Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Qiu Xing hadn't slept well for three days.

The house had been renovated and aired out for a year, and he'd just moved in a week ago.

Maybe it was because he wasn't used to the bed—after moving in, he suffered from insomnia. The first two days, he was so exhausted from work that he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. But these past two days, with less to do, the moment bedtime came around, he'd get this anxious, restless feeling and simply couldn't drift off.

Tonight was no different.

His wife, on the other hand, slept soundly—she was asleep the moment she touched the bed. Which meant Qiu Xing had nobody to talk to, so he'd just lie there staring at the ceiling, frustrated.

The room was pitch black. He tried hard to make out the ceiling, but after failing, he let out a sigh, turned over to switch positions, and closed his eyes, attempting to fall asleep.

He was starting to drift off, and just as he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly snapped wide awake.

Qiu Xing opened his eyes in irritation, got out of bed, and went to the living room to get some water.

He only switched on a small lamp, so the living room was dim and shadowy. After drinking the water, he felt so wired he could've gone out and run a few miles.

Qiu Xing sighed, sat down on the sofa, and started playing games.

Time ticked by. Once he got tired of gaming, he set down the controller and was about to head back to the bedroom to sleep when he heard a sigh from somewhere nearby.

At first, Qiu Xing thought he'd let out a sigh without realizing it, but his mouth was closed—there was no way he could have made it.

Plus, the sound came from farther away—like it was coming from the bathroom.

Could a burglar have gotten in in the middle of the night?

Since the neighborhood consisted of detached houses, and their place was a three-story house with him on the second floor, a thief could get in pretty easily.

At that thought, Qiu Xing's heart jumped into his throat. He grabbed the broom nearby and crept toward the bathroom.

He tried not to make a sound, held his breath when he got to the bathroom, then leaned in quickly to look inside.

The moonlight came through the window, so the bathroom was pretty bright. It was totally empty—nothing weird in there.

Qiu Xing's heart went back to normal. He set down the broom, rubbed his temples, and told himself he was just stressed from not sleeping well.

He turned and entered the bedroom, and when he closed the door, he heard that sigh again.

Since he was sure no one was there, Qiu Xing didn't think much of it, figuring the sigh was probably just his imagination or some other noise.

He lay down in bed, closed his eyes, and tried to fall asleep.

The next morning, Qiu Xing asked his wife and parents if they'd heard the sighing.

All three of them said no.

"The kitchen makes noise all the time—maybe it's the wind blowing through the pipes outside," his wife suddenly said.

That made Qiu Xing even more sure he'd just misheard some other noise as a sigh. He didn't give it another thought and headed to work after breakfast.

His family was just as clueless as he was.

For example, it wasn't until the tenth time something randomly disappeared that his wife came to him, looking worried: "I feel like something's wrong with my head lately."

Qiu Xing asked her what was going on.

She explained, "After we moved in, my memory's gotten worse. The first time was with my comb—the blue comb I bought just disappeared, and I couldn't find it anywhere. I figured I'd dropped it somewhere, so I bought another one."

"But that one disappeared pretty fast too. Since I'd just set it down anywhere after using it, I really couldn't remember where I'd left it."

"It wasn't until I bought a third comb that I finally managed to keep one. The problem is, it's not just that."

"I bought a little cake, put it on the table, and the second I turned around, it was gone. I looked everywhere but couldn't find it, so I gave up and figured I must've forgotten to bring it upstairs."

"Then another time, I bought some braised food. This time I clearly remembered putting it on the table, but when I came back from the bathroom, it was gone again."

"Did you lose them, or did they just disappear?" Qiu Xing asked.

"I probably just put them somewhere and forgot—my memory's terrible," his wife said, troubled. "I went back to look, but I honestly couldn't remember. And that's not all—my phone charger's also disappeared twice."

Qiu Xing told her not to worry about it. He took the chance to do a deep clean, going through the whole house top to bottom, but he never found the items his wife had mentioned.

