Every night on his way home from work, Zhou Mingyuan had to pass through a river-crossing tunnel. The first time he noticed the water in that tunnel was on a Thursday in early July.
He worked overtime until half past eight that day. When he walked out of the company, it was already dark. July air was stifling, sticky with moist heat. He climbed into his car, AC blowing for five minutes before he felt normal. Navigation suggested the Jianghan Road Tunnel as the fastest route, so he turned into the traffic flow.
The tunnel is 1.8 kilometers long, six lanes in both directions. Overhead rows of fluorescent tubes bleached the concrete walls white. Zhou Mingyuan had been driving for three years, this road he'd taken hundreds of times, every curve and slope familiar. But halfway through the tunnel that day, he suddenly felt something wrong under his wheels.
Like running over a patch of water.
Not the thin layer of standing water on rainy pavement—this was the wheel suddenly sinking, like hitting a water puddle, the car body *dropped* sharply, then floated back up. Whole process less than a second, the folder on the passenger seat slid off onto the floor mat.
He hit the brakes instinctively, high beams from the car behind flashed at him twice. He quickly hit the gas again, car resumed normal. Glanced at the dashboard, RPM normal, water temperature normal, everything normal. He turned to look out the car window—tunnel floor was dry, asphalt surface reflecting light, not a single water stain.
Maybe AC condensate? Or some pothole on the road? He didn't think much of it, kept driving out of the tunnel.
The next few days he didn't give it another thought. He drove through that tunnel every day, morning and evening rush hour jams were normal, occasional small bumps normal too. But on Tuesday of the second week, the same thing happened again.
This time clearer.
It was July 13th, he remembered clearly because the company had just signed a new project that day, boss treated the whole team to Hai Di Lao. He was driving home almost ten o'clock, not many cars in the tunnel, he was in the leftmost lane, speed about sixty. At roughly two-thirds of the way through, the wheels suddenly sank again.
This time he felt more.
At the moment the car body dropped, he heard a muffled thud, like something hit the undercarriage. Then outside the window, on the left concrete wall, a splash of water sprayed up.
Those water droplets glittered under the fluorescent tubes, flowing down from the wall, leaving dark water streaks. He jerked his head to look, rearview mirror only showing water marks fading fast on the tunnel wall, like something had just been poured down from above.
His heartbeat sped up. He'd driven this tunnel hundreds of times, he knew there were no water pipes inside, no sprinkler system, nothing that could produce large amounts of standing water. And it hadn't rained that day. He'd had the windows open for ventilation the whole drive from the company, ground was bone dry.
After getting home he sat on the sofa for a long time. His wife was already asleep, only a floor lamp on in the living room.
He took out his phone and searched "Jianghan Road Tunnel standing water," results were all old news from years ago about drainage system renovation, nothing special. He searched again "tunnel driving feeling hitting water," results were all "maybe uneven road" or "tire slippage" type explanations.
He threw his phone on the coffee table, thought maybe he was just too tired lately. Project deadline was tight, a month of consecutive overtime, sleep deprivation, hallucinations while driving wasn't impossible.
But the next morning, he deliberately bypassed that tunnel.
About a week later, he'd almost forgotten about it. After the project launched things relaxed a lot, he was back to normal commute times, leaving around half past six, the Jianghan Road Tunnel was the fastest route.
That day, on the way home from work, he saw several piles of burned paper money by the roadside, gray-black paper ash blown everywhere, burnt incense sticks stuck in the curb. Waiting at a red light he saw an old lady squatting at the intersection, poking a pile of burning yellow paper with a stick, mumbling to herself.
He remembered—it was almost the 15th of the 7th lunar month [Ghost Festival].
He just thought that, no other feeling. When the car turned into the tunnel entrance, not many cars ahead, he eased off the gas, let the car coast downhill. Several fluorescent tubes in the tunnel were flickering, buzzing with electric current, dimmer than usual.
Halfway through, he saw that standing water.
Not a hallucination.
Ahead on the road was a section clearly reflecting light, like a large water puddle, about ten meters long, spanning the entire lane. He quickly decelerated, car behind honked, passed him on the side.
He stared at that water surface, wheels splashed water when rolling over it, he could hear the sound of water flung into the wheel arches.
But when he looked back in the rearview mirror, that water surface had already disappeared. Road was dry.
His palms were sweating. He pulled over to the rightmost lane, slowed down, stared at the road ahead. The next hundred meters or so had nothing, ground spotless.
Then he saw more.
About twenty meters ahead of him, on the left wall of the tunnel, water streaks started appearing. Not the slow seeping kind—the kind splashed up by something, currently flowing downward.
