In the center of the dark, abandoned hospital lobby, Jiang Wei sat majestically on that eerie master-chair. Motionless and silent for a moment, she looked even more bizarre than the hospital itself.
The strong beam of light from her flashlight shone on the ground, stirring up dust that flashed with starry, fragmented light, while her face remained hidden in the darkness, her expression obscure and unfathomable.
“Wei, Sister Wei—” Junnan was already howling with fear. He was so terrified that Vivian would get into trouble; after all, she was his only reliance in this place.
Fortunately, Jiang Wei opened her mouth to answer him: “This chair is not bad. If no one wants it, I can take it away.”
“Why did Vivian sit on up there? Could she be pos—” Tiger, who had been gesticulating wildly while wanting to speculate that Jiang Wei was possessed, suddenly froze. Raising the camera lens to focus on Jiang Wei’s face, he found that although her expression had turned gloomy, she didn’t look like she had been scared out of her wits.
What kind of tactic was this from Jiang Wei? Not scared at all? And she even wanted to take away his four-figure master-chair?
Jiang Wei stood up from the chair. Although others couldn’t make out much in the dim light, Jiang Wei, who had opened her ghostly domain to perceive almost all information within it, discovered a row of footprints that did not belong to her.
After the master-chair was placed on the stairs earlier, Tiger must have arranged for someone to scatter dust around the area to cover up their footprints. But when moving the chair from the steps to the lobby, Tiger’s staff probably didn’t have time to scatter dust for camouflage, thus leaving traces behind.
Jiang Wei did not expose it. She nodded toward Junnan, who had slowly crept up to her and was carefully observing her expression, signaling him not to be afraid, and turned to look at Tiger:
“Now that I’ve sat in this chair, it seems nothing happened after all. It’s not scary at all.”
With that, she shrugged and said into the camera lens that Tiger thrust forward:
“Tiger, isn’t there a morgue in the basement? Why don’t we leave as well? Since we’re already here, we might as well head straight to explore the morgue.”
Didn’t he want content/material? Jiang Wei could satisfy him—over-satisfy him.
“You’re not scared anymore?” Tiger looked at her suspiciously. She was saying she was scared just a moment ago; why did she suddenly stop feeling like this hospital was jinxed?
“What’s there to be scared of? It’s probably just some unwanted master-chair. Where are there ghosts in this world? We have to be materialists.” Jiang Wei gripped the back of the master-chair. She had originally planned to let things rest for today, and she had given Tiger plenty of face, but she hadn’t expected that even when they were about to leave, he would still arrange a segment where the master-chair was moved downstairs.
Since Tiger didn’t know when to quit while he was ahead, let’s just match wits and see.
“As expected of my Sister Wei!” Junnan looked at the calm and fearless Jiang Wei with full admiration. As long as Jiang Wei put on a steady and unshakeable posture, he would feel secure in his heart.
Raising his phone high, aimed right at Jiang Wei’s face, he first framed a medium shot, then gave a close-up, continuously flattering her in his speech:
“This wicked chair has been severely suppressed by my Sister Wei!
“Sister V suppresses evil chairs; Sister V cuts off all eternity single-handedly.”
Listening to Junnan’s wild boasting into the livestream room, Tiger felt a swirl of sourness in his heart. In the past, he was the absolute protagonist; today, his spotlight had truly been completely stolen by Vivian.
After locking eyes with Jiang Wei for a moment, he resolutely lifted his chin: “No problem, let’s go right this second.”
“My Sister Wei is a true master; that’s not just an ordinary peach wood sword, that’s a magic tool for slaying demons and eliminating ghosts. You guys don’t know a damn thing.” Junnan conversed back and forth with the bullet comments in the livestream room, showing a hundred percent defense of Jiang Wei.
Jiang Wei patted Junnan’s arm. “Tiger and I are going to explore the basement morgue. You can retreat first; wait for us outside under the street lamp, or you can go back first.”
“Is it really a morgue?” Junnan cast a glance at Tiger, who had walked two steps ahead and looked back at them, and swallowed hard. He wanted to leave, but—his gaze shifted toward the hospital entrance. Beyond the pitch-black lobby was a chaotic, desolate courtyard with looming tree shadows. How could he dare to walk out alone?
You must know that in horror movies, the ones who act alone die the fastest. “I won’t. I want to stick with you the whole time.”
Seeing that she couldn’t persuade him, Jiang Wei had no choice but to bring him along.
Following Tiger all the way to the stairs leading to the basement, as she stepped downward, she turned back to look straight into Junnan’s eyes, whispering instructions: “Don’t be afraid. With me here, there’s no need to be scared, remember?”
