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My Dead Boyfriend Came Back on the Seventh Night
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
At three in the morning, the news came that my boyfriend had drowned after sneaking into Nine Dome Skylight at night. My parents were terrified. Overnight, they burned everything we'd prepared for our...
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第1章
At three in the morning, the news came that my boyfriend had drowned after sneaking into Nine Dome Skylight at night.
My parents were terrified. Overnight, they burned everything we'd prepared for our engagement and smeared glutinous rice flour all over me, warning me not to leave the house for seven days and seven nights—so my boyfriend wouldn't cling to me even in death and drag me down with him.
I cried until I couldn't breathe. I scrolled through our photos, our chat history, drowning in regret. If I'd just refused to let him go that night, maybe none of this would have happened.
On the seventh day, his body was finally brought back. They said his abdomen was bloated, his whole body swollen with water. He no longer looked human.
But the next second, he video-called me, saying he was outside my door. Telling me to hurry up and let him in.
…
The cold wind howled, sending the lanterns outside rolling across the ground.
Alex Fox kept knocking, patient and tireless. He said he'd bought strawberry mini cakes and wanted to share them with me.
In the video, he didn't show his face—only his neck and chest. And there, faint but unmistakable, was the hickey I'd left seven days ago.
I froze. My mind went blank. In a panic, I hung up.
I thought I was hallucinating from missing him too much, so I pinched myself hard. Only when I yelped from the pain, tears springing to my eyes, did I accept this was real.
The knocking continued. The video call came again.
I checked the time on my phone, counting the days over and over. Alex Fox had drowned seven days ago.
Had he come back on his seventh day?
My heart seized. I tried to call my parents, but my trembling fingers accidentally answered Alex's video instead.
He frowned, looking almost panicked. He kept asking if he'd done something wrong again, if I was angry, if that's why I wouldn't see him.
I sobbed with a strange, desperate joy. My heart was breaking.
Just as I opened my mouth to explain, my mom's call blasted through like a siren. She called over and over until it forcibly cut off Alex's video, and finally I answered.
I didn't know where she was. On her end, there was a terrible howling sound, heavy static, sharp bursts of interference cutting in and out.
She didn't seem to notice. Her voice shook with raw terror.
"Ivy, listen to me: do NOT leave your room. Today is Alex Fox's seventh day—it was supposed to be your engagement day. You cannot leave that room. If you do, he'll take you with him."
I was on the verge of tears, caught between joy and horror. I switched to speakerphone.
Alex's knocking carried clearly through the phone. My mom heard every knock.
"Mom, Alex is here."
She went silent. After several long seconds, her voice came out trembling. She'd heard it too.
"Alex Fox? Is it really him?"
"Yes. He keeps knocking. He even video-called me."
"He video-called? You saw him?"
"Not his face. Just his neck and chest. But the voice—it's exactly his."
"Oh my God!"
She let out a strangled cry and sent photos to my phone.
The funeral home's memorial hall. His parents, relatives, friends—all gathered inside. In the center: Alex's black-and-white portrait. His coffin. Beside it, the diving gear he'd loved so much.
Before I could even process my grief, my mom's voice cracked with horror.
"Ivy, you cannot believe it. Alex Fox is dead. His body—it's horrible. His face was destroyed. When he died, he was still clutching your engagement ring. He can't let you go. That's why he came back."
"Don't believe him. Don't open that door. He didn't show his face in the video because he knows he's dead—and he's afraid of what he looks like now. He's afraid he'll scare you."
第2章
What Mom said sent a chill straight through me.
Before I could even process it, the line went dead. Outside the door, Alex's voice grew louder, his knocking like a wild animal throwing itself against the wood—thud, thud, thud.
"Ivy, open the door. What's wrong? Did I do something again? Just tell me and I'll fix it, okay? Don't be mad at me."
He kept at it for what felt like forever. I didn't dare breathe.
