The Haunted Game Designer

When Gao Ming said he wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with the deceased, both the investigator and Teacher Yao thought they had misheard.

The deceased, who had jumped to his death three days ago, returned to his body with shattered bones and twisted limbs, slaughtering an entire building of neighbors in the video. Now, Gao Ming wanted to chat with him—something that would shock the entire psychological counseling circle.

"Are you crazy?" The investigator poked Gao Ming's arm with his finger, feeling the warmth of a living person. "You don't seem to have been replaced by a ghost, so why are you acting weirder than those monsters who have been?"

People replaced by unknown entities would try hard to hide themselves to avoid detection, but Gao Ming wasn't even pretending—his frankness made his own "teammates" feel scared.

"A truly brutal ghost would come straight to your door to kill you. Why would it bother scaring you through a video? As a psychological counselor with many years of experience, I think this is more like Zhao Xi asking us for help. He hates himself, can't escape his predicament, and is unable to change his situation." Gao Ming didn't tell the investigator the real reason.

In the game The Only Family, the phone wove a happy and warm family environment for the protagonist. However, the protagonist himself was lazy, gloomy, and selfish. The scenes fabricated by the phone were things he could never truly have.

Zhao Xi's situation was the exact opposite. His phone conjured terrifying, gruesome videos, but in life, he had been simple, hardworking, and grateful to his adoptive mother. By the same logic, before Zhao Xi completely lost himself, he shouldn't have been capable of the things shown in the fabricated videos.

"Urban legend games are merging with reality. If I don't actively trigger the legend, and it continues to grow and spread, the tragedies in the phone videos might really happen."

Gao Ming led the investigator and Teacher Yao into Room 2607. "Zhao Xi will climb up here soon. I need you two to help me with something."

"What is it?" Teacher Yao carried a toolbox. "I'm terminally ill and won't live long anyway. If you need anything, just say it."

"Tear the bedsheets into strips, twist them into ropes, and lower them down from the balcony window." Gao Ming ran into the bedroom, already taking action. "You two stay in 2607. I'll go to 2507 to wait for Zhao Xi. I'll stand on the balcony and have a good chat with him."

"Ghosts in anomalous events have no emotions. What you're doing is suicide!" The investigator, though frightening in appearance, had a kind heart. He admired Gao Ming's courage but feared for his safety.

"I'll be at the window. If persuasion fails, you two pull me up with the rope." Gao Ming tore the bedsheets with practiced skill, quickly making the rope.

"Why don't I go to 2507 instead?" Teacher Yao unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the pulsing veins across his chest and abdomen—a terrifying sight. "I've lived long enough. You're still young."

"I'm a licensed psychological counselor. Leave the professional work to the professionals." Gao Ming actually had another plan. To trigger the game's good ending, Zhao Xi had to destroy his phone with his own hands—a symbolic act of breaking free from his self-imposed prison.

Controlling a ghost with a living person was nearly impossible through normal means, so Gao Ming came up with a crazy idea.

When Zhao Xi killed Huang Mingming, he chose to jump off the building with him. Gao Ming planned to "try" the same method.

Once the rope was ready and lowered from the balcony, Gao Ming confirmed everything was in place and left Room 2607 alone.

He opened the door to Room 2507 but didn't go in right away.

The sound of flesh crawling echoed from downstairs, flashing gruesome images in his mind. Twisted limbs were getting closer to the fifth floor.

"Pretty nervous, huh?"

He took out a lighter, the flickering flame dispelling the darkness. Lighting a cigarette, he sat on the stairway steps.

The corpse that had fallen to the ground crawled up the cold stairs, the dead soul inching closer to the living.

Listening to the grinding of bones against the floor, Gao Ming fixed his gaze on the stairwell corner.

"Dad and Mom have everything, with something new every night; colleagues are shrewd and capable, able to kill eight people in three days; and now the warm, simple neighbors are here too. This life looks pretty complete at first glance."

Blood-soaked hair clung to the floor as Zhao Xi's shattered face slowly appeared between the fourth and fifth floors.

"You're here?"

Unlike Xiao Qiu, who chose to flee, or Huang Mingming, who went berserk, Gao Ming neither ran nor attacked. In his eyes, Zhao Xi still seemed like the same honest Brother Zhao from before.

"Welcome home."

Rising to his feet, Gao Ming walked toward Room 2507, unlocking the door for Zhao Xi. As he stepped inside, he casually flipped on the living room light switch.

"Brother Zhao, I used to chat with you often during my time off. My biggest regret now is thinking that I could wait until I was less busy to truly help you."

Gao Ming walked ahead, while a twisted, broken corpse slowly crawled toward him.

"Your adoptive mother gave all her love to her biological son. Your sister-in-law saw you only as a tool to make money. The neighbors gossiped behind your back. The factory workers in the harbor district deliberately made things difficult for you. They took advantage of your honesty, framing you and accusing you of theft."

