't annihilated the ghost,on the contrary,the man was killed by the ghost,and after that,the ghost went upstairs and found w.a.n.gyazhi and killed her.

The next victim...would be he himself!

Thinking of this,Xia couldn't help himself shuttering again and felt that the temperature around was lowered to a great degree.

The disturbance was compounded.He shook his head hard to get rid of the wild wandering.

It was better to think of what to do next that to wander and be frightened before the ghost's presence before him.He had to come up with a idea to save himself.

He calmed down and pandered for a while,figuring out two methods.

The first was setting a fire in this bookstore.

Because ghosts fear of light and heat,besides,the ghost same to present only in the bookstore.It might disappeared without the presence of the bookstore.

He totally forgot to consider the consequence of the fire.

The second was escape.Even a strong man like his conductor was beaten by the ghost that it was equivalent of death if he kept staying here.

So he had to escape out of the bookstore first,that made the decision whether to return to The Golden Official Building,or anything else.In any case,he could just wait for death.

He had to make a choice of which to do.He knew there was not a lot time for him to hesitate,because the ghost would stand against him in any minute.

Thinking briefly,he made his mind to combine the two measures together.

Set a fire and escape.

But considered the safeness,he decided to set a fire after he would have escaped to the ground floor.

Having making his mind,he acted quickly,actually,he was surprised of his calmness.He might see himself as a genius rather than a talent!

He is a genius,and he could chilled himself only when meeting with ghosts.

As thinking for fun,he never stopped running towards a nearest stairway with the transit light of the lighter.

Because the fuel of the lighter was limited and the light might attract the ghost,Xia distinguished the lighter when he entered the stairway,going down the steps in the darkness.

Calculating the steps in mind,he figured out that he was down to the third floor.Just at the moment he wanted to continue when he heard a strange noise which was not from his activity.

Hearing this,Xia's hair stood up.He dashed downstairs fiercely without regarding anything else.

At the same time,he hear a rush string of footsteps form above!

"Is it you?Middle-age uncle?"

"Middle-age uncle?"

"w.a.n.gyazhi?"

He wouldn't like to conceal more,now that the other side had detected him.He asked with a shuttering voice,but he got no answer.

Regarding to this point,Xia had almost made sure that the other side was that evil ghost,which realized his speculation before.

"Dame it!"

Xia dashed downstairs with cursing.He kindled the lighter,for there was no need to hide.

With the s.h.i.+ning of the light,Xia's hasty retreating figure was extended for a long distance.But behind his figure,another figure which was impending was—the horrible ghost image!

Nearer and nearer!

"I'm done...I will be caught up..."

"What can I do...being caught up soon...what should I do...!"

Feeling the cold clawed hands impending over,Xia's fear burst out of his deep heart,which made his legs weak,and he rolled down the steps.

"Ah—!"