“Hey, Xiao Haojie, did you hear? A while back, some guy live-streamed himself self-harming and died. Turns out you had thrown a few insults at him online. His screen name was something like… ‘Ba Yuan Yi Fen.'”
In a college dorm, a slightly chubby guy was wearing headphones and playing on his computer. He suddenly remembered a news story he’d seen a few days ago and casually brought it up.
“Tch. If his own mental resilience couldn’t handle it, how is that my fault? If you’re going to go online and can’t even handle that much pressure, you shouldn’t be on the internet in the first place. Besides, I wasn’t the one who started it. Even if they really go after people, it won’t fall on me.”
On the other side of the room, a guy who looked fairly normal was playing a mobile game.
He scoffed at what he’d just heard, as if the victim wasn’t an innocent person but a sinner plastered with countless negative labels.
“Instead of blaming your own low quality and the toxic online environment, you blame the victim for not being able to handle the pressure?”
From the bunk bed next to him, another roommate—wearing glasses and doing homework—spoke up in rebuttal.
His voice was calm and clear.
“That’s some fine sophistry, Xiao Haojie.”
The moment he said that, the entire dorm atmosphere shifted instantly.
The other roommates glanced at the two of them but said nothing, just minding their own business.
“So what? If he had the skills, he could’ve shouted me off the internet instead. No offensive ability, no defensive ability—people like that are just useless online, aren’t they? What, you want to get justice for him? Oh wow, what a righteous hero you are.”
For that last part, Xiao Haojie deliberately twisted his tone into something quite strange, the strong sarcasm practically overflowing.
“So, you admit you took part in cyberbullying that person, right?”
“I did take part, so what? You got a problem? A stray dog on the street…”
The guy called Xiao Haojie let out a disdainful laugh.
As he was about to go back to his game, he suddenly realized something and whipped his head around to stare at his roommate.
“Are you fucking recording? Hand over your phone!”
“What’s wrong with you? Why should I give you my phone?”
The bespectacled roommate glared back, then quietly slipped his phone—which he had just turned off—into a pile of books.
“I told you to give me the fucking phone!!”
In one lunge, he tackled the roommate off his chair, sending him crashing to the floor.
He straddled him and started wrestling.
Convinced the phone must be on the other guy’s person, he beat him while demanding he hand it over.
But the other guy wasn’t about to take it.
He reached out, grabbed the metal dustpan by the door, and swung it—CRACK—against Xiao Haojie’s head.
Taking advantage of the momentary dizziness, he shoved him off.
To prevent the situation from escalating further, the nearby roommates stepped in to break it up.
“Damn it! If you dare hand that recording over to anyone, you’re dead! You hear me?!”
“Even if I did record it, do you think your threats will still matter after I give it to the police?”
“You!!”
Xiao Haojie pointed a finger at the other guy’s nose, looking like he wanted to throw another punch.
But just then, his phone suddenly rang.
The screen displayed a glaring yellow, accompanied by a sharp, siren-like sound.
It was an official emergency notification.
“Haojie, your phone…”
“Emergency notification? What for?”
Xiao Haojie took his phone and stepped out to answer the call.
Before leaving, he deliberately spat on the floor near his roommate’s feet.
“Tch. I’ll let you off this time. If you really dare go to the cops, you’ll end up just like that guy.”
Outside the door, Xiao Haojie leaned against the railing and answered the official call.
He even forced his tone to be a bit more amiable for the occasion.
“Hello? May I ask what this is about?”
On the other end of the line came a garbled, indistinct sound—like the fuzzy static of a TV when the signal is lost.
Xiao Haojie frowned and pulled the phone back to look at it.
“There’s nothing wrong with the signal… why can’t I hear anything?”
He put the phone to his ear again.
Once more, it was nothing but a garbled hiss.
“What’s going on? Bad signal on their end?”
Confused, he ultimately chose to hang up.
Then he looked back at his dorm.
The thought of being threatened made a fire burn in his chest.
“No way! I have to find a way to teach that bastard a lesson!”
He swiped through his phone, found the social media app he knew well, and entered a group chat…
“Fuck, let me tell you guys about that animal of a roommate I have.”