"The cake and the food might've been left outside, but the comb? No way," Qiu Xing frowned. "The only explanation is that they just disappeared into thin air."

"But how could things just disappear?" his wife said, not reading too much into it, and thought hard about who'd been over recently. "Could someone else have taken them?"

"Did you ask Mom and Dad?"

"I did." His wife sighed. "Mom and Dad have had the same thing happen. These past few days, they thought I'd taken their things, and I thought they'd taken mine. At first, we didn't want to say anything outright, but later we found out by accident that we'd all lost things."

It was painfully obvious—something was off in their house.

That was Qiu Xing's first thought.

When he told his wife, she raised an eyebrow, skeptical of such things: "That can't be. I haven't felt anything wrong."

Qiu Xing called his parents over, and the four of them sat in the living room to talk, going through all the weird stuff that had happened, from beginning to end.

"I've lost two pairs of socks and a back scratcher, and your mom lost an earring too," his father said with a sigh. "At first, I thought we'd grabbed each other's stuff by mistake, but turns out they were just gone."

Qiu Xing thought he hadn't lost anything, but then he suddenly remembered the razor his wife gave him—he'd never used it, and now it was nowhere to be found.

"Has anything valuable gone missing?" Qiu Xing confirmed.

"Your mom's earring isn't expensive," his father waved it off.

Qiu Xing said, "From today on, let's put everything we use back in its original place and see what happens."

All three agreed.

They lived like that for a month, and not a single thing went missing.

Qiu Xing was confused again. Another month passed, and the family fully let their guard down.

Then, one night, Qiu Xing got up to use the bathroom and heard that familiar sigh again.

This time, he didn't hesitate. He turned on the lights and searched the house, finally ending up in the kitchen.

Outside, it was silent and still—no wind, so it couldn't have been caused by the breeze.

They lived in a detached house, so it couldn't have been a neighbor's noise.

That left only two possibilities: either his ears were playing tricks on him, or there really was a strange sound in their house.

Over the past two months, Qiu Xing had picked up a part-time job, keeping himself busy day and night, falling asleep the moment he hit the pillow, and he hadn't suffered from insomnia since.

He couldn't sleep tonight because of that strange sound.

He lay in bed, playing on his phone with the bedside lamp on, hoping to figure out what the sound was if it came again.

He waited all night, but the sound never came. After washing up, Qiu Xing went straight to the hospital.

"Your ears are fine. If it keeps happening, you might want to see a psychiatrist," the doctor suggested after reviewing the test results.

"I don't think I'm hearing things," Qiu Xing voiced his opinion. "I'm not stressed, and I'm not anxious."

"Sometimes you think you're not anxious, but your body might disagree," the doctor said.

Qiu Xing had no choice but to go to the psych department for another check-up.

The results came back fast—his mental state was perfectly fine.

The doctor said, "If it doesn't happen often, there's nothing to worry about. Just keep an eye out at home. It might be something else making the sound, and you just haven't found where it's coming from."

Qiu Xing could only go home and keep an eye out.

Another half month went by, and this time he heard it during the day.

He was home alone, so it couldn't be anyone else.

Qiu Xing held his breath, waiting in the living room for the sound to come.

Sure enough, it sounded again, and he pinpointed it—it was coming from the balcony.

He rushed over and searched carefully but found nothing that could make that sound.

Instead, he discovered something creepy.

—Their wall seemed alive, like it was breathing.

The balcony had just one row of windows; the rest was wall. Qiu Xing hadn't noticed anything odd about the wall at first, until he got frustrated searching and his arm bumped into it—then he noticed something was off.

The wall wasn't hard at all; it was soft and springy, like skin.

For a split second, his mind went blank, thinking there might be something wrong with the wall itself. He felt it carefully with his hands.

The whole wall felt as soft as human skin, rising and falling like it was breathing.

This discovery made Qiu Xing wonder if he was losing it. As soon as his parents got back, he couldn't wait to drag them to the wall and have them feel it.

