Chapter 3
The fridge was so huge that she could walk in and out of it. She pulled out the shelves on one side and hid inside of it. Her skin was pressed up against the inner part of the fridge, so it quickly became numb. But the cold temperature gradually calmed her down.
She began to recall what had happened just nowat the moment the lights flickered, there was another person in the house.
Having inspected the house so carefully before, she was certain that there was no one here except for her. Unless it was a prank. Otherwise, the person mustve suddenly appeared at the exact moment the power went out.
It was exactly what Boss Xie had said.
It was possible that it was a prank, since the frequency of the power outages was both long and short. The person couldve been hiding somewhere in advance since she wasnt too familiar with this houses layout.
Is this a reality show?
Ah Tou took a look at her tattoo-covered arms. No, tattoo artists couldn't appear on reality shows unless they were foreign shows. And even if it was a reality show, she wouldn't allow the program to release her clip unless she got a good fee for it.
Three hundred thousand. Im willing to accept it if its three hundred thousand yuan. After tax, of course.
But there was no way that this was a reality show. Her pores were contracting because of the cold, but it helped keep her calm. At first glance, the figure of the "ghost" just now wasnt normal at all. A reality show didnt need to be so detailed as to find someone more than two meters tall just to play a ghost.
Ah Tou recalled the figure a little more and broke out in goosebumps again. She was certain that what she had seen was an evil thing.
It was very dark in the refrigerator and she didnt dare move for fear that the thing would teleport into the fridge and appear right next to her face.
Wait, there seemed to be something in the darkness right beside her. She pushed herself deeper into the fridge.
With a hum, the refrigerators compressor started running again. It appeared the power was back on. As all the lights outside came on and shone into the fridge, Ah Tou froze for a moment. Considering that she was a girl, Ah Tou had remained relatively calm during this whole incident. But at this time, Ah Tou immediately realized that she hadnt closed the refrigerator door properly.
The light was coming in through the crack in the door, and she could see out of the corner of her eye that someone was standing outside, peering into the fridge. Ah Tou screamed. The refrigerator door was immediately opened and the light turned on.
Boss Xie was standing outside.
Ah Tou continued screaming and threw everything she could get her hands on at him. Boss Xie caught them all one-handed and said, "Please get out of my fridge. Youre stepping on all the condiments my friend made for me. I dont know how to make them myself."
Ah Tou took the pad and decided to compromise. She closed her eyes and began to recall what she had seen before.
Even if she hadnt seen it clearly at the time, she could still remember it. She had a special ability where she could reconstruct a certain moment in her mind after it had happened and analyze it in detail.
Of course, her teacher didnt recommend it, because no matter how many details one saw at a single moment, the brain could easily fill in the missing parts through artistic interpretation. So, you sometimes wouldn't know if you actually saw it or if your brain was just filling in the image.
If you saw too few details, then too many parts would be filled in and the rendering would be completely distorted.
As Ah Tou recalled that face, she made a few strokes on her drawing pad. She was surprised to find that it was the face of an ordinary man.
There was nothing special about it. It was a human face, but more specifically, it was the face of a Han Chinese. Ah Tou had thoroughly studied human faces, so she could tell that the person was about thirty years old and looked very ordinary.
She drew it quickly and filled in more details. He was a southern Han with high cheekbones.
This face is scarier than a ghost. Who is this?
Boss Xie obviously didnt know, so he took a photo of Ah Tous drawing after she was done and put it in an online facial recognition program. The program searched for a long time, but didnt find anything.
"You're not messing with me, are you?" Boss Xie asked. "He looks like a fisherman from Chaoshan (1)."
Ah Tou shook her head and carefully recalled the incident again. Then, she suddenly looked up at the ceiling and pointed to a certain spot. "He didnt appear alone. There was another thing hanging there as well.
The house had extremely high ceilings and its roof was like those thatched cottage hotels youd see in Southeast Asia (2), with many of the lights attached to the ceiling.
Ah Tou was pointing to a circle of beams. Nothing was there right now, but in her memory, another person had been hanging there at the exact moment that the lights turned on again.
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TN Notes:
(1)Chaoshan: a region in the east coast of China, east of Guangdong
(2) Probably something like this: