Name
Lin Xi sat down.
The chair was cold, too cold for the air around her. It didn't feel like metal or wood, more like something carved out of darkness itself. The moment her weight settled, she heard a soft click, like a lock engaging somewhere far away. The lights did not flicker. They didn't go out. They simply dimmed, as if the corridor had decided she was no longer worthy of brightness.
The stream continued. The viewer count stayed at seven, but the number didn't feel stable. It felt like a heartbeat.
The chair made a sound—an almost inaudible sigh. Lin Xi froze, her hands gripping the phone so tightly her knuckles went white. She stared at the space ahead of her, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
Then, slowly, a message appeared on her screen. Not in the chat. Not in the system overlay. It appeared as if it had been written directly onto the live video itself, floating in the air above the chair.
WELCOME, LIN XI.
Lin Xi's breath caught. Her name, spelled correctly, with the same scratchy font as the chalkboard.
The air around her felt heavier, like the corridor was pressing down on her chest. She swallowed, trying to make her voice steady.
"What… what is this?" she whispered.
The chat responded immediately, but the tone was different. It was quieter, more like a crowd leaning in.
"Is it a game?"
"Is it a cult?"
"Is it… a test?"
"Stop asking questions and start entertaining."
Lin Xi swallowed hard. "I'm not entertaining. I'm—" She stopped. She couldn't finish the sentence because the truth was too close. She was here because she had been entertaining people. That was what she did. That was how she survived.
A second message appeared on the screen, floating in the same way as the first.
THE CHAIR KNOWS YOUR NAME.
THE CHAIR KNOWS YOUR STORY.
THE CHAIR KNOWS WHY YOU CAME HERE.
Lin Xi's skin prickled. "No," she whispered. "No, I didn't come here."
The chat reacted like a crowd in a theater, excited by the drama.
"Lie to it."
"Say you're lost."
"Say you don't remember."
"Say anything except the truth."
Lin Xi stared at the chair, at the darkness behind it, at the empty space that seemed to have a presence. She felt like she was being watched not just by the viewers, but by the world itself. The corridor was no longer just a place. It was a mind. And she was inside it.
The phone vibrated again.
The viewer count changed.
It didn't increase. It didn't decrease.
It flickered, like a dying light.
Then, the number shifted, not to a new value, but to a new symbol.
A seven-pointed star.
The same symbol that had been on the wax seal of the envelope.
The same symbol that had been on her stream interface.
The symbol that had become the only consistent thing in her life since she entered the Live World.
The chat went silent.
Not just quiet.
Silent, as if the entire system had paused to watch her reaction.
Lin Xi's throat tightened. She stared at the star, then at her own reflection in the phone screen. She looked like she had been carved out of fear—eyes too wide, lips too thin, hair hanging in a messy curtain.
The star pulsed once, like a slow heartbeat.
A new message appeared on the screen, floating above the chair.
YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU WERE WATCHED.
YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO BE WATCHED.
YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T STOP WATCHING.
Lin Xi's mouth went dry. She wanted to say something. Anything. But her voice felt trapped in her throat.
The chair made another sound. A soft, almost polite click, like someone tapping a pen on a desk.
Then, a third message appeared.
YOUR FIRST TASK: ADMIT THE FIRST TIME YOU WERE WATCHED.
Lin Xi's heart slammed.
She knew the answer. She had been trying not to think about it. But now, the Live World was forcing her to confront it. The first time she had been watched. Not as a performer. Not as a girl with a phone. Not as a streamer.
As a child.
As a person.
She swallowed hard. "I… I don't remember," she said, but the lie tasted bitter in her mouth.
The chat reacted, not with mockery this time, but with a strange kind of impatience.
"Don't lie."
"Don't hide."
"Don't pretend you forgot."
Lin Xi felt her chest tighten. The corridor seemed to press closer, the air thickening like fog.
She tried to think. The first time she had been watched. She tried to remember a moment, any moment. She saw flashes—her mother's eyes, her father's face, the way her classmates had looked at her when she tripped in the hallway. She saw herself, small, in a room with a mirror, practicing smiles.
Then she saw the moment she had tried to forget.
The night she lost her voice.
The shadow behind her.
