Chapter 209: Shadow of Nightmare
Qu Nan will never forget those nightmarish images.
In middle school, he often woke up screaming from nightmares, looking around the dark room in cold sweat. His mother would come after hearing the news, and under her gentle whispers, he could gradually regain his sanity.
You are dreaming again, said the mother.
He looked at his mother in fear.
It was just a dream, his mother said softly, brushing her hand across his forehead.
He would nod his head in agreement.
After his mother left, he just curled up in his bed, staring at the dim light that painted ghostly shadows on the wall for a long time, sitting all night until dawn.
That was not a dream, he thought.
My father also knew that it was not a dream.
When he was young, his mother and father had not yet ended their marriage, and he still lived in the old house. Every time after school, he would walk through the dark path and into the deepest part of the green block. Basically, no one was willing to walk with him . These stacked houses have a history of hundreds of years, and most of the broken walls are covered with moss. Because of the old facilities and the rumors about his father, many residents have moved away. The public facilities on this street have been in disrepair for a long time, and only two or three street lights flicker dimly at night.
His home was at the edge of the block, backed by a deserted and remote hillside cemetery. He could still clearly recall the door with faded paint, the uneven floor eroded by moisture, the dark and quiet cemetery outside the window, and the sound of the wind that sounded like crying at night. And the strange...
"Only weirdos can stay in that kind of place," his classmates all said.
No matter how his mother protested, his stubborn father refused to move out of the dilapidated old house, and he began to scream, cry and twitch every night, so his mother finally made up her mind to divorce his father and took him away from the dark and strange old house next to the cemetery. But the nightmare that had started in his childhood still haunted him.
He went to many doctors and took many medicines, but nothing happened. Later, he began to get used to it and just treated it as normal like breathing. The nightmares finally began to decrease gradually, and now he rarely has nightmares.
He seemed to have gotten rid of the terrifying shadow in his dream.
Until that day.
That day, he woke up screaming and sweating, and the shadows of his shattered dream seemed to still sway before his eyes.
"Are you having a nightmare again?" his mother asked him worriedly.
That nightmare came again.
He began to wake up screaming every night again.
Then he received a telegram saying that his father had died of illness.
When he returned to his hometown, his father had been cremated. At his father's funeral, there were only a few people, a few monks chanted sutras dryly, and his mother buried her head deeply. He could only see her tangled hands.
The photo of his father was placed among the delicate and bright flowers. On that bloated face was a dark smile that seemed to be spying on everyone. Qu Nan refused to bow to his father. In his opinion, his eccentric father had never fulfilled his responsibilities as a father.
My father was like that dark and mysterious old house, stubbornly hiding himself in a corner, fiddling with those incomprehensible secrets. He died . He died without a word, leaving behind only that old house.
Qu Nan listened indifferently to the monks chanting. From time to time, wind blew in, making the funeral curtains and wreaths rustle.
He sat in the mist of incense and candles for an unknown period of time before a figure appeared in the mourning hall. He pushed the door open and walked in, bringing in strong sunlight and fresh cold wind.
"Are you Qu Nan?" the figure standing in front of him asked.
"Who are you?"
The man was wearing a windbreaker, tall and thin, with a sharp look. He stretched out his hand and shook his hand. "Hello, you have a psychological trauma, which is related to your father, and your mental illness has not yet been cured."
Qu Nan stared at him in surprise. The other party's tone was quite unreasonable but not malicious, so it did not arouse his anger. "How did you know..."
"I wonder if you've ever heard of the profession of detective."
"Detective? Is this something you deduced?"
"No, your mother told me."
“…”
"Your mother hopes to find out what your father has been doing in the old house all these years. She also hopes that you can help me. She thinks that a clear investigation will also help heal your heart disease."
"This..." Qu Nan couldn't help but glance at his mother on the other side. She lowered her head and covered her face with her hands. At that moment, he felt the grief from his mother who had lost her lover. Almost immediately, he agreed to the detective's request.
"You can call me Detective Fu." Detective Fu smiled.
