“It seems a living person has slipped in among the dozens of us ghosts.”
At one in the morning, Gao Tian was still at his desk by the window, grinding through practice problems when the mobile phone beside him buzzed with a new message.
It came from a Chat Group member going by the ID “Ghost Cave.”
Gao Tian glanced at his mobile phone, originally intending to close the group's notifications.
He had joined this bizarre Chat Group called the Galan Society about a month ago. Having just failed his gaokao, he was preparing to spend another year studying to retake the exam. He rented an Apartment off-campus and joined a bunch of chat groups for returning students. Sometime during all that, he had accidentally slipped into this strange Chat Group.
It had to be a slip of the finger. This group had absolutely nothing to do with exam prep.
The members all had incredibly weird names—things like Ghost Infant, Ghost Cave, Living Apartment, and Burned Ghost. They constantly discussed bizarre, terrifying horror stories. They would claim that a car crash at a specific intersection at a specific time was a supernatural event; that everyone in a certain hospital had been replaced by ghosts while appearing perfectly normal to outsiders; that a certain church's exorcism had completely failed, and the only reason they announced it as a success was because the priest had been reverse-possessed...
Occasionally, members would send “red envelopes” to the Chat Group. Normal red envelopes were a festive, joyous red, but the ones in this group were a dead, pitch black. Framed by a faint border, they looked a bit like coffins, exuding a deeply ominous vibe. The names of the envelopes were even more grotesque: Supernatural Item, Urn, Soul-Sucking Pot, Blood Shroud...
Gao Tian had tried to claim one or two of these Black Envelopes before, but every time he clicked, a confirmation box popped up asking if he was willing to pay one year of his lifespan. While he didn't believe in ghosts or gods, he felt it was bad luck, so he always backed out at the final step.
Even now, Gao Tian hadn't left the Chat Group. He figured they were just some niche subculture enthusiasts, and reading their chats was pretty entertaining. The only issue was that the people inside were a bit unhinged. They discussed these horror stories with utter seriousness, detailing everything as if completely immersed in roleplay. Sometimes, as he read through the logs, Gao Tian almost started to wonder if the stories they told were real.Then came today, and this completely serious tone from the member called Ghost Cave. Gao Tian chuckled inwardly, wondering what the hell they were playing at now.
Had his identity finally been exposed after accidentally lurking in this Chat Group for over a month?
[Ghost Infant]:
Ghost Cave, what proof do you have?
[Ghost Cave]:
None. Just intuition.
[Ghost Infant]:
(Mocking Emoticon)
If your intuition is so accurate, how did your wife and kids all die in the Woman in the Rain incident?
[Ghost Cave]:
I don't want to fight with you, Xiao Qianqian.
And don't try to provoke me.
Believe me. This past month, whenever we chatted in the Chat Group, I could constantly feel the gaze of a living person watching us.
He is observing us.
This Chat Group cannot allow the living inside. If there is a living person here, we have to kill him.
[Living Apartment]:
@Ghost Cave What do you plan to do?
Crawl through the network cables to everyone who lurks and kill them all?
[Ghost Cave]:
That's too much trouble.
There are some big shots in the Chat Group I'm not familiar with, and it's best not to disturb them.
Plus, my time is running out. I don't have time to waste on a living person.
How about this: I'll send out a Black Envelope right now. Every member of the Chat Group, open it.
This Black Envelope is a curse. Anyone who clicks on it will be hunted down by a Fierce Ghost called Shattered Face until they are dead.
[Ghost Infant]:
(Scared Emoticon)
Sob sob, I'm so scared.
If I click on this envelope, will that Fierce Ghost hunt me down too?
[Ghost Cave]:
@Ghost Infant.
Are you an idiot?
You're already a ghost. You can't die a second time.
But that living person is different. As long as he clicks the Black Envelope, he is dead for sure.
If he chooses not to click it, then his ID is locked in anyway. Ghost Infant, you can just crawl through the network cable and kill him.
[Ghost Infant]:
(Worship Emoticon)
[Ghost Cave]:
After you kill the living person who snuck in, don't forget to kick his account out of the Chat Group.
@Admin Living Apartment
...
...
User [Ghost Cave] sent a Black Envelope.
Reading this, Gao Tian still found it a bit amusing.
Yet for some reason, a faint sheen of cold sweat inexplicably broke out on his forehead.
“The temperature is dropping fast.”
Gao Tian stood up and casually shut the glass window.
When he returned to his seat, he saw that over two dozen Chat Group members, including Living Apartment and Ghost Infant, had already opened the Black Envelope sent by Ghost Cave. The number of members who hadn't clicked was shrinking rapidly as more people continued to open it.
What should he do? Claim the Black Envelope, or pretend he hadn't seen it?
Gao Tian didn't really believe that members of a Chat Group could literally travel through the internet to murder him just because he joined the wrong chat. But if he didn't click the Black Envelope, Ghost Cave would quickly realize he was the interloper. At the very least, the admin would kick him out immediately.