“Mm, mm.” Junnan was somewhat bluffed by her demeanor and nodded without understanding why.
Seeing him like that, Jiang Wei knew he lacked spiritual resonance and completely failed to catch her drift. Since she couldn’t spell it out, she shook her head helplessly. “Fine, just hide at the back the whole time, and close your eyes if you get scared.”
“Okay,” Junnan nodded. This he understood; closing his eyes he could do.
There was a long corridor leading to the morgue, with two rows of fluorescent light tubes on both sides of the corridor ceiling. When the hospital was still operating, the illuminated tubes must have given people a sense of security; now it was different. In the dark, cave-like environment, such a long and narrow tunnel could only bring people a sense of oppression.
Tiger was still walking in front, with Jiang Wei following closely behind, looking at the back of Tiger’s head while wondering what she was thinking.
Junnan followed behind her, looking back from time to time. His heart was fluttering with panic, and he couldn’t help letting his imagination run wild, terrified that as they walked along, someone would suddenly appear behind him.
The corridor echoed with the footsteps and breathing of the three people, as if countless people were lingering all around, making them increasingly nervous and frightened.
Even though Tiger had already been to this place, leading a team alone and walking bravely at the very front still made him feel somewhat hollow. When Junnan suddenly stumbled twice behind him, making irregular clacking sounds, Tiger would tensely stop and look back, making sure there were no issues before continuing forward.
Sometimes human senses are not entirely guided by rationality; the human instinctual fear of darkness can often manipulate emotions better than rationality.
Tiger felt his adrenaline rising, which was good—it helped him perform the emotion of fear in front of the camera, and authentic emotional reactions could touch the audience better.
“Hoo—hoo—” Heavy breathing filled Tiger’s livestream room.
He tried hard to adjust his breathing, and when he finally reached the front of the morgue, he let out a long sigh of relief. They had finally gotten out of that wretched long corridor; it was too damn suffocating.
Turning his head to glance at Jiang Wei and Junnan, seeing they had no intention of stepping up to walk abreast with him, Tiger gave a low chuckle and said to the camera: “It still has to be your Tiger. Since none of them are going up, I’ll go up.”
With that, he sidestepped to clear the doorway and cautiously gave the door a push.
The first try didn’t even push it open; his mustered courage leaked out a bit, forcing him to take another deep breath and exert more force.
This time the door finally opened. Tiger hadn’t set up any mechanisms here; after all, the environment itself was chilling enough, and there was no need to add any redundant frills.
A piercing cold rushed out from the basement, a damp and moldy scent that made everyone instinctively turn their heads away.
Tiger withdrew his hand, paused while holding his breath, and then swept his flashlight into the interior. “A nauseating stench,” he mumbled, making the damp air sound as if it were the stench of corpses.
Shaking his flashlight as he stepped into the square morgue, he pressed his back against the wall, sweeping the flashlight beam from the morgue cabinets on the left all the way to the right. “It feels as if this place is still running air conditioning just like when it was in use; it’s so cold my fingers hurt.”
The cold metal iron cabinets seemed to be emitting white frost. Jiang Wei and Junnan stood at the entrance, both holding up their cameras to film the room, maintaining a tacit silence without speaking.
The cold, desolate air made the atmosphere in all three of their livestream rooms tense, and many fans held their breath as if they were right there at the scene.
Tiger couldn’t bear the atmosphere any longer and began counting how many pull-out corpse-loading compartments there were. The only sound in the entire room was his low counting:
“1… 9, 10…”
Just as Tiger counted to 13—a rather inauspicious number—a huge “Bang!” suddenly rang out from inside the morgue!
“Hisss—”
“Ha!”
All three gasped simultaneously. Junnan grabbed the canvas bag on Jiang Wei’s back, his eyes wide with tension.
Tiger was also startled into a shudder. He turned back in disbelief to look at Jiang Wei and Junnan, seeing their faces equally pale and filled with terror.
It wasn’t an illusion; it really banged loudly.
Tiger clenched his teeth, his wide-open eyes darting left and right. This wasn’t a frightening setup he had arranged in advance, it wasn’t! Then, who made that sound just now?
Both Jiang Wei and Junnan were standing at the entrance; obviously, neither of them made it.
The address of the abandoned hospital was only notified to them this afternoon; these two couldn’t possibly have had time to come beforehand to set up mechanisms.
C-Could it be that the morgue made the sound by itself?
“What’s going on?” Junnan asked Jiang Wei in a breathless whisper, his towering 1.8-meter height instantly shrinking down to 1.7 meters out of sheer terror.
