Chapter 0946 – A Voice from Twenty Years Ago
”He said a lot of things to me that day, things that aren’t normally said.”
”The person you’re talking about, is he still in this building now?” Chen Ge could hear the voice beside him trembling.
”He moved out and hasn’t come back for a long time.”
”Then do you want to see him again?” Chen Ge gently tugged on the corner of his shirt, “I think you would have a lot of things you would want to say to him, after all, he was the one who made you cold and unable to feel warmth.”
”I ……”
”It’s okay, I will help you, I will definitely help you.” Chen Ge held onto the wall and slowly stood up, “If he hasn’t left Hanjiang, within a week, I will bring him. After you’ve met him, I can take you to a warmer place.”
The woman didn’t answer, and Chen Ge wasn’t in a hurry, “Now I have another reason why I have to live, keep the coat, I’ll be back.”
Taking a step forward, Chen Ge was about to walk upwards when the woman’s voice sounded behind him once again, “Don’t go any further, you won’t be able to come back.”
”Can’t come back? Why?”
”Because above the thirteenth floor is the fourteenth floor.”
A tunic was shoved into the Chen singer, and the chilly, damp feeling slowly dissipated.
”What is she trying to tell me?” Chen Ge grasped the tunic in his hand, “There are no fourteen floors in the residential buildings in Jiangyuan District, and above the thirteenth floor should be the fifteenth floor, but she said that above the thirteenth floor is the fourteenth floor? That means the fourteenth floor actually exists?”
Having already come this far, Chen Ge would not step back, knowing that he was very close to the truth.
Inwardly counting the number of steps silently, Chen Ge arrived at the thirteenth floor, which was very quiet, just like an ordinary neighborhood hallway, without any abnormalities.
Taking a step to the fourteenth floor, Chen Ge was halfway there when the tip of his nose twitched slightly, and he smelled a smell of rice.
He didn’t know what it was made of, nor did he know what kind of dish it was, but his brain seemed to have judged it to be a smell of rice in a split second, as if it was branded deep in his memory.
”It’s wafting from the fourteenth floor, someone’s cooking?”
Step by step upwards, not knowing whether it was because of excessive physical exertion or too much mental exhaustion, Chen Ge felt that the steps in the middle of the thirteenth to fourteenth floors were extraordinarily numerous.
Obviously the number was the same as the other floors, and the number of leg lifts was the same, but it took more time.
As his fingertips fell, dried and cracked siding appeared on the originally smooth walls, and there seemed to be a lot more debris in the hallway.
Everything around him brought Chen Ge a feeling that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
He mechanically repeated the action of lifting and dropping his legs, smelling the scent of the meal, and finally arrived at the fourteenth floor.
When he had just stood firmly, the door shaft in the corridor turned with a clattering sound, an iron door was opened, and then a man’s voice came from the depths of the corridor: “Chen Ge, home?”
The moment he heard this voice, Chen Ge’s mind went blank, and he turned violently to face the corridor.
He had heard this man’s voice for more than twenty years, and he didn’t know how many times he had heard this sentence about being home since he was a child.
He had memorized this voice in his heart and carved it into his bones.
”Dinner is ready, and your mom heard your footsteps just as you came upstairs.”
Fingernails gouged into his flesh, Chen Ge slowly raised his arm and grabbed the black cloth that blindfolded his eyes.
He wanted to look, he had never wanted to open his eyes so much.
The hand gripping the black cloth grew harder and harder, streaks of greenish-black veins surfaced on the back of his hand.
”How does it feel to go to school alone for the first time?”
”All the other kids have someone to pick them up and drop them off?!”
”No one bullied you, right?”
”Made any friends? Your personality is so much like mine, you shouldn’t be unpopular, right?”
”Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands, don’t run around ……”
A single sentence came out from the depths of the corridor until the door shaft turned again and the iron door closed.
The man’s voice disappeared, and one by one the corridor resounded with the voices of others, men and women, old and young.
”What’s wrong with the new family? He goes out in the middle of the night every day after his child falls asleep, no wonder his child has nightmares every day.”
”Did you hear the laughter in his house during the day and the crying at night? Isn’t it scary for a child to be alone in the house?”
”Strange, I saw them go out in the daytime, how come there are children crying in the house at night?”
”Brothers! I’ve found out one thing, it’s not the adults who have problems with the new family, it’s the kid! I personally saw a doctor from some hospital in Xinhai come over to treat that kid! Don’t let your kids play with him!”
”Why do you think the kid got sicker after being treated by the doctor? You know what? That kid tells his parents about his nightmares during the day, and at night when his parents aren’t home, he tells those nightmares to his own shadow, scaring the hell out of him!”
”That’s not right, he doesn’t sleep day or night, when did he have nightmares? Is it really a dream that that kid is telling?”
”Don’t scare me, forget it, they’re about to move out anyway, just bear with it for a few more days.”
”Moving out?”
”Eh, I heard it’s to the western suburbs, the kid’s parents are going to work at a paradise.”
The voice in his ears slowly dissipated, Chen Ge was still standing in the same place, his hand still grasping the black cloth that blindfolded him.
After a while, Chen Ge took a deep breath, “I only remember the good things, I’ve mostly forgotten most of what the neighbors said, but there are a few key points to note.”
”When I was very young I came into contact with a doctor from the New Sea Hospital, and it was from being treated by him that I began to tell nightmares to my shadow.”
”My shadow should have become strange from that time, and the key to everything was that doctor.”
”The doctor came from Xinhai, and the cursed hospital is right in the middle of Xinhai and Hanjiang, is this a coincidence?”
Standing on the fourteenth floor, Chen Ge silently turned his back to the corridor that was making all kinds of noises.
His hand that was gripping the black cloth slowly exerted force and finally removed the black cloth that was a little wet, at which point his eyes remained tightly closed.
”I would love to open my eyes and see you all, but I know it’s impossible.” Without turning back, Chen Ge held onto the wall and continued walking upwards, “You guys had given me everything you had, and now I’m going to use everything I have to find you guys.”
In the darkened hallways, Chen Ge’s back was a little different than usual.
Fifteenth floor, sixteenth floor, seventeenth floor ……
Mentally counting the number of steps silently, Chen Ge knew that he had now arrived at the seventeenth floor, which was theoretically the top floor of the building, but he didn’t rush to open his eyes.
”The fourteenth floor didn’t exist, but that girl with the cold body said that the thirteenth floor on top was the fourteenth floor. This building originally had seventeen floors, and if we add the extra fourteen floors, there should be a total of eighteen floors, just like the eighteen layers of hell.”
Chen Ge finished speaking and touched the wall to move his feet, and soon the tips of his shoes touched the steps going upwards.
”Sure enough, there is still an eighteenth layer.”