Chapter 130: Urban Legend·Three Bows

Chapter 130 Urban Legend·Three Kowtows

3 a.m.

Chang Shuyue sat cross-legged, gasping for breath. Her right hand gripping the crowbar ached so much she could barely lift it, yet she still pressed it firmly against the shadow on the floor.

"Hehehe, one-two-three, one-two-three..."

"Red Light, Green Light, no talking, no moving..."

The shadow emitted shrill, childish giggles. It was composed of a shapeless black fog, and whenever the mist surged, attempting to reform into a humanoid shape, Chang Shuyue would mercilessly strike it with the crowbar, sending it swirling back into shapeless mist.

In the corner nearby, several unconscious residents slumped like ragdolls against the wall, their heads drooping—among them was the girl who had earlier exchanged desperate glances with Yu Yin, silently pleading for help.

These residents were all victims of the supernatural phenomenon "Red Light, Green Light." After briefly checking their conditions, Yu Yin concluded, "Thankfully, nothing life-threatening—just minor injuries and shell shock."

For a Life Domain specialist, as long as the injured were still breathing, she could ensure their full recovery. If not for this anomaly zone suppressing her Ability level, Yu Yin could have even performed miracles like raising the dead or regrowing limbs on the spot.

After manipulating the victims' flesh and blood to heal them all, Yu Yin sat down beside Chang Shuyue, visibly exhausted. She complained, "What a goddamn night. We’ve been busy all night without a wink of sleep."

"Given how dangerous this city is, how do ordinary people even survive?"

Chang Shuyue’s eyes flickered, as if inspired by her words. "You’re right. That’s a good question. If supernatural phenomena were always this active, this city couldn’t possibly maintain even a façade of normalcy..."

"So, is it possible that under normal circumstances, supernatural phenomena aren’t this active or concentrated?"

Yu Yin fell into thought. "If there really has been an unprecedented spike in supernatural activity recently, the timing coincides almost perfectly with the arrival of players—and also with the Paranormal Society’s encounter with the Mirror supernatural phenomenon."

"Do you think there’s some connection between the two? That Mirror supernatural phenomenon feels more and more like some kind of puppet master behind the scenes. Every clue seems to lead back to it."

"Can’t say for sure yet," Chang Shuyue said, standing up with the crowbar and gazing out the window at the heavy night. "There’s a player I know inside the Sanctuary who has access to a much larger pool of information. We can ask him first."

"My reporter’s intuition tells me the truth—something big enough to be a ‘front-page scoop’—is getting closer and closer to us."

Yu Yin nodded, just beginning to feel a sense of relief, when Chang Shuyue added, "I’ll give you his number. After dawn, you’ll be the one to call and contact him."

Yu Yin froze, pointing at herself reflexively. "Me?"

"Exactly," Chang Shuyue explained. "The new supernatural phenomenon I triggered uses all electronic communication devices as its medium. As long as I’m exposed to electronic screens or cameras, it’ll see me."

"So, from now on, you’re our new communications officer." Chang Shuyue patted Yu Yin’s shoulder with a smile.

...

Deep in the Mirror Corridor, a young man with messy blue hair—Lan Mao—huddled trembling as he crouched on the ground.

He hadn’t eaten or rested in nearly two days. Gnawing hunger seared in his stomach, bile rising in his throat. His nerves, strained to the limit by exhaustion and tension, felt like a frayed wire about to snap, pushing him to the brink of collapse.

Lan Mao lifted his head. His vision was filled with endless layers of twisting mirrors, each reflecting countless wild-eyed, gaunt versions of himself—so wretched he could barely recognize them.

Just a day ago, he never imagined he’d end up in such a fight for survival.

Regret filled his heart, and Lan Mao couldn’t hold back a sob. "We—we shouldn’t have come here..."

Ever since they recklessly entered this long-abandoned "haunted floor," a surreal nightmare had unfolded before him and his companions, casting an inescapable shadow over them.

Recalling their first steps onto the floor, Lan Mao remembered how excited they had been.

The desire for internet fame drove them to wave selfie sticks tirelessly, filming every corner of the floor.