Truth be told, Gao Tian found the conversations in this Chat Group rather fascinating. He didn't want to be kicked out so soon; he wanted to see how many more ghost stories these people could invent.
As he reached out to tap the Black Envelope, cold sweat once again beaded on his fingertips.
His temples throbbed violently for some unknown reason, and a profoundly bizarre thought bubbled up in his mind:
Was it possible that the members of this Chat Group were actually all ghosts?
That he thought they were telling stories, but they were actually narrating documentaries?
Startled by his own thought, Gao Tian quickly let out a self-deprecating laugh.
According to Ghost Cave, if he didn't click this Black Envelope, his identity as a living person would be exposed.
Death.
If he did click it, he would be triggering a curse, and a Fierce Ghost would soon come knocking at his door.
Also death.
If this Chat Group really was full of ghosts, then whatever choice he made next, it would mean certain death.
In the Chat Group, every single user had opened Ghost Cave's Black Envelope, except Gao Tian.
He was running out of time.
He had to make a choice.
Gao Tian tapped the Black Envelope.
A prompt popped up on his mobile phone screen:
Claiming this Black Envelope requires paying 0 years of lifespan.
Are you willing to pay this voluntarily?
...
The word “voluntarily” was even bolded, as if reminding the user not to miss it.
It seemed these “ghosts” were quite reasonable. They might kill people, but they would never force a transaction.
For the past month or so, this ominous prompt had given Gao Tian such a strong sense of bad luck that he hadn't claimed a single member's Black Envelope until now.
But today, he had no choice. If he didn't click it, the admin would kick him. Besides, the lifespan cost for this Black Envelope was zero, so there was nothing unlucky about it.
After he claimed the Black Envelope, the mobile phone instantly jumped to an image, flashing before his eyes without warning—
It was a massive, pale face.
It was impossible to tell if it was male or female because his (or her?) skin was so pale, so white that it seemed to gleam. The facial features were almost entirely obscured, leaving only the outline of a face, much like a blank sheet of paper.
The only terrifying thing about this faceless entity was its blood-red eyes, completely lacking pupils. They stared dead at Gao Tian through the screen, looking exactly like two crimson drops stained onto a piece of white paper.
[Living Apartment]:
@Ghost Cave
Everyone in the Chat Group has opened your Black Envelope.
Wait, no. All the ghosts.
[Ghost Infant]:
@Ghost Cave
I didn't find the living person, sob sob.
And here I thought I'd have some work to do tonight.
[Ghost Cave]:
Heh.
That living person is quite cunning, silently watching our chat logs this whole time.
He might have already realized that he joined a ghost Chat Group. He just disguised himself very well, rarely speaking and never drawing attention from anyone else.
But it doesn't matter. As long as he opened that Black Envelope, his death is guaranteed.
In three days, everyone in the Chat Group will send a message. Whoever doesn't speak is the living person, having already been taken out by Shattered Face.
[Ghost Infant]:
@Ghost Cave
Honestly, I think you might be way too paranoid.
Don't let it turn out that you spent the whole night fighting a battle of wits with thin air.
[Ghost Cave]:
Heh.
...
...
For the rest of the night, not a single user spoke in the eerie Chat Group known as the Galan Society.
Gao Tian stared at his mobile phone. That grotesque white face with red eyes had only flashed for a second when he opened the Black Envelope before vanishing without a trace.
Over the next half hour, his focus never quite returned to his pen. For the true-or-false section of his English paper—where it was either T or F—he somehow managed to get seven out of ten questions wrong. He would have been better off just guessing one answer straight down.
Realizing how distracted he was, Gao Tian set down his exam paper and glanced once more at the black mobile phone resting on the corner of his desk.
Looking at the chat logs of these members, it really didn't seem like they were joking.
They genuinely wanted to find the extra person and kill him.
If... just saying if...
Even if there was only a one-in-a-ten-thousand chance—
That everything the members of this lunatic Chat Group were saying was completely real.
Gao Tian slowly stood up, trying to calm himself down.
Right then, he looked through his Third Floor window down to the street below. In the empty space of the residential alleyway, a bizarre silhouette stood in the shadow of a streetlamp, staring in his direction.
It was an outline of indistinguishable gender. From this distance, the only thing he could confirm was that the figure's face was incredibly pale, so white that it seemed to glow, to the point where its facial features were completely obscured.
This “person's” eyes were completely blood-red, entirely devoid of pupils. It just stood there on the ground floor, staring motionless toward his position on the Third Floor.
Gao Tian's mind exploded with a roar.
Without a doubt, it was the inhuman freak from the picture in the Black Envelope.
It took him a very short moment—or rather, it had taken him nearly a month—to finally realize that this Chat Group was no niche subculture. Every single user in the Chat Group was a ghost. The so-called horror stories they told, and their threats to hunt down the interloper through the internet, were all real.
He had only tapped the Black Envelope and glanced at that photo of the white face. Yet in that brief flash of time, the entity had already found its way right below his apartment.
Just as Ghost Cave had said.
A Fierce Ghost had come.