“I don’t know. Could there be mice in the corpse cabinets?” Jiang Wei said in a low voice.
Tiger took a secret, deep breath, his eyes rolling as he guessed whether A-Liang and the others had set up a mechanism here without telling him to create better show effects.
“It can’t be mice. Creatures like mice only appear where there’s food. In an abandoned building like this, there aren’t even plants. Without food, mice wouldn’t make a home here.” Tiger bared his teeth, his face solemn as he stared fixedly in the direction where the sound came from, as if waging a heaven-and-earth battle in his mind.
The bullet comments in the livestream room were already going crazy, egging them on to go pull open a morgue cabinet and see for themselves.
Some people were even spamming that as long as he went to pull open a drawer, they would send gifts.
“How about it? Let’s go over together and pull out a drawer?” Tiger turned to look at Jiang Wei and Junnan.
Junnan shook his head frantically, too scared to even speak.
Jiang Wei also waved her hand, putting on a frightened act. When it came to acting, she was professionally trained.
“If this family doesn’t have me, it’s going to fall apart.” Tiger swallowed hard, forced a smile for the camera, and puffed out his chest.
The bullet screen instantly flooded with comments: [Tiger is truly brave.]
Seeing that Tiger was ready to walk over, Jiang Wei slowly panned the camera toward him—
Come on, Tiger, begin your performance.
“I’m going to pull it.” Tiger let out a breath, stood in front of a pull-out compartment, pointed at the handle on the sheet metal, and turned back to ask Jiang Wei and Junnan: “The bang just now came from this one, right?”
He had mustered up his courage, but still felt a bit uneasy inside. Although he felt it should be A-Liang playing a sudden prank on him, in an environment like this, panic was inevitable.
“That—no, it seems to be this one…” Junnan was too terrified to have any judgment left. How could he know which drawer made the sound? He only remembered a loud bang, like a corpse slamming against the sheet metal drawer in one of the morgue compartments. Guarding the entrance, he had already prepared himself to turn tail and run the moment things looked south.
“Seems like it.” Jiang Wei gave an affirmative reply. The morgue compartment that made the noise was a little over a meter away to her right front, well within the range of her ghostly domain.
“Good.” Tiger cautiously reached out, paused for a second, and grabbed the handle. The freezing cold temperature of the metal made him flinch and pull his hand back, and he waited a few more seconds before grabbing it again.
This time he didn’t pull his hand back. He turned his head to glance at Jiang Wei and Junnan; the presence of these two gave him a bit of courage. Licking his lips nervously, taking a deep breath, tightening his fingers to grip the handle, and going through a series of micro-actions, he finally pulled back with resolute determination.
The sheet metal rubbed together, emitting an ear-grating, creaking rattle. Tiger had braced himself to be unable to pull it open, but never expected it to slide out so smoothly.
During the pulling process, what he felt wasn’t the difficult friction of rusted sheet metal, but a tangible, downward-dragging sense of weight.
As if… there really was a corpse inside.
This imagination made his hair stand on end, sending goosebumps all over his body. Tiger hurriedly comforted himself not to scare himself.
His livestream phone had been pointing at the coffin-like morgue compartment all along, and although his flashlight had been put into his trouser pocket, he still had a miner’s headlamp shining overhead.
His gaze remained locked inside the iron grid, and his pulling motion did not stop.
Seeing the empty interior of the iron grid, the tension he had been holding onto finally relaxed slightly. Only then did he feel his shoulder muscles stiffen and sour. With a self-deprecating smile, just as he was about to say a witty remark, a gurgle sounded in his throat, a scream choked off in his windpipe, and he coughed violently twice before letting out a distorted, low cry.
The morgue compartment wasn’t empty!
As the iron grid was gradually pulled completely out, he saw a pair of tiny feet—a pair of tiny feet wearing red embroidered shoes!
“Ah, oww ah—” Throwing the drawer handle aside, Tiger backed up two steps and almost sat flat on his back.
Jiang Wei caught Tiger. The moment she grabbed his arm, she felt his trembling.
So he does get scared.
“P-People, there’s a person inside.”
Even though Tiger had already let go of the drawer, with no one pulling it, the morgue compartment still creaked and slid outward.
“Ah-ah-ah—” Tiger kept backing up until with a “bang,” he crashed into the iron wall behind him.
Startled into turning his head by the loud clanging of the iron wall, his face smacked directly into a morgue cabinet drawer handle at his eye level. With a cry of pain, he clutched his face with both hands.
“Oww, holy crap, ah-ah, holy crap ah-ah—” Junnan failed to turn and run away as planned.
