Ten years ago.
A great fire took the lives of a young couple.
That child.
That boy named Shen Yao suddenly became an orphan, a hot potato no one wanted to hold onto.
Taking care of a half-grown child was always troublesome, especially a boy who’d become withdrawn and silent after losing his parents in an accident.
He was passed from one relative’s house to another, each family finding new excuses to send him off to the next.
He endured it all quietly, never expressing any opinion of his own.
Until the day that woman who called herself Shen Qingxiao appeared.
She said she was his father’s younger sister, but Shen Yao had never heard his father mention having a sister.
Yet, when the relatives asked him, he lied—he said he had seen his Aunt before.
It should have been a happy ending for everyone; at last, the relatives managed to pass the hot potato to someone else.
Aunt inherited the Guardian rights, and also inherited the house left by Shen Yao’s parents—but that was all.
The rest of the estate had long been divvied up by the relatives, and Shen Yao felt nothing about it.
When Shen Qingxiao took him by the hand and led him to their new home, Shen Yao still felt numb.
He thought he’d soon be sent away again, but this time, this unreliable Aunt truly kept him by her side.
She had no experience raising children, but she would ask advice from mothers in the neighborhood.
She didn’t know how to cook, but she enrolled in night classes to learn how to make some simple meals.
Shen Yao felt as if he finally saw a ray of light in the gloom, yet more and more pressure weighed down on him, making it hard to breathe.
Shen Qingxiao once asked him, “Why don’t you ever talk? Why do you always look like you’re mourning, as if your parents just died? Are you hiding something inside?”
Shen Yao was cornered against the wall by her questioning, and at last he revealed the secret buried deep in his heart.
The fire that day… It had started because he’d been playing and failed to extinguish the fire in the clay stove.
It was his fault his parents died, his fault that everyone had to go through all this trouble.
But no one blamed him, no one investigated the cause of the fire.
It was as if he’d been let off the hook, yet this was more painful than any punishment.
True horror is not when something frightening appears, but when what should be isn’t, when the normal order is overturned.
The terror of a tiny mistake leading to an enormous tragedy, and then being glossed over with barely a word, was like thunder in silence, echoing without end.
He never forgave himself. He never let himself go.
He longed for some kind of Release, a liberation that transcended the ordinary world.
Qiao Yunxue’s appearance fit perfectly with this longing for Release.
He took it upon himself to give her an identity, to give her meaning, and so he set expectations on her of his own accord—and was disappointed on his own, too.
He agreed to take risks and catch ghosts, even though he knew it was a deadly gamble. He agreed to face supernatural events, even though he was certain nothing good awaited him in the end.
It was nothing more than his own desire.
Qiao Yunxue wasn’t wrong: he was a born sinner, carrying a crushing burden, surviving to this day by any means possible, pretending to be normal, never letting Aunt down, never letting Cheng Orange down, never letting anyone down.
The bizarre, sharp claws scraped across his cheek, tearing his skin and leaving bloody marks.
He felt the warmth of blood trickling down from his wounds, felt the blood inside his body slowly draining away.
He stared straight at the blurred figure of the monster, his body trembling—not just from fear of the strange being, but from fear of his own life.
But…
The greater the fear, the stronger his will to survive became.
Live on.
Live on by any means, bearing sin and falsehood, struggling on.
Only this way could he leave clear scars on his flesh from the lash of life.
Only this way could he repay the relatives who died because of him.
Suddenly, he raised his head and shouted:
“Qiao Yunxue! Now—!”
The next moment.
The last Suitcase being dragged behind the monster was suddenly snatched away. The monster turned around in shock, only to see a blurred human figure.
How could this be…
Her Inspiration…
Click.
The last Suitcase was opened, revealing a swollen Head. Its owner was none other than the long-missing Xu Jia. Her eyes were wide open, unable to rest in peace.
The monster, along with the eerie Cargo Box Maze behind it, vanished in an instant, like smoke in the wind, dispersing into the air as if it had never existed.
Moonlight, absent for so long, poured in once again through the tall windows, illuminating the land anew.
Shen Yao gasped for air as if finally released, gulping great breaths as though to use up a lifetime’s worth of oxygen all at once.
In front of him, Qiao Yunxue was also gasping, kneeling beside the last Suitcase. Most striking was the constant flow of fresh blood from her nose.
Clutching her bleeding nose, she looked at Shen Yao, who was slumped helplessly on the ground, and showed him that familiar, overly arrogant, and irritating smile: “See, I told you… in the end, you had to rely on me.”
Shen Yao felt as if he’d nearly collapsed. He crawled over to Qiao Yunxue and peeked into the Suitcase.
Besides Xu Jia’s Head, sure enough, there was also half a body.
With this, Xu Jia’s Corpse was complete, and Zhong Wen’s evidence was now in hand.
This was what he meant by The Truth of the Phone Ghost.
A murder, an accident, and the extreme emotions born from two people together.
In the end, it was spread to the victim through the internet.
This is what modern… Urban Legend really is…
He lay on his back, powerless, on the dusty floor, feeling lucky for this final victory.
Qiao Yunxue lay down beside him too; in this moment, she seemed to forget they were lying with Corpse pieces.
“Shen Yao, weren’t you supposed to be unable to see me… how did you know I was nearby in the end?” she asked weakly.
“I can’t see you, and I don’t know where you are.” Shen Yao answered honestly.
“Then how did you…”
“Haven’t I said before… you have to believe in me, and I have to believe in you… At times like this, there can’t be any doubt.”
He said, “I trust you won’t abandon me, and I trust you can break through the monster’s spatial distortion.”
“What if I let you down?”
“Then… only our souls will return to the underworld.”
Qiao Yunxue was moved inside. She turned her head to look up at the ceiling, even though there was no moon there: “Don’t say things like that again next time…”
Shen Yao paused, realizing these words sounded familiar. Only now, their positions had been reversed.
“Still bleeding from your nose?” he asked.
“It’s stopped now… it bled a lot, kind of scary.”
“If your Inspiration hadn’t increased, you wouldn’t have been able to see the monster, let alone save me.”
“I guess it’s a blessing in disguise.”
A blessing in disguise?
Inspiration only comes to those in utter despair with life—the more pessimistic, the stronger it is. Qiao Yunxue’s Inspiration has grown stronger—can that really be a good thing?
No one could give them an answer, just as no one could judge whether what they did today was right or wrong.
He felt drowsy, his eyelids heavy. He wanted to say something more, to talk to Qiao Yunxue, but he had no strength left, and with that longing in his heart, he drifted off into sleep.
Qiao Yunxue turned to see that Shen Yao was asleep. The words she’d been holding in for so long stuck in her belly once more.
“Good night, Shen Yao. And… thank you.” She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Beneath the moon, in the warehouse, the boy and girl slept where they lay, along with three Suitcases packed with Corpse pieces.
Moonlight shimmered and danced, turning this absurdity into a long, quiet night.
Not far away, at the front desk, a Microphone was tossed carelessly onto the counter.
This time, there was no voice on the other end—only the endless, unreachable Mute Tone…
“Sorry, the number you dialed cannot be reached. Sorry, the number…”