Translator: CinderTL
As Jiang Cheng and his group approached, the five people waiting at the bus stop noticed them. There were three men and two women.
One man, tall and thin with a backpack, hunched over and wore thick glasses that gave him the look of someone utterly defeated by life. "You..." he adjusted his glasses and asked quietly, "Are you here because of that post too?"
"That post..." Jiang Cheng filed the term away mentally, knowing he had to be careful not to reveal too much. He tilted his chin slightly and countered, "And you?"
"Ugh, don't even mention it," another man grumbled with a sour expression. "If it weren't for that damn post, who'd be up at this hour, waiting around here?"
"Same here," Jiang Cheng replied sympathetically. "We rushed out so quickly, my friend didn't even have time to change."
He gestured to Huai Yi, who reluctantly unbuttoned his coat to reveal the fluffy pajamas underneath.
As they spoke, one of the women suddenly burst into tears, her eyes red and swollen, clearly having cried before their arrival.
The girl wore a simple dress, looking demure and subdued.
"Stop crying. What good will tears do?" the woman beside her said sharply. Her wine-red jacket looked crisp and professional, her makeup was bold, and her extravagant diamond-shard earrings glittered as they caught the light.
Jiang Cheng, however, moved to the girl's side, offering comfort. "Don't say that. No one wants to experience something like this. If you need to cry, go ahead and let it out."
Perhaps it was Jiang Cheng's different approach, but the girl looked up, meeting his deep, dark eyes.
"Feeling any better?" Jiang Cheng crouched slightly to match her height, feigning concern and curiosity. "Or was your experience even stranger than ours?"
"I... I received that post three days ago," the girl stammered. "I was online shopping with my roommate when it suddenly popped up. It came from a website that investigates supernatural events. I'd joined a group there out of casual interest, and someone from the group invited me. I don't even know who it was."
Jiang Cheng nodded gently. "Just as I suspected. What happened next?"
"When I clicked on the link, it was an invitation to come here at midnight in three days. To complete the task, I had to tell an urban legend."
"If I didn't come, something terrible would happen."
"And that's why you came?" Jiang Cheng found the reason a bit far-fetched.
Hearing Jiang Cheng's skepticism, the girl seemed to remember something, and tears welled up in her eyes again. "I... I didn't want to come either, but I had no choice! If I didn't..."
"I don't want to end up like my roommate. I'm still young. I don't want to die!" Her voice cracked, and she began to sob uncontrollably.
"Your roommate... what happened to her?" Jiang Cheng continued to probe, ignoring the lukewarm glances from the others.
"She received the same invitation as me, but her deadline was earlier—two days later, which was yesterday!" the girl sobbed.
Jiang Cheng began to understand. Her roommate must have dismissed the invitation, skipped the event, and paid the price. Now, with her own deadline looming, the girl dared not disobey.
"Yesterday evening, around 11 pm, we were still talking about it. We were wondering who would be bored enough to post something like that to scare people."
"After chatting for a while, I went to bed. My roommate stayed up downstairs, playing on the computer and shopping online. Oh, and by the way," the girl said, wiping her tears, "there were only the two of us in the dorm."
"I fell asleep pretty quickly. Then, groggily, I heard a strange sound—a loud rumbling, like a huge vehicle driving right past me."
"No, not past me—right beside the dorm! It felt like it was right next to my pillow!" The girl was visibly agitated, her words tumbling over each other. Jiang Cheng pieced together her account as best he could.
"I opened my eyes and saw the dorm light was off. Our beds were on top, with the desks underneath. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a faint glow coming from downstairs."
"My roommate often used her computer after lights-out, so I didn't think much of it. I just told her to turn down the volume."
"But she didn't answer, and the rumbling didn't stop. In fact, it seemed to get closer—so real, so vivid, not like something from a movie."
"I felt uneasy. My roommate was usually very responsive. I sat up and looked down from my bed. The computer was on, but she was gone."
I got out of bed and called her name a few more times, but she was definitely gone. I walked toward the door, figuring she must be in the bathroom since she wasn't in the room. But as soon as I reached the dorm door, I discovered it was locked from the inside.
I was certain I hadn't locked it, which meant my roommate must still be inside. I found it strange and started searching the dorm while calling her name, wondering if she was playing a joke on me.
Then I noticed her slippers. She always wore slippers in the dorm, but now there was only one, and... The girl's breath quickened, as if the memory still haunted her. "...it was in a weird position, upside down on the floor."
I hadn't noticed it when I first got up, but now I immediately turned on the desk lamp. In its light, I saw that the area where she'd been sitting was inexplicably messy.
The chair was askew, books on the desk were scattered haphazardly, and the trash can on the floor had been kicked over, spilling its contents everywhere.
"It looked like... it looked like someone had been fighting here."
"There was half a cup of spilled milk tea on the floor. I suddenly noticed drag marks on the surface of the tea. I followed them a few steps and found they ended right in front of the wardrobe."
"And right in front of the wardrobe, I found my roommate's other slipper."
"By then, I was starting to panic. I couldn't understand why she would play such a prank on me in the middle of the night. I shouted at her to come out, to stop messing around, and warned her that I would get angry if she didn't stop. I was genuinely scared."
"The wardrobe door was slightly ajar. I saw something peeking out from the lower part of the wardrobe. When I looked closer, I immediately recognized it as the pink pajamas my roommate always wore to bed. But then, in an instant, the corner of the fabric vanished back inside."
"I was convinced she was hiding in the wardrobe, trying to scare me as a joke. So I decided to turn the tables and scare her back. I angrily grabbed my phone to call her, but..." Here, the girl's face paled, as if she had just remembered something deeply terrifying. "...but the ringtone... the ringtone was coming from her computer!"
"Her computer!"
(End of the Chapter)
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