“Hey, did the lights just dim for a second?”
Jiang Wei tilted her head, staring at the incandescent bulb on the ceiling for a long time before lowering her gaze to her phone screen. That pitch-black app had already opened.
The content was unexpectedly simple: in the center of a pure white screen was only a tiny black stick figure, with the words [Fear Value: 0] floating above its head.
“Tch, is this even worth making into an app?” Jiang Wei scratched her head in annoyance. “Can this even be returned to its rightful owner? Whatever, since things have come to this, let’s scroll through some more videos!”
Embracing a “let nature take its course” attitude of giving up, Jiang Wei went back to scrolling through short videos. After a little while, a WeChat notification popped up. Opening it, she saw a video sent by her roommate.
Against a pitch-black background, a blood-soaked corpse was vaguely visible, lying on an operating table.
The camera zoomed in closer and closer to the corpse, when suddenly, the “corpse” abruptly sat up and lunged toward the camera.
In an instant, the screen shook violently, and screams filled the air, yet they were laced with an unmistakable excitement.
Then the video cut off, and another message popped up:
“Weiwei, it’s a pity you didn’t come, it was seriously so thrilling! I secretly recorded a clip for you to make up for what you missed. (Grinning teeth)”
“Who’s missing out!” Jiang Wei slapped her chest indignantly. When the corpse had lunged at the camera just now, she had almost dropped her phone.
Without even replying, she directly switched back to her phone’s home screen. But whether it was her imagination or not, the black icon of that pitch-black app seemed to flicker. When she tapped into it, she was astonished to find that the fear value had actually gone up by a bit, changing to [Fear Value: 1].
“Technology has already advanced to this level? Heart rate monitoring? Facial recognition?”
Jiang Wei’s curiosity flared up intensely. She paced around the dormitory a few times, then—as if making a sudden firm decision—retreated to her bed, wrapped herself tightly in a blanket like a cocoon, opened a video streaming website on her brand-new phone, and clicked into the [Horror] channel.
Just those hair-raising movie posters on the cover alone made her little heart tremble.
“You guys went to a haunted house, but I can watch horror movies instead, and it doesn’t cost a single cent!”
Jiang Wei took a sip of water and viciously clicked on a wildly famous Japanese horror film. As the eerie, mournful music began to play, she shrank her neck back.
“Man, the picture quality is so sharp, though!”
The phone’s audio quality was also exceptional, as the eerie, mournful music gradually blended with the sound of the rain outside.
In this rainy weather, watching a horror movie all by oneself in a quiet dorm room would feel quite thrilling even to someone who frequently watched horror movies—let alone Jiang Wei, someone who never consumed this kind of content.
The gloomy atmosphere in the movie seemed to spill right out of the screen, filling the entire room. The terrifying faces flashing across the screen from time to time made her heart skip a beat repeatedly.
Yet, strangely enough, she didn’t close her eyes tightly or pause the screen even once. Instead, she stared with wide, clear black-and-white eyes, deeply immersed in that terrifying world while a tiny trace of excitement quietly welled up in her heart.
Perhaps the movie was simply that gripping, or perhaps for an orphan like her who had to rely on student loans to eat, holding such an expensive piece of electronic device while enjoying a movie was a supreme luxury.
Before she knew it, she had completely pushed that black app to the back of her mind.
Time flew by, and the movie reached its climax, accompanied by a rather melancholic ending theme. Jiang Wei let out a soft breath, and inexplicable emotions stirred within her. Strangely enough, it wasn’t fear, but a sense of solitude.
“Fear… right!”
Jiang Wei suddenly remembered her original intention for watching a horror movie. She immediately exited the video app and tapped into the black app. The screen clearly displayed:
[Fear Value: 10]
Before she even had time to marvel at it, she noticed a new button had appeared in the bottom left corner of the screen:
[Sacrificial Offering]
“Shopping mall, you’ve finally arrived! I knew it, there’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world, nor a free app. This has gotta be topping up VIP to enjoy more content, or paying money to take a psychological test…”
With the proud expression of ‘you can’t possibly trick a single penny out of me’, Jiang Wei gently tapped her fingertip on [Sacrificial Offering].
The screen transitioned, displaying a row of product images accompanied by text labels below:
[Paper Money]: 10 Fear Points;
[Incense Sticks]: 10 Fear Points;
[Gold Prayer Beads]: 10 Fear Points;
[Blank Yellow Taoist Talisman Paper]: 10 Fear Points;
Jiang Wei froze. This turned out to be a feudal superstition app!?
And moreover, it didn’t even ask for money? Are product-selling gimmicks this deep nowadays?
As if refusing to give up until she saw a checkout pop-up window, her fingertip tapped across the row of items. After a brief hesitation, she selected [Gold Prayer Beads].
Who could resist the temptation of gold?
Anyway, I certainly can’t.
Come on out! Checkout page!
Jiang Wei shouted internally, only to suddenly feel a coolness in the palm of her hand. Unbelievingly, she spread open her five fingers, and there lay a golden, gleaming bead resting quietly right in her palm.
Back when she was watching the horror movie, no terrifying imagery whatsoever had made her scream out loud. But at this very moment, this completely surreal scene made her completely lose her composure as she screamed:
“Ah!!?”
Jiang Wei’s mind descended into absolute chaos:
“So wholesome! Not only does it cost zero cents, but it even delivers right to your hand!”
“Holy shit, this is totally alien tech! Matter teleportation, really?”
“Is someone pulling a prank on me?!”
“No matter how you look at it, this isn’t something humans can do. Immortals? Demons? Ghosts… Could it be that the heavens felt bad for a poor person and unlocked a cheat for me?”
“Oh, I hit the jackpot—no wait, I’m rich!”
Jiang Wei’s expression shifted constantly—fearful one second, baffled the next, and overjoyed after that. Her pretty face was practically twisted out of shape.
Unnoticeably, her fear value—which had dropped back to zero—crept back up by one point.
Author’s Note:
[An image of the phone’s black-bordered app can be viewed in the character cards on the novel’s page. I’ll also post the pictures on Weibo and Xiaohongshu (Qinghou).]