Then the two of them went to their father's old house together.
They called a taxi and drove through the city until they reached the alley that Qu Nan remembered, but the driver refused to drive in. "It's too creepy there, I won't let my car go in there," he said.
Detective Fu paid the fare. Together, they walked into the street that he was familiar with in his childhood. The road leading to the old house was even more dilapidated than he remembered. It was damp and dark, and the street lights on both sides of the street were broken. There was almost no lighting on the road. It was very quiet, with only the slight sound of the wind and the occasional barking of dogs.
Because of the terrible rumors over the years, there are almost no residents living in this neighborhood.
At last they reached the old house.
Standing at the door of the old house, the moment he saw the dark and dark windows, Qu Nan wanted to turn around and run away. But Detective Fu stood beside him and held him down with his strong hands, "Qu Nan, do you believe that there are ghosts in this world?"
The afterimage of the nightmare suddenly popped into Qu Nan's mind, and he spoke with difficulty: "I..."
"I firmly believe in science, and I believe that everything can be explained by science." Detective Fu's voice was firm. "Do you want to be haunted by this weird nightmare for the rest of your life?"
His steady voice instantly calmed his anxiety. Qu Nan took a breath, took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, walked to the door and unlocked it.
The moment he stepped through the gate, Qu Nan felt a chill rising from the soles of his feet. In the courtyard, his father had placed some exquisite sculptures of different shapes. All of them were lifelike and vivid.
But in Qu Nan's eyes, this was too weird, because these statues were too real. There was no such blasphemous creature in the world, but the sculptures were so real that every expression and detail, every muscle depiction, seemed to be able to turn these evil statues into living creatures in the next second. But the problem was that these sculptures were all out of the posture of normal creatures. They looked almost the same as the shadow monsters in the deepest part of his dreams over the years. Without exception, they all stretched out their twisted hands to the sky, as if they were calling for something from the sky.
"This is really..." Detective Fu said without blinking.
"Disgusting." Qu Nan said softly. He really wanted to vomit. After seeing these disgusting and complicated sculptures, his legs had begun to weaken. The most terrible dreams in the past had become reality again. And their faces were full of mocking malice, as if they were making fun of him, a coward who escaped from the old house.
"Perhaps it is because you saw these statues when you were a child that you have been having nightmares."
"Perhaps," Qu Nan muttered, staring at the statues.
If I don't face it, I will be haunted by nightmares forever in my life.
He walked up the stairs. The steps of the old house were steep and high. As he climbed the stairs, his body was shaking and his heart was beating wildly. He arrived at the door and opened it.
The structure of the old house was not much different from when he was a child. The floor was uneven, and the wallpaper was covered with moss due to heavy moisture. Only the old oak furniture still had a sense of expensiveness. The two of them walked through the hallway and entered their father's study.
The moment he pushed open the door of his father's study, Qu Nan almost screamed immediately, because there was a huge oil painting hanging on the front wall of the study, which depicted the hell scene in his nightmare.
Oh my god, Qu Nan subconsciously grabbed his head, his hands pinched his skin uncontrollably, and his screams of fear echoed in his throat. What a terrible painting this is.
The thin, inhuman limbs and the filthy, bare body stood upright like a praying mantis. It was an indescribable blasphemy. It was the indescribable horror beyond words. The background of this picture was so familiar, it depicted the cemetery on the hillside behind the old house. Those horrible inhuman creatures were squatting or standing on the cemetery. They were digging the cemetery and turning out the bodies.
What a disgusting and crazy scene.
My father has gone crazy and has implanted this crazy scene in my mind, Qu Nan thought painfully at that moment.
"Qu Nan!! Qu Nan!!"
Detective Fu shook him, bringing him back to reality from his terrified delusion. "Look at this painting."
"I'm looking at this. My father is indeed crazy. I must have seen this painting as a child and that's why I keep having nightmares." Qu Nan muttered.
"No, look at the background of this painting." Detective Fu opened the window. "The background of this painting is exactly the same as the scenery seen from this window."
