Phantom

By Ethel Sanders

A ghost in the house? She would always inexplicably hear strange noises, look around and find nothing. Is it haunted? Or is it her own hallucination? It's a race to the death! She and he run as fast as they can, if they slow down a step, they will become the food of the monsters chasing behind them! But in this crowded city, in this dark night,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brandon Vaughn
• Release date: Jun 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868950827

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Phantom

Copyright © 2023 by Ethel Sanders

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Ebook ISBN: 979-8-8689-5082-7

Cover designed by Ethel Sanders

Edited by Ethel Sanders

Phantom

Chapter 1: Terror Comes to Town

Getting out of the car in front of the mansion whose low wooden fence was crawling with small pink trumpet-shaped flowers, and looking up at the three-story riverfront building, Lin Hong suddenly felt a sense of distraction.

It was a strange sensation, as if she were in the cold winds of winter, and an irresistible chill spread into her heart. Her eyelids fluttered involuntarily, the joints of her whole body were stiff and numb, and her muscle tissues trembled fiercely out of the control of her mind.

She shook her head with some surprise, and laughed at herself for being overly neurotic; it was just a meeting with her boyfriend's parents, every girl had to go through that, and she, of all people, should have been more subdued to make sense of it.

Home. After He Ming got off the bus, he stood in front of the small three-story building and looked up at the upper floors, Finally, I brought this stubborn auntie, this time I can finally give my parents and my mom their word. You don't know, Hong Hong, just for you, the future He family's youngest grandma, it made them nag me so much that I didn't dare to go back to this home.

His figure was not too tall, just about one meter seventy-five, and between his hands and feet he revealed a careless sense of superiority and complacent aloofness. When he said this, the dappled shadows of the trees cast onto his face, cutting his white and clean face into pieces, and even his most affable smile was smeared with a bizarre color by the shadows.

Lin Hong, alarmed, took a few steps forward and approached his body.

It was hard to say why, the closer she approached the mansion, the stronger the uneasiness in Lin Hong's heart became, and when she and He Ming held hands and walked through the entranceway into the living room on the first floor, this emotion had already turned into a feeling of trepidation and fear that made her want to turn her head around and desperately run away, but strangely enough, this feeling was completely groundless and unfounded, because she was sober enough to know that she had never come here before. never seen to come here before, and should have no reason to feel fear.

Chapter 2: A painting that shouldn't exist

Hearing the door open, an old man in a workman's suit with a spray can in his hand came over, He Ming called out playfully, Dad, watering your stupid flowers again? The old man replied, Nonsense, what else can I do if I don't water? When he saw Lin Hong standing with He Ming, the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes immediately piled up a smile on his face and looked at He Ming with a solicitous expression.

He Ming immediately pushed Lin Hong beside him forward, Dad, this is Hong Hong.

Good, good, great, the elderly man smiled with his eyebrows and hurriedly welcomed them in, Sit, sit, you guys sit, he looked at Lin Hong with a kind face, and then he tilted his head and shouted upstairs, Come down, what's the point of dawdling You, people are here. Then he carried the kettle and walked towards the garden at the back.

This elderly man was He Ming's father, He Zhengang, an extremely legendary political old man.

An old woman with an apron tied around her body panicked, holding the staircase railing down from upstairs, she was followed by a chubby country girl, the two hurriedly replaced the work in the hands of He Zheng Gang, to Lin Hong to make tea.

Somewhat unhappily looking at the family's hand-wringing, He Ming seemed to be very reluctant to introduce Lin Hong for her, My mom, this is Piggy.

Lin Hong hurriedly agreed, she wanted to make herself more natural and sit down frankly. However, that inexplicable feeling of shock and horror in her heart lingered on, and grew stronger and stronger, causing her to be distracted and disoriented.

This absurd feeling made Lin Hong nervous in front of He Ming's parents, her demeanor was disoriented, and she lost her usual calm and serene state of mind. It was only when the other party warmly greeted her three times in a row and brought her tea in front of her that her emotions eased a little.

He Ming could see that Lin Hong seemed a bit nervous, so he offered to take her upstairs to have a look, and he dragged her up that European-style rotating staircase.

The stairs were covered with a carpet imported from Italy, the color was noble and dull, looking up to give a solemn feeling. Lin Hong frowned, this style of carpet does not seem to be suitable for the living room, it is too serious, too rational, too flashy, too strong a conflict with the warmth of home life.

