Invade the World

  Xu Xiangyang embraced Li Qinglian's shoulders, hugged her sister who was trembling with fear, and at the same time stretched out her hand, placing it on the red wooden door with most of the paint peeled off. At this moment, he heard a "click".

   Very slight, but very real.

   Undoubtedly, it was the echo of the door being opened.

   Without a key, his psychic ability is the most powerful key: Xu Xiangyang has always had an unfounded confidence that he can open the doors of all haunted houses in the world.

  But when he opened his eyes, what he saw at that moment was not the scene inside the haunted house—

   Instead, there is an infinite world as dark and vast as the universe.

  In the center of the dim and dark "universe", there are countless floating "doors" of different sizes and shapes.

Iron gates, copper gates, wooden gates, anti-theft gates, corroded iron gates, heavy gates covered with copper nails... some belong to ancient castles that have been abandoned for a long time, some belong to Chinese-style courtyard houses that have experienced wind and rain, and some belong to high-rise apartment buildings —

  Xu Xiangyang froze for a moment.

  He knew very well that this was not the first time he had seen this scene.

"Compared to the last time, the number of 'doors' has increased significantly, and it is completely uncountable... It is no wonder that the past ten years have been a stage in which the friction between the two worlds has deepened. No matter the number of psychic groups or haunted houses Explosive growth has been ushered in.”

  Xu Xiangyang raised his head.

   Floating behind every door in the dark world is like a gateway to another world. Today, every door is tightly shut.

  The doors of all the haunted houses that exist in this world—he can now move behind any door if he wants.

  Xu Xiangyang's gaze moved downward again.

   Only this "underneath" is a place he has never seen since he came here in the past.

  The newly-appeared space, like a black hole just born in the cosmic space, faintly transmits a huge attraction like a whirlpool. Xu Xiangyang feels that as long as he leans in that direction, he will be sucked involuntarily.

  —However, there is a door that rotates in the center of the black hole.

  The door opened automatically without any wind, revealing a pitch blackness that could not be reached.

  Xu Xiangyang finally came to a realization.

  It turned out that his belief all along came from behind that door; even the source of his psychic ability, which is different from ordinary people, was born in that place.

  All the secrets are hidden in his lost childhood memories.

  Xu Xiangyang hesitated for a moment, then glanced at the trembling woman in her arms.

  My sister didn't raise her head, but she seemed to be aware of his gaze, her arms subconsciously exerted force, and there was a decisive force on her fingers.

"…I see."

  Xu Xiangyang replied in a low voice, and patted his sister's arm lightly with his hand as a comfort.

   This is not something that he is the only one facing; this past has never belonged to him alone.

  He took a deep breath and reached out towards the door deep in the vortex below.

  In an instant, the door was sucked in front of him; or in other words, he was lightly thrown in front of the door—

  *

  It wasn't until after the scorching noon that the sun hanging over Baiyue Village receded a little, but it was still too generous.

  The electric fan is blowing "hula-la", and the warm atmosphere cannot be blown away. Even if you don't do anything, just sit on a chair and rest, you will become sweaty after a while, and the strength of the activity will flow away with sweat.

   It was a depressing afternoon. If it wasn’t for the human pride that was causing trouble, most people would yearn for the days when they would roll and rest on the cold concrete floor like a puppy.

   Li Qinglian, who was very idle and bored, found Xu Xiangyang, who was reading seriously in another bedroom.

   "Would you like to play hide and seek today?"

  Li Qinglian stroked her ponytail, bent down and asked with a smile.

   "No, I'm not a kid anymore."

  The boy frowned and refused like a little adult.

   "Okay, okay, just play with your sister, okay? We're rock-paper-scissors."

  Li Qinglian, who won the fist punch victory, walked out of the living room door slowly, stood in the courtyard and breathed the fresh air coming towards her. The bright sun made her body hot, so she hurried to the shade of the tree.

  There are two tall and lush orange trees planted in this house. Every summer, the whole family often pulls up the deck chairs to enjoy the shade under the trees, including the courtyard covered by lush branches and leaves, which has a rare coolness in midsummer.

  Hearing the boy behind him counting seriously, she walked to a corner of the courtyard, where there was a small two-story building next to the main building. There is no one floor in the building, only the concrete stairs in the middle. Going up to the second floor is Xu Xiangyang's father's study and the side room where the guests live, and going down is the underground storage room.

  …

  Of course, Li Qinglian was quickly caught, and the siblings fought for a while.

   But at this moment, she saw the red door for the first time.

  She was a little surprised, it wasn't the first day she lived in Xu Xiangyang's house, and she had already looked around every corner. When did this door appear? She subconsciously reached out to open it, only to be grabbed by the wrist by the boy beside her.

  She turned her head to look, and found Xiao Xiangyang's expression was a bit embarrassed.

   "Isn't it good to do this?" He said worriedly, "I don't know what is in it, maybe I will be scolded by my father..."

   "Don't worry, I will take responsibility if something goes wrong."

  Li Qinglian replied, and then she opened the door.

   "Hey, behind the door is..."

