Life Is Full of Urban Legends

Yao Hui was having a hard time.

As she drove, she stole glances at the handsome college freshman in the passenger seat, who was absorbed in his phone.

Was this guy serious?

Hadn't he asked for her WeChat?

Weren't you going to ask for my WeChat?

He looked pretty cute in profile, and he had saved her life. Come on, say something.

Fang Xian clearly had no idea what the woman beside him was thinking. He stared at his phone screen. After his night away, the group chat was going wild tagging him.

[Zhang Yuhang: Where's Fang Xian? @Matching With an Equally Matched Opponent]

[Zhang Yuhang: Dead?]

[Zhang Yuhang: Student Affairs put your name down last night.]

[Zhang Yuhang: Wang Dashan wrote your name down himself. I couldn't cover for you even if I tried. That bastard was way too eager.]

[Wang Dashan: Are you brain-dead? (middle finger)]

[Wang Dashan: Why aren't you back yet? Don't tell me you hooked up with someone.]

[Chen Kang: Definitely. With Fang Xian's looks, I saw him flirting with a girl from the School of Literature during military training. @Matching With an Equally Matched Opponent]

The messages went on and on, well past midnight.

So he does have WeChat.

Yao Hui huffed.

Still, she spoke up. "Fang... Fang Xian, there was no phone signal last night. How did you call the police?"

Fang Xian scanned his unread messages without looking up. "Your landlord installed a signal jammer across the hall. He'd just switched it on, so I went over and turned it off first."

Yao Hui coughed.

It was that simple?

"Then how did you—"

Yao Hui was about to ask more.

Fang Xian raised his left hand to his lips and shushed her.

"Give me a second."

Fang Xian hadn't replied to the chat until now.

With a moment free, he was about to grab some random morning-after photo online when something occurred to him. He looked up at Yao Hui. "Oh, can I take a picture?"

Yao Hui had no idea what he wanted it for and answered without thinking. "Oh. Sure."

Holding his phone in his right hand, Fang Xian aimed it at Yao Hui's legs in black stockings and flashed a peace sign at the camera with his left.

[Photo sent]

[Photo]

[Matching With an Equally Matched Opponent: Sealed the deal (finger heart)]

Under Yao Hui's stunned gaze, he put his phone away without a flicker of expression.

He closed his eyes and felt the notifications vibrating.

Fang Xian settled in for a nap.

What was wrong with this guy?

Yao Hui was dumbfounded.

But she was a sensible adult woman. Regaining her composure, she asked, "Uh, what was that just now?"

Fang Xian said, "My roommates needed to know last night wasn't easy for me."

Yao Hui: "..."

Fang Xian glanced outside. "Oh, don't take me to Peach Garden Dormitory. Drop me off at the Red Building."

Yao Hui froze. "The Red Building? But that place..."

The Jiangzhou Normal University Red Building.

It stood at the edge of campus.

It had originally housed the School of Literature back in the last century.

Rumor had it that a huge fire before the turn of the millennium had burned it to the ground.

After it was rebuilt, rumors of ghosts kept spreading. Eventually, no one wanted to go near it, and it had stood abandoned for more than ten years.

"I applied to the university for a space."

Fang Xian saw her confusion. "For club activities."

Yao Hui studied him. "Aren't you a freshman? How did you..."

Fang Xian kept his eyes shut, enjoying the pleasant buzz of his phone. "Special circumstances. Let me rest, ma'am."

Yao Hui had just begun to feel sorry for him. Then that "ma'am" made her blood boil.

You didn't call me ma'am when you were taking pictures of my legs in black stockings.

But now I'm ma'am?

Kids these days really don't know how to talk.

Yao Hui ignored Fang Xian after that and drove toward campus.

On the way, her phone, which was handling navigation, rang.

Yao Hui saw the caller ID and answered immediately.

"Sis Huihui, are you okay?"

The woman's voice was lovely and refined, like water rippling through a clear spring, though worry ran through it.

Fang Xian pictured a bookish girl.

Yao Hui said, "Yi Zhou, I'm driving. I'm fine. We'll talk when I get back."

Beep. Beep.

Fang Xian opened his eyes. "She has a nice voice."

Yao Hui couldn't be bothered with him anymore.

And she'd been thinking of giving him her WeChat.

She kept sneaking glances at Fang Xian.

His face was pale and clean-cut.

Unnaturally pale.

He had well-defined muscles, yet there was a strange frailty about him.

It was almost as if something had drained him dry.

They drove onto campus and stopped in front of the deserted Red Building.

Fang Xian opened the car door and left without looking back.

Yao Hui could hardly believe this was the same young man who had smiled and asked for her WeChat. Why was he so distant now?

Hmph. You had your chance, lifesaver. There won't be another.

Yao Hui watched him enter the three connected red buildings, which gave off an eerie air.

The Red Building stood in the northwest corner of campus.

Few people came this way. Only a dusty gravel path led to it.

Not even couples looking for privacy came here.

Fang Xian reached beneath a windowsill for the key, as though he knew exactly where it was, then unlocked the door and went in.

Straight ahead, in the middle of the lobby, stood a pair of wrinkled black leather shoes.

It looked as if someone invisible were standing in them.

"Hello."

Fang Xian raised a hand in greeting, then took the stairs on the left to the second floor.

The wooden stairs creaked beneath him.

A peculiar stench drifted from the second floor. Fang Xian didn't look into the darkness beyond it and kept climbing toward the third.

He reached the third floor, walked down its long corridor, and stopped.

The central building of the Red Building had only three floors.

But...

Fang Xian kept going.

He climbed higher, stepping onto stairs that didn't seem to exist.

And then—

His foot landed on a stair.

A doorway appeared before his eyes.

