A/N: OMG, I'm so pissed with myself! Not because this chapter was excruciatingly hard to write or anything, but the fact that I accidentally deleted it while working on Chapter 4! (facepalm) Since I couldn't remember exactly what I wrote originally for this chapter, this is more or less an involuntary revision.

Which sucks because I really like the original.


CHAPTER 3

The lock clicked and cranked as the mechanisms within were manipulated by the direction of Tianchui's key. With a final clack, the door to his apartment slowly inches open. Tianchui peers into the pitch-black as if looking for something to jump out at him. Instead, he felt Huohu push him in from behind and the two men enter the apartment. Huohu had been to Tianchui and Ling's apartment before so he had a general knowledge of the layout and where things were. Feeling along the wall, he feels a little protrusion and flicks it upward. Immediately, the living room of the apartment was flooded with light, coating both men in its illumination.

"What were you expecting, a jiangshi?" exclaimed Huohu, sarcasm lining each and every word.

"Maybe," uttered Tianchui, closing the door and locking it. "I wouldn't be surprised. Ling tends to bring home the weirdest things."

"Like what?" Huohu wonders as he walked around.

"Well, you, for instance," joked Tianchui, motioning towards the other man.

"Allright, consider us even," Huohu admits as he heads to the shadowy hallway leading to both Tianchui and Ling's rooms.

Flicking the switch on the wall, the hallway was soon as lit up as the living room. There were three doors in the hallway: one straight ahead and the other two at the sides. The door on the right was opened halfway through, revealing the contents within. Judging from the whimsically colorful sign on the doorknob, Huohu could easily discern the open door led to Tianchui's room. Which meant the other door across the way was Ling's.

"Ling never closes her door completely," noted Tianchui as he leaned on the wall at the entry way of the hall. "She kept it open at least a few centimeters almost all the time. It was her way of telling me I'm always welcomed to enter no matter what she was doing. The only time she ever closed it was when she was changing."

Huohu inspects the door and turns to face Tianchui with a perplexed look on his face. "It's closed completely."

"I… had to close it," admitted the other man, scratching the back of his head nervously. "It was creeping me out to see it opened like that knowing full well she wasn't there."

With a nod to show that he understood, Huohu turns back to the door and wraps his hand around the knob. He took a deep breath, unsure of what was on the other side of the thick, white panel of wood. Maybe, just maybe, this was all a dream and that the breakup and this mysterious disappearance was nothing more than a huge joke concocted by Ling and her cousin to scare him. In his mind, he imagines himself opening the door to find Ling leaping at him from the darkness and hugging him tightly while saying "just kidding" or something to that effect. Despite the potential heart attack, at the very least, he could deal with that a lot better than the knowledge of Ling's disappearance.

The metal of the knob creaked as Huohu turns it and pushes open the door. Inside, the room was completely dark, though his eyes were able to discern the shape of a desk and a bed. Sliding his right hand along the wall, he finds the light switch and in the blink of an eye, the room was bathed in light. His heart nearly leapt when he saw there was not a soul in the room, while at the same time he hoped there would be.

Ling is really gone, isn't she?

Disappointed and downtrodden, Huohu enters the room with Tianchui following close behind. The room wasn't like your typical woman's room decorated with posters and all sorts of cutesy knick-knacks. Ling wasn't that kind of girl, which was quite evident by the weapon stand near her closet and a single wall-scroll she got at an American convention above the headboard of her bed. Aside from her desk, the rest of the room was very neat and tidy, evidence of the slight obsessive-compulsive disorder she acquired growing up with 2 rather messy sisters. Overall, it was a pretty modest room despite Ling having quite a fanaticism with Chinese weaponry, video games, and anime.

At least she was an organized gamer, though Huohu, staring at the bookcase near her bed with one shelf filled with video game cases neatly arranged in alphabetical order and grouped together according to series.

One shelf above had books on Chinese art and text as well as fictions of the fantasy and mystery genre. On another shelf below the video game shelf was her scrapbooks, a sort of memoir series with pictures from when she was an infant to her most current photos. Ling said it was the best way to chronicle her life and pass it on to her descendants as a time capsule of sorts. Huohu had considered doing the same for himself, but he doesn't have many pictures of himself past the age of 12 so his scrapbook series would only encompass one volume compared to Ling's four volumes and currently working on her fifth.

