Beyond the elevator doors was a foggy expanse, devoid of sky or earth, shrouded in a chaotic haze, like the ruins of a city smothered in a massive smog. You might ask, if everything was obscured, how could he be sure it was a city's ruins? According to Brother Peng, when he stepped out of the elevator and gazed into this space, he felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow and desolation. Reflecting later, this feeling was inexplicable, almost indescribable, as if he had wandered into a human city ravaged by a catastrophic disaster, filled with grief, desolation, and misery. A cold wind stirred the thick fog, revealing the loneliness and bleakness of a civilization in ruins.
The sensation was profoundly oppressive, suffocating. Though the space was cloaked in dense fog, it felt like a colossal, silent beast, standing motionless, as if ready to devour heaven and earth.
Brother Peng's hair stood on end, not out of fear, but from an overwhelming sense of his own insignificance, like an ant facing the vastness of nature.
He was as if trapped in a nightmare, wanting to move but too paralyzed to take a step, trembling where he stood.
At this moment, Li Damin, ever sharp and quick to catch subtle details, noticed something odd. He asked, "Brother Peng, you said you boarded the elevator involuntarily, as if you had no control over your thoughts. So why, when you saw this scene, did you suddenly hesitate to move? Does that mean you regained some conscious awareness?"
Brother Peng looked at him, bewildered. "Honestly, I don't know," he said, pausing to ponder the question. Then he said something that left both Li Damin and me stunned.
"My consciousness felt like it was given to me by something," he said.
In other words, this mysterious force (for lack of a better term) not only created the scenes he experienced but also granted him consciousness and emotions at specific moments.
Diving deeper into this would lead us into metaphysical territory, so we didn't press further. We simply noted it and urged Brother Peng to continue.
He moved forward through the fog and came upon a cave, the only path ahead. The alternative was to turn back, but he said he had no thought of retreating, only trudging forward in a daze.
The cave was pitch-black, an abyss so deep it seemed bottomless. The darkness was absolute, without a trace of light. It was the kind of darkness that seemed to possess a powerful pull, capable of sucking a person in, tearing them apart, and dissolving them into endless nothingness.
At this point, Brother Peng took a deep breath, his face contorted with a pained expression. His breathing grew rapid, and he clutched his chest. This alarmed Li Damin and me—we feared he might be having another heart attack, and we'd be in serious trouble if something happened.
"Brother Peng, are you okay?" we asked, reaching out to him.
He waved us off, slumping into his chair, his face pale, teeth chattering, his eyes filled with a bewildered terror impossible to describe.
The atmosphere grew heavy and oppressive. Li Damin and I were genuinely frightened.
After a long pause, Brother Peng finally spoke. "You can't imagine what that darkness was like. I doubt anything in this world could compare. It was pure, unadulterated darkness, without a single speck of light. But that wasn't the most terrifying part."
I tried to picture that darkness in my mind, cleared my throat, and asked, "What was the most terrifying part?"
"When I stood at the cave's entrance, staring into that dark abyss, guess what I saw?"
Li Damin and I exchanged a glance and shook our heads.
"I saw myself," Brother Peng said, enunciating each word.
You can't imagine how I felt when he said that. It was like an electric current shot through my body, a tidal wave of indescribable fear washing over me.
"You saw yourself?" Li Damin asked, incredulous.
"I saw another me, standing on the other side of the abyss, staring back at me."
The room fell silent. We listened intently.
"That abyss was like a mirror. I'm sorry, I can't describe the feeling. Staring into the darkness was like looking into my own heart. The most terrifying thing was, although I saw myself, I didn't recognize him. It was like looking at a cold, distant stranger."
"And then?" we asked.
"Then I entered the cave," Brother Peng said.
He ventured into the dark abyss, groping his way forward. After an unknown amount of time, a light appeared. For someone long immersed in darkness, bright light would typically be blinding, but Brother Peng said this light was soft and gentle, not hurting his eyes at all. Logically, emerging from darkness into light should be exhilarating, but instead, a wave of sorrow surged in his heart.
