“Interview candidate?”
Among the group, a fashionable woman flipped back her long hair and said indifferently, “Yes.”
Aside from her and another handsome man, the other two did not look like they had come for an interview at all. One wore a black mask and a dark baseball cap. Even in the brightly lit corridor, his eyes were completely hidden. The other had a face full of wrinkles and cloudy eyes. When he saw Yang Chaoyu, he grinned.
Would those yellow-orange teeth look bad on camera?
Thinking this, Yang Chaoyu returned his smile.
Ke Xingyun spoke up at that moment, saying that they might all be colleagues in the future, so why not introduce themselves to one another? He gave his own name first, emphasizing that he had trained in physical performance, could perform street dance, and could cross-dress as needed.
Yang Chaoyu: Is cross-dressing really a useful skill?
She glanced at Ke Xingyun, and the boy gave a foolish grin.
Yang Chaoyu said, “Yang Chaoyu. I just graduated as a senior studying animation, and I’m currently an unemployed drifter.”
The fashionable woman said, “Zou Qing, a fashion blogger, a major orange-verified account, with over a million fans.”
The man beside her smiled and said, “Qi Yang, a food blogger, orange-verified, with fewer fans than Zou Qing.”
The man in the baseball cap said nothing, but the old man with the wrinkled face said, “Let’s skip the small talk. I estimate the time is almost up. I think we should first exchange the information we’ve obtained.”
The old man’s voice was hoarse and unpleasant, like metal scraping across glass.
Yang Chaoyu and Ke Xingyun looked at each other. Finally, he spoke. “Old sir, what do you mean?”
The old man smiled, took out his phone, and waved it around.
The next moment, Yang Chaoyu’s phone rang.
【MN】interview time has arrived. Six people are participating in the interview; two are late. The interview officially begins. All attendees, please search for clues within the residential complex. HR will evaluate everyone based on the clues you find and either hire or eliminate you. Time limit: three hours.
“What is this?” Yang Chaoyu asked in confusion. “What clues?”
Immediately afterward, a second message arrived:
【MN】In addition to HR’s assessment, you will begin a livestream. The number of viewers will also serve as one of the evaluation criteria. All interviewees, please perform actively.
Afterward, Yang Chaoyu’s phone seemed to go haywire. It opened the application store by itself, downloaded a player with an MN icon, and opened it on its own. She could not exit or even turn off the screen, and could only watch helplessly as the livestream software launched. She long-pressed the lock button, trying to shut it down, but the phone stubbornly remained lit and completely ignored her commands.
Unable to do anything about it, she gave up and stuffed the phone into her pocket.
Ke Xingyun was just as dumbfounded. He shook his phone vigorously, trying to make it return to normal.
The two Streamers also found it strange and examined their phones repeatedly. The man in the baseball cap and the old man remained completely calm. The former headed toward Room 1302 and knocked on the door.
As expected, no one responded.
The old man’s line of sight swept over them. He let out a laugh and directly twisted the doorknob of Room 1302.
With a click, the door opened.
The two entered one after the other.
The old man’s laughter made Yang Chaoyu’s skin crawl, and she instinctively moved closer to Ke Xingyun.
Qi Yang frowned at his phone and said, “What is this? Has someone hacked into my phone? Is this some kind of prank game?”
Zou Qing remained calm. “They said it’s an interview. Then let’s search.”
After saying that, she naturally waved at the camera and greeted everyone, then introduced the situation. “Today, I’m participating in a very creative interview. We’re actually trespassing in a residence at night. Are you excited? Let me tell you…”
She chattered on as she followed them into Room 1302, carefully avoiding the dust-covered areas while energetically searching for clues without even knowing what she was looking for.
The remaining three, including Yang Chaoyu, followed inside as well.
The lights would not turn on.
The man in the baseball cap and the old man both had flashlights, while the two Streamers turned on the flashlight functions built into their phones.
With the light from these four people and the corridor shining in through the doorway, they could roughly make out the situation inside.
The apartment looked as though no one had lived there for a long time, and the air was thick with the smell of dust. To the left of the entrance was an open kitchen, with everything still neatly arranged. The door to the room on the right was half open. It seemed to be a storage room, with all kinds of things piled messily inside: dolls, swimsuits, and many large cardboard boxes for storing food. Farther in were two bedrooms and a bathroom.
The man in the baseball cap and the old man were both highly focused and had a clear objective. After inspecting the living room, they went to the bedrooms. The two Streamers gathered together, seemingly discussing how to prepare a script and record everything again after the others had left.
Yang Chaoyu felt out of place and did not really want to stay.
She gave Ke Xingyun a meaningful look and walked out first.
