The overgrown weeds along the path of the fourth gate swayed gently with the wind.
On the deserted road, a petite girl squatted in the middle, holding a kitchen knife in one hand, looking expressionlessly at the head that was in her arms.
“I understand what it’s like to be a newly-turned urban legend. I was like you, too, so I relate to you. It only gets more difficult from here on out, so you should be wary.”
The girl couldn’t help but feel grateful that somebody as chatty as the witch before her would give her grace, even though she tried to rob said witch.
A witch who can understand her, talk with her, and not send her into the Night Division…
“Plus, there’s more to being an urban legend.”
Yibei’s words were fading into the background, and the girl’s eyes landed on the kitchen knife now in Yibei’s hand.
The memory of her throat being cut and her head severed kept resurfacing, and she couldn’t help but burst into tears.
In the darkness, there were swift sounds of a knife cutting something.
Lu Yibei raised the knife with her hand and cut Lu Xu’s core, which was in the shape of a red lantern. However, the moment she brought the knife down, the girl burst into tears.
The tears seemed to have illuminated her face, and she, strangely enough, looked human.
That is a human’s decapitated head.
Her crying became more and more intense, and a sense of uneasiness brewed in her heart. If the security guard were to hear them, things would get messy.
“Hey! Stop crying!” Yibei urged, stuffing half of the core into the girl’s mouth.
In a panic, she attempted to spit out whatever was being forced into her mouth, but the stench that entered her nostrils was like petrichor—a drought coming to an end.
Memories that did not belong to her were jumbled in her mind, causing her to lose focus for a short while. Her nearly exhausted spiritual energy quickly replenished, and a strong scarlet light rushed through her head.
Looking at the twitching human head that seemed to be lost in bliss, Yibei hurriedly got up and left the University.
‘Crap. I need to stop getting myself into situations like these.’
Not long after Lu Yibei left, the scarlet light in the girl’s head gradually faded away, and her body soon revealed itself beyond the darkness as it scurried towards her discarded head, putting it back onto her neck.
Her eyes were slightly filled with new life, and she stared in the direction where the witch had left.
Ever since her death, she lingered here to repay the kindness of the students who mourned for her, but nobody ever walked down this path. However, a witch came down the path instead, and…
She hoped that she could repay her kindness, too.
I have nowhere to go, Yibei thought.
It is only ten o’clock at night, and there are still many hours before the sun rises.
Jumeng is still at home, and going back home in this form is equal to throwing yourself into a lion’s maw.
And it didn’t feel appropriate to go to Gu Qianqian’s with these bamboo scrolls in her possession.
Her old house was too close to the Night Division, and she didn’t want to run into unnecessary troubles.
She heaved a long sigh as she stood under a street lamp.
“I should’ve asked Zhang Shan to wait for me. Maybe I can follow him home, and we can tell each other stories.”
Speaking of which, Lu Yibei was quite interested in Zhang Shan’s live radio station, and if she had the chance, she wanted to check it out.
After wandering around the street for a long time, Lu Yibei felt a little tired. She found a bench and sat down.
Taking out her mobile phone, she opened the forums, intending to research the urban legend chat group.
Yibei smiled as she read through the now-lively chat rooms in the forum. They were just like urban legends, only active at night.
When Lu Yibei clicked into a chat room, an urban legend was being discussed.
[internetman09: A female urban legend, oh, well…]
[GIRL WITH NO PROBLEMS: I don’t like your tone.]
[GIRL WITH NO PROBLEMS: My fellow sisters! Stay away from this user!]
In the midst of unintuitive discussions, they would occasionally mention the user named 100 2/3 CATS, which was the cow management that rejected her application to join the forums.
She clicked on the group chat records, patiently scrolled through for a while, and found her first discovery since joining the group.
[19:05 100 2/3 CATS: Alright, let us start with an urban legend of the week. Since some new members have joined the group recently, let me reiterate that whatever I say is true.]
Seeing this, Lu Yibei frowned.
‘Urban legend of the week…?’
According to Jiangli, the more people believe in an urban legend, the more likely it is to manifest in reality.
Do these people have no idea what they’re doing?
Lu Yibei thought about it and continued to scroll through the chat records patiently.
[19:02 100 2/3 CATS: The protagonist of the story is a young girl who likes taking photos a lot. Let’s call her A. She lives in Xicheng, Huacheng, which is a mountainous region.]
“What?”
The previous chat record was still 19:05, so how is this at 19:02?
‘Is my data not working?’
Yibei chalked it up to a bug and continued to read.
[19:07 100 2/3 CATS: A has always had a habit of sorting out the photos taken by her occasionally and then picking her favourites to save. This continued until she obtained an old film camera.]
