Jiang Li, expressionless, was about to close the door, but Duan Zhihan stood outside wallowing in self-pity: “Don’t worry about me, I’ll just be scared all by myself, that’s all.”
After all, the man had gotten injured because of him today, and this kind of talk made refusing feel downright inhumane.
He looked at the still-self-pitying Duan Zhihan and simply pulled the man inside.
Yet the human had the audacity to look surprised: “Why did you pull me in here?”
What else would he do?
Jiang Li’s temple throbbed: “To apply your medicine!”
Duan Zhihan seemed a little taken aback: “No need.”
But the boy held onto his clothes and wouldn’t let go, like a fiercely adorable little kitten, so he had no choice but to sit down, smiling.
Jiang Li pulled down the back of the man’s shirt, and a well-defined back appeared before him, strong yet not without its own beauty.
But on that otherwise perfect back was a horrifying patch of bruised purple, spreading from the latissimus dorsi up to the shoulder and neck.
The little robot’s hand, pulling at the clothes, froze. Such a terrifying injury, he had no idea how the man could still manage to smile.
Duan Zhihan really was a strange human, crying out over the tiniest scratches, yet enduring serious injuries in silence, even smiling through them.
He lowered his head to apply the medicine, his hands trembling.
Duan Zhihan: “Be gentle with me, baby.”
Hadn’t he already said not to call him baby!
Jiang Li’s face flushed uncomfortably. He softened his touch, quickly finished applying the medicine, and went to wash his face.
He stared at himself in the mirror, clear water droplets clinging to his pale skin, sliding from his chin down to his collarbone, dampening a small patch of his clothes.
The thought of sharing a room tonight suddenly made him not want to leave the bathroom at all.
Time ticked by, second by second. He told himself they were just ordinary friends now, and ordinary friends sharing a room was no big deal.
The little robot mentally prepared himself thoroughly, finished washing up, and walked out of the bathroom, only to falter completely at the sight of the man leisurely changing his clothes.
He immediately fled back to the bathroom.
Only when the man said, smiling, “All done,” did the little robot creep out of the bathroom, climbing stiffly into bed.
Duan Zhihan found the boy huddled at the edge of the bed amusing, like a little kitten trying desperately to curl into a ball, and mischievously poked at him.
The next second, the boy shrank even farther away. He poked him again, and sure enough, the boy curled up even tighter.
So cute it was maddening.
Jiang Li simply assumed the man found the bed too small, and out of consideration for his injury, generously offered up more space on the bed.
Still, he had the odd sensation of being watched by a natural predator, probably just his imagination, he decided, reaching up to turn off the light.
Once the lights went out, that feeling faded, replaced by unusually sharp hearing, able to catch each other’s heartbeats.
In the darkness, the little robot closed his eyes, the image of the man’s wound surfacing in his mind. Before shutting down, he spoke awkwardly: “Thank you.”
“What did you say?” Duan Zhihan naturally leaned in closer.
He had no choice but to repeat himself.
The man went quiet for a moment, and just as he thought the man hadn’t heard him, Duan Zhihan whispered near his ear: “You’re worried about me.”
He pulled the blanket over his head, but didn’t deny it either.
Jiang Li had a fixed power-on time, no matter what time he shut down at night, he wouldn’t power on again until 9 AM.
At 7:25, he was woken up by a scream.
The little robot sat up impatiently to power himself on, and looking down, found himself, who’d been sleeping in the corner, now in the middle of the bed, right beside the handsome-faced Duan Zhihan.
Before he could figure out why, the screaming outside the door grew even more shrill, it sounded like An Zhiqing.
He got dressed and walked out of the room, running straight into An Zhiqing.
An Zhiqing, panicked, grabbed his arm: “Finally, someone. I was scared to death just now!”
An Zhiqing’s face was as pale as the wall. He’d woken up early to get some water, and had seen a figure standing in the tea room.
He’d been about to walk over and greet them, but suddenly remembered that no one else was awake yet, where could anyone have come from in the tea room? Then the figure’s head had rotated a full three hundred sixty degrees, terrifying him so badly he’d scrambled back, tripping over himself.
Jiang Li’s gaze landed on An Zhiqing’s hand, and before he could say anything, Duan Zhihan, who had just walked out the door, casually knocked An Zhiqing’s hand away.
