The moment he opened it, Shen Yu regretted it.
"Ugh!" Shen Yu covered his eyes, looking utterly helpless after what he'd just seen.
A moment later, Shen Yu steeled himself and moved his fingers away from his eyes, trembling as he continued reading.
It was an anonymous letter addressed to him.
A love letter.
It opened with a single sentence: "I like you!"
"The first time I met you, you captivated me completely. I like you so much!"
"I like you so much that I've gone against my very nature. Every hour, every minute, every second, I can't stop thinking about you."
"These feelings are driving me mad. I've carved you deep into my soul, where I'll never forget you."
"I want to get close to you!"
"I want to touch you!"
"I want to possess you!"
"Your hands, your eyes, your lips, your hair, your smile, your voice, your tongue, your Adam's apple, your legs, your skin, your heartbeat, your wildness, your indifference, your disdain, your defiance, your arrogance, your fighting, your sweat, your body..."
"Your excellence, everything about you—only I understand."
"I'm going mad!"
"I don't want to just watch you."
"I want you." "I want you." "I want you!" "You're mine!"
"Let's be together forever!"
"I'm coming to find you!"
The screen was filled with crazed declarations. Between the lines, the words radiated an abnormal, obsessive possessiveness.
At the very bottom of the email was a photo taken from below. In it, Shen Yu looked down slightly at the camera, exuding an inexplicable sense of oppression.
Seeing the photo, Shen Yu had no recollection of anyone taking it. But the background seemed to be... the school?
Had someone been secretly photographing him?
Sometimes, reading emails alone could make a person feel helpless. Shen Yu repeatedly felt the urge to call the police.
Shen Yu's eyes widened in shock. He'd received love letters before, but never one this explicit, this blunt, this criminally unhinged.
With a trembling hand, he moved the mouse to the top-right corner and tried to delete the email. The moment he clicked, a red exclamation mark popped up.
"This email cannot be deleted!"
The same was true of all ninety-nine emails. They couldn't be deleted or moved.
Shen Yu was fired up now. He flexed his fingers and used his hacking skills to break into the website.
He already had some programming experience. After merging with Bai Zuo's hacking skills, he could navigate the internet without any trouble.
Breaking into the website was no challenge for him.
Shen Yu pulled up the backend data, hoping to find the emails' source addresses.
But he discovered that the database didn't contain the original code for any of the ninety-nine emails.
In other words, according to the data, these emails didn't exist.
Current technology couldn't do something like this. Shen Yu quickly realized he'd encountered an anomaly.
The ninety-nine emails were likely the work of some anomaly.
"Is this thing casting a wide net, or is it only targeting me?"
Shen Yu leaned toward the latter. The secretly taken photo was clearly aimed at him.
What he didn't understand was what he'd done to attract the anomaly's attention.
Besides, the photo had been taken secretly at the school, and it had to be from before the first. Back then, the Horror Game hadn't launched, and anomalies hadn't appeared yet.
Whoever had taken the photo had to be human.
"Someone's involved with an anomaly? And they know me. Most likely, they're someone from the school."
Shen Yu suddenly thought of something and opened his chat with Song Xiaojie. Why had she suddenly contacted him now?
Was it a coincidence, or did she know something?
Could it really be a coincidence that someone who'd never contacted him suddenly messaged him at a time like this?
Forget it. There was no point bothering her over baseless suspicions. Besides, hadn't that anomaly said it would come looking for him?
Then he'd wait for it to show up!
Shen Yu quickly finished the rest of his boxed meal and placed it on the cabinet nearby, waiting for the medical staff to come collect it.
While he waited, he went back to sorting through the search results and videos.
There were hundreds of video results, some long and some short.
Even though Shen Yu watched them quickly, it still took him more than two hours to get through them all. By then, it was dark outside.
During that time, the medical staff came in to take the meal container and switched on the light for him. Seeing him watching a tablet, they assumed he was studying and didn't disturb him.
Shen Yu stretched.
"I found seven places where anomalies might have appeared. I'll have Xu Zhou and the others check them out."
"If we're lucky, we'll have enough Construction Points to build the Headquarters Building."
A pleasant ringtone sounded from the phone beside him.
A woman sang passionately about her beloved, her gentle, tender voice openly expressing her love.
The phone radiated the aura of an Anomaly Artifact. Its ringtone had shifted from the tender, heartfelt singing of a woman to a low, mournful moan, shrill and stubborn. Shen Yu had a strong urge to throw it out the window.
No, throwing things from a height was bad. Even if it didn't hit anyone, it might hit some flowers or plants.
What kind of anomaly was this?!
Shen Yu grimaced. Could he call the police and report that an anomaly was harassing him?
Shen Yu sighed, reached for the phone, and answered.
The person on the other end didn't say anything.
All he heard was a faint, low panting, like a beast trying to hold back its hunger.
Since the other person wasn't speaking, Shen Yu stayed quiet too. Come on, then! Let's see who has more patience.
After a long while, a hesitant yet delighted voice finally came from the other end. "Shen Yu? Is that you?"
You made the call. How could you not know who I am?
Shen Yu said, "It's me."
The person on the other end sobbed. "I'm so glad you're okay. I'm sorry."
Suddenly, hurried footsteps came through the phone. "Sorry, something came up. I have to hang up."
The call ended.
The voice was a little distorted, so he couldn't tell who it was. But judging by her reaction, she definitely knew Shen Yu.
Everyone had their own little habits when they spoke. Slight changes in tone and inflection could be hard to pick out unless you knew the person well.
But Shen Yu had Bai Zuo's exceptional powers of observation. His ears wouldn't miss such subtle differences.
He matched the other person's tone, inflection, and trailing syllables from the conversation against everyone he knew or had met.
Before long, he had narrowed it down to Song Xiaojie.
Song Xiaojie was his classmate, but they weren't close. Then again, Shen Yu wasn't close with anyone in his class.
Shen Yu thought back over his interactions with Song Xiaojie. Aside from the one time he'd happened to help her, they'd never had a proper conversation.
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