[19:09 100 2/3 CATS: She bought that camera in a vintage shop during a business trip. Well preserved, has no damage, and looks brand new. It was as if it were calling out to her, like an old friend reuniting with her.]
[19:12 100 2/3 CATS: She abandoned all her previous equipment, only using that camera to take photos. However, after a month, when taking photos in the suburbs, she encountered a heavy downpour, and she was forced to return home. She decided to fill her time by taking selfies.
[19:15 100 2/3 CATS: Of course, film cameras need to be developed. She brought the camera over to a store to develop them, declined an invitation to a party, turned off her cell phone, and locked herself in her room. She looked at her photos one by one—beautiful, flawless, just like her—but with each selfie she took, a stranger would appear in the frame.]
[19:20 100 2/3 CATS: She didn’t realise it at first, but soon she would realise that something was wrong—a man in white clothes whose face was shrouded in the shadows, and with each chronological photo, he was getting closer and closer to her. She was terrified! A pervert was following her! She turned her entire house upside down but found nobody.]
[19:25 100 2/3 CATS: She would smile wryly and take another photo of herself…]
“That’s it?”
Lu Yibei tilted her head and swiped up and down the chat history, but there were no additional messages.
This user had great story-telling abilities. She couldn’t help but feel disturbed as she read.
[19:48 GIRL WITH NO PROBLEMS: @100 2/3 CATS That region she lives in… that’s where they bulldozed an entire cemetery.]
[19:50 100 2/3: Yes, that is the one.]
[19:57 DAUGHTER: @100 2/3 CATS Is that camera still in Huacheng?]
[20:02 100 2/3 CATS: Yes. It exists. But I don’t know where it is. You can DM me if you want more information.]
Maybe this user’s storytelling abilities aren’t that good. What kind of user gatekeeps stories behind their DMs?
She couldn’t help but hover her finger over the [Report Group] button.
She immediately began to think, Something is up with this forum, and urban legends have their own chat group as well.
‘I haven’t finished my story with Jiangli yet. I can’t investigate further without telling her more.’
Or…
Thinking about it, Lu Yibei silently shifted his gaze to his thighs, held her chin, and thought seriously about it for a second or two.
Her reason and shame saved her integrity once again.
Perhaps she could use her girl form to register an account? No matter what, a cute girl’s aesthetic is always welcomed, even in an urban legend-centred forum.
The overgrown weeds along the path of the fourth gate swayed gently with the wind.
On the deserted road, a petite girl squatted in the middle, holding a kitchen knife in one hand, looking expressionlessly at the head that was in her arms.
“I understand what it’s like to be a newly-turned urban legend. I was like you, too, so I relate to you. It only gets more difficult from here on out, so you should be wary.”
The girl couldn’t help but feel grateful that somebody as chatty as the witch before her would give her grace, even though she tried to rob said witch.
A witch who can understand her, talk with her, and not send her into the Night Division…
“Plus, there’s more to being an urban legend.”
Yibei’s words were fading into the background, and the girl’s eyes landed on the kitchen knife now in Yibei’s hand.
The memory of her throat being cut and her head severed kept resurfacing, and she couldn’t help but burst into tears.
In the darkness, there were swift sounds of a knife cutting something.
Lu Yibei raised the knife with her hand and cut Lu Xu’s core, which was in the shape of a red lantern. However, the moment she brought the knife down, the girl burst into tears.
The tears seemed to have illuminated her face, and she, strangely enough, looked human.
That is a human’s decapitated head.
Her crying became more and more intense, and a sense of uneasiness brewed in her heart. If the security guard were to hear them, things would get messy.
“Hey! Stop crying!” Yibei urged, stuffing half of the core into the girl’s mouth.
In a panic, she attempted to spit out whatever was being forced into her mouth, but the stench that entered her nostrils was like petrichor—a drought coming to an end.
Memories that did not belong to her were jumbled in her mind, causing her to lose focus for a short while. Her nearly exhausted spiritual energy quickly replenished, and a strong scarlet light rushed through her head.
Looking at the twitching human head that seemed to be lost in bliss, Yibei hurriedly got up and left the University.
‘Crap. I need to stop getting myself into situations like these.’
Not long after Lu Yibei left, the scarlet light in the girl’s head gradually faded away, and her body soon revealed itself beyond the darkness as it scurried towards her discarded head, putting it back onto her neck.
Her eyes were slightly filled with new life, and she stared in the direction where the witch had left.
Ever since her death, she lingered here to repay the kindness of the students who mourned for her, but nobody ever walked down this path. However, a witch came down the path instead, and…
She hoped that she could repay her kindness, too.
I have nowhere to go, Yibei thought.
It is only ten o’clock at night, and there are still many hours before the sun rises.