The handrail of the staircase is the most common pine, sprayed with antique patterns, and the left bank style metal hook rail is a perfect blend, the hook rail is inlaid with spray-carved glass, which is precisely not Lin Hong's favorite style. Comparatively speaking, the bright colors of spray-carved glass, giving people the beauty of reverie, the enjoyment of beauty, can render a wonderful artistic atmosphere. However, this building material is more suitable for application in indoor screen partition decorations, rather than trivial clutter to destroy the overall aesthetic effect of the building.

Seeing her frowning again and again, He Ming knew what she was thinking, and put those wet and soft lips close to her ear, and said softly, Don't judge this place with your kind of home art designer's eyes, do you know that when this house was built, the highest level of designer we could find was only a teacher of the beauty college who had furthered his studies for two years in the central folk art, which can be compared to you. How can he compare to you?

As he said this, He Ming swooshed and gasped, a wry smile on his face.

At the moment she curiously surveyed everything in this house, feeling the man's breath behind her, her heart also flooded with a strange warmth, her lazy gaze drifted away from the gorgeous carpet, and an oil painting on the wall on the second floor suddenly jumped to her eyes.

The painting came with such ferocity, like a meteorite falling from the sky, swaying with intense heat that it quickly entered her field of vision, taking away the quiet and stillness of her inner world, and triggering a destructive roar and shock in her heart!

She violently pushed He Ming away, and her fearful gaze stared blankly at the oil painting on the wall, which ...... occupies an exceptionally important position in her life, and even once dominated the course of her life! However, the world should not have the existence of such an oil painting, should not, because as early as ten years ago she had hidden this painting deep in her heart.

She could not forget the painting for the rest of her life, even though she had never seen it before.

Chapter 3: The Face of Terror

On the screen, is a small villa in the riverfront scenery, the river swings wooden leaves like a silent crow boat, a few plants that look like flotsam and jetsam look like ogi, silver-white plants from the surface of the screen peeled away, swaying with the wind, the riverfront on the other side of the river, is that engraved in the deepest recesses of her memory of the villa, the European-style conical towers and baroque style round corridors, both decorative and practical, does not appear at all to be a pretentious.

The color of the villa was greenish-gray, leaning towards a darker, cooler tone that accentuated the building's cooler style.

Beneath the dark gray building was a graveled path, cars, men and women sitting under cool loose umbrellas sipping beer, a woman with a satchel walking alone from a distance, followed by an animal not too clearly shaped, more than likely a dog, which could only be a dog!

The doors of the villa were open one way, the other appeared to be open rather than open, and the animal-kissed iron ring on the door was so real that it seemed as if you could reach out your hand and pull the door open.

There were several star-shaped windows spread over the second floor, one, two, three, four, two on the right and two on the left, all tightly shut, and on the third floor there were only two windows, both also shut, but in one of them a woman's face was revealed on the glass, and the woman, with a dull gaze, which appeared to be struggling desperately to break out of an indefinable state of horror, was crying out in a loud voice.

As soon as she saw the woman in the third floor window, Lin Hong's chest felt like it had been struck heavily by a hammer, and she couldn't help but stagger back, her face pale, her lips bloodless, and her fingers pointing at the oil painting on the wall trembled fiercely.

Despite the blurred face of the woman on the third floor of the screen, she knew who the woman was.

That's her! That's her! That's her!

That's the person she knew she was today more than a decade ago!

Lin Hong was born in a small town twenty miles away from Taizhou, the name of the town is called Ji Jia Lu, it should be the year when a village by the Ji clan people gathered developed. After decades of evolution, the Ji family members have all gone up in the wind, Lin Hong remembers only a pale old man who could not be pale anymore.

This old man lived alone in a mud hut, and worked as a porter's watch for a machine shop; he was so deaf that he could not hear the gong even if it was beaten desperately in his face, but this did not prevent him from being an excellent watchman, for at night he stayed awake, and took a flashlight all over the yard of the factory, and every now and then shouted out, Come out; I have Come out, I've seen you. If you don't come out, I'll arrest you! So that he shouted is to shout a night, shouted the thief upset, no way with the deaf general understanding, will never hit the factory that a few pieces of scrap iron idea.

Old man Ji had another problem, he shivered, desperately.

He was shivering all over, non-stop, even in his sleep he was shivering all the time, always waking himself up shivering, so his sleep was poor and thus his shivering got even worse.

Ji old man's shivering has been for many years, so he practiced a skillful way to eat, able to accurate angle, just the right strength to send food into the mouth, Lin Hong met him is such a look, to see the old man with shivering hands to send food into the shivering mouth, and then shivering mouth to assist in the food sent down, the look of the indescribable comical. At that time, Lin Hong thought that her father had brought her to see a juggling act and giggled incessantly, but later she realized that it was not.

