LightReader

Chapter 651 - Urban Legends

 

Translator: CinderTL

 

"Her laptop was a notebook, its screen tilted slightly downward. I waited calmly for a while, until the phone stopped ringing, before daring to approach."

"Slowly, I opened the screen and found it was black, but not the kind of black you see when a screen is turned off. It was as if there was an image displayed, but the image itself was entirely black."

"Actually, 'black' isn't quite right," the girl corrected herself, as if trying to convince herself. "It was more like... blurred! The screen looked like it had a gray filter over it. The dark areas weren't uniform at all, just vague outlines."

Hearing her description, Fatty and Huai Yi visibly tensed. They had seen similar images before, and the outcomes had never been good.

Jiang Cheng, however, remained remarkably calm. His eyes, filled with concern, focused on the girl. He took her trembling hand and whispered softly, "Don't be afraid. We're all here with you."

But this time, Jiang Cheng's reassurance had little effect. The girl's body continued to shake uncontrollably, and her voice took on a strange, strained quality. "I had this feeling... like if I just got a little closer to the screen, just a little bit closer, I could see exactly what was on it."

"And then?" someone pressed, a man with a checkered scarf wrapped around his neck.

The girl paused, startled by the question. Then, as if suddenly realizing something, she shook her head violently. "But I didn't! I was terrified. I don't even know what I was thinking. I grabbed my phone and called my roommate again, just to see what would happen this time."

The next moment, the girl abruptly looked up, her face drained of all color, now deathly pale and desperate. "It rang! The phone rang again!"

"It wasn't coming from the computer—it was coming from the screen! From inside the screen!"

"Something was flashing on the screen, faintly pushing back the darkness. It was my roommate's phone!" the girl gasped, her voice trembling. "And I saw a ghastly white hand clutching it—it was her, it was definitely her! She was wearing the four-leaf clover bracelet I gave her on her wrist!"

"Are you saying your roommate appeared in the video?" Jiang Cheng asked.

"Not just appeared—she was dragged in! Because she didn't come here on time. That post was real—it's a curse!"

"Then... then..." the girl gasped, struggling to catch her breath. "The screen suddenly changed. Everything vanished, plunging into pure darkness. Then, a crack appeared in the middle of the screen, and light streamed through."

"The crack slowly widened, and through it, I saw the back of a person."

"It was me! It was myself!"

"I was standing with my back to the computer, still holding my phone."

"Then I heard the creak of a cabinet door being pushed open, but it wasn't coming from the computer," she broke down, her voice trembling with tears. "It was behind me!"

Everyone immediately thought of the wardrobe where they'd glimpsed a corner of clothing earlier. It seemed something was indeed hiding inside—but not her roommate, something else entirely.

"I fainted. When I woke up, I was in the school infirmary. My neighbor noticed something was wrong and saw me lying on the floor through the window."

"But when you woke up, you realized your roommate was truly gone," Jiang Cheng asked. "Right?"

The girl nodded, whispering, "Yes, she disappeared."

After a moment, she looked up again, her voice pleading. "This... does this count as completing the task?"

After all, she had just told a supernatural tale, fulfilling the requirements of the mysterious forum post.

"Who knows?" The tall, slender man wore a similarly helpless expression. He adjusted his glasses, as if steeling his resolve. "Never mind, I'll go next."

He paused, then lowered his voice conspiratorially. "My story is called Dong."

His magnetic voice drew everyone into the tale, creating an immersive atmosphere. "Once upon a time, there was a writer who rented an apartment while researching a project in a remote area."

"The apartment was old and in a secluded location, but the rent was cheap, and it was quiet, so the writer was quite content."

"He spent his days gathering material and his nights writing in his study."

"Incredibly, on his very first day of research, he stumbled upon an excellent story. That night, his thoughts flowed clearly, and he wrote late into the night before finally retiring to bed."

"But as he slept, he suddenly awoke—not from a nightmare, but from a strange noise."

"Dong."

"Dong."

The rhythmic sound, like someone forcefully knocking on a wall, echoed about every fifteen seconds.

Following the noise, he discovered it was coming from the direction of his study.

It was the very room where he did his writing.

A wave of unease washed over him. He slowly opened the bedroom door and crept toward the study, the rhythmic knocking growing clearer with each step.

He was certain the sound was coming from the study.

Clutching a fruit knife, the writer swiftly yanked open the study door and flicked on the light.

But the room was empty, save for his laptop glowing faintly on the desk.

"No one?"

Not only was the room deserted, but the moment he opened the door, the "dong, dong, dong" sound vanished completely.

The study was small, offering few hiding places. After a thorough search yielded nothing, he found no sign that anything had been disturbed.

"Could this be stress-induced?" he muttered to himself. Too exhausted to dwell on it, he dismissed the incident and returned to bed.

The next night, again in the dead of night, he was jolted awake by the same knocking. And again, the sound ceased the moment he opened the study door.

Once could be dismissed as stress, but twice suggested something more deliberate. He suspected a neighbor might be responsible.

He went to the wall in his study that adjoined the neighboring apartment and knocked hard several times. The sound was strikingly similar to what he had heard the previous night.

Whether it was his imagination or not, he thought he could hear faint noises coming from next door.

The next morning, the writer rushed to the neighboring apartment and began pounding on the door. He knocked repeatedly for a long time, but no one answered, and not a sound came from within.

"Don't play dead with me! I know you're in there!" the writer shouted through the door. "You were banging away pretty enthusiastically last night! If you've got the guts, come out and face me!"

When the neighbor remained silent, the writer gave up. He turned and headed downstairs, where he ran into his landlord, an elderly woman with thick glasses and a frail, unsteady gait. He angrily recounted the previous night's events.

The old landlady listened in disbelief. "Young man," she said, "you must be mistaken. No one has lived next door for years. It's been empty for ages."

(End of the Chapter)

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