When my cousin and I were in Suzhou, we stayed in a century-old hotel in the old city. Although the facilities were old and far from the bustling city, the hotel was very cheap, so it attracted many young students who came to Suzhou for tourism. After dinner in the evening, everyone usually gathered together to talk about topics that young people like.
Once, just after dinner, about seven or eight people gathered in the living room to chat. Suddenly, the lights flickered a few times, and suddenly it was plunged into darkness!
What's wrong?
Someone screamed, and the boss's wife quickly turned on the flashlight, looked at the light bulb, and said, "Oh, it seems that the fuse has burned out." She shouted to the boss, "Old man, go change the fuse!"
The boss ran out in a hurry.
The landlady said, "I'm so sorry! This house is really too old."
I smiled and said, "It's okay! How about the boss lady tell us a ghost story? It will create a good atmosphere in this situation!"
The proprietress hesitated for a moment and said, "Okay, I'll tell you a story about this kind of hotel!"
She turned off the flashlight and was immediately plunged into darkness. Soon, an old and weathered voice slowly sounded:
"There are many terrible stories about old houses. Take this house for example! More than a hundred years ago, when Suzhou was just opened, it was secretly built by a comprador from Shanghai for his third concubine. Why did Shanghai people go to Suzhou to hide their mistresses? Because his first wife was very fierce, and his father-in-law was a high-ranking official like the Shanghai Daotai, and the comprador did not dare to offend him. He happened to like a prostitute and redeemed her, so he built this nest in Suzhou. Every time he pretended to do something for the foreign devils, he secretly went to the concubine's place to meet. However, there is no impenetrable wall in the world, and this matter was finally known to the comprador's first wife. She couldn't bear the relationship between husband and wife, so she vented her anger on the concubine. She brought a group of aggressive sisters to this house in Suzhou to punish the concubine. A jealous woman is terrible. She said: "Since you use this face to seduce my man! I want your face!" She cut off the concubine's face inhumanely!
From then on, a ghost wearing a bright cheongsam began to wander in the house. She always covered her face, so it was hard to see what she looked like! A brave man moved in, and the ghost appeared again in the middle of the night, covering her face with her sleeves. The brave man was not afraid at all, but smiled and said: "I heard that female ghosts are very beautiful. You even covered your face, aren't you very beautiful?" The woman slowly put down her sleeves and cried: Give me back my face…"
There was a miserable ghost cry, and suddenly a pale face appeared from the darkness, floating in the air, with only skin but no facial features. Everyone screamed at once!
At this time, the lights came back on. After a closer look, it turned out that the proprietress had deliberately turned on the flashlight by placing it on her chin. Due to the strong light, it looked like a faceless person in the dark. Only then did everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
The next day at breakfast, a young man at the table looked pale, like a clown in a Peking opera with a thick layer of white powder on his face. Everyone was surprised and asked him about it, but the young man just shook his head and muttered to himself, "You won't believe it, you won't believe it!"
I was quite curious, so I asked, "Tell me what happened?"
The young man hesitated for a moment, made up his mind, and said carefully: "Last night, I saw the Faceless Woman!"
"ha–"
The restaurant suddenly erupted in laughter.
The young man was so angry that he stood up suddenly, his face red, and shouted angrily: "Forget it! If you don't believe it, why bother to mock me!"
Seeing that things were about to get out of hand, the lady boss quickly stepped out to smooth things over: "Okay, tell me what's going on!"
The young man narrated slowly:
"Since I heard this story last night, I have been very curious. In the middle of the night, I suddenly heard some noises in the attic. Oh, I live on the third floor, closest to the attic! So I plucked up my courage, put on my clothes and went up to take a look. When I got to the attic, I saw a woman in a cheongsam, with her back to me. With the help of the moonlight, I saw that she had a slim figure and short hair. At first, I thought it was someone in the hotel playing a prank and deliberately scaring people. So I stepped forward and patted her on the shoulder and said, 'Hey, why are you pretending to be a ghost in the middle of the night?' She slowly turned around and covered her face with her sleeves. I was immediately startled and my scalp was numb. At that time, I thought to myself, could it be the faceless woman? I was so scared that I rolled down the attic and waited until dawn!"
