Free Web NovelChapter 339: Chapter 143: The Circle of Strange Tales
If one is willing to think carefully, they can perceive the uncanny amidst the calm.
Bai Wu and the announcer named Zhao Cuican, this time, were aligned through brain waves.
"Very interesting, thank you for leaving the tape. It’s crucial for me to find the next weird tale."
As clues flooded in, Bai Wu started to organize his thoughts up to this point.
"There’s a murderer on the fifth floor. That’s one of the weird tales. The tenant of 1-9 might have been killed by this murderer, but it’s also possible they were killed by that text message telling people to look up in some way."
"The tenant of 2-9 and a mother on the first floor both lost their loved ones, so there must still be a human trafficker. Zhao Cuican’s sister is eleven, and the missing girl is eight."
"Both of them haven’t left the apartment and are hiding somewhere in it. But no one has found their location."
"The tenant of apartment one also experienced something strange, that harassing text message with its weird content, telling him to look up at the night sky..."
"When I entered 1-9 and prepared to listen attentively for any noise from the fifth floor, I was ’greeted,’ and a note told me someone was watching me."
"The text corresponds with—I’m watching you. The TV corresponds with—I’m watching you."
"Why would Zhao Cuican be scared? Would a broadcaster of horror stories be frightened by a phone call from a friend? Only if there’s a chilling truth within those words."
"His friend said to him, ’But I’ve been watching you on TV for two days.’ Zhao Cuican was obviously recording shows in his own room, and it was a midnight radio broadcast, so how could it be on TV?"
Bai Wu looked at the television in Zhao Cuican’s home. The TV set was a dark void, as if it was a peering gaze. This gaze was sinister, and Bai Wu could even see the distorted reflection of himself and the room on the monitor.
At this very moment, all was silent. Bai Wu remembered the laughter he first heard in 1-9. Suddenly, he thought of something, just like Zhao Cuican’s reaction after he hung up the phone, and became alert.
A certain interpretation of a phrase kept echoing in his mind.
"But I’ve been watching you on TV for two days."
"But, I’ve been inside the television, watching you for two days."
He could imagine the fear that Zhao Cuican felt at that time, and it was at this moment that something even more terrifying happened.
The silent apartment building was suddenly ablaze with the light of all the televisions turning on!
They emitted a hissing sound, just like when a tape gets stuck, occasionally displaying programs from seven hundred years ago.
Countless TV stations flickered on and off; it seemed as if every television set was tuned to a different channel.
In the twelve rooms of the second floor, twelve TVs were all "acting up" at this moment.
Bai Wu didn’t know what was being shown on the other rooms’ TVs, but the one in 2-9 was playing many scenes involving Zhao Cuican in the apartment.
Many of his expressions and movements while recording the show were captured, since he was indeed recording in the comfort of his own home.
Sometimes he’d dress down very casually, wearing just briefs and with hair as messy as a bird’s nest, ready to start today’s program.
Occasionally, one could see Zhao Cuican wearing devices, simulating the start of the program, searching for inspiration for his horror stories.
Everything was so real, and the viewpoint was static.
The TV was like an observer, silently recording every action that Zhao Cuican made.
But who could it be?
If it’s the television, then smashing the TV would work, but Bai Wu was positive that it wasn’t just a simple television set.
In the fourteen-story apartment building, over a hundred televisions were all making noise, and the moment they made noise synchronized when both Bai Wu and Zhao Cuican came to the same interpretation of a certain phrase—
I’m inside the television, watching you.
I’m watching you.
Bai Wu stared at the TV as the note had already popped up.
[It’s no different from the TV you saw downstairs. What harm could a tiny TV have, right? Of course, featuring a living person crawling out as a traditional TV program, that’s not impossible either, but do you know which one it is?
Do you remember what I told you? With the arrival of new tenants, the weird tales’ carnival has already begun. If you can’t find them, they will grow stronger and stronger, until they can appear right in front of you, and by then, you might face the greatest danger in history.]
Now, Bai Wu completely understood.
If he couldn’t find the "true messages" of these weird tales, which are the exact sources affecting the mutation of the apartment, they would grow stronger with the entrance of living people.
