Normal people would definitely panic and fear after encountering a scary story, and a momentary lapse in judgment could lead to death. Gao Ming belonged to a different kind of person; he directly envisioned the worst-case scenario, setting his expectations as low as the netherworld before taking action.
2409 Fang Shuqi: "Brother Wang and Qiu might have already encountered misfortune. The only chance for us remaining residents is to come together. I hope Zhao Xi's family can step forward and explain clearly because Zhao Xi will be coming back to this building, and it definitely has something to do with you!"
2304 Li Li: "Although Zhao Xi was adopted, we have always treated him as family. It's you neighbors who pretend to respect him, calling him Brother Zhao, but in your hearts, you look down on him! Spreading rumors behind his back and fabricating stories about him and me, you think I don't know? It was you who drove Zhao Xi to death!"
The video from Li Li was shaking, and she, living on the third floor, was very scared. She hugged her child and opened the living room door.
The body was on the second floor; she dared not go down, so she wanted to run upstairs and hide in someone else's house first.
Zhao Xi's foster mother followed Li Li, tears sliding down her wrinkles. The basket on her arm was still filled with joss paper.
"At a time like this, you still bring these things? It was you who brought him back!" Li Li scolded Zhao Xi's foster mother. At that moment, the sound of flesh and blood crawling echoed in the dark staircase, as if several hands were grabbing the stairs and leaping upward.
Frightened, Li Li screamed. She no longer cared about the old lady or the video, and she took off running.
The screen was shaking, and nothing could be seen clearly.
2409 Fang Shuqi: "Li Li, you don't even care about your own mother-in-law now?"
2501 Huang Mingming: "Why don't we all hide on the top floor, gather together and think of a solution? Anyway, it's not safe to stay in our rooms alone."
2607 Jia Qi: "No! Hiding upstairs is not a solution, the corpse will find us sooner or later!"
2707 Yao Yuan: "My house is the farthest from the stairwell. Everyone come to my place first."
2409 Fang Shuqi: "Teacher Yao? Your, your illness is cured?"
Seeing Yao Yuan speak in the video was extra shocking for Fang Shuqi and a few other neighbors. Yao Yuan was over seventy years old, a retired police school instructor, an anti-pickpocketing model teacher, skilled in lock-picking and close combat, and knowledgeable about various scam tactics, with excellent physical fitness. But two years ago, he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Many residents of Lijing Apartment knew about this; the once tall and burly Teacher Yao had become emaciated over two years, having no human form left, confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak, and eating with great difficulty.
"I..." The old man pursed his lips with a bitter smile: "I don't know why this happened. Three months ago, I gave up treatment and waited for death at home, almost unable to get out of bed. But just tonight, I felt my illness was completely cured. Not only do I not feel any pain, but my body has also returned to its best condition."
Seeing that no one believed him, the old man silently took off his shirt in front of the phone. His skin was as pale as a dead person's, devoid of any color, and his chest and abdomen were filled with bulging black veins, as if wanting to burst through his body and merge with the world: "I really don't know why I turned out this way, but I am very clear-headed, I am still me."
No one spoke in the group video. When the neighbors saw Teacher Yao's body, they couldn't help but reveal their fear and disgust, and their gazes made Teacher Yao uncomfortable.
Putting his coat back on, Teacher Yao had experienced many things and knew that saying anything now was futile, so he did not mention hiding everyone in his house again.
The neighbors didn't trust Teacher Yao, but Gao Ming was an exception. He had seen his parents replaced; those "unknown" entities could change to be exactly like real people without leaving such obvious flaws.
"According to the information revealed on the back of the obituaries, even people on their deathbeds could enter the game. Does Teacher Yao belong to this category?"
All the seemingly normal neighbors in the group video felt a bit off to Gao Ming, while looking at Teacher Yao, who appeared to have the most issues, made Gao Ming feel a sense of kinship.
"If there are ghosts among our outwardly normal neighbors, they would likely direct malice toward the real living, making the living kill each other."
Gripping the doorknob, Gao Ming wanted to leave Zhao Xi's former room and go to Teacher Yao himself.
Gao Ming had a good idea, but as soon as he opened the door a crack, he heard hurried footsteps. It seemed that Li Li had just happened to pass from the fifth floor with her son.
"Should I tie up the mother and son?" Gao Ming leaned against the door: "This is the simplest way to confirm the identity of the neighbors."