"Son, are you stressed out or losing it?" his father said, shocked, but still put his hand on it. "There's nothing wrong. What wall breathing? You okay?"

His mother, on the other hand, was curious and ran her hand along the wall. "I thought there might be something wrong with the wall, but it's just hard. Were you dreaming or something?"

Qiu Xing was speechless. "I wasn't sleeping. Just now, it felt soft, like a person breathing—rising and falling. I don't know why it went back to normal."

He worried other walls might have the same problem, so he checked all three floors' walls.

No problems.

His parents said worriedly, "If you're stressed, go out and take a break. Look at you—today it's the wall, tomorrow who knows what it'll be."

Qiu Xing pulled out his medical report. "I'm not stressed, and I'm mentally fine. I don't know what's going on either."

He was worried the wall might actually have a problem, so he hired professionals to check it out. Only after they confirmed everything was okay did he relax.

"Then it was all in my head," he muttered, finding the sensation weird but not dwelling on it, and he put the whole thing out of his mind.

*

That night, Qiu Xing couldn't sleep.

He'd slept for two hours, his body still tired, but his mind was wide awake.

He turned around, feet toward the headboard and head at the foot of the bed.

That way, he could see the bedroom door.

Nothing fun on his phone, and with nothing else to do, he idly scanned the dark room.

Until he caught a faint light coming from the crack under the bedroom door.

The living room light was on.

Assuming his parents were up, Qiu Xing didn't think much of it and kept staring at the ceiling.

But soon, he found it weird.

The bathroom was right across from the bedroom, so even if his parents got up, they couldn't be this quiet.

It was so quiet he was sure no one was in the living room.

Did the light just turn on by itself?

Qiu Xing turned to look at the bedroom door and noticed that the crack, which had been glowing, was now pitch black.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes, unsure if he had seen things.

He lay flat again, glancing at the bedroom door from the corner of his eye.

It was too dark to make out the door crack, and just as he was about to look away, the faint light outside the crack flickered on again.

?

His first thought was that the light switch was broken. He threw off the covers and felt his way to the bedroom door in the dark.

Outside, it was so dark he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Without overthinking, he quickly turned on the light.

The harsh light blazed on, and Qiu Xing instinctively shielded his eyes. After a moment to adjust, he started flipping the switch repeatedly.

The light went off and on without issue. But the repeated flicking woke his parents, who had left their door open in the side room.

"What are you doing?" his father glared at him, thinking he'd lost it. "Can't sleep in the middle of the night, so you're playing with the lights?"

"No," Qiu Xing pointed at the light. "I was in my room, and this light suddenly turned on—twice. I thought it was broken, so I came to check."

"I think your brain is broken," his father said, exasperated. "Go back to bed and look at it tomorrow."

Qiu Xing nodded, and after his father returned to his room, he turned off the light and headed back to the bedroom.

It was too dark.

He suddenly realized something was off.

They lived on the second floor, and the living room was never this dark. But now, the windows showed no light at all, as if the entire floor was sealed off, with no light coming through.

At that critical moment, he remembered something else that was off.

His dad made a ton of noise shuffling around in his slippers, and he’d been glad they bought a standalone house, so there were no upstairs neighbors to bother.

But just now, when his dad came out of the bedroom, his feet made no sound at all.

What the hell?

Or wait—was that even his dad?

Qiu Xing shuddered, creeped out by his own crazy thought, and flicked the light back on.

The warm light chased away the fear creeping in his chest. His dad came running out barefoot, looking pissed, clearly kept awake by him.

“What are you doing?”

“Did you not wear slippers just now?” Qiu Xing asked.

“You pissed me off so bad I wanted to smack you—didn’t even have time to put on shoes,” his dad replied.

Qiu Xing said “Oh,” figuring he was just overthinking it.

He tilted his head and looked out the window. No moonlight, but there were streetlights. So why did the living room get so pitch-black when the lights went off?

Not buying it, he turned the light off again right in front of his dad.