This was also why Lin Rui sensed danger; his intuition must have picked up some strange rule of force.
And at this moment, Bai Wu also understood the true meaning of "seeing is believing, but not seeing doesn’t necessarily mean absence."
The key lies in believing. When he thought of the same interpretation that Zhao Cuican did, it meant he believed in a certain setting, thus the televisions started their frenzied agitation.
But the problem is, he merely believed in a certain weird tale, and had not found the source of the weird tale. If he couldn’t find the very first mutated television set, then "seeing is believing" would only deepen the atmosphere of fear here, all for nothing.
"I’m watching you," means watching you through the television—that must be an important strange tale as it knows many clues. Fourteen floors, with twelve TVs on each floor, which one is the real ’it’?"
Bai Wu took a deep breath, and as he calmed down, the volume of the televisions gradually decreased until, after several dozen seconds...quiet was restored.
They seemed to transform back into pitch-black pupils, silently observing the tenants in the room.
After pondering for a bit, Bai Wu concluded that Zhao Cuican was not an issue, and neither was the unnamed tenant on the first floor.
The two of them must have noticed something about the apartment, but they had no connection with the strange tales themselves; they were merely unwitting victims.
"I have no clues right now, the only lead being that several of the strange tales are interrelated. Right now, the fifth floor must be hiding a murderer, and I might be able to find clues about the other strange tales from it."
As he left the room, Bai Wu began to worry that he might have missed something.
This feeling was just intuition, so Bai Wu reviewed the clues one more time, only to find... nothing at all.
"Strange, it feels like I’ve missed a key piece of information. What could it be? Zhao Cuican and someone else have both lost family members, and there could be human traffickers here... but can anything else be gleaned from this?"
Bai Wu shook his head.
He had spent half an hour here without realizing it; at 5:30 PM, he received a text message.
"Have you had dinner? Look up at the stars."
"I’m watching you," I have already found you, so what does "you’re watching me" really mean?
If in "I’m watching you," "I" corresponds to the television and "you" is me, could "you" in this context mean the same?
It’s a bit confusing, but Bai Wu quickly sorted out the logic, which is why he found it odd:
"But I can’t see you..."
"Belief is one thing, but you need to have understood something before these strange tales reveal themselves, just as I had grasped the tale in the television and hence it began making noise quickly to confirm my conclusion."
"But if I don’t figure out the secret of this ’look up’ quickly, I might not be able to handle it when it comes for me."
But what on earth does looking up at the stars mean?
Unable to figure it out, Bai Wu shook his head and started towards the fifth floor.
He didn’t take the elevator but confirmed that it stopped on the fifth floor before continuing to take the stairs.
In the third floor’s silent interior, Bai Wu still checked out of habit.
[The peaceful third floor’s inhabitants have all been harmed by strange tales, but not many clues have been left behind. You might find a new tale, but you can find the same clues on the fifth floor, and surely you’ll want to look at the fourth floor too, right? Well, I’ll tell you now—don’t bother, because the fourth is the same as the third.]
That’s good, saving time and effort.
Bai Wu didn’t waste time inspecting the third and fourth floors, unsure how often the strange tales here would intensify; anyway, he needed to conserve time.
Soon, Bai Wu arrived on the fifth floor.
Stillness reigned, and as the televisions fell silent in unison, the whole apartment once again descended into deathly stillness.
This time Bai Wu didn’t enter any rooms but instead focused on sensing any disturbances—yet there was no response.
"It seems the time isn’t right; it appears the elevator numeral killer kills at a specific time. Maybe I’ll have to spend the night here tonight?"
This wasn’t a good thing.
This apartment would likely become even more dangerous at midnight. But Bai Wu had no choice; while night had yet to fall, he proceeded to observe the rooms.
As he looked through row after row, all he saw were victims.
The remarks were almost identical—
[They died because of strange tales, but their deaths were not without cause. Spectating and silence are also forms of complicity in evil.]
This statement seemed to hint at something, and Bai Wu recalled a saying.
When you see Fat Tiger hit Nobita, you only have two positions—
A: Support Nobita.
B: Support Fat Tiger.
C: Pretend nothing happened and pass by.