Dad took Lin Hong to see Old Man Ji because Lin Hong always had nightmares until she was five years old, and she often woke up from her dreams bawling in terror of the things she dreamed about.

Lin Hong's nightmares are very strange, always the same bloody and lurid scenes, always hearing a scary footstep first.

Chapter 4: Lingering Nightmares

In the dream, heavy footsteps sounded, coming from far away, carrying a terrifying power.

The sound of footsteps was getting closer and closer, a terrifying figure was projected on the wall reflecting the dim light, Lin Hong struggled up in fear, trying to avoid this shadow with heavy pressure, but no matter how much she struggled, she couldn't break out of this horrible dream world.

It was clear to her that she was lost in a dream, but she couldn't wake herself up.

In her dream, she saw herself with her hands and feet tied behind her back, and the walls of the gloomy room splattered with gritty blood, some of which had dried, some of which was still flowing slowly. There was an eerie, fishy coldness all around her, and the smell was desperate.

The footsteps were close at hand, and a huge black shadow pressed in.

There is a terrible face in close to her, she cried out, desperate loud wail, can not see the face of this face, just in the sense of seeing this figure holding a white candle, facing the slow bent down, candle oil dripping on her bare skin, hot feeling make her soul. The face that could not be seen let out a strange laugh, the laugh was grim and gritty, like an evil hand, extended into her body, as if it wanted to pull out all of her organs and bowels.

She was filled with horror at the face in her dream, and was powerless to resist it in the dream, but could only wail in despair, a mournful wail so gritty that it triggered a great deal of physical discomfort in her.

She clearly heard her teeth chattering from fear, that sharp cackle instantly amplifying and filling the world, and in the midst of the shuddering panic she urinated, drenched in sweat, and awoke howling from her nightmare.

She howled loudly in despair, desperately trying to sit up, but sweat soaked sheets, weak, until her parents were awakened by her desperate cries, got up and shook her hard, as if grabbing a straw, she desperately grabbed her mother's hand, desperately bawling shrilly, not daring to open her eyes for a moment, fearing to see that she was still in the nightmare.

This horrible nightmare haunted Lin Hong until she was six years old, keeping her awake at night, and night after night of violent convulsions and spasms finally caused her to develop a severe case of lamb's foot, also known as epilepsy.

Family members sent her to the hospital a few times for examination, the doctor as usual, diagnosed Lin Hong's brain cells were damaged, the lesion triggered the brain discharge phenomenon, resulting in recurrent episodes of sudden, temporary brain dysfunction, unable to determine the site of Lin Hong's lesion and the scope of the conduction, but from the symptomatic point of view, Lin Hong's disease is mainly manifested as a loss of consciousness, convulsions of the limbs, foaming at the mouth, teeth closed, eyes upturned, urinary and fecal incontinence. Incontinence. Doctors told Lin Hong's parents that the patient might even die of asphyxiation in severe cases if not treated immediately.

There was nothing wrong with the doctor's diagnosis, but after examining Lin Hong, nothing was found to be wrong. Without even being able to identify the focus of the disease, there was no way to talk about treatment, let alone catching it. All the doctor could do was to prescribe Lin Hong a dose of the cheapest phenytoin sodium, but Lin Hong took the medicine and was still plagued by nightmares. In the end, I don't know who suggested in a fit of sickness, This child may have run into some evil thing, so ask Old Ji Tou to take a look and remove the evil from the child.

It was in this way that the father took Lin Hong specifically to find this old Jitou, and they arrived just as the old Jitou was having lunch, so the six-year-old Lin Hong was not unhappy to see the scene described above.

When Lin Hong came here, she had heard people say that the reason why Old Ji Tou always shivered incessantly was that he was scared out of his wits in the hospital morgue when he was young.

This story had been circulating in the Ji family fall for years, with several different versions, none of which had gained Old Ji Tou's approval for their veracity, but then, such a thing didn't seem to need his approval either.

When old man Ji was young, hospital morgues didn't have refrigeration equipment yet, and corpses could only be placed in the room until the deceased's family agreed to sign for incineration. So on the beds inside the morgue, there were bodies covered with white cloths, which had either died from drowning, or from a fight, or from an accident, or from drugs. But regardless of the cause of death, all the corpses have one thing in common: horror.

The door to the morgue room is never locked, and it was once suggested that the door should be locked, and the reason for locking the door is not that the dead are afraid to run out; it is common sense that the dead do not run. But the living will go the wrong way and enter the morgue by mistake. This suggestion is very reasonable, but the doctors and nurses in the hospital will not go the wrong way, so this suggestion, which has nothing to do with the hospital itself, finally ended up in vain.