Puzzled, I asked, "You haven't seen her face, how do you know it's the Faceless Woman?"
The young man was horrified and asked, "If I had seen her face, would I still be sitting here talking to you?"
Most people were skeptical of the young man's words. Some curious people immediately ran to the attic and found nothing except some random things. It was all covered with dust, and only a messy footprint of a person was seen. It was the young man.
I laughed it off, but in the middle of the night, when I was sleeping soundly, I was suddenly awakened by a terrifying scream and hurriedly ran out of the room in my slippers. Cheng Sa from next door also came out in a disheveled state. We looked at each other and he said, "The sound came from upstairs, let's go up and take a look!"
I nodded, and we ran up to the attic. Many people also got up after hearing the shouting, and went up with us to check.
In the attic, we saw a young couple who were so scared that they collapsed into a pile of mud, hugging each other and shaking. Everyone couldn't help but feel angry and amused, and asked, "I woke you up in my sleep, what were you two doing?"
The couple cried and said, "We…we were dating upstairs and saw the faceless woman!"
Everyone was startled, so they looked around with flashlights, but found nothing. So they comforted the couple and thought that they were looking for an exciting date, and they were dazzled or attacked by the reflection of Venus or dust mites in the dust, and thought that the faceless woman appeared.
We went back home bored and closed the quilt, with a faceless woman in my mind. What would it be like without a face? Smooth as an egg, or bloody? I fell into a dream, and suddenly a woman with a bloody head and a piece of skin in her hand rushed towards me… I screamed and woke up immediately.
Fortunately, it was just a dream! I breathed a sigh of relief, but I felt sweaty all over. It was really uncomfortable in the warm spring of May. I walked into the bathroom and locked the door. Then I soaked in the water. It was such a pleasure to soak in hot water for a whole morning! The hot steam immediately filled the whole bathroom. It was like a fairyland on the clouds, but I was not a fairy. After a comfortable bath, I sang a song, dried myself, put on my clothes, and then put on my makeup in front of the mirror. The mirror was covered with a thin mist of steam, and it was blurry. It seemed that something was reflected in the mirror. I reached out to wipe the mirror, but I was shocked in vain and my whole body was stiff.
In the mirror, behind my figure, there was actually another woman! She was wearing a classical cheongsam, and her figure was quite graceful. But her face was always covered with one sleeve, as if she was afraid of being peeped at.
I tilted my head and my neck turned back section by section like a robot. If it was the Faceless Woman, did she really want me to see her face?
But when I turned my head, there was nothing behind me, nothing but the curling steam. I closed my eyes, was it my hallucination?
I almost flew out of the bathroom and walked out the door. Cheng Sa asked curiously, "Sister Ruonan, you look so pale! Are you feeling unwell?"
"I……"
I froze, not knowing what to say. After a long while, I stammered, "I saw the Faceless Woman…"
Cheng Sa laughed out loud: "Is she also in the attic? Okay, call her out next time so I can see her too!"
I shook my head and said, "Not in the attic, but in the bathroom. When I was taking a shower just now, I saw the Faceless Woman standing behind me, covering her face."
Seeing my serious expression and knowing that I never lied, Cheng Sa couldn't help but believe me a little. He touched my cold hand and consoled me, "Is it really the Faceless Woman? Did you see her? Wasn't she in the attic the whole time? Why did you run to the bathroom?"
"I…I, don't know. I'm scared…"
It was the first time I felt so terrified. It seemed that the faceless woman was everywhere and could pounce on me at any time. At night, I held Cheng Sa's hand, my throat trembling: "You, you stay with me, I'm really scared…"
Cheng Sa nodded and said, "Okay!"
He comforted me and told me to lie down, then stayed by my bed. I looked up at him, and I didn't know when the little boy had grown up to be a man. I felt a little relieved, and after a day of fear and worry, I was extremely tired, and gradually fell asleep.
