C115

Because that person had already been completely engulfed by the flames, his entire body was covered in flames. Hence, when they looked over, it was difficult to see that it was a person inside. The man struggled in the fire, his limbs flailing, trying to put out the fire, but to no avail. He could only jump up and down the room in agony, running back and forth. His mouth opened and closed mechanically, and a tongue of flame followed him. Although he did not make a sound, I could feel his hysterical cries as he neared his death.

The man scuttled back and forth until he was right in front of me. His body twisted so badly that I thought he was about to die. But suddenly he reached out and grabbed my face. He was about to grab it, but then he stopped right in front of me. His fingers were stretched out in front of me, as if he were trying to grab something. I could clearly feel the heat of the flames on my skin. The man's mouth opened weakly, as if he was going to speak. After opening his mouth for a long time, he only heard two vague words — "Three — Worlds".

Then the fire dwindled, and the burned hands stopped, and at last he fell with a crash to the ground. I kept watching, and my eyelids didn't seem to blink when he reached out to grab me. I think I must have been scared silly, because the whole process did not give me any reaction, just blankly watched.

The pile of fire gradually began to burn smaller and smaller, until only a pile of ashes remained. At this moment, a few rays of light could be seen coming out from the ashes, but it was not accurate to say that the light was not. The feeling of a fog of dust coiling around the pile of ashes. Only then did I come to my senses and go over to crouch down to see what it was.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door and I woke up. As soon as he opened his eyes, he looked around and saw that nothing had happened. It turned out that what happened just now was really a dream. It was so real that I couldn't differentiate between the real and the real.

There was no need to ask about this. Who would have the leisure to knock on the door, except the old man, because, as Lu Siran had said, there was a knock on the door in the middle of the night, asking who it was, and the old man was sitting in the room.

I thought you'd be asleep by the time you did. Thus, I shouted, "Old thing, there's no need to knock. Just come in. I've been waiting for you for a long time!"

As soon as I said this, the knocking stopped, and a series of footsteps sounded outside the door, as if I was running down the stairs. F * ck, the footsteps are so real, it must be a person. So I yanked the door open and swore, "Who the fuck knocked on the door in the middle of the night!" The sound floated down the stairs and disappeared into the darkness. I turned back, closed the door, and went back to my bedroom. Just as I was about to go to sleep, there was another knock on the door.

This time I went straight to the door without a word, but as soon as I reached it, the knocking stopped. I listened for a moment, but there was no sound. I put my ear to the door again and listened. There was still no sound.

I turned to leave. "Bang, bang, bang." Three sounds, neither fast nor slow.

What wicked thing would play hide-and-seek with me in the middle of the night, and at such precise timing?

"You — come in —" I called in a low voice. I wonder what people would think if they saw me shouting "You come in" at the door most of the night.

As expected, there were no sounds coming from outside the door, only the sound of wind blowing through the corridor. I put my hand on the handle of the door and stood there for a moment, figuring it was about time, then I yanked the door open.

Just as the door opened, I saw a figure standing outside. It was a short figure, and it raised its hand to knock on the door. When the door opened and the light hit him in the face, the man was startled and disappeared in a flash. Then a gust of wind blew at the door and flew downstairs in a hurry. It was so fast that it didn't even last a second, so long that I wasn't sure if there had been a shadow, or if the light had been a trick in the darkness.

I shut the door quickly and stood behind it, panting and sweating. He thought to himself that he had only heard of this strange scene before, but it could be said that he had seen it today. However, this was within a city. How could such a thing happen when the population was so dense? I quickly composed myself. I thought that I was already mentally prepared so I shouldn't be scared. However, the scene just now still scared me. Because what I saw just now wasn't that old man at all, but the paper man at the funeral, just like the paper man on the back of the cold transcendent. The only difference was that this paper man was actually in a position to knock on the door. This was too unbelievable.