The morgue should have been locked but it wasn't, and as a result, it really let Old Man Ji walk in by mistake.

Chapter 5: Morgue Ghosts in Hot Pursuit

That day is already the second half of the night, Ji old man is asleep at home, suddenly feel the ear prickling, reach out and grab, just a little bit did not catch, was a cockroach climbed into his ear, then Ji old man scared wailed, wildly jumped and climbed up, spread two legs rushed out of the door, and flew to the hospital.

He ran to the hospital, rushed into the emergency room, shouting to find the doctor, but the doctor for some reason is not in the treatment room, felt that the cockroach is crawling around in his ears, Ji old man even anxious and afraid, waiting for the doctor back, ran along the hospital corridor until the backyard, want to find the doctor faster.

He was running around the hospital compound like a headless fly when he suddenly saw a door in front of him that was hidden, and without thinking, he pushed it open smoothly and walked in.

As soon as he entered the door, Old Man Ji only felt a wave of cool air, from the top of his head straight through to the soles of his feet.

By the weak light coming in from outside, he saw several beds on the ground, each with a person lying on it, a white cloth covering the whole body, but only showing the gritty feet outside. This is actually the hospital morgue.

Ji old man under a shock, even the cockroaches drilled in the ears are forgotten, turned his head and wanted to escape, but, because of excessive fear, he wanted to run, but his legs do not stop making use of, can not move, can only stand there dumbfounded, looking at the body of cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold dead body.

The morgue was dark, but the strange moonlight was refracted and diffused into it, covering everything in the morgue with a layer of light green light and shadow, which was displayed in front of old man Ji's eyes.

Ji old man stared blankly for a long time, snapped out of it, suddenly felt a cold air surging into the heart, two feet soft, just want to immediately turn around and leave here. At this time, the corpse in the morgue suddenly moved a bit, scared him to a stare, his mouth involuntarily opened wide, eyes bulging, staring at those corpses on the dead unexpectedly can not move away.

He saw a pile of the most fearful thing, the body on the bed, slowly stood up, that covered the head of the white cloth noiselessly fluttered down, revealing a few green dead gray face, some of these faces have rotted, some bruises with blood, there is a body is clearly dead in a traffic accident, the entire head was flattened by the wheels, more horrible than this body is a female corpse, she should be poisoned to death, gritty blue A face, black purple tongue drooping outside the mouth, these corpses stood up, with their hideous expression that will never change again, staring at old man Ji, their movements stiff and slow forced over.

Old man Ji was so scared that his mind went blank, looking at those gruesome corpses surrounding him, and heard himself shouting in a strange voice, What are you guys getting up for? Who told you to get up, lie back down!

After shouting this without a head, old man Ji finally came to his senses, he screamed miserably, turned his head and stumbled to escape, not realizing that the fear was too strong, his upper body twisted over and ran wildly towards the distance, but his two legs remained stiff and sheepish in their original stance, causing his body to lose its balance, and he stumbled and fell down in a heap.

With a slurred whimpering sound in his throat, old man Ji desperately climbed up, but his two arms could not hold up the weight of his body for what they said, and it was hard to stand up, but suddenly he heard a hissing sound, and his lapel had been grabbed by a corpse.

Old man Ji desperately struggled and tore his lapel, and was about to send his feet running wildly, but several other corpses had already chased after him and pounced on him. Ji old man's heart and guts, whimpering and running in circles in the yard, back and forth, the dead bodies moving stiff bodies, chasing closer and closer, slowly circling him in the center.

The cold night wind swept through the old man Ji's skin, the strong smell of formalin in the wind almost suffocated him, and the most terrible thing was the stench of those corpses, wisps and wisps, like smoke and fog, as if enveloping the whole world. Under the miserable moonlight, the movement of the corpses triggered the creaking joints popping, the eerie sound closer and closer, carrying a kind of horrible power that makes people's souls scattered, Ji old man felt that he could not run.

The corpses gathered around, their ghastly green palms covered in tired corpse stains and a musty odor brought on by too long a stay in the dank morgue.

Old man Ji backed up in despair, tears welling up in his eyes somehow, when suddenly his back hit the top of something.

Chapter 6: A man who is not awake

There was a clatter above, and a few leaves drifted down from the air.

It's a tree!

