I sent back a few video recorders I bought in Jilin and left them at home, not wanting An Ning to know my actual address—though she might have already known—so I sent Wang Meng to my house to retrieve them. After connecting everything in the shop’s inner hall, we played the new tape on a small television.

As always, the tape was in black and white. After some static, an old-fashioned room appeared on the screen. At first, I was taken aback, but soon realized that the layout of the room was different from what we had seen in the tape from Jilin. Clearly, it was a different place, much larger, and the furnishings were different as well; I had no idea where it was.

When we were in Jilin, after watching those two tapes with my uncle, the latter part was all static. We watched it many times but found no clues. Now with a new tape, I thought perhaps it would contain some hints, so I decided to watch it carefully again.

Wang Meng made tea for everyone, and the fat guy unceremoniously lounged on my recliner. I had no choice but to sit aside and sent Wang Meng outside to keep an eye on the shop, while trying to maintain a cautious distance from An Ning, who had also become serious at this point, her expression blank, completely different from her earlier playfulness.

The inner hall was quite dark, with mottled light streaming in. It resembled the wooden lattice windows used in old residences from the Ming and Qing dynasties, but in black and white, it was hard to see clearly. At that moment, there was no one in the inner hall.

The fat guy gestured to me, asking if the content of the tape from the muffled oil bottle was the same as this one. I slightly shook my head to indicate it wasn’t, and he looked surprised, turning back to watch more closely.

However, for about fifteen minutes, the image remained unchanged, only occasionally shaking with static, causing our hearts to skip a beat.

I had some experience and could endure it, but the fat guy couldn’t hold back. He turned to An Ning and said, “Miss Ning, did you pick the wrong tape?”

An Ning ignored him and just glanced at me. I held my breath because I knew this tape should also be a surveillance tape, and it was entirely normal to see an empty inner hall. Since An Ning chose to play this tape, something unusual would surely happen after a while.

Seeing that An Ning and I weren’t speaking, the fat guy lost interest, took a sip of tea, and wanted to leave. I pressed him to stay, and he sat back down, fidgeting restlessly, showing extreme impatience.

I felt a bit of inner frustration but couldn’t express it, so I focused and continued watching. As I looked at the inner hall on the screen, I too started to feel impatient, really wanting to fast-forward a bit.

At that moment, An Ning suddenly straightened up and made a gesture. Wang Meng and I immediately sat up straight to watch the screen carefully.

On the screen, a gray shadow appeared in the inner hall, moving out of the darkness with very strange movements, walking extremely slowly, as if it were drunk.

I swallowed hard, with several guesses in my mind, but unsure if they were correct, I became tense.

Soon, the white figure became clearer. When it moved to the window, I finally understood why its movements were so strange: it wasn’t walking at all; it was crawling on the ground.

This person was unrecognizable as either male or female; all I knew was that they were disheveled and dressed in what looked like a shroud, slowly and laboriously crawling on the ground.

What struck me as strange was the awkwardness of their crawling posture; either this person had a disability or had undergone extreme abuse. I recalled a news story about a rural village where a man locked his mentally ill wife in a basement, and when she was finally released, she could no longer walk and could only crawl. The movements of this person reminded me of that.

We all remained silent as we watched them crawl across the screen, disappearing quietly on the other side. Then, the scene before us returned to a still, quiet inner room.

The whole process lasted just over seven minutes, and what was particularly maddening was the absence of sound. Watching someone like that crawl silently was very uncomfortable.

A Ning pressed the remote, rewound the tape, and replayed it, then paused and said to us, “There’s no need to watch further; the issue lies here.”

“What does that mean?” the Fatty asked, confused. “Comrade Tian Zhen, who is this person?”

“How would I know!” I replied, feeling frustrated. I had expected to see Huo Ling reappear, but it turned out not to be her, which only deepened my confusion. Looking at that hunched figure, if it was indeed the same person who sent this, then the videotape must have been recorded by Huo Ling. Could it be that by the time this tape was made, Huo Ling had aged to the point of not being able to stand?

The Fatty went to ask A Ning what was going on and what was being filmed.

“What do you think you saw?” A Ning asked us.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s just a person crawling across the floor of a house,” the Fatty replied.

A Ning ignored him and looked at me with a meaningful expression, asking, “What do you think?” It seemed she was trying to glean something from me.

I looked at A Ning’s expression and asked in confusion, “Isn’t that the case?”

She squinted her eyes, a mix of doubt and surprise: “Don’t you… have any other special feelings?”

I was baffled, glancing at the Fatty, who was fixated on the videotape, mumbling “Hmm” and shaking his head: “No.”

A Ning stared at me for a long time, then sighed, saying, “Alright then, let’s watch the second tape. I hope you can prepare yourself mentally.”

As she spoke, she inserted the second tape. This time, A Ning didn’t make us start from the beginning; instead, she fast-forwarded until we reached the fifteen-minute mark. She looked at me and said, “You… better take a deep breath.”

Her words actually made me a bit anxious, while the Fatty, impatient, said, “Are you underestimating people? You should check your facts; our Comrade Wu has been through a lot—he’s crossed snow-capped mountains and braved raging seas. I don’t believe there’s anything that can scare him. Don’t try to stir up your little woman’s emotions here. Comrade Wu, why don’t you say something? Isn’t that right?”

I ignored him and let A Ning proceed. In my own shop’s inner room, I didn’t believe I could be scared.

Aning glared at the fat guy, and the video started playing again. The scene was still the same inner hall, but the camera seemed to be shaking a bit, as if someone was adjusting it. After about two minutes of shaking, the lens finally stabilized, and then a face peeked up from below the camera.

At first, the focus was off; it was too close to see clearly, but I could already tell that the person was not Huo Ling. Then, the person’s face moved back slightly, revealing someone dressed in a gray shroud-like outfit, sitting on the ground trembling, with disheveled hair. After a few turns, I finally saw his face.

At the same time, the fat guy gasped in surprise and abruptly turned to look at me, and I instantly felt a chill run up my spine to my forehead, my mouth agape, nearly gasping for breath.

On the screen, the face of the person who was looking around like a madman was very familiar. It took me a few seconds to recognize it—it was actually me!