In the silent depth of the night, Qian Cangyi sat at his brown computer desk, his attention firmly affixed onto the computer screen.
Tomorrow was the weekend, so naturally, as a regular office worker, it felt necessary to stay up late into the night to celebrate.
The next second, four bloody letters gradually materialized at the center of the screen.
Game Over.
Stretching languidly, Qian Cangyi exited the game.
The screen switched back to the desktop.
Suddenly, a pop-up window appeared in the bottom right corner.
The content of the pop-up wasn't brimming with various ad images, but instead, a line of text:
You have a new email.
Qian Cangyi disregarded it, intending to shut down the computer, but to his astonishment, the mouse began to move on its own!
The cursor quickly shifted from the center of the screen to the pop-up in the lower right corner, proceeding to click on it.
Immediately afterwards, a webpage layered with a blood-red vortex background dominated the entire screen.
The blood-red vortex slowly rotated; its black center swallowed everything like a black hole.
Qian Cangyi furrowed his brows, baffled and confused:
"What's going on?"
"What's the matter?"
"Could my computer have a virus?"
"No way... I just did a virus scan yesterday."
His right hand reached out, pressing down on the power button, attempting to forcefully shut down the system, but it didn't work. He tried once more, with the same result.
Ignoring Qian Cangyi's actions, the cursor on the screen started to move, stopping on the new unread email icon, clicking it. The email content appeared.
The webpage background began to change, the former blood-red vortex had vanished, replaced with the image of an old mountain village.
The upper half of the background, painted in the hue of sunset glow, met with the hidden mountain village in the lower half.
Qian Cangyi realized the situation was out of his expectations.
The pop-up that emerged previously served a different purpose, not for money.
At the back of the screen, two blood-red Chinese characters surfaced, slowly enlarging against the background. The color deepened, expanding until it filled half the screen.
Sacrifice.
Fresh blood oozed slowly from the characters, eventually pooling at the bottom of the screen.
Upon seeing this scene, Qian Cangyi dared not to breathe loudly. He slowly extended his right hand, lightly touching the fresh blood accumulated at the bottom of the screen.
A damp sensation transmitted from his fingertip.
Qian Cangyi widened his eyes, fatigue swept away. He drew back his hand, observing his own index finger.
The fresh blood on his finger was shockingly vivid.
Is my screen bleeding?
This phrase surfaced in Qian Cangyi's mind. He looked at the screen once again, but this time, his expression carried not just curiosity, but also fear, fear of the unknown.
A few seconds later, the characters for 'Sacrifice' on the screen gradually dissipated, new black letters appearing at the center of the webpage:
Welcome to Hell's Movie!
Qian Cangyi thought for a moment, then reached out to unplug the power.
The desktop computer's screen remained illuminated.
"What...what the hell is happening? I clearly unplugged it, and there's no backup power, could it be..."
While Qian Cangyi was still in shock, the screen finally turned black.
However, the scene just now was deeply etched in his mind, causing him unable to regain his senses.
After several minutes, Qian Cangyi glanced down at his own finger. There was no fresh blood, as if everything he had just seen were illusions. He plugged the power cord back in.
The boot screen appeared, successful in entering the desktop, everything seemed normal.
Examining his browser history, Qian Cangyi was surprised the most recent page was his own mailbox.
"Why is it my mailbox?"
Doubtful, Qian Cangyi logged into his email.
The strange email that just appeared was quietly lying at the top of the inbox, chillingly, this email had no sender.
Qian Cangyi's eyebrows knotted, now he rather hoped that the previous pop-ups were due to a virus infection in the computer.
"Let's take a look first."
Qian Cangyi calmed himself down, taking a deep breath and clicking on the email.
The scene from just moments ago reappeared.
The eerie and dreadful words "Sacrifice" reappeared on the screen, with fresh blood slowly dripping down.
Qian Cangyi reached out his right index finger to touch the screen, the dampness from before did not reappear, he looked at his own finger, everything was normal, there was no bloodstain.
"Is it an illusion? But why would this email appear in my inbox?"
Qian Cangyi hesitated for a few seconds before choosing to delete the email.
Every time he deletes, the system redirects to the "Already Deleted" interface, yet, when the interface switches back, the eerie email remains unchanged and stays in its original position.
"Can't be deleted?"
Qian Cangyi felt his own voice trembling slightly, he wanted to sleep, but the email in his inbox was like a thorn, making him unable to relax, he decided to solve it immediately.
The antivirus software started scanning, not finding any problems with a quick scan, a full system scan then began.
He searched the search engine for information about Hell's Movie, but no valuable information was found, only irrelevant content.
He logged into his mailbox using his phone, finding the same email in his inbox.
All methods resulted in no progress.
The blood-red vortex seemed like an unsolvable mystery, making Qian Cangyi extremely anxious.
Qian Cangyi sat in front of the computer, staring out of the window, the sky was already showing the white of fish belly.
"Forget it, let's sleep first."
Qian Cangyi dragged his tired body onto the bed, before he fell asleep, his mind was filled with the mysterious email in his mailbox.
When he woke up, the sun had already risen to the top.
Qian Cangyi opened his eyes, his forehead covered in sweat, he glanced at the clock, it was already noon.
The strange situation from last night instantly emerged in his mind, but for now, he had no interest in solving it.
Of course, the real reason was that even if he wanted to solve it, he might not be able to.
While cleaning, he looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes were filled with blood vessels.
"Did I stay up all last night?"
Qian Cangyi yawned and shook his head, trying to make himself sober up.
After washing his face, he propped up his hands on both sides of the white washstand, letting the water slowly drip.
He raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror, his dark circles were somewhat obvious.
Suddenly, he found that bloody words began to appear on his sclera, as if something was writing on his eyeballs with a red pen.
[3 PM, the first movie.]
Qian Cangyi's mouth opened slightly, his eyes wide with terror.
"What the hell? How is this possible? And it's mirror writing..."
"Is it another illusion? Should I go see a doctor?"
As eerie incidents increased, Qian Cangyi even began to wonder if he was not normal. He thought of a way to verify it, using a photo.
Click.
The sound of the phone taking a picture echoed.
Looking at his selfie, Qian Cangyi zoomed into the eyes, and he could still see the words in his pupils.
"Let someone else have a look."
He sent the photo to a friend for verification, asking if there were words in his eyes; if so, what were they?
To be safe, he sent the picture and message to several friends at the same time.
That way, even if a friend was joking around, he could still figure it out.
If his friends could also see the words in his eyes, it meant that it was not an illusion, and vice versa.
Soon, several friends all came back with the same response: they could not see anything.