Seeing the familiar paper doll inside the compartment that had slid out, his legs instantly turned to jelly, and he sat down hard on the ground, turning around to howl and crawl away.
Jiang Wei hurriedly reached out to grab Junnan, then swung the camera back toward Tiger.
Hearing Junnan’s cries, Tiger couldn’t help turning his head as well. He hadn’t dared to look inside the morgue compartment earlier, but taking a glance now, he clearly saw the situation inside—
Lying there wasn’t a child, but a paper doll.
A paper doll that looked more and more familiar.
Not only was it the paper doll Junnan was familiar with, it was also his own “acquaintance.” Those two red eyeballs of the paper doll had been dotted by his own fingertip blood, after all.
“Whoa—” Tiger’s heart leapt straight up to his throat in an instant.
Damn it, it was his paper doll, the paper doll he had been trying to get back all this time!
It was waiting for him right here.
S-Save me.
Tiger grabbed the handrail of a morgue compartment and used the leverage to charge outward. But in the blink of an eye, the paper doll inside the morgue compartment vanished again.
He froze while holding the handle, shaking his head left and right. The dim headlamp beam flickered inside the dark, eerie morgue, and there was no trace of the paper doll anywhere.
Panicked, Tiger looked at Jiang Wei: “Did you see it? Did you see it? It’s the paper doll! That paper doll!”
Clinging to Jiang Wei’s canvas bag, Junnan had tear-rimmed eyes brought on by fright, leaning against the door frame and unable to speak a word.
Jiang Wei very much wanted to laugh watching Tiger’s pale, loss-of-soul appearance, but she had to hold it in and act scared. As expected, being an actor required a sense of conviction.
“Saw it.” Jiang Wei didn’t meet Tiger’s gaze; she stared at the iron morgue compartment, thinking: That’ll teach you to scare me.
“H-How could it be here? Wasn’t it burned by you guys?” Tiger asked nervously, the light on his head still shining on Jiang Wei’s face.
Jiang Wei raised her hand to block the glare. “It was burned. Junnan saw it too, we burned the paper doll to ashes together. Just now—”
Tiger was listening intently to Jiang Wei speak when he suddenly felt something tugging at his trouser leg. Goosebumps instantly stood up all over his body, and the back of his scalp went numb. Terrified, his teeth chattered, making a clack-clack sound. His head lowered slowly like a rusted machine, and the next second, he locked eyes with a pair of red, blood-dotted eyes.
The paper doll’s pale paper face looked ghastly white under the headlamp illumination, and those two painted red cheeks flashed with an eerie red glow.
“Oww—” Tiger’s pupils shrank to pinpricks, and he shoved hard against the iron wall, turning on his heels and running.
At the doorway, he stumbled over the threshold and thought the paper doll had grabbed his foot. Giving the door frame a fierce kick, he ran out crying and howling, looking utterly wretched.
Jiang Wei called out an “Ahem,” hurriedly retracted her ghostly domain, grabbed the leg-jelly Junnan, and gave chase after Tiger.
Don’t run away, her fear value!
Jiang Wei’s camera lens constantly tracked Tiger’s retreating back. With a leg-weakened Junnan in tow, she couldn’t run fast at all, but luckily Tiger was so terrified that he was stumbling and staggering in the darkness too.
“Tiger, Tiger, wait for us!” Jiang Wei shouted as she ran.
Tiger ran out of the corridor and back into the lobby before he heard Jiang Wei’s voice. Earlier, his adrenaline had spiked so high and his ears were ringing so badly that apart from escaping, he couldn’t care about anything else.
Only now did he snap back to his senses and look back in a panic. He wasn’t looking at Jiang Wei and Junnan, but searching for the shadow of the paper doll.
Hazy moonlight poured in, and there was no sign of the paper doll in the dim, abandoned hospital.
Tiger looked down again; there was no paper doll by his feet either.
Clutching his chest, he took a few heavy gasps. The heartbeat beneath his palms was thumping away, fast to the limit. His ears and neck were piping hot; his face flushed red from running, yet his lips were pale.
It was Jiang Wei’s first time seeing such an expression on someone’s face—like a soul that had lost its master.
“P-Paper doll—” Tiger supported his knees with both hands, panting like a consumptive.
Jiang Wei’s camera aimed at him, capturing the blood on his teeth and lips as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Tiger, why is your mouth full of blood?” Jiang Wei stared in shock, thinking: Holy crap, don’t tell me he got so scared he ruptured his liver and gallbladder and is bleeding internally?
The fans in Jiang Wei’s livestream room were also dumbfounded:
[Tiger got scared to the point of vomiting blood! Holy crap!]