An Zhiqing didn’t notice the details, only relieved that someone had shown up. He did wonder, though, if his eyes had deceived him, why had Duan Zhihan come out of Jiang Li’s room?
He’d underestimated the volume of his own scream, which had woken everyone up. Qi Hui gave him a disapproving look: “A grown man, still scared like this.”
An Zhiqing could only laugh awkwardly, and Ruan Yan stepped in to smooth things over: “Let’s all go down for breakfast. We can compare notes on what we found yesterday, anything physical is fair to share.”
An Zhiqing shot Ruan Yan a grateful look, though Ruan Yan was really just looking for a chance to make up for yesterday’s mistake.
The production team had prepared a lavish breakfast, but in this eerie house, no amount of luxury could stir up an appetite.
Xu Jiawen spoke first: “Yesterday, Senior An and I searched the first floor. There’s a small room behind the fireplace, and on the table was an audio recording from an exorcist.”
“They hired an exorcist?” Jiang Li looked up.
He remembered that letter had never been sent.
“Yes.” Xu Jiawen nodded. “The moment the exorcist entered this house, he sensed the presence of a malicious spirit. This spirit wanted everyone dead. Despite thorough preparation, he still died.”
“How did he die?” Qi Hui asked.
An Zhiqing finally found his moment to shine: “Killed by the evil spirit, obviously! The recording captured the horrifying sound of him having his throat slit. Before he died, he said he’d discovered a secret.”
So an exorcist really had been involved.
Jiang Li mulled it over, maybe they’d found a suitable exorcist before mailing that letter, which was why it never got sent.
Xu Jiawen pulled out something that looked like a camera: “We also found this in a drawer.”
“What is that?”
“The exorcism camera.”
Xu Jiawen’s presence on the show had been fairly minimal, but this performance made everyone in the livestream take notice.
“Xu Jiawen’s actually pretty capable, found the exorcism camera without making a fuss, I was worried they wouldn’t find it at all today”
“Well then, all they need now is to find the evil spirit!”
“Anyone here who’s actually played this haunted house before?”
“I played it this year, honestly, it’s really hard to capture the evil spirit even with the camera, not sure the guests can clear it”
Ruan Yan didn’t expect Xu Jiawen to find the exorcism camera. With all the credit going to Xu Jiawen, he suppressed his anxiety and spoke up: “Even with the camera, we still need to find the evil spirit, right?”
An Zhiqing nodded blankly. “Do you have any info about the evil spirit?”
Seeing this, Ruan Yan spoke: “Yesterday, on the second floor, I found the wife’s diary. It said the strangeness in the house started after their child picked up a toy. Her child would soak the toy in water to clean it, shrink it down, and play with it for an entire day by himself.”
“But the toy kept making noises at inconvenient times, so she sewed its mouth shut. The next day, she found the toy sitting rigidly at the head of the bed, staring straight ahead. That toy must be the evil spirit.”
Ruan Yan was so eager to showcase himself that he forgot to mention Qi Hui’s name.
Qi Hui listened to Ruan Yan’s account with a faint, ambiguous smile. Xu Jiawen ate quietly with his head down, while Duan Zhihan focused all his attention on feeding the little robot.
While Jiang Li had listened to the humans talk, his plate had filled up with all sorts of food.
He kept drinking his own lemon water.
The next second, Duan Zhihan handed over two small lemon cakes, releasing a sweet, tangy scent.
Human food was essentially junk food to the little robot, but he found it hard to resist the temptation of lemon cake, taking small, reluctant bites.
Because it was simply too delicious, he saved one cake uneaten, tucking it away in his box.
“Why would he keep a box in his backpack?”
“You forgot he even brought a flashlight along”
“Jiang Li really is bizarre in every way, hard to imagine him and Duan Zhihan actually being together”
“That comment just stabbed all the ship fans in the heart, though I’m curious too what Duan Zhihan even sees in Jiang Li”
Ruan Yan felt no one was really listening to him seriously, his eyes reddening slightly: “Is everyone still upset with me? I really didn’t mean to do that yesterday.”
Having grown up living with his mother in his stepfather’s household, he was used to relying on his mother, and knew all too well the benefits of playing the victim.
