Chapter 10: The Only Family
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
In a typical scenario, anyone would be terrified and make dangerous mistakes when faced with supernatural stories. However, Gao Ming was different. He always prepared for the worst, setting his expectations low before acting.
Fang Shuqi, from apartment 2409, voiced concerns about Wang Ge and Xiao Qiu’s misfortune and emphasized the need for the remaining residents to unite for survival. He expressed hope that Zhao Xi’s family would explain the situation, as Zhao Xi’s inevitable return to the building was somehow linked to them.
Li Li, from apartment 2304 and sister-in-law, rebuked her neighbors for their hypocrisy towards. Despite calling him ‘Brother Zhao’, they secretly despised him and spread malicious rumors, driving him to his death.
The video captured Li Li’s trembling figure, clutching her child in fear on the third floor. Fearing the corpse on the second floor, she considered seeking refuge upstairs.
Following her was Zhao Xi’s adoptive mother, crying and carrying a basket of paper money. Li Li had accused her of causing Zhao Xi’s return. Suddenly, they heard eerie sounds in the dark stairwell, resembling hands climbing the stairs.
Terrified, Li Li screamed, abandoning the elderly woman and the video call to flee with her child.
The video, shaking violently, became unclear.
Fang Shuqi from 2409 questioned Li Li’s abandonment of her mother-in-law.
Huang Mingming from 2501 suggested that everyone should hide on the top floor and devise a plan, as staying alone in their rooms was unsafe.
Jia Qi from 2607 disagreed, arguing that hiding wouldn’t help and the corpses would find them anyway.
Yao Yuan from 2707 invited everyone to his place, the furthest from the stairway.
Fang Shuqi questioned Teacher Yao’s health. Yao Yuan, a retired police academy teacher and an esteemed anti-pickpocket officer, was known for his skills in lock-picking, combat, scam awareness, and exceptional physical strength. However, he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness two years earlier, leaving him wheelchair-bound and unable to speak or eat. His sudden appearance speaking in the video shocked Fang Shuqi and the neighbors.
“I…” the elderly man hesitated, his expression a mix of sadness and amusement, “I’m at a loss myself. Three months back, I ceased my treatments, resigning myself to death at home, bedridden and weak. But tonight, I felt miraculously healed. I was pain-free, and my body seemed rejuvenated, as strong as in my youth.”
His statement was met with disbelief. To prove his point, the old man quietly removed his shirt on camera. His skin, pallid and corpse-like, was marred with large, black veins across his chest and abdomen, alarmingly swollen as if ready to rupture and meld into the ether: “I can’t explain this transformation, but I am in full possession of my abilities and still myself.”
The group call fell silent. The neighbors, witnessing Teacher Yao’s altered physique, instinctively recoiled in fear and revulsion. Their reactions visibly discomforted Teacher Yao.
Wrapping himself in a jacket, the wise, world-weary Teacher Yao understood that no amount of explanation would convince them now, and he refrained from insisting that they seek refuge at his place.
While the neighbors distrusted Teacher Yao, Gao Ming stood apart. He had witnessed ‘replacements’ of parents by entities indistinguishable from real people, except for their blatant imperfections.
Gao Ming pondered, recalling information from a memorial photo: those nearing death could also be drawn into this sinister game. Could Teacher Yao be such a case?
The outwardly normal neighbors in the call unnerved Gao Ming, while Teacher Yao, despite his alarming appearance, felt more genuine to him.
He theorized that if a ghost lurked among the seemingly average neighbors, it might incite them to violence against each other.
Gao Ming, hand on the doorknob, resolved to leave Zhao Xi’s old room and visit Teacher Yao personally.
His plan seemed sound, but as he cracked open the door, he heard hurried steps—likely Li Li carrying her son—rushing past from the fifth floor.
Gao Ming leaned against the door, contemplating, “Should I restrain them?” Binding them seemed the simplest way to verify a neighbor’s true nature.
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
After a brief pause, he decided to act. Li Li and her child were alone, a rare opportunity.
“The group call offers insights into my neighbors but also subjects me to their scrutiny. My next move must stay hidden from them.”
Covering the camera, Gao Ming stepped into the hallway.
