The Locked Room

His head was muzzy and heavy, and the things in his field of view seemed covered by a thick veil of gauze. The sound of traffic from the direction of the main road drifted over waveringly, now near, now far, so unreal it was like a dream. After he had walked in that uncomfortable, dazed state for who knew how long, his mind finally regained a little of its ability to think. Yu Sheng hesitated, then stopped and looked back at the way he had come. The sky had almost gone completely dark, and the streetlamps along the way had been lit early. He was walking along a narrow street near home. The low, old residential buildings on either side were like two rows of crouching beasts in the night, yet the "street-level shops" that residents had privately carved out of their ground floors still spilled a warm glow outward, driving off the thread of cold coiled in his heart. Cold? Suddenly, Yu Sheng seemed to feel that piercing chill again, the coldness that bored into his lungs and the marrow of his bones. He felt the freezing rain, sharp as blades, falling on his skin, and he felt those two cold, slimy looks fixed on him—the gaze of a frog watching him. He choked, unable to breathe, and only after a dozen or so seconds did he seem to suddenly remember how. Gulping for air, he quickly lowered his head to look at his own chest. For an instant he had a fleeting illusion—that there was still a gaping hole in his chest, that his heart was gone, that his chest was as silent and cold as an extinguished furnace. But the next second, he felt his heartbeat again; he even seemed to hear a particularly clear "thump" beside his ear... Right. Living people have heartbeats. He was still alive. His heart hadn't been eaten by a bizarre giant frog. But the fragments of memory surging up wildly washed through his mind like a tsunami. No matter how he tried to ignore them, he couldn't push them out. Yu Sheng remembered that rain, remembered the door painted on the wall, and that giant frog... He tried to tell himself it had only been a hallucination, but as the memories washed over him again and again and grew clearer, that idea was rapidly wavering. He had died once, but for some unknown reason he was alive now, and walking home—almost there, just two intersections to go. Of all the uncanny things he'd come across since arriving in this uncanny city, this was the uncanniest of all. He felt gazes from nearby. Yu Sheng noticed that his abnormal behavior seemed to have drawn the attention of passersby; someone off to the side was hesitating, about to come closer, perhaps wanting to ask whether he needed help—he hurriedly waved a hand, didn't exchange more than necessary with the passerby, then quickened his pace to leave the place. He didn't know what had happened to him, but obviously, stopping on the road to sink into thought was no help at all in resolving his confusion. He hurried through the little lane, left the last street near the old residential compound, and headed toward his "home" in this city. Even though he'd only passed two intersections, the surroundings had clearly grown a little more desolate and quiet—as if he'd stepped into a corner of the city that people had forgotten. There were fewer and fewer pedestrians on the road, until in the end all that accompanied Yu Sheng was the cold light of the streetlamps. After walking a while longer, he saw that old, weathered house standing in the night, keeping a faint distance from the buildings around it. It was an unremarkable big house, a three-story old residence with mottled, peeling walls and a sloped roof. The old doors and windows, though aged, were still fairly clean and intact—this kind of house looked just like one of those "self-built small buildings" that had been privately added on within an urban village back when management wasn't yet strict, and had now become, with the passage of the years, a historical relic clogging a loophole in the city's urban construction management... Yu Sheng didn't understand much about the urban construction management system of this "Jiecheng," which differed so greatly from the one in his memory. After all, he'd only been here two months, and subtracting the time he'd lost early on, when caution had kept him shut indoors, he had only just adjusted to his new life here and gotten a rough grasp of the surrounding area—but there was one thing he was clear about. This big house was the only reasonably safe place to stay in this dangerous, off-kilter city—at least, while he was inside the house, he had never seen those uncanny shadows. Even though the big house itself had many things that seemed strange to him. Yu Sheng drew a quiet breath. Carrying the supermarket shopping bag still in his hand, he stepped through the cold light cast by the streetlamp and came to the door, fishing out his key to open it. The old door creaked open, and Yu Sheng went inside and turned on the light—although this house was almost completely different from the "home" in his memory, at the moment the light came on, he still felt, very solidly, a kind of... reassurance. He turned and closed the door, shutting the city's night outside. Then he casually tossed the things he'd bought at the supermarket onto the shelf by the kitchen door, to the right as you entered, and hurried across the somewhat empty living room to the bathroom