Chapter 24: Spread
Hiroshi Nohara’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was like a stone thrown into a stagnant pool, rippling clear circles in everyone’s heart lake.
It was a near-barbaric confidence, not allowing any rebuttal, yet it made it impossible for anyone to argue back.
The iron-solid despair in the office was gently tapped by this voice, and a crack actually appeared.
Kiyoto Suzuki looked at the young person in front of him, and in those bloodshot eyes filled with fatigue and anxiety from staying up all night, was reflected Hiroshi Nohara’s calm and profound face.
He recalled the steadiness and insight beyond his years that this young person had shown from the moment he pulled out the An Shizhi manuscript.
Perhaps… perhaps he really should trust him one more time.
“Continue working.” Kiyoto Suzuki took a deep breath, crumpled the glaring report into a ball, and threw it into the trash can.
This action was like a ritual, separating yesterday’s failure from the current resolve. His voice regained the authority befitting a section chief: “Tonight, there’s still the third episode. Until the final results come out, none of us have the right to give up.”
“Yes!”
This response was no longer the frenzied excitement pumped up like chicken blood, but carried a tragic and heroic, break-the-cauldrons-and-sink-the-boats determination.
……
Tuesday, late night, Tokyo.
This massive steel behemoth, after experiencing the daytime noise, finally fell into a deep sleep, leaving only countless tiny nerve endings stubbornly glowing in the darkness.
Shinjuku, Xiang Shuishang’s late-night diner.
The L-shaped bar counter was packed, but the atmosphere was completely different from the usual clinking of glasses. The guests were mostly silent, barely touching the drinks and food in front of them, all their gazes like iron filings drawn to a magnet, firmly stuck on the old television in the corner.
Shinagawa, taxi dispatch center.
A group of drivers who had just finished their shifts unusually didn’t gather to play cards and complain, but crowded in front of the television in the hall, with smoke swirling, their weathered faces filled with nervousness and expectation.
Setagaya, a certain university’s male dormitory.
A few college students who had just returned from a mixer were squeezing in front of a small television, the air filled with the smell of cheap beer and youthful hormones.
“Hey, hurry up, it’s about to start!”
“Is it that legendary animation that scares people so much they don’t dare go to the toilet?”
“Don’t talk, it’s starting!”
Countless such corners, countless such eyes, at the same moment, collectively awaiting the arrival of a time.
12:20 a.m.
That familiar opening with the eerie nursery rhyme started right on time.
“Passersby, don’t miss it…”
The masked man arrived as promised.
【An Shizhi · Family Precept】
The image unfolds: a little boy in shorts following his father back to the countryside old home. An ancient Japanese-style house, creaking wooden floors, and a group of relatives with blurred faces and serious expressions.
Everything exuded a tranquility far from the hustle and bustle, yet beneath the tranquility hid a discordant oppression.
In the evening, the boy’s father called him to his side and told him in an unprecedentedly serious tone: “Listen, tonight is our family’s family precept. No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, you can’t come out, and you can’t cry. We all have to keep smiling, smile for the entire night, that way, ‘that thing’ won’t come in.”
In the late-night diner, Tanaka instinctively straightened his back, an inexplicable chill rising from his spine.
In the taxi dispatch center, Kenji forgot to light the cigarette in his mouth, his brows tightly furrowed.
In the university dormitory, the boys who had been laughing and joking just moments ago fell silent in unison.
The story continued.
Late at night, the boy was woken by the urge to pee. He tiptoed out of the room, preparing to go to the toilet in the yard. But when he passed by the main hall where the family was gathered, he was stunned by the scene before him.
The paper sliding door of the main hall let through bright, even somewhat glaring light.
Even stranger, from the door crack came bursts of laughter.
“Hehe… hehehe… hehehehe…”
The laughter wasn’t loud, but incredibly dense, like countless people simultaneously forcing out laughter in an extremely awkward, extremely laborious way. There was not a shred of joy in that sound, only a hair-raising, mechanical repetition.
The boy’s curiosity overcame his fear. He quietly moved to the paper sliding door, poked a small hole with his finger, and peered inside.
In one glance, the boy’s pupils contracted to the extreme.
He saw in the room: father, uncle, aunt… all the relatives sitting in a circle. Their faces, under the lighting, showed a bloodless pallor like they were coated in white powder.
And on their faces were identical smiles.
Their mouths stretched to an exaggerated arc, the muscles in their cheeks twitching stiffly from excessive strain, their eyes empty and lifeless, without a trace of spirit, only endless fatigue and fear.
They were like a group of puppets controlled by strings, performing a horror play called “laughter.”
“Hehe… hehehe…”
At that moment, the grandfather sitting at the innermost, that pale stiff face, slowly, slowly turned toward the door, toward the small hole where the boy was peeking.
His empty eyes seemed to pierce through the paper door, locking dead-on with the boy’s gaze.
Then, the corners of his mouth stretched even wider.
“Ah—!”
The boy let out a heart-wrenching scream.
The image cut off abruptly.
Black screen.
The words “The End” appeared coldly.
……
“Holy shit!”
In the university dormitory, one boy jumped up from his chair, startling his roommate who was peeking at the study materials on his computer behind him.
In the late-night diner, Akemi clamped her mouth shut tightly, preventing the scream from bursting out, but her body was trembling uncontrollably.
In the taxi dispatch center, dead silence. The hot tea in veteran driver Kitakishi’s hand had gone cold unnoticed.
This time, there was no immediate visual impact, no gory images.
But that eerie ritual stemming from unknown folklore, from within the family, and the psychological impact of that final eye contact, was more chilling than any ghosts and monsters