The Only Family

Normal people would panic in fear after encountering a strange tale. A single bad judgment could get them killed. Gao Ming was a different sort: he imagined the worst possible scenario first, lowered his expectations all the way to hell, then acted.

2409 Fang Shuqi: "Brother Wang and Xiao Qiu have probably already met with disaster. Those of us still alive might only have a chance if we stick together. I want Zhao Xi's family to come forward and explain things clearly, because his return to this building definitely has something to do with you!"

2304 Li Li: "Zhao Xi might have been taken in off the streets, but we always treated him as family. You neighbors were the ones who called him Brother Zhao to his face while looking down on him! You spread rumors behind his back and even made things up about him and me. Did you think I didn't know? You were the ones who drove him to his death!"

Li Li's video feed shook. Living on the third floor, she was terrified. She scooped up her child and opened the living room door.

The corpse was on the second floor. She didn't dare go down, so she wanted to run upstairs and hide in someone else's home first.

Zhao Xi's Adoptive Mother followed Li Li, tears sliding down her wrinkles. The basket hanging from her arm was still full of spirit money.

"Why are you still carrying that stuff at a time like this? You're the one who brought him back!" Li Li scolded Zhao Xi's Adoptive Mother. Just then, the sound of Flesh and Blood crawling came from the pitch-black stairwell again, as though several hands were gripping the steps and hopping upward.

Li Li screamed in fright. Abandoning the old woman and forgetting about the video call, she took off running.

2409 Fang Shuqi: "Li Li, you're not even going to look after your own mother-in-law?"

2501 Huang Mingming: "Why don't we all hide on the top floor and figure something out together? Staying alone in our rooms isn't safe anyway."

2607 Jiaqi: "No! Hiding upstairs won't solve anything. Sooner or later, the corpse will come knocking!"

2707 Yao Yuan: "My apartment is the farthest from the stairwell. Everyone can come here first."

2409 Fang Shuqi: "Teacher Yao? Has your... has your illness gone away?"

Seeing Yao Yuan speaking on the video call left Fang Shuqi and several other neighbors especially stunned. Yao Yuan was in his seventies, a retired Police Academy instructor and an Anti-Pickpocketing Model. He could pick locks, knew how to fight, understood all kinds of scams, and had been in excellent physical condition. But two years ago, he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Many people in Lijing Apartments knew about it. The once tall, powerfully built Mr. Yao had wasted away beyond recognition in those two years. He could only sit in a wheelchair, unable to speak, and even eating was difficult.

"I..." The old man pressed his lips together, wearing a bitter smile. "I don't know why this happened either. Three months ago, I gave up on treatment and waited at home to die. I could barely get out of bed. But tonight, I felt as though my illness had completely vanished. Not only was the pain gone, but my body was back in peak condition."

Seeing that no one believed him, the old man silently took off his shirt in front of his phone. His skin looked much like a dead man's, deathly pale and bloodless. Masses of black blood vessels bulged across his chest and abdomen, as though they were about to burst out of his body and merge with the world. "I really don't know why I've become like this, but my mind is clear. I'm still me."

No one in the group video call spoke. After seeing Mr. Yao's body on-screen, the neighbors couldn't help showing fear and disgust. Their stares made him deeply uncomfortable, too.

Teacher Yao put his jacket back on. He had been through a great deal and knew nothing he said now would help, so he stopped suggesting that everyone hide in his apartment.

The neighbors didn't believe Mr. Yao, but Gao Ming was an exception. He had seen the replacements for his parents. Those "unknown" beings could transform into perfect copies of real people. They would never leave such obvious flaws.

According to the information on the back of the Posthumous Photograph, people on the verge of death can enter the game, too. Could Mr. Yao be one of them?

Every normal-looking neighbor in the group video call seemed a little off to Gao Ming. By contrast, Mr. Yao, who looked the most suspicious, felt reassuring.

If there are Ghosts among the normal-looking neighbors, they'll probably direct the hostility toward the real living people and get the living to kill one another.

Gripping the door handle, Gao Ming wanted to leave the room where Zhao Xi had lived and go find Mr. Yao himself.

It was a good plan, but the moment he opened the door a crack, he heard hurried footsteps. It sounded as though Li Li happened to be passing the fifth floor with her son in her arms.

Should I tie up the mother and son? Gao Ming leaned back against the door. That's the simplest way to establish the neighbors' identities.

