The farm was very large, really raising cows, sheep and horses.
Jian Jing rarely saw such a place with Western style. She took a walk in the woods that afternoon.
There, she saw a strange old man.
He was chopping firewood in the open space in front of the log cabin door.
Really chopping.
The round wood was split open by the axe and turned into uniform small blocks of firewood. Then he hugged the wood and solidly stacked it at the door as if he really planned to use it sometime.
"Hello," she greeted.
The old man had gray hair, but the muscles on his body were still very sturdy. He looked coldly at Jian Jing, "Need something?"
Jian Jing asked, "I came in the morning, the door was locked, can I go in and take a look?"
Old Man: "Nothing good to see."
Jian Jing said, "I'm quite curious about the setting of the haunted house scene and want to visit."
The old man said, "Kerry is not here."
Jian Jing: "???"
Old Man: "Remember, don't go into the woods at dusk."
Jian Jing thought he was an NPC who mistakenly took her for a guest, so she didn't take it seriously.
The old man went on chopping wood by himself.
The triggered dialogue was over? Jian Jing walked around to the back and tiptoed to look inside.
The log cabin was not big, with an 80 cm wide wooden plank bed, a table, and the walls were full of old newspapers that were deliberately made old and yellowish.
She was just taking a casual look, but an astrological chart caught her attention.
The Big Dipper.
Do foreigners also see them as a separate astrological unit? She was curious for a moment, zoomed in with the telescope, and took another careful look.
After this look, she felt interesting.
The Big Dipper is called "Big Dipper" in English, but on that piece of paper, it was written in pinyin as "beidou".
In addition, there were several old newspapers.
One news report claimed that several teenagers were brutally killed in the woods, with strange letters carved on the corpses, seemingly from some weird cult.
The date was 1992.
Mixed with several photos, they were already in color, but the pixels were not good, it didn’t look so bloody and terrifying.
There was also a copy of an autopsy report.
The content claimed that a letter was cut out with a knife in the palm of each teenager's hand, which were peesh, respectively.
sheep.
Not far away in the corner, there was a photo taken by a film camera, blurry, it looked like a sneak shot, probably the side view of a strange man.
Below it was a news clipping: A few days ago, a big fire broke out in the woods, causing great loss... Residents claimed to have seen a strange foreign man appearing in the woods, he was lurking around, seeming to be inquiring about the owl... The police believe that this Person may be related to the fire. If you find this person, you can call the police station...
She was engrossed in it when footsteps suddenly sounded behind her back.
"Kerry, dusk is coming," the old man came over at some point, urgently urging, "Go quickly, don't let him catch you."
Jian Jing explained: “I'm not a guest, they haven't filmed here yet.”
But the old man was very serious, his palms gripped her arms tightly and pulled her outside, “Go quickly!”
Jian Jing stopped and realized that he was mentally unwell: “Okay, I’m leaving now.” She turned to leave, but looked back before entering the path.
The horizon was shrouded in dark clouds, and the light in the woods suddenly dimmed.
The old man had already hurried into the log cabin.
Jian Jing returned to the farm and found Robert, the owner of the farm and the designer of the haunted house.
"Hi, can I come in and chat?" She knocked on the door, signaling the busy people inside.
Robert was less than thirty years old, a YouTube celebrity blogger good at handicrafts. At the moment, he was busy shooting a set of mini aquarium ornaments he made.
Hearing the noise, he said without looking back, “Come in, what’s up?”
"I heard the director say that all the scene setups for the haunted house were done by you," Jian Jing got straight to the point, "I'd like to ask, where was the inspiration for the log cabin scene from? "
It was only then that Robert looked up and put on his glasses, “Are you interested in that? Isn’t it very interesting?” He put down his work at hand and responded enthusiastically, “Oh, I remember your face, you also participated in that haunted house show, do you have any suggestions for me?”
Jian Jing said, "No, I just feel that the content is too real, it doesn't seem to be made up."
Robert was very happy to talk, "I'm really glad you think so. In fact, many of the scenes came from a place I went to as a child."
"Oh?" Jian Jing was very interested, "Were there log cabins and farms too?"
"Yes, I often went to the Reeds' house when I was a kid and met some interesting things there, which inspired me to design this work," Robert rubbed his nose, full of pride.
Jian Jing asked: “What interesting things? Do you mind telling me?"
Robert didn’t really appreciate her looks, but he was happy to share his work, otherwise he wouldn't upload videos on his channel. Hearing her asking sincerely, he nodded and said, "Of course, but they are just fleeting rumors, I hope you won't be disappointed."
"Compared to perfect fictional stories, real and fake rumors are more interesting," she said.
Robert nodded with a smile and chatted with her about the creative inspiration for the haunted house.
As he said, it all came from his childhood.
Old Reed - his grandfather - used to live in a place called Twilight Town at the border between Washington State and Canada. There was lush forest growing there, so strange and scary stories were often spread.
When Robert was a kid, he had lived at Reed’s house for a period of time. What left the deepest impression on him was not learning to repair cars with his grandfather or meeting his first crush. Instead, whenever he got close to the woods, adults would tell him - "Don't go into the woods after dusk."