Sure enough, An Zhiqing immediately consoled him: “Oh come on, kid, why would we hold that against you?”
Even Qi Hui offered a token expression of concern. Seeing the effect achieved, Ruan Yan wiped away his tears and continued.
Although Duan Zhihan hadn’t held it against him, Jiang Li couldn’t help but hold a grudge.
The little robot asked, ice-cold: “So if I bashed a huge bruise into your back, all I’d need to say is ‘I didn’t mean it,’ and that would be that?”
Ruan Yan’s face immediately stiffened.
“Was Teacher Duan’s injury really that severe?”
“He himself said it was fine though”
“First time hearing Jiang Li protectively defend someone”
“But how would Jiang Li even know about Teacher Duan’s back injury?”
Ruan Yan knew Jiang Li’s temperament was odd, and had deliberately avoided interacting with him, yet somehow, Jiang Li was still coming after him.
He couldn’t help but look at Duan Zhihan, hoping the man would speak up for him, but this gentle, courteous Best Actor just smiled faintly, giving him no face at all.
Ruan Yan had no choice but to stand up and bow in apology, lowering his head a full ninety degrees.
After holding this posture for a full minute, the ice-blue-haired boy finally said nothing more.
“Ruan Yan probably regrets bringing this up now”
“Teacher Duan’s really enjoying his wife defending him”
“Damn it, meeting on a divorce show of all places”
“So curious how these two ended up together”
An Zhiqing stepped in to smooth things over: “Yan Yan, don’t be so reckless next time. You said the evil spirit was that toy?”
Even though Ruan Yan looked down on An Zhiqing’s status as just an inactive middle-aged actor, he still felt a flicker of gratitude in this moment.
He continued along the same thread: “Yes, at first it was just some pranks, but later the wife’s child was killed by the evil spirit, the body soaked in water, limbs cut short.”
“Yesterday, I specifically went to check the storage room on the third floor. The walls were covered with ‘help me’ written over and over. That must be evidence of the evil spirit’s invasion.”
Ruan Yan spoke earnestly, word by word, and the comments started warming to him somewhat.
“So he went up to the third floor yesterday to find evidence, in that terrifying place too, guess accidentally hitting someone can be forgiven”
“Someone who’s cleared this haunted house confirms Ruan Yan’s deduction is correct, he’s actually using his brain for this game”
“Even though I can’t forgive what he did yesterday, he’s clearly taking the show seriously”
“Learn a lesson next time”
No one objected after Ruan Yan finished speaking.
He’d expected this outcome. He’d secretly brought an extra phone in his luggage and had looked up a walkthrough guide in his room last night.
The husband in this house was a carpenter, the wife a laid-off factory worker, and they had one child, just starting elementary school.
Their child had originally kindly picked up the toy out of goodwill, but the evil spirit possessing the toy had invaded this once-warm home, claiming it as its own, wreaking havoc and slaughter within.
But Ruan Yan didn’t expect Jiang Li to speak up: “What if the intruders were the humans instead?”
“How could that be.”
Ruan Yan dismissed the idea without a second thought, first, he’d already looked up the walkthrough guide, and second, Jiang Li wasn’t exactly known for his intelligence.
“The husband and wife are poorly educated, but the study has an entire wall of professional books,” Jiang Li explained coldly. “Their child just started elementary school, yet the graffiti on the walls contains middle-school-level content.”
“The evil spirit seems to be destroying the house, but it’s only ever destroying these three people’s belongings, the books and the nursery toys have never been touched. I checked their bills. Their income wouldn’t be enough to afford this house.”
Ruan Yan looked confused: “What does that prove?”
Jiang Li: “This family are the actual intruders. They seized a house that wasn’t theirs, and the house’s true owner became the toy, turning into an evil spirit after death.”
Xu Jiawen picked up on this sharply: “The exorcism camera was right next to that exorcist, the evil spirit shouldn’t have been able to kill him, yet he died with his throat slit. That must be because he discovered this secret.”