A faint glow seeped in through the window. Qiu Xing’s eyes went wide, totally baffled. He was about to flick the light back on and tell his dad what was going on when he got smacked on the head.

“Are you done?” his dad hissed. “Fine, keep me up, but do you wanna wake your mom and your wife too?”

Qiu Xing let go, pulled his dad onto the couch, and spilled everything that felt off.

His dad thought for a second, then reached over and felt his forehead.

“I’m not sick,” Qiu Xing said in a hushed, mysterious voice. “Dad, I’m slow on the uptake, but you guys are even slower. Think about everything that’s been happening lately—don’t you think it’s weird?”

“The weirdest thing is you,” his dad snapped.

“No, listen,” Qiu Xing said, counting off. “First I hear weird noises, then stuff goes missing, I find out the walls are breathing, and now the lights turn off by themselves.”

He swallowed hard and whispered to his dad, “Don’t you think there’s something else in this house besides us?”

As soon as he said it, Qiu Xing couldn’t help but shiver, freaked out by his own imagination.

His dad didn’t say anything, just sat there in silence.

Qiu Xing thought that didn’t seem like his dad at all. He looked up and saw his dad’s face was pale, with a smile stretched across it—the corners of his mouth stiff and creepy, like two invisible hands were yanking them up.

Qiu Xing froze, a chill crawling down his spine. Just as he was about to speak, his dad suddenly tilted his head, shoving that white-painted face right in his, and said slowly, “Oh yeah? Do I look like it?”

Qiu Xing shot up in bed with a jolt.

His wife, who’d just finished getting dressed, stared at him, confused. “What’s wrong? Nightmare? You just pulled off a move you can’t normally do.”

Qiu Xing blinked and looked out the window—sun was blazing, already morning.

“Where’s Dad?” he asked.

“He just went out to grab us breakfast. I was about to call you,” his wife said. “Why’d you switch to sleeping on this side?”

Qiu Xing looked down and saw he was standing at the head of the bed. Maybe after switching directions last night, he’d fallen asleep, and everything that happened was just a dream.

But he couldn’t be sure. He bolted out of the room and stopped in front of his dad.

“Did I get up last night? Wait—no, did you get up?”

“Nope, slept straight through till morning. What’s wrong?” his dad asked, confused.

“Nothing.” Qiu Xing let out a sigh of relief.

Good thing it was a dream, or that would’ve been terrifying.

“Look at you, all groggy this morning. Didn’t sleep again last night?” his dad asked, concerned.

Qiu Xing didn’t know how to explain it, scratched his head, and kept his mouth shut.

He didn’t know how to shake that uneasy feeling, so he just buried himself in work and didn’t give himself time to overthink.

At school, he worked out; at home, he crashed. After a few months of this, Qiu Xing stopped having those crazy thoughts.

Nothing weird happened at home anymore.

Even on his day off, when he was just chilling and cleaning the house, he found the comb that had gone missing before.

His parents’ lost stuff also turned up in the gaps of the cabinet.

Everything came back except the braised meat and the cake.

In that instant, Qiu Xing thought of parallel universes. After cleaning up, he curled up on the couch and searched for related stuff online.

There were tons of posts, almost dizzying. Qiu Xing clicked on one at random.

The OP said they’d lost a charger, searched for half a month without finding it, then a month later suddenly found it in a cabinet they’d rummaged through a million times.

But the charger was way too new—not like the one they’d used for ages, and all the wear marks were gone.

The OP didn’t think much of it until a month later, when they found another charger in the same spot.

This one was dirty and worn, with marks—it was the charger they’d lost.

Now they had two chargers—one was theirs, and the other they had no idea whose it was. They were sure they hadn’t bought it, and neither had anyone else.

The comments below were all over the place.

“At this moment, the parallel universe you is going crazy looking for the charger.”

“I’ve had this happen too. I thought it was a gift from heaven and didn’t think much of it.”

“Just a bad memory. Probably the OP bought two before and forgot. Why make it so mystical?”

“Huh? There are still people who don’t believe in parallel universes?”