Next to the bookcase was Ling's weapon stand, holding her two sabers, a jian, a spear, and a staff; a link-chain sat on a pile near the spear, apparently collecting dust. Aside from the wooden stand, all of her weapons are made of metal, something Ling has always been particular about. It was hard work keeping them all from rusting, but Ling wouldn't have it any other way. She had always been of the sort that if one wishes to learn how to use weapons, one should train with real weapons, not flimsy wushu copies. Huohu thought it was rather careless of her to begin her weapon training using actual weapons and not practice ones, but it was that kind of risky behavior that drew him to her in the first place. Huohu himself wasn't very proficient with any weapon besides the jian and even with that he doesn't plan to use it as a means of self-defense as evident by his purchase of a practice jian with a dull blade. Actually, he wasn't the one who bought it, Ling did. Although he thought it quite strange that she spent so much money to buy him a jian made almost completely of silver.

Then again, it was an anniversary present, he thought.

Huohu turns his attention to Ling's desk, which was littered with various journals, texts, and papers. Walking over, he starts looking at the handful of photos scattered about. Picking one up, he examines the photo of the entrance to some sort of old estate. The structure was something he recognized after reading many magazines depicting life in the countryside.

Tianchui came up beside him to take a look himself.

"Looks like your typical haunted house," he notes, a chill running down his spine though he didn't make evident his shuddering.

"Have you been there?" wonder Huohu.

"Never," answered Tianchui. "Or… maybe I have. It looks familiar."

"Ling has a lot of information on this place," said Huohu as he looks through the texts and notes. "Looks like she was really interested in it."

"Actually," began Tianchui as he stares at another photo. "I think we've been there once. I don't know why though. My memory's really fuzzy on the details. I just remember we were kids when we visited."

"An old family place maybe?" thought Huohu.

"It could've been," thought Tianchui. "But I seriously don't remember anything about the visit."

Just then, Huohu noticed a rectangular black box near the far corner of the desk. It turns out to be one of those old twin-lens reflect camera from the early 60s, this particular one being a Seagull brand as evident by the Chinese characters above the top-most lens. Strangely, this camera had a sports finder that works similarly to the more prominent single-lens camera of modern day. That meant that one could technically shoot photos using the default viewfinder on the top of the camera or the viewfinder on the back like a regular camera.

Very odd indeed.

"Ling was always interested in weird things," said Tianchui, looking at the camera. "She found that in an antique store one day and brought it home. Never saw her use it though so I don't know if it works or not."

"It's clean so she had been maintaining it at least," notes Huohu, picking up the camera to take a closer look.

He pops open the back to find that it was completely empty.

"Not surprised seeing as how not many people, if any, stock 120 or 127 film," said Tianchui. "And it'd be pretty expensive since they're such inefficient cameras anyhow. The only reason she'd use this piece of junk would be purely for fun."

For some reason, Huohu thought the term "fun" did not work with this camera. He associated it more with the word "dangerous," but couldn't see why.

"I think I'm going to take all of this stuff," he said after much thought. "Maybe I can figure out what's going on and find out where Ling went if I continue her research instead."

"Be my guest," said Tianchui rather gladly. "If she comes back, she can get mad at you for taking her stuff."

"I think she'll be equally upset with you for not stopping me," smirked Huohu as he gathered up the texts and notes into a neat pile.

"True," sighed Tianchui, crossing his arms. He motions to the camera with his head. "Take that, too."

"Why?" wonder Huohu.

"Lately, I get the chills every time I look at it," admits the other man, moving his hands to his arms as if to warm himself up.

Huohu gave it some thought and felt that it would be best if he took the camera as well. He'd been having a nagging feeling ever since he laid eyes on that thing. Maybe it was a sign, but whether it was good or not bothered Huohu to no extent.

With everything packed up in the bookbag he brought with him, Huohu nods to Tianchui and the two men eagerly leave Ling's room. Once out in the living room, Tianchui broke the eerie silence.

"Could Xiao'xin come stay with me for a while?" he asks. "If not, I'm going to be coming over to your place on a daily basis."

"Look, there's nothing here to worry about," said Huohu. "But if it really bothers you that much, I'll go bring him over with his toys and food."

"Thanks," responded Tianchui, feeling as if the veil of anxiety that had been hanging over him was lifted, albeit slightly.

He walks Huohu to the door to let him out, but before the older man left completely, he spoke up one last time.

"By the way," began Tianchui. "Be careful, Huohu."

Unsure of what to make of that, Huohu hesitated before simply saying "okay" and out he went.