  There is nothing behind the door.

   Nothing happened.

  Behind the door, there are only bare walls.

   It was Xu Xiangyang who suddenly yelled "Ah!", which startled her.

   "I suddenly remembered, I have an appointment to play with someone!" The boy said loudly.

   "Oh, are you not going to accompany my sister? Just leave her alone?" Li Qinglian patted his head with a smile.

   "Anyway, you don't want to play with me sincerely..." The boy shook his head and shook her hand a little uncomfortably, "You have always treated me like a child..."

   "Your parents entrusted me to take care of you, I have to ask."

  Li Qinglian asked half seriously, half jokingly.

   "Who is that child? Which family? Did you know him in the village?"

   "I don't know." Xu Xiangyang said, "I asked yesterday, but she refused to tell me."

   "Really, this is really a bit strange..."

   There are a few children in every family, with whom do they learn to keep secrets?

  While Li Qinglian was thinking about this question, Xu Xiangyang had already run away on his own.

   "Hey, this kid... Maybe he met a little girl he likes."

  Li Qinglian watched the boy's back go away and disappear in the grand light of summer, and suddenly felt that she should call him to stop.

   This kind of thinking was really inexplicable, so she didn't say a word until the end.

  …

   A few weeks later, Li Qinglian came to Xu Xiangyang's house again.

  She came without warning this time. I am used to visiting as guests, and the two families communicate frequently, so no one thinks this is a problem.

   But things seem a little different today.

  Li Qinglian did not meet Xu Xiangyang's parents. She wanted to say hello, but she turned around the house and found no one.

  Everywhere was empty, and this emptiness made her even more flustered.

  Since leaving here last time, Li Qinglian has always had this feeling in her heart, but she can't figure out where this uneasiness comes from.

   Just yesterday, she received a call from Xu Jiaming. As the head of the family, there was an uncontrollable panic in the man's voice at that time:

   "Qing...Qinglian, can I ask you something?"

"what?"

   "Please, take care of our children."

  The man's voice was deep and hoarse. Li Qinglian was still a student at the moment, but her keen sensibility was born with her, and she quickly read the disturbing smell from the other person's tone.

  She raised an eyebrow in surprise, leaning against the wardrobe behind her, subconsciously grasping the microphone with her fingers.

   "Xiangyang? Of course there's no problem. But what's the matter, you and your cousin are both busy? Are you going on a business trip together?"

   "Um... yeah, work stuff. And..."

"and also?"

   "Our house has been a little... a bit noisy recently. It seems that we have seen something unclean. Be careful when you come, and take Xiangyang away."

   Xu Jiaming's ambiguous words made her feel hard to let go.

  After Li Qinglian put down the phone, she fidgeted at home for several hours, and finally decided to leave.

  Although Xu Jiaming asked her to come back tomorrow to pick up Xu Xiangyang, she really couldn't wait any longer. After being restless and wandering around, what she wanted to do more was to meet the family as soon as possible, so that she could feel at ease.

   When they arrived at Xu Xiangyang's house, Li Qinglian found that there was no one there. She calmed down and thought for a while, thinking that the couple should have gone shopping, and Xiao Xiangyang... probably entrusted it to the neighbors nearby.

   "What Uncle Xu said on the phone is true?"

   She grabbed her braids and began to consider the truth of those words.

   "It's not clean, that means it's going to be haunted? Uncle Xu, does it mean that he still needs to invite someone to exorcise the evil spirits? Is it a bit too sudden?"

  I won’t mention Li Qinglian herself. She was born in the new era and a police academy graduate. She never believed in ghosts.

  But Uncle Xu and his wife are not ordinary country folks, they are intellectuals themselves, so why do they suddenly talk about things that are gods and gods?

   While Li Qinglian was thinking, she suddenly saw that door—

  Following the entrance to the basement, one can vaguely see a dim red in the dark space.

   She froze.

  As if being seized by some irresistible magic power, Li Qinglian walked in that direction involuntarily...

  Finally, she came to that door again.

  And the scene behind the door—

   "—!"

  Li Qinglian was speechless.

   Behind the door is no longer a wall, but a... huge hole.

  The hole is so deep that you can't see the bottom, exuding a chill. It is as if a big hole has been pulled out of the mountain, as if you can imagine the winding path inside, the stalactites hanging upside down are densely grown in the grotto, the cold water forms a pool, and the area inside the cave is like a labyrinth huge-

  But, but...it's just a basement! The whole house can't be this big!

  How is it possible, how is it possible...

  Li Qinglian staggered and took two steps back, a chill shot down her spine.

   She turned her head hastily, afraid to go into the hole again, let alone go deeper into it.

  The scene so weird that it completely subverted her world view, and the words that were circling in her mind just now were entangled with each other. The more Li Qinglian thought about it, the colder she felt all over her body.

   "How could...I, could it be that..."

   I did it?

   Is it because I opened this mahogany door that day?

…no, I can not.

  Besides, Uncle Xu’s family is still safe...

  Surprise, astonishment, mixed with great doubt.