He followed swiftly, but to his surprise, he couldn’t find Li Li even after reaching the seventh floor.
“This doesn’t add up! Burdened with a child, Li Li couldn’t have outpaced me to the seventh floor, not even with a head start!”
A foul odor hung faintly in the air. Looking down the stairs, he saw only darkness below, a silent and desolate void, eerily reminiscent of the scene surrounding Zhao Xi’s murder.
“Could all of these people actually be ghosts?”
Gao Ming quickly lowered his phone’s volume as discordant voices arose, retreating to a corner for cautious observation.
Fang Shuqi, from apartment 2409, voiced his terror, “I’m trapped! Zhao Xi is right outside my door. He’s come back to haunt us!”
A fourth-floor resident shared a disturbing video in the group chat, taken from his door’s surveillance camera.
In the eerie black and white footage, Zhao Xi’s figure, contorted unnaturally, struggled on the steps. His face scraped grotesquely against the ground, his neck broken and dangling.
Zhao Xi in the footage seemed to become aware of the surveillance, slowly raising his head. He offered a chilling smile towards the camera, then started violently slamming his head against Fang Shuqi’s door.
The neighbors, merely watching the footage, were seized by fear. For Fang Shuqi, confined in his apartment, the horror was magnified. His hand, clutching the phone, shook violently with each thud against the door, culminating in a ninth knock and his own scream.
Then, the sound of glass shattering pierced the air, the video feed spinning chaotically until the sound of a heavy fall was heard.
“Thud!”
Fang Shuqi’s phone, previously gripped tightly, fell, its camera lens capturing his lifeless expression. It appeared he had been thrown from the fourth floor, a grim echo of Zhao Xi’s fate.
Blood stained the video, jolting Gao Ming into action. He rushed to a window at the corridor’s end on the seventh floor and broke it open to look outside.
His suspicion was confirmed.
While Fang Shuqi’s body was visible in the video on the ground below, Gao Ming saw no corpse from his vantage point, only a bloodstain at the building’s entrance!
This indicated that the neighbors in the video might be illusory, part of a fabricated, horrifying scenario.
“The video is manipulated! The neighbors calling in are questionable too! The phone left by Zhao Xi in the room might be a ‘ghost’s’ trick!”
Realization dawned on Gao Ming, his forehead marked by a pulsing vein. He understood that if he didn’t escape this nightmarish game quickly, his end could be far grimmer than Fang Shuqi’s.
He pondered the improbability of Zhao Xi’s phone being casually left in the room. Following Zhao Xi’s suicide, his adoptive blood-sucking mother and sister-in-law would likely have pilfered all his assets. Gao Ming recalled that Xuan Wen’s rented room, left with only essential furniture, showed signs of having been looted.
With the camera covered, Gao Ming scrutinized the deceased’s phone in his hand, recalling a game competition from years past. He had assisted Wei Dayou with a project titled “The Only Family.”
The game’s protagonist was an unremarkable middle-aged man, but he had a kind and beautiful wife, a bright and obedient daughter, and loving parents. His only connection with them was through his phone, all interactions confined to video calls. This routine continued until one day, he saw a woman on the street bearing an uncanny resemblance to his wife.
He moved swiftly towards her, longing for an embrace, but the woman evaded, instead finding solace in another man’s arms. This moment sparked the player’s quest for truth, leading to a harrowing realization: his entire life was an illusion crafted by his phone. Plunged into despair, he grappled with the fact that he had mistaken someone else’s wife and child for his own. In harsh reality, he was estranged from his biological parents; his only ‘family’ was the old phone.
This revelation cast him as the true antagonist of his own story. Stripped of pretenses, his corrupted soul was laid bare for all to witness.
The game unfolded into three distinct endings: In one, the uncle rediscovered a long-lost diary and medication. It was his fifth awakening, but he chose to re-enter the delusion for a sixth time, swallowing the pills once more. The ‘good’ ending saw the uncle shattering his phone, breaking free from the falsehood, and embracing a fresh start. He earnestly worked on his flaws and mended his relationship with his parents. The final ending was unsettling: consumed by madness, the uncle treated the phone as his actual family. His life ended alongside the phone, which was eventually found by a bullied child.