Starting with dissecting ghost stories

Saturday morning, May 22nd.

Shen Xing got out of bed and glanced at the alarm clock beside him.

11: 30.

Is it already almost noon?

Last night, Shen Xing's physical weakness made it difficult for him to maintain his previous biological clock, but there was nothing he could do about it.

However, if there's anything I need to do today, I have to get on with it quickly.

Today is a rare day off. Apart from having to go to the school clinic before 5 o'clock, there's nothing else to do.

Today is a good day to think about and plan what needs to be done next—especially regarding Wang Xinran's situation.

In addition, the original plans that were taken up by yesterday's date can be moved to today.

That means going to an internet cafe and checking out the latest news on forums.

After washing up, Shen Xing picked up his phone, replaced the battery with a fully charged one, and two text messages popped up.

One message was from Wang Xinran, which said something like she had a great time last night and was looking forward to going out again next time.

The other one was from Shen Yuan, who said she went out to the bookstore to look at comics and that she had left him lunch.

After replying to both messages, Shen Xing had some doubts in his mind.

lunch?

Shen Xing opened the door and went out, taking a sniff.

There was no burnt smell.

When he got to the table, he saw a KFC meal on it, which was still warm to the touch.

Shen Xing was naturally suspicious. He went to the kitchen, where nothing seemed to have changed except that the garbage bags in the trash can had been replaced with white KFC takeout bags, and the refrigerator was filled with more food.

It's necessary to put a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, and also teach Shen Yuan how to use it.

Shen Xing ate the KFC left by Shen Yuan. For a lunch, KFC was a bit too luxurious, and unsurprisingly, he wasn't full.

He wasn't too worried that Shen Yuan wouldn't have enough pocket money; compared to other children her age, Shen Yuan already had a lot of pocket money.

He always gave her extra money for meals, and he knew that his sister had saved a lot on her own.

After tidying up his desk, Shen Xing changed into his outdoor clothes.

He didn't take a satchel; it wasn't good to carry those things around. He could just come back and get it when he needed to go to the school clinic.

The place Shen Xing was about to go was an internet cafe located in the only large shopping mall in the small town.

Shen Xing took his ID card, went downstairs, got on his bicycle, and went out. Around noon, he arrived at the internet cafe.

He opened a card with his ID card and recharged it with ten yuan. Internet access here costs one yuan per hour, so ten yuan would be enough for Shen Xing for a long time.

Shen Xing found a relatively clean spot to sit down. After sitting down, he saw the black keyboard covered in cigarette ash and the gray mouse that looked as shiny as if it were coated with an oil film.

He took a deep breath, endured the discomfort, and pressed the power button. The computer case emitted a dull sound.

The screen lit up, and after the boot-up time had passed, a vast green grassland appeared on Shen Xing's screen.

He gripped the mouse, opened the browser, and the webpage loaded very slowly, with the progress bar at the bottom advancing slowly, one segment at a time.

After opening the Tianya website, Shen Xing found the Lianpeng Ghost Stories section. After clicking in, a screen full of bold black text appeared.

Shen Xing glanced at the headlines.

The front row was mostly filled with posts about spirit communication games. It seems that these live-streaming posts are quite popular lately. They were mostly first-person novels, and Shen Xing just glanced at them and skipped over them.

He focused more on words and keywords such as "noise," "disappearance," and "blur."

Among a plethora of supernatural novels and urban paranormal events from other regions, Shen Xing finally stumbled upon a post that seemed somewhat interesting.

The post's title was simple: [True Experience] My wife disappeared, and my family thinks I've gone crazy.

The content of the post was also very simple. The poster didn't seem to know how to use punctuation. The post was a pure text post without any punctuation marks. When a space was needed, a space was just typed, making it extremely difficult to read.

The post was also boring, sounding like a middle-aged man's complaint.

Just as the post title describes, his wife vanished into thin air.

He searched through almost all the photos and letters in his house, and went to every place he had ever been to inquire, but the answer he received was always the same—he had never had a wife.

His parents scolded him for not finding a wife at over thirty years old, his relatives also criticized him, and even his colleagues at work looked at him strangely when he asked them questions.

I'm certain she really existed. Whenever I close my eyes and fall asleep, I can recall some vague memories of her.

[Let me have a smoke and I'll talk later]

Shen Xing checked the posting time; it was about five or six hours ago. But the man's post didn't seem to mean anything; it was like a sexually repressed middle-aged man fantasizing about having a gentle and beautiful wife.

The reply below only has one lone "first comment".

Shen Xing rolled the pulley and saw the poster's personal information.

楼主：唯物主义者唐卡时间：2004-5-22 07:00:41

With 377 logins, 0 followers, and 0 fans, Shen Xing casually clicked "follow" before continuing to browse other posts.

After browsing for about an hour, Shen Xing identified three posts that seemed to be haunted by unusual creatures. Then, in his following list, he found the account of the materialist Tangka again and clicked on that post.

The original poster remained silent, and no one replied to the thread, so it looked like the post was about to sink.

After thinking for a moment, Shen Xing replied to the post directly.

Law-abiding citizen Li Si: [Bro, haven't you finished smoking yet? Waiting for the next update.]

After a while, Shen Xing refreshed the website page. The other party had replied, apparently having been sitting in front of the computer the whole time. This time, they even included punctuation marks.

Materialist Thangka: [Brother, do you believe this?]

Law-abiding citizen Li Si: [I believe her. When did she disappear?]

Materialist Thangka: [It was probably four or five years ago... I don't remember the exact time, but since then, there's always been an empty space next to me in my photos! Do you believe I still have a marriage certificate? But it only has my name on it! I almost got reported to the police for having a fake certificate at the Civil Affairs Bureau!]

Four or five years ago? That must have been when I had just graduated or was working as a trainee forensic doctor in the provincial department.

Shen Xing was still refreshing the page. The other party seemed to be very agitated, sending a long message every few minutes, explaining everything that had been discovered to be illogical.

Just as he was about to reply, he saw the last message and stopped.

Materialist Thangka: [The police called me, I'll talk to them later, bro.]

Shen Xing withdrew his hand from the keyboard and calmly gazed at the last paragraph.

After the post was bumped back up, the police called the materialist Tangka.

Did Lu Lingyun specifically send people to keep an eye on sections like "Lotus Pond Ghost Stories"? When did he start doing that?

Once the state apparatus is in operation, its efficiency is indeed much higher than that of Shen Xing acting alone...

wrong.

Four or five years ago, when I first became a forensic doctor, I also hid the abnormalities that had occurred to my adoptive father.

Did the mutation begin around that time?

Why did Lu Lingyun only recently become officially involved in the abnormal events? Judging from the fact that he invited me, if he had started investigating the anomalies back then, he would definitely have included me.

Was it just a small-scale outbreak back then? Now it's a large-scale outbreak.

Or... what happened in between that made the investigation impossible to continue?

Since I joined the provincial department, I have never heard of any unusual investigations... nor have I encountered any similar cases.

Shen Xing stared blankly at the screen in front of him, his thoughts wandering as he pondered the connections between the elements.