Phantom Skeleton Painting

“How could it be possible; how could it be? It’s impossible, it’s impossible!!” The man’s eyes were red, and his expression was crazy. He kept mumbling to himself. One of his hands hit the table in front of him heavily, and veins bulged on the other hand, and he kept throwing things on the table.

Two dice slipped out of his palm, spun a few times, and then settled firmly on the table. Two scarlet nine points tightly wrapped around the man’s neck like a life-threatening rope. His eyes bulged, his teeth creaked, and he squeezed out three words from between his teeth: “Impossible…!!!”

So again, and again, and again, he kept throwing…but no matter how many times he threw, the two dice would only roll out nine.

Dang, dang, the clock behind him made a sharp sound. The crazy man suddenly stopped, his whole body as stiff as a stone sculpture. He slowly turned his head and saw a human hand with blood-red nail polish on his shoulder. The hand had skin as pale as paper.

***

It has been almost a week since Lin Banxia and Ji Leshui moved into this house.

This house was the third household on the 13th floor, with the house number 1303. It was bought by Lin Banxia with a down payment of 160,000 and repayments of 3,000 per month for thirty years. To be able to buy a house near the city at this price was very cheap. The only shortcoming was that the environment of the house was average, but compared with the cheap price, these shortcomings were nothing.

Ji Leshui was Lin Banxia’s college classmate. The two had always had a good relationship, so after graduation, they rented together. After Lin Banxia bought a new house, he invited Ji Leshui to live with him. Ji Leshui happily agreed.

“Banxia, when will you come back tonight?”

Because he was on the night shift today, Lin Banxia helped Ji Leshui prepare dinner before leaving. Just as he was putting on his shoes with his head down, he heard Ji Leshui ask in a low voice.

“About five or six in the morning.” Lin Banxia said, “What’s wrong?”

“I…I…forget it, it’s okay.” Ji Leshui hesitated, but in the end, he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth.

“Are you feeling uncomfortable somewhere?” Lin Banxia looked at his roommate strangely. Ji Leshui had been looking a little nervous these days. He insisted that he heard the person next door coughing, but he didn’t hear anything.

“Maybe I have a cold.” Ji Leshui smiled, with a slightly reluctant expression.

Lin Banxia was worried, “Are you really okay? Then… I’ll be back early today.”

“Okay.” Ji Lexui said, “You…come back soon.”

With a soft click of the door closing, Lin Banxia went out.

Ji Leshui sat on the sofa and felt that the whole room had become quiet. There was obviously a program playing on the TV, but this sound made the whole room even more eerie. Ji Leshui didn’t understand what went wrong before. Last night, he stayed in the house, but was so panicked that he went to walk around the community downstairs.

Turning around, Ji Leshui suddenly discovered that there was no sound at all in the entire community, no insects, no human voices. A few dim streetlights shone among the dense trees, casting strange, mottled shadows. When he raised his head and glanced at the building where they lived, a layer of sweat immediately appeared on his back. The building was actually completely dark, not a single light could be seen. The tall building looked like a lonely mountain in the night, exuding an eerie cold air.

Ji Leshui stared at the building and shivered, suddenly realizing that there were almost no people living in this small community. There were only three buildings and almost no lights could be seen. His eyes wandered among the dark buildings, and finally found a bright window, and his stuffy chest finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Isn’t there someone living here?” Ji Leshui joked to himself and muttered quietly, “Maybe it’s because the place is too remote, so the occupancy rate is not high…”

However, before he finished speaking, a black silhouette appeared in front of the bright window. Because it was against the light, Ji Leshui couldn’t see clearly. He could only vaguely see from the silhouette that it appeared to be a woman, standing by the window looking out.

Ji Leshui was originally going to pass under that window, but for some reason, his steps suddenly stopped. A human’s instinct stopped him from moving forward, prompting him to stop where he was.

It was too dark, and he couldn’t see the woman’s appearance clearly. He could only vaguely see the woman stretching out a pair of snow-white arms and gently pushing open the window in front of her.

Why is she opening the window? The wind is so strong tonight and so… cold, Ji Leshui thought in confusion.

The next moment, his doubts were answered. The woman opened the window, paused for a moment in front of the window, and then jumped down!

“Thud!!!” With a loud noise, Ji Leshui watched helplessly as a person turned into a fragmented corpse in front of his eyes. The blood seemed to turn into dark water against the backdrop of the night, splashing all over Ji Leshui.

“Ah!!!” After witnessing this horrific scene, Ji Leshui let out a scream, turned around and ran away. However, as soon as he turned around, he felt something grabbing the corner of his clothes. He staggered a few steps and fell to the ground in embarrassment.