I had heard about paper people knocking on doors many times when I was a child, but only once, not really, because I had seen paper people, not processes. It happened at the house of my neighbor, when we were still living at the foot of the foothills of the enclosure, and we had not yet built the wall. There was a sudden rainstorm one night, and the rain was falling, and a cry of alarm came from the neighbor's house. I hurried after my mother to take a look, because there was no wall, only a dozen or so steps away, and found a paper man lying in front of the neighbor's house, a real paper man with his head facing inside the door. Because there was a shelter above the door, the paper man's upper body was still dry. The lower half of his body had already been drenched by the rain, revealing the reeds within. One of the neighbors' aunts said that there were repeated knocks on the door in the middle of the night, but no one came to look. Finally, she found a paper man lying at the bottom of his feet. They all agreed that it might be the paper man's master who was passing by in the rain, so they wanted to go inside to avoid the rain. Now that I think about it, the paper men had burned down when they were under the coffin. They couldn't exist in this form, and it must have been someone who was playing tricks on their family.

Why do paper men work for their masters? This has something to do with the funeral customs here, where the owners refer to the dead. There were usually more than one pair of such paper men in the funeral, and they were all burned down in front of the grave after the coffin had gone down. People's original intention was that these paper men could serve their masters when they arrived in the Underworld. For example, the paper man had the words' little girl Qiu Xiang 'written on it, and it was used as a servant girl. There was also a point when burning the paper man, because in order for the paper man to stand up, they would have to make a step under their feet. Of course, the step was also made of paper paste, so they had to tear it apart and burn it separately before melting it. The folk's explanation was that if they didn't remove it, the paper man would still be stuck on the stairs, so the master would have to feed him and serve him instead. There had been a family who had forgotten to tear the paper away, and had always dreamed of their father bowing and feeding the two paper men. The family had had to burn a few more paper men, and had not had the dream ever since.

I have seen paper men twice before, and they both exist in the form of indistinct objects, at least in a more acceptable state of existence. Now, if the above explanation really existed, then this paper man must have come at the order of its owner. The key question now was who was his master, and why couldn't his master come over? My first thought was of Guo Minqiang, the old man who had just died on the second floor. Of course, this was only a guess. But the question was, could this hypothesis be relied on? Ghost was another form of life, it could be said to be the continuation of life. Its main body was human, but the paper man had no life, it had no main body. If someone secretly cast a spell to create this thing against me, how could it escape the moment I opened the door? As for the paper man that was on the back of the extraordinary cold last time, it was even more impossible for it to have been manipulated by the vicious men. Besides, I've always kept a low profile here. The social circle is very small, so it's impossible for me to make enemies. It seemed even more impossible for two or three of them to be added together. Thus, although the hypothesis was a bit too bizarre, this was the only explanation.

Based on this assumption, when I was not at home, the old man had followed Lu Si Ran into this room. He must have been trying to convey some sort of message to Lu Si Ran. After I came, the old man showed up and stopped coming. Instead, he sent a paper man. The fact that the old man didn't show up and the paper man ran off the moment they saw me showed that they were both afraid of me. So what was the old man trying to convey, any unfulfilled wishes? At this moment, I recalled the dream I had just now. The feeling that dream gave me was extremely real. There must be some sort of mystery behind it. Then who was that person who was being burned by the flames? Was it related to this old man? What did he mean by 'the three realms'? The Three Realms, the Human and Demonic Realms? Or was he a prodigy? Is it a name, a place, or a name?

It seemed that only the old man in charge of the interrogation, namely Guo Minqiang, was able to figure out these problems. Unexpectedly, just as I turned around, the door behind the door suddenly opened with a "Bang, Bang, Bang" sound. My heart jolted.

At this moment, Lu Si Ran shouted, "Quickly open the door! Quickly open the door!" The voice was urgent.

I pulled the door open and Lu Si Ran rushed in, frightened and pale.

"Why did you come back?" I asked.

"It scared me to death, it scared me to death." Lu Si Ran quickly closed the door. He was close to tears and could not even speak. "There is …" Yes... "There's someone."

"Where?"

"Two …" The second floor! "

It was the second floor again. It seemed like the weirdos were all on the second floor. Just now, the paper man had turned into a gust of wind and descended. Could it be that she saw paper people? I was secretly glad that Lu Si Ran had not been able to open the door, but now she still bumped into him. So I asked, "Who did you see?"

"I didn't see anyone, but there were footsteps, and …" Lu Si Ran didn't dare to continue.