D: Denounce violence as wrong, blaming both sides.
Why are there four viewpoints but only two positions? Because the last three are in support of Fat Tiger.
"Silence and spectatorship are forms of complicity with the crime, akin to how the poor often adopt a falsely neutral stance to speak for the capital. Even the third and fourth kinds of people are more detestable than the second kind."
"Why does the apartment harm the tenants? Could it be that the tenants, because the matter didn’t concern them, failed to assist the earliest victim, leading that victim to become a strange tale under bizarre rules... and thus everyone who did not help them died?"
Bai Wu was gradually piecing things together.
So, who was the victim?
The one who made people look up?
Or the girl "disposed of" by human traffickers?
Or perhaps... the ghost story on TV?
Bai Wu’s footsteps were light, making no sound, yet as he suddenly thought of a possibility, his steps became heavy in an instant.
"There’s only one Guardian in any given area... this region should be the same. What if... all the possibilities mentioned above... are actually one and the same?"
This idea had no evidence to support it, but as Bai Wu thought of it, he felt as though a chill were creeping over him.
He arrived at room 5-12.
[This room at the end of the hall had a very thick wall. A family of four once lived here—father, mother, brother, sister. The sister was interesting; she had made a well-intentioned mistake.]
A well-intentioned mistake?
Bai Wu pushed open the door. Naturally, there was no one inside. The first thing he did was glance at the television.
Then, as if he saw an old friend:
"I know you’re watching me, but if you only want my life, you needn’t bother. After all, I’m not tasty; you should be able to feel that I don’t have any negative emotions. It’s like a piece of grilled meat with no seasoning. Why bother? However, I can help you let go of your obsessions. Liberation lasts a lifetime, but flavor is fleeting."
Evil Fallen was always craving human negative emotions but wanted even more to rid itself of internal grudges. Bai Wu attempted to communicate with the other party, but it was no use—his words had no effect.
The television showed no response.
He hadn’t held out hope anyway. He began to look for something akin to a diary.
This was a large three-room apartment.
The parents shared one room, the brother had his own room, and so did the sister. The dining room, living room, and kitchen were actually all one big space.
The brother’s room was plastered with posters of female celebrities, and Bai Wu could even find CDs with car plate etchings. But he didn’t search thoroughly; glancing at the wads of paper piled in the small wastebasket, along with adult magazines, Bai Wu lost interest.
But on second thought... something seemed off.
"Put yourself in their shoes; would a teenager going through puberty be so careless with hiding things?"
"At this age, kids start to explore things about the opposite sex, but they’re usually very careful to hide it. This seems too conspicuous. And in the Pre-Tower Era, not many would watch such magazines and CDs anymore, right?"
The notes provided no useful information—
[Stimulating stuff, but since this story doesn’t allow me to delve deeper into these things, just consider it premium content.]
Indeed, they were adult-oriented items; it was normal for a teenager to want to learn about these things. It was just a bit too... exposed.
Bai Wu set aside these doubts for now, deciding to first check the sister’s room.
Coming to the sister’s room, he found it weirder still.
There was a lock on the back of the door; everything was clean and tidy. But one glance, and the notes pointed out many spots where things were hidden.
Unlike the brother’s room where things were deliberately exposed, the sister seemed to be carefully hiding something.
"This sibling pair seems to have quite different temperaments."
The primary task, of course, was to peek at the diary. Bai Wu bowed to a doll and said:
"I’m also seeking the truth, not deliberately prying into your privacy. No offense, no offense."
He acted as if he truly believed the sister was still alive.
Then, with the help of Yan, the expert in finding diaries, Bai Wu found a diary in a secret compartment of a drawer. Not just a diary, there also was a small radio.
The contents of the diary were extensive.
Bai Wu noticed that for the most part, it recounted how the little girl detested her parents and brother.
They would often beat her.
It seemed to have no reason; they just felt like hitting her, and the brother always had some vulgar words to say.
This made Bai Wu feel a bit uncomfortable. Could this brother be just like Zhong Xu?
But although the parents would beat the girl, when the brother wanted to do something vulgar and even more inappropriate, the parents would stop him.
