Volume One, Chapter 1: The Scroll Has Come to Life!
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Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Su Jin’s boxed lunch had disappeared again.
That was the third thing she had lost today.
There was barely room on the table for anything besides an old calligraphy scroll.
No matter how hard Su Jin racked her brain, she could not figure out where the thief could be hiding.
She lived in graduate housing, in a private single room. Apart from a wooden bed, an old-fashioned wooden desk, and a wooden chair, the room contained only a wardrobe.
The space beneath the bed was empty.
The wardrobe was crammed with clothes; there was no way anyone could be hiding inside.
To catch the thief, Su Jin had specially bought a camera online and installed it at the head of the bed. From there, it could capture the entire room.
When even her water cup disappeared, Su Jin immediately checked the footage.
Then she saw something bizarre.
The object on the desk vanished into thin air!
Unable to believe it, Su Jin rewound the video and watched it several times.
It really had disappeared without warning!
A haunting in broad daylight?
A chill crept over Su Jin. She did not dare stay alone in the dormitory, so she grabbed the scroll and fled to the living room.
Only when she was about to leave did she realize that she had forgotten to bring her dormitory key.
Without the key, once she left, she would not be able to get back in.
Suppressing the panic rising in her chest, Su Jin placed the scroll and her phone on the dining table, then sat down in one of the chairs.
What should she do now?
Find a master to perform an exorcism?
Or call the police?
Su Jin kept picking at the dead skin around her fingers, her frantic gaze repeatedly darting toward her dormitory.
Calling the police would be better.
She turned around to retrieve her phone.
But apart from the scroll, there was no sign of it on the table.
Su Jin stared stiffly at the scroll, the terror in her eyes transforming into astonishment.
Where was her phone?
Her perfectly good phone—where had it gone?
If the disappearance of her water cup and lunch had frightened Su Jin, the disappearance of her phone infuriated her.
She had earned it with two months of summer work. It was the most valuable thing she owned.
In the midst of her fury, her mind instead became clear.
Her belongings had begun vanishing inexplicably two days ago.
And two days ago was the day she had brought the scroll home from her professor.
That was it.
Every time, it was something placed beside the scroll that disappeared. Nothing else in the room was affected.
Just now, her phone had vanished only after she placed it on the scroll.
Enraged, Su Jin snatched up the scroll and shook it violently in the air.
“Give me my phone back!”
The scroll remained motionless.
Su Jin grew even angrier, her voice bordering on a roar.
“If you don’t give it back, I’ll burn you!”
The scroll seemed to twist on its own.
Her phone suddenly appeared on the dining table.
Su Jin’s eyes widened in horror. She immediately flung the scroll aside.
The scroll really was the thief!
Could someone please tell her why a scroll would steal things?
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...
Shen Yubai covered his mouth, desperately suppressing the urge to cough. The discomfort was so intense that his normally pale face had been forced crimson. His long black hair slipped over his shoulders, and his clothes slid down from the strain, revealing his exquisite collarbones.
He looked so fragile, as though he might shatter at any moment.
At last, the fit passed, and he lay back down on the brick bed.
He pulled the corner of the thin quilt over his stomach, his cold eyes quietly surveying the all-too-familiar room.
The quilt was already very old, with two patches sewn onto its underside.
The roof beams had turned black with age, and a scroll was pasted against the wall beside the bed, blocking the dust and soil that rained down from above.
Creak—
The old wooden door swung open. A middle-aged woman entered carrying a bowl, her hair wrapped in blue cloth and her body dressed in gray homespun.
Shen Yubai sat up.
“Mother.”
Luo forced a smile.
“I made you a bowl of steamed egg custard. You’ll feel better after you eat it.”
As she spoke, she turned sideways and sat down on the edge of the brick bed.
A dark glint flashed through Shen Yubai’s phoenix-shaped eyes.
“They must be heartbroken over it.”
“You’re this sick. Of course you should eat an egg to build up your strength.”
Luo did not notice anything unusual about her son. She scooped up a full spoonful of egg custard and held it to Shen Yubai’s bloodless lips.
Shen Yubai was just about to open his mouth when his throat began itching again.
He turned his head aside, pressing his fist to his lips, and let out another muffled groan.
Luo hurriedly set down the bowl and rose to pat his back.
This time, however, Shen Yubai could not hold it back. He began coughing violently. Something seemed lodged in his throat, causing unbearable discomfort. When he finally coughed it up, what came out was a pool of blood.
