At that moment, I was so startled that I didn’t dare move at all. I thought to myself, it’s over, there’s a haunting. In the middle of the night, suddenly seeing someone standing at the foot of my bed—there’s no way to describe how terrifying that felt. My heart was pounding with fear and panic, a suffocating sense of dread.

Just as I was frozen in terror, the ghost slowly turned its head. When I saw its face, I was even more shocked—it turned out the ghost was actually the neighbor, Old Smith.

At that moment, Old Smith was dressed all in black, standing in the pitch-dark room, his face pale as paper, completely bloodless, looking extremely sinister and frightening. How should I put it? My first impression was—he looked like a dead man.

Old Smith appeared at my bedside and suddenly took out a stack of bills. I recognized those bills—they seemed to be the money we picked up by the roadside last night.

Old Smith just stood by my bed, then started tossing the money into the air. The bills fluttered down, scattering all over the floor of my room. Looking closely, wasn’t that funeral money for the dead?

Old Smith kept scattering the money, and I was terrified, not knowing why he was throwing funeral money in my room. Just as I was gripped by fear, a hemp rope suddenly tightened around his neck. Instantly, his face twisted into a hideous expression, his tongue stuck out, and his limbs struggled desperately, making horrifying “creak creak” sounds from his throat.

That really scared me out of my wits. My heart leapt, and I jolted upright in bed.

I quickly turned on the light and immediately looked toward the side of my bed. But to my astonishment, the bedside was empty—there was no sign of Old Smith, and there was no funeral money on the floor either.

I was dumbfounded, feeling extremely puzzled. Why did everything suddenly disappear? Was I just seeing things?

But I was absolutely certain that what I saw was real—not an illusion, and definitely not a dream. I glanced at the doors and windows; they were still tightly shut and locked from the inside. In other words, Old Smith couldn’t possibly have come in. If Old Smith couldn’t have come in, then what was it that I saw just now?

A chill ran down my spine, and I suddenly felt a lingering fear. Could it be that what I saw was really a ghost?

Recalling the scene I had just witnessed, I broke out in goosebumps again, my heart filled with unease. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

I sat stiffly on my bed, not daring to sleep again, cold sweat pouring out nonstop.

The sky gradually brightened. After getting up, the first thing I did was go knock on Old Smith’s door, wanting to ask if he had come to my room last night.

But when I knocked on his door, there was no response at all from inside, as if no one lived there.

Could he have already gone out for breakfast?

I didn’t think much of it at the time. I went out for breakfast and then headed to work. After all, Old Smith and I worked at the same restaurant, so I could ask him about what happened last night when I saw him there.

But to my surprise, Old Smith didn’t show up for work that day—he was absent.

How could the restaurant manage without a chef? The boss tried calling Old Smith, but he didn’t answer. The boss then told me to go back and look for Old Smith. When I returned to the rental place, Ms. Miller happened to be there to collect rent from Old Smith. She asked me where he was and told me that if I saw him, to remind him to pay this month’s rent as soon as possible.

I told Ms. Miller that I was looking for him too.

As I said this, I went to knock on Old Smith’s door again, but there was still no response from inside.

I thought for a moment, then took out my phone and called Old Smith again. The call went through, but he still didn’t answer. However, to my surprise, I heard Old Smith’s phone ringing.

My brow furrowed immediately. Listening carefully, I realized the ringtone was coming from inside the room.

With this discovery, I became even more puzzled. Since Old Smith’s phone was in the room, he was probably inside as well. But why wasn’t he responding to the knocking?

Could he be sick?

For some reason—maybe because I’d seen Old Smith in my room in the middle of the night—I had a bad feeling, a vague sense of unease.

Old Smith’s phone kept ringing inside the room until it finally stopped when the call ended. I knocked hard on the door again, but there was still no response from inside.

I asked Ms. Miller if she had a spare key. Ms. Miller nodded, then helped me unlock Old Smith’s door.

But as soon as the door opened, Ms. Miller let out a heart-wrenching scream, as if she’d seen a ghost, and bolted several meters away.

I asked her what was wrong.

Ms. Miller’s face was deathly pale, her expression full of terror as she pointed inside the room, exclaiming in a panic, “Dead... dead... he’s dead...”

Seeing how terrified Ms. Miller was, I didn’t know what she had seen, but I already had a bad feeling in my heart. I thought, who could have died? It couldn’t be Old Smith, could it?

At this point, Ms. Miller was so frightened she could barely speak. I had no choice but to push open the door and look inside the room.