One streak, two, three... more and more water stains flowing down from the top of the wall, like someone standing on the roof pouring water down. And when those water streaks reached the road, they merged into shallow puddles, glittering under the light.
His whole body went cold.
He drove through. When the wheels ran over those puddles he could feel water splashing onto the undercarriage. Then he suddenly felt something wrong—speed was too fast. He hit the brakes, but the car didn't slow down.
He glanced at the dashboard, speedometer needle stuck at sixty, not moving. But the walls outside were flying back, much faster than his normal driving speed.
He slammed the brake pedal. The pedal felt soft, like stepping into mud.
Then he heard the water sound.
Water pouring in from outside the car. That muffled roar coming from all directions, like the entire tunnel had suddenly become a pipe full of water.
The outside of his windows turned completely cloudy yellow-brown, fluorescent tube light distorted into a blurred halo. The front of the car dropped sharply, like falling into a deep pit, seatbelt digging into his chest painfully.
He saw those things.
Things drifting past the windshield. Faces. A man's face, eyes half-open, mouth slightly agape, hair floating in the water, face scraping past on the glass leaving a blurry trace.
Then a second face, third face—women's faces, children's faces, some faces looking at him, some only showing the back of the head. Their arms were extended in the water, like swimming, or like grabbing something.
Someone hit the side of his car, making a dull thud, then got swept away by the current, disappearing into the cloudy yellow water.
Water seeped in through the door cracks. Ice-cold, muddy rust-smelling water, ankle-deep, then calf-deep. He frantically pressed the window button—no response. He pulled the door handle—door didn't budge.
Water reached his knees.
Then——
His car jolted violently. Like falling from a height and crashing onto the ground. The yellow-brown outside the windshield retreated in an instant, the cold white light of the fluorescent tubes came back.
His car was stopped in the middle of the tunnel, hazard lights had turned on by themselves, flashing on and off. Ground was dry. Walls were dry. Nothing.
The dashboard timer showed less than four minutes had passed since he entered the tunnel.
He lay on the steering wheel gasping for a full five minutes. Whole body soaked, clothes wet through, seats wet through, a puddle of yellow-brown muddy water in the footwell, with a few leaves and a dark clump inside—he didn't dare look too closely at what it was.
Cars behind him swerved around, horns blaring. He shakily restarted the car, put it in gear, released the handbrake, and drove out of the tunnel.
After exiting the tunnel he pulled over to the side of the road, opened all doors, let the water drain out. Passersby glanced at him, probably thought his car had flooded, but he couldn't explain where this water came from.
The car had a damp, foul smell, like river-bottom sludge. He checked the roof, windows, door seals—all intact, nowhere for water to leak in.
He sat on the curb smoking half a pack of cigarettes, then called in sick for the next day.
He didn't go out the next day.
He lay in bed all day, repeatedly recalling what happened in the tunnel. Every recollection made his scalp tingle. Those faces floating in the water, those outstretched arms—he wasn't sure if it was real or if he'd lost his mind.
But that foul smell in the car was real, the water stains left on the footwell were real, the yellow-brown mud marks dried on his pant legs were real.
His wife came home from work, smelled the car, asked what happened.
He said he'd passed through a flooded section, might have run over some dirty water.
His wife didn't ask more, told him to take the car for a wash.
But that night he searched online for hours. He changed keywords multiple times: "Jianghan Road Tunnel flooding accident" "river-crossing tunnel standing water paranormal" "seeing water in tunnel hallucination."
He flipped through pages of results, most were useless. Until two in the morning, he found a reply in an old post on a local forum.
That thread was five years old, the original poster asked "does anyone else feel weird driving through the Jianghan Road Tunnel at night," with a dozen replies below, most saying "OP is overthinking it" kind of things.
But one reply said: "My uncle drives a taxi, night shifts. He says something happened in that tunnel before, people drowned. Don't know the details, but he never takes that tunnel, would rather add five kilometers."
Zhou Mingyuan stared at that reply for a long time. He clicked into the replier's profile—account hadn't logged in for five years. He searched again "Jianghan Road Tunnel accident," still found no relevant information.
The next day he took half a day off, drove to a repair shop near the tunnel. He made up an excuse, said the car seemed to have run over something in the tunnel, strange noise from the undercarriage, asked the mechanic to lift it up and check.
The mechanic checked around said the undercarriage was fine. He sat on a plastic stool at the repair shop entrance waiting, chatting casually with the mechanic.
"How long have you had this shop?"
"Six years plus."
"You know the Jianghan Road Tunnel well. Did something happen there before?"
The mechanic glanced at him. "Why are you asking?"
"Just curious. A few nights ago I drove through, felt weird in there."
The mechanic went silent for a moment, put down his wrench, lit a cigarette. "That tunnel..." he exhaled smoke, "wasn't always called that. It was called Linjiang Tunnel before, renamed around 2010.
