My name is Liang Fan, I am 22 years old and a senior student at Southwest China University, majoring in history.
Since graduation was approaching and I needed to rush to write my thesis, I rented a studio apartment off campus.
It's not that I don't want to live in the school dormitory, it's just that the school dormitory is too noisy, and I need quiet, the ultimate quiet, so that I can have the inspiration to write a paper.
But I didn't expect that this choice would be the beginning of terror.
The studio apartment I rented is very close to the school, which makes it convenient for me to travel inside and outside the school. After all, writing a paper requires reading a lot of books, and I don't want to live too far from the school library.
Today I got up very early as usual, around six o'clock in the morning.
I washed up briefly first, then wrapped up my coat and walked to school. After having breakfast in the school cafeteria, I took a dip in the school library.
It was around 12 o'clock in the afternoon when I walked out of the library. Compared with when I came in empty-handed, I had one more book in my hand.
This book is very thick and shabby. The cover illustration shows a snake man with a human body and a snake tail. The snake man illustration has three large blood-red characters "Snake Man Record" engraved on it.
I looked at the three words "Snake Man Lu" with some doubts in my heart. I always felt that these three words were not printed, but made of countless layers of blood.
At first glance, it looks very scary, as if something evil is trapped inside.
However, the sound of my stomach growling interrupted my doubts. I looked at my phone and found that it was already past 12 noon and it was time for lunch.
"Just eat in the school cafeteria, the food outside is expensive and unclean." I took the book and walked to the cafeteria.
I'm not a picky eater, so after eating whatever I wanted, I was ready to go back to my off-campus apartment and continue working on my thesis.
In this way, I was walking along the school road towards the apartment while thinking about my thesis.
As I thought deeply, my face became gloomy and uncertain. Alas, who asked me to choose a paper about snake people in the first place? It was simply a mistake in my brain. If I had chosen those popular historical papers, I should have finished writing them by now.
Isn’t it good to write about the Qin and Han dynasties? Isn’t it good to write about the prosperous Tang and Ming Dynasties? Why choose a paper about snake people?
"It's already the end of February, and my supervisor requires me to hand in my thesis before April. What should I do? If I can't finish my thesis about snake people, I might not be able to graduate successfully. If I had known this, I should have changed the thesis topic half a year ago.
, now I can only pray that this book of snake people will be useful, alas."
The more I thought about it, the more impatient I became, and soon I came to a tall building.
This tall building is circular in shape from left to right. On the balcony of the ninth floor, there is a sculpture of a snake with red threads hanging out, which is really strange.
This building is called Snake Tower, and the single room I live in is on the fifth floor above.
Although the name of this building is very weird, the reason why I rented here in the first place was because of its weird name.
After all, I am writing a paper about snake people. Living in a place like this may inspire inspiration.
Although this high-rise building is very close to the school, it is very remote. To find it, you need to go through many narrow alleys.
If you are not an acquaintance nearby, you may not know that there is a tall building here.
Looking at the condescending snake statue on the roof, I still feel a little scared, as if this snake statue will come back to life late at night and open its mouth to devour me.
But soon, I gave up this idea. This is just an ordinary statue. What's so strange about it?
To say it is strange, the person who built the Snake Tower should be surprised. How could he build such a snake-shaped statue?
Feeling a little strange, I walked towards the main door of Snake Tower.
The Snake Tower is nine floors high, but there is no elevator, so I could only climb the stairs sleepily.
I don’t know if it was an illusion, but the moment I stepped through the door, the building seemed to come alive.
I couldn't help but take a look at the book "Snake Man", and I felt that the words "Snake Man" on the cover seemed to light up.
But when I looked closer, those bright lights had long disappeared, as if they had never appeared.
"It must be an illusion, right?" I muttered and climbed from the first floor to the second floor.
Just as I climbed up to the second floor, there were several bang bang bang sounds.
As soon as the sound fell, the doors to all the rooms on the second floor opened in unison.
Then, a head popped out of the room.
I looked at these heads, and they stared at me with wide eyes, which made me shiver.
While shivering, I mustered up the courage to look intently. It turned out that the owners of these heads were all living people.
These real people are, of course, the tenants on the second floor.
These tenants all glanced at me, but when they saw it was me, they withdrew their stern gazes and closed the door without saying a word.
"Today is not April Fool's Day, why are these tenants playing pranks?" I was scared in my heart and breathed heavily in my throat.
After calming down a little, I continued climbing upstairs.
As a result, every time I passed a floor, the tenants on the corresponding floor would open their doors and stare at me, as if I were a park animal that everyone could watch as they pleased.
When I climbed to the fifth floor where I lived, I was already covered in cold sweat and my face was full of panic.
"I've lived here for so long and I've never seen so many tenants open their doors. It's really weird today.
, it’s like the whole building has come alive.” The feeling I had just entered the door rekindled in my heart, and I always felt like I was missing something.
"Forget it, the paper is important." Pushing open the door of room 504 in front of me, I returned to the single room where I lived.
I heard someone said that someone had died in Room 504 where I lived. A woman committed suicide in this room. Her body was discovered three months later. When it was discovered, the body was half decomposed.
Others may be scared to live in such a room, but I am an atheist and do not believe in the existence of ghosts and gods at all.
Since you don't believe in the existence of ghosts and gods, there is no need to be afraid.
This single room is not big, with a bed taking up most of the space. There is a desk next to the bed, and some daily necessities are scattered on the desk, as well as an open laptop.
The bathroom was in another side room. After placing the books on the table, I went into the bathroom and took a hot bath.
After taking a hot bath, I became full of energy. The panic caused by climbing the stairs just now has been washed away by the hot water.
"Start working on your thesis now." I encouraged myself secretly, and then sat in front of the computer.
A file is open on the bright computer screen, and a paragraph is written on the file.
The emergence, sacrifice and death of snake people.
This passage is exactly the title of the paper I wrote.
The title below is densely packed with words. After these days of hard work, I have written the part about the appearance of the snake man.
However, I have been unable to write about the two parts of snake-man sacrifice and death. Either I am not satisfied with it, or I cannot prove my point of view.
"The snake man first appeared in the ancient period when Nuwa appeared in the world. At this time, the snake man was the totem of the nation and even the mythical hero of the nation. However, later on, the image of the snake man gradually became extreme, and people would hide when they saw him.
According to legend, they are the product of evil. Which view should I believe? Or which view should I want my mentor to believe?"
"It is necessary to write about the snake people's sacrifices. By studying their sacrifices, we can gain an in-depth understanding of their living habits. However, the information I found on the Internet is quite lacking, and there is no introduction to the snake people's sacrifices at all."
"It is also unknown how the snake people died."
I suddenly remembered the book I brought back from the library.
"I hope I can gain something from it." I sighed secretly and directly opened the book "Snake Man".
If choosing this snake house was the beginning of my fear, then choosing to open this book was the source of my fear.
Just when I opened this book, everything changed.
If I had a choice, I would not live in this snake building, let alone open this book.