"Great! A wild classroom!"

"It appeared!"

Fang Xian sounded delighted.

A square classroom of about thirty square meters appeared before him.

No. More accurately, Fang Xian had appeared in the middle of the classroom.

"Wait... Sorry. Not a classroom, not a classroom. An activity room."

Fang Xian raised a hand and looked toward the upper center of the room.

An oil painting hung there.

It showed the upper body of a woman sitting upright, dressed in an old-style student uniform from the Republican era. She had the bearing of a young lady from a distinguished family.

Her face was the only part of the painting that had been completely obliterated.

As though something had ground it to pieces.

The rest of the painting was intact.

Of course Fang Xian recognized the portrait. Wasn't she the mascot of his Urban Legend Compendium app?

She was also the culprit who had put his remaining lifespan at minus 6,000 days.

A week ago, just after finishing military training, Fang Xian had received a club flyer.

It told him to gather here late at night. No normal person would have come, but Fang Xian clearly wasn't normal.

In the middle of the night, he had found his way up to a fourth floor in the Red Building and inherited the entire club.

The club was called the Uncanny Tales Society.

Along with everything that had belonged to the previous "her," he had inherited a lifespan of minus 6,000 days.

The classroom-like room was somewhat messy. Besides the faceless woman above who resembled the Mona Lisa, a large iron cabinet stood beside the blackboard at the front.

It had three shelves holding quite a few folders. They were old-fashioned, seemingly from before the turn of the millennium, and gave off a strangely dated feel.

Apart from that, there was only an old-looking desk and chair.

The desktop was covered in dust. A small notebook lay on it.

"Your president is back!"

"Let's hear it, everyone!"

Fang Xian made the announcement in a deep voice.

His voice echoed through the small activity room.

No one applauded, so he clapped for himself and sat down.

The chair creaked. Its upholstery was peeling, and when Fang Xian brushed it, flakes came off in his hand.

"I need to get some club funds and replace this chair."

Fang Xian muttered to himself.

Everything about this place was strange.

Especially this so-called "her."

Fang Xian's gaze settled on the woman's portrait.

The pretty faceless mascot was responsible for those minus 6,000 days.

Fang Xian hadn't died despite his lifespan hitting minus 6,000 days.

The problem was that, even before going to get checked for impotence, he had already had a physical examination.

According to the report, his bodily functions had deteriorated drastically, almost to the level of someone in their fifties or sixties.

The doctor had barely believed it.

At the thought, Fang Xian took out his phone to check whether the calcium tablets he had bought last week had arrived.

"Almost here. They've reached Bingzhou."

Fang Xian reined in his emotions.

"Fuck!"

The curse burst out of him.

He was certain this so-called Ghost Story was affecting him.

And now he was stuck with it!

Calm down. Don't get angry, or it'll dock my lifespan again.

Fang Xian took a breath and opened the Urban Legend Compendium app again.

During the thirty-second ad, he calmed himself.

Capturing urban legends increased his lifespan and restored his bodily functions.

Old Baldy Liu Changgui had given him another day and a half.

His remaining lifespan now started with minus 5.

Good!

Fang Xian watched the ad's countdown to the end, brimming with excitement.

He was ready to admire the glory of his first Pokémon.

At two days of life for each bald guy, he only needed to catch another three thousand urban legends and then...

"Then my ass!"

"Just looking at you, you damn baldy, pisses me off."

[The Stalker—Liu Changgui].

The chibi art style wasn't cute at all.

The bald man looked creepy as hell, and his movements were just as bad. He kept posing and grinning at Fang Xian.

"Aaaaaaaaaah!"

Fang Xian screamed for a while, then took a short break.

His gaze shifted elsewhere.

[Reflective Trait: Stalking].

[Cost to use: 10 days of life + 20 strands of hair lost within one day].

At this point, what was one more problem?

Did that cost mean he could summon the baldy?

Fang Xian really didn't want to see him again, but he couldn't resist testing it.

Ten days? Whatever.

As for the hair, that mattered even less.

Fang Xian pressed the Use button.

"I choose you! Baldy Liu Changgui!"

And then...

The yellow-toothed, bald man he'd been expecting didn't appear before him.

Nothing changed.

No Ghost Story appeared.

"It didn't work? Wait, no! Why did it deduct my lifespan? Where's customer service? I want a refund!"

Fang Xian was dumbfounded.

Wasn't that a scam?

But wait.

Something stirred in Fang Xian.

A desire surged through him.

He imagined Yao Hui ahead of him in a tight skirt, while he hid in the crowd, closing in step by step, intruding, making contact...

Experience and desire intertwined. Fang Xian snapped his head up.

His pupils contracted.

This was... [Stalking].

It was Liu Changgui's ability.

"That was close... I nearly committed a crime."

Fang Xian shuddered at the thought.

Good thing he was impotent. At least that balanced out the risk.

By hunting urban legends, he could gain their traits, not control the urban legends themselves.

Fang Xian frowned as he thought it over.

Could no urban legends be controlled, or was it only his starter that couldn't?

"No way!"

Fang Xian absolutely refused to let this thing be his starter.

He reopened the Urban Legend Compendium, which had closed automatically when his phone ran out of memory, sat through a full thirty-second ad, and tapped the button on the right side of the screen.

Besides [Urban Legends Encountered] and [Urban Legends Captured], there was also [Weird Tale Search].

To find a Ghost Story, he could either stumble across one as he had with Yao Hui, or use the Weird Tale Search Engine.

Each search cost one day of life.

Search!

Whir, whir, whir.

It was Fang Xian's first time using the feature.

When the results appeared, he was stunned.

"How... how are there urban legends everywhere?"

"Isn't that... way too many?"