"Sang Que, my dad locked me at home again. He just went out, and the key is in the usual spot. Can you come and help me?"
"Sure, I'm heading over now."
A summer night, just past eleven.
Sang Que put on some loose black sportswear, tied her hair into a simple high ponytail, said a word to her mom, grabbed her phone, and went out.
It had rained last night, and the air in the small town at the foot of the hill was cold and damp. There weren't many people or cars on the streets.
While waiting for the car, Sang Que looked up at the sky. The news mentioned a blood moon phenomenon tonight, and all sorts of strange tales and predictions were spreading online, causing quite a stir.
Unfortunately, the sky was overcast and nothing could be seen.
Finally hailing a taxi, Sang Que opened the car door, sat down in the back right seat, and gave the address.
The vehicle started slowly, heading towards the destination.
"Do you want me to bring you something to eat?"
Sang Que sent a message to Qin Lu, as the previous phone call had no sound.
Qin Lu replied saying that her dad had smashed her phone; the microphone might be broken. Although the screen was cracked, it was still barely usable.
Qin Lu was Sang Que's classmate, always at the top of the class, and Sang Que was well aware of her family situation.
Qin Lu's mother couldn't get a divorce and eventually left. Her father is an alcoholic, and when drunk, he would beat her and often lock her in the house, not allowing her to leave, fearing she might leave like her mother did.
It was early August, during summer vacation. Two days ago, there was a gathering of students from their first-year class, and Qin Lu didn't attend.
"No need, I'm not hungry."
"Pack your things up. We'll stay at a hotel tonight. Tomorrow, let's go find our class teacher for a solution. You can't go on like this."
No reply came from Qin Lu after the message was sent.
Sang Que had always advised Qin Lu to call the police, but Qin Lu refused. She wanted to endure until adulthood, until she got into college.
The taxi drove on the deserted road. Sang Que put down her phone and turned to look out the window. The neon lights of the small city were gaudy, giving a sense of the bygone 1980s.
The outside was silent and uninhabited, and the atmosphere inside the car was stagnant and cold.
Ding-dong~
A new message came in. Sang Que thought it was Qin Lu and opened it only to be surprised.
Story continuation? When did she join such a group?
Just about to delete it, a new message popped up in the group.
[The previous midnight knocking story seemed to have scared you. Today, I'll tell you a less terrifying one, about a midnight taxi.]
Sang Que frowned slightly, glancing at the front seat.
[The story begins with a high school student going out at night to a classmate's house, getting into a taxi. An ordinary night, an ordinary taxi, but the high school student didn't know…]
[In the trunk of the taxi, there's a corpse hidden!]
Sang Que's breath caught. She looked at the front, locking eyes through the rearview mirror with the slightly panicked middle-aged, plump driver, who quickly looked away.
[…it was a blooming young girl, like the high school student, dead from…]
The phone screen suddenly went dark. Sang Que's heart tightened as she hurriedly unlocked it again, only to find the group chat's records disappeared and couldn't be found even through search.
Sang Que's heart tightened, an inexplicable feeling that the car's temperature was dropping, making her hair stand on end.
She instinctively reached into her pants pocket, always carrying a fruit knife for protection when going out alone at night.
Sang Que's gaze couldn't help but move towards the back, glancing through the back window at the car's rear while holding her phone ready to text the police, her eyes scanning all around the car.
The car clearly had been freshly cleaned, very tidy, but the strong scent of cheap air freshener was now making her dizzy.
Sang Que immediately held her breath, turned on the audio of a short video, pretending to be relaxed, but had already prepared a text to report to the police, ready to send it anytime.
"Driver, it's kind of stuffy in here, could you roll down the window a bit?"
The driver glanced at Sang Que through the rearview mirror, paused for a few seconds, then cracked open the rear window.
A crack not big enough for her to jump out directly, at most just for an arm to stretch through. Why not open it all the way?
The moist cold earthy smell after the rain rushed in. Sang Que remained composed, continuing to hold her phone, pretending to browse short videos, but actually staying fully alert.
The less than ten-minute journey felt extraordinarily long. Sang Que thought of countless unexpected situations and countermeasures.
Finally, the taxi stopped outside an urban village.