[Damn, is someone going to die?]
[So shameless, the paper doll became popular, so they’re pulling this stunt again, pfft.]
[Tiger’s acting has improved, huh. This time is the most genuine “fear” performance he’s ever put on.]
[That life-or-death chase scene just now, I’d call it this year’s best horror movie clip.]
[Oh heavens, it’s just like watching a movie, the sense of immersion is way too strong, I was scared to death.]
Tiger wiped his mouth, and seeing blood scared him out of his wits as well. He thought he was dying and almost burst into tears. Licking his lips carefully, he finally reacted: “I bruised my gums.”
Jiang Wei let out a breath of relief, lifting her eyes to glance sideways at Tiger. Didn’t he always act like the bravest one? Putting on that big-brother facade of protecting her and Junnan—how could he be so easily spooked? He ran faster than anyone else.
“Let’s hurry up and leave. If we stay any longer, my cerebral blood vessels are going to burst.” During the few breaths he took, Tiger kept sweeping his flashlight all around, terrified that the paper doll would follow them out.
Did—did he really run into the real thing today?
Jiang Wei almost wanted to sneer: You know what fear feels like too? When you set traps to scare Junnan and me, you weren’t showing any mercy at all, were you? Did you ever stop to think that you might scare Junnan and me out of our minds?
He scared them, and now she scared him back—that’s what you call fair.
“Let’s go, let’s go.” Jiang Wei patted Junnan’s back. “How are you?”
“I-I’m okay.” His hand kept gripping Jiang Wei’s canvas bag, like a drowning person holding onto a piece of driftwood. He was scared stiff, but having something to rely on still gave him some reassurance in his heart.
Junnan was completely oblivious to the feud between Tiger and Jiang Wei. The poor little puppy only knew how to be scared.
The three of them passed through the main hall. By this time, they had completely forgotten about the creepy chair and other terrifying experiences, thinking only of getting out through the front door as quickly as possible.
When passing by the master-chair, Junnan actually scooped it up and tucked it under his armpit.
“What are you doing?” Jiang Wei asked, looking back.
“Sister Wei’s chair, I’ll carry it out for you.” Though his own legs were still jelly, he stubbornly grabbed the master-chair and hoisted it onto his shoulder, then followed Jiang Wei in marching briskly outside.
“…” Tiger choked for a moment. His chair…
“…” Jiang Wei swept a sidelong glance at Tiger, and seeing his pale face with words he swallowed back, she couldn’t help finding it both funny and exasperating.
She was just talking casually before; now Tiger not only got scared half to death by her, but also lost a chair.
Ha, Junnan, well done.
…
On the trip back, both Jiang Wei and Junnan hitched a ride in Tiger’s car, driven by Tiger’s staff member and driver, A-Liang.
On the way, everyone was silent, all reminiscing—or rather, reviewing—what on earth had happened?
Junnan could figure it out quite easily. He had seen the paper doll turn into a child and try to take him on a free flight to the rooftop. After wrestling and fighting with the paper doll (mostly taking a beating) for about half an hour, 1,800-odd seconds of memory reminded him that ghosts were 100% real.
As a ghost-inflicted victim, his explanation for tonight was that the paper doll came after them, though it didn’t hurt him. Fortunately, this time the paper doll’s target was Tiger.
The big and small scares of this single night solidified his decision that he would never do soul-exploration livestreams again, especially without Sister Wei participating—he couldn’t afford a single fraction of a percent of wishful thinking.
Wrapped in the blanket given by A-Liang and drinking hot water provided by A-Liang, throughout the entire process of recovering his wits, he was rejoicing that his little life had been saved once again.
His life was truly given by Sister Wei, both the first and second time!
Jiang Wei naturally figured it out too. Others bullied her, and she didn’t let them have an easy time either—when things are fair, people’s hearts are at peace.
But Tiger couldn’t figure it out.
He couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he tried!
The paper doll in the morgue wasn’t arranged by A-Liang; Tiger had already quietly asked him, and A-Liang wouldn’t lie to him. Then who was it? Recalling the paper doll lying in the morgue compartment, he was almost a hundred percent sure that it was his previous one. Although he didn’t remember details like size and color all that clearly anymore, he was the one who dotted the paper doll’s eyes—one pupil big, one pupil small. No one knew such tiny details better than he did.
Can a counterfeited paper doll capture the details this well?
He had his doubts.
But that paper doll should indeed have been destroyed by Vivian and Junnan in the previous livestream; this could only be newly made, a replica.