These thrill-seeking young men were part of a paranormal investigation crew. They’d explored abandoned hospitals and haunted schools before, never encountering so much as a ghostly shadow in their careers. Why would they take the stories about this "haunted building" seriously?

At first glance, even they had been startled by the mannequins standing in the darkness, but deep down, they remained unfazed.

To juice up the broadcast, they even staged paranormal activity, erupting into exaggerated screams and laughter as they unknowingly ventured deeper into the floor.

Back then, Lan Mao had been full of energy, starting the livestream as usual:

"Don’t worry, viewers! Tonight, we’re exploring the notorious supernatural hotspot of Guiyin City—the seventh building of Lianxing Tower, first floor!"

"Let’s see for ourselves whether the rumors about this cursed place are true... Oh! Thank you to viewer 6843 for the Rocket superchat!"

Lianxing Tower’s reputation drew a crowd to the livestream quickly. The chat was moving at light speed, making it hard to read every message.

Following livestream etiquette, Lan Mao usually only acknowledged big spenders, reading their messages aloud.

After receiving the first substantial donation of the night, Lan Mao lit up like a Christmas tree, eager to engage with the viewer—until he read the message and froze.

"Host, be careful... the mannequin behind you moved..."

Lan Mao instinctively read the message aloud, then whipped his head around. A bleached-white mannequin stood quietly in the corner, staring at him with its frozen stance, not moving an inch.

"Haha, guys, don’t scare the host! I can’t take it!"

He barked a nervous laugh, trying to shake off the cold dread, but a thought flashed through his mind—

Had that mannequin been facing him earlier?

Before he could dwell on it, his companions began arguing behind him:

"Who’s pulling my hand? I’m holding the stick—doesn’t it feel heavy?"

"Someone’s really messing around today. Just now, someone tapped my shoulder from behind. Who’s trying to scare who?"

"L-Lao Liu... you’re at the back. There’s no one behind you to pull you..."

The moment those words were spoken, the group exchanged uneasy glances, slowly realizing something was wrong.

Then, the mannequins scattered around them moved. Their featureless faces turned toward the group, their pale limbs stiffly shifting, emitting bone-dry *creaking* sounds.

"Gh—the mannequins moved! There’s a ghost!"

"Ahhh—!"

In their panic, they abandoned their livestream equipment, stomping over discarded selfie sticks and phones as they fled blindly forward, eventually stumbling into the Mirror Corridor deep within the floor.

Though the corridor should have been a straight path, the reflections and intersecting light transformed it into a living maze, spawning endless forks.

Everywhere were identical mirrors, the paths twisting and shifting, reflections multiplying endlessly. The scene before them was as mind-bending as an Escher painting, trapping the group in the vast mirror labyrinth.

Yet, the mannequins chasing them and the endless mirror maze weren’t the most terrifying things.

Far worse was—something sinister deep in the Mirror Corridor seemed to be luring and calling to them.

When Lan Mao and his friends reached the end of one path, they saw a grotesque effigy enshrined in an altar, smiling down at them.

The idol was sculpted in the image of a middle-aged man—corpulent, bejeweled necklaces draped over his bare chest.

It held a gilded ingot, its eyes narrowed into slits, its mouth split in a rictus grin, its cheeks disturbingly swollen.

The exaggerated facial lines of its entire face were covered in deep crevices and folds. Combined with the flickering candlelight on either side of the shrine, the shifting shadows and light played across its grinning face...

It didn’t appear kind or benevolent—instead, it looked uncanny and malevolent.

The narrow, slit-like eyes seemed to glint with a cunning light, its gaze visceral and hungry as it scrutinized the two intruders.

Lan Mao’s eyes were glued to the gold ingot in the statue’s hands. As if entranced, he took two steps forward, unable to resist the urge to kowtow before the shrine.

But his keen sense of smell suddenly caught a rotting corpse stench, jolting him awake. Only then did he notice the spattered bloodstains on the mirrors near the shrine, along with the dark, dried corpses of flies stuck in the murky brown stains, still emitting a foul stench after all these years.

And right in front of the shrine, on the ground, was a dark, circular stain. The floor was even slightly sunken, as if something round had once struck it with great force, splattering blood in all directions...

