“Hello, hello! Good evening, everyone! Today we’re back with everyone’s favorite livestream horror story recommendations!” In a pitch-black room, a cute girl in a white sweater and a ghost-shaped hat greeted the viewers on her computer.
She seemed to be a very popular streamer; comments kept drifting across the screen.
“Good evening, Qiyue!”
“It’s time for our Qiyue-chan’s favorite part again: padding the stream.”
“Streamer, you’re not going to have a future if all you do every day is read horror story comments. Hurry up and stream what everyone actually wants to see.”
“Do people really come to our Qiyue’s stream to listen to horror stories?”
“Exactly. Fast-forward to the main event already. I can’t wait to watch the streamer’s appetizingly terrible gameplay.”
“What are you talking about? Our streamer has looks if you want skill, and looks if you want horror stories too. Qiyue-chan is the best!”
“She’s pretty, I love watching, and I’ll keep watching!”
…
Lu Yueqi, who was also the Qiyue the viewers were talking about, watched the barrage of comments sweeping across the computer screen and scolded them with a laugh. “You people only know how to slander me every single day. How am I padding the stream by reading comments? I carefully searched for all these horror stories, okay? And the one who said I’m bad at games—don’t let me run into you in any shooter or MOBA, or I’ll make sure you regret it!”
For a while, the livestream chat was full of cheer. The viewers played along, flattering her a couple of times before firing back a couple more.
“All right, all right. I’m going to start telling today’s first story. You’re all about to make me forget what I’m actually here to do.” Lu Yueqi smoothed her bangs forward, trying to make them cover her eyes as much as possible, putting on the appearance of a female ghost. It was just that this female ghost looked a little too silly and cute.
Lu Yueqi deliberately lowered her voice and even played a fairly scary BGM, doing her best to build up the atmosphere.
“This urban legend is said to be the origin of all strange events. Rumor has it that at night, people who are fast asleep will be targeted by monsters similar to nightmares. They enter your dreams. If you are having a nightmare, they will slowly, slowly turn your nightmare into reality. Then, in the end, that nightmare will fully enter the real world, kill the host who gave birth to it, completely break free from control, and then infect the entire world… They are endless in number, living off the fear in people’s hearts. As long as people still possess the emotion of fear, one day, they will come knocking, and then…”
“Click—”
A sudden, abnormal sound shattered the atmosphere of the story.
“Hm?” Lu Yueqi turned her head to look, only to discover that the door to her room had opened at some unknown point.
“Why did the door behind the streamer open?”
“Is it someone from the streamer’s family?”
“Is there really someone behind the door? Then why aren’t they coming in?”
“Maybe they saw our Qiyue-chan was streaming, so they didn’t come in?”
“But I was staring at the screen the whole time just now. There was no one behind the door.”
…
Lu Yueqi was no longer in the mood to stream. She stared fixedly at her bedroom door, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.
Although she was a supernatural streamer, she herself was actually quite afraid of these things. That was why she had a habit of locking her room every time she streamed. She remembered very clearly that when she came in, she had closed the door properly and locked it from the inside. There was no one else in her home either. So how had this door opened?
“I think I heard about something like this before. Someone was watching TV in the middle of the night when the door suddenly opened. He went out to check and didn’t find anyone, but when he returned to his room, he found his own corpse lying on the bed, dead in a horribly gruesome state. He approached his own body, wanting to see what had happened, but the door suddenly closed and couldn’t be opened no matter what. After that, that person disappeared too…”
A long comment rolled past.
“Upstairs, I’m timid, don’t scare me.”
“Don’t be scared. According to what he said, that person disappeared, so where did this story come from? Horror stories are all fake. How could there be any real ghosts?”
“True.”
“But Qiyue’s situation…”
“She’s acting, right?”
…
The comments continued to roll by.
Lu Yueqi took off her headphones and slowly stood up. Holding her phone as a light source, her whole body trembling, she walked toward the switch for the ceiling light in her room.
“Huh? Why is the light broken?” Lu Yueqi pressed the switch anxiously, but the light never came on. In the dark room, only the cold white glow of the computer and phone gave Lu Yueqi the tiniest bit of visibility.
“Ding—”
“Ah!”
The sound of a phone notification startled Lu Yueqi so badly that her hand shook, and she flung the phone straight out. Fortunately, the phone did not break. Its lock screen glowed quietly as it lay on the floor.
Lu Yueqi shakily crouched down, picked up the phone, unlocked it, and looked at the message on it.
“Don’t look back. It’s behind you. And don’t try to sneak a glance behind you with your eyes either.”
It was a message from an unfamiliar number. For a moment, Lu Yueqi could not make up her mind. What if this message had been sent by something strange to deceive her?
Lu Yueqi felt as if she was on the verge of breaking down. Although she had always been very afraid of ghosts, she was also a firm atheist and did not believe in ghosts or monsters. She simply loved imagining, and feared, those terrifying things. She had never thought they would actually happen to her.
“Snap!” After a burst of static and distorted colors, the computer screen dimmed for a moment, then lit up again.
Lu Yueqi hurriedly hugged her head and shut her eyes, pretending she could not see anything.
After hesitating for a while, driven by her survival instincts, she decided to temporarily listen to the words on her phone. Trembling, she picked up the phone and slowly stood up. Throughout the entire process, she did not dare twist her neck even the slightest bit, and her gaze remained fixed straight ahead.