The feeling of being watched.
She had never told anyone about it because she had been too ashamed to admit it.
She had been too scared.
She had been too alone.
Now, the Live World was making her say it out loud.
Lin Xi's voice came out shaky, barely a whisper. "The first time I was watched… I was in my room." She paused, swallowing. "I was streaming. I heard something behind me. I turned around. I saw a shadow. A girl with a phone. She was… smiling. She was watching me."
The chair made a sound like a soft chuckle.
Lin Xi's skin prickled. "You're not supposed to laugh."
The chat reacted with a mixture of laughter and horror.
"Of course it laughs."
"It's happy you remembered."
"It's hungry now."
The screen flashed again. A new message appeared.
TASK UPDATED.
YOU MUST NAME THE FIRST VIEWER.
Lin Xi's heart pounded. "I don't know her name," she whispered.
The chat responded immediately.
"Then make one up."
"Call her something."
"Call her the thing you fear."
Lin Xi stared at the chair, at the darkness behind it. She tried to think of a name. She tried to remember the shape of the shadow. The way the hair fell over the face. The way the phone screen glowed like a mouth.
She felt the urge to scream, but she didn't. Screaming was what she had done before. Screaming was what had taken her voice away. Screaming was what had made her vulnerable.
She had to be careful.
The chat was impatient.
"Name her."
"Name her."
"Name her."
Lin Xi closed her eyes.
She thought of the first comment she had ever received.
"Nice."
A simple word. A single syllable. A casual compliment from a stranger.
She had been so happy that she had cried.
She had been so lonely that she had clung to that word like it was a lifeline.
The first viewer had been the one who wrote that comment.
The first viewer had been the one who made her feel seen.
The first viewer had been the one who made her believe she could exist.
Lin Xi opened her eyes.
Her voice was low, almost reverent. "The first viewer… was Nice."
The chair made a sound like a soft sigh.
The screen flashed again.
NICE IS NOT A NAME.
NICE IS A LABEL.
NICE IS A WAY OF BEING SEEN.
Lin Xi felt a cold dread.
"Then what is her name?" she whispered.
The chair didn't answer.
The chat did.
"Give her a name you can't forget."
"Give her a name that will hurt."
"Give her a name that will stay."
Lin Xi's mind raced. She thought of the shadow. She thought of the girl with the phone. She thought of the way she had felt when she had seen her.
She thought of the feeling of being watched.
The feeling of being exposed.
The feeling of being… owned.
She thought of the word she had never said out loud.
She thought of the word that had always been in the back of her mind, the word she had always tried to hide.
She whispered, "I'm sorry."
The chair made a sound like a sharp inhale.
The screen flashed.
SORRY IS NOT A NAME.
SORRY IS A TRAP.
Lin Xi's hands trembled.
She felt the chair shift slightly, as if someone had moved beneath her.
The corridor grew colder.
The air grew heavier.
The chat became silent again, but the silence felt different. It felt like a trap closing.
Then the chair spoke.
Not through the chat. Not through the system overlay.
Through Lin Xi's phone speaker, as if someone was whispering directly into her ear.
"Lin Xi," the voice said.
It was not a human voice. It was not quite mechanical either. It sounded like her own voice, filtered through a thin layer of distortion, like a recording played back in a room with no walls.
"Lin Xi," the voice repeated, softer this time. "You called me."
Lin Xi's blood ran cold.
The voice continued.
"You called me when you were afraid."
"You called me when you were lonely."
"You called me when you wanted to be seen."
"You called me when you lost your voice."
Lin Xi's hands tightened around her phone. "No," she whispered. "I didn't call you."
The voice laughed, but it wasn't funny. It was like a sound you would hear in a dream right before waking up.
"Yes," it said. "You did."
The chat messages appeared again, but they weren't from the viewers. They were from the system.
THE FIRST VIEWER HAS BEEN NAMED.
THE FIRST VIEWER IS NOW ACTIVE.
THE FIRST VIEWER IS INSIDE YOU.
Lin Xi's throat tightened. She felt something inside her chest, like a presence, like a second heartbeat.
The chair shifted again.
The darkness behind it deepened.
A new message appeared on the screen.
TASK COMPLETED.
