As soon as Nan Zhi stepped into the company, she immediately felt a heavy atmosphere that was quite different from usual.
In the office, not a single person was working seriously. Everyone was huddled together in small groups, their expressions a mix of three parts fear, three parts curiosity, and four parts faint excitement.
Everyone was discussing something.
And they were being quite serious about it.
“Nan Zhi, Nan Zhi!”
Zhang Qiuyu was naturally among them.
Upon seeing Nan Zhi, she immediately pulled her over, eager to share what she had seen and heard with her work buddy.
“Do you know something big happened?!”
“Yawn—”
Nan Zhi’s eyes were heavy with sleep, and a hint of drowsiness still lingered on her face. “What is it? A financial crisis or company layoffs? Did the Loch Ness Monster come ashore, or did a volcano erupt in Japan?”
“Oh, none of that! Speaking of which, why are you so tired? Were you out on some secret mission last night?”
Zhang Qiuyu’s enthusiasm wasn't dampened in the slightest. She was almost dancing with excitement, unable to contain herself.
“I’m telling you, something huge has happened over the last two days!
Didn't someone from the advertising agency downstairs quit the day before yesterday? They said they saw a ghost, though some people didn't believe it at first.
Well, last night, the building security also saw a ghost!!”
At this point, Zhang Qiuyu took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.
“Last night, the building security was on their usual patrol when they found a bunch of burnt candles and paper money scattered all over the stairwell.
Curious, they followed the trail of candles upstairs, and then!!
They met a female ghost in ancient clothes on the twenty-seventh floor. She was burning paper money in the stairwell, and while she burned it, she kept calling out Chen Ping’s name.
The security captain was scared out of his wits, but he still braced himself to go and catch her. Then, in the blink of an eye, the woman vanished!!”
As she reached the most exciting part, Zhang Qiuyu slapped her thigh and repeatedly showed her phone screen to the people around her.
“A brave security guard filmed a video. The screenshots are spreading like crazy through the group chats!”
On the small phone screen, a somewhat blurry photo was enlarged several times.
The photo was taken from a low angle looking up.
In the dim, blurry stairwell, the emergency exit light was on, casting a ghastly green light on the floor and illuminating the paper money scattered everywhere.
The candlelight flickered like tiny beans, casting an eerie green glow. Several frantic flashlight beams converged, illuminating a particularly strange figure.
The woman in ancient dress had her hair gathered up. In one hand, she led a yellow chicken, and with the other, she scattered paper money. Her gloomy face was filled with a sinister aura.
“Chen Ping—”
“Chen Ping—”
“Chen Ping—”
The woman moved gracefully forward, scattering a handful of paper money with every call.
The candles went out one by one.
Paper money fluttered through the air.
The woman’s shrill voice echoed through the stairwell for a long time.
In the middle of the night, a woman.
Leading a yellow chicken, scattering yellow paper, and calling the name of someone who had died long ago.
It was utterly eerie.
Utterly oppressive.
“Holy crap... look at her feet!”
The camera shook. The person filming seemed to have discovered something, and the entire video was trembling.
The woman noticed the person filming and tilted her head slightly. Her pale, sickly face looked completely inhuman.
Her pitch black pupils, without a hint of white, rolled upward slightly. Slowly, very slowly, her mouth curled into a smile.
“Hee hee hee hee...”
Beneath her fluttering hem, a pair of embroidered shoes floated above the stairs.
The video came to an abrupt end.
Nan Zhi sucked in a breath of cold air.
The surrounding colleagues followed suit, gasping as well.
The colleagues gasped because even though it was just a video, they could still feel gusts of ghostly wind and a bone chilling cold.
Nan Zhi gasped because...
She never expected that under such tense circumstances yesterday, someone would actually remember to record a video!
She really had been a bit reckless yesterday.
Although wearing the 【Paper Skin Garment】 allowed her to take the form of the Painted Skin Ghost, Nan Zhi was still human at her core.