“Huh? There are still people who believe in parallel universes?”

“...”

The post had over two thousand replies, and one thread alone had over nineteen hundred, with two users going at each other.

One believed in parallel universes, the other didn’t.

Qiu Xing expanded it and confirmed it was just the two of them going back and forth, and he couldn’t help but find it amusing.

This is way too much of a waste of time.

Their situation didn't seem like a parallel timeline thing.

Qiu Xing wasn't all that interested in this kind of unknown stuff, so he went off to binge a show instead.

His wife got off work early, and the two of them went out to see a movie and had hotpot. By the time they got home, it was already 10:30 at night.

Qiu Xing took a shower and fell asleep in bed.

He woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and got up to use the bathroom. That's when he saw another version of himself and froze.

The other him stood face-to-face with him, not moving, staring straight at him—no surprise, no confusion, just staring dead at him, like he was trying to see right through him.

Qiu Xing thought he was losing it. He yelled and fell flat on his ass, waking up the whole house.

"What's wrong?" His wife came running over and helped him up.

Qiu Xing raised his hand and pointed at where the other him had been, but the spot was already empty. He said in a daze, "I just went to the bathroom and saw another me."

His wife froze, a weird look on her face. She opened her mouth but ultimately said nothing.

His parents, though, asked if he'd been drinking when they heard that.

"No, Xiao Yue and I just had hotpot. Forget alcohol—I didn't even have a soda." Qiu Xing scrambled to his feet, still shaky.

When he first saw the other him, he was terrified, absolutely freaked out. But now that all that fear had faded, he felt like he'd overreacted—it wasn't that big of a deal.

"Maybe I saw things." That was the most reasonable explanation, even though Qiu Xing didn't actually believe he'd seen things.

But seeing another version of himself in the middle of the night was even harder to explain.

"You didn't see wrong." His wife suddenly spoke up.

Qiu Xing was taken aback. His wife helped him to the living room, sat him down, and sighed, rubbing her forehead.

"I didn't say anything before because I was scared of freaking you guys out, and I thought it might just be me. But now that you've seen it too, I know it's for real."

"What do you mean? You've seen it too?" His mother asked in surprise.

"Yes." His wife nodded and quietly told them about something weird that happened to her not long ago. "But mine happened during the day. I hadn't slept well, so I figured I was seeing things. I was washing my face at the time. When I finished and looked up, I saw another me standing behind myself. It scared me shitless. I kept my head down, finished washing my face, and when I looked up, it was gone."

"Since it only lasted a second, I thought I'd imagined it." His wife muttered. "What the hell is going on? Is there really something in this house? Or are we seeing another version of ourselves from a parallel universe?"

"Bullshit." His father, startled by her words, quickly cut in. "There's no such thing as all that weird stuff. You two just saw things."

Qiu Xing wanted to argue but figured it wasn't worth it. He looked at his wife and tentatively asked, "What if we get someone to come check the place out?"

"I think that could work, but who do we even get?" His wife rested her chin on her hand, thinking. "Someone who deals with that kind of stuff, or someone who deals with parallel universes?"

"Honestly," his mother said, "you two would be better off seeing a doctor than finding some weirdo."

"Mom," Qiu Xing said helplessly, "there's nothing wrong with me, and there's nothing wrong with Xiao Yue either. I'm telling you, this house definitely has a problem."

"Bullshit." His father slapped the table. "If this house had a problem, how come your mother and I haven't seen anything? I think you've been reading too much crap online, and now you're jumping to conclusions about everything."

Qiu Xing threw his hands up, like, what could he even say.

His mother suggested, "Let's go to sleep first. It's too late. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

His wife Xiao Yue stayed quiet. Qiu Xing followed her into the bedroom. After closing the door, he said to her, "I think we should find a master to check it out. I just wonder if it'll cost a fortune."

"It definitely will." Xiao Yue said. "I've seen this kind of thing online. The starting price is already five digits."

"So do we do it?" Qiu Xing asked.

