Volume 7 Chapter 3: The old house on the videotape

I sent back the video recorders I had bought in Jilin and kept them at home, not wanting Aning to know my actual address—although she probably already knew it—so I sent Wang Meng to my home to pick them up.

The tape was, as always, in black and white, and after the snowflakes, the interior of an old house appeared. I was shocked at first, but then I realized that the interior of the house was no longer the same as the one in the tape we saw in Jilin. It was obviously in a different place, with a lot more space and different furnishings.

I didn’t know where it was. When we were in Jilin, after watching the two tapes with my uncle, there were only snowflakes at the end, and after watching them many times, we didn’t find any clues. At this time, there was a new tape, so I thought maybe there would be clues in it, and we could watch it again more carefully.

Wang Meng made tea for everyone, and the fat guy unceremoniously lay down on my recliner. I had to sit on the side, and then sent Wang Meng outside to look at the shop, while trying to keep a distance from the nervous Ning. But at this time, Ning also became serious, expressionless, and completely different from the playful person just now.

It was dark in the inner hall, with a patchy light coming in from the side. Looking at the way the light filtered through, it was a bit like the wooden flower windows used in old houses during the Ming and Qing dynasties, but the black and white was also unclear.

The fat man gave me a wink and asked if the content of the video tape that I and the Mian Youping gave me was the same. I shook my head slightly to indicate that it was not, and he showed a very surprised expression, turning his head to look carefully.

However, for the next 15 minutes, the picture never changed, except for the occasional flicker of snowflakes, which made our hearts jump.

I had experience with this, so I was able to endure it, but the fat man couldn’t wait any longer, and turned to Ning, “I’m saying, Miss Ning, did you take the wrong tape?”

Ning ignored him and just looked at me. I held my breath, because I knew that this tape should also be a surveillance tape. It was very normal to have a picture of an empty inner hall. Since A-Ning was going to play this tape, there would definitely be an unusual event after a period of time.

Seeing that A-Ning and I were not talking, the fat man was also bored. He took a sip of tea and wanted to go out. I pressed him to sit down. He scratched here and there, showing extreme impatience.

I was a little angry, but I couldn’t let it out. I had to calm down and continue watching, looking at the inner hall. I was a little impatient myself, and I really wanted to fast forward a little.

At this time, Ah Ning suddenly straightened up and made a gesture. Me and the fat guy immediately sat up straight and looked at the screen carefully.

On the screen, a gray shadow appeared in the inner hall, moving out of the darkness. It was very strange, and it walked very slowly, as if it were drunk.

I swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and I had several guesses in my mind, but I didn’t know if they were right. At this time, I also became nervous.

Soon, the white shadow became obvious. When he moved to the window, I realized why this person’s movements were so strange. It was because he wasn’t walking at all, but crawling on the ground.

I didn’t know whether the person was a man or a woman, but I could see that he was unkempt and wearing clothes that looked like a burial suit. He crawled slowly and laboriously on the ground.

What made me feel strange was that the way he crawled was very strange. Either he was disabled or he had been severely abused. I saw a news report about a man in a remote village who locked his mentally ill wife in a cellar. When she was released, she could no longer walk and could only walk on her knees. This is the feeling I got from the man’s movements.

We all kept quiet as we watched him crawl across the screen and disappear into the other side without a sound. Then, the still, quiet inner hall in front of us resumed.

The whole process took a little over seven minutes. What made people more crazy was that there was no sound. It was very uncomfortable to watch someone like this crawl past silently.

Aning pressed the remote control, rewound the tape, and played it again. Then he froze it and said to us, “There’s no need to watch the rest. The problem is here.”

“What does it mean?” The fat guy was confused and asked me, “Innocent comrade, who is this person?”

“How would I know!” I was depressed. I thought I would see Huo Ling again, but I didn’t. This made me even more confused. Looking at the hunched over figure, if it really was the same person who sent the tape, then the tape should still be recorded by Huo Ling. Could it be that Huo Ling had gotten so old that she couldn’t even stand up anymore?

The fat guy went to ask Aning again, what was going on, what was this tape about?

“What do you think you saw?” A-Ning asked us.

“Needless to say, isn’t this a person crawling on the floor of a house?” said the fat guy.

A-Ning ignored him and looked at me meaningfully, asking, “What do you think?” as if she wanted to see something from me.

I looked at A-Ning’s expression and said, “Isn’t it?”

She squinted her eyes in confusion and surprise, “Don’t you have any other special feelings?”

I was puzzled, and looked at the fat guy, who was staring at the video tape, making “mm-mm” sounds and shaking his head: “No.”

Aning stared at me for a long time, then sighed and said, “Okay, then let’s watch the second tape. I hope you’re prepared.”

She put the second tape in, and this time Aning didn’t make us watch it from the beginning. Instead, she started fast-forwarding the tape until she got to the 15-minute mark. Then she looked at me and said, “You’d better take a deep breath.”

I was a little flustered by what she said, and the fat guy was impatient, saying, “You think you can look down on people? You don’t even bother to ask around. Our comrade Wu has been to all kinds of places, from the snowy mountains to the raging seas. I don’t believe there’s anything that can scare him. Don’t you stir up the emotions of your little woman here. Wu, say something. Is that right?”

I ignored him and let Ning start. I didn’t believe I could be scared in the back room of my own shop.

Ning glared at the fat man, and the video started playing again. The scene was still the back room, but the camera lens seemed to be shaking a little, as if someone was adjusting it. It shook for two minutes before the lens was straightened, and then a face poked up from under the lens.

At first the focus was bad, and it was too close to see clearly, but I could already tell that the person wasn’t Huo Ling. Then the face moved back a little, and a man in a gray shroud-like garment appeared in the frame. He was sitting on the floor, shaking and his hair was messy, but after a few turns I could see his face.

At the same time, the fat man let out a surprised cry, turned his head sharply to look at me, and I suddenly felt a chill run up my spine and up to my forehead.

On the screen, the face of the man who turned around and looked around like a madman was very familiar. It took me a few seconds to recognize it—it was me!