As the old woman spoke, the black shadow on the wall leaped down quickly and scurried towards the offering table before disappearing.
The old woman's eyes were a milky - grey color, staring straight at my back.
I felt a chill run down my spine. My body went stiff and I couldn't move. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I felt as if a terrifying and eerie thing was approaching.
This is human intuition, just like when you're walking on the street and someone is staring at your back, you'll sense it.
I wasn't paralyzed because of the old woman's behavior, but because of the aura of the thing behind me. It was as if my soul had frozen.
I tried to turn my eyes to see what that terrifying presence was.
But a person's field of vision can only reach the side at best. How could I see what was behind me?
However, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow on the ground. The eerie green oil lamp was placed between the three of us, and our shadows all fell backwards.
But there was an additional shadow on the ground area between me and Huang Po.
This shadow was facing forward, as if there was a light behind it casting its shadow.
The shadow stopped on the ground area between me and Huang Po, slowly stretched out its hands forward, and finally disappeared into the shadow under the old woman's seat.
As the shadow's hands disappeared into the shadow under the old woman's seat, her begging for mercy suddenly stopped.
Then, the old woman slowly stood up from her seat, with a strange smile on her face. After letting go of my hands, she even deliberately patted the back of my hand.
Her hands were even colder now, as if they were the hands of a corpse just pulled out of the refrigerated cabinet in the morgue.
The fact that the old woman got up caught my attention. When I recalled the black shadow on the ground and turned my eyes to look, I found that the shadow had disappeared without my noticing.
The old woman got up and walked towards the offering table. As she approached, the offering table began to shake violently.
I took a closer look and realized that it wasn't the offering table that was shaking, but the statue on it. The statue's tremors made the offering table shake with it.
The ferocious - looking statue now had a panicked look on its face. All six of its arms waved simultaneously, brandishing weapons as if it were about to smash the old woman.
The old woman just slowly stretched out her right - hand finger and pointed at the statue on the offering table.
A puff of black smoke immediately emerged from the statue, and then it cracked into pieces, falling onto the tiled floor with a tinkling sound.
After the statue shattered, the old woman stood motionless for about four or five seconds, and then slowly turned around.
There was still that strange smile on her face. Her milky - grey eyes stared intently at me, making me feel extremely uncomfortable, as if I were a prey targeted by a ferocious beast.
After looking at me for a moment, the old woman walked wordlessly to the corner of the living room and rummaged around. She quickly found a long piece of hemp rope.
She untied the rope and threw it towards the ceiling. The rope seemed to come to life, slithering like a spiritual snake through the iron ring on the ceiling that was used to fix the chandelier.
The old woman beckoned with her hand, and a stool on the ground moved over automatically, stopping in front of her.
The old woman stood on the stool, tied the hemp rope into a knot, then put her head through it and kicked the stool over with her feet.
Until this moment, there was still a strange smile on the old woman's face, and her eyes were always fixed on me.
But the next moment, the old woman's expression turned to fear and pain. She stretched out her hands and pulled at the noose around her neck, trying to free herself.
But how could a person hanging by the neck muster any strength? She could only struggle desperately with both hands pulling at the rope, and finally lost all signs of life.
For a full ten-odd minutes, Huang Po and I stood there rigidly, watching the old woman hanging in the noose, struggling violently at first and finally losing all signs of life.
In the end, the old woman's hyoid bone broke, and her tongue fell out.
I also noticed a detail. When the old woman started to struggle, the black figure on the ground between Huang Po and me appeared again.
It seemed to be standing at the doorway behind us, silently watching the old woman struggling in the noose with us.
After the old woman died, the shadow suddenly disappeared, and the flame of the oil lamp in the room changed from a ghostly green to an orange - yellow one.
Huang Po and I suddenly felt a great weight lifted off our bodies. The terrible feeling that had been pressing on us vanished, and we both collapsed to the ground.
After that, the two of us scurried out of the witch's house and ran all the way to a streetlight by the roadside. Standing in the light of the streetlight, we finally felt a bit more at ease.
Watching a living person die right in front of your eyes is an indescribable experience.
The struggle in the state of suffocation, the feeling of the breath of death gradually devouring life - those who haven't experienced it can never understand.
Huang Po and I stood under the streetlight. After gasping for a long time, Huang Po said, "What should we do?"
"Call the police."
"Call the police? Will the police think we're murderers? How about we just run away?" Huang Po suggested.
"There are surveillance cameras everywhere. Do you think you can get away without calling the police? If we call the police, we can clear our names."
After we called the police, they arrived quickly.
Huang Po and I were originally worried that we wouldn't be able to explain clearly and would be suspected of being murderers. However, the police were professional enough. They took a look at the scene from the door and found the hidden surveillance camera in the room.
The surveillance video of the witch's house was retrieved. After watching it, it quickly proved our innocence.
The camera had no sound, only pictures. However, watching the pictures again made the whole thing seem even scarier.
What I was more concerned about was what that terrifying presence behind us was. However, the surveillance video didn't capture it at all.
In the surveillance video, it was just a distorted shadow, as if the surveillance image had been distorted due to electromagnetic interference. You couldn't tell what it was at all.
Fortunately, the pictures in other parts were still intact. If the whole image had been distorted, Huang Po and I really wouldn't have been able to explain ourselves.
Even so, after the murder, Huang Po and I were taken to the police station and made to give statements for a long time. We were asked to describe the situation at that time over and over again.
It was around two or three in the morning when Huang Po and I were finally released from the police station. We were specifically told not to leave the town.
Huang Po and I were completely numb. When we got back to the hotel. Just before entering the room, I suddenly realized a problem: Where was Jiang Lixin?
How come she didn't even call during the long time Huang Po and I were at the police station?
I called her, but the prompt said the phone was turned off. My heart sank immediately: Looks like Jiang Lixin is going to break up with me.
Looks like she asked the witch and found out there's no future for us, so she decided to call it quits.
I opened the door of the room helplessly. When I turned on the light, I saw that Jiang Lixin's handbag was still on the bedside table, exactly the same as before I left.
Was it a breakup or not?
I numbly went to the bathroom to take a hot shower and decided to just go to sleep regardless. So many things had happened that night that I felt my nerves were about to break down.
After taking a shower, I didn't even turn on the light. I just lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
I didn't sleep well that night. Horrible images flashed through my dreams from time to time, keeping me in a half - asleep and half - awake state all the time.
Mainly due to my extreme mental exhaustion, I would have been startled awake under normal circumstances.
I don't know how long it had passed when I felt cold liquid dripping on my forehead, drop after drop.
Stimulated by the cold, I finally woke up and opened my eyes.
The scene in front of me almost scared the living daylights out of me.
On the ceiling of the hotel room, Jiang Lixin's eyes were bulging wide, her face full of terror. She had been dead for a long time. Her limbs were nailed to the ceiling in a spread - eagle position.
Blood was dripping from her hanging tongue onto my forehead.