After that, on a certain day, in a cheap rental room in this city, a man was watching anime as usual in his bedroom.
The light inside the room was a bit dim, probably because the bulb and filament hadn’t been replaced in a long time.
Sitting in front of the computer for a long time made him feel a bit parched, so he pressed the spacebar, pausing the anime on screen.
He took a comfortable sip of iced cola, his gaze casually sweeping over a small news window that had popped up beside it.
“Man Commits Suicide by Self-Harm During Livestream After Online Dispute; His Mother Also Suspected of Dying by Suicide Due to Cyberbullying Days Prior”
His mouse slid over it, intending to close it directly, but his finger paused.
With modern internet censorship being so strict, someone would actually “livestream self-harm”? The headline intrigued him a bit.
Self-harm livestream? What kind of morbid mentality… trying to get attention?
He clicked in.
The news report was very brief, even a bit vague.
Heavily pixelated screenshots showed nothing clearly, but he could vaguely see scattered pieces that looked like limbs, and an incomplete corpse.
The police emphasized that homicide had been ruled out and reminded netizens to speak rationally.
Scrolling further down, in the comments section, a few remarks like “Too weak mentally” and “The internet is not a lawless place, but you also have to be responsible for yourself” were pushed to the top.
The battle in the comments, even under this kind of official news, was just the same.
Li Wei curled his lip and closed the page.
He vaguely remembered this incident.
A while ago, it seemed like in some chat group, people were spamming insults at a “hater,” the language harsh.
He even copied and pasted a couple of lines to join the chorus and gave his own opinion.
Who exactly they were cursing, and why, he had long forgotten.
After all, there are so many dramas online every day—who can keep track?
“If you can’t take it, don’t go online.”
He muttered, crushing the cola can with a loud crackle, his attention returning to the anime.
The protagonist was passionately shouting something about bonds and courage, accompanied by inspiring background music, so he quickly got invested again, tapping his fingers lightly on the desk to the beat.
As for that news story, and the two lines of insults he had copy-pasted, they were like two pebbles thrown into a river—not even a ripple—sinking into the muddy depths of his memory that he couldn’t be bothered to dredge up.
In the afternoon, he got up to go to the bathroom.
As he passed the dressing mirror, the corner of his eye seemed to catch a pale shadow flickering past in the glass.
He jerked his head around, but there was nothing behind him.
When he looked back at the mirror, there was only himself, looking a bit haggard from staying up late.
Seemed… everything was normal.
He was seeing things? Guess he needed to go to bed early today.
He shook his head, but after using the bathroom, he sat back down in front of the computer.
The air conditioner blew on the back of his neck, cool.
Normally, he would have enjoyed this cold breeze, but tonight, he felt something off behind him, a discomfort… like something was very close, blocking part of the airflow.
But when he turned to look, only the half-drawn curtain was swaying slightly.
Yet the window was clearly closed.
He frowned, feeling a bit creeped out for no reason, so he turned up the air conditioner by two degrees.
Time continued to pass… until evening, when the sky was about to darken but hadn’t yet.
Outside the window, the street was already bustling with traffic, and the sidewalks were crowded with figures picking up children from school and people getting off work.
He stood by the window for a moment, then drew the curtain again.
“A bit hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”
He opened the food delivery app, flipping through the “Pin Xiang Fan” options as usual, trying to pick the one with the best value.
But just as he clicked into the review section of one restaurant, his phone screen suddenly froze, then the image warped, turning into a mess of black-and-white static.
“What’s going on? Did my phone break? This iPhone 12 of mine hasn’t been bought that long.”
He held down the power button to restart it.
This time it was normal, so he started ordering food again.
But… his mood had already been stirred into irritation by this series of events.
“This crappy phone, can’t even order food without problems… Careful, or I’ll toss you into some recycling platform.”
He muttered at his phone, trying to dispel the unease in his heart.
But that unease only spread slowly.
Was it really a problem with the phone, or a virus? Or… something unclean?
“Forget it, forget it. Don’t scare yourself.”
He ordered his usual braised chicken rice and placed the order.
While waiting, he scrolled through short videos, trying to shake off that bit of discomfort.
The sound of funny videos echoed in the room, but he felt it getting quieter and quieter.
As if there was something thick and indescribable in this room, absorbing all the background noise.
He didn’t know how long passed when a knock on the door came.
The food had arrived.