If you want to know about incidents... about seven or eight years ago, there was a massive rainstorm that summer, the really heavy kind. You know the tunnel's low-lying? Water poured in from both ends, lots of cars got stuck inside, several drowned to death."
Zhou Mingyuan felt his back chill. "How many drowned?"
"Don't know exactly, but quite a few. Was in the news back then, later it got suppressed. Tunnel was renovated, renamed, like it never happened." The mechanic stubbed out his cigarette, "You drove through that tunnel at night, saw something?"
Zhou Mingyuan didn't speak.
The mechanic glanced at him, expression complex. "I've heard things too. Driving through that tunnel at night, sometimes you feel the car hit water, actually it's" he paused, "actually nothing. Anyway I don't take that road at night. You shouldn't either."
After going home Zhou Mingyuan researched for two full days.
He found that news in the city library's electronic archive of old newspapers. July seven or eight years ago, a massive rainstorm hit the city.
That day's rainfall broke historical records, water accumulated in multiple areas of the city. The Linjiang Tunnel, because of its low-lying terrain, had water pouring in from both north and south entrances simultaneously. The tunnel is 1.8 kilometers long, it was evening rush hour, over two hundred vehicles trapped inside.
The report said water rose from the bottom of the tunnel to fill it completely in less than three hours. Many car owners didn't have time to react, water was already over their car doors. Some escaped by abandoning their vehicles, some were trapped and never came out.
In the end more than two hundred vehicles were towed from the tunnel, six victims—five men, one woman. The report mentioned one of them was a fourteen-year-old boy.
Their names were listed in a small table at the end of the report: Someone Zhang, male, 34; Someone Li, male, 41; Someone Wang, male, 27; Someone Liu, male, 52; Someone Chen, male, 14; Zhao, female, 29.
Zhou Mingyuan stared at those six names for a long time. He remembered the faces he saw drifting past the windshield in the tunnel—men's faces, women's faces, children's faces. He counted, exactly six.
He saved the newspaper screenshot to his phone, then sat at his desk for an hour in a daze. He remembered when he saw those things in the tunnel, water pouring in from all directions, cloudy yellow-brown, smelling of mud and rust—exactly the same smell left in the car that day.
He went back to that repair shop a few times later, got familiar with the mechanic and chatted a lot. The mechanic told him, during the period around the tunnel's renaming, all the old residents nearby knew about it, but no one was willing to mention it.
Occasionally people driving through at night would see anomalies—some saw sudden large water stains appear on the tunnel walls, some heard knocking sounds from the water, some, like Zhou Mingyuan, felt their wheels suddenly sink into water.
"Those are people who couldn't get out," the mechanic lowered his voice, "they're trapped in there, repeating that day every night."
Zhou Mingyuan asked: "Why can you only see it at night?"
The mechanic shook his head. "Who knows. Maybe daytime yang energy is heavier. Or maybe they only remember it happened at night."
Zhou Mingyuan moved.
He told his wife the company had relocated, needed a closer place to commute. Actually he changed to a completely different route, new home on the other side of the city, twenty more minutes to work but never had to pass through that tunnel again.
The night before moving, he drove over the tunnel one last time—not through it, but across the viaduct above.
He slowed down, looked down from the bridge deck. Tunnel entrance was pitch black, two rows of streetlights made the entrance bright white. Couldn't see anything inside, just a normal, quiet, lit tunnel.
But he knew what was in there.
He remembered the feeling of the car sinking in the water, remembered those faces drifting in the cloudy yellow water, remembered the side profile of that fourteen-year-old boy pressed against the windshield—such a young face, eyes closed, like sleeping.
He pressed the gas pedal, accelerated away from the viaduct.
After that he never took that tunnel again. Sometimes working overtime late at night, the new route would have half an hour more of traffic jams, but he'd rather sit stuck on the road than circle back to that tunnel. His wife asked him several times why he changed routes, he always fudged it.
But sometimes at night lying in bed, between awake and asleep, he'd suddenly hear water sounds—that muffled roar coming from all directions, like the entire tunnel had become a water-filled pipe. He'd jerk awake, only to find it was just the upstairs plumbing, or rain outside.
He didn't know if he could ever completely forget those things.
That tunnel is still there. Every day tens of thousands of cars pass through, most people won't notice any anomalies.
Occasionally someone will feel like their wheels ran over something, feel the car suddenly drop, see a water streak flash on the wall, but they won't think much of it—will just think the road is uneven, or they imagined it.
Then they keep driving, exit the tunnel, return to the surface, return to normal life.
Zhou Mingyuan knows that feeling.
Because that's exactly how he used to be.