“Don’t be afraid. Come to your front door and open it now. Remember, still don’t turn your head. Don’t let your eyes wander.” A new message popped up.
Open the door?
Lu Yueqi felt that something was off. In a horror movie, this was exactly the rhythm of being guided step by step into the abyss.
According to the horror movies and ghost stories she usually watched, opening the door was equivalent to taking the initiative to welcome the ghost into her home. When that happened, she would have nowhere left to run.
“Pa—” The computer screen suddenly went dark. Lu Yueqi’s surroundings were plunged completely into darkness, with only the glow of her phone screen flickering.
“What do I do? What do I do?” Lu Yueqi was so anxious that tears were spinning in her eyes.
That unfamiliar phone number sent her several more messages in succession, but she did not read any of them. She was afraid that the moment she opened her phone, a ghost face would pop out at her.
As if the other party had grown impatient from waiting, the phone rang. A string of numbers appeared on the phone screen.
“Should I answer?”
Lu Yueqi looked at the two options below the number—answer and hang up—and could not make up her mind for a while.
On one hand, the other party probably had not lied to her about not turning around. At least so far, she had not encountered any danger. On the other hand, whether the one on the other end was still a “person” was uncertain. After all, “ghost calls” often appeared in horror movies too. Even if they had been someone harboring goodwill toward her before, in the next second, they might become a ghost that wanted to kill her.
After a long while, Lu Yueqi still decided to rely on herself first to escape danger.
She set her phone to silent, then turned on the flashlight and walked toward the bedroom door. Since she could not turn around to look at that ghost, could she keep looking straight ahead and make her way into the living room?
If she stayed in the bedroom the whole time, it would become a certain-death situation. Only by getting out could she survive.
That was what Lu Yueqi thought.
Steeling herself, she slowly pulled the door open. When she saw that the familiar living room was still in front of her, she let out a sigh of relief.
But she had barely relaxed when white light flared behind her. The bedroom light had actually turned on by itself.
Lu Yueqi watched as the lights in her home switched on one after another on their own, and her entire body trembled involuntarily.
“Come on, Yueqi. Come see the new drama I found recently.”
She heard her best friend calling her name from behind.
In her panic, Lu Yueqi covered her ears with both hands and hurriedly ran toward the front door.
“Bang!”
Who would have thought that just as she was about to reach the door, it would let out a tremendous crash, as if something were trying to break in from outside.
Lu Yueqi hastily stopped in her tracks. At this point, she was completely confused. Was the ghost outside the door, or behind her?
That’s right!
Lu Yueqi suddenly thought of something. Since she could not turn around to look, wouldn’t she be able to see what was behind her by using her phone’s camera in selfie mode?
In a flurry, she switched her phone to the selfie function, then aimed it at herself.
The ghost behind her was slightly taller than her by a head. Its disheveled hair covered its face, revealing only its mouth. Its white clothes were stained all over with red liquid.
The instant Lu Yueqi’s camera aimed at it, the corners of its mouth slowly curved into a smile. Its teeth were exposed, dark red blood sticking to them.
“Hehe. You saw me.”
“Ah—” Lu Yueqi could no longer hold back and screamed in collapse.
Her legs went weak, and she fell to her knees on the ground. She had not expected that, in the end, she had still failed to think things through. She had assumed that turning her head was the trigger for the death route, but she had not expected that the real death route was seeing that ghost. It was only because it could not appear in front of her that she had not been allowed to turn around.
Lu Yueqi thought again of the warning in the previous text message: “Don’t let your eyes wander.” So the reason the other party had said that was because if she did so, there was a chance she might see that ghost.
In a brief instant, many thoughts flashed through Lu Yueqi’s mind, and her tears began to flow uncontrollably.
“Wuwu, am I going to die…”
“Boom!”
The door was finally broken open. A figure rushed in, picked up Lu Yueqi, covered her eyes, and ran straight outside.
“What are you spacing out for? Just because you triggered the death route, you’re not going to resist? Heiyan, I’ll leave this place to you.”
Behind the man, an illusory figure suddenly emerged, then gradually condensed into a solid form. The lights that had originally been lit in the room began to flicker because of its appearance. By the time it had fully appeared, the interior of the house had sunk into darkness once more.
This creature called “Heiyan” was not much different from a person, aside from the large empty hole where its heart should have been. It wore a black formal suit all over and held a book in its hands, looking like an elegant gentleman.
“Hmph. You needed me for a little trouble like this. Little Baiyu, you still need more practice.” Heiyan glanced at the evil ghost ahead and revealed a contemptuous smile. He muttered something under his breath, and before long, a powerful suction force spread outward from the book in his hands.
The evil ghost actually panicked. It wanted to flee, but Heiyan caught it with one hand. “Although there isn’t much nutrition, it’s still not bad as a little snack.”
The evil ghost was quickly sucked into the book. Heiyan lightly flipped through a few pages, found the newly added page, gently tore it out, crumpled it into a ball, and swallowed it.
“Mm. Really no nutrition.” As soon as he finished speaking, Heiyan’s body gradually turned illusory again, vanishing little by little into the darkness.
On the other side, after Baiyu carried Lu Yueqi out, he tossed her into the back seat of the car, sat down in the driver’s seat himself, and sped off into the night.