The tape buzzed.
It was the familiar buzzing of noise. But there was some other sound in the tape, like an indistinct rumbling in the background.
At first, Sun Zheng thought that it was just a normal background sound, but after thinking closely, he realised that one of the most common sounds he’d begun associating with these tapes was missing.
There were no footsteps.
There was only the sound of panting, as if there was someone who had yet to recover after sprinting intensely for a long distance.
The buzzing and rumbling sounds continued, and was punctuated occasionally by an amplified human voice which appeared and disappeared sporadically, creating a very strange atmosphere.
Yan Yang should be the one holding the tape recorder at this moment. Where was he at?
Ding.
A very familiar sound came from the tape. This was…
The elevator?
A series of clacking noise followed the ding, as if someone was desperately pressing a certain button in the elevator.
Once he confirmed Yan Yang’s location, the situation became even more unbelievable.
There was the sound of the elevator doors swiftly opening then closing just as quickly, perhaps due to his constant tapping of the button earlier.
Yan Yang was in the elevator, but he didn’t get off at any floor. Instead, he continued hitting the buttons to open and close the doors…what was he trying to do?
Clack, clack.
Not too much time has passed from the earlier chaos until now, but the number of people in the hospital had seemingly dispersed. Yan Yang was occupying the elevator all alone, doing this ridiculous thing, but no one came by to complain.
The rumbling of the elevator continued.
The elevator let out a ding when it reached a certain floor. Yan Yang started hitting the button frantically again, opening and closing the doors.
He repeated the same thing on the next floor.
Just when Sun Zheng was about to suspect that this was just a repeated section of the recording, there was yet another ding sounding, but this time, Yan Yang did not press the button.
There was a sharp intake of breath coming from the other side of the tape, as though the person holding the recorder had just seen something horrifying.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The recording started buzzing, followed by a short rush of footsteps. Yan Yang ran out of the elevator.
Valii lc rtbmx, tf mbcalcefv gecclcu jibcu atf rajlgr, atf gfmbgvlcu yehhlcu jibcu klat tlr rafqr. Lf gjc jcv gjc, delaf qbrrlyis tjnlcu gec atf rqjc bo rfnfgji oibbgr jii lc bcf ygfjat, sfa atfgf kjr cb tfrlajalbc lc tlr rafqr. Pa kjr jr lo tf jigfjvs xcfk ktfgf tf kjr ublcu jcv ktja tf kjr ublcu ab vb.
His footsteps stopped on a certain floor.
“Lu Xiaoyun! I’m here! Where are you?”
A voice echoed in the empty corridor, hoarse from all the previous running and shouting.
He rushed forward, taking several steps, then stopped again.
“It’s so dark here…Lu Xiaoyun? Mmph…” There was an obvious change in tone, as if someone had covered his mouth from behind.
“Are you the one who came in?” It was a low voice which was so flat and cold it usually sounded emotionless, however there was a subtle trace of surprise in it this time. “Things have become complicated.”
The owner of the tape was still struggling initially, but immediately calmed down when he heard this voice. “Lu Xiaoyun?” His voice was also low, as if he had yet to recover from the surprise of seeing the other man.
A short sequence of footsteps followed. The two of them seemed to have quietly moved to a more secluded place.
“I told you there was nothing else you could do here. Why did you enter this place too?” The other man spoke again. This time, all the traces of his previous surprise and other emotions were gone, submerged into his deep and indifferent voice.
Just because of this sentence, Yan Yang, who was holding the tape, suddenly became agitated. He broke away from Lu Xiaoyun, took a few steps away, then began shouting loudly.
“Lu Xiaoyun! My parents are still alive and I have yet to start a family! Heck, I haven’t even had my first kiss with a girl yet! I’m at the prime of my life now, why do you think I would toss all of that aside to run in here to find you? It’s because I believed in your lunatic words, I believed in you, I believed that if it’s you then you…”
“Shh.” The other person immediately yanked Yan Yang over, stifling the latter’s voice with an unknown method.
Yan Yang seemed to be surprised. “Lu Xiaoyun… You are so cold…”
Lu Xiaoyun did not answer directly to the comment. He paused for several seconds, then asked in a flat tone, “How did you manage to enter?”
Yan Yang did not speak, but he must have made a gesture to answer Lu Xiaoyun.
“The elevator…” Lu Xiaoyun’s voice trailed off, as though Yan Yang’s answer was unexpected. “What did you see?”
