Jump!

When Gao Ming said he wanted to have a heart-to-heart with the dead man, both the investigator and Mr. Yao thought they had misheard.

The man who had jumped to his death three days ago had returned as a corpse with shattered bones and twisted limbs, slaughtering an entire building's worth of neighbors in a video. Now Gao Ming actually wanted to sit down and chat with him. Even by the standards of the counseling profession, that was utterly outrageous.

"Are you out of your mind?" The investigator poked Gao Ming's arm, feeling the warmth of a living person beneath his fingertip. "You don't seem to have been replaced by an entity! Why are you acting even stranger than those monsters who have?"

People replaced by unknown beings still tried hard to conceal themselves and avoid detection. Gao Ming wasn't even pretending. His honesty was enough to frighten his own "teammates."

"A truly vicious ghost would come straight to your door and slaughter you. Why bother scaring you through a video? As a psychological counselor with years of experience, I think this is more like Zhao Xi asking us for help. He hates himself, can't escape his predicament, and can't change his circumstances." Gao Ming didn't tell the investigator his real reason.

In the game "My Only Family," the phone had woven a happy, perfect family and a warm, sunny environment for the protagonist. But the protagonist himself was lazy, gloomy, and selfish. The scenes fabricated by the phone were things he could never have had at that point in his life.

Zhao Xi's situation was exactly the reverse. His phone had fabricated terrifying, chilling videos, but in life he had been honest and hardworking, accepting every hardship without complaint and always feeling grateful to his adoptive mother. By the same logic, before completely losing himself, Zhao Xi should also have been incapable of doing the things the phone had fabricated.

"The ghost story game and reality are merging. If I don't take the initiative to trigger the strange tale, and just let it grow and spread on its own, the tragedy in the phone's video might actually happen."

Gao Ming ushered the investigator and Mr. Yao into Room 2607. "Zhao Xi will crawl up here soon. I need a favor from you two."

"What favor?" Teacher Yao held his toolbox. "I'm seriously ill and don't have long to live anyway. Whatever you need, just say the word."

"Tear up the sheets or something similar, twist them into a rope, and lower it from the balcony window." Gao Ming ran into the bedroom and was already getting to work. "You two stay in 2607. I'll go wait for Zhao Xi in 2507 by myself. I'll stand on the balcony and have a proper talk with him."

"The entities in anomalous incidents don't have emotions. You'd be throwing your life away!" Though the investigator looked frightening, he wasn't a bad person. He admired Gao Ming's courage, but he was also worried about his safety.

"I'll be right by the window. If I can't talk him around, grab the rope and pull me up." With his head lowered, Gao Ming tore the sheets apart, expertly fashioning a "rope."

"Why don't I go to 2507 instead?" Teacher Yao unbuttoned his shirt. The blood vessels across his chest and abdomen bulged and pulsed, making for a horrifying sight. "I've lived long enough. You're still young."

"I'm a certified psychological counselor. Let's leave the professional work to a professional." Gao Ming actually had another plan. To trigger the game's good ending, he had to get Zhao Xi to destroy his own phone. Zhao Xi had to destroy it with his own hands for it to symbolize breaking free of his self-imposed prison.

It was difficult for the living to control ghosts, and normal methods wouldn't work, so Gao Ming had come up with a crazy idea.

When Zhao Xi killed Huang Mingming, he had chosen to jump from the building with him. Gao Ming was also preparing to "try" that way of dying.

Once the rope was finished, they tossed it down from the balcony window of 2607. After making sure everything was in order, Gao Ming left the room alone.

He pushed open the door to 2507 but didn't go straight inside.

The sound of crawling flesh came from downstairs. All sorts of terrifying, bloody images flashed through his mind as the twisted limbs drew closer and closer to the fifth floor.

"I'm pretty nervous."

He took out a lighter. Its wavering flame drove back the darkness as Gao Ming lit a cigarette and sat down on the stairwell steps.

The corpse that had fallen to the ground crawled over the cold steps. The dead soul inched closer to the living.

Listening to the sound of bones scraping against the floor, Gao Ming watched the turn in the stairs.

"I've got plenty of moms and dads, different ones every night. My coworker is sharp and capable—he can kill eight people in three days. Now I've got a warm, honest neighbor too. At first glance, that sounds like a pretty fulfilling life."

Blood-matted hair dragged along the floor as Zhao Xi's shattered face slowly appeared between the fourth and fifth floors.

"You're here?"

Gao Ming didn't choose to run like Xiao Qiu, nor did he attack in a frenzy like Huang Mingming. In his eyes, Zhao Xi still seemed to be the same honest, good-natured Brother Zhao he had always been.

"Welcome home."

Getting up and walking toward Room 2507, Gao Ming opened the door for Zhao Xi and casually flicked the living room light switch.

"Brother Zhao, I used to come chat with you all the time on my days off. My biggest regret now is that I kept thinking I'd wait until I wasn't so busy before coming over to really help you work through things."