Old man Ji couldn't even think about it, purely out of a subconscious instinct, he leaped and climbed up the tree, hugging the tree trunk for the first time in his life, the speed was fast but staggering. In just a blink of an eye, he realized that he had already climbed to the top of the tree. Despite his fast climbing, he was still pulled off one of his shoes by the most terrifying female corpse, whose sharp nails tickled the center of his foot with a fiery pain.

Climbed to the tree, Ji old man desperately whimpering, want to shout for help, but his throat is straight cackling, but can not make a sound. He watched the several corpses under the tree desperately upward jumping, futilely trying to pull him down, see can't pull him, the corpses issued a few strange screams, grabbing the trunk, shaking up, Ji old man a momentary lapse of precaution, almost fell under the tree, he rushed to hold the tree body with both arms dead.

The rest of the corpses all leaned in, angrily shaking the trunk of the tree as hard as they could together, trying to shake Old Man Kee, who had fled to the tree, down.

The more the tree trunk shook the more intense, Ji old man is like a storm desperately grasping a leaf of wood piece of insect ants, desperate to embrace the tree trunk dare not have the slightest relaxation.

That kind of shaking with the trunk of the tree had become an instinct for the desperate old man Ji, and only with this instinctive mechanical shaking could he hold on to the shaking tree trunk and not fall down.

Hospital people came to work, found a man in the tree holding the trunk of the tree desperately shaking, they shouted at him to come down, but the old man Ji was unable to abort his body shaking, the hospital took a lot of effort to get him down from the tree, he was like a gyroscope desperately shaking, shaking, the shaking of his body is so violent, the people who tried to approach him were knocked down to the ground. From that time on he fell into a strange disease of shaking all over his body.

Things are so interesting, Ji old man was young by the dead body scared out of a chaff disease, but by the time he was old, people have no reason to believe that this old man has a pair of yin and yang eyes, can see another hidden world. When people in the neighborhood encountered strange and unexplainable things, they would look for old man Ji to have a look. It is not known how effective old man Ji was in treating the patients, but the old man who kept shivering like a sieve chaff has been famous ever since.

Because of this strange chaffing and trembling disease, Ji old man life did not marry a wife, no children to support, all rely on their own for people to cure the evil disease, actually live a very prosperous life.

There are many strange legends about Old Man Ji's visits to the doctor.

It is said that once there was a beautiful new daughter-in-law, after the wedding into a new house, every night, she always dreamed that there is an ugly face of the man pressed on her body, almost every night from the nightmare will wake up, her husband took her to the hospital to see a doctor, took a lot of medicine does not help, the nightmare is more and more realistic, the development of the final, as long as she closed her eyes, she can see the ugly man rushed to The nightmare became more and more realistic, and in the end, as soon as she closed her eyes, she could see that ugly man making some lewd gestures at her. Disturbed by this horrible nightmare, the beautiful new daughter-in-law's body became thinner and thinner day by day, and then she finally found Old Man Ji and asked him to help her drive away the evil spirits in her dreams.

Ji old man listened to the new daughter-in-law's condition, he came to the new daughter-in-law's home without saying a word, looked around, and then pointed to a corner of the wall, let the people there planing, planing, after seeing the wall buried in a yellow framed paper glued into the cardboard box, the cardboard box there is a picture of a painting is the new daughter-in-law is always in the dream of the man, the back of the painting is also written in four rows of words, people who have seen it said that it is unknown who the The back of the painting also had four rows of characters written on it. After listening to old man Ji's instructions to burn the painting, the new daughter-in-law's illness was completely cured, and she no longer had nightmares.

And at the same time, the hospital brought in a patient who was burned to a few charcoal, this patient was drinking with his friends in the tavern when a fire suddenly broke out on his body, and before anyone could react, he was already screaming and burned to a crisp in the midst of the roaring flames.

Later, people realized that the man who suddenly caught fire, it is the building of the new house of a mason, he saw the new daughter-in-law in the building of the house, coveted each other's beauty, they cast an evil spell, will be their own portraits and birthdates sealed into the wall, and since then to do the haunting in the nightmares of the new daughter-in-law. But he didn't want to meet the old man Ji, who had seen the most ghosts, and lost his life in vain.

Mysterious legends like this one abound, and the old man Ji, who was terrified by the corpse, was almost rumored to be the Zhong Kui who tackled demons and monsters. It is said that what Old Man Ji is best at, is to see the night cryer, whoever's child sleeps uneasily at night and keeps on crying, find Old Man Ji, most of them will be solved. Hoping that Old Man Ji can cure Lin Hong's nightmares and epilepsy, Lin Hong's father brings his daughter here.

