When you try on all kinds of gorgeous clothes in front of a mirror, when you tap your keyboard next to a vanity or a bookcase with glass, when you slide your phone against the window at night; all of these āmirrorsā are watching you silently.
Thereās a feeling like there is a āpersonā in the mirror. It looks like your reflection, but it may be another existence imitating your every move.
Sometimes when you type faster, maybe youāll find that the āpersonā in the mirror hasnāt kept up with your speed, but still shows a smirk exactly like yours.
Sometimes you roll over on the bed with your phone, but you see yourself still facing the window out of the corner of your eyes.
The mirror, from the moment it appeared in this world, has carried many mysterious rumors, one of which is that it records all that it has reflected.
The mirror in the lobby of the villa should exist as a decorative mirror. Itās unknown how long itās been there, nor exactly where it was on weekdays. But in this nightmare world, this mirror seems to replace the degraded memories of the old man, faithfully recording what has happened over the years.
Happiness, loss, sorrow, or ugliness, nothing is out of its sight.
Su Zimo was standing directly in front of the mirror, but his figure did not appear within it. Only countless pictures passed by at speeds hundreds of times fast forwarded. Even the old man in the wheel chair had at some point appeared at Su Zimoās side, and just like him, watched the mirror in front of him with a pair of eyes like black holes.
The mirror stopped again.
The hall was cluttered with many messy things. The maids sat there holding mirrors and exchanging makeup ideas and big-name cosmetics. The chubby chef was eating an oily pig trotter. The housekeeper and the family doctor were counting the funds they had received from the masterās home that month. Next to them, two crumbled biscuits were mixed in water, messily floating up and down at random within a bowl.
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[That old man is so quiet today.] The housekeeper whispered while counting money. [We actually sealed the entrance to the second floor. Itās not necessary to deliver meals with such difficulty every day. You kids are just tossing blindly everyday.] <sup>1</sup>
[Anyway, at night Iāll take the bowl back from the small hole whether the food has been eaten or not.] The servant paused. [The food you prepared for him includes a lot of canned goods. He canāt eat those at all.]
[Did he not eat the porridge you prepared?] The doctor rolled his eyes. [It doesnāt matter anymore. The old man seems to have given up as well. Heās usually banging upstairs on weekdays, but there wasnāt any movement today.]
The picture in the mirror began to fast forward again, but Su Zimo found that the speed was a bit slower. He could even see what the people around the table were doing everyday. They were as comfortable as the villa owner. When they go out, they carefully wear the staff uniforms, but when they return, they try on various bright and beautiful clothes.
They binge drink in the main hall all night, and lie on the table and sleep until noon the next day.
They pile up the stolen money into paper towers, and compete to see whose can stay up the longest.
They gathered around the two account books every day, thinking about how to modify the light account until itās perfect.
Every night, they often take a futon into the main hall and lie down on and around the dining table. It seems that there was deep unrest and fear behind their bustling and lively appearances, but it would only slowly appear when the night was quiet.
But they didnāt make anyone pity them.
[That old man, he hasnāt moved in a while.] When the mirror stopped again, everyone was sitting around the table looking fatigued. [Three days? Four days? A week? Why is there no movement at all on the second floor?]
Everyone was silent after hearing the housekeeperās question.
[Donāt think about it. I donāt care. I donāt care at all!] The family doctor directly smacked the table. [You donāt have to worry about what happened to the old man as long as everything else is normal!]
[Dr. Sun, what ifā¦ What about if something happened?!] The most timid of the staff was the one who served the old man āporridgeā before. This time, the mirror showed him with a fearful expression. [We have to tellā¦]
[Pa!]
That personās head was directly slapped. The family doctor then said with fierce eyes, [If something really happened, and you tell others, then all of us here would lose our jobs. Even the poor gardener who canāt even pay the tuition for his sonās kindergarten in the city!]
