As she thought about how to talk Tang Yao down later, Li Xue took out the manuscript.
The manga in the folder had no cover.
The first page—the beginning of the manga.
Li Xue looked down at the first page, scrutinizing it.
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone was knocking on the window.
On the page, a girl was curled up in the corner of a room, shivering.
Her face was slick with cold sweat and full of terror. The knocking was ordinary, but she reacted as if she'd heard some kind of death summons.
In the next panel, the girl sat with her knees hugged to her chest, leaning against a desk. A sound came from outside the window again. This time, it wasn't a knock, but a voice exactly like the girl's own. It seemed to urge her, or perhaps to tempt her: "Come out. Open the window, Kazuko. Come out and eat something. If you don't eat soon, you'll starve to death."
The girl named Kazuko listened to the knocking and the voice outside, huddled exhaustedly beside her desk. She had grown numb to it.
This had been going on for a week... She'd been locked inside her home for nearly a week.
She'd eaten everything there was to eat.
Kazuko didn't know what was outside. She could only hope that if this was a nightmare, she'd wake up soon.
After reading the first page, Li Xue was a little surprised.
Unexpectedly, this wasn't something an amateur could draw... Although she handled shoujo manga, that didn't mean she wasn't interested in other kinds of manga.
Quite the opposite. She was very interested, and had an exceptionally discerning eye.
Just from the first page, it was obvious the manga in her hands was extremely well done. Setting the story aside, the artwork was excellent!
What surprised her most was that Tang Yao hadn't drawn in the cute style that was currently the most popular in the industry and that she knew best.
Instead, she'd chosen an audaciously realistic style. The characters' faces, hair, expressions, movements, and poses were all rendered in fine detail. Their calm, composed features made them seem like perfectly ordinary people.
That style couldn't be easy to draw. Why had Tang Yao chosen it? She was so cute herself.
And that voice, exactly like her own... Was this a fantasy story?
Such a bold choice. Where was this one-shot going?
Full of questions, Li Xue looked up at Tang Yao.
Tang Yao winked at her.
Li Xue had no choice but to set her questions aside for now and turn to the next page.
The next page.
The story continued.
The girl named Kazuko fell into a memory.
Why had she ended up in this strange situation? It all began a month ago, with the death of a famous actress...
A famous actress named Terumi had hanged herself at her apartment. But the circumstances of her death were bizarre: she'd hanged herself outside a second-floor window, with the noose tangled around an electrical wire. It seemed she'd climbed out through her window to kill herself.
Because of her weight, and because her feet had been dangling when she hanged herself, once the noose and wire were removed, the actress's neck looked as if it had been torn away from her body and was about to snap off.
It was a ghastly sight.
The incident caused a huge sensation. Reporters, fans, and curious onlookers crowded outside the apartment building, eager to see for themselves.
Kazuko was heartbroken. She'd been classmates with the actress and had also been a close friend.
But she had no idea why her friend had killed herself.
Not long after that.
The actress's family held a grand memorial service for her, drawing crowds of fans.
Kazuko went too.
After the service, Kazuko and a few friends were walking down the street when they ran into their schoolmate, Shiraishi.
He was the actress's boyfriend and seemed to have come to the memorial service as well, but Terumi's fanatical supporters had cornered him and were beating him up.
They believed he was the prime suspect in Terumi's death.
Kazuko rushed over and threatened to call the police. Only then did the people calling themselves fans reluctantly leave. She tried to comfort Shiraishi, but in the gloomy atmosphere... He blamed himself, thinking he might have caused the actress to kill herself. He didn't respond, only wept in grief before walking away.
"..."
The actress was dead.
Her fans wouldn't accept it, and her boyfriend became the target of their anger.
Was this connected to the voice outside the window...?
Li Xue stopped turning the pages, suddenly realizing something was wrong. This didn't seem like the beginning of a fantasy story...
And Tang Yao hadn't shied away from drawing the hanging scene, either.
Something was off. Very off.
This time, though, Li Xue didn't look at Tang Yao. After hesitating for a moment, she turned to the next page and continued reading.
It felt very wrong, but she was interested in where the story would go.
In the manga.
The story continued.
After the actress Terumi's death, many young people followed her in death. They all hanged themselves, and there was even an incident in which a group of fans died by suicide together.
