When they arrived at the 7th floor and light shone on them, the 3 guards all sighed in relief. When one patrolled inside the Ziggurat, one had to pay extra attention to the even numbered floors, there were too many things hiding in the dark.
“Brother Hwa, when you dropped that child home, did the mother say anything?” Han Fei had a feeling it was not the mother’s child that Brother Hwa had sent ‘home’.
“She thanked me profusely.”
“That’s all?”
“What else do you expect? And that is our job anyway.” Brother Hwa was very humble. He wanted to be a good guard and tried his best to protect the tenants. Standing underneath the camera on the 7th floor, Brother Hwa waved at it and then led Xiao Fang and Han Fei to check all the fire security devices. After ensuring everything was fine, they headed up to the 8th floor. They were about to abandon the light and head into darkness but it was inevitable. Taking the step one by one, at the landing between 7th and 8th floor, the voice-activated lights on the 7th floor suddenly snuffed out. Han Fei took up the rear of the team and darkness immediately claimed him. He felt a strange chill run back his spine. Han Fei turned to look back and there was a woman covered in blood standing basically right behind him! Her red dress draped down the staircase, like she was dragging a red hell with her!
The icy fingers reached for the crook of Han Fei’s arm, where he placed the red dress. If Han Fei was one second slower, he might be dragged down the stairs by the woman. He screamed and all the lights on the 7th floor came on at once, chasing the woman away.
“Brother! Why did you do that? You almost made me pee in my pants.” Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang jumped when they heard Han Fei scream and they immediately turned around. Han Fei stood frozen at the corner. He was so close to death and his heart couldn’t stop racing. But even during that scary moment, he didn’t forget to observe all the clues, that was already part of his instinct. ‘The red dress woman is a Large Lingering Spirit! Her gown was long enough to cover 2 entire floors!’ Without the aid of his neighbours, Han Fei definitely couldn’t take on such a powerful adversary. ‘I’ve just entered Ziggurat and this is only Building 1…”
He tried to calm down and bring up the red dress woman’s face again. He realized that the woman looked different from the woman who tried to push him down the window in Room 1044. There were many ghosts in Room 1044 and the red dress woman was the scariest one among them and she was the only one who could leave the room freely.
“Hey, are you alright?” Brother Hwa and Xiao Fang were worried about Han Fei. Seeing Han Fei standing there all frozen, they hurried to his side to guard beside him.
“That red dress just reappeared. When the lights went out just now, she was there behind me.” Han Fei’s face was pale.
“How about… we put the dress back in Room 1044?”
“It’s too troublesome to go back now, plus we’ve already gotten so far.” Han Fei’s arm that held the red dress was numb. His skin was cold like it was frostbitten. With Han Fei’s insistence, the trio reached the 8th floor. Just as they reached this floor, Han Fei heard singing. He was so sensitive to a tune that the moment he heard the song, he blocked the red dress before him like a shield.
“Don’t worry, there’s a livestreamer living on this floor. She’s often online at night. I’ll go talk to her about it.” Brother Hwa knew the tenants well. He pushed open the safety door and walked down the dark corridor. Han Fei wanted to call him back, he didn’t want to risk too much trouble. “All the problems seem to come from the even-numbered floor, we should probably leave as soon as possible.” Han Fei followed closely behind Brother Hwa. The closer they came to Room 1084, the louder the singing was.
“Tsk. It’s already 3 am and she’s still making so much noise. When will she learn her lesson?” Brother Hwa pressed on the bell for Room 1084. No one answered. Probably because the music was so loud that the owner herself didn’t hear the doorbell. Brother Hwa then proceeded to knock on the door. Several seconds later, the door finally opened to reveal a cute girl. “I’m sorry. How can I help you?” She was the one at fault but she sounded so wronged and afraid like the guards were bullying her.