Looking toward the living room mirror, Gao Ming recalled noticing it the moment he entered the game. The full-length mirror reflected an inverted world.

"You tried your best to appear optimistic and strong, yet deep inside, you were consumed by pain. You were the pillar of your family, yet no one truly cared about your feelings. You often told me about the little joys in life, but in reality, you were living miserably. The world you longed for had been flipped upside down. You worked hard to change it, but the more you struggled, the deeper your despair became."

Zhao Xi's head twisted unnaturally as his broken neck rotated 180 degrees. Though he was lying on the floor, his face was now staring directly at Gao Ming.

Fear is the most primal human emotion. Gao Ming's body trembled slightly, his nails digging into his flesh. Yet his voice remained calm:

"You did nothing wrong. At its core, all your suffering was forced upon you by others. I have no right to judge you from an outsider's perspective, nor will I try to convince you to abandon revenge. I only hope that, even just for a moment, you can feel a little happier. Kind people deserve happiness—you deserve a family that truly understands you."

Gao Ming took a step back, mentally bracing himself. Yet, even with all his preparation, facing Zhao Xi's broken corpse up close filled him with indescribable terror. He felt weak.

His back pressed against the balcony window. Lightning flashed, casting a stark white glow over both him and Zhao Xi.

Taking a deep breath, Gao Ming spoke with absolute sincerity:

"You don't want to be abandoned anymore. You long for a home. Then why not let me be your family?"

Thunder roared, rain pounded against the window glass. In Room 2607, the investigator and Teacher Yao clung tightly to a rope. They faintly heard Gao Ming's words and exchanged stunned glances, shock evident on their faces.

Bloodstains on Zhao Xi's clothes trailed a long, smeared mark across the living room floor. He was nearly at the balcony now, his face directly in front of Gao Ming.

"I'm not lying to you just to save myself, nor am I making up an excuse to escape. I've talked to you so many times—I know exactly what kind of person you are. That's why I sincerely want to help you."

Gao Ming took out Zhao Xi's phone, tapping on a video stored inside.

"Whether it's preserving the beautiful moments of life or making those neighbors pay for what they've done, I can help you achieve it. The things on this phone are just illusions, but we can change reality with our own hands!"

This time, Gao Ming didn't retreat. Instead, he stepped forward and extended his hand.

"Be my family, and I'll be your accomplice."

That single sentence made Zhao Xi stop crawling for the first time. It was the first time he ever stopped.

A few seconds later, Zhao Xi's twisted arm lifted, his bones stretching unnaturally, producing a piercing, grating sound that echoed through Room 2507.

Faced with such a horrifying sight, Gao Ming didn't flinch. Beneath the fear in his eyes, there was also a flicker of expectation.

Zhao Xi's wounded hand reached for Gao Ming, but instead of grasping his hand, it covered his entire arm.

Feeling the unnatural movement spreading across his arm, Gao Ming sighed softly. Zhao Xi seemed to have lost all emotion. He was now controlling Gao Ming's body, attempting to push him out of the window.

With a sickening crunch, Zhao Xi's corpse opened up like a gaping maw, forcing Gao Ming to scramble backward onto the windowsill.

"Climb up, now!" Teacher Yao and the investigator shouted desperately. The rope swayed wildly in the storm.

"Wait a little longer."

Gao Ming wrapped the rope tightly around his wrist. Gritting his teeth, he fought through a fear beyond human comprehension and stared directly at Zhao Xi's grotesquely "opened" corpse.

No one had ever understood Zhao Xi. So, in return, Zhao Xi had wrapped the neighbors in his suffering, making them die the same way he had.

The corpse pressed down on Gao Ming, pushing his weight backward. At that moment, Gao Ming shoved Zhao Xi's phone into the gaping wound in his body.

"Hurry! Pull him up!"

Zhao Xi's face was mere inches away. Gao Ming could see the pain, sadness, and numbness in his eyes.

The decaying flesh continued to coil around Gao Ming, as if Zhao Xi wanted to drag him down together. Their bodies tipped toward the window.

The storm drenched their hair and clothes. In that final moment, just as he began to fall backward, Gao Ming, who had never once struggled, used all his strength—

—to push Zhao Xi back into the room!

The impact knocked the phone loose from Zhao Xi's wound.

The tragedy had been rewritten in a different way—Zhao Xi remained inside, while his eyes followed Gao Ming as he fell into the storm.

"Hold on to him!"

"Shit!"

Teacher Yao and the investigator used every ounce of strength they had to yank the rope. Gao Ming's body slammed into the wall between the fourth and fifth floors. His arm twisted at an unnatural angle, his face was scraped open, and blood flowed freely—

Yet he didn't seem to feel any pain.

(End of Chapter)

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