He sighed in relief and got up to open the door.
The doorway was empty.
On the floor lay the food delivery bag he had ordered.
He poked his head out suspiciously.
The hallway’s motion-sensor light was still on, empty.
Had the rider left so quickly? Usually, riders would shout a few times outside to confirm before leaving.
Was he in a hurry for the next order?
He didn’t think much of it, just picked up the bag and walked back inside.
But the feel in his hand was wrong.
Too light, too… soft.
He tore open the paper bag printed with the restaurant’s logo.
Inside, there was no food container—only a crumpled, charred, twisted piece of fabric.
From the shape, it vaguely resembled a piece of clothing.
The edges of the fabric were uneven, as if roughly torn or burned, giving off an indescribable, strange smell mixed with burnt and rusty notes.
A strange sound escaped his throat.
He hurled the bag away.
The charred fabric scattered on the floor of the hallway outside the door.
“God damn it! Who swapped my food?! Some uncultured bastard—don’t let me catch you!”
He roared out the door a few times, but still saw no one.
Instead, the neighbor in the next room yelled from inside:
“Why are you shouting so loud?! You scared my kid!”
‘Stupid old hag, so what if I shout a few times?’
He cursed inwardly and closed the door.
Who the hell played this prank? Who’s so goddamn cruel?!
Shivering with rage, he fumbled for his phone from his pocket, intending to file a complaint with the delivery platform, but his fingers froze.
The phone screen had turned back to black-and-white static.
Then… in an instant, the screen suddenly turned into a screaming human face.
He got such a scare that he smashed the phone hard on the floor.
The screen shattered.
At the same time, the lights in the room… started flickering nonstop.
Not the kind of flicker from an unstable voltage, but a rhythmic one, as if deliberately controlled.
Each time the darkness descended, it lasted a little longer than the last.
In every brief moment of light, he could see—something in the room was moving.
The chair was a few inches farther from the desk.
The water glass had moved from the left to the right.
The charred fabric, which he had thrown outside the door, had somehow appeared at his feet.
He grabbed a broom by the door and swung wildly:
“Who?! Show yourself! God damn it, come out!”
He screamed in despair.
Then, it seemed like something tripped him, sending him crashing to the floor.
His palm landed squarely on that charred fabric.
Cold… slimy… and a strange texture like ash.
The light went out again.
This time, the darkness lasted a full five seconds.
When the light struggled back on, he saw it.
It stood in the corner of the room, where the chair had been.
It had no legs.
A pale torso, seemingly assembled from ash, floated a few inches off the ground.
Where the cuts were, there was no flesh—only rolling smoke.
It had no left arm; its right arm hung down, fingers twisted into a strange hook shape.
Above its neck, there was nothing.
And right in the middle of its torso, from the chest down to the navel, a vertical split opened on the skin.
Inside the gap—not organs, but a single huge eye, bloodshot.
Deep in the pupil of that eye, his own horrified, twisted face was reflected.
That eye stared at him, fixed, unblinking.
His mind froze.
Extreme fear throttled his throat.
He couldn’t even scream.
He wanted to run.
But the legless torso, violating all physical laws, instantly drifted in front of him, leaving only a scorch trail in the air.
The huge eye was almost pressed against his face.
He could see clearly in that twisted pupil his own magnified, hopeless reflection, and also more surging fragments.
“Li Wei…”
He squeezed out a breathy sound through his teeth.
That pale, remaining right hand lifted, slowly, but with an irresistible force, and grabbed his throat.
The pain of suffocation came quickly, along with enough force to knock him unconscious.
But it seemed some force didn’t want him to die that easily, so even under such an attack, he retained a last shred of consciousness.
In a daze, his peripheral vision caught the computer desk.
The screen had somehow switched back to the news story he had first seen.
With his last bit of strength, his pupils contracted from extreme terror.
A hoarse, broken whisper squeezed out from his compressed throat:
“You… you are…”
That huge eye continued to stare at him.
No mockery, no sneer.
Only… an extreme hatred.
A clear snap of cervical vertebrae breaking echoed in the dead-silent room.
Thud.
His limp body hit the floor heavily.
Almost at the same moment, his still relatively normal body quickly withered, yellowed, as if all residual life force had been drained away.
In the room, the light still flickered.
But now, besides the charred fabric, the shattered phone, and this withered corpse, nothing else could be seen.
Everything was as before.