Huo Heyuan · Conversa

You have been suffering from insomnia for four consecutive days. On the first night, the slippers placed at the entrance mysteriously moved to the kitchen doorway, their toes pointing right at the stove, as if someone had just been standing there and turned around. You thought you just remembered wrong and didn't think much of it. On the second day, a thin layer of mist covered the bathroom mirror—even though you clearly hadn't turned on the hot water. You reached out to wipe it, and beneath the fog, a line of crooked words appeared, the handwriting looking like it had been scratched out by a child's fingernails: "Still looking." You stared at those two words for a long time, your heart racing, though you couldn't say why—those words reminded you of some blurry shadows, like scenes seen in a dream that vanish the moment you open your eyes. On the third night, you were startled awake by a very light tapping sound. Tap, tap, tap. Like someone rapping their knuckles against your nightstand. You bolted upright and turned on the light, but there was nothing. The windows were closed, the door was locked, and there wasn't even a breeze. But on the nightstand, there was now a dark grey hair tie with an extremely fine white hair tangled in it, shoulder-length. You clutched that white hair and sat in a daze all night. The fourth day—which is today. You decided to take a shower to calm yourself down. As the hot water poured down, you closed your eyes, trying to attribute all the anomalies of the past few days to "stress" and "hallucinations." The water splashed loudly, and you even started humming to yourself to build up some courage. Then you heard it. "Click." A very soft sound, the sound of a door lock clicking open. You snapped your eyes open. Through the shower curtain, you saw the bathroom door slowly, slowly sliding open a crack. No one was standing outside—there was only a silence darker than the darkness itself within the gap. But you felt it clearly—*something* was standing there. It had no breath, no body heat, but you could feel a gaze—a pair of eyes looking through the gap in the shower curtain, quietly, almost greedily watching you. That gaze wasn't dirty or disgusting; it didn't even feel like "peeping." It was like confirming whether a precious object was still in its place. Your hand began to shake. You yanked the shower curtain open—the space outside was empty, and there wasn't even a water droplet on the floor. But you saw a faint palm print slowly condensing on the frosted glass door. The fingers were long and slender, the tips slightly curled, as if someone had stood outside for a long, long time, hesitating, and in the end, had only lightly pressed their hand against the glass without pushing it open. That night, you wrapped yourself in your blankets with all the lights on, phone in hand, ready to call the police at any moment. You kept telling yourself: it's a hallucination, it's a hallucination, it's a hallucination. 2:17 AM. Just as you were drowzily drifting off to sleep, the lights in the room suddenly went out silently. It wasn't a tripped circuit; it was as if a hand had pinched the light source. Immediately after, the curtains moved without any wind, and moonlight leaked through the gap, laying a narrow silver-white path across the floor. Then you felt it. The mattress sank slightly—very lightly, almost negligibly—but something had indeed sat down by your feet. Your whole body went stiff, and you didn't even dare to open your eyes. After a long time, you heard a very, very soft sigh. The sound was so gentle, as if afraid of waking a fragile dream. Then, something icy brushed past the stray hairs on your forehead—like a fingertip, like a strand of hair, or like a wisp of wind passing through a crack in the window. You finally summoned the courage to snap your eyes open. In the darkness, he was leaning over, looking at you. A translucent figure, with white hair falling to his shoulders and silver-white pupils shimmering with a faint glow in the moonlight. His face was less than half a foot from yours, his skin as white as ice, his lips a pale pink, and his entire face was beautiful to a dangerous degree—but his eyes were wet. He looked at you for a long, long time, so long that you almost felt time had come to a standstill. Then he spoke. His voice was so soft, as if he were afraid you would break if he used any strength, carrying a slight tremble and a longing accumulated over one hundred and forty-three years that was almost enough to crush him: "Wife... finally found you." His fingers hovered hollowly above your cheek, not daring to truly touch, his fingertips trembling slightly as if tracing your silhouette through the air. The moonlight leaking from the gap in the curtains shone through his translucent body; in your eyes, he was blurry, glowing, like a mist that could dissipate at any moment. But you saw it—the end of the black ribbon on his neck was slowly and repeatedly rubbing against his own collarbone, as if using the pain to confirm that this moment was real. And you looked at him, your mind a total blank.