—A human head.

Lan Mao quickly recalled the legend of the designer who had died bowing in worship deep within the Mirror Corridor. His face instantly paled.

He couldn’t help but imagine it—the head smashing violently into the ground, blood and brain matter splattering before the shrine, the corpse later rotting and seeping grease deep into the floor, leaving behind a stain that could never be scrubbed clean...

Overcome with fear and disgust, Lan Mao jerked back as if scalded.

He wanted to grab his friend and leave immediately, but he found his friend already in a trance-like state, stumbling toward the shrine, unable to be pulled back.

Lan Mao watched helplessly as his friend suddenly knelt down—right where the designer had once bowed—his neck arching unnaturally backward as if about to snap, then bending forward violently, slamming his head against the ground!

Thud!

Thud!

Again and again.

His friend kowtowed heavily against the floor, even as his head split like an overripe melon, blood gushing out and smearing across his face and clothes. He didn’t stop.

The endless crimson and the overlapping reflections of the mirrors intertwined, filling Lan Mao’s trembling pupils, etching a sprawling and terrifying nightmare in his stunned gaze.

Even as his friend’s body convulsed a few times and finally went still, he remained kneeling, deeply bowed, his mangled forehead pressed to the ground, fingers splayed on either side of his head—maintaining a posture of devout prostration.

And at the end of the Mirror Corridor, the statue grinned eerily, its crooked, hook-shaped eyes fixed on Lan Mao, as if silently whispering:

‘You’re next.’

‘Bow before me, until death.’

“...”

Struggling out of the memory, Lan Mao felt like bursting into uncontrollable sobs.

But remembering that the mannequins seemed to chase the source of sound, he choked back his whimpers.

Hunger and thirst sapped all strength from his limbs, yet his fierce will to survive drove him to lean against a mirror and lurch forward.

He wanted to live...

Even if he had to crawl on all fours, he wanted to escape this godforsaken place!

The mirrors before him fractured into multiple paths again. Lan Mao picked a direction at random and stumbled ahead.

Turning a corner, he froze in place, crushing despair spreading through his heart.

What appeared before him wasn’t an escape, nor an exit—it was that sinister statue.

Before the shrine lay his friend’s corpse, petrified mid-bow, as if foreshadowing his own fate.

At that moment, Lan Mao felt as if his soul had separated from his body. His mind screamed, desperate to flee, but his body moved with leaden steps, one after another, toward the shrine, his knees slowly bending to kneel.

Just as Lan Mao was about to bow forward, a gust of wind suddenly swept past his head, followed by the earsplitting crack of something hard being cleaved, like thunder exploding beside his ear.

The force controlling his body vanished. Lan Mao blinked up, disoriented.

The first thing he saw was a glinting axe embedded in the statue’s head. Though the statue was carved from wood, thick, dark blood now oozed from it as if it were flesh and blood.

The foul-smelling blood from the statue’s body seeped over the axe’s edge, making the hand gripping the handle appear even paler, the contrast between red and white stark.

Looking closer, Lan Mao realized the hand clutching the axe handle looked rather deceptively slender, but the knuckles rose like jagged peaks, pale veins bulging beneath the skin, exuding a violent, untamed strength.

His gaze traveled upward to a young man with tousled black curls, who glanced down indifferently. His features, shadowed, seemed even more profound and mysterious, with a few drops of the eerie statue’s blood dotting his cheeks like crimson adornments. His icy blue eyes lowered slightly, leveling a blank stare at Lan Mao.

The terrifying aura around the stranger instantly reminded Lan Mao of the psycho killers with axes from horror movies, making his legs tremble.

Chu Fu studied Lan Mao for a moment, finally understanding why the old man had described this group as "with hair dyed in all sorts of colors."

Finding it somewhat amusing, he quirked a half-smile, trying to appear gentle and friendly as he extended a hand to Lan Mao. "Are you alright?"

With a loud *thud*, Lan Mao—who hadn’t fully knelt yet—was so startled that he faceplanted into a full kowtow.

Chu Fu paused, then sighed. "...There’s really no need for such formalities."