Or else? Could it really be…
Tiger sat in the passenger seat, eyes staring out the window, but not looking at the scenery at all. Inside his head, he replayed what happened in the morgue over and over. When the paper doll was lying in the morgue compartment, the moment he looked in, the paper doll’s eyes were unmistakably aimed in his direction as well. That feeling… it was as if it wasn’t a lifeless object made of paper, but a living thing that could track him with its gaze…
And that moment it grabbed his trouser leg—it wasn’t an illusion, it definitely happened. He distinctly felt five fingers gripping his leg, cold, but with considerable strength, not an illusion caused by a simple collision. He was grabbed, unless it was a robot… impossible, where would there be such high-tech stuff? Before and after the paper doll appeared by his leg, there wasn’t any sound at all. How could a machine move without making a sound?
Even if there were, Vivian and them couldn’t pull it off.
Was it Vivian playing tricks?
“Was it really not you guys?” Tiger turned his head again, his burning gaze locking onto Jiang Wei and Junnan. “There’s no live broadcast running right now. If anyone set up a mechanism, just speak up. Don’t leave everyone feeling unsettled after the broadcast is over.”
“Really wasn’t.” Before Jiang Wei could even open her mouth, Junnan had already raised his right hand to swear. “I already said, I ran into the paper doll turning into a child to harm me earlier; Tiger, why won’t you believe it?”
“…” Left speechless, Tiger didn’t know whether to laugh or not. He looked at Junnan as if looking at a fool.
If Junnan wasn’t a fool, then he was playing Tiger for a fool.
However, Junnan’s acting skills were simply too good—that earnest look in his eyes, that tone of voice trying desperately to prove himself, that indignant expression because others didn’t believe him…
“Cut the act.” Tiger waved his hand and turned to look at Jiang Wei.
“If you don’t believe us, then Tiger, I want to ask you too. You said the paper doll grabbed your leg, but neither Junnan nor I saw it. Is it true? Didn’t you just make it up to scare Junnan and me?” Jiang Wei didn’t directly answer Tiger’s question, tossing a question right back at him instead.
“Of course I really saw the paper doll! Could I possibly lie to you guys?” Tiger immediately widened his eyes, stuttering in his anxiety.
Jiang Wei didn’t utter a sound, answering him with a single look: Do you lie to us any less?
Without saying a single word, she choked Tiger into silence.
“…” Tiger opened his mouth, then choked it back.
Could it be that Vivian found out long ago?
With a roll of his eyes, he started suspecting again: Was that paper doll a trick pulled by Vivian? Did she retaliate because she discovered the trap he set? But it’s impossible for her to have anticipated before setting out that he would try to scare them, so she prepared in advance, right?
And how was the eeriness of that paper doll achieved?
It was just like it was alive, and exactly the same as the one he bought before…
He couldn’t figure it out, and it made him seethe with hidden frustration.
Tonight’s livestream—the absolute climax content had turned into him panicking and fleeing in a panic. This was polar opposites from his planned script; the climax he planned clearly featured Vivian and Junnan crying, howling, and crawling away in terror.
The feeling of being grabbed on the leg by the paper doll was still lingering right now, making his skin crawl like crazy.
Damn it, and his master-chair…
…
On the way back, Jiang Wei soaked up fear value the entire journey. This trip of scaring people was quite successful, with a lingering aftertaste. It was just a pity they couldn’t stay a bit longer.
When getting out of the car, her reluctance to part was genuine, not an act.
Ever since using the paper doll to sort Tiger out, Jiang Wei found him pleasing to the eye whenever she looked at him, only regretting that she hadn’t scared him a little more.
When saying bye-bye to him, the smile on her face was even a few degrees warmer.
Junnan should have gotten out of the car much earlier, but he refused, passing his own home without entering. He said he was afraid Sister Wei wouldn’t be able to carry the master-chair, and insisted on accompanying Jiang Wei all the way down to her dorm building.
Good thing too—during this extra stretch of shared road, Jiang Wei harvested a whole lot more fear value from him.
After the dorm auntie helped open the door, Jiang Wei turned around and gifted the master-chair to the auntie.
Their student dorm couldn’t possibly fit such a large item, so it was just right to give it to the dorm auntie, whose room was more spacious.
From then on, whenever the auntie sat in her combined dorm-and-office space, she looked more and more like a high-ranking official.
To match the master-chair, the auntie even bought a high-end tea set. Sipping small cups of tea and crossing her legs, she possessed quite the official aura.
Ever since then, whenever Jiang Wei stayed out late, the auntie never sighed or moaned once. Her smile became so cordial, and she put real pep into opening the door for Jiang Wei.
Tiger wasn’t much of a person, but his chair turned out to be quite useful.