When he exited the cave, he found himself in a desolate cityscape. The scene was one of ruin: an empty residential area, collapsed buildings, some skyscrapers with entire sides sheared off, their steel frames and wire meshes jutting out as if cleaved by a divine axe. The ground was pitted and uneven, as if the area had endured a devastating war.
Brother Peng said he wandered aimlessly, not encountering a single soul, his heart filled with indescribable helplessness and panic.
The sky grew darker, and a yellowish fog began to rise, resembling a sandstorm. It slowly enveloped everything, reducing visibility to just a few meters. He trudged through this fog, unsure of where he was headed.
The eerie setting wasn't the source of his fear. What truly terrified him was the sense that something indefinable lurked within the fog and the vast ruins of the city. To use an imperfect analogy, the city felt dead, lifeless, and those hidden things were like phosphorescent flames dancing on a corpse.
Brother Peng constantly felt someone watching him from within the thick fog, a sensation that raised goosebumps on his back.
Suddenly, from somewhere both near and far, he heard the lively sound of gongs and drums. The rhythm was fast but orderly, almost comforting in its cadence.
He looked up and saw, faintly through the dense fog, two red lanterns glowing in midair.
Brother Peng was thrilled—finally, signs of life! In such a sinister, eerie place, finding a crowd was exhilarating. He quickened his pace toward the lanterns. The fog grew thicker, obscuring everything, leaving the lanterns as his only guide.
He didn't know how long he walked, but the sounds of gongs and drums grew louder, the drumming almost piercing. Amid the noise, he could hear the clamor of a large crowd, lively and chaotic.
He hurried forward, but the fog seemed endless, swirling past him. Then, a voice spoke: "Stop walking. If you go any further, you'll be truly dead."
The voice was soft, but to Brother Peng, it rang like a temple bell, a flash of clarity in his mind. Memories flooded back like scenes from a movie—his heart attack, being rushed to the hospital, dying on the operating table—each moment vivid and clear.
At that moment, he realized he was dead.
The realization brought a despair and fear so intense it was like ten thousand ants gnawing at his heart and body. He felt utterly broken.
He turned and saw, emerging from the fog, an ancient alleyway with high red walls overgrown with weeds. At the alley's entrance crouched a figure wrapped in a black padded jacket, holding a long smoking pipe.
The pipe was like something from an old TV drama, with a long copper stem, over a meter in length. The figure's face was indistinct, both near and impossibly distant, lips moving as if puffing on the pipe.
The figure stood, tapped the pipe against their shoe, pointed at Brother Peng, and said, "Peng Liang!"
"Here!" Brother Peng responded instinctively.
"Peng Liang!" the figure called again.
"Here!"
"Peng Liang!" The third call was louder, sharper, piercing his mind, making him increasingly alert, his responses growing stronger.
"Peng Liang, we're fated to meet! Come with me, I'll take you back."
"Here!" Brother Peng started to move toward the figure when the fog suddenly cleared. He found himself standing in the middle of a street. Two processions approached slowly from either end.
One was a dragon dance, accompanied by deafening gongs and drums, illuminated by bright lanterns. A lifelike black dragon twisted through the crowd, its red eyes glowing like twin lamps piercing the fog. As the saying goes, "the dragon comes alive when its eyes are painted." With those red eyes, the dragon seemed truly alive, its whiskers quivering. The crowd cheered wildly, the atmosphere as festive as a New Year's market.
The other procession was less clear but equally vibrant. Amid the crowd, colorful flower petals fluttered into the air before drifting down, and the air was thick with the greasy aroma of roasted pig's head.
The two processions moved toward the center of the street, where Brother Peng stood, entranced, glancing between them.
On one side was the black dragon weaving through the yellowish fog; on the other, a dazzling display of fire and flowers, so vibrant it gripped the heart. He was too captivated to move.
Then, a voice boomed, "Peng Liang!"
"Here!" Brother Peng jolted, looking at the pipe-smoking man across from him.
