I got woken up in a hotel by snoring through the wall. I knocked. It stopped for a few seconds, then started again.
I waited it out till morning and went down to complain. The front desk said the room next to mine was empty last night. Nobody was staying there.
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That day I was on a business trip to Jiangcheng. Standard second-tier city. Forty minutes by taxi from the high-speed rail station to the development zone, and the whole way it was gray factories on both sides and roadside trees that had just been planted and hadn't taken yet.
Six years in sales. I was used to trips like this. Carry-on in hand, client files on the phone, five cities in three days. It wore you down, but there was no way around it. That's the business. If you don't go, somebody else gets the deal.
The company booked the hotel online. Budget chain. I won't name it — they're everywhere. It sat on the edge of the development zone, a seven-story building painted beige, looking its age. One of the characters on the sign had lost a stroke and nobody had fixed it.
Small lobby. Two sofas, a coffee table with a few magazines curling at the corners. Front desk in the corner, a young woman behind it, early twenties, ponytail, head down over her phone.
"Hi. Checking in." I slid my ID across.
She took it, typed a few times, and glanced up at me. "Mr. Lin? King room, 401, three nights. Correct?"
"Yep."
"Elevator's on your right. Breakfast is six thirty to nine, second floor."
"Thanks."
I took the key card and rolled my suitcase to the elevator. On the way down the hall I noticed how narrow it was, doors packed tight on both sides. I remember thinking the soundproofing would be bad, and hoping I didn't draw a snorer next door.
Small room. Bed against the wall, wall-mounted TV across from it, a narrow desk under the TV. Dark blue blackout curtains — once those were shut, the room went pitch dark, no telling day from night. I laid the suitcase flat, showered, scrolled my phone. I'd been running between clients all day. I was out before eleven.
Then I got woken up.
No idea what time. Pitch black, not a sliver of light through the curtains. My first thought was that I was dreaming, because the sound was too loud, too big to be real. Like somebody dragging furniture around on the other side of the wall. Or hammering something. My head was foggy. It took me a good ten seconds to work out it was snoring.
Deep, heavy snoring. The inhale sounded like a blacksmith's bellows. The exhale like a tractor turning over. And there was a strange tremor running through it, like something was stuck in the guy's throat, shivering on every breath out. The sound cut straight through the wall. I could hear every bit of it from the bed. I could feel the bed frame buzzing along with the rhythm.
I rolled over and pressed the pillow onto my ear. Nothing. The sound seeped in like water, through every gap.
I groped for my phone. 2:47 a.m. The anger came up fast. I sat up, faced the wall, and pounded three times.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The snoring stopped.
The sudden quiet threw me off. A sound that loud, cut off like a switch. It got so quiet I could hear the ringing inside my own ears. I let out a breath, lay back down, pulled the blanket up.
And then I heard it.
In the two or three seconds of silence after I knocked, a sound came from the other side of the wall. Very, very soft. Like someone tapping a knuckle against the plaster.
Tap. Tap.
Soft. Slow. Mimicking the rhythm I'd just knocked. But so much lighter, like whoever was doing it didn't want to be heard.
I froze. Probably the guy next door rolled over when I woke him and bumped the wall. Then the snoring started up again. Exact same rhythm as before. Inhale, bellows. Exhale, tractor. That tremor in the throat.
I checked my phone. 2:51.
I sighed, turned on the TV, put it on the news channel, volume at fifteen. The anchor reading copy and the snoring next door, mixed together like some absurd duet. I leaned back against the headboard with my eyes shut and didn't drift off until the sky started going gray.
A little after seven the rattle of a cleaning cart in the hallway woke me. Head pounding, eyes gritty, body like I'd been worked over. I washed my face and looked at the wreck in the mirror and decided this wasn't going to end here. I paid to stay in a hotel. I wasn't paying to listen to somebody snore.
I went down to the front desk. Same girl as last night. Different jacket, same ponytail. She was writing up a receipt for a guy checking out. I stood beside him, drumming my fingers on the counter.
"Hi, what can I help you with?" She turned to me once he was done.
