Quick Travel to the Clouds

Chapter 444 Ghost Catcher 5

Deep within those blank eyes, like a red-hot coal dropped into deep water, a flash of astonishment and panic erupted, ultimately drowned by a deep sense of grievance. "They said Mom and Dad would be back tomorrow..."

A sharp cry tore through the eerie silence, the glass vibrating in resonance. "I've been waiting and waiting! Mom and Dad haven't come back yet... The workshop director, Uncle Hou, came and said, 'Your parents went to Beijing for a bigger meeting'... Let me... let me go to the boiler room first to get some hot dumplings..."

Her transparent body trembled violently, and her small hands slapped the mirror, making a dull thumping sound. "The ground beside the pool is so slippery! There's ice right on the edge!"

"I want to reach the faucet... I stand on tiptoe... and stretch out my hand... splash! The water is so cold and choking! Uncle Hou, Uncle Hou, where are you..." The voice suddenly stopped, and turned into dead silence.

In the mirror, only her wide-open, empty eyes were left, reflecting the cold tiled ceiling. "It was so quiet... Later, only the sound of dripping faucets accompanied me... Dong... Dong..."

"Later," Yun Chu's voice was as flat as a ruler, "Not long after you fell, Director Hou was found to have embezzled coke from the factory and was imprisoned."

"Your father's title of Model Worker was fake; he made up the materials. The denunciation meeting was held the morning you were thrown in. Your mother was brought up on stage holding a 'Model Worker Certificate'—the piece of paper you saw was underneath the copy of 'Red Flag' that you stuffed the candy wrapper into."

The little ghost was completely frozen in the mirror, like a soaked wax figure. The scent of vanishing cream suddenly became strong, almost blocking all breathing passages in this humid space.

After a long time, a drop of turbid liquid - not water, nor blood - dripped from her transparent chin, leaving a small, blurry mark on the mirror.

"I... want to go home." The voice was no longer a scream or a cry. Instead, it was drained of all its strength, weighed down by the weight of more than forty years of frost and snow. "Go... home."

Yun Chu was silent for a moment. She turned and walked to the bedside table, opened the musty drawer, and took out the yellowed and brittle copy of "Red Flag."

She flipped it open and found the candy wrapper folded into a paper airplane. Using her index fingernail, she lightly drew two shallow, parallel lines above the words "Mom and Dad will be back tomorrow"—like a small door frame.

"Do you recognize your house number?" she asked in a low voice.

“…Victory Village 3…the third row…the red brick house…the green-painted door…” the little ghost whispered.

Yun Chu walked to the bathroom door, facing the void, and gently pressed the flattened candy wrapper upright on the outer door panel.

The faint stickiness of the candy wrapper somehow managed to hold it in place. The colorful pattern, worn almost to a colorless state by time, struggled to reveal the vague outline of a sunflower in the dim light.

She opened the bathroom door a narrow crack.

A stream of cold but soft air, almost weightless, carrying the unique sweet floral scent of aged vanishing cream, brushed past Yun Chu's shoulder.

The air flow paused for a moment in the narrow gap, like a lost child who finally smelled the alleyway leading home.

The next second, it suddenly accelerated and plunged into the depths of the dim, narrow corridor of the hotel outside the door, which also exuded a stale smell, and disappeared into the deeper darkness at the corner of the stairs at the end.

thump.

In the complete silence of the night, the copper faucet in the bathroom dropped the last, clearest drop of water.

The dazzling sunlight in the early morning cuts through the window frames.

When the waiter opened the door with a bunch of keys, the room was so quiet that only the dust was dancing.

The air was fresh and dry, and the musty and vanishing cream smells were gone.

The copper faucet is as clean as if it were newly installed.

The windowsill had been wiped, and the open issue of Red Flag magazine, No. 1972, 12, was bathed in golden light, its pages warmed by the sun.

The candy wrapper sandwiched inside was carefully folded into a small three-dimensional five-pointed star at some point, standing firmly above the word "red" on the magazine cover.

The sunlight shines through the faded yellow and dark red of the candy wrapper, reflecting tiny yet real specks of light.

The asphalt road was steaming with summer air, and the streets of City B were filled with the reverberation of bicycle bells and old-fashioned radios - the news was reporting on the pilot program of "housing system reform."

At noon, Yun Chu stopped at the entrance of an alley lined with sycamore trees.

The words "Residential Place for the People" were hung diagonally on the old wooden archway, but the ink had faded.

The light in the room was dim. An old agent in a sweatshirt was waving a palm-leaf fan. The yellowed drawings spread out on the table had curled corners.

Yun Chu's eyes swept across the simple floor plans marked with "unit housing" and "lane buildings", and finally stopped at a hand-drawn diagram in the corner: an abandoned Republican-era villa area in the west of the city, with "haunted house discount" specially marked in red on the map.

"Comrade, you want to see the house?" The old agent raised his eyelids. "This area has been noisy lately. They say there are always... strange noises at night."

Yun Chu tapped her fingertips on the blueprint: "This is it." She moved her sleeve slightly, and three copper coins tinkled down the edge of the table—coincidentally forming a three-talent formation. "Evil spirits gather, and the house still harbors old spirits."

When the old agent was stunned, she had already pulled out a roll of banknotes tied with a red rope, "The property rights are clear, the land is wide, and the transaction will be completed today." The banknotes showed a barely noticeable silver pattern in the light from the window. They were the treasury money left by the master in his early years.

As dusk fell, the last bleak ray of sunlight smeared on the iron gate covered with dark green vines, reflecting the three words "Qixiaju" above it that had long been mottled and blurred.

This old residence built in the Republic of China, standing in the western corner of the city, is like a forgotten giant, standing silently in the depths of an increasingly deserted courtyard.

The Baroque columns and carvings appeared somewhat twisted and grotesque in the dim light, especially the window on the west side of the second floor. The moonlight had not yet climbed to that height, but a thick black film like old frost had already condensed on the glass, cold and heavy, as if absorbing all the weak light outside the window.

Yun Chu took off an inconspicuous wooden talisman from his waist and gently pressed it on the dent in the door knocker where the copper lock had long since rusted.

"Swish", a barely audible sound was heard, like hot iron branding into ice, and a circle of black appeared on the edge of the door knocker.

Yun Chu silently pushed open the heavy wooden door that seemed to be filled with lead. The groan of the hinges was low and long, echoing in the silent courtyard, causing something in the deeper darkness to tremble slightly.

A strong smell of mold and dust hit me in the face, mixed with a sweet smell of decay, like corpse fluid oozing from rotten wood.

The bone-chilling cold was even colder than when she was suspended in mid-air watching the winter icefall.

"jingle……"

The Ghost Bell hanging around his waist hummed softly without any wind. The sound was short and suppressed, as if something was covering his mouth.

Inside the three copper bells, the grayish-white frost patterns began to spread and thicken at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if they had life.

Yun Chu's gaze remained motionless. His dark black leggings stepped through the thick dust, leaving behind a series of clear footprints that were quickly smoothed out by the invisible cold airflow.

Yun Chu made hand gestures with her fingertips, but no light appeared. However, the coldness that tried to wrap around her legs suddenly dissipated, as if it had hit an invisible barrier.