“I’m having a little trouble keeping up”
“Completely different from the walkthrough guide, but it does kind of make sense”
“This theory’s pretty dark, honestly, if that toy really was a person, imagining them being tortured, soaked in water, their body cut short with scissors, that’s basically torture-murder”
“Wouldn’t torture-murder make more sense as a reason to attract an evil spirit though? Still, that is dark”
The livestream chat was split on opinions, and Ruan Yan found it hard to accept Jiang Li’s theory too, this person’s thinking jumped around completely, how could he possibly connect a toy to an actual person?
But even Qi Hui agreed: “We could go check the storage room.”
Ruan Yan had no choice but to follow everyone upstairs.
Once at the storage room, Xu Jiawen spoke first: “The ‘help me’ writing on the wall is at a height of one point six meters. Judging by how fresh and old the marks look, it wasn’t written hastily, it was layered on again and again, over time.”
The room also had discarded chains, letting them imagine just how desperately someone had once cried for help, hoping some guest would hear, yet no one ever answered.
“Such great attention to detail! Truly a former soldier’s eye”
“The wife’s child was only seven, there’s no way he could’ve written this high up, which can only mean someone else was imprisoned here”
“This family is horrifying, not only did they steal someone else’s house, they treated the actual owner like a toy. They deserved to have their whole family killed by the evil spirit”
“But why would this person write ‘help me’ on the wall when no one would ever see it?”
Seeing everyone convinced by Jiang Li’s theory, Ruan Yan felt utterly speechless.
But he said nothing more, the production team would surely prove Jiang Li wrong soon enough.
Yet, to his utter shock, the production team announced their successful escape: “Congratulations, everyone, on uncovering the hidden truth. You may now leave this house.”
Ruan Yan: ???
“They can just leave now??”
“Not hard to understand, this haunted house has had over ten thousand visitors, and everyone else chose to use the exorcism camera to defeat the evil spirit, only Jiang Li’s group discovered the actual truth”
“Just to be clear, I’m not suspecting the show’s rigged, but how did Jiang Li connect Ruan Yan’s written clues to a torture-murder just by listening?”
“I’ve gained a whole new respect for Jiang Li”
Everyone’s faces showed relief at wrapping up the episode, except Duan Zhihan, who stayed silent, having gone quiet since Jiang Li first spoke.
Not until he saw the boy walking alone toward the dark fourth floor did he force out a light chuckle and ask, “What are you going up there for?”
“I want to go see that evil spirit.”
The audience’s newfound respect for Jiang Li took a hit.
“Save him! Does he seriously think there’s a real evil spirit?”
“He might as well just say he’s a robot”
“His acting really is too artificial”
“Jiang Li’s intelligence never fails to disappoint me”
Duan Zhihan reminded him: “How do you know it’s up there?”
“Because that’s the safest place.”
Unfamiliar images surfaced in Jiang Li’s mind again, a human child hiding in a pitch-black attic, any tiny noise outside the door making him curl up in fear, holding himself tightly.
The man in the image had more scars on him than before, gripping a phone tightly, desperately wiping the blood-stained screen, as if listening to the sound would make the pain go away, but his right ear could hear nothing at all.
The little robot felt troubled by these recurring unfamiliar memories, while Duan Zhihan lowered his peach-blossom eyes.
The reason he could so sharply guess someone had been abused was simply because his Jiang Li had once suffered the same treatment, and had subconsciously come to believe that dark places were safe.
The little robot couldn’t read the emotion in Duan Zhihan’s eyes and continued walking toward the fourth floor.
He walked up to the locked stairwell, and through a crack, saw an evil spirit covered in scars, its torn mouth looking utterly horrifying.
“What is he going to do?”
“Wasn’t it already over?”
“He probably thinks it’s a real evil spirit, guess he’s going to use the exorcism camera to destroy it”
“Jiang Li’s always so strange”
Yet, to everyone’s shock, Jiang Li took out the precious box from his backpack and passed it through the crack.
The beautiful boy gave the cake he couldn’t bear to eat to the filthy ghost. Even standing in darkness, his eyes held a brilliant light.
Everyone watching the screen held their breath. Many finally understood why Duan Zhihan liked Jiang Li, even they, in this moment, found their hearts moved by this strange, sincere boy.
“Since the evil spirit missed the dinner yesterday, he gave it his own little cake”
“He’s just too good!”
“What kind of little earthbound angel is Jiang Li?”
“When are he and Teacher Duan getting back together!”