We'd gotten engaged around the end of the year and come back to my hometown in the countryside. The neighbors were spread far apart, and with fireworks exploding everywhere, no one would notice a thing.
I stayed silent, hiding in my room with every light switched off, praying he'd give up and leave.
But Alex was relentless. His texts kept flooding in—first apologetic, then frustrated, then furious. Each word cut deeper than the last.
"Ivy, you're being ridiculous. If you're going to throw a fit, at least tell me why. I don't even know what I did wrong. Can you just say something?"
"I know you're in there. Your light was on a second ago, now it's off. Are you really hiding from me? After everything we've been through? I already decided you're mine. Even if I die, I'll be your ghost."
"If you keep ignoring me, I'm climbing over the wall."
My heart shot into my throat.
Climb over the wall?
That was nothing for him. Back when we were dating, he used to scale it all the time to bring me late-night snacks. He knew every foothold by heart.
To stop him, I forced myself to video call, putting on my best angry-girlfriend voice.
"You don't know why I'm mad?"
His tone softened instantly, coaxing. "I really don't, Ivy. Just tell me. I'm slow, you know that. I need you to spell it out for me."
On the screen, he still wouldn't show his face. Behind him stretched an endless white fog, his silhouette drifting through it like something not quite real.
My voice shook as I pushed harder, letting myself sound a little unreasonable.
"You showed up late and messed everything up. We're supposed to be getting engaged, and you won't even point the camera at your face? You're being shady. What are you hiding?"
He hesitated. The camera didn't budge.
"I broke out. And I got a bad haircut. It looks awful. I don't want you to see."
"I don't care. Why would I care? I've seen you at your worst."
"Just—not right now. We're about to be engaged. I'm nervous. I want to look good for you."
"I said I don't care. Let me see you."
No matter what I said, he wouldn't show his face.
And that's when I knew Mom was right.
He really had come back. But on this seventh night, he was still wearing the face of a corpse—too horrifying to let me see.
I pretended to get mad and hung up. Alex panicked, pounding on the door again, frantic now.
He started pacing outside, agitated, circling the courtyard wall. Then I heard him start to climb.
I called Mom, sobbing the second she picked up.
"Mom! You and Dad need to come back now! I'm so scared. Alex won't leave, and he won't let me see his face. Now he's trying to climb the wall—"
第3章
After hearing that, my mom let out a sigh of relief.
"Ivy, don't be scared. He can't get in. We put door guardians on the front gate, and there are protective talismans on the yard wall. He can't come in—he's just trying to scare you into opening the door. Remember, no matter what, don't open it."
"Really?"
"Really. Just hang in there. Hide in your room and don't come out. Your dad and I have been pushing Alex's parents. We even paid extra to have him cremated early. They're wheeling him in right now!"
She was afraid I wouldn't believe her, so she started a video call. On screen, staff were dismantling the memorial setup, rolling a gurney over to take Alex's body to the crematorium.
They did the basic mourning rites, then lifted the coffin onto the gurney. But the moment they lifted it, every single one of them froze, staring at each other in horror.
After a beat of shock, they threw open the coffin lid. When they reached inside and felt around, their faces went white.
"Where's the deceased? Where's the body?"
That one sentence sent the room into chaos. My mom jogged over with her phone raised, asking what happened.
The staff looked like they'd seen a ghost. Their voices came out strangled.
"The coffin's empty. The body's gone."
Everyone went still—then another staffer let out a cry.
"There's a trail of wet footprints here. Looks like something crawled out of the coffin. The body walked off on its own?!"
In an instant, the whole group scattered, fleeing outside. And if they were terrified, I was worse—even through the phone screen, I felt my blood turn to ice.
Then the video cut out again. Magnetic interference. No matter how many times I called back, it wouldn't connect. My mom could only send me a panicked voice message.
"Ivy, don't be afraid. Mom and Dad are coming back right now. Whatever you do, don't open the door!"