When my father brought Lin Hong into the small earthen house, old man Ji was shivering and eating on the earthen kang. My father carefully put two packets of snacks on the kang and told old man Ji about his daughter's situation. The father carefully put two packs of snacks on the bed and told him about his daughter's situation. Old man Ji didn't know whether to listen or not, but he just ate the dumplings and drank the vegetable soup without stopping shivering. Finally, old man Ji ate his fill, shivered and choked with satisfaction, and beckoned Lin Hong to come closer, but Lin Hong was a bit scared and held her father's leg, refusing to let go. Old man Ji did not see any offense, moved his own body to the edge of the bed, then stared at Lin Hong's eyes for a long time and said:

This kid, why isn't he awake?

It's hard to sleep, complained the father, as soon as the child falls asleep, she wakes up crying by herself, and when she cries a lot, she gets twitchy; look at her, she's five years old, and she's still so thin.

Well, I mean, Old Man Gee shook his head in confusion, The kid, she's still awake alas.

Ah... ah, yeah. Father scratched his head uneasily as he couldn't figure out what Old Man Gee meant.

Let the child play outside for a while, said Old Man Ji, Play for a while, and the child will not be afraid of birth.

Then her father sat with old man Ji on the kang and chatted, Lin Hong squatted at the door alone and played for a long time, then her father left her alone and rode away on his bicycle, Lin Hong saw a mockingbird land in the yard, so she ran over to see it. At this time, old man Ji reached out and called her over, she was no longer afraid of this shivering strange old man, so she ran over and asked, Old grandpa, did you really see a ghost alas. Ji old man ho ho laughed, patted her head: See what ghost, there is no ghost in the world.

Yes, Lin Hong said with rounded eyes, I heard from my dad and my mom that you just met a ghost and that's why you're scared and shivering all the time.

Old man Ji felt amused at Lin Hong's seriousness, so he asked with a smile and a ho-ho-ho, What did your father and your mother say?

Lin Hong told what she had secretly heard about Old Man Ji's encounter with a ghost in the morgue, and heard Old Man Ji laugh out loud, and then said, It wasn't that close anyway, but what Grandpa encountered that night wasn't a ghost, it was a couple of bold young men who bet on spending the night in the morgue, and had nothing to do at night, and scared Grandpa when they saw him, but Grandpa was so bold that he didn't let them scared.

Lin Hong asked curiously, Then, Grandpa Ji, since they didn't scare you, why are you shivering all the time?

This? ...... this, Ji old man was Lin Hong poked through the cowhide, but the good thing is that people are old and wrinkled, can not see the blush also do not feel embarrassed, he smiled and said to Lin Hong: Grandpa is old, so the old shivering. Let's not talk about it, now you look at grandpa, listen to grandpa talk to you, okay? Lin Hong blinked her eyes in uncertainty and nodded.

So old man Ji held Lin Hong's hand and walked out the door, pointing upward, Heaven, downward, Earth, and into the air, Bird, ...... As if he was teaching Lin Hong about the world, Old Man Ji had to stare carefully into Lin Hong's big, clear eyes with every word he said. Later on, old man Ji said he was tired, so he lay back on the kang shivering and slept for a while, woke up from his sleep, and began to look at Lin Hong's eyes again and said, Cat, Dog, Cannon, Grass, ...... Ji old man said more and more unsystematic, the more confusing, a moment in the sky, a moment underground, listening to Lin Hong brain dizziness, but Ji old man looks even more exhausted, he has been talking to the evening, when he said After he said little turtle three words, Lin Hong's eyes suddenly became confused, Ji old man slapped his palm as if relieved: Finally found it. Then old man Ji squatted down, his hands stroked Lin Hong's shoulders and said:

Grandpa will teach you to memorize children's songs, okay? Lin Hong was so happy to hear this that she jumped up and down and shouted.

Old man Ji taught Lin Hong a children's song that she could never forget, because since she had memorized it, Lin Hong no longer had nightmares at night and would sleep soundly until dawn.

That children's song is simple, and it wouldn't be a children's song if it wasn't:

Turtles are skinny, they don't grow meat.

lit. skin and bones wrapped in a hard shell

Four paws and a head.

Three years of walking to your doorstep

Old man Ji told Lin Hong to memorize the song when she had nothing to play, and to recite it a few times before she went to bed at night. Lin Hong especially liked the little turtle in the song, so she kept reciting it every day. To the delight of the Lin family, Linhong's epilepsy recovered incredibly since she began to memorize this meaningless song. Her father was so happy that he bought a lot of things and sent them to Old Man Ji. Old Man Ji smiled and accepted them all, then told his father that:

This child of yours, ah, didn't wake up, I can't wake her up, I can only let her be quieter, you can take your time to see it again, maybe when the child is older, she will wake up by herself. If this child wants to do something, you must not stop her, when the child wakes up, naturally it will be fine, remember?