Qu Nan stared at the painting in a daze, then stared out the window in a daze. Yes, people are often attracted by the non-human things in the painting and ignore everything else. The undulating hillsides in this painting, as well as the details of each tombstone, are exactly the same as the scenery seen from the window.
"That is to say..."
Detective Fu said, "Your father completed this painting facing out the window."
At that moment, the room fell into a deathly silence. My father painted the scenery outside the window. What about the inhuman creatures in the painting?
The two looked at each other and saw fear on each other's faces.
At this moment, there was a huge roar outside the window, followed by some strange noises. Animals would never make such noises, and even we couldn't simulate them. He and Detective Fu looked out the window tremblingly.
His nightmare came back to life.
On the hillside cemetery, three inhuman creatures were moving. Their bodies were very similar to those in my father's painting. The same slender limbs, the same twisted walking posture, and the bald and unnatural bodies, as if they came from the darkest nightmare. Qu Nan let out a short scream, and then he desperately covered his mouth with his hands. But one of the monsters turned his head and looked at the old house.
Its eyes met his.
It saw me.
It's looking at me.
Fear swept through his body. He could not move at all and could only stare blankly at the monster moving towards him.
Then, Detective Fu suddenly grabbed him and sprayed a large amount of black mist at the monster approaching . As the monster was trapped in the black mist, he pulled him out without looking back.
At first, it was Detective Fu who pulled Qu Nan to run. But soon Qu Nan regained his senses and no further words were needed. The two of them exchanged glances and ran four blocks without looking back.
By the time the two of them, unable to walk any further and almost exhausted, stopped, they were already at the other side of the city.
"I now understand the source of my nightmares," Qu Nan said. "I witnessed them when I was a child. But my father deceived me and made me think they were just my nightmares."
"I see."
"My father is completely crazy. He stays in that old house all day long because of those monsters. He has fallen into the abyss of darkness. It's ridiculous." Qu Nan sighed.
Detective Fu looked at him with a smile, "I think your father is a very courageous man."
"Yeah?"
"Also, would you be interested in being my partner?"
"ah?"
"I don't think many people can think rationally after seeing those monsters. This shows that you are not weak-willed."
"But so do you. You're even quicker than I am."
"So I think we can be a good partner." Detective Fu handed him a business card, "I believe in my vision. Think about it. Maybe solving cases with me will prevent you from having nightmares at night. The house I rent is in need of a roommate. If you are interested, you can come tomorrow. Our landlord is an interesting landlady."
Qu Nan took the business card and admitted that he was very interested.
Liu Xingquan was feeling depressed, his whole body was covered with black ink.
Xiao Zhen walked up to him and said, "Wow, you got sprayed black."
Liu Xingquan pointed to a house not far away and said, "I just wanted to say hello to the alien in that house, and it suddenly sprayed black ink at me."
“Because it thinks you’re scary.”
"horrible?"
Xiao Zhen explained, "I forgot to tell you in advance that this is an independent planet with a civilization. This planet is just like Earth, where the civilization has not yet developed to the point of interstellar communication. The locals don't know about the existence of aliens. In their eyes, you are just a weird and ugly monster."
"Monsters?" Liu Xingquan said, "They are monsters! They look similar to octopuses, with slimy tentacles and uneven skin. They are disgusting!"
"In their eyes, you are probably a synonym for an indescribable heretic." Xiao Zhen turned to look at Fei, "Fei, have you collected the ingredients?"
"It will be ready soon." Fei was picking a small yellow flower and putting it into the collection bag. According to Gamor's recipe, this ingredient called Muleihua mostly grows in local cemeteries and is a very rare plant in the Milky Way. Fei said that she knew this because her former captain would often secretly stop on this planet to collect it. "At that time, there was a local helper here, and it always provided Muleihua to my captain. I would encounter it when I came here before. It lived in the house opposite. It even drew a picture for us for this friendship."
"The person in the house opposite just sprayed me with black ink." Liu Xingquan said stiffly.
Fei turned to look at the window and said regretfully, "It seems that the local helper is not here."