A mournful operatic voice wafted over, accompanied by cries rising and falling, chilling to the bone.
A stage was set up at the dimly lit village entrance, paper money fluttered around, wreaths and paper banners were everywhere. A group of people clad in mourning attire was holding a funeral.
Despite this, Sang Que felt a sense of relief instead of fear, glad to have reached a crowd.
"Driver, how much?"
"Eight yuan."
Sang Que quickly scanned the code to pay, got out of the car, and ran briskly towards the stage, blending in with the crowd in mourning attire, pretending they were all her relatives.
When Sang Que looked back, the taxi was still there, as if a pair of eyes was peeking from within, thinking, hesitating…
Just like that, it took a full ten seconds before the taxi started again, leaving the entrance to the urban village.
Sang Que breathed a sigh of relief and quickly sent a message to Qin Lu.
"I've arrived at your village."
Sang Que quickly walked around the stage towards the inside of the village. The mournful operatic voice faded into the distance as most of the villagers gathered at the entrance to watch the opera. The houses were tightly shut, pitch-black and quiet.
The lampposts along the cement road were covered with various advertisements for obtaining certificates and men's health, and a few lights constantly flickered.
She'd been here several times, and no one ever fixed it.
Sang Que found Qin Lu's house. The double red iron gate was rusty and paint was peeling off. The cold wind rustled the ivy on the outer wall. A cat suddenly darted across the wall, startling Sang Que.
Skillfully finding the key beneath the flowerpot, Sang Que unlocked the door, pushed open a crack, and slipped through.
The entrance led to a courtyard, with the ground perpetually covered in a layer of black-red grime, sticky to step on. A pile of garbage was stacked in the corner, flies buzzing, and the air was filled with the stench of summer garbage left out for too long.
The yard was pitch-black, except for a small room to the right of the row of bungalows inside, with some light filtering through the window.
"Qin Lu—"
Sang Que called out, spotting a figure flit past the window.
Sang Que quickly walked to the door of the room. Sure enough, a bent section of rebar was stuck in the old door latch. She pulled it out and quickly yanked open the door.
The stench of decay hit her face, making her scalp tingle and her eyes widen in horror.
On the bed was a corpse that had been dead for some time!
Swollen and rotting, body fluids and blood seeped into the peeling, moist wall, leaving eerie tree-like patterns.
Amidst the mass of disturbed flies, those tree-like patterns writhing, contracting like veins.
The corpse held a phone with a shattered screen. On the desk by the window, the desk lamp's light began to flicker menacingly.
Sang Que broke into a cold sweat, followed by a gut-reaction nausea, covering her mouth nearly failing to hold it in.
Ding-dong~
The phone chimed, the 'story continuation' group appeared again!
[...the high school student remained guarded and restrained, not doing anything to trigger a certain death rule; she got out of the taxi safely, but upon arriving at her classmate's house, found the classmate had long been dead in bed, in a bizarre condition.]
[So, who was it that just sent messages to the high school student?]
The text on the phone made Sang Que's hair stand on end. A chill surged to her head. She clutched the amulet hanging around her neck, turned away, trembling, trying to call the police.
The call to the police hadn't even been made when a text message came from Qin Lu's phone.
"Where do you think you're going? Didn't you say you'd stay with me?"
In the darkness, a pair of decayed, swollen arms emerged, clinging to Sang Que's body, flies swarming, a massive network of tree-like blood vessels creeping up from her feet.
Biting cold enveloped her instantly. The icy chill mingled with the stench, whispering softly in her ear.
"Stay… don't leave!"
Bam!
The phone fell to the ground, the screen shattering like a spider web.
Clouds parted, a blood-red full moon hung high in the sky…
*
[Kind Reminder]
Some chapters in the text contain illustrations that are somewhat frightening. You can choose to turn them off. Contact customer service for details. Some like illustrations, some don't. It's better for everyone to turn them off themselves!
*
This is an [upgrading story], not a pure rule-based horror with no resolutions. There is an upgrading power system. The sense of horror will decrease as the protagonist's strength increases. It will transition from horror in the early stages to an [entertaining read] in the middle stages, and later develop into [agricultural development building a dynasty]. Please be informed!