As a human, she could die.
If those security guards had been a bit braver and swarmed her, she would have had nowhere to run.
Fortunately, the 【Paper Skin Garment】 was effective enough, and with Chen Ping keeping watch for her, Nan Zhi had successfully left the building.
Chen Ping’s range of activity had also successfully expanded from the seventeenth floor to the entire building.
But one couldn't rely entirely on luck for everything.
Nan Zhi made up her mind to be cautious, cautious, and more cautious in the future.
“Damn! Is this video real or fake? Is there really a ghost in the building?”
“How could the video be fake? I heard that security guard quit this morning. He didn't even dare to ask for this month's salary.”
“Wait, didn't Chen Ping die by jumping off the building? Why did a female ghost show up?”
“This is hilarious. The advertising agency hired someone to catch the ghost, and they ended up bringing back another female ghost, haha.”
“I think it worked. The seventeenth floor isn't haunted anymore; it’s moved to the twenty-seventh floor.”
“True. In a way, that master is pretty skilled for driving the ghost to the twenty-seventh floor.”
“This woman might not necessarily be a ghost, right? What if it’s just a prank?”
“Didn't you notice? She has no shadow, and she’s floating on the stairs. How could that be a person?”
“Maybe it was a drone using wires? Or some other high tech?”
“Forget it. If someone really had that kind of technology, would they really use it just to play ghost?”
“Ugh, I’m getting goosebumps just watching this.”
Opinions varied, and the discussion was intense, with all sorts of theories being thrown around.
“Huh? Why was the video banned!”
Someone cried out in surprise, and the others quickly checked.
Sure enough, when they clicked on the video, only a line of black text remained in the center of the window:
【Sorry, the video you are viewing has been reported and removed for suspected dissemination of feudal superstition and false information. Let us work together to maintain a healthy internet environment.】
Although the video was deleted, the power of the internet was limitless.
The video spread through social media like a virus. Some people even went as far as analyzing the video frame by frame, trying to find traces of forgery.
The company’s main group chat was even more lively.
Clearly, no one was in the mood to work. Everyone was fully focused on the ghost rumors.
Over the next two days, supernatural incidents also occurred on the twenty-seventh floor, where Chen Ping’s former game company was located.
...
In just one night.
The glass outside the company was covered in blood palm prints.
All the computers were manually turned on. On every screen, the open documents contained only a single word:
“Injustice”
Chen Ping’s former workstation was smashed to pieces.
The mouse was crushed, and the keycaps on the keyboard had been removed one by one to spell out the name “Chen Ping” before being stuck to the stairwell entrance.
Everyone’s chairs were stacked one by one, all the way to the ceiling.
The company’s feng shui fish all floated belly up, and the money tree withered and died overnight.
What people found most hair raising was that the printer seemed to have caught a virus, as it kept spitting out funeral portraits of Chen Ping.
In the stark black and white photo, the genial fat man curled into a faint smile.
The owner of the game company almost lost his mind.
If people had previously treated the haunting on the seventeenth floor as idle gossip over tea...
Then now, even the most skeptical people were joining the discussion.
The haunting at the game company completely set off the “Hongxing Mansion is haunted” situation.
The name “Chen Ping” was being discussed more and more frequently online.
And some old history was being dug up and scrutinized by the gossip-hungry public.
Not enough.
It was far from enough.
Let the discussion become even more intense.
Let there be even more people arguing against it.
Nan Zhi browsed the messages in the company group, unable to stop herself from biting her knuckles. Wanniang’s method was very effective.
Paper money clears the path, a yellow chicken leads the way.
Not only could Chen Ping leave the seventeenth floor, but his range of activity had directly expanded to the entire building.
And after having consumed the offerings, Chen Ping seemed to be capable of even more.
As for Nan Zhi, she had done everything she could for now. As for the rest, it was in the hands of fate.
Rate on N.U.