Gao Ming walked ahead, while the twisted, mangled corpse slowly crawled toward him.

"Your adoptive mother gave all her love to her biological son. Your younger brother's wife treated you as nothing but a way to make money. The other neighbors gossiped behind your back and deliberately made things difficult for you at the factories in the harbor district. Because you were honest, they made you take the blame and falsely accused you of stealing."

He looked toward the mirror in the living room. Gao Ming had noticed it as soon as he entered the game. The full-length mirror reflected an upside-down world.

"You did everything you could to appear optimistic and strong, but inside, you were consumed by pain. You were the pillar of your family, yet no one in it truly cared about your feelings. You often told me about life's little joys, but the truth was that your own life was miserable. The world you hoped for and reality were turned upside down. You tried so hard to change things, but the more you struggled, the more hopeless you became."

Zhao Xi's shoulders pulled his head around, twisting his broken neck a full hundred and eighty degrees. Though he lay facedown on the floor, he could turn his face upside down to look at Gao Ming.

Fear was humanity's most instinctive emotion, and Gao Ming's body was trembling slightly too. His nails dug into his flesh, but his voice remained calm. "You didn't do a single thing wrong. At its root, all your suffering was forced on you by other people. I have no right to judge you as an outsider, and I certainly won't try to talk you out of revenge. I just want you to be a little happier. Kind people deserve happiness. You deserve a family who can truly understand you too."

Gao Ming backed away. He had prepared himself mentally in advance, but facing Zhao Xi's mangled corpse at such close range still filled him with indescribable terror. He felt he was far too weak.

His back touched the balcony window. Lightning flashed, bathing Gao Ming and Zhao Xi in a ghastly white light.

Taking a deep breath, Gao Ming said with utter seriousness, "You don't want to be abandoned again. You long for a home. Then why not let me be your family?"

Thunder roared, and rain lashed against the windowpanes. In 2607, the investigator and Mr. Yao gripped the rope tightly. They had faintly heard Gao Ming's words, and as they stared at each other, both saw shock on the other's face.

The bloodstains on Zhao Xi's clothes left a long smear across the living room. He had almost reached the balcony, his face turned directly toward Gao Ming.

"I'm not deliberately lying to you to save my own life, and I'm not looking for an excuse to escape. We've talked so many times. I know what kind of person you are, so I genuinely want to help you." Gao Ming took out Zhao Xi's Phone and touched the video on its screen. "Whether it's those little moments of happiness or making those neighbors receive the punishment they deserve, I can help you make it happen! What's inside the phone is ultimately just an illusion, but we can change reality with our own hands!"

Instead of retreating again, Gao Ming took a step forward and held out his hand. "You can be my family, and I'll be your accomplice."

Those few words made Zhao Xi stop crawling for the first time. It was the first time he had stopped at all.

A few seconds later, Zhao Xi raised his twisted arm. His bones stretched, and a piercing noise echoed through 2507.

Faced with such a horrifying sight, Gao Ming didn't dodge at all. Alongside the fear in his eyes, there was a faint trace of anticipation.

The hand covered in wounds reached for Gao Ming, but Zhao Xi didn't take his hand. Instead, he wrapped it around Gao Ming's arm.

Feeling the strange movement in his arm, Gao Ming sighed softly. Zhao Xi seemed to have lost his emotions. He was controlling Gao Ming's body, trying to push him out of the building.

His limbs cracked apart, and Zhao Xi's corpse opened like a gigantic mouth. Gao Ming climbed backward onto the windowsill.

"Get up here!" Mr. Yao and the investigator shouted as the rope swayed in the downpour.

"Wait a little longer." Gao Ming wound the rope around his wrist. Gritting his teeth, he overcame a terror most people could hardly imagine and stared at Zhao Xi's "opened" corpse.

No one could understand Zhao Xi, so he wrapped his neighbors in his body this way, making them die the same death he had.

The corpse pressed down on Gao Ming, shifting his center of gravity backward. At the same moment, Gao Ming stuffed Zhao Xi's Phone into a split wound in the corpse.

"Hurry! Get up here!"

Zhao Xi's face was inches away. Gao Ming could see the pain, sorrow, and numbness deep in his eyes.

Flesh and blood continued winding around Gao Ming. Zhao Xi was going to drag him down in a jump together, and their bodies tipped out of the window.

The torrential rain soaked his hair and clothes. At the instant he toppled backward, Gao Ming, who had not struggled once, used every ounce of his strength to shove Zhao Xi back into the room!

The impact knocked the phone out of Zhao Xi's wound. The tragedy was rewritten in another way—Zhao Xi remained inside, his eyes watching Gao Ming fall through the pouring rain.

"Hold on to him!"

"Fuck!"

Mr. Yao and the investigator pulled on the rope with all their strength. Gao Ming's body slammed hard into the wall between the fourth and fifth floors. His arm bent at an unnatural angle, and a patch of skin was scraped from his face. Blood streamed down, but he seemed unable to feel any pain.

(End of chapter)