After hesitating for barely half a second, Gao Ming was ready to put his idea into action. Li Li and her son were "alone." This was a rare opportunity.

The group video call helps me keep track of the other neighbors, but it also puts me under their surveillance. What I'm about to do isn't something they should see.

Covering the camera, Gao Ming pushed open the living room door and entered the stairwell.

He chased after them as fast as he could, but even after reaching the Seventh Floor, he still hadn't seen Li Li.

Something's wrong! Li Li is carrying a child. Even with a few seconds' head start, there's no way she could reach the Seventh Floor before me!

A faint stench of decay hung in the air. He leaned out to look downstairs. The floors below were pitch-black and lifeless, as silent as Zhao Xi's life after he was killed.

Could they really all be Ghosts?

An argument came from the phone. Gao Ming quickly lowered the volume and hid in a corner to check it.

2409 Fang Shuqi: "I can't get out! Zhao Xi is right outside my door. He really came back!"

The fourth-floor resident sent a video to the group chat. It was footage from the security camera outside his apartment.

In the black-and-white footage, Zhao Xi squirmed along the steps with his limbs twisted. His face scraped against the ground, and his broken neck drooped over his shoulder.

Zhao Xi seemed to sense something in the footage. His head slowly lifted, and he gave the security camera an eerie smile. Then he began knocking his head against the door of 2409, again and again.

Just watching the security footage sent a chill through the neighbors' hands and feet, let alone Fang Shuqi, who was trapped inside.

The arm holding his phone shook more and more violently. As the ninth knock sounded, he let out a scream.

Then every resident heard glass shattering. The video blurred and spun, until the sound of something heavy hitting the ground rang out through the apartment complex once again.

Bang!

The phone he had clutched until his death slipped downward, its camera pressing against Fang Shuqi's horribly mangled face. It looked as though someone had pushed him from the fourth floor. He had died exactly as Zhao Xi had.

Blood stained the video red. Gao Ming was startled, too. Fighting down his discomfort, he ran to the end of the seventh-floor corridor, smashed the sealed window, and looked outside.

Just as I thought!

In the video, Fang Shuqi had died horribly at the foot of the building. But when Gao Ming looked down, there was nothing outside the stairwell entrance except a pool of blood. No corpse was anywhere in sight!

Those neighbors seemed to exist only in the video. They appeared to be deliberately creating an atmosphere of terror.

Something's wrong with the video! Something's wrong with the neighbors on this call, too! The phone left in Zhao Xi's room might have been planted by a "Ghost"!

A blood vessel bulged between his eyebrows. If Gao Ming couldn't clear this game soon, his fate would probably be ten times more gruesome than Fang Shuqi's.

In reality, Zhao Xi's Phone would never have been left lying in his room like that. After his suicide, his bloodsucking Adoptive Mother and sister-in-law would probably have found a way to take all his money and belongings. After all, the room Xuan Wen rented had nothing left but the most basic furniture. It had clearly been picked clean.

Keeping the camera covered, Gao Ming studied the dead man's phone in his palm. He remembered a game he had made several years ago to help Wei Dayou enter a competition—The Only Family.

The game's protagonist was a middle-aged loser, but he had a gentle, beautiful wife, a bright, well-behaved daughter, and parents who loved him dearly. He often video-called his family on his phone, and all his contact with them took place through it, until one day he saw a woman on the street who looked very much like his wife.

He rushed over to hug her, but she ducked into another man's arms. Playing from his perspective, the player began investigating the truth, eventually discovering that everything he had was a fiction created through his phone. His life was full of despair, dark and terrifying. He imagined other people's wives and children as his own. In reality, his birth parents had cut ties with him. His only family was that battered old phone.

He was actually the biggest villain of all. With his own hands, he stripped away layer after layer of disguise, exposing his filthy heart to everyone.

The game had three endings: in one, the man found his missing diary and medication. This was actually the fifth time he had come to his senses, but he immediately swallowed the medication again, choosing for the sixth time to live in fantasy; in the good ending, he destroyed his phone himself, escaped the illusion, and decided to turn over a new leaf, working hard to break all his bad habits and reconcile with his parents; the final ending was rather frightening—the man went mad, treated the phone as his real family, and died with it, after which a child who was being bullied picked it up.

(End of chapter)