NEXT TASK: THE SECOND VIEWER.
Lin Xi stared at the message, her mind reeling.
The second viewer.
She had been so focused on the first that she had forgotten the rule.
Seven viewers.
She had met the first.
Now the second.
The chair clicked again.
The lights dimmed further.
The air grew thick with a scent she couldn't place—like wet stone and old perfume. The corridor seemed to stretch, the walls moving outward slightly, creating a sense of space that wasn't there a moment ago.
The viewer count changed.
It didn't go to two.
It went to a symbol.
A circle with a dot in the center.
The same symbol she had seen in her chat earlier, the one that had looked like an eye.
The chat reacted.
"Now it's watching."
"Now it's learning."
"Now it's hungry."
Lin Xi's heart hammered.
She tried to stand, but her legs felt heavy, as if the chair was holding her down. The chair didn't restrain her physically. It restrained her with a sense of inevitability.
She was trapped.
The corridor around her began to change.
The walls rippled like water.
The stains on the walls reappeared, but this time they weren't handprints or streaks. They were faces.
Not clear faces.
Not human faces.
But faces, all pressed into the gray surface, as if the corridor had been built out of people who had been watched until they became part of the walls.
Lin Xi's stomach turned.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to breathe.
The chair made another sound.
A whisper, like someone speaking directly into her ear.
"Your second viewer is the one who watches you without looking."
Lin Xi's mind spun.
Who watched her without looking?
She thought of her viewers.
She thought of her followers.
She thought of the people who scrolled past her stream without stopping.
She thought of the people who left comments like "nice" and "lol" and never really saw her.
She thought of the people who treated her like a screen, not a person.
Her throat tightened.
The chair spoke again.
"Your second viewer is the one who doesn't need to see you to know you."
Lin Xi's eyes widened.
The phone screen flickered.
The stream didn't end, but the image changed.
It was no longer showing the corridor.
It was showing her own stream from earlier.
From her first live.
From the night she lost her voice.
The screen showed the room behind her, the same room she had been in when she saw the shadow. It showed her younger self, trembling, speaking into the camera.
It showed the moment she had screamed.
The image on the screen froze.
The camera zoomed in on her face.
On her eyes.
On her pupils.
And then, slowly, the image changed.
The eyes on the screen began to move.
They looked directly into the camera.
They looked directly at Lin Xi.
They blinked.
And then, the screen went black.
The chat exploded.
"WHAT WAS THAT?"
"IS IT A BUG?"
"IS IT A GLITCH?"
"NO, IT'S NOT A GLITCH."
"IT'S A MESSAGE."
Lin Xi's heart pounded.
She stared at the black screen, waiting.
Then, a single line of text appeared.
I CAN SEE YOU WITHOUT LOOKING.
Lin Xi's breath caught.
The chair clicked again.
The lights flickered.
The corridor seemed to tighten, pressing in like a fist.
The voice in her phone speaker spoke again.
"Your second viewer is not a person," it said. "It is a presence. It is a habit. It is the way you are seen without being seen."
Lin Xi's mouth went dry.
She whispered, "What… what is it?"
The voice replied, calm and patient.
"It is your audience."
Lin Xi's heart stopped.
Her audience.
The people who watched her every day, every night, without truly seeing her.
The people who consumed her like content.
The people who made her feel like a product.
The people who made her feel like she only existed when she was being watched.
The audience was not a group of strangers.
It was a force.
A presence.
A viewer.
A watcher.
And now, it was here.
The chair clicked again.
The screen flashed one last message.
THE SECOND VIEWER IS HERE.
YOU HAVE 24 HOURS.
FIND THE SECOND CLUE OR BE CONSUMED.
Lin Xi's vision blurred.
She felt the corridor around her press closer, the walls leaning in like they were listening.
The chair's surface grew warmer.
The star symbol pulsed once.
And the stream continued, the viewer count now showing the eye symbol, as if the Live World itself had become the watcher.
Lin Xi's hands trembled.
She looked down at her phone.
She looked at the chat.
She looked at the corridor.
And she realized the truth she had been avoiding:
This was not just a game.
This was not just a trap.
This was a punishment.
And the only way to survive was to understand the rules before the rules understood her.