I am the rules of the Strange Tale

The horrors revealed through the phone's group video chat, the encroaching strangeness and despair, gave Gao Ming a rough idea of which game had become reality.

Zhao Xi, who lived in 2507, had a completely different personality from the middle-aged protagonist of The Only Family. One was honest and hardworking, the other gloomy and lazy, yet their circumstances were almost identical.

They seemed to have relatives and families, but once their front doors closed, only they knew how awful those homes truly were.

"Other than Zhao Xi's corpse, I haven't encountered a single neighbor. I've only heard various sounds. The scenes shown in the phone videos might well be the phone owner's own imaginings. The neighbors who were killed were all people who usually looked down on Zhao Xi." Gao Ming had learned a few things about Building Two from a woman on the neighborhood committee.

Wang Kuisheng on the first floor was a small-business owner temporarily renting at Lijing Apartments to hide from his creditors. Xiao Qiu on the second floor was unemployed, and the rumor about Zhao Xi and his younger brother's wife seemed to have started with her. Fang Shuqi on the third floor was a technician in the port district, and Zhao Xi apparently lost the use of his leg while saving him.

Scattered negative emotions rarely crushed a person, but when pressure converged from every direction, leaving no escape, those emotions could drown out their will entirely. In the end, they had driven Zhao Xi to step out into the night sky.

"The Only Family has three endings. To trigger the good ending, Zhao Xi has to destroy his phone with his own hands."

The phone played those horrifying videos because Zhao Xi wanted to see those scenes. Gao Ming decided to face his fear head-on and first free himself from the dead man's phone's influence.

"I might not be able to do this alone." Gao Ming stepped over the broken window glass on the floor and stopped outside room 2707. "If Teacher Yao isn't inside, and the scene in room 2707 differs from the group video, that means Teacher Yao is a ghost fabricated by the phone, and my earlier theory holds up. If Teacher Yao is inside, there are two possibilities: either my theory is wrong, or Teacher Yao is another living person who entered the game."

Gao Ming knocked on the door of 2707. Before Teacher Yao could answer, the security door of 2706 beside him slowly opened a crack.

The scraping sound of the door immediately made Gao Ming brace himself, ready to flee at any moment.

"Don't panic. It's me." A terrifying yet familiar disfigured face appeared behind the door of 2706. The investigator beckoned to Gao Ming. "Don't stay in the hallway. Get inside!"

In such an eerie situation, how could Gao Ming trust an investigator who appeared out of nowhere? He remained extremely cautious.

"I know you're scared, panicking, and feeling helpless right now! But I'm the only one who can help you!" The investigator was growing anxious too. "We've been caught in an anomaly event. I came all the way from Xinhu to Hanhai to investigate events like this! I know you have a lot of questions, but the hallway really is dangerous. One careless move could get you killed!"

The investigator seemed to mean no harm. He pulled Gao Ming inside and only breathed a sigh of relief once the door was shut.

Scanning room 2706, Gao Ming slowly picked up a chair leg. "Why are you here?"

"I told you all to move out as soon as possible, but you wouldn't listen. Regretting it now?" The investigator wiped the sweat from his forehead. "After leaving 2507, I came upstairs to speak with the tenants here. Then an anomaly event suddenly occurred, and I had the misfortune of getting caught in it."

He pointed to the Black Ring on his wrist, where a red light glowed. "Once you're caught in an Anomaly Event, communications become distorted and cut out. We can't contact the outside world. It's like entering another world."

"Communications cut out completely?" After thinking it over carefully, Gao Ming's expression suddenly darkened.

He clearly remembered receiving a call from his mother in the previous game!

If what the investigator said was true, every call he had received in the previous game had actually come from a "ghost"!

Panic stirred in Gao Ming's heart. His parents lived in Xinhu, and he had no idea whether they had been affected.

"It really is hard for ordinary people to accept all this." Seeing Gao Ming's intense reaction, the investigator offered a quiet word of comfort. "It's normal to be afraid, but we still have a chance of getting out alive."

Gao Ming couldn't be bothered to explain himself to the investigator. Instead, he asked casually, "What exactly do you mean by an anomaly event?"

"Strange, mysterious, uncanny things. All kinds of inexplicable objects and phenomena suddenly appeared in Xinhu six months ago, then abruptly vanished." The investigator decided to share his information with Gao Ming.

"This started six months ago?" Gao Ming was astonished.

"The news was suppressed to prevent panic. Later, the Joint Bureau of Anomalous Disaster Investigation was established to investigate these sudden, bizarre incidents." Touching the Black Ring on his wrist, the disfigured investigator revealed his identity details to Gao Ming. "The Joint Bureau of Anomalous Disaster Investigation consists of three divisions: Investigation, Mystery Analysis, and Security. Our purpose is to determine what caused these disasters."

"Have you found anything, then?" Gao Ming still remembered Li Lin's attitude toward the investigator. Even the bureau's lowest-ranking investigators seemed to wield enormous authority.

"All anomaly events follow a certain trajectory and occur within a certain area. Beyond that, everything remains unknown." The investigator forced a chilling smile, apparently trying to encourage Gao Ming. "The odds of an ordinary person getting caught in an anomaly event are very low. A chance to see the truth like this doesn't come along often."

"You certainly know how to comfort people." Gao Ming processed all the information. The tunnel he had passed through on the night of the Ghost Festival lay right where the three cities met. He wondered whether something from Xinhu had entered his body.

"The anomaly has already happened, so there's no point blaming fate. We have to face it with everything we've got. As long as we stay cautious, we can get out alive if we hold on until dawn." The investigator brushed his fingers over the Black Ring, letting Gao Ming see the text displayed on it. "Many investigators in Xinhu paid with their lives for this information. It can help you survive. Please make sure you remember and follow every rule."

"When you're caught in an Anomaly Event inside an apartment building, keep the following points in mind if you want to save yourself."

"First, find all the residents as soon as possible and agree on a recognition signal, because some time after an Anomaly Event begins, the residents may be replaced."

"Second, don't trust any clocks or watches you see. The time is inaccurate."

"Third, after midnight, do not open your door under any circumstances, unless something that doesn't belong to you appears inside your home."

"Fourth, don't suddenly turn on the lights. Fifth, don't listen to any audio..."

"So if we do nothing at all, we can safely survive until dawn?" Following the rules might prevent mistakes, but Gao Ming wanted to solve the problem at its source. "According to these rules, can we avoid every misfortune just by going back to sleep?"

The investigator swiped across the Black Ring. A moment later, he shook his head solemnly. "Rule eleven says you must not sleep. You have to remain awake at all times."

"Thank you for giving me so many precautions, but I still have something to do." Gao Ming used Zhao Xi's Phone to send a message to Teacher Yao in 2707. He needed to confirm a few things with Teacher Yao.

"Every piece of information you're seeing was obtained at a bloody cost to investigators. You can question its accuracy, but don't gamble with your life!"

"Rules are rigid. People aren't..." Gao Ming opened the door of room 2706 and looked out at the hallway swallowed by shadows. There was still another half of that thought he hadn't voiced.

As the game's designer, in a sense, he himself was the rules of the Strange Tale.

(End of chapter)