“What happened? What’s up?”
“What kind of drama is this?”
His opening, filled with emotional venting, immediately drew the attention of several group members.
“He says he’s going to report all of us to the cops just because we badmouthed that ‘Ba Yuan Yi Fen’ guy a bit. And he’s threatening me with it.”
“He’s crazy. We didn’t even say anything wrong.”
“Scared now? Gonna call the cops? Want your mugshot plastered everywhere?”
“Did he really say that? Where does he get the nerve to be so cocky?”
“Sounds like someone else wants their face spread around.”
Of course, he was lying.
His roommate had never once said anything about throwing all of them in prison.
But hey, on the internet, how many people actually care about the truth?
Most people only believe what they want to believe, driven by their emotions.
Once the spark is lit, they can’t wait to spread and vent their anger.
And in a group like this—so tightly knit—the flames spread even faster.
The tension in the chat instantly thickened.
They started discussing how to “deal with” Xiao Haojie’s roommate, criticizing and judging him, just as they had done with the deceased before.
A few relatively rational members told them to tone it down, but their words were ignored.
It wasn’t until another somewhat respected veteran member changed the subject that the conflict finally died down.
“Hey, by the way, have any of you gone to the Youxun Sentry Post to take shelter?”
“Youxun Sentry Post? Why would I go there for nothing?”
“I only got the shelter notice yesterday. After I went today, I stayed with a few other people. We chatted and found out that all of us had badmouthed that guy at some point…”
“You actually believe that crap? If you ask me, you’ve fallen for it! It’s a hostile probe! If you go, doesn’t that prove you really did participate in the cyberbullying?”
Xiao Haojie curled his lip, seeming to sneer at these people’s low intelligence for not seeing through such a simple trick.
“But… I noticed that the guy in our group who first doxxed ‘Ba Yuan Yi Fen’ hasn’t spoken in days.”
The moment those words appeared, the entire chat went dead silent.
Even Xiao Haojie, on his end, felt a chill run through him at that statement.
He couldn’t help but shiver.
“Don’t scare yourselves! I’m guessing he just got arrested.”
“There’s safety in numbers. With so many of us, can they really catch everyone? Laughable.”
“Exactly. What use are the cops these days?”
“Hey hey, watch it. Don’t get this group banned for discussing stuff like this.”
“What’s there to worry about? I say the same things in other groups every day, and nothing ever happens.”
The chat still reeked of gunpowder, but doubt had already crept into Xiao Haojie’s heart.
He was a little suspicious himself about whether that so-called emergency notice was real or not…
But when he connected it to the fact that the group member who first doxxed “Ba Yuan Yi Fen” really hadn’t spoken in a long time, an instinctive panic gripped him.
“…I’ll go check out the nearest Youxun Sentry Post first. I don’t believe they can control ordinary people there.”
***
Night fell, and the city lights began to glow.
The food stalls on the sidewalk were already packed with people off work, chatting about everything under the sun and boasting.
Various vendors lined both sides of the street, crowded with young people eating midnight snacks.
The aroma of life filled the air, making the originally pitch-black night feel vibrant and human.
Xiao Haojie’s university wasn’t far from the nearest Youxun Sentry Post, so he decided to walk.
On the way, he occasionally glanced at the group chat.
The previous topic had already been forgotten by the others, just like any other discussion before.
He didn’t look too long.
But a vague unease and the feeling of being watched made him instinctively quicken his pace.
The route to the sentry post passed by a storefront.
Its glass was always polished spotlessly clean.
But just as Xiao Haojie was passing by, a reflection flashed in the glass—a pale figure… with no head.
His body trembled inexplicably, sensing something was off.
He walked back and stared at the store’s glass.
All he could see was the mannequin used to display clothes inside.
“What the hell? Did I imagine it?”
He stared at the mannequin for a few seconds, felt nothing unusual, then turned and continued forward.
At that very moment, a crack split open on the mannequin’s face.
A murky, pus-like liquid oozed from its mouth.
Then, a bloodshot eyeball emerged, its pupil turning to follow Xiao Haojie’s departing figure.