The diary wrote it like this:
"My brother always likes to touch me, saying it’s just the etiquette between siblings. I don’t dare to resist, because I’m afraid he’ll pull my hair and hit me like he did last time."
"So I always deliberately break some things to get mom and dad’s attention. Although they often beat me too, they don’t like my brother touching me."
"I want to talk to the big brother on the radio and say, I don’t like my brother, and I don’t like mom and dad either. But he can’t hear me, all I can hear are those ghost stories he tells. I don’t find them scary at all, because in the stories, the ghosts always punish the bad people. I wish there were ghosts in this world..."
A strange diary.
But what was stranger came later.
Bai Wu quickly turned to this entry in the diary.
"Mom and dad said the elevator stopped on the fifth floor. Could another household have had a death? They seemed very scared."
It was short, just two lines that concluded a day. However, the next day’s diary entry suddenly turned eerie:
"That man knocked on our door again yesterday. Mom, dad, and brother were all out discussing business. They told me not to open the door for strangers, but he told me he could grant my wish."
"My wish is for a ghost to kill my mom, dad, and brother. I told him, ’If you can kill my mom, dad and brother, I’ll open the door for you.’"
"He told me they were all dead, that I no longer have a mom, dad, or brother."
The elevator murderer?
Bai Wu immediately thought of this family of four, where the parents weren’t good to their daughter, favoring the son, and the brother also harbored wicked thoughts toward his sister.
The sister lived in such a family, seemingly very frightened. She wanted her own family dead.
So it just so happened that she encountered the elevator murderer, one of the urban legends. She initiated a request, and the elevator murderer cleanly disposed of her family.
That seemed to be the whole story.
But the eerie parts were yet to come, in the diary entries of the following day, where Bai Wu saw a shocking twist.
"Mom, dad, and brother seemed a bit scared and were planning to leave. I was so angry; he lied to me. They are not dead at all! They are very much alive!"
The diary abruptly ended there, as if it was just a case of a young girl being tricked.
Beyond that, the diary pages were all blank.
Bai Wu always felt that this story was a bit strange. It seemed ordinary, yet something was off. As he looked at those blank pages, a remark suddenly popped up:
[The little girl committed suicide. Isn’t that surprising? But think about it, what if that man didn’t lie to her?]
That sentence almost made Bai Wu’s fingertips tremble. It was not fear but pure astonishment.
"The little girl committed suicide? Why?" freёwebnovel.com
"If that man didn’t lie to her... If the elevator demon really fulfilled the little girl’s wish and killed her mom, dad, and brother... then why did the little girl still see her mom, dad, and brother?"
Bai Wu’s eyes widened, and an answer suddenly jumped out at him:
"What if the people in that house... weren’t her real mom, dad, and brother at all?"
"They weren’t favoring the son over the daughter... it’s that this daughter wasn’t their daughter at all!"
The little girl made a wish to the demon, hoping it would kill her mom, dad, and brother. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
The demon agreed to the little girl’s request.
The very next day, she found that her mom, dad, and brother were all still there, yet the demon claimed it had already granted her wish.
Either the demon lied, or... the little girl’s real mom, dad, and brother had been killed by her wish.
And the people she was living with under one roof... were not her family!
Human traffickers! Bai Wu immediately thought of this possibility.
Was this the gathering place of human traffickers, one of the urban legends?
But how did the little girl come to know that her real mom, dad, and brother had been killed?
"The little girl’s suicide... could it become one of the urban legends? I always thought human traffickers were an urban legend, but is it possible I’m wrong, that it’s not the traffickers that are the legends, but the girls they traffic?"
At last, Bai Wu’s gaze fell on the radio. Among the six urban legends, he knew about the elevator murderer. All that was left was to wait for the latter to show up and deal with them.
That was certain. But there was one uncertainty: the legend hiding inside a television set, and which exact set was yet to be discovered.
Belief makes it real. Only by finding enough truth and piecing everything together can the legends truly reveal themselves, otherwise, they will hide in the shadows and grow stronger.
Now, the reasons behind the little girl’s suicide were evidently in this radio. Bai Wu stared at the radio:
"I’ve already found one of the urban legends. I hope you can lead me to another."
