Chapter 1 The Strange Encounter

As they got closer, the people standing under the bus stop sign noticed Jiang Cheng and the others. There were five people in total, three men and two women.

A tall, thin man with a backpack, hunched over and wearing thick glasses that made him look like life had beaten him down, asked softly, "You guys..." He adjusted his glasses and asked in an inquiring tone, "Are you here for that post too?"

"That post..." Jiang Cheng made a mental note of the term, but knowing that saying too much might give him away, he raised his chin and asked, "You too?"

"Don't even mention it," another man said, looking reluctant. "If it weren't for that post, who would be up in the middle of the night waiting here?"

"Same here," Jiang Cheng said, as if he could relate. "We left in a hurry. My friend didn't even have time to change his clothes."

He pointed to Huai Yi, who reluctantly opened his coat to reveal his fluffy pajamas.

While they were talking, one of the girls suddenly started crying. Her eyes were red, and it was obvious that she had been crying before they arrived.

The girl was wearing a dress and looked very well-behaved.

"Stop crying. What good does crying do?" the woman standing next to her said. She looked sharp in her burgundy jacket, wore heavy makeup, and had exaggerated rhinestone earrings that reflected the light.

Jiang Cheng, however, walked over to the girl and comforted her, "Don't say that. No one wants to encounter something like this. Cry for a bit if you want to."

Perhaps it was Jiang Cheng's attitude, which was different from the others, that made the girl look up and meet his deep eyes.

"Are you feeling better?" Jiang Cheng bent down slightly to match the girl's height. "Or is what you encountered even more bizarre than what we did?" Jiang Cheng feigned a concerned and curious look.

"I... I received that post three days ago. I was online shopping with my roommate when the post suddenly popped up," the girl said. "It was sent from a website that specializes in investigating paranormal events. I had added myself to a group because I was interested in that kind of thing. Someone in the group pulled me in, but I don't know who."

Jiang Cheng nodded and asked gently, "About what I expected. What happened next?"

"Then, when I clicked on it, it was an invitation. It invited me to come here at midnight three days later. I had to tell a weird tale to complete the task."

"If you don't come, there will be misfortune."

"And you came?" Jiang Cheng found the reason a bit far-fetched.

Hearing Jiang Cheng say this, the girl seemed to remember something, and tears streamed down her face again. "I... I didn't want to, but I had to come. If I didn't... if I didn't..."

"I don't want to end up like my roommate. I'm still young. I don't want to... I don't want to die!" The girl's emotions began to collapse as she said this.

"Your roommate..." Jiang Cheng ignored the lukewarm gazes of the others and continued to prompt her.

"She received the invitation too, with me," the girl said. "But her invitation time was earlier than mine. It was two days later, which was yesterday!"

Jiang Cheng understood roughly what was going on in his mind. Her roommate must not have taken it seriously and didn't go, and then something really happened. Then it was the girl's turn today, so she dared not refuse.

"Yesterday night, around 11 o'clock, the two of us were still talking about it, saying who would be so bored as to send out such posts to scare people."

"After chatting for a while, I went to bed, and she was still downstairs playing on the computer, online shopping, that's right." The girl wiped away her tears and said, "There are only the two of us in our dorm."

"Then not long after, I fell asleep, drowsy and confused. I heard a sound, a very strange sound, a rumbling sound, like a car, a very big car driving past me."

"No, not beside me, but right beside the dorm! Like it was right next to my pillow!" The girl was very nervous and expressed herself in a confused manner. Jiang Cheng could only analyze according to his own understanding.

"Then I opened my eyes and found that the dorm lights were already off. Our dorm beds are on top, and the desks are below. I saw a light below out of the corner of my eye."

"Because my roommate has a habit of playing on the computer after the lights are turned off at night, I didn't think too much about it and told her to turn the computer sound down a bit."

"But she didn't answer me, and the rumbling sound didn't disappear. In fact, it seemed to be getting closer, very real, especially real, not like... not like it was being played in a movie."

"I felt a little strange, because my roommate is a very easy-going person, so I sat up and looked under the bed, and found that the computer was on, but she was gone."

"I got out of bed and called her a few more times, and found that she really wasn't there, so I walked towards the door, because I thought that since she wasn't in the dorm at this time, she must have gone to the toilet, but as soon as I got to the door of the dorm, I found that the dorm door was locked from the outside."

"But I'm sure I didn't do it, so it could only be my roommate, which means my roommate should still be in the room."

"I was very strange at the time, so I called her name while looking around in the dorm. I was still guessing if she was playing a joke on me."

"Until I saw her slippers. She always wears slippers in the dorm, but at that time, there was only one of her slippers left, and..." The girl's breathing became rapid as she seemed to recall the scene at that time, "The position of her slippers was very strange. They were upside down on the ground."

"I didn't pay attention when I first came down, but at this time I immediately turned on the desk lamp, and looking at it again with the light of the desk lamp, I found that the place where she was sitting had become very messy for some reason."

"The chair was also crooked, the books on the table were also scattered, and the trash can on the ground was also kicked over, and a lot of garbage fell out."

"It's like... like someone had fought here."

"There was half a cup of spilled milk tea on the ground. I suddenly noticed that there were drag marks on the milk tea. I followed the marks for a few steps and found that the drag marks stopped in front of the closet."

"I was still in front of the closet, and I found my roommate's other slipper."

"I was a little emotionally broken at the time. I didn't know why she would play such a joke on me in the middle of the night. I shouted for her to come out and stop messing around. I'd get angry if she messed around again, because I was really a little scared at the time."

"At that time, the closet door was ajar, and I saw something exposed in a lower corner of the closet. I took a closer look and immediately recognized it as the pink pajamas that my roommate wore to sleep, but the next second, the exposed corner of her clothes was pulled back in."

"At that time, I decided that she was hiding in the closet and scaring me as a joke, so I also prepared to scare her and retaliate against her, so I angrily picked up my phone and called her, but..." At this point, the girl's face changed, as if she had remembered something extremely terrifying, "But the phone ringtone... the phone ringtone was coming from the computer!"

"Her computer!"