Yan Yang didn’t notice that Lu Xiaoyun was asking him more questions than usual. He continued rambling about his experience of breaking into the chasm alone. ”Listen, after you tried to shoulder everything and ran off alone, I came down from the third floor, and guess what happened? I saw something that was simply, simply inexplicable! We obviously saw Liu Qin running into the operating room, but when I went down, the others told me that Liu Qin fainted and died. How is this possible?! Once I heard that, I knew that Liu Qin was up to no good, that she would harm you! …What the hell are you nodding for? Don’t tell me you knew it? You fucking lunatic, don’t you want to live anymore? Thank god I turned back…”
“I couldn’t find you anywhere, and suddenly, I remembered that when we were discussing about Liu Qunfang, we were wondering how she entered the chasm. At that time, you mentioned that it would be dangerous if someone accidentally touched or saw something in the chasm, and that something has to be ‘it’. If Liu Qunfang could deliberately go to find ‘it’, then I can too… I thought long and hard and remembered your analogy about the mirrors. You said that if we saw something reflected in the mirror which was not beside us, then we must avoid it. And so, if I took the elevator non-stop, probability-wise, I had to meet ‘it’ at some point. Then, so long as I didn’t avoid ‘it’, I would be able to enter the chasm…Why are you frowning so much…”
“But the odd thing is, I only saw a single mirror. I thought there would be a monster or something appearing, but there was nothing at all…”
“That’s on the right track. It still needs more time.” Lu Xiaoyun patiently listened to Yan Yang’s gushing. “Come with me.”
Next was the sound of two people sprinting.
“The operating room?” When the footsteps stopped, Yan Yang let out an astonished gasp in between pants.
The tape fell silent again. Even the footsteps of the two men became soft, cautious.
“Look.”
“At what? …It’s too dark, I can’t see anything…”
“You will be able to see it soon.”
There was a loud hiss from the tape.
The sound drowned out the recording. The sound was so loud that the entire recorder seemed to be roaring. It was akin to a magnetic field being disturbed, or a nail scratching across a microphone. The sound was so loud that it seemed as if the tape would be irreversibly damaged here.
Then suddenly, the sound vanished without a trace.
The dark lifeless silence of the hospital returned, leaving only the sound of breathing and chatting, which held a bit of vitality.
“Wh-What the hell happened just now?” Yan Yang’s voice was obviously shaking.
No one answered him.
“Lu, Lu Xiaoyun, where are you? Don’t scare me…Lu Xiaoyun,” Yan Yang seemed to sense something was wrong, and immediately looked around nervously for the other person. “Ah, I got you!”
Maybe someone turned on the torch, or someone moved it, because Yan Yang let out another astonished gasp.
“Where is this place? Maybe I’m becoming crazy too, Lu Xiaoyun, w-why do I feel like…we are in another place?”
“Pass me the giant clam key.”
There was a rustling sound in the tape. Yan Yang pulled out the key he had been hiding so securely, as though it was a precious irreplaceable treasure.
“Wait! Don’t, don’t open- what is this place… 315A?!” His voice suddenly became louder. “Why are we at 315A? How did we end up here! Are we monsters?!”
Lu Xiaoyun ignored him. There was only the sound of the key being inserted into the lock, followed by a click when the lock opened.
“As long as we get here before Liu Qin, it is our win.”
The damaged door creaked open, the dark hole growing bigger and bigger. All those years ago, these two men had walked into this same room with the same feeling of curiosity, nervousness and fear, until those old shadows and the scent of rot in the air completely engulfed their figures.
Did they manage to come out again?
“It stinks…” Yan Yang complained softly.
After the footsteps stopped, there was no other sound for a while.
The tape seemed to stop there and then. It was so quiet that it seemed like they had forgotten to breathe.
Clatter.
There was a loud sound.
Sun Zheng realised that this was probably because the tape recorder had fallen onto the ground again.
“This is…” Yan Yang’s voice was surprisingly low, was surprisingly cold. Whatever he saw at that moment had shocked him so much that just within the span of a few seconds, a dark and cold feeling settled so heavily over him that it snuffed out all of his astonishment, fears, and doubts.
“Humans,” Lu Xiaoyun answered him in his usual cold and flat tone.
Lu Xiaoyun and Yan Yang’s kiss scene extra
“Lu Xiaoyun! My parents are still alive and I have yet to start a family! Heck, I haven’t even had my first kiss with a girl yet! I’m at the prime of my life now, why do you think I would toss all of that aside to run in here to find you? It’s because I believed in your lunatic words, I believed in you, I believed that if it’s you then you…mmph!”
Yan Yang’s words were suddenly stifled.
In this corridor, apart from the movement of these two people, there was no other sound. The world on the other side of the tape was quiet, almost silent.
There was only the slight sound of fabric rustling against each other.
If Sun Zheng wasn’t in the same dark and claustrophobic hospital now, he would have imagined that the scene of the corridor on the other end of the tape was bright and sunny.
An empty corridor, with Lu Xiaoyun and Yan Yang only, and the bright sun rays through the window would make them squint, their cheeks hot and red. All they would feel is the scalding hot temperature, not knowing if it was from the sun or from the other person beside them.
Such a quiet, restless minute passed.
Yan Yang gasped, panting for breath. “…Lu Xiaoyun, you fucking idiot! I was talking about kissing a woman, not you!”
The person listening to the tape froze for a moment too. He could vaguely tell what was going on earlier, but now that Yan Yang had laid it out in the open, it just left Sun Zheng feeling extremely awkward.
Lu Xiaoyun did not directly reply to Yan Yang’s comment. He paused for several seconds, then asked in a flat tone, “How did you manage to enter?”
I WAS ROOTING FOR THEM ALL ALONG!! 🩷💖🩷💖🩷
OMG :00