…
On the night of the abandoned hospital soul-exploration livestream, Jiang Wei slept soundly, Junnan slept moderately well, and Tiger had a rather sleepless night.
Early the next morning, Tiger made a series of desperate calls, dragging A-Liang and other studio employees out of bed: to accompany him to the abandoned hospital to find the truth.
Tiger truly couldn’t figure out how Vivian pulled it off, and he had to get to the bottom of it.
As a result, several people turned the basement morgue upside down and still couldn’t figure out what was going on.
There was no place to plug anything in, nor were there traces left behind by operating various kinds of equipment.
“Can you set up a mechanism without leaving a trace?” A-Liang scratched his head. When they set up mechanisms, no matter how ingenious, they always left traces behind at the scene.
Hammering a nail into a wall always left a hole. Even with sheet metal, scratching the metal would leave a scratch mark. How could there be nothing at all?
“What about that paper doll?” Tiger turned around, dark circles hanging heavily under a pair of bloodshot eyes. “The livestream clearly caught the paper doll on camera.”
“The bullet chat all said it was a trick we set up.” A-Liang looked at Tiger, equally puzzled.
“…” Tiger gritted his teeth.
Inscrutable, incomprehensible. Damn it, it was like a mystery.
A group of people busied themselves for the better part of the day with zero results. When preparing to leave, Tiger stood at the doorway, still feeling unreconciled.
Suddenly struck by a flash of inspiration, he glared at the morgue compartment where the paper doll used to be.
He turned to look at the three big guys who came with him. With their yang energy running this high, what was there to be afraid of?
“I’m going in to take a look.” Tiger took a deep breath, picked up the flashlight, and strode over. Although the basement was pitch-black, after all, it was broad daylight—don’t be scared!
Pulling open the morgue compartment, he instructed his subordinates: “I’ll knock on the iron lattice, and you guys pull me right back out.”
“Got it.”
“Keep watch right here, nobody walk away.” Straddling and sitting inside, Tiger started feeling a little scared again.
“Don’t worry, Tiger,” A-Liang assured him.
“…” Taking a deep breath, resting his hands against the ice-cold iron box walls, Tiger lay down inside the morgue compartment, feeling an involuntary shudder run through him. As A-Liang and the others pushed him inward, Tiger’s heart hammered wildly.
Lying in a box like this, slowly being “packed” into a casket—this feeling wasn’t very pleasant.
Lifting his flashlight, he took a deep breath and surveyed the interior of the morgue compartment by the flashlight beam. Since the mechanism wasn’t on the outside, it definitely had to be in a place only visible once you lay inside.
With a “clack,” the morgue compartment drawer was finally pushed completely shut. Tiger raised his flashlight and suddenly drew in a sharp breath. The sheet metal panel in front of him was covered in rows of nail scratches!
“Ah—” The next second, he frantically slapped against the iron panel, the violent “bang-bang” noise deafening.
The three big guys outside hurriedly exerted force to pull the morgue compartment out. Tiger practically scrambled and crawled out of the compartment, his face as white as a paper doll.
“What’s wrong? Tiger, what’s wrong?” A-Liang asked with concern.
Tiger looked up to meet A-Liang’s gaze, his eyes filled with panic and bewilderment.
…
…
After the abandoned hospital joint livestream ended, Jiang Wei edited the recorded footage into a video and posted a high-definition edited version across her various video platform accounts.
Because neither Tiger nor Junnan specifically edited this livestream, once the abandoned hospital stream generated topics, the long-tail traffic brought by curiously searching for the video basically poured into Jiang Wei’s edited piece.
With this joint livestream, Jiang Wei reaped fear value, gained followers, and raked in traffic, arguably becoming the biggest beneficiary.
After the edited piece and livestream clips went viral, Jiang Wei initially worried whether people seeing the paper doll would cause problems. Later, realizing everyone assumed this was a program put on by the three anchors, she set her mind at ease.
If they said it was a show, then it was a show; anyway, as long as it was interesting.
While checking the comments and bullet screens, Jiang Wei saw quite a few funny messages like [The paper doll’s acting was pretty good]. She couldn’t help summoning the paper doll, praising it earnestly, and patting its head.
Jiang Wei, who was expressing affection for the little paper doll, had no idea that back on the night she summoned the paper doll and left it in the morgue compartment without giving it any other orders, it had instinctively scratched the iron box for a long time, leaving a ton of nail marks on it, scaring the “truth-seeking” Tiger half to death all over again.
The livestream feedback was stellar, with many expressing that if her edited piece could be played in movie theaters, it would definitely be super thrilling.
