paranoianovel Chapter 11 What's meant to happen will happen!
Chapter 11 What's meant to happen will happen!
All eyes, including countless pairs of eyes in the live stream, were fixed on a small patch of illuminated space.
Cheng Tan's vision was momentarily dazzled by the bright light, and then he saw something.
No, it wasn't a direct "seeing." It was more like a distorted illusion, burning directly from the retina into the cerebral cortex, superimposing a terrifyingly clear image onto the real beam of light and the blurry outline of the bathroom—
A slender, gleaming icicle.
It appeared out of thin air, hovering in the center of the field of vision, its tip gleaming with a cold, sharp edge. Then it began to expand, stretch, and multiply wildly… one, two, countless! They swirled and intertwined, transforming into a vast, overwhelming jungle of death, piercing through with ear-piercing screams!
"Ah—!" Cheng Tan let out a short scream, abruptly closed his eyes, and staggered backward, crashing into the cold wall behind him.
He knew these weren't real ice picks.
It was an illusion. It was the relentless nightmare of that "first night," resurfacing and erupting in the most intense way.
The image flashed by in an instant.
But what he didn't know was that this scene was being witnessed by everyone!
Before everyone could fully utter their astonishment, the illusion vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
Only now did the beams of light from the two powerful flashlights truly illuminate the interior of the cramped bathroom.
There were no more overwhelming icicles, no more supernatural horrors. Only peeling, mottled tiles, a rusty squat toilet, a broken sink, and thick layers of dust and unidentified stains on the floor. A nauseating musty smell filled the air, and a pungent, stale chemical odor assaulted the nostrils.
There was something reflecting light in the corner below the sink, near the wall.
Shadow stepped inside first, followed closely by Li Kai, whose flashlight beam focused on that corner.
It was a simple, deformed, rusted metal bracket, like the base of an old-fashioned showerhead. Something was wedged in the gap between the bracket and the wall.
The shadow carefully cut it out.
A sealed, transparent plastic evidence bag appeared before everyone. The bag was old, with slightly yellowed edges, but the seal was intact. Inside the bag, there was no ice pick, nor any murder weapon.
There was only one folded, equally yellowed strip of paper.
The plastic bag was covered with a layer of water droplets—not blood, but just ordinary moisture condensing in this damp corner. The "drip" sound from earlier was likely the sound of these droplets gathering and dripping. But it was enough to make everyone's tense nerves twitch.
Li Kai snatched the evidence bag from Shadow's hand, his hand trembling slightly. He walked to a slightly brighter spot in the living room, where everyone else gathered around, and the live stream faithfully transmitted the scene.
The comments section is going crazy:
[That scared me to death! What was that special effect? Was it camera distortion?]
[This isn't special effects, is it?! That poster's reaction is so real!]
[Ice spikes! Who put this effect on?! Is this the end of the world?]
What's in the bag? Open it and see!
This place is too eerie... I'm getting chills...
Something really has happened! I've already called the police!
Li Kai took a deep breath, tore open the already fragile seal on the evidence bag, and carefully took out the note inside.
The folded strip of paper was slowly unfolded.
There was no bloodstains, no complicated symbols, only a line of text written in blue ballpoint pen.
The handwriting is somewhat messy, but the pressure is very strong, almost tearing the back of the paper:
"What's meant to come will come!"
It's just six simple words, a comma, and an exclamation mark.
It was like a silent thunderclap, resounding in everyone's hearts and shocking tens of thousands of viewers in front of their screens through the live broadcast.
"What's coming... will all come..." Li Kai murmured repeatedly, his eyes darting around nervously. "What does this mean? Who left this? When did they leave it? Was it... my sister? Or... the murderer?"
Like a prophecy, or perhaps a curse, it precisely corresponded to the predicament of the seven of them gathering here tonight for various reasons, to Cheng Tan's recurring nightmares, to the reappearance of the murder weapon in the room, to the countless eyes outside the window and the blockade outside the door... and it also gripped everyone's hearts tightly.
"Damn it... this game is getting out of hand!" Old K seemed a bit anxious. He started it all, but now it seems he's fallen into the trap himself.
"Ice pick..." Cheng Tan, leaning against the wall, suddenly spoke in a hoarse voice.
His hallucinations had faded, but the lingering fear and the shock of those words plunged his mind into a strange state of excitement. "The first night... I dreamt of this icicle..."
He raised his head, his gaze sweeping over every face in the room, finally settling on the note in Li Kai's hand, and then looking through the note into the distant darkness.
"I checked..." Cheng Tan's voice was soft, yet exceptionally clear, echoing in the silent room, "That person... is dead!"
"Which person?" Li Kai whirled around, staring intently at Cheng Tan. "Explain yourself! Who died? What does it have to do with the ice pick? What does it have to do with your first dream?!"
Cheng Tan seemed to have made a great decision. He licked his dry, chapped lips and slowly said, "After having those nightmares, especially after seeing the newspaper... although I was scared and confused, I couldn't help but seriously investigate... using every method I could think of to search for any information that might be related to 'Building No. 7, Anping Lane,' 'Li Wan,' and 'the murder case thirteen years ago'... forums, caches of old news websites, and even some... less prominent information corners."
He paused for a moment, reorganizing his words, as if resisting the panic within him.
"Regarding the 'ice pick'... I found a nearly forgotten post in the deep archives of a very obscure, almost abandoned local forum in Jiangzhou. It was posted about eight or nine years ago. The poster claimed to be an elderly man who lived near Anpingli back then. In a casual conversation with someone in the comments section of the post, he mentioned that he remembered a man who often wandered around Anpingli about a month or two before the Li Wan case. He acted strangely, and once even got into an argument with someone in front of a hardware store, saying something like 'ice picks are the best, they're clean and efficient'... At the time, no one took it seriously and thought he was just a weirdo. The post was very messy and the information was vague."
Cheng Tan's gaze swept over everyone again, finally settling on Li Kai's face: "Following the few remaining clues from that post, combined with other scattered information, I spent a lot of effort... and finally confirmed that the man mentioned in the post who acted strangely back then and mentioned 'ice picks'... his surname is Zhao, and his name is Zhao Jianguo. He was a laid-off worker, lived alone, and had a reclusive personality. Most importantly—"
He took a deep breath and said, word by word:
"He died three weeks ago."