A thick, bloody stench drifted through the air, and the room that had been fairly spacious moments ago now felt inexplicably cramped.
The cold glow from the computer screen illuminated the surroundings. Lan Xiaochen stood in front of the desk, an envelope in hand, slowly turning around.
"Who's there! Come out!"
He had always prided himself on his courage. He shouted toward the living room, but the only answer was the faint crackle of static.
The living room was completely empty, yet the television suddenly switched on by itself, filling the screen with black-and-white static snow.
Lan Xiaochen grabbed a badminton racket from beside the desk and crept toward the living room one careful step at a time.
He didn't know if it was his imagination or something else entirely, but the scene suddenly felt eerily familiar.
A faint, almost imperceptible sobbing drifted from some corner of the room, and the computer began playing the same horror movie he had just been watching.
The clichéd scene he had dismissed as tacky replayed over and over — the protagonist watching a ghost movie on a computer while, in his own home, the exact same scenes from the film were unfolding in reality.
Familiar dialogue spilled from the computer speakers. Rapid breathing and a panicked tone hammered against Lan Xiaochen's brain.
It wasn't until the needle pierced his own skin that he truly felt the pain.
Much as he hated to admit it, he was genuinely afraid.
"Come out!"
A wave of helplessness flooded his mind. Lan Xiaochen shouted toward the living room, as if raising his voice might bolster his own courage.
His back to the cold glow of the computer screen, he shuffled to the threshold between the living room and the bedroom. That was when he noticed a bloody handprint smeared on the door handle — as if someone had opened the door from inside his own home.
On the computer screen, the horror movie had reached its most intense moment. The male lead discovered that the ghost from the film had escaped into his house. When he tried to flee, he suddenly realized the door had been locked tight.
Seeing the bloody handprint on the door handle, Lan Xiaochen immediately understood — someone had broken into his apartment. This place was no longer safe.
He moved slowly. Just before he reached the door, he lunged forward.
But when both hands seized the door handle, no matter how hard he pulled, the door wouldn't budge.
Terror overwhelmed his reason. The man who had always considered himself brave, who routinely mocked horror movie fans online, felt true fear for the very first time.
"Why won't it open?!"
He shook the door desperately. The door panel didn't move an inch, but blood began seeping through the crack at the bottom.
On the computer screen, the protagonist — out of options — grabbed his phone and called the female lead for help.
In real life, Lan Xiaochen fumbled for his own phone in a panic. He had no friends. At a time like this, the police were the only ones he could turn to.
The images on the screen and the events unfolding in reality were almost perfectly synchronized, and the outcome was just as eerily similar.
The call connected quickly, and a strange voice came through the phone.
"You can't run."
Blood and a deathly pale face began to materialize inside the room as figure after figure in red closed in on the already paralyzed Lan Xiaochen.
Lan Xiaochen, who normally roamed the internet fearlessly and acted like he owned the place, was now trembling uncontrollably, foam oozing from the corners of his mouth as he unconsciously screamed for his mother.
A boy in red dragged Lan Xiaochen aside. He opened the door, and outside stood a young man carrying a backpack.
"So he's the source of the curse? He's not even wearing red?" The young man stepped inside and casually shut the security door behind him. "What a letdown."
Settling onto the sofa, the young man pulled a manga volume from his backpack and began flipping through it idly.
"Wake him up. I have questions."
A basin of blood water was splashed over Lan Xiaochen's head. He jerked as though thrown into an ice pit, instantly flailing his arms and screaming for help at the top of his lungs.
"
"Zhang Yi's ability is to hide or erase specific memories. If this guy's memories have been tampered with, Zhang Yi wouldn't be able to tell. To avoid being misled, we'd better be careful." Chen Ge was cautious by nature, and he wanted to help the young man piece things together properly first. "Hey, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I want honest answers. If I catch you lying, I'll show you just how painful being alive can be."
His mind clearing slightly, Lan Xiaochen lay half-reclined on the floor and nodded with every last ounce of strength in his body.
The young man standing before him was clearly dangerous just from the way he spoke. Lan Xiaochen might act like he feared nobody on the internet, but in the real world he was a spineless coward through and through.
"That blank curse letter you took out of the drawer — who gave it to you?"
"I stole it, from a patient room in an abandoned hospital." Lan Xiaochen placed the letter on the floor with trembling hands. "It's yours, isn't it? I'll never do it again, please, just let me go."
"With your guts, you'd dare break into an abandoned hospital to steal?" Chen Ge was skeptical.
"I made a bet online with some people to spend the night at that hospital together. I was just talking big — I never actually expected them to show up in Xinhai. I couldn't get out of it, so I went with them."
"Where is this hospital?"
"It's on the outskirts of Xinhai, out in that area that's barely been developed. It's desolate." Lan Xiaochen's voice was cracking with tears. "There were three of them in total, all tourists from Hanjiang. People from that place are rough — I don't know how they toughened up, but every one of them was braver than the last."
"You went inside?" Chen Ge hadn't expected tourists from Hanjiang to show up in a Xinhai urban legend.
"I was the first one to rush in, but the moment I was out of their sight, I hid. After they all went in, I slipped back out." Lan Xiaochen was a man with no bottom line — to put it more bluntly, he was scum.
"Did those tourists ever make it out?" Chen Ge was more concerned about their safety.
"I don't know. I waited outside for half an hour, and there wasn't a sound from inside the hospital. It was like the three of them had been swallowed by something." Lan Xiaochen stammered, still terrified of Chen Ge. "That place is terrifying at night. I didn't dare stay, so I ran back. But the next afternoon I went back to check, and found one of the tourists' wallets around the corner of the hospital lobby. All the IDs inside were gone — just three blank medical charts and a note."
"Did you call the police after that?"
"No, I figured they must have left on their own. It's not like they were reported missing, and there were no bodies to be found. I didn't have any reason to call the police." Lan Xiaochen was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince Chen Ge.
"Where are those three blank medical charts and the note now?" Chen Ge's expression was grim, and the atmosphere in the room had grown suffocating.
"I used two of the medical charts. The last one is in the envelope." Lan Xiaochen hunched his shoulders. "I didn't know at first that those charts could actually be used to curse people. The neighbor's dog kept barking that day, so I gave it a try on a whim. I never expected the whole family would fall ill and the dog would die."
"You mentioned earlier that besides the three medical charts, there was also a note? Show me that note."
Lan Xiaochen had originally wanted to use the note as a bargaining chip, but he found he didn't have the courage to even open his mouth. "The note is in the locked drawer in the bedroom. The key is in my pocket."
Men Nan took the key and entered the bedroom. A moment later, he handed the note to Chen Ge.
It was called a note, but it was actually a page torn from some book. Traces of pitch-black bloodstains remained on it. Looking closely, one would notice that the bloodstains actually formed a sentence — This is a sick world, why haven't you realized it yet? I will cure you no matter what!