In my dream, I seemed to see a woman with her face covered, with no feet under her cheongsam, floating in from the bathroom like a ghost. I jumped up from the bed in shock, staring at her with wide eyes, and saw her slowly floating to my side. I breathed rapidly, and white mist came out of the corners of my mouth in the warm night of May.
Cheng Sa lay on the edge of the bed, soundly sleeping. No matter when or where, he had never felt as lonely and desperate as he did now.
I suddenly realized that this was not a nightmare, this was a real scene!
I pinched Cheng Sa's arm hard, staring at the faceless woman. Cheng Sa cried out in pain: "Sister Ruonan, you are so domineering! It hurts so much!"
I stammered, "Faceless…Faceless Woman…"
Cheng Sa rubbed his eyes, followed my gaze, and froze, petrified. This man… can't be relied on at a critical moment…
The faceless woman slowly approached us, her sleeve still covering her face tightly, and said faintly, "Sir, Madam, I would like to ask you for a favor!"
I finally mustered up my courage and said, still stammering, "What can I do for you? Tell me now."
The faceless woman said, "My face is somewhat exposed, which is really ugly, so I would like to ask you two to help me to save my face."
I was horrified, wondering if he was going to peel off my skin to fill it. This monster was very picky, he didn't want anything else but a woman like me who was a little pretty. So he said hurriedly, "Well, I'm ugly, I probably can't help you!"
The faceless woman said: "It's okay, just look at my face first!"
"don't want!"
I said no, but for some reason, my eyes were attracted to the faceless woman. As her sleeves slowly fell, I opened my mouth and almost breathed out.
…
"Ha ha–"
Cheng Sa and I burst out laughing at the same time. The scene across from us was so funny. The faceless woman put down her sleeves. She was not faceless as the legend said. She had a pretty face. But, but, such a beautiful woman actually had a beard on her chin. Just imagine how weird and ridiculous the scene was. It was just like the guy in Stephen Chow's movie who dressed up as a woman and picked his nose with a big beard. The horror movie became a comedy! I realized that the "赤露" in the previous sentence was "耻辱", which was pronounced the same in Wu dialect.
The bearded woman covered her face in shame and shouted, "You are laughing at me too!" She stomped her feet and left!
I shouted, "Don't go. I'll definitely help you with this. I can lend you Cheng Sa's razor…"
We hurriedly chased after her, but the bearded woman disappeared in the corner of the bathroom. But I saw a doll in the corner of the bathroom. I picked it up and squinted my eyes to look at it. It was a shabby doll wearing an antique cheongsam . The face was quite exquisite, but the bored child had painted a circle of beard on her chin.
Cheng Sa and I looked at each other in confusion. Could it be that she was the one behind this?
Cheng Sa said, "This is the doll I saw in the attic. Since it was discarded, it must have been unwanted by someone else. I think it is finely crafted. If it is carefully repaired, it can be a good work of art. And judging from its age, it is at least a hundred years old. It is a cultural relic! So I put it in the room."
I criticized him harshly, and put on the posture of an elder sister to teach him a lesson: "You, you, this is someone else's thing, how can you take it without asking for permission? It scared me to death."
I took the doll to the boss lady and asked her to identify it. The boss lady put on her reading glasses and took a closer look. She said, "Oh, this seems to be one of the earliest dolls produced in China. It was my grandmother's toy when she was a child. She has been left to me. When my old man came to play with her when he was a child, he painted a beard on her face! I don't know how you found it. If you like it, I'll give it to you."
I took a handkerchief, dipped it in water and carefully wiped off the graffiti on the doll's chin. Then I put her on the bedside and whispered, "Good night, don't scare me!"
So-called words become prophecies. There are no ghosts in this world. People think about it day and night, and their spiritual power combines with the mysterious power of nature to form ghosts. So many people heard the story, thinking about it day and night, and the spiritual power of dozens of people gathered together, which is extremely powerful. Besides, the doll is a hundred-year-old thing, and it already has spirituality. The reason why only a few people see it is because of the sensitive sense of touch, so it creates an illusion.