But damn kids, the more you tell them not to do something, the more they wanna do it.
At night, he pretended to sleep, turned off the lights and secretly climbed out of the window to explore the woods with newly made buddies.
As expected, they got lost.
Worse still, fine rain drifted in the sky.
The local buddy said he knew of a hunter's log cabin where they could take shelter first.
This was the prototype of the log cabin on the farm. There was prepared rations and quilts. Several kids lit a campfire, wrapped themselves in blankets and got warm.
Just as they complained to each other about taking the wrong path and didn’t know what to do, strange cries came from the woods.
Vaguely, it sounded like people talking.
"Damn, why hasn't Laura come yet?"
"Ben, are you sure..."
"Where did Roger go?"
There were probably three people. Judging by their voices, they should be teenagers. They seemed to be arguing about something.
The kids in the house looked at each other and peeked out.
The night was dark, the wind was strong, and the rain was heavy. They saw nothing.
More than half an hour later, the rain subsided a lot. Several children discussed whether to go back.
The child who brought them here said it would be very tricky if they got lost again, and the forest at night was dangerous. It would be best to wait until daylight before going back.
But another child disagreed: “Listen, if tomorrow morning, my mom doesn't see me in bed, I’m dead.”
Slaps still hurt for 10-year-old kids.
The three buddies quarreled, and the guide firmly refused to go out. The one who wanted to go home was pissed and said he knew the way himself and would rather walk alone, but he would never recognize the gang from now on.
Robert used to live in the city and didn’t realize the cruelty in rural areas. He thought there was no point in staying there waiting overnight since they came here to venture anyway.
So he said he was willing to go back with his buddy.
The two set off with flashlights.
Rustle, rustle, something was following them in the bushes.
The buddy was scared with trembling voice. He asked, “Do you know someone died here before?"
Of course Robert didn’t know.
The buddy then said, "My good friend Bach's sister Laura and her friends, they...died in the woods, five people in total, all dead, the killer still hasn't been caught till now."
"Lau...Laura?" Robert stumbled over his words, "The person just now said...”
The two panicked and quickened their pace.
Getting messy leads to accidents. Robert didn’t know whether he stepped on the root system of a plant or stumbled over his own feet. He accidentally fell flat on his face.
At that moment, deep in the forest, he saw a shadow.
It wasn't a person, it was a sheep.
He was shocked and scrambled to get up, dragging his companion to run outside.
Branches whipped his cheeks, cold raindrops fell on the back of his neck, the ever-present murmurings followed him...he didn't remember how long he ran, he only knew that when he finally stopped, he was back at the little wooden house.
The other companion was gone.
Not only was he gone, the blankets and rations they had seen earlier were also nowhere to be found, as if they had never existed at all.
The two boys looked at each other, not daring to go back out again.
This cowardice lasted until the next morning, when Reed and the other parents called their names while looking everywhere for traces of them.
Robert ran out of the little wooden house: "Reed!"
What followed next was the welcome scene of beating the children.
He told Reed that the other companion had disappeared. But Reed said that he hadn't gone out at all last night, and was getting ready to go to school that morning when he went to his house.
Robert knew that he had returned home himself, and was only pretending that he hadn't gone out at night, but he didn't poke holes in his story. In his heart he cursed the traitor, and refused to play with him ever again.
As for the companion who had lived and died with him, of course his mother had grabbed him by the ears to take him home, punishing him by not allowing him to go outside.
The two children didn't dare defy her to her face, but after a few days, they forgot the lesson and began to discuss what had happened that night.
They looked up information, and the five teenagers who died were named Roger, Teresa, Ben, Laura, and Qiao Zhi.
Three of the names matched what they had heard that night.
They wanted to know why there were also a Laura, a Ben and a Roger who had appeared there, so they began their own investigation.
The result was that there were already two students named Laura in the town middle school, one named Roger, and a visiting cousin of one of the students happened to be visiting relatives in town, also named Roger.
In short, just a coincidence.
Robert was very disappointed, but also relieved. When summer ended he returned to his parents.
Many years passed and he gradually forgot about the incident. Three years ago, when Reed was in poor health, his whole family went to Twilight Town to visit. Chatting with his grandfather, he happened to mention this.
Robert joked that it was his only adventure experience.
But Reed said, "No, you have no idea what you encountered."
Robert shrugged and admitted he knew nothing about camping, and said that with his outdoor experience now, he could spend a month in the woods no problem.
Reed said, "Do not go back to those woods again, I have warned you it is a cursed forest."
Having grown up with a materialist education, Robert didn't believe in curses at all.
So Reed didn't say anything more.
Later, Reed's illness was diagnosed as Alzheimer's disease, commonly known as senile dementia. Reed's parents decided to take him home to care for him.
While packing things up, Robert found a diary in Reed's closet.
There were clippings, photocopies, photos, scraps of paper, and that's where it had all come from.
Robert rekindled his interest and reinvestigated the 1992 case, confirming that the perpetrator was still at large.
He was an atheist and didn't believe in the diary's talk of "evil spirits" "possession" and "curses", but found it very interesting. Using it as a blueprint, he replicated some Twilight Town scenes to make the haunted house they have now.