Once outside, Yang Chaoyu headed toward the elevator and asked, “I’m not going to do the interview. I’ll just show my face and collect ten thousand yuan. I’ve already shown up, so I’m going home now. What about you? Are you going to keep playing?”
Yang Chaoyu had spoken for quite a while and had already reached the doorway, but she still did not hear Ke Xingyun’s footsteps.
Just as she turned her head to ask what he was doing, she saw him standing at the doorway, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets!
Yang Chaoyu’s hair stood on end.
At that moment, Ke Xingyun stood near the doorway, while she stood near the elevator. Beside the elevator was the emergency exit, whose door was half open. Ke Xingyun was staring at the emergency exit behind her.
Following his gaze, she looked over…
The atmosphere in the residential complex was supernatural phenomenon. Yang Chaoyu had already wanted to retreat, and after meeting these four people, she found everything even stranger. She felt like a butterfly that had flown into a spiderweb. Although she could not see the spider, she was powerless to do anything.
But this was only her feeling.
Until she looked over, everything could still be explained, and materialism remained applicable.
But when she followed Ke Xingyun’s gaze and saw a blood-covered girl standing at the emergency exit, staring coldly at her, Yang Chaoyu’s heart sank to the bottom.
Her entire body turned cold, and she could not move.
Dark streaks flowed beneath the girl’s eyes, like congealed blood. Her face looked as though it had been smashed by a heavy object, leaving it a bloody mess. A large patch of skin had been scraped away from the top of her head after death, exposing stark white bones. Her body was covered in dark stains, and her limbs were twisted at unnatural angles.
That was not something a human being could do.
One glance at her eyes was enough to make anyone feel profound despair and hatred.
“Ah!!!” Ke Xingyun let out a shriek and grabbed Yang Chaoyu’s hand, shaking it repeatedly. “Did you see it? Did you see it?”
Yang Chaoyu’s heart had been pounding with fear, but his high-pitched scream instead brought her back to her senses.
“I saw it. Let go first.” She helplessly turned to look at him.
“I’m not letting go. You… look at my crotch!”
“Why would I look at that?” As he shook her hand, Yang Chaoyu’s gaze subconsciously drifted downward. She then yanked her hand back forcefully. “Why don’t you look yourself?”
Ke Xingyun sobbed, “I’m so scared. I can’t move my neck.”
When Yang Chaoyu ignored him, he pitifully looked down himself, then sniffled and said, “Oh, I didn’t pee.”
“My pants felt chilly. I thought I had peed myself.”
When Yang Chaoyu looked toward the stairwell again, the girl had already disappeared.
She subconsciously said, “If you had peed yourself, it would feel warm, not chilly.”
“How do you know?” He was still a little dazed. “Have you peed yourself before?”
“Common sense!”
Yang Chaoyu really wanted to smack him several times.
Chaotic footsteps came from inside the room. Qi Yang, Zou Qing, and the man in the baseball cap appeared at the doorway and asked what had happened.
Although Yang Chaoyu tried desperately to convince herself that she had simply been seeing things, the atheism deep within her was shattered. The human brain and eyes could both “lie,” but the girl’s image had been too vivid, and her line of sight had felt too real.
That hatred striking directly at the soul did not seem like something that could have been acted.
Ke Xingyun was much more exaggerated than Yang Chaoyu. His calves trembled as he sniffled and recounted what they had just seen.
“With her face injured like that, she definitely wasn’t human,” he sobbed in conclusion.
The three looked at Yang Chaoyu, clearly seeking confirmation.
Yang Chaoyu nodded and tried to maintain her composure, but her limbs were trembling as well.
Qi Yang tugged at the corner of his mouth and said unnaturally, “What a lousy interview. This is probably just a prank to amuse themselves. The thing you saw was probably a performer or a prop. There must be cameras hidden in the dark, all to record our ugly reactions when we get scared! Ghosts and monsters? What a joke. I’m not doing this interview.”
As he spoke, he did not bother verifying his theory. Instead, he strode toward the elevator, clearly intending to leave.
The man in the baseball cap spoke up. “Once it begins, the area is sealed off. If you try to leave, your legs will be broken.”
But he had not even given his own name, so his credibility was extremely low. Qi Yang ignored him and instead asked Zou Qing if she was leaving. Zou Qing’s expression was also extremely grim, and she nodded.
The two walked beside the elevator and pressed the down arrow. The man in the baseball cap went back inside without a word.
Ke Xingyun trembled as he tugged at Yang Chaoyu’s sleeve and asked, “Didn’t you just say you weren’t going to play anymore? Shall we leave together?”
Yang Chaoyu felt that something was wrong. “We’ve already seen that thing. Do you really think we can just leave?”