Chapter 115: “Don’t Look at the Pores.”
Chapter 115: “Don’t Look at the Pores.”
Chapter 115: "Don't Look Through the Gaps."
Once the game scenario officially began, the other players were also interacting with their live chat.
「Streamer, hurry up and explore the urban legends!」
「Exactly! It’s so boring when nothing happens.」
「Heh, I’ve watched a few streams before—this city has plenty of interesting urban legends~」
「Looking forward to the streamer’s discoveries.」
Yu Yin shifted her gaze away from the flood of chat messages, feeling not an ounce of goodwill toward these viewers who spoke without bearing any consequences.
But the game scenario’s "popularity competition" mechanic forced players to cater to the audience’s demands. Most viewers didn’t care about the streamer’s survival; some even harbored ill intentions, only concerned with whether the stream would deliver enough thrills and novelty...
“Forcing players to push their luck,” Yu Yin sneered inwardly. “Truly befitting an A+ difficulty level—such malice toward players.”
She stood up and turned on the light, scanning the room.
It was a small apartment—just a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom, typical for a single occupant.
Yu Yin searched the apartment but found nothing unusual. The only thing that stood out as strange was the floor mirror she had faced upon entering the game scenario—its frame was still wrapped in white bubble wrap, untouched, standing out starkly against the other worn-out furniture.
“‘I’ specifically bought a new mirror, didn’t place it in the bedroom, but instead positioned it at the center of the living room? Fine, but why did ‘I’ even move a chair in front of it… What kind of normal person sits facing a mirror? Isn’t that creepy?”
Yu Yin suspected the mirror’s purpose wasn’t as simple as furnishing the apartment—it seemed more like it was meant for some kind of ritual.
Beyond that, she also found the original occupant’s identification documents.
To enhance immersion, the system automatically replaced the original occupant’s name and face with the player’s.
Thus, Yu Yin saw her own face in various ID photos and group pictures, lips curved in a grin that looked nothing like her, arms intimately linked with strangers.
“Tch, the system’s still not smart enough. These photos are so OOC (out of character).”
After muttering her complaint, Yu Yin read the original occupant’s details aloud for the audience: “Original occupant is 23, a junior at the Chinese University of Guiyin, renting an apartment alone near campus.”
Casually flipping through certificates and awards on-screen, she remarked, “Looks like a good student, often participates in volunteer work…”
Comments:
「So? How is this relevant to the game scenario?」
「Streamer, stop wasting time and find some useful clues!」
「So boring. When are we getting an urban legend? I wanna see the streamer struggle for survival.」
“Hold on, I’m looking…” Yu Yin brushed them off, then suddenly paused at one certificate, eyes lighting up. “Wait, what’s this?”
It was a university club application form. The proposed club name was “Urban Supernatural Legends Sharing Society,” established about a year ago, with an official red stamp from the university’s club management center in the bottom right corner.
“This club screams 'daredevil club'—the kind of place where horror movie scenarios happen. Could the original occupant’s weird mirror behavior be related to it?”
“No idea how many members there are. Could all twenty players have been assigned identities as club members?”
Just then, the doorbell rang, cutting off her thoughts.
Yu Yin immediately tensed. Amid the barrage of impatient comments, she made sure to step quietly and edged toward the door.
When no one answered, the doorbell rang again—shrill, insistent ringing echoing through the hallway, each chime more urgent than the last, as if the visitor outside was growing increasingly impatient and agitated.
Holding her breath, Yu Yin pressed her eye to the peephole, cautiously observing the scene outside.
In the dim, motion-sensor hallway light, a gray-white figure flickered in and out of view.
The figure had no hair, no clothes, and no discernible facial features or organs—just a thin, naked upper body and an oval head, vaguely human-shaped.
Its surface wasn’t the healthy hue of natural skin, nor the pallor of the terminally ill, but closer to the dull gray of set concrete, like a half-finished sculpture from a bad sculptor.
The gray-white figure warped further in the tiny peephole, stretched and distorted as if a shadow cast by light had gained substance, crawled out from its flat plane, and now stood at the door, mimicking a human ringing the bell.
The moment Yu Yin pressed her eye to the peephole, her pupils narrowed as she scrutinized the figure—only for it to abruptly lift its head, its blank, featureless face turning directly toward the peephole.
It had no eyes, but in that instant, Yu Yin felt a gut feeling: it was staring back at her.
It was also… gazing at her through the peephole.
*Ding dong.* A system notification appeared:
*「Congratulations, player. You’ve unlocked the urban legend—“Don’t Look Through the Gaps.”」*
*「Good luck.」*
Don’t look through the gaps…?
Yu Yin silently repeated it, noticing a key detail: the urban legend wasn’t named “Don’t Look Through the Peephole,” but used the broader term “gaps.”
Did that mean the monster outside wasn’t limited to the peephole?
Perhaps any gap could trigger it—or even serve as its killing condition!
Yu Yin jerked back several steps. Outside, the creature seemed to have stopped pressing the doorbell. The hallway fell into an eerie silence.
Had it left?
If it vanished that easily, did that mean this urban legend wasn’t particularly aggressive?
Keeping her eyes locked on the door, Yu Yin retreated further, on high alert for any movement.
After standing in the living room for a while, she started to believe the creature might truly be gone—but just as she started to lower her guard, a cold gust of wind blew in, pushing the nearby window partly open.
Yu Yin spun around. There, in the half-open gap of the window, was the same familiar, slender gray-white figure.
The same blank, featureless face.
Still silently watching her through the gap.
The only difference was… it seemed closer now than before.
Yu Yin’s heart jumped. She thought she understood the creature's pattern now.
Whenever a “gap” formed, and she looked through it, she would inevitably make eye contact with that figure.
Each time, it would get closer…
Perhaps, by the time it fully crossed through the gap, it would be her death!
