"Who should I trust?"
Yingzi felt so light in my arms, I could lift her with one hand—as if she had no weight at all.
After saying that, she buried her head in my shoulder, silent.
If not for the lingering warmth of a girl beside my ear, I might have doubted whether those words had actually come from her.
We hadn't even reached the school gate when Xiumu caught up, holding a twisted vine in his hand and giving me a look.
The message was clear: "Don't hesitate. Do it!"
Both of them were trying to convince me in their own ways. The footsteps slowed to a halt, and I put on a conflicted expression, "Who should I believe?"
I set Yingzi down and looked at my phone. The chat in the The Netherworld Live Show horror stream was filled with all kinds of opinions.
"Streamer, are you nuts? Xiumu's definitely a ghost. He's been manipulating you from the start. That four-player game? You're just playing with three ghosts!"
"Nonsense. That kid's just crazy, not a ghost. But Yingzi? She's weird as hell!"
"Agree! The camera was super close to Yingzi's face for three minutes straight. Not a single expression change! She's definitely a dead soul come back to life!"
"What normal high school kid talks about killing people like that? The ghost is Xiumu! If I'm wrong, I'll cut off my own tongue on stream!"
"Can any experts explain this? Is Liu Banxian from Qingcheng Mountain around? Calling Banxian, calling Banxian, over."
"Banxian my ass. I bet 100 underworld coins that Xiumu is the ghost!"
"100 coins? You better have some cash. Tieling Bro tipped 999 underworld coins: 'I bet 999—they're all ghosts!'"
"Tieling Bro's got style."
I smiled slightly. No matter how dangerous the situation, reading the fans' comments helped me calm down quickly. Compared to my first stream, the viewer count had quintupled, and there were fewer doubters.
Honestly, I already knew who was human and who was ghost. But now wasn't the time to reveal it. To avoid enraging vengeful spirits and getting myself trapped, this drama had to go on.
"I won't leave until Shen Meng is found. Xue Fei's chances are slim, but after checking inside the lab building, I haven't found any sign of Shen Meng. She must be somewhere else." I crouched down before the two of them. "Don't doubt your comrades. Don't lose hope. If we panic and fall apart, none of us will get out alive."
Encouraging them, I lifted my camera, ready to head to the next building. "Xiumu, what do your parents do? They're never home? Are they really that busy?"
"I don't know. I barely see them throughout the year."
"That sounds like a big company. What's your dad's name? Maybe I've heard of him."
"Wang Hai."
"Oh, Mr. Wang."
Xiumu wasn't in the mood to chat, and I didn't press further. I had asked what I needed.
Besides the lab building, the closest to the teaching building was the girls' dormitory.
After walking around, I noticed there was no main entrance—just two side doors on either side.
"This is the first time I've seen a dorm built with its back to the sun. How can anyone live here?" The girls' dorm was already gloomy; sandwiched between the boys' dorm and teaching building, sunlight barely reached it.
"Are we really going in?" Seeing Xue Fei get killed had made Xiumu cautious and wary.
I shook the side door—it was only chained decoratively and the wooden door opened easily.
"You go in if you want. I'm not going." Xiumu stepped back, leaving only Yingzi standing beside me.
Inside the dark corridor, strange sounds echoed occasionally. The sight alone sent chills down my spine.
"Don't say I didn't warn you. Once you're inside, you might not be as lucky as last time."
Xiumu looked uneasy. Hesitating, I lifted my camera and stepped inside.
Near the door was the dorm manager's room, unlocked. Inside were a bed, a wardrobe, and a large bulletin board leaning against the wall.
Several notices were posted on it. Perhaps because they were kept indoors, the text was clear.
"Regarding the death of Shen Mengting, bed 4118: The police investigation has concluded the case is a suicide."
"The school has started psychological intervention measures. To accommodate girls on the same floor who are afraid to return to their rooms at night, temporary housing is arranged in Dormitory 1."
The notice was dated five years ago in April. I stroked my chin. The police had been involved in a student death at Xinhu High School—but I never heard the name mentioned by the police academy instructors five years ago.
A quick note: The police academy's practical training instructors are mostly active-duty detectives who teach students by bringing real cases into the classroom for analysis. For promising students, they often dive deeper with them, using divergent thinking for reasoning.
I had encountered many murder cases five years ago but never heard Xinhu High mentioned once.
"Could it really have been suicide?"
Another possibility crossed my mind—this case was so serious even active detectives dared not leak any information.
I tore off the notice and stuffed it into my pocket. In the dorm manager's drawer, I found a big bunch of keys labeled with room numbers.
"The notice gave us two pieces of info: the deceased is Shen Mengting, and her dorm room is 4118."
"Shen Mengting and Shen Meng differ by only one character—is that a hint?" I jingled the keys as I stepped out.
Xiumu and Yingzi waited outside. I waved at them. "I'm going upstairs. If you don't want to come, stay here and don't wander."
"Wait, I'll go with you." Xiumu dodged Yingzi and entered the dorm.
"Alright, Yingzi, be careful alone."
The little girl stood quietly outside. Before climbing the stairs, I glanced back uneasily.
Her eyes fixed on my back like she was staring at a corpse.
The dorm floors were tiled and spotless; the stairs were clear of debris—far better than the crumbling staircases of the teaching building.
I climbed to the fourth floor in one go, counting the room numbers: "4111, 4112... 4118—here it is."
Using my phone light, I struggled to find the right key among the bunch.
Standing outside the deceased's door in the pitch-black, creepy school, fear was budding inside me.
Xiumu looked like a frightened monkey, glancing around nervously, clutching my clothes. "Hey, hey, don't you feel like something's behind us?"
He stared at the stairwell. "I keep feeling like something's coming up."
"Damn, stop freaking out." I focused on finding the key but swore when Xiumu said that.
My fingers were sweaty, and panic crept in.
"I'm not lying!" He shrank his neck. All the light was on my keyring in my palm. Around us was pitch darkness.
"That thing's closer now. I think it's already on the third floor." Xiumu's words made my skin crawl. I started feeling it too.
"Something is definitely approaching." A similar thought flashed in my mind. No footsteps, no sound—just a strange sensation of something nearing.
It was coming up the stairs, steady and slow, like a vast lifeless shadow.
The darkness in the corridor thickened, suffocating.
"Haven't found it yet? Hurry up! Maybe we should just run!"
"Quiet! I'm looking!" My hands moved faster but the more frantic I got, the harder it was to find it. "Damn, why are there so many rooms here?"
Cold sweat dripped down my forehead. I truly felt something unseen closing in behind me at the stairwell.
"Hurry, hurry!" Xiumu's voice trembled. Pale hands seemed to reach for us from the dark.
Finally, I found the key. Too startled to grab the camera, I pulled Xiumu inside room 4118 and slammed the door shut.
Bang!
We leaned back against the door, listening.
Silence. The cold dread felt like a trick of the mind.
"No way."
The camera outside still worked. I pulled out my The Netherworld Live Show phone. The horror stream was showing the corridor live.
In the deep darkness, a flash of blood-red skirt fluttered just outside the door.