"Every world has its own stories."
"Everyone is a listener of stories, a creator of stories, and even a spreader of stories."
"For travelers living far from home, if they can hear stories from their homeland and the sounds of their native soil, that should be enough to comfort their wandering hearts."
"It is also the best way to celebrate the New Year."
"However, the barriers between worlds often make such emotional connections extremely difficult."
"To accomplish this, one needs a brave heart, extraordinary execution, luck blessed by heaven, and some fleeting opportunity to use as an entry point."
"And to find that entry point, we need to play a little game."
On the television screen, the young man wore a sinister smile.
When he reached this point, he suddenly paused. Then, in the originally dim alley, lights suddenly flickered on.
The streetlights on both sides cast bright beams, driving away the darkness shrouding the surroundings.
Only...
This brightness carried an unsettling aura.
It was like the lighting in a forensic autopsy room—deathly pale, tinged with a frightening bluish hue, just like the lividity of a corpse. The change in color was not actually visible to the naked eye, yet psychologically, it could be felt with absolute clarity.
It was cold, oppressive, heavy, mechanical...
Anyone who had visited hospitals from the 1980s or 1990s, especially radiology departments located on the basement level, would have felt the same atmosphere.
It made people deeply uncomfortable and desperate to escape.
"Darkness is the beginning of everything."
"When you come to an unfamiliar place, such as an unfamiliar room or a strange rented apartment..."
"You know nothing of its history or what stories once unfolded there. Yet when you are filled with curiosity, perhaps darkness can give you answers of a different kind."
"In