Taking a deep breath, Yu Yin made herself stop looking around. Every look could hasten her demise.
Yu Yin thought for a moment, then skillfully plucked out her own eyeballs, carefully storing them in her pocket.
Since the urban legend required eye contact to get closer, then fine—she’d just remove her eyes entirely, eliminating any possibility of "eye contact"!
The moment she did this, the chat exploded with comments. Clearly, the audience loved it when the streamer did something unexpected:
「[WTF???]」
「That's some Life Domain shit right there...」
「Praise the Tree of Life! This is basic for our crew, don’t like it, don’t play~」
Using her Ability "Life's Benediction," Yu Yin restructured her throat to mimic a bat’s echolocation. She shook her head and commented with deadpan delivery:
"There's more to sensing the world than just 'seeing with two eyes.'"
"This urban legend’s understanding of life is still too limited..."
The ever-lurking pale figure behind the gap: "..."
It paused for a few seconds, then faded into nothingness outside the window.
System Notification: 「Congratulations, player! You have successfully collected the urban legend "Don’t Look Through Gaps." Current progress for Mission 1: 1/7. Carry on!」
……
While audiences in other streams were laughing and chatting, Stream #8 was eerily quiet.
Chu Fu’s peacock feathers were constantly watching them, making every viewer feel as if they were squirming uncomfortably.
Especially the jellyfish viewer that had repeatedly tried to escape—its originally bioluminescent cap cycled from blue to red, then from red to green, the changing colors reflecting its intense emotional turmoil.
In the darkness, the jellyfish emitted a faint glow, standing out like a laser light in a nightclub.
After nervously cycling through colors for a while, it extended a tentacle and poked the divine being sitting next to it: "Hao-ge, when you brought me here, you didn’t tell me we might run into such a terrifying player..."
"...If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come either."
Hao Youqian, who had been sitting beside the jellyfish with his head buried in self-isolation, looked up and replied with a forced smile.
After his advertising company went under, he had spent a long time nursing his wounds, only recently pulling himself out of the shadow of bankruptcy.
Once he’d regained his footing, Hao Youqian planned to use his half-Nightmare identity to infiltrate the divine beings again and scout for new business opportunities.
But who would’ve thought that the moment he took his first step toward rebuilding his career, he’d run into this particular nightmare again...
Hao Youqian winced in discomfort. He couldn’t understand why someone as powerful as Wu Suer was now obsessed with roleplaying as a player clearing levels!
What was this? Playing make-believe with children?
Hao Youqian didn’t speak, just curled up against the back of his seat like an ostrich burying its head, trying to minimize his presence and avoid catching the attention of this old acquaintance again.
With the audience in low spirits, the illusory screen beside Chu Fu only occasionally flashed a few emotionless compliments—each word laced with forced flattery born of survival instinct.
Before Chu Fu, it had always been the streamers who went all out to please the audience, doing everything they could to retain viewership and milk benefits from the stream.
But in Chu Fu’s stream, it was the audience who kept sucking up to the streamer, creating a bizarre spectacle never before seen in this dungeon.
It was as if the roles of "streamer" and "audience" had been reversed, with power tilting toward the seemingly gentle, capable, and always-obliging "kind-hearted" streamer.
Like the other players, Chu Fu had immediately searched the location where he’d entered the dungeon—his assigned dorm room.
But the clues he found were much more disturbing than the club certificate Yu Yin had discovered.
In the wardrobe, Chu Fu found a pile of blood-soaked clothes. In the chest pocket of one of the garments was the original owner’s student ID—also stained with dried blood, the crimson smears obscuring the young man’s face in the ID photo with blue background, leaving only the name "Chu Fu" visible in the name field.
Pinching the relatively clean corners of the clothes, he shook them out and saw a clear, knife-like slash in the center of the shirt.
"A murder case?... With this much blood loss, did the owner survive this?"
Chu Fu’s first thought was that the original owner might have killed someone and, for reasons unknown, brought the victim’s clothes back.
But he quickly realized that whoever kept their student ID in their pocket was most likely the owner of that ID—this dungeon's version of Chu Fu.
"Could it be that the original owner was already killed?"
Musing to himself, he set the clothes aside and glanced outside. Dusk had settled—the perfect time to visit the nearest cemetery.
Even if he found no clues, it was a great opportunity to trigger an urban legend!
Chu Fu left the campus and flagged down a cab.
The driver greeted him cheerfully: "Young man, where are you headed so late at night? Hot date?"
Chu Fu smiled politely. "Please take me to the nearest cemetery."
Instantly, the driver’s cheery expression stiffened. Every horror trope he knew flashed through his mind as a cold sweat trickled down his bald head.
Noticing the driver’s discomfort, Chu Fu wondered if he’d said something wrong and awkwardly tacked on, "Uh... thank you, sir?"
"..."
The driver was screaming inside—this wasn’t about politeness!
This was about someone going to a cemetery alone in the middle of the night—that in itself was weird!
Gathering his nerves, the driver desperately tried to convince himself that ghosts didn’t exist, then started the car and slowly pulled onto the road.
While waiting at a red light, the driver found the silence in the car unbearable—it was downright unnerving—so he tried to lighten the mood by making small talk:
"Young man, what brings you to the cemetery so late at night? Did you get the urge to visit someone you miss?"
Young people nowadays were so impulsive. Visiting graves should be done during the day, when yang energy was strongest... the driver grumbled internally.
"Yeah, going to see someone."
Seeing Chu Fu nod, the driver started to unwind when, through the rearview mirror, he noticed Chu Fu hesitate, as if reconsidering, before adding with academic precision:
"Though, not necessarily. I might also be visiting myself."
Driver: "?" The driver's blood ran cold. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, feeling completely at a loss.