mirror, where he yanked open the front of his shirt. The images in his memory were simply too clear and vivid, making him unable to help wanting to check over and over. There were no wounds on his chest, and no blood either, as if the matter of "death" had never happened at all. Yu Sheng frowned, checked that his clothes were intact, and pressed the spot where, in his memory, the frog had scooped out his heart and lungs. Only then was he truly certain that he was not, at present, an "open-hearted" man. "What the hell..." Muttering under his breath, he left the bathroom and turned back to the living room. Behind him, the surface of the mirror above the sink cracked silently, then rapidly and soundlessly sealed itself again... Sitting on the living room sofa, Yu Sheng sorted through his tangled thoughts. He didn't know how long had passed before his utterly exhausted mind finally calmed into a dazed quiet. Sleep enveloped him. The daze lasted a long, long time, until an abrupt "thud" exploded in his mind—a sound like someone striking stone with a shovel on top of his head—instantly jolting Yu Sheng awake from his stupor. He opened his eyes in the darkness and blanked for a moment before he realized—the living room light had been turned off at some point. He clearly remembered leaving the light on before he fell asleep! A warning bell went off in his heart, and Yu Sheng almost instinctively reached for the collapsible baton beside him—the first thing he'd done after coming to this strange, uncanny city was to prepare this tool for self-defense. Though so far it didn't seem to have been of any use, as a "terrifying upright ape," holding a stick in his hand at least offered a bit of psychological comfort—only then did he slowly and cautiously rise, keeping watch over every stir in the darkness. In such a desolate, remote place, a burglar breaking in didn't seem so unimaginable. In fact, right now Yu Sheng would rather it were a burglar—at least a burglar could be beaten to death with a collapsible baton. A frog over a meter tall, no. But the living room was completely silent. He could see no signs of anyone having broken in, nor hear any movement from a thief. The good news was that he couldn't hear any movement from a frog either. By the faint glow of the streetlamp spilling in through the window, Yu Sheng kept low as he moved, making out his surroundings, and slowly felt his way to the switch on the wall. He raised his hand and pressed the light on. His eyes instantly shot out a bright light, sweeping across the living room in the darkness. Yu Sheng blinked. He kept feeling that something in his field of view was strange, but he couldn't say what was off—still, at any rate, the surroundings had lit up, and now he could see the state of the living room. Slightly hunched, holding the collapsible baton, he began to check every part of the house. The first floor had only the living room, kitchen, and dining room, plus an empty room that wasn't being used for now. Everything was normal. He stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor and hesitated a moment, then started up. The second floor had three rooms. One was his current bedroom, one was piled with odds and ends, and the last—the one at the very end—was locked. That room had been locked when Yu Sheng first arrived, and no matter how thoroughly he'd searched this big house inside out, he'd never found the key. He first checked his own bedroom and the storage room across from it, then came to the locked room. As usual, the door was shut tight. In fact, it wasn't as if Yu Sheng had never tried some technical means to deal with this lock. These technical means included but were not limited to an impact drill and a handheld chainsaw, yet every attempt had failed—back then, the impact drill and chainsaw had spat sparks in front of that seemingly flimsy wooden door, but even after the drill bit and saw teeth were ground dull, they hadn't cut so much as a mark into it. Of course, he'd also tried seeking more advanced technical means, such as hiring locksmiths. He'd hired three in succession: the first two got lost as soon as they reached Old Town, wandering around for ages without finding where No. 66 Wutong Road was, and the third had been hit by a motorcycle just after crossing the intersection and had only been discharged from the hospital last week... It was as if some mysterious force were preventing Yu Sheng from opening this locked room in his own home. Yes—although this big house was his only reasonably safe place to stay in this city, even the big house itself had many... "off" things about it. Yu Sheng reached out and gripped the doorknob in front of him and tried turning it. Sure enough, it didn't budge in the slightest. No convenient "accident" happened, the kind he'd half come to expect; it was still locked. But perhaps it was his imagination—as he turned the handle in vain... he seemed to hear a faint, soft laugh. The laughter came from the other side of the door. It sounded like a young woman's voice, as if mocking his helplessness before a single door. Every hair on Yu Sheng's body stood on end in an instant! The only safe place he had in this city, the house he'd been living in for two months—right in his own home, this room that had always been locked... there was a person hidden inside! ...How the hell hasn't she starved to death?