“It’s already 3.40 am. Even if you don’t need to sleep, others need to. There are students preparing for exam in this building, you can’t keep doing this!” Brother Hwa warned sternly, “It’s not that we are forbidding you from livestreaming but you have to be conscious about the volume.” To push the point home, Xiao Fang purposely darkened his face and said in a sinister voice. “The situation is very uneasy at the building now. Something unsightly has entered the place. If you keep raising the volume, you might attract those things.”
“You mean ghosts?!” When she heard Xiao Fang, the girl appeared even more excited.
Brother Hwa turned to glare at Xiao Fang, “The reason she moved here is to capture the supernatural on her livestream.”
“What? Is she serious? She’s risking her life just for money and popularity?” Xiao Fang took a second gander at the girl. She was cute and small, the kind people wanted to protect. She looked soft and weak but she had a brave heart that belied her appearance.
“He’s not totally right. I didn’t do this to run into ghosts, I’m just curious about them. By the way, I heard that a livestreamer once died here as well. No one dared to move into her former room and so it was remodelled into the guard room.” The girl leaned against the door and revealed this little nugget of information.
“The original owner of Room 1044 was a livestreamer too?” Han Fei’s interest was piqued.
“Aren’t you a guard here? Shouldn’t you already know about that?” The girl was shocked. “She was a very nice girl but she was afflicted by a deadly disease. During the last period of her life, she tried her best to accept treatment and live out her best life. To send positive vibes to others in the same situation and to bring hope to others in the dark, she started to record her limited life through livestreaming, to share her goodness with the world.”
“Well, she sounds wonderful.” Han Fei held the red dress and with the real person present, started to discuss the past livestreamer with the girl.
“At the start, only her doctors, friends and other patients logged into her livestream but perhaps due to her beauty, kindness and personality, she gained more and more followers. However, from who knew when, some negative voices appeared in her comments section. Some suspected her of faking her illness because how could someone who was dying be so positive and beautiful? Those people forced her to show her diagnosis paper, to prove that her claim was valid.
“At first, she tried to reason with them but eventually things started to develop in an unexpected direction. Someone started a rumor that she was a kept woman and the money she used for treatments was provided by some big businessman. The woman’s father reported the harassment to the police and the person who first spread the rumor was caught and detained for a day. He released a public apology but it was already too late.
“Whenever she came live, people would come to harass her.
“If she went to the hospital that day, they would say she was wasting her parents’ money on a dying person; if she splurged occasionally on, like a glass of milk tea, they would say she was not taking care of her health and ignoring her doctor’s advice; when she finally lost her temper, they captured it and posted them elsewhere, ‘exposing’ her; When she cried from the pressure, people said she was making money out of people’s pity.
“Those people never really wanted any proof, they just like the fun of bullying people. They tried their best to ruin her life, because perhaps there is a devil in all of us. And the internet provided the best anonymity to unleash them.
“There were always 2 batches of people arguing in her chat but she was always the one who got hurt in the end. They demanded for her death; even when she showed the hospital papers, they claimed she had falsified them. It was a dark moment in her life, the whole world was covered in thorns and she’d be hurt no matter where she went.
“But different from her virtual life, people cared about her in real life. Her doctors, her family, her friend, they were her source of comfort, but one day, she found a note slipped through her door. It contained some disgusting comments, they insulted and threatened her. That was just the start, the harassment continued.
“The pain from the internet leaked into real life. She was trapped inside a cage made from hatred and she found difficulty even breathing. The police were brought in again but she failed to wait until the investigation result came out.” The girl said with regret. “She ultimately didn’t die from her illness but she gave up on her own life.”
“Have the police eventually caught the culprit behind the harassment?” Han Fei was more concerned about that.
“They did, it was a deliveryman who often delivered to this building. He was her fervent watcher and followed her in both her real and virtual lives.”
“A deliveryman?” Han Fei was immediately reminded of the delivery monster on the 1st floor. That could provide a way for Han Fei to lighten the woman’s hostility towards him.
“I don’t know much of the details. The reason I moved here is because I want to get to know the whole truth.” The girl smiled. “If there have been strange occurrences recently, I believe it’s because she’s back.”