"I'm in 401. I want to file a complaint. The room next to me snored all night. Loud as thunder. I didn't sleep."
She glanced at me, something shifting in her face. She typed, looked at the screen, and frowned.
"Mr. Lin, you're next to 403, right?"
"Yeah. That one."
She looked at the screen again, then raised her head and said it like a fact. "403 was empty last night."
I laughed. "Empty? Then what did I hear last night? A ghost snoring?"
Her face didn't move. She turned the monitor toward me. Room management software, and 403's line was grayed out. Status: vacant. No check-in record behind it.
"See? 403 hasn't been assigned to a guest since the twentieth of last month. There's no check-in record in our system."
"That's not possible." I was loud. The guy checking out turned around and looked at me. "That sound came from 403. I knocked on the wall and it stopped, and then it started again. You're telling me nobody's in there?"
She got nervous, hand tightening on the mouse. "Mr. Lin, maybe I can move you to another room? It could be... it could be coming from 402?"
"Is 402 occupied?"
Another glance at the screen. "402 is occupied. A woman. She checked in a little after ten last night."
"Can a woman snore like that?" I held her eyes.
She didn't answer. Head down, fingers hovering over the keyboard, not sure what to do. After a few seconds she said, "Let me ask the manager."
She picked up the desk phone and spoke low. I caught a few words: "401," "complaint," "next door." When she hung up she gave me a careful smile. "Mr. Lin, the manager says we can move you up to the sixth floor. 607. It's an executive room, a bit bigger than yours. Is that all right?"
"I don't want a different room. I want to know what that was last night."
"I understand how you feel, but 403 really doesn't have a guest..."
"Then get your security guard and open 403. I want to see for myself whether there's anyone in there."
She hesitated, then made another call. About five minutes later a middle-aged man came out of the back office. White dress shirt, a small gut pushing at the buttons, hair combed neat. The manager, by the look of him.
"Mr. Lin? I'm the manager here. Chen." He put out his hand. I shook it. Dry, warm palm. "I've heard your situation. Here's what we'll do — I'll have security bring the key, and we'll go up and look together. All right?"
"Fine."
The guard was a man in his fifties, gray-blue uniform, cap too big for his head, sitting on him like an upside-down bowl. He unhooked a huge ring of keys from his belt and flipped through them for a while before he found the one marked 403. The three of us took the elevator to the fourth floor. The lights in the hallway flickered. Faint smell of disinfectant.
Standing in front of 403, I stared at the door. Dark brown panel, metal room plate, a chip of paint missing off the 403. A round plastic sign hung on the handle: "Welcome." I reached out and touched it. Plastic. It spun a full turn.
The guard slid the key in and turned it. The cylinder clicked, sharp. The door opened.
Manager Chen pushed it open and stepped in and hit the switch by the door. The fluorescent tubes blinked a few times and came on, white light filling the room.
I stood in the doorway and looked in.
Bed made tight. Two pillows stacked at the head, not a wrinkle in them. On the nightstand, a white ashtray and a remote control still sealed in plastic wrap.
TV off, screen black. Window shut, curtain half drawn. The carpet clean, no sign anyone had walked on it. The AC vent humming low.
The whole room looked like it had just been cleaned and was waiting for a guest. Even the trash can was empty, lined with a fresh white bag.
But I'd heard the snoring last night. Right behind that wall. Less than a foot from my head.
"You see, Mr. Lin." Manager Chen turned around, hands spread, the whole gesture saying see, I told you so. "The room is empty. The bed hasn't even been slept in."
I didn't move from the doorway. I stared at the wall between this room and 401 — the same wall, pale beige latex paint, nothing hung on it. I walked in, went up to it, and put my ear against it.
Nothing. Not even a peep from next door. Quiet the way a solid concrete wall is supposed to be quiet.
"What time did you hear it last night?" Chen asked.
"After two forty."
"After two forty... there really were no guests then." Chen looked at the guard. "Old Liu, did we have anyone on four last night?"
"Just 401 and 402." Old Liu took his cap off and scratched his head. "I did my rounds at twelve thirty. Only those two rooms had lights on, on four."