The father, Nono, looked at his daughter who was alive and chasing butterflies outside, full of confusion and disbelief, not understanding what exactly Old Man Ji meant when he always said that his daughter hadn't woken up.

Sure enough, it was from this time that Lin Hong began to like squatting on the ground with a twig and scratching around, and every time she drew something more or less the same, but it could never satisfy her. Later she went to elementary school, often absent-minded in class, holding a pencil and drawing on the books. In elementary school, the average girl's academic performance was very good, but Lin Hong was an exception, she always seemed to be in a state of daydreaming, her eyes were confused and distracted, even when taking the exams, she drew around on the test paper.

Lin Hong's parents remembered Old Man Ji's instructions: let the child do whatever she wants, don't stop her. So they let Lin Hong squat on the ground and draw all by herself, but never asked. This process continued, and by the time Lin Hong was in the fourth grade of elementary school, she finally had an outline of what she was drawing.

What she had been painting was a large house, next to the river, with three floors, and a woman's face in a third-floor window, calling out to the outside.

The painting was a typical child's painting, with exaggerated figures and disproportionate buildings, so that if you didn't look at it carefully, you wouldn't be able to understand what was actually being painted. So the painting left many people baffled, but Lin Hong's teacher thought she had a talent for painting, and for this reason specially suggested to Lin Hong's father to find a painting teacher for Lin Hong.

Lin Hong's father in a machinery factory as a worker, a simple man, few words is his biggest characteristic, people call him Dalin. His wife did not work, almost forty years old before he gave birth to Lin Hong this a daughter, the kind of pain in the natural need to say, as long as the daughter likes things, he always find ways to make his daughter happy.

After listening to the teacher's advice, and remembering Old Man Ji's instructions, Da Lin specifically asked Lin Hong's opinion, Lin Hong remembered that she was in a daze and was in the midst of a state of daydreaming with her mind wandering, in fact, she grew up with this problem, unable to concentrate on even the most heavenly matters, and it was only when she was in middle school that she strangely regained her normalcy.

In the process of growing up later, she finally understood her early childhood confused mind is how it is, it is very simple, she has been looking for something, looking for the painting, because she could not find, had to be in a bitter, constantly with a brush, with a brush, until she was able to skilfully draw the painting, she only a long sigh, seems to have completed a piece of mind like feeling infinite ease, and She began to enter the state of a normal girl's life.

Why was she obsessed with finding this painting? If only someone could tell her, but Old Man Ji had died years ago, and with no one to tell her that answer anymore, she could only continue to struggle in her state of confusion.

Perhaps the picture she was painting was a scene from her early childhood dream, but that judgment was conspicuously lacking in foundation. For there is no reason why a child should be plunged into a nightmare by a picture like this, which is full of Left Bank flavor.

Lin Hong's father asked someone to find a painter surnamed Lou in the city cultural center, and took his daughter to visit Lou's house, pleading with Mr. Lou to accept this disciple. Teacher Lou was rash, seeing this naive worker a piece of sincerity, Lin Hong, although not very old, but appeared to be smart and clever, so he agreed, and then he realized that he had done a big mistake, Lin Hong unbearable to create.

No matter how much Mr. Lou painstakingly explains, what three stops and five eyes, what perspective techniques and so on and so forth, Lin Hong is still like in the classroom as distracted listening, and then Mr. Lou taught her to first draw sketches, drawing still lifes, but Lin Hong draws on the paper, is still that a house.

Mr. Lou corrects her and tells her again, and what she draws afterward is still the same house.

That was how she doggedly and endlessly drew that house, on and on and on, for four years, until she graduated from junior high school, when she was finally able to draw that house with skillful techniques.

She had spent her entire sixteen years, a flower girl who had been endlessly trying to paint this picture, even though she had never seen it before.

On the screen, is a small villa in the riverfront scenery, the river swings wooden leaves like a silent crow boat, a few plants that look like flotsam and jetsam look like ogi, silver-white plants from the surface of the screen peeled away, swaying with the wind, the riverfront on the other side of the river, is that engraved in the deepest recesses of her memory of the villa, the European-style conical towers and baroque style round corridors, both decorative and practical, does not appear at all to be a pretentious.

The color of the villa was greenish-gray, leaning towards a darker, colder style, which accentuated the cold style of the building.

