The One Watching the Scenery Is Watching Me

"I was still in vocational school back then. I saw that little girl a few times."

"She was quiet. Pretty cute, too."

Fang Xian took out the lighter he had prepared and lit the shopkeeper's cigarettes. With two cigarettes in his mouth, the shopkeeper kept working as he spoke.

He thought back for a moment and sighed. "My dad even told me she'd grow up to be beautiful."

Please don't say anything else that sounds suspicious, Fang Xian thought.

"Got it. Thanks, boss. Hope you rank up."

Fang Xian knew how to get along with people, and the bald shopkeeper seemed pleased. He straightened up. "You're not bad, kid. Since you asked, I'll tell you something else."

The shopkeeper glanced around. "I suspect Li Wan was lured away back then."

"And the person who lured her..."

"Could well have been that reclusive old man surnamed Zhou in Building Four."

"Anyway... that's what everyone was saying at the time."

"That old man used to come buy cigarettes from me every few days."

"Huh. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in over a week."

An old man surnamed Zhou.

Fang Xian made a mental note.

They were both bald.

But the bald shopkeeper looked like one of the good ones.

"Oh, right."

Fang Xian leaned closer. "One more question."

The shopkeeper kept playing his game. "What?"

Fang Xian took out the flyer the woman had given him earlier. "Boss, a woman shoved this into my hand on my way here today."

A flyer for the Living Heaven and Earth Church.

The shopkeeper flinched at the name. "Holy shit."

"Man, don't get mixed up with that group."

"They're... not normal people."

"Communication is the bridge to information."

"Catching urban legends isn't a dinner party. It's pulling chestnuts from the fire."

Night had fallen.

Fang Xian glanced at his digital watch.

It was around eight fifty in the evening.

At the entrance to North Bank Residential Community, the older women were already waving their palm-leaf fans as they got ready to head home.

"There are cameras everywhere outside, with very few blind spots. But there are still some."

Fang Xian didn't assume that Li Wan, the little girl from back then, was necessarily still inside the complex.

He ran through every frightening possibility he could think of.

Then he decided to investigate in person.

Tonight, he was determined to capture this urban legend.

He held his phone in his left hand and turned the screen brightness all the way down.

[Urban Legend Compendium].

Activated.

[Super Fun] and [Tremor] were familiar faces.

"But the mission area is this residential complex."

"Does that mean Li Wan is still inside?"

"And finally, 'go home'... Does that mean finding Li Wan, taking her home, and finding her parents?"

Fang Xian took a compressed biscuit from his backpack and ate a couple of bites.

If Li Wan was alive, then going by how she had looked back then, she should now be a seventeen-year-old girl, just as young and fresh as he was.

But if Li Wan was dead, who had killed her? And where was her body?

"Well then, don't mind if I do."

Fang Xian lowered his eyes.

His tongue gradually gave off an unsettling air of desire—his scalp felt bare.

"[Stalking]."

His target was...

An older woman who had just finished enjoying the cool evening air!

Stalking reduced his chances of being noticed. At its core, it made his presence less noticeable.

Fang Xian already had this ability from Liu Changgui.

But without using it, he couldn't avoid the cameras in North Bank Residential Community.

He had no intention of spending days mapping out the cameras' blind spots.

[Camera Evasion].

At the gatehouse.

The young security guard looked like a husband fast asleep.

He jerked his head up and watched the vehicle barrier come down.

"I could've sworn... someone just walked past."

"Was it a resident?"

The guard scratched his head.

Fang Xian crouched beneath the guard booth, out of every line of sight.

Buddy, you weren't imagining things.

"I'm... coming in."

Fang Xian glanced at the older woman hurrying away in fright and raised a hand. "Sorry, buddy—calling you 'buddy' makes it okay, right?"

There were four buildings in the complex.

He could just about see how impressive it had once been.

The peeling walls looked like they were covered in age spots.

"Li Wan's father, Li Yu, lives in Building Three. That's Li Wan's home, too."

"The old man surnamed Zhou lives in Building Four."

"The two places aren't far apart."

The long central walkway was pitch-black.

Even the lights in the complex were out. Fang Xian could hardly imagine any resident still paying the full property management fee.

They could at least fix the lights.

He was still thinking that when—

Click!

One of the lights ahead came on.

It had just been a loose connection.

With his backpack on, Fang Xian cautiously surveyed his surroundings.

At the same time, he filmed the exteriors of the buildings with his phone.

"Buildings One and Two are up front, and Three and Four are behind them. There's a landscaped lake in the middle."

"The water comes in from the river beside it, but they're not always connected. During the rainy season, the river overflows into it. In the dry season, the water here gets very shallow..."

Fang Xian watched the water flow past.

There was barely any.

Though the channel itself was wide.

It hardly counted as a lake.

More like a stream.

Weeds grew all around it.

There were a few concrete drainage pipes, too.

"Is this really a luxury residential complex?"

"Did that cult lady lie to me?"

Fang Xian narrowed his eyes.

He took a photo of the channel with his phone.

Even the channel was enclosed.

Li Wan couldn't have left through here.

Aaaagh.

What a pain.

"Am I going to come away empty-handed tonight?"

Fang Xian clicked his tongue.

He repeated the words to himself.

"Catching urban legends isn't a dinner party."

He calmed down.

The whole sky seemed to grow darker.

Fang Xian opened his phone and looked through the photos he had been taking.

"Building One, Building Two, Building Three..."

"Building Four... wait."

As Fang Xian studied the photos on his phone, his expression shifted.

The photos of Building Four.

There were four or five of them.

It had been so dark that he hadn't noticed before.

In every photo,

around the tenth floor,

on a balcony,

stood a human figure.

Dressed in white.

It seemed...

For the past fifteen minutes, she had been

staring at Fang Xian the whole time.

In the darkness, the woman's face was a little blurry.

It looked somewhat twisted.

"Holy shit."

A jolt ran through Fang Xian.

He opened his camera and switched it to selfie mode.

He pointed it at himself.

Then turned his face slightly.

The woman on the tenth floor.

She was indistinct.

The pixels blurred together.

She was still looking.

Still...

staring right at him.

"Am I really that handsome?"

Fang Xian frowned.

As if nothing were wrong, he took a few more scenic photos.

[Urban Legend Alert].

[Old Zhou of Building Four in North Bank Residential Community died seven days ago. You lingered downstairs for a while, wondering whether to go up and pay your respects.]

Pay my respects?

Fang Xian bristled.

Who is this Old Zhou, anyway?

Why should I go up there and pay my respects?

Wait.

Building Four.

Old Zhou.

"In an urban legend incident, coincidences are the most normal thing in the world."

Fang Xian looked at the dark stairwell of Building Four.

He took the Fire Axe out of his backpack.

Its reassuring weight made Fang Xian feel like a man who could stand tall again.