A ghost in the office

Back at the studio, Gao Ming memorized the information on most of Hanhai's haunted houses. He and the others were working hard in different directions.

The clock on the wall ticked away. As he immersed himself in the haunted houses, the office lights suddenly flickered, and a thin layer of shadow quietly appeared.

"What's this...?"

Gao Ming found it harder to breathe. He saw shadows surging in from every direction, as though they were trying to pour into the storage room.

"Damn it, what game did this trigger?"

This time, Gao Ming hadn't summoned any spirits or reenacted a dead person's actions. It seemed he had been dragged into a game against his will.

That familiar, icy chill wrapped around his heart. Gao Ming took a deep breath. He was about to warn the studio's employees to stay safe when he suddenly saw Wei Dayou jump onto a desk with a backpack on his back.

"Nobody panic!" Wei Dayou unzipped his backpack. "I brought an emergency light!"

He flicked the switch, and a light came on in his hands.

"Guys, to be honest, I thought we couldn't keep making games anymore, so I started working the night market. I bought this light for my stall." Wei Dayou set the light on a stack of books. "Our studio has been at the bottom of Motu Technology for seven months. Nobody has any faith in Horror Game. I've been doubling as a game designer, and management and players have been chewing me out for half a year. Honestly, I've got some pent-up frustration too."

Wei Dayou raised his voice. "I know things have been tough for us, but now we have a chance! Since we combined this dating game with a Horror Game, the test version has gotten more downloads than the full release of our last game. Nightlight Studio is about to turn things around!"

The employees still working overtime deeply related to Wei Dayou's words. the Programmer, Li Jie, and the operations specialist, Zhang Wang, even stood up. They were longtime Nightlight employees and felt strongly attached to the place.

"I know everyone's tired, but we only have to push through these next few days. We need to ride the game's popularity and get the finished product out as soon as possible! We owe it to the players, to our clients, and to ourselves!" Wei Dayou spoke with great passion. "I'll go check the electrical room. Everyone, keep working!"

Seeing Wei Dayou head outside empty-handed, without even taking his phone, Gao Ming hurried to stop him. "Dayou, listen to me."

"I know what you want to say." Wei Dayou gripped Gao Ming's hand tightly. "Brother, we won't let you down this time. We'll bring your game design to life perfectly!"

"No, that's not—"

"Don't be so polite! We're friends!" Dayou let go of his hand, but just then, Gao Ming's phone vibrated. He wasn't the only one. Everyone else in the Nightlight office looked at their phones too.

They swiped their screens. Everyone seemed to have received a new message.

"One of you is possessed by a ghost."

"You can only leave by killing the person possessed by the Ghost."

"Note: you may only move around floors 10, 11, 12, and 13. In one hour, the Ghost will awaken and begin killing. Anyone killed by the Ghost will also become a Ghost."

The message was short, just three sentences. Nightlight Studio's employees didn't take it seriously. They made Horror Game. Every time they released a game, the players' comments were more than ten times scarier than this.

"Why did it have to be this game that became real?" Gao Ming recognized it immediately. A few years ago, a client had found work too boring and wanted some excitement, so they had made this office escape-and-kill game for him.

The game had to be resolved within an hour. The longer it went on, the more Ghosts there would be. And to clear it, players had to correctly identify and kill the person possessed by the Ghost. In other words, they had to kill someone.

Gao Ming ran out after Wei Dayou, but the elevator doors closed just then.

"Dayou!" Gao Ming pressed the elevator button. Suddenly, he sensed someone breathing behind him.

"This prank is pretty lame. You don't actually believe it, do you?" Xia Yang's voice suddenly sounded beside Gao Ming, startling him.

"How come you don't make any noise when you walk?" Using the light from the office, Gao Ming examined Xia Yang closely.

"Don't tell me you think I'm a Ghost?" Xia Yang laughed.

"Mr. Xia, if this game became real, what would you do?" Gao Ming asked tentatively.

"Kill myself, I guess. I don't dare kill anyone else, and I'm scared of pain."

"But suicide means killing yourself. You'd still have blood on your hands." Before Gao Ming could finish, another elevator in the building suddenly stopped on the thirteenth floor, where Nightlight was located.

The silver-gray elevator doors slowly opened. Su Mo, the delivery rider, and Manager Ma from One-Horn Game rushed out in a panic. Both looked utterly terrified and desperately tried to get away from each other.

Besides the two of them, there was a man's corpse in the elevator. The corners of his eyes were torn, and his hands clutched a laptop bag.

"He's a Ghost! The Ghost killed someone!" Su Mo shouted as though he had lost his mind.

"He's the Ghost! The Ghost is inside him!" Manager Ma kept his distance from Su Mo and shouted at Gao Ming and the others.

"So men can make noises that shrill too." Xia Yang covered his ears, narrowing his eyes as he studied the two men. He muttered under his breath, "Someone's dead. Looks like that text was probably telling the truth."

Whether Xia Yang was simply unflappable or had some other reason, he acted as though he had experienced similar games before. Not only was he unafraid, but he even smiled.

Gao Ming walked between Su Mo and Manager Ma and approached the corpse.

He unbuttoned the corpse's collar and saw obvious lividity. "The victim probably died at least twenty-four hours ago. The killer most likely wasn't either of these two men in the elevator."

"If it wasn't them, why were they in the elevator with the corpse?" Xia Yang glanced at the message on his phone. "Could the Ghost be hiding inside one of them?"

Gao Ming nodded. "The Ghost might initially have been trapped in the corpse. Both of them touched it, which makes them prime suspects. Of course, we can't rule out other possibilities. Maybe the Ghost deliberately drew our attention to them to make them scapegoats."

"This Ghost is pretty cunning."

"The game's designer really understands human psychology. It isolates these two, putting the group's safety in conflict with individual lives. Once everyone is backed into a corner, someone is bound to attack them. They might even make the two of them kill each other." Gao Ming hadn't made the original design that complicated. Wei Dayou had refined the game later based on the client's requests. "Humanity is fragile. Once you take that first step, your moral boundaries keep getting broken down until you lose your humanity entirely."

"Some unscrupulous companies exploit their employees the same way." Xia Yang remained optimistic. "Anyway, the Ghost definitely isn't in our studio. Everyone's been working overtime. Not one of us went to another floor."

"We're safe for now, but according to the message, the Ghost will wake up in an hour and start killing. By then, we might not be able to trust anyone."

"Right. That's why we have to find the person possessed by the Ghost within an hour."

Su Mo and Manager Ma were still arguing, each accusing the other of being a Ghost. Both were on the verge of losing control.

"Stop arguing for a moment, you two. Take your time and explain." Xia Yang displayed a composure completely unlike his usual self.

"I was heading downstairs after delivering food, and I ran into that corpse in the elevator! The Ghost was inside the corpse at first. He told me all kinds of things, and every time he spoke, another layer of shadow covered the elevator!" Su Mo wiped the tears from his eyes. "Then Manager Ma got into the elevator. That corpse had a grudge against him. He'd been waiting for Manager Ma all along! As soon as Manager Ma got in, he strangled him to death and crawled into his body!"

"Bullshit! He's lying! He's the Ghost!" Manager Ma pulled open his collar. "Look! There aren't any strangulation marks on my neck! I was making a call in the underground parking garage when I suddenly heard strange noises coming from the elevator, so I went over to check. The moment the doors opened, he dragged me inside. This delivery rider said someone was trying to kill him! But apart from him, there was only a corpse in the elevator!"