"Let's hold off for now." Xiao Yue shook out the blanket, feeling conflicted herself. "It hasn't really affected us."

Qiu Xing nodded. The next day, he'd actually forgotten about the whole thing until his mother pulled him aside onto the balcony with a mysterious look.

"Let me tell you," his mother whispered, "after you two finished talking last night, I noticed something off about your dad."

Qiu Xing understood why his mother had pulled him out to the balcony and was whispering like this.

His dad was sitting on the couch watching TV, cracking up every now and then. As his mother kept talking, Qiu Xing thought back to a dream he'd had a long time ago.

"After we went back to the room, I couldn't fall asleep. Your dad was smoking in the living room. Then another version of your dad—maybe he thought I was asleep—opened the door and came in."

"Your dad was still smoking in the living room at the time. I could hear him puffing away. But then this other dad was standing by the bed staring at me. It was terrifying. I didn't get a wink of sleep all night. I agree with what you said yesterday about finding someone to look into this. This house isn't just 'off'—it's practically unlivable."

Qiu Xing turned to look at his dad on the couch again. His mother immediately grabbed his arm and turned his head back. "Don't look at him. I can't even tell if he's your dad anymore."

"Then why aren't you scared of me?" Qiu Xing said. "What if I'm not even me?"

His mother froze, clearly spooked, and smacked his arm. "Don't mess with me."

"I understand." Qiu Xing said. "I'll find someone to ask."

While he was still searching online, Xiao Yue beat him to it and got in touch with someone who handled this kind of thing.

The next afternoon, the guy showed up carrying a compass.

"Nothing to worry about." After walking around the house for half an hour, the guy pulled out a QR code. "It's just that the magnetic field in your house is a bit messed up, which can easily mess with people."

"That's it?" Qiu Xing said. "That's all?"

"Yeah, if there's no problem, that's all there is to it." The guy waved the QR code again. "Don't worry, there's nothing here that you're scared of."

"Then what about that other me I saw?" Qiu Xing asked.

"Didn't I just say it? The magnetic field here is messed up, and that's what causes the stuff you saw." The guy explained. "If you're scared, you can move out. If you don't, it's fine too. Just have more people over, and after a while, the weird stuff will stop."

Luckily, the guy didn't charge much. Qiu Xing transferred the money, and the guy even threw in a talisman.

"A peace talisman. Stick it behind your front door, and it'll keep you from freaking out."

Qiu Xing thanked him and that very afternoon invited relatives over for dinner. That night, he called friends over to play games.

They did this for half a month. Whether it was just his imagination or not, the panic and unease really did go away.

Qiu Xing slept much better and stopped having insomnia.

Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was all over, he suddenly realized the walls of his house seemed to be able to talk.

It was such a weird feeling.

At first, he was sitting on the couch watching TV, and besides the dialogue, he kept hearing other noises.

Eventually, he figured out where it was coming from: the wall behind the couch in the living room.

It started with sighs, then spoke some obscure, incomprehensible words.

Qiu Xing couldn't make sense of it, only able to tell from the tone that whatever was speaking sounded pretty upset.

Qiu Xing finally understood what those sighs he'd heard before were all about.

Nobody would believe you if you told them the walls could talk.

Fortunately, the voice didn't show up all the time—only once every month or two. Aside from not being able to understand what it said, nothing else happened.

Qiu Xing didn't see anything particularly wrong with it, and with work keeping him busy, over time, their household settled into a balance with this weird situation.

Qiu Xing stopped dwelling on what that thing was, and the wall never did anything to them after it spoke.

It wasn't until he ran into Cheng Gu and the other person at school that Qiu Xing remembered his situation at home and tried to figure out what was really going on.

...

"Please, come in." The door opened, and Xiao Yue, who'd been waiting at home, smiled as she invited the two inside, then briefly explained the situation.

Zhu Yuan took out a mini compass, its needle spinning wildly without stopping.

She raised an eyebrow: "The magnetic field here is indeed all over the place."

Author's note:

N/A.