I turned and looked at the two of them. Chen still had that customer-service smile on. Old Liu had his head down, like he was studying the pattern in the carpet.
"So what you're telling me is I dreamed for over an hour. I dreamed somebody was snoring. I dreamed I knocked on the wall. All of it in my head?"
"I didn't say that." The smile held. "Maybe the lady in 402 had her TV up too loud? Or you were exhausted and just didn't sleep well..."
"I know the difference between a TV and snoring."
"Then here's what I'll do. We'll move you to the sixth floor, 607. Quiet room, nobody's been next to it for a long time. You get a good night's sleep, and in the morning I'll have the front desk send up a fruit plate. Sound good?"
I stared at him for a few seconds. His smile didn't move a millimeter. I looked back into the room. Blanket neat, no dent in the pillows, no footprints in the carpet. But my ears remembered that sound. Remembered the rhythm. Remembered those two taps, barely audible, in the few seconds after the snoring stopped.
Tap. Tap.
In the end I said nothing and followed them downstairs. The front desk made me a new key card. I packed up and moved to the sixth floor. 607 was much bigger than 401, with a small sofa, the window facing the residential blocks behind the hotel. I set the suitcase down and sat on the bed spacing out, then took out my phone and searched the hotel's name. I went through a dozen pages of results. Nothing.
That day I was off my game with clients. Zoned out in meetings, didn't hear half of what the client said, almost filled out the quote sheet wrong. Back at the hotel that night I showered, lay in bed scrolling short videos past one, and only slept when my eyelids gave out.
Nothing happened all night.
Checking out the next morning, the same girl was at the front desk. She took the card, clicked through a few things, and handed me a receipt.
"Mr. Lin, your charges for all three nights are on here. Take a look."
I scanned it, and just as I was folding it into my pocket my eyes caught on something. A line of small print in the middle of the receipt. At first I thought I'd read it wrong.
"Hold on." I brought the paper closer. "What's this 'Room 403 Amenity Loss Fee'?"
The girl leaned over to look at the screen, and her face froze. She typed a few times, glanced at me, and her voice came out uncertain. "Mr. Lin, that might be a system error. Let me check..."
She clicked a few times and a window popped up. She stared at it for a few seconds and her expression kept getting worse.
"What is it?" I asked.
"This..." She hesitated. "This charge was generated last night. It came out of room 403's account."
"Didn't you say 403 was empty?"
"It is... there's no guest. But last night, a little after eleven, there was account activity on 403 in the room system. A... a room service charge."
"What service?"
She didn't answer. She turned the monitor toward me. I leaned in. A charge detail page. Timestamp 23:07 last night. Item: One extra bath towel.
It was drizzling when I walked out of the hotel. I stood at the door and flagged a taxi. The driver asked where to. High-speed rail station, I said. A few minutes into the ride, something came back to me.
I took out my phone and opened last night's album. I've got a habit — when I land somewhere new I take a picture of the room and send it to my wife so she knows I got in okay. I took one in 607 last night. I never took one in 401.
But the night before, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I'd picked up my phone to check the time. The screen lit up, and I might have hit the camera button by accident.
I found that photo. Timestamp 2:49 a.m. The frame held my nightstand and half a pillow. Nothing notable. But I zoomed in on the glass ashtray sitting on it.
The ashtray's surface was smooth and reflective. In the reflection I could see the wall behind the nightstand. The wall it shared with 403. In the photo, near the head of the bed, there was a very faint dark mark on the wall. The shape of a hand. Fingers spread. Pressed against it.
I stared at that mark for a long time. Then I remembered: in daylight that wall had nothing on it. Clean. Not even a hook.
The taxi got on the expressway, wipers swinging left and right. I locked the phone and leaned back in the seat and shut my eyes. Up front the radio was doing the weather. A cold front moving in. Jiangcheng cooling down for the next three days.
One thought sat in my head: that room, 403 — would somebody check into it today?
Would somebody else, at 2:47 in the morning, hear snoring through the wall, knock, and wait for those two soft taps back.
Tap. Tap.
Like someone on the other side of the wall, smiling at you.