Jiang Wei naturally knew this was fans’ indulgent flattery, but she really couldn’t help getting ideas. If she could direct her own horror movies, that would be great—she had ready-made actors, saving even on special effects money.
Little ghosts could fly whenever told, appear at a moment’s notice, and vanish instantly. The paper doll could leap up and attack people without even needing to hang wires.
And the suddenly splashing fresh blood wouldn’t require props crew to step in; the fresh blood would come on its own.
Though it would probably scare the directors and crew half to death, it would certainly harvest a lot of fear value.
Imagining all this, Jiang Wei felt tempted beyond measure, though she didn’t dare mess around blindly.
“Weiwei, what are you silly-smiling about?” Zhou馥真 (Zhou Fuzhen) walked in from outside and saw Jiang Wei lying on the bed smiling with absolute glee.
“Zhu Bajie daydreaming about marrying a wife, haha.” Jiang Wei flipped over, pulled out her phone, and started browsing the internet randomly.
If all the people in the world found out ghosts existed, would they be able to start a “Ghost Production Crew”?
Various forums and social platforms didn’t show any major changes; some cared about gender, some cared about identity, some cared about status, some cared about money, some cared about life. After flipping through countless posts centered around these topics, Jiang Wei finally found a few specious, “eerie” topics.
But the information on the internet was complicated, and it was hard to tell which were real and which were fake.
She even saw a young girl describing her personal experience in all seriousness, saying that one day she suddenly discovered her biological father had turned into a turtle.
“…” Jiang Wei nervously watched the girl’s process of exploring the truth of her father’s identity, only to realize at the very end that the girl wasn’t being serious at all—she was just venting her anger against patriarchal authority.
Throwing her phone aside, she turned her gaze to watch Zhou Fuzhen. Taking advantage of the bright sunshine, the dorm head was sitting by the window sunbathing.
The golden sunlight cast distinct light and shadow boundaries indoors, making the beautiful dorm head’s three-dimensional facial features even more striking, and bringing out the vibrant colors of the various small colorful trinkets the girls had bought.
Jiang Wei rested her chin on her hand, appreciating the beauty bathing in the sun, when a thought suddenly popped into her head:
Wonder if she was the only special person in this world who could walk alongside ghostly entities…
…
…
On a cold winter day, the fire-damaged abandoned building welcomed a capable-looking, upright-postured woman.
She paused briefly in front of the building before walking with big strides into the fire-origin abandoned house.
As if searching for something, she inspected every single corner, sometimes not just touching what she saw, but leaning in close to sniff it.
After searching and scanning all around inside, she walked out of the house, went up the steps, and headed straight for the rooftop.
Pushing open the door that made a frictional noise due to rust, the moment she stepped onto the rooftop, her field of vision widened. Cold wind poured into the corridor behind her, making a strange whimpering sound.
Walking to the edge of the rooftop, surrounding buildings and trees gradually came into view. She took a deep breath, sweeping a strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead back behind her ear.
There was almost no vantage point nearby that could see this rooftop; either the buildings weren’t tall enough, or the distance was too far, or it was blocked by overly lush trees. There were also no cameras nearby capable of monitoring the rooftop; old neighborhoods were quite poorly equipped in this regard.
There were traces left behind by burning something in a certain spot on the rooftop, and the air still seemed to carry the distinct smell after burning paper.
She squatted down, rubbed the scorched ash on the ground, and brought it close to her nose to sniff lightly. There was no special smell, much like the paper ash smell during Qingming Festival grave-sweeping every year.
After observing details such as the shape of the scorched ash traces, she pushed herself up by her knees, stood in place, and thought for a good long while before continuing to survey the entire rooftop.
After pacing around for a few weeks, she squatted down again in a corner. Rolling up her sleeves, she pinched a piece of paper ash and rubbed it.
The air in Jianghai City in early winter was damp and cold, and paper ash would absorb moisture from the air, giving it a damp and sticky texture.
Based on rich experience, it could be judged that the paper ash had fallen here many days ago.
Flicking through the paper ash, she suddenly caught sight of an unburned piece of paper lying on the edge, about the size of a fingernail, with charred black curled edges all around it.
Stretching out her arm, preparing to pinch it up for inspection, that piece of paper unexpectedly moved without any wind the very moment her hand reached out.
Before she could even react, the piece of paper fluttered, spun a circle in the air, and landed lightly on the skin of her forearm just above her sleeve.
Just as she was about to reach out with her left hand to pick off the piece of paper, that strip of paper unexpectedly stretched and flattened out as if endowed with life, and in an instant, melted right into her skin.