  But Li Qinglian soon had a new idea.

   "I have to find Xiaoyang! His safety must be confirmed."

  Uncle Xu and those two are adults, so they know what they are doing, but if Xiaoyang is not by their side...the situation may be dangerous!

  Li Qinglian immediately walked out of the house and began to look for the boy in the village, but after asking around, she found that he never went to the neighbors' houses at all.

   She searched anxiously for dozens of minutes. When the sky gradually darkened, she found out from a passerby that a boy had gone to the bamboo forest in the back mountain.

   "Houshan?"

   There is no one living in the back mountain! And Xiaoyang doesn't seem like a child who would be so naughty as to go to that kind of place...

  In any case, Li Qinglian, who got the clue, finally found a series of children's footprints on the path leading to the mountain. Following the footprints, she finally found Xu Xiangyang who was playing and frolicking with her companions.

  But at this moment, Li Qinglian's spirit suffered a bigger shock; she could hardly believe her eyes:

   "Xiaoyang, who is he playing with... no, what is he playing with?!"

  The boy is running in the dimly lit forest with an innocent smile; the shadow of the bamboo is rustling, and another short and thin figure follows behind him, just like a playmate of his age, but as soon as he runs to a place with light, he will find...

   That figure has no shape at all! The back view is just the "back view" itself, it is completely black, just like the shadow on the ground has a solid body and thickness, and only then does it have a human form.

what is that?

  Ghost? ghost?

  Xiaoyang, didn't he notice this abnormality at all? How could he play with such a monster without any qualms?

  Li Qinglian almost shouted at the first moment, but the little figure "glanced" at her—yes, she could not see the face and facial features, but she instinctively felt a gaze, in which there was no human emotion at all.

  Li Qinglian was so stiff that she didn't dare to say a word. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, even Xiao Yang would be threatened with her life.

  So, like this, she quietly followed behind the pair of playmates, and went home together...

  When Xiaoyang ran into the house, the shadow man stopped in front of the door for some reason and did not enter.

  Li Qinglian finally saw the opportunity, she mustered up her courage, strode out from the hiding place, and ran towards the shadow man.

   "You, what the **** are you! Why are you entangled with Xiaoyang?!"

  She yelled at the thing, but received no response. Li Qinglian had no choice but to get closer.

After closing the distance, Li Qinglian could see the other party's current appearance more clearly: men and women could not be distinguished from the body shape, and the whole body was covered with pitch-black shadows, like a scribbled human figure composed of random circles drawn with a water pen, or like the real world being destroyed. Hit a hole...

   Sure enough, it was an unimaginable, outright monster.

  While she was trembling with fear, the figure spoke on its own:

  The voice of the other party sounds like a young girl, but the noisy background noise like disturbed electromagnetic waves, such as the sound of the tide, drowns out any human characteristics.

  [This is all my fault, I shouldn't be connected with humans. ]

  [However, if I hadn’t been in contact with Xu Xiangyang, I wouldn’t be able to quickly grow to the level of human intelligence when I was just beginning to be conscious, and I wouldn’t be able to communicate with you like this. ]

  [Don't worry, I won't appear in front of him again. But for him, the problem now is not this...]

  The small black figure slowly turned around. Judging from its posture, it seems to be looking up at the sky—

  Grey, unable to see the sky of tomorrow.

[My 'body' is going to disappear, just like the sun in this material universe, one day it will also go out...it is called 'Tai Sui', it is the sun in the distant realm... Once the 'Tai Sui Star' disappears, two worlds Only black holes are left in between, and contact will be more frequent and more dangerous in the future...]

  […The time has come. ]

  The noisy humming that filled Li Qinglian's ears disappeared as if a certain pause button had been pressed.

   Voices from the real world were pouring in from all directions, and they had never seemed so real to her.

  Included... There is a small crackling sound like wood wool being peeled off one by one.

  The fierce light that came oncoming illuminated the young and clean face of the woman, making her look red and gorgeous.

  The house in front of her began to burn at some point.

  The raging fire spread and expanded at a magical speed beyond reality, quickly turning the entire house into a huge torch.

  Li Qinglian woke up like a dream, she hurried away, started calling for help, and went to the nearby canteen to call the police. For a while, the whole village became lively, and all the villagers saw the fire that shot straight into the sky.

  Li Qinglian was running around the village, her hair was disheveled, and she looked embarrassed. She yelled at a place where there was no one in a tone that others could not understand:

   "You... you monster! If you are so powerful, what are you doing!"

   She almost cried.

  [I can’t do anything... The side of this house just stayed in the far side, and I just came back now... And I, I’m just, a small part of the shadow left in the world... I can’t even dissuade him from going home...]

   That strange figure is gone, but its voice is still lingering in her ears, gradually becoming blurred and fragile, and may be blown away by the wind at any time.

  At the last moment, the other party said:

  —"Please, sister, save him."

  …

   Even though so many years have passed in a flash, when Li Qinglian recalls this moment, she can still firmly believe that what she heard at that moment belonged to human beings, the sobs of a little girl.