[Iā¦]
[But Dr. Sun, there isnāt much time left for us. We have to find a way, otherwise itāll be too late.] The housekeeper said. Without waiting for the family doctorās response, he began to carefully check the account book in his hand and modified it with a pen. [I feel that they werenāt satisfied with the last account book. Itās not as easy as beforeā¦]
[Iāve thought about this for a long time.] The voice of the family doctor came. [The old manās study still contains things that can be sold for money. Didnāt you always want to buy a nice car for your wife? As long as we find a way to sell those things, weāll have everything.]
[Thisā¦]
Among all the servants, it seemed that the big, meaty chef was the most calm.
But when the chef held a big bowl of noodles for a while, he suddenly stopped and looked up at the ceiling.
[Aaahhhh!] The next second, the black-hearted fat chef suddenly leaned back in his chair. The chair leaned so far that the chefās head hit the tiled floor of the hall.
The chef shouted before he even had time to register the pain. [Blood! Blood! Thereās blood dripping!]
[Aaaahhhh!] The three maids screamed instantly.
Although Su Zimo couldnāt see what was dripping clearly, he noticed a dark pool of colour on the ceiling that was possibly blood dripping from the ceiling into the chefās bowl of noodles.
The picture fast forwarded again, and he found that the dining table that was originally regarded as the staff membersā base began to become deserted. Almost no one dared to sit there again, even if they had to pass by in a hurry, and occasionally glanced at the ceiling.
The family doctor and the housekeeper occasionally threw old books on the table like trash, then took pictures of them with a film camera.
Su Zimo also noticed that the black-hearted fat chef seemed to have been scared stupid from what happened before. He only dared to hold an empty bowl and sit in the place where he had been sitting, like he wanted to catch the rain falling from the sky, constantly moving the bowl he was holding.
Occasionally, when there were servants, everyone looked pale with dark circles around their eyes. Even if the three maids covered the dark circles with pale foundation, it just made them look even more pale and scary.
[I heard a sound! I heard a sound!] When the picture stopped fast forwarding again, Su Zimo saw a man kneeling on the dining table. [I heard a sound on the second floor! Heās still alive! Heās still alive!]
[Really? We didnāt commit a crime? We arenāt murderers?] The maid showed an ecstatic expression, flashed through the picture on the mirror, and walked out. [We can see the lightā¦] <sup>2</sup>
[What happened?] The maidās voice stopped abruptly, and the housekeeperās figure appeared on the edge of the picture.
[The doorā¦. wonāt open!]
[How is that possible? You give up, let me try!]
[Bang! Bang! Bang!]
Although Su Zimo couldnāt see the picture, he could easily hear from the sound that a group of people were trying to break through the door, but their efforts were useless after a long time.
[Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!] A sudden burst of laughter came from the mirror. [Itās retribution! Itās retribution! We locked the old man in, but now weāre locked in! Ha ha ha ha ha! Retribution!]
[Another crazyā¦ Itās not so easy for me to admit defeat!] The housekeeperās voice also became fierce. [I finally got the money, how could I admit defeat? Break the window for me!]
The banging sound kept coming from the mirror, sometimes along with the roar of the housekeeper who was angry because he failed to break the window.
At that time, the mirror started to fast forward slightly. Although the speed wasnāt particularly fast, Su Zimo could feel the light in the hall go from day to night. Those who tried to break the window even forgot to light the candles. The picture in the mirror was almost dark.
Seeing this, Su Zimo wanted to understand some things.
When the housekeeper said for the first time that the old man upstairs had disappeared, the old man in the wheelchair beside him may have passed away. Perhaps because he was old, or perhaps because something happened on the second floor. But more likely was because he was locked on the second floor without anyone to care for him, and he could only rely on non-nutritious foodā¦ he may not even have been able to eat those foods.
The reason why the servants heard movement from the second foor again was probably because the old man returned to the villa in a nightmarish form.