Jumeng is still at home, and going back home in this form is equal to throwing yourself into a lion’s maw.
And it didn’t feel appropriate to go to Gu Qianqian’s with these bamboo scrolls in her possession.
Her old house was too close to the Night Division, and she didn’t want to run into unnecessary troubles.
She heaved a long sigh as she stood under a street lamp.
“I should’ve asked Zhang Shan to wait for me. Maybe I can follow him home, and we can tell each other stories.”
Speaking of which, Lu Yibei was quite interested in Zhang Shan’s live radio station, and if she had the chance, she wanted to check it out.
After wandering around the street for a long time, Lu Yibei felt a little tired. She found a bench and sat down.
Taking out her mobile phone, she opened the forums, intending to research the urban legend chat group.
Yibei smiled as she read through the now-lively chat rooms in the forum. They were just like urban legends, only active at night.
When Lu Yibei clicked into a chat room, an urban legend was being discussed.
[internetman09: A female urban legend, oh, well…]
[GIRL WITH NO PROBLEMS: I don’t like your tone.]
[GIRL WITH NO PROBLEMS: My fellow sisters! Stay away from this user!]
In the midst of unintuitive discussions, they would occasionally mention the user named 100 2/3 CATS, which was the cow management that rejected her application to join the forums.
She clicked on the group chat records, patiently scrolled through for a while, and found her first discovery since joining the group.
[19:05 100 2/3 CATS: Alright, let us start with an urban legend of the week. Since some new members have joined the group recently, let me reiterate that whatever I say is true.]
Seeing this, Lu Yibei frowned.
‘Urban legend of the week…?’
According to Jiangli, the more people believe in an urban legend, the more likely it is to manifest in reality.
Do these people have no idea what they’re doing?
Lu Yibei thought about it and continued to scroll through the chat records patiently.
[19:02 100 2/3 CATS: The protagonist of the story is a young girl who likes taking photos a lot. Let’s call her A. She lives in Xicheng, Huacheng, which is a mountainous region.]
“What?”
The previous chat record was still 19:05, so how is this at 19:02?
‘Is my data not working?’
Yibei chalked it up to a bug and continued to read.
[19:07 100 2/3 CATS: A has always had a habit of sorting out the photos taken by her occasionally and then picking her favourites to save. This continued until she obtained an old film camera.]
[19:09 100 2/3 CATS: She bought that camera in a vintage shop during a business trip. Well preserved, has no damage, and looks brand new. It was as if it were calling out to her, like an old friend reuniting with her.]
[19:12 100 2/3 CATS: She abandoned all her previous equipment, only using that camera to take photos. However, after a month, when taking photos in the suburbs, she encountered a heavy downpour, and she was forced to return home. She decided to fill her time by taking selfies.
[19:15 100 2/3 CATS: Of course, film cameras need to be developed. She brought the camera over to a store to develop them, declined an invitation to a party, turned off her cell phone, and locked herself in her room. She looked at her photos one by one—beautiful, flawless, just like her—but with each selfie she took, a stranger would appear in the frame.]
[19:20 100 2/3 CATS: She didn’t realise it at first, but soon she would realise that something was wrong—a man in white clothes whose face was shrouded in the shadows, and with each chronological photo, he was getting closer and closer to her. She was terrified! A pervert was following her! She turned her entire house upside down but found nobody.]
[19:25 100 2/3 CATS: She would smile wryly and take another photo of herself…]
“That’s it?”
Lu Yibei tilted her head and swiped up and down the chat history, but there were no additional messages.
This user had great story-telling abilities. She couldn’t help but feel disturbed as she read.
[19:48 GIRL WITH NO PROBLEMS: @100 2/3 CATS That region she lives in… that’s where they bulldozed an entire cemetery.]
[19:50 100 2/3: Yes, that is the one.]
[19:57 DAUGHTER: @100 2/3 CATS Is that camera still in Huacheng?]
[20:02 100 2/3 CATS: Yes. It exists. But I don’t know where it is. You can DM me if you want more information.]
Maybe this user’s storytelling abilities aren’t that good. What kind of user gatekeeps stories behind their DMs?
She couldn’t help but hover her finger over the [Report Group] button.
She immediately began to think, Something is up with this forum, and urban legends have their own chat group as well.
‘I haven’t finished my story with Jiangli yet. I can’t investigate further without telling her more.’
Or…
Thinking about it, Lu Yibei silently shifted his gaze to his thighs, held her chin, and thought seriously about it for a second or two.
Her reason and shame saved her integrity once again.
Perhaps she could use her girl form to register an account? No matter what, a cute girl’s aesthetic is always welcomed, even in an urban legend-centred forum.