The moment I heard it, all hope drained out of me. There was a kind of fear like death itself standing at my doorstep.
So the thing outside was Alex's corpse?
Right then, a dull thud came from the yard—like someone landing after climbing over the wall.
A few seconds later, the inner door, which had been left ajar, creaked open. Footsteps approached. They stopped right outside my bedroom.
Cold seeped through the crack, straight into my room. Alex didn't knock, but I could feel him standing there, separated from me by nothing but a thin door.
I was paralyzed with terror. I could only clamp a hand over my mouth, holding my breath, staring at the door.
It didn't move. But water began trickling in from underneath—slow, steady. Outside, I heard dripping, like it was falling off his body. And that smell—damp earth, mud, rot.
Combined with how he died, the fear hit me in waves, each one crashing harder than the last, until I could barely breathe.
He didn't give me a chance to recover. Instead, he laughed—a wet, triumphant sound that made my skin crawl.
"Hahaha… Ivy, I got in. I came to apologize, okay? Don't be mad anymore. If you want to see me, I'll let you. As long as you're not angry. As long as you don't hate me."
"Ivy, open the door. I'm right here."
Thud thud thud—
The knocking was wet, heavy. Each knock landed like a death sentence, pounding straight into my skull. My ears rang. My head spun. I thought I might pass out.
The fear was so intense I started dry-heaving. The sound slipped out before I could stop it—and he heard.
He got excited. The knocking came faster, more eager.
"I heard you. Open the door, Ivy. I'm right outside. Don't you want to see me? Open the door."
My parents were already racing back. They kept sending messages to comfort me, reminding me over and over.
第4章
"Ivy, whatever you do, don't open that door. Don't let Alex Fox fool you. He's the one who insisted on diving at Nine Dome Skylight despite everyone warning him. A professional dive team lost members there not long ago—and he's not even certified. He just had to go anyway."
"It's fine, really. You were only engaged. A few years of dating isn't worth throwing your whole life away. Once this blows over, you two will have nothing to do with each other."
"Ivy, don't worry. We're on our way. Almost there."
My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst. I typed out my reply with trembling fingers.
I'd gotten a pretty manicure for the engagement, and my nails clicking against the screen were impossibly loud. Alex heard it immediately. He flew into a rage and threw himself against my bedroom door like a madman.
"Ivy, open the door! Who are you texting? You ignore me, you don't reply to my messages, but you're chatting away with someone else? What am I to you? Have you ever respected me at all? Open. The. Door!"
I screamed, tears streaming down my face, begging him to stop.
But he couldn't hear a word I said. He just kept ramming the door.
Then suddenly—I don't know what he saw in the living room—he kicked over the burning copper basin.
The crash was deafening. His rage exploded.
"Why did you burn everything for our engagement? The clothes and shoes I bought you—you burned them all? Ivy Shaw, what the hell are you doing?!"
He charged at my door again. The flimsy thing couldn't take much more—it was already buckling. With every hit, more water surged from his body, pooling across my floor.
I curled up inside the closet, watching helplessly as he forced a gap in the door, shoved a dripping arm through, and twisted the useless lock open.
Crack—
The bedroom door swung wide. Alex stepped inside.
Panicking, I covered my eyes, too terrified to look. Footsteps approached—closer, closer—until he was standing right in front of the closet.
Just as he reached for the handle, everything went black.
I don't know what happened after I fainted. I only remember feeling so cold, my body soaking wet, like something was holding me.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in my own bed.
Mom and Dad were already home, standing by my bedside with tense expressions.
"The footprints confirm it—Alex Fox was here. I came in first and saw a figure climb over the wall and run off."
"Oh God, it really was him? Did Alex know something before he died? About us—"
"Shh!"
Dad's sharp hiss cut her off. The next second, his cold gaze landed on me.
Instinct screamed danger. Before he could say anything, I shut my eyes and pretended to still be unconscious.
Then I heard words that made my blood run cold.