***
The shortest route to the Youxun Sentry Post inevitably required crossing a street.
Xiao Haojie stood at the front of the crowd on his side, scrolling through his phone, not paying attention to what was across.
Just then, a sports car sped past.
The exhaust fumes and the cloud of dust it kicked up nearly choked Xiao Haojie.
“Cough, cough… goddammit! Driving that fast to get yourself killed? What, just because you have a few bucks you think you’re hot shit?”
Though his words were crude, he didn’t shout as loudly as he had at his roommate earlier.
Because he knew deep down—if he really pissed off some rich guy, even if he could rally a few group buddies to attack him online, they’d likely be drowned out by a sea of paid shills.
Who would end up doxxed in the end was anyone’s guess…
Xiao Haojie coughed a few more times.
His eyes unconsciously drifted to the other side of the street—and then his pupils contracted.
There, right at the front of the opposite crowd, floated a pale figure.
No head. No legs. Only a single right arm.
A huge gaping wound ran from its chest to its abdomen, and inside that wound, a massive eye was fixed on Xiao Haojie.
“Urgh!”
A choked, broken sound escaped Xiao Haojie’s throat.
He was so startled he fell flat on his ass, landing on someone’s toes behind him.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
“Are you okay? Something wrong?”
“Low blood sugar? You don’t just fall down standing still, do you?”
Concerned voices, accusatory voices, confused voices mixed together in his ears, but Xiao Haojie didn’t have time for that.
Across the street, the pale figure was still staring at him.
But the people around it didn’t seem to see it at all—their attention was drawn only by the commotion on his side.
***
An engine roared as another car sped past, briefly obscuring the pale figure.
When the car had passed completely, there was no trace of that eerie presence on the other side of the road.
“Attention. The light is green. Please cross now.”
The traffic signal’s speaker announced.
Xiao Haojie gasped for air.
He no longer had the time to wonder whether what he saw was a hallucination.
Right now… he just wanted to run as fast as he could to the nearest Youxun Sentry Post.
He scrambled to his feet and started running like a madman, shoving aside everyone in his path.
Gradually, curses and insults rose from the street, but he paid them no mind.
“As long as… as long as I get there… you can’t do anything to me, right… hahahaha…”
He started laughing.
Laughing at Chen Yuan—even if he turned into that kind of form, he still couldn’t kill him.
Ahead, the iconic spire of the Youxun Sentry Post was getting closer and closer.
Bzzz…
A wave of dizziness and distortion hit him at the same time.
He didn’t see the road in front of him.
With a thud, he fell to the ground.
Struggling, he tried to get up—but noticed that, for some reason, a shadow had fallen in front of him.
No…
Not just one.
Two… three… more and more, layering upon each other.
Gradually, a vast patch of darkness formed before him, almost blotting out all light.
His breathing quickened.
Fear, tension, anxiety—these emotions wrapped around him like a tide.
But he still looked up.
Gazes…
The gazes of countless people…
The gazes of countless eyes…
They surrounded Xiao Haojie.
He couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t see their true forms—only those eyes… so vividly clear.
Xiao Haojie let out a series of weak, leaking breaths, his hands clawing at the ground.
“…Urgh…”
Then, in an instant, the extreme fear seemed to override his reason.
He started laughing.
“Haha… hahahaha! Chen Yuan! I know it’s you! You want to kill me, don’t you? Aren’t you afraid… that when I die full of resentment, I’ll become the same thing as you and kill you back?!”
“After I kill you, all your other relatives, your other friends, they’ll all—”
In that split second, his mouth was sewn shut by countless black threads materializing out of nowhere, as if he were a puppet.
The “people” surrounding him—their eyes had grown even colder, filled with scrutiny and sighs.
Then they surged toward Xiao Haojie, reaching out their hands, covering him bit by bit—his limbs, his torso, his head…
“Mmph… mmph mmph!!”
A muffled, stitched-shut whimper struggled weakly within the thick shadow for a moment, then was utterly swallowed, leaving no trace.
The street remained as it was.
The dim yellow streetlights still glowed.
The distant clamor of the food stalls drifted over, carrying the vibrant breath of human life.
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