"Come here! I'll take you back," the man said, his voice strangely compelling.
A thought echoed in Brother Peng's mind: I have to go back. I have to go back.
He started walking toward the man.
"Peng Liang!" Another voice, familiar this time, called from nearby.
He turned and saw the dragon dance procession now close. Among the shadowy figures, one stood out vividly: an old man with a pale face, hunched over in an outdated yellow work uniform, his wrinkled face beaming with a smile. "Liang Liang, Grandpa's here! Come see Grandpa."
Brother Peng's grandfather had died of pancreatic cancer at eighty-five. Diagnosed too late for treatment, he lingered for a year before passing. At the time, Peng Liang was in Hong Kong on business and didn't rush back. His family handled the arrangements, and given his grandfather's age, everyone was prepared. They had long treated the old man as if he were already gone, so there was little grief.
It was said that as the old man took his last breaths, he kept repeating one name: Peng Liang.
This puzzled and unsettled people. Peng Liang wasn't particularly close to his grandfather, seeing him perhaps once a year. In his final days, ravaged by cancer, the old man was delirious, babbling nonsense. Yet, inexplicably, he kept calling for Peng Liang until the end.
When Peng Liang returned for the funeral, someone mentioned this to him. As a businessman who believed in feng shui and superstitions, he felt uneasy, a shadow lingering in his heart.
Now, seeing his grandfather standing before him, alive, his scalp prickled with terror. His legs trembled, rooted to the spot.
"Liang Liang, Liang Liang," the old man chuckled, his face a maze of wrinkles, clean-shaven, his age impossible to discern. His eyes were cloudy, almost artificial, yet they gleamed with an eerie cunning, like an old eunuch from a palace drama. Most terrifying was his hair—completely gray, a lifeless white that evoked wilted plants or a desolate graveyard.
The pipe-smoking man grew anxious, repeatedly calling Peng Liang's name but not approaching to pull him away.
Brother Peng stood frozen, staring at his dead grandfather, overwhelmed by fear so intense it paralyzed him.
Amid the cloying scent of roasted meat, the two processions drew closer. The old man shuffled forward, reaching out as if to grab his grandson. At that moment, Brother Peng said, a sudden burst of strength surged within him. He bolted toward the pipe-smoking man. The last thing he saw, as his consciousness faded, was the man's relieved smile.
Then he woke up, lying on a gurney headed for the morgue's cold storage.
Brother Peng smiled faintly. "That was my trip to the gates of hell."
Li Damin and I were dumbfounded by his story.
It was noon, and Brother Peng invited us to lunch. We didn't decline. Over the meal, I raised a question: "Brother Peng, who was the man with the pipe?"
He took a sip of his drink, smacked his lips, and said, "If you're researching the underworld, you absolutely need to interview him."
"What do you mean?" Li Damin asked, squinting.
"He's the one who called my soul back. Without him, I'd be down there with my grandfather right now."
Li Damin licked his lips. "So, when he was calling your name, he was summoning your soul?"
"Exactly. You young folks might not know the old customs. Sometimes, when people go to 'unclean' places, they come back dazed, unresponsive, as if in a trance. The old folks say their soul's been lost. I looked into it later—there's a belief that humans have three souls and seven spirits. If you lose them, you're just a shell. To bring the soul back, you go to where it was lost and call the person's name, sometimes with their clothes. It's complicated, and I don't fully understand it. If you get the chance, you should talk to that man."
Li Damin slapped his thigh. "Brother Peng, who is he?"
Brother Peng opened his mouth to speak but then shook his head. "Forget it, I shouldn't have said anything."
"Why not?" Li Damin asked, confused.
"That man's a half-immortal, a bit strange. You're just kids—don't stir up trouble."
Li Damin scratched his head in frustration. "Kids? Come on, we're grown adults, graduated and working. I was even the student council president in college!"
Brother Peng looked at us, his eyes flickering as if he wanted to say more but held back. Finally, he just shook his head.