SES Chapter 105 Part 2

The buzz-cut sneered, “Grow a pair, chicken…”

The boy defended himself desperately: “I’m serious! I also heard…”

He shivered before finishing: “They say a woman’s trapped inside that cement platform. On nights with no moon, she wears red high heels…”

The buzz-cut shoved him hard, making him stumble. “Get lost! If you don’t have the guts, quit tagging along with us all the time.”

…

Mu Dai figured there must be a generation gap between her and Zheng Li.

She was exhausted and only wanted to sleep, but Zheng Li was still full of energy and wanted to head to the internet café.

When Mu Dai asked why, Zheng Li blushed and stammered, “I… I promised someone I’d chat with them…”

Her face flushed red—clearly some boy her age. Since the internet café was just downstairs next door, Mu Dai wasn’t worried about her safety. “Go ahead, but don’t stay out too late.”

Zheng Li chirped happily in reply, like a bird flying free from its cage.

Without her, the room felt strangely quiet. The old wall clock chimed on the hour, oblivious to the fact it was disturbing anyone’s sleep.

By the third chime, Zheng Li returned.

She crept in carefully, as if afraid of waking Mu Dai, yet lingered at the bedside as though she had something to say. In a whisper, she asked, “Mumu-jie, are you awake?”

No response. Zheng Li figured she was asleep.

Just as she turned to leave, Mu Dai’s voice came from behind: “What is it?”

Zheng Li nearly tripped in fright.

Turning back, she saw Mu Dai already propped up on her elbow.

“Did I wake you?” Zheng Li asked cautiously.

“I couldn’t sleep anyway. What is it?”

“I went online and looked something up for you. Weren’t you asking about a woman in red high heels? I searched it for you.”

Mu Dai didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This wasn’t exactly the right approach.

Sure enough, Zheng Li said she had found a ghost story about a woman in red heels.

Red heels, embroidered shoes—it was a worn-out cliché in horror stories. Mu Dai didn’t even feel like listening.

She lay back down and ordered, “Sleep.”

Zheng Li had no choice but to wash up quickly and crawl into bed.

The clock ticked loudly. Closing her eyes, all she could think of was the story she’d just read online.

At first, she had gone to chat. But after the guy calling himself “Wind Rider” sent a selfie, she completely lost interest.

There was truth to the saying: if you’re ugly, don’t go around scaring people.

But with two hours prepaid, what else could she do?

Suddenly, she remembered: wasn’t Mumu-jie looking for someone?

So she pulled up the search engine and typed: “Nantian, red high heels.”

Unexpectedly, dozens of results popped up, all with the same headline—clearly the same story reposted over and over.

Like most girls her age, Zheng Li felt both scared and curious.

Curiosity won out. After hovering over the mouse for a while, she finally clicked.

The story described a sculpture built nearly twenty years ago in Nantian County.

At the time, city planners intended it to connect three newly built roads, a symbol of progress and prosperity. So they built a rearing horse statue atop a massive cement pedestal.

But plans changed. The city shifted its center southward, rerouting the main roads to connect to the provincial highway. The area around the sculpture was abandoned, decaying into a shabby urban-rural fringe. Just as Mu Dai had seen—rice growing on ridges, big white geese wandering freely.

In the imagination, it was a bleak, eerie scene: a rundown suburban wasteland, sparsely populated, with a grand, out-of-place statue looming over it.

With no one to maintain it, the place became a hangout for punks and drifters. Fights broke out, romances flared, and the cement pedestal was covered in layers of graffiti—mostly curses, abstract drawings, anything incomprehensible.

At some point, maybe during one of those fights, the horse’s head was smashed halfway off.

And then the creepy story spread.

They said that late at night, if you went alone to the pedestal and pressed your ear against the cement, you could hear a heartbeat—like someone was trapped inside.

And if you listened long enough, you’d suddenly feel a cold wind at the back of your neck. Spinning around, you’d see nothing. But if you looked down, there would be a pair of red high heels…

The thought made Zheng Li’s scalp prickle.

Many replies described how this had bizarrely become one of the few forms of entertainment in culture-starved Nantian. People used it to gamble or test their courage, deliberately visiting on moonless nights and leaving graffiti as proof of their bravery.

At the height of the rumor, the original construction crew even came out to refute it. The foreman swore, “Bullshit! We never even used heavy machinery. The pedestal was poured by hand, one shovel at a time. If there had been a person inside, we’d have known!”

But rumors always spread faster than facts. Maybe people secretly wanted the thrill. Whether true or not became secondary.

Half-asleep, Luo Ren was jolted awake by a call from the Mystic.

At this hour, it definitely wasn’t for small talk. Sitting up in the dark, Luo Ren asked, “You at Hangu Pass already?”

“Not yet,” the Mystic said.

There was a rare excitement in his voice.

Luo Ren picked up on it. “What’s going on?”

The Mystic said, “I may not have involved myself much in your business with the deadly slips, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I’ve always believed those slips are a subject worth serious study…”

Luo Ren gave a wry smile. Only the Mystic would ever describe something like this as a ‘research topic.’

“After the second deadly slip turned up, I asked Wan Wan to keep an eye on some things. I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t mention it to you. I just hoped that from another angle, maybe we’d discover something…”

Wan Wan, of course, meant Wan Fenghuo.

He respected the Mystic enough to share information without charging. The Mystic was probably the only one who could ask him for news without paying—because he had once declared firmly: “No money, but you can take my life.”

Luo Ren tensed. He reached toward the bedside lamp, then pulled his hand back. Somehow, the darkness felt safer.

“What is it you were looking for?” he asked.

“Those pictures—the fishing line dolls, the huge painting under the sea at Hepu… I wanted to know if they had ever appeared elsewhere, in any other form.”

“Did they?”

The Mystic paused. In that silence, Luo Ren could hear his own heavy breathing.

Then the Mystic said, “Yes.”