Meat, Meat, the Fragrance of Meat

Lost Media No. 011 was not a video, but an audio recording.

"Bzzz..."

"Hello, everyone. I'm Lychee, a radio host. The story I'm about to tell is something I experienced personally. I hope you'll enjoy it."

"The story I want to tell is related to my husband. Like me, my husband graduated from a broadcasting school. After several years as classmates, we knew each other inside and out. He was four years older than me, but we talked about everything as though we were the same age."

"After we got married, he made dinner for me every evening after work. He would leave a note on the dining table and thoughtfully keep the food warm."

"He was an excellent cook, and I loved eating his food. But starting one day, I realized that I suddenly couldn't eat anything he made anymore."

"Whether it was stir-fried dishes, stews, steamed dishes, poached dishes, or clear-steamed dishes, I couldn't eat anything he cooked. It wasn't that I didn't want to eat. Whenever I tried to chew and swallow his food, it felt like I was trying to swallow a sponge soaked in water. I simply couldn't get it down."

"Even if I forced it into my stomach, I would soon throw it back up. Many times, I vomited until my stomach hurt. Over time, I became afraid to eat anything and only dared to drink water."

"I stopped touching the food on the table. My husband thought the meals simply didn't suit my taste, but I knew very well that I might have anorexia, or perhaps something else that science couldn't explain."

"I grew thinner by the day and became increasingly weak, but he showed no understanding and never helped me find a solution for my loss of appetite. I went to see a doctor, and the doctor suggested glucose injections to maintain my bodily functions. But I didn't want that. I didn't want to lose the joy of eating forever."

"I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry." Those words constantly circled through my mind.

"Until one day, I went into convulsions and lay motionless in bed. A stray cat jumped through my window, and the appetite I hadn't felt in so long suddenly returned. Faintly, I could hear someone speaking in my head."

"That person was saying..."

"Eat meat, eat meat, the fragrance of meat..."

"From that day on, my appetite returned. I learned what I truly loved to eat. I began searching for the most delicious kind of meat that voice had spoken of..."

The audio finished playing.

Zhang Ze frowned slightly.

He recognized this ghost story. Not because he had heard it before, but because he knew that its owner seemed to be Lychee, a newcomer to the Ghost Story Association.

The key was...

Chronologically, the Ghost Story Association should not have welcomed Lychee as a newcomer at this point. Her ghost story about eating meat could not possibly have emerged this early, either.

Even if it had emerged, it didn't match the way Lychee herself told the story.

"Something's wrong. This story doesn't sound creepy to me at all. Is it because I'd already heard about it before?"

Zhang Ze propped his chin on his hand and pondered for a moment.

Suddenly, the door opened.

A young police officer pushed the door open and entered, carrying a boxed meal. "Mr. Zhang, I got this meal for you. It would feel a little wrong if you didn't eat."

"Please wait a moment. I'll get you a cup of coffee too."

Zhang Ze glanced at the officer. He wore a uniform, and the name embroidered on the badge on his chest read: Kuai Liang.

Perhaps because he had just listened to a ghost story involving meat, Zhang Ze had no appetite. After taking two bites of the meal, he stopped eating. Kuai Liang brought over a cup of coffee and said with a smile, "Tonight, another colleague and I are on the night shift. If you need anything, you can ask either of us for help."

"The restroom is to the left when you go out. It's best not to enter the armory casually. If our superiors find out, we'll be punished. You can go anywhere else you like. Captain Yan should have told you all this."

Zhang Ze nodded.

After Kuai Liang left the room, Zhang Ze used the computer to search for any recent missing-person cases.

West City Police Station had its own internal network. Even after conducting a thorough search, Zhang Ze found no missing-person case matching the ghost story Lychee had told.

That was illogical.

Because the most horrifying part of this ghost story was its explosive ending. Lychee's craving for meat coincided with a missing-person case, meaning she had found the meat she truly loved to eat—human flesh from someone of her own kind.

No missing-person case meant that this ghost story had very likely never truly happened.

"But that's not right either. Aren't those people in the Ghost Story Association able to judge whether a ghost story is real or fake? If it were fake, they should have skinned Lychee alive. But that isn't how the later plot went either."

"Which part went wrong?"

Zhang Ze couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he thought.

The hidden ghost story world of Hanjiang City seemed far more complicated than Zhang Ze had imagined. Perhaps only the tip of the iceberg had been revealed.

He continued playing the next media file.

Lost Media No. 012 was a video.

It was shown from the perspective of a surveillance camera.

The setting was a hospital ward. There were three beds in the ward, along with family companion beds. At that moment, every bed was occupied by a patient. Each patient's name was written above their bed, but the image quality was too poor to make out the words.

The video was sped up, and before long, the light outside the window dimmed. Night had apparently fallen.

The three patients gradually fell asleep. After a nurse made her rounds, she left the ward. The room was completely silent, without a single sound.

Suddenly, the elderly person in bed number one sat up. Walking on tiptoe, they approached the adjacent bed. Like the inhuman monster mentioned in the previous video, they circled the bed several times before finally bringing their wrinkled face close to the patient lying on it.

The video ended there.

Though it was brief, it was clearly extremely strange.

"Even though the image quality is so bad that I'd believe a UFO had arrived..."

"That old person doesn't move like an old person..."

Zhang Ze found it difficult to explain the strange feeling in his heart.

As a ghost story video, it seemed only natural that the old person would not behave like a human. Yet everywhere he looked, the footage gave him an overwhelming sense of wrongness.

For example, the way the old person pushed themself out of bed was not a posture a normal person would use, but neither was it the truly bizarre posture of someone possessed by a ghost.

If he had to describe it, Zhang Ze felt more as though a young person were living inside that elderly body and doing all of this.

After watching two Lost Media files in succession, Zhang Ze's doubts not only failed to lessen; they grew heavier and heavier.

Lost Media was not a series of videos.

For example, in Lost Media No. 021, Lin Xiaomei and Doctor Gao were trapped in a room and unable to escape. Every replay seemed to create a time loop, and the people in the video developed self-awareness.

Lost Media No. 014 began with an imitation horror-style introduction. A company calling itself the Hanjiang City Ghost Story Research Company had produced the video to help residents identify inhuman monsters, and it even included Lingling's case.

In Lost Media No. 011, the radio host Lychee told the ghost story that had happened to her from her own perspective—a story about eating meat.

As for Lost Media No. 012, Zhang Ze remembered it quite clearly. It was also a story told by a newcomer from the Ghost Story Association, yet everything about it felt wrong when he watched it.