He hesitated for only half a second before preparing to put his thought into action; Li Li and her son were "alone," a rare opportunity.
"The group video can help me understand the situation of other neighbors, but it also keeps me under their watch. The things I'm about to do are not suitable for them to see."
Covering the camera, Gao Ming pushed open the living room door and entered the corridor.
He chased as fast as he could, but he didn't see Li Li's figure even after reaching the seventh floor.
"Something is wrong! Li Li was carrying a child, even if she left a few seconds before me, she couldn't have arrived at the seventh floor faster than me!"
The air was filled with a faint stench of decay. He looked down the stairwell to the lower floors, which were pitch-dark, dead and silent, just like Zhao Xi's lifeless existence after being killed.
"Could they really all be ghosts?"
Voices of an argument emanated from the phone, and Gao Ming quickly turned down the volume, hiding in the corner to check it.
2409 Fang Shuqi: "I can't get out! Zhao Xi is right outside my door, it really came back!"
A resident on the fourth floor sent a video in the group chat—footage from his front door surveillance camera.
In the black-and-white footage, the distorted-limbed Zhao Xi was squirming on the steps, his face rubbing against the floor, and his broken neck dangling over his shoulders.
Zhao Xi in the video seemed to sense something, and slowly raised his head. He showed a sinister smile at the surveillance camera, then began knocking against the door of Room 2409 with his head, over and over.
Just by watching the surveillance video, the neighbors felt a chill in their limbs, not to mention Fang Shuqi who was trapped inside.
His arms, holding up the phone, began to shake more and more violently. As the ninth knock sounded, he let out a scream.
Then the sound of glass shattering reached all the residents' ears. The video blurred and spun until a heavy thud was heard again in the complex.
"Boom!"
The phone, which had been clutched in his hand until death, slid down, and the camera landed on Fang Shuqi's dead face. It seemed as though someone had pushed him from the fourth floor, and his death mirrored that of Zhao Xi.
The video was stained red with blood, startling Gao Ming. He fought against his discomfort, ran to the end of the seventh-floor corridor, shattered the sealed window, and looked outside.
"Just as I thought!"
In the video, Fang Shuqi lay dead on the ground below, yet when Gao Ming looked down, apart from a pool of blood, there was no body to be seen at the entrance to the stairwell!
It was as if those neighbors only existed in the video, as if they were deliberately creating a terrifying atmosphere.
"There's something wrong with the video! There's something wrong with these neighbors who are making the calls! The phone Zhao Xi left in the room might have been purposefully left by the 'ghost'!"
A vein bulged on his forehead. If Gao Ming couldn't clear this game soon, his end would likely be ten times more tragic than Fang Shuqi's.
"In reality, Zhao Xi's phone definitely wouldn't just be thrown in the room after his suicide. His vampire foster mother and sister-in-law would probably try to take away all of Zhao Xi's money. After all, the only things left in the room Xuan Wen rented were the most rudimentary pieces of furniture, clearly having been picked clean."
While covering the camera, Gao Ming examined the dead man's phone in his palm. He remembered a game he helped Wei Dayou with a few years back—"The Only Family."
The game's protagonist was a middle-aged loser, but he had a gentle and beautiful wife, a smart and well-behaved daughter, and parents who adored him. He often video chatted with his family on his phone, and all his interactions with his family happened through the phone—until one day, he saw a woman who greatly resembled his wife on the street.
He rushed over to embrace her, but the woman ducked into the arms of another man. The player began to investigate the truth from his perspective and ultimately discovered that all he had was fabricated by the phone. His life was full of despair, dark and creepy. He fantasized about another family's wife and child as his own. In fact, his biological parents had severed ties with him, and the only family he had was that old phone.
In reality, he was the biggest villain, peeling away his own layers of deceit and exposing his filthy heart for everyone to see.
The game had three endings: The uncle finds the lost diary and medication, and it turns out this is already his fifth time waking up, but then he immediately swallows the medication and chooses for the sixth time to live in fantasy. In the good ending, the uncle destroys his own phone, breaks away from the illusion and decides to start over. He works hard to change all his bad habits and reconciles with his parents. The last ending is somewhat terrifying—the uncle goes mad, treats the phone as his real family, and dies with the phone. And then that phone is picked up by a child who is bullied.