“Ah! Ah!” He had never seen a dead person so close before. Ji Leshui was so frightened that he almost had a nervous breakdown. He fell to the ground and kept backing up until his back rested against a roadside tree. When he reached the tree, he stopped.

“Dead, dead!!” Ji Leshui screamed hoarsely. He wanted to ask for help from the people around him, but he was the only one left in the dark community, which was like a tomb of the living dead.

“Leshui?! Leshui, are you okay?!” A human voice came vaguely, driving away the chill on his body. Ji Leshui, who was curled up in a ball, looked up blankly and saw a familiar face. It was his good friend, Lin Banxia.

Lin Banxia seemed to have returned from the night shift, and his appearance was no different from when they parted in the afternoon. At this time, he was holding his shoulders and asking him worriedly what was wrong.

“Someone jumped from the building.” Ji Leshui grabbed Lin Banxia’s arm and pointed to the front tremblingly, “She’s dead, she’s dead in the front.”

“Jump from the building?” Lin Banxia was a little confused. He hesitated and said, “Is it right in front?”

“Yes, yes.” Ji Leshui nodded hurriedly.

Lin Banxia looked up and observed the trail in front of him for a moment, then shook his head, “I don’t see it.”

Ji Lexui became anxious after hearing this. He reluctantly stood up from the ground with his trembling legs, but his feet were still a little weak, so he took two steps forward with Lin Banxia’s support.

The dim path snaked toward the distance. Although it was not clear, it could still be seen that there was no blood on it, let alone a corpse.

“What! It’s gone?” Ji Lexui asked blankly, not so much asking Lin Banxia as asking himself.

“What’s missing?” Lin Banxia reached out and touched Ji Lexui’s forehead, “Are you okay?”

Ji Leshui shook his head heavily, trying to wake himself up. He looked up at the building next to him, but found that the window that was lit just now was gone, as if everything that happened not long ago was just his hallucination.

“How could this happen?” Ji Leshui said blankly.

“What did you see?” Lin Banxia asked.

“I saw someone jumping from upstairs.” Ji Leshui said, “She jumped in front of me from there… blood… blood was splashed on my body.”

After he finished speaking, fearing that Lin Banxia wouldn’t believe it, he pulled up the corner of his clothes again: “It was here, it was here.”

However, through the dim streetlights, he saw that his white coat was spotless, and the blood stains from earlier disappeared without a trace.

The atmosphere fell silent.

At this moment, Lin Banxia gently pressed Ji Leshui’s shoulders and said warmly: “It’s okay, let’s go back first. I bought a lot of pork. Let’s eat something first.”

Ji Lexui nodded silently.

The two walked back together slowly. When they reached the downstairs, Ji Leshui remembered to ask Lin Banxia why he came back early.

“I came here for a job and came right back after finishing it.” Lin Banxia said, “I went to the supermarket on the way back and bought some discounted pork.”

“Oh.” Ji Lexui responded in a low voice.

“This pork is getting more and more expensive.” Lin Banxia said, “Didn’t you say you wanted to eat pork yesterday? Have you had dinner today?”

“Eat.” Ji Leshui’s reaction was still slow.

Seeing him like this, Lin Banxia thought that he might still be very frightened, so he found some other topics to chat to Ji Leshui about and they kept talking all the way. When they got home, Ji Leshui’s frightened body finally recovered.

Ji Leshui wiped his forehead and felt the cold sweat on his forehead. He sighed and whispered: “I was really scared to death just now. I thought someone really jumped off the building in front of me.”

“Maybe I missed something,” Lin Banxia said, “but you are probably wrong.”

“Really?” Ji Lexui smiled reluctantly, “Banxia, ​​it’s been a week since we moved in. Why haven’t we seen many people in this community?”

Lin Banxia said: “The previous landlord said it was a new community and not many people lived there.”

Ji Lexui said: “But there are too few people.”

Lin Banxia said: “There are a bit too few.”

The two of them exited the elevator and turned into the corridor and happened to see a door next to their house being slammed shut.

“Huh? A neighbor came?” Ji Leshui asked curiously, “When did they move in?”

“Maybe… just these past few days? ~” Lin Banxia also found it strange.

“It’s not bad to have a neighbor.” Ji Leshui wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and exhaled, “Otherwise, it would be really scary for just the two of us to live in such a building.”

Lin Banxia smiled gently and nodded.

 

Translator’s Notes:

Hey guys, I’m the translator for this novel. If you have any questions or thoughts feel free to comment and I’ll do my best to answer everything. If you notice any inconsistencies or errors, drop a comment and I will fix it. I am new to this, but I want to learn and give the best translation that I can to the readers. Thanks so much for reading Phantom Skeleton Painting, I hope that everyone enjoys the novel.