As a result of being locked in and trapped during his lifetime, it could even be called returning captivity. He blocked the doors and windows of the entire villa, completely locking the housekeeper and other embezzlers into the villa without any way to escape.
This is why Su Zimo and the others could open the blockade on the second floor before, but they couldnāt pry off the blockades in other parts of the villa. There was a difference between humans and non-humans.
[The phone wonāt work, asshole!]
[Chef, chef, you fool. Donāt you want to cook? Do you want us to starve to death?]
[Housekeeper, since the chef is a fool, he hasnāt gone out to buy food. The food in the villa wonāt be enough.]
[Thereās always a way out. Big deal. Weāll smash the walls of the villa!]
[Useless housekeeper. I tried, and I didnāt even leave a hole. It was like a ghost!]
[Pei!]
Su Zimo listened to the sounds in the mirror. He didnāt intend to move the mirror to find those who spoke. He felt that there was no need to remember the faces of those people.
The light and shadow in the mirror began to change again. Su Zimo knew that every change in light and shadow represented the passing of a day.
When the picture stopped again, the housekeeper, family doctor, and other staff returned to the table in a long-lost manner. Except for the stupid black-hearted fat chef, everyone looked thinner and their eyes stared blankly. Sitting around the table, there was a small bowl in front of everyone with batter made from crumbled biscuits.
The cheap food originally prepared for the old man eventually became the only lifeline they could find in the island-like villa. <sup>3</sup>
[What exactly do you want to do?] The housekeeper didnāt move his spoon He just looked up at the ceiling and seemed to want to talk to someone on the second floor. [If you want to retaliate against us, come and retaliate! Why just trap us here? Why do nothing?]
[Bam!]
The housekeeperās words had just fallen when there was a sudden movement in the utility room deep on the other side of the corridor.
The pale and bloodless family doctor stiffly left his seat, then retrieved a banner from the direction of the sound. It read: Happy 12th Birthday To The Little Princess!
[Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, itās almost May 15th!] The housekeeper cried out with a smile. [Do you know when this banner was from? It was two years ago! Two years! Your family members havenāt been here for two years! You bastard! You still force us to prepare a banquet every year even after you died?!] <sup>4</sup>
The housekeeper didnāt move. He just let the banner sit there and they all sat around the dining table for an entire day without lighting candle. They sat from day to night, even sitting there in the middle of the night like fools, like shadows hidden in the dark.
Like the shadows that the trainers saw when the hall was darkened.
A few days passed in the picture, but he didnāt know if it was May 15th. The housekeeper and the others seemed to suddenly become crazy. They put on their cleanest and most decent clothes, and the maids put exquisite makeup on themselves. Even the chauffeur wore his long-lost uniform hat. Everyone had a strange smile on their face. They began to decorate the villa that had been sealed for who-knows-how-long.
They put the most precious porcelain in the villa on the dining table, and the maids wiped down the silver candlesticks until they shone.
There wasnāt much leftover food in the villa, but they still put the last of the meat in various porcelain dishes, then re-shaped the packets of crumbled biscuits into various pastries and stacked them together. They put some other snacks on the tabletop, and it seemed to be similar to the last dinner prepared by the trainers.
However, they also opened the wine left over that they hadnāt drunk and poured it into four exquisite glasses.
They lit more candles in the hall than before, making it look brighter than the normal daylight. It was just like the main hall seen by Su Zimo and the other trainers.
After finishing everything, the housekeeper took everyone away from the picture in the mirror. It was so calm that Su Zimo, who was watching, felt terrible.
He felt that no matter how they were before their breakdown, they were truly crazy at that moment.
Footnotes
<ol>Tossing blindly is to put effort into something just to end up with meaningless results. To see the light means to not be hopeless. Island-like as in itās isolated from the outside, not like a luxury vacationĀ ? The place where ābastardā is was censored, so I inserted an appropriate curse word.</ol>