Luo’s face went deathly pale. She hastily lunged forward, wanting to cover it, but Shen Yubai’s shoulder blocked her.
“Don’t touch it. Consumption is contagious.”
Shen Yubai panted heavily.
“You should leave.”
Luo’s eyes immediately reddened.
“I’ll go ask your grandmother for money. Tomorrow, I’ll get medicine for you.”
She did not delay. Turning around, she ran out.
Shen Yubai reached out, but did not even manage to catch the edge of his mother’s clothes.
His face was shrouded in gloom, yet that only lent him a strangely delicate beauty.
If the Shen family had been willing to spend the money, they would have bought him medicine long ago. Why else would they have let his condition worsen and worsen?
He clenched both hands around the bedding, his gaze flickering between light and shadow.
Thud!
A muffled sound came from behind him.
Shen Yubai turned and saw a black, square object lying quietly on the cotton padding.
It had happened again.
Lately, all sorts of strange objects had been appearing out of nowhere on his bed.
There had been a peculiar box filled with white rice and topped with fragrant dishes.
There had also been a glass cup.
And now this black square object—who knew what it was?
He picked it up indifferently and turned it over a few times.
With a click, a beam of harsh light stabbed into his eyes. He instinctively threw the black object toward the wall.
Then he witnessed something astonishing.
The black square object had vanished!
He shuffled backward several times, but soon ran out of strength.
Shen Yubai picked up his pillow and tentatively threw it toward the place where the black object had disappeared.
The pillow vanished as well.
At last, a trace of astonishment appeared on his handsome face.
He wanted to retreat, but his hands and feet were terribly weak.
Shen Yubai gave a self-mocking smile.
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He was already a dying man. What was there left to fear?
Besides, such a marvelous occurrence added a sliver of amusement to his otherwise dreary life.
Shen Yubai slowly crawled toward the wall. His hand moved from the bedding to the wall, but found nothing.
Could it be that only objects disappeared, while people were unaffected?
To test his theory, Shen Yubai picked up the glass cup.
It was one of the objects that had appeared on his bed earlier that day.
He placed it on the bed.
After moving it through several different positions, he finally discovered that it vanished when placed near the scroll.
Shen Yubai’s gaze settled on the blank scroll.
His father had bought it for him on the day he entered school. His intention had been to encourage his son to study diligently, so that once he had achieved something, he could write poetry and paint on the scroll.
After his father died in office, those so-called relatives seized the grand brick house he had built, while his fields were entirely occupied by his uncles.
Then, after Shen Yubai had been bedridden for three years and was on the brink of death, they drove him and his mother into this earthen-brick house in the old village compound.
Remembering the past, Shen Yubai lowered his eyes, sorrow filling his heart.
He gently stroked the scroll.
“Father, is that you?”
The scroll gave no reply.
His eyes grew red.
“If you’re here, Father, come and see me. I’m not afraid of ghosts. I just miss you.”
Still, there was no response.
Perhaps his father could not speak. If he wrote him a message and the scroll took it in, surely he would be able to see it?
Driven by this desperate longing, Shen Yubai clenched his teeth and forced himself out of bed. Leaning against the wall, he made his way to the wooden desk placed beside it.
The sickly youth had long since been tormented into a mere shadow of himself. Now, even moving forward one step at a time left him gasping for breath.
His dark hair hung loosely over the front of his body, covering half his face and making him appear even more frail and scholarly.
This had once been his writing desk. Now it was cluttered with rough teapots, cups, and other odds and ends.
Shen Yubai paid them no mind. He took an inkstone and an ink cake from the cloth bundle hanging on the wall, poured in a little tea, and slowly ground the ink.
When it was ready, he took out the writing brush that had gone unused for many days, dipped it in ink, and wrote a line on a sheet of yellowed, inferior bamboo paper.
Then, step by step, he made his way back to the bed and placed the note in front of the scroll.
A faint ripple passed beside his hand, and the paper disappeared.
He stared at the scroll expectantly.
Would Father write back to him?
...
Smack!
The phone dropped beside her feet and spun once across the floor.
Su Jin was startled. She hurriedly picked it up to inspect it.
The screen was not cracked!
A weight lifted from Su Jin’s heart.
“Hmph. At least you know better!”
She raised her fist toward the scroll.
Smack!
A wooden pillow struck the ground beside Su Jin’s feet, making her instinctively jump away.
Smack!
This time, it was the sound of a glass cup shattering on the floor. Water splashed onto her shoes.
The cup had cost her twenty yuan!
Revenge. This had to be the scroll’s revenge!
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