Beneath the dark gray building was a graveled path, cars, men and women sitting under cool loose umbrellas sipping beer, a woman with a satchel walking alone from a distance, followed by an animal not too clearly shaped, more than likely a dog, which could only be a dog!

The doors of the villa were open one way, the other appeared to be open rather than open, and the animal-kissed iron ring on the door was so real that it seemed as if you could reach out your hand and pull the door open.

There were several star-shaped windows spread over the second floor, one, two, three, four, two on the right and two on the left, all tightly shut, and on the third floor there were only two windows, both also shut, but in one of them a woman's face was revealed on the glass, and the woman, with a dull gaze, which appeared to be struggling desperately to break out of an indefinable state of horror, was crying out in a loud voice.

Every time she drew the woman in the third-floor window, Lin Hong would look pale, her lips bloodless, and the slender fingers holding the brush trembled fiercely.

Teacher Lou was no longer willing to recognize her as his disciple, but still frowned when he saw the painting and asked, Who is that woman locked up in the house?

Lin Hong stared blankly at the painting for a long time before replying in a trembling voice, That's me, that's me, that woman she's me!

Teacher Lou looked at her with a suspicious gaze and later let out a long sigh. Completely giving up her last ray of hope for Lin Hong.

However, since this painting since Lin Hong's early childhood on the painstaking search for the painting was painted by her, her heart is like putting down a big stone, suddenly became relaxed, calm up, no longer like before as a trance, no longer indulge in daydreaming in the spirit of wandering, she suddenly became wise, became mature, not yet three years, she was admitted to a nationally renowned art college in Beijing, and in the students are obsessed with the artist's dream, but she quickly transformed into one of the few domestic home art designers. While her classmates were indulging in the dream of being artists, she quickly transformed into one of the rare few home art designers in China.

From the time she began to specialize in home art and design, Lin Hong completely put aside the nightmare that had plagued her from her childhood to her teenage years. Her heart is like still water, and she enriches her knowledge from a vast sea of books in a relaxed manner. Her painting technique is still not up to par, except for that three-story villa house, she paints everything very poorly, but this does not hinder the development of her career.

The year Lin Hong graduated, her parents died in a car accident, the sky that sheltered her from the wind and rain just collapsed. Surprised to hear the news, Lin Hong was in Beijing to go to school, fainted on the spot, her career has not yet started, to her parents have not yet repaid the favor of parental upbringing, her parents just suddenly died, the son wants to raise but the parents are not there, how is that mournful!

She returned to Taizhou, took a long-distance bus back to Jijialu, with the help of neighbors, to send off the two old people who have not yet white head, they left very suddenly, even failed to leave a word to her, that the pervasive grief, since then turned into a helpless thoughts in the heart of Lin Hong.

In this desolate world, from then on she began a lonely life all alone, and no one would ever care for her or miss her again.

After sending her parents away, Lin Hong wiped away her tears and began to think about her own survival. In order to make a living, she joined hands with a friend to set up her own company in Taizhou, which is located near the International Exhibition Center building that has become a piece of wasteland in the city, and its main business is to provide professional home design and art consulting for the upper class people with huge wealth, the company's business is not too good, and it can be said that it is a dismal business. After all, Taizhou is a small place, the middle class is not formed, and the number of rich people is even fewer, so the company has been in the state of not being able to make ends meet from the moment of its opening.

Contrasting with her cold company business, as a beautiful, celibate career woman, she is surrounded by a large number of suitors, all of them prestigious figures, but she can't find a feeling between them, and each of them is in a state of uncertainty.

In fact, she knew in her heart of hearts that it was still the house that plagued her emotionally.

Where was the house? What was its relation to her? Why had she been searching for it since her early childhood? Does it exist or not? Is it a memory of her past life? Or is it her old grudge in this life?

As long as these issues remain unresolved, her mind cannot be untied.

Unable to solve the knot Lin Hong to quiet calm calm cover up the inner depression, she has been used to go alone, in the sea of people to experience the bitter taste of loneliness.

This state of affairs continued day by day, and slowly, a friend named Qin Fangcheng, who always supported and encouraged her, entered her emotional world.

Qin Fangcheng's father is called Qin Xuefeng, once worked in Taizhou city hall for a period of time, and later returned to his hometown. Qin Xuefeng and Lin Hong's family has a deep friendship, and later Qin Fangcheng is Lin Hong's university alumni, all rely on Qin Fangcheng's support and assistance, Lin Hong sent off his parents in style, Qin Fangcheng in the funeral to preside over the situation embodied in the man's courage, became Lin Hong since then up to two years