On top of that, rumors began to spread that the actress's ghost had been sighted... Reporters interviewed several people who claimed to have seen her ghost. They all said that around midnight, about a week earlier, they'd seen a gigantic face floating high in the sky above a large tree. It had then drifted north and disappeared.
To experts, such paranormal incidents were merely illusions brought on by an unstable mental state, so they paid the matter no attention.
But before long, the news showed a bizarre, spine-chilling photo taken by a witness—a gigantic head belonging to the actress, floating high in the sky.
When Li Xue saw the enormous head floating above the ground on the page, she froze. Her fingers stiffened, and her heart gave a sudden jolt.
The manga's artwork was exceptionally clean and crisp. Its backgrounds were hand-drawn, and its realistic style seemed to constantly emphasize that the world in the story was perfectly ordinary.
That realism, combined with the unpleasant scenes of the actress's suicide and her fans following suit, gave the opening a gloomy feeling. Reading it felt like a storm was about to break.
That was why Li Xue had thought something was wrong.
And now... it was even more wrong!
No way...?
No. That couldn't be.
Tang Yao was so cute. How could she draw a weird manga?
Right.
After hesitating for a moment, Li Xue barely managed to convince herself and turned to the next page.
The topic of the actress's head floating in the sky caused a stir at school too, but most students said they didn't believe it and that the photo had to be fake.
Kazuko didn't believe it either.
At school, she ran into the actress's boyfriend, Shiraishi, again. She thought he wouldn't believe something so absurd either.
But to her surprise, Shiraishi did believe it. He even said that the actress's head often drifted into his yard and stared at him with those lifeless eyes, as if calling to him.
Kazuko didn't believe him, of course. She thought he was so exhausted that he was hallucinating.
Shiraishi didn't explain. He just left her with a cold, "Come to my house next time and see for yourself," then turned and walked away.
That night, Kazuko received a phone call from Shiraishi... He said the actress's balloon had appeared and was drifting north. He told her to hurry over and see.
Kazuko hesitated, but eventually sneaked out of the house.
Then she spotted the actress's head in the woods...
The actress's enormous head really was floating in the dim night sky... like a balloon. A string hung from beneath the huge, swollen head, just like the thin, colorful strings tied to ordinary balloons.
Kazuko stared at the sight in terror, then instinctively chased after it.
She pursued the human-head balloon into the forest. There, she saw the actress's boyfriend, Shiraishi, standing in a tree, shouting desperately up at the balloon in the sky. He begged the actress to forgive him and pleaded with her to stop staring at him with those dead eyes.
At the same time, whether it had heard his pleas or for some other reason, the actress's head balloon began slowly approaching Shiraishi.
Then Kazuko realized that the string hanging beneath the actress's head wasn't a thin, colorful string at all. It was a noose!
As the head balloon drew closer, the noose swayed toward Shiraishi, as though waiting for him to slip his neck into it.
Kazuko was terrified. She tried to warn him, but it was too late. Shiraishi was embracing the trunk and leaning forward as he tearfully begged the actress to forgive him. Without realizing it, he stuck his head out—and straight into the noose.
In the next panel.
Shiraishi's feet left the tree. The noose tightened around his neck, and he hung there motionless, without a struggle...
Kazuko witnessed the scene and screamed in terror. She turned to find help, but suddenly saw Shiraishi's body rising into the air... His whole body dangled from the rope, floating in the sky, while at its other end... another human-head balloon slowly drifted upward.
In an instant.
An immense fear exploded in Kazuko's heart!
Because that balloon looked exactly like Shiraishi!
Another human-head balloon had appeared in the sky!
And then.
In the hazy woods.
Beneath the dark, cloud-covered sky.
The two human-head balloons, who'd been lovers in life, slowly drew closer. Then... with the lifeless gaze of the dead, their lips gradually touched.
Beneath Shiraishi's head balloon, his headless corpse hung from the rope, swaying in the wind like a marionette...
Kazuko saw the eerie sight and screamed in despair.
!!!!!
When Li Xue reached this panel, her right fingertips tightened around the manuscript, which she'd read about halfway through. She was losing it too!
Human heads!
Balloons!
Kissing!
What the hell was this plot?! What the hell was this plot?! What the hell was this plot?!
What kind of person could even come up with a scene like this?!
Before you continue