Yesterday, I read the dormitory story shared by my friend Xiaomiao. It reminded me of a university town in Hebei where I lived in my first year of undergraduate study.
It was a hodgepodge-style park that gathered major universities. As soon as you entered the door, there was a large archway in the shape of a triumphal arch, with a yellow and golden inscription written by Ze Min. All facilities for food, clothing, housing and transportation are available in the park. The dormitory area of our school is located in the innermost part of the university town, far away from the central downtown area and a little remote.
What is very strange is that all the dormitory buildings are slanted, and none of them faces due south or north. A senior student told us that if you had a private plane to take aerial photos from above, the entire dormitory area would look like a Bagua array. As a result, strange rumors spread like wildfire, and many people heard that there was a terrifying monster living downstairs in the dormitory. But nothing strange happened during the year I attended.
However, there was a quasi-stewardess from the Civil Aviation Academy who lived in the dormitory area. She was beautiful and looked very much like Taiwanese actress Biting Guo. She and I met through a copy of Mr. Yang Jiang's "The Three of Us" at a book market in a university town on a drizzly spring day, and we later became very good friends. In the middle of the summer when my freshman year was about to end, the flight attendant asked me to have a drink, and later she confessed her love to me under the cover of wine.
I still remember the anxiety and embarrassment I felt at a loss, and I would only rashly defend myself with a white face, saying that I could only accept the emotions of the opposite sex, both physically and mentally. The flight attendant drank a lot that day and stayed in my dormitory. After she sobered up and left the next day, we lost contact. An absurd drama in youthful days, so frozen in the passing years.
I returned to my hometown in Beijing to study at the beginning of my sophomore year and no longer lived in the university town. One day, I was shocked to hear in the alumni QQ group that a murder with mutilated corpses occurred on the third floor of the food street in the university town! A young girl selling women's clothing had an argument with her boyfriend late at night. She was brutally murdered and her body was hidden in her fashion store. The boyfriend used an ax to cut the body into eight pieces, wrapped it layer by layer in snakeskin bags, and placed them on the false ceiling of the fashion store. He lived in the apartment he shared with his girlfriend as normal.
It wasn't until half a month later that the smell permeated the entire floor, and the surrounding shops remembered that they hadn't seen the girl in the women's clothing store for a long time, and someone called the police. It is said that when the police broke into the boutique, the stench that hit their noses almost made them gag on the spot. Drops of light yellow blood fell all over the floor. After the police broke open the fake ceiling, they discovered highly decomposed, swollen and deformed body parts.
At that time, this case caused a sensation in the entire university town. The students were in a state of extreme disbelief, and various strange stories and legends emerged one after another. Someone posted a short ghost story on the school website. One night, he was hungry while playing games and wanted to go to the food street to eat a bowl of wontons. Unexpectedly, as soon as I walked to the street, I heard the faint cry of a woman, drifting far and near. The man was so frightened that he turned around and ran away, insisting that it was not an illusion.
There is a bone restaurant on the food street that specializes in Laotang Lamb and Scorpion. I ate there when I lived in the university town. Their Kung Pao Chicken is also super delicious. After the corpse dismemberment case, students complained about the smell of sheep and scorpions, which seemed not new. The owner of the bone restaurant swears that there will be absolutely no problems with his ingredients. Later, more horrifying rumors spread. Some people said that when eating at the Bone Restaurant, blood would drip from the ceiling. As the man ate, he felt a chill in his neck, and his hand was filled with blood. Directly above the Bone Hall is the women's clothing store where the murder occurred.
It’s hard to agree on which one is true or false. All the strange stories that were once absurd and terrifying are gone. It seems that in a blink of an eye, I have left the university town for almost sixteen years. It is really shocking to think about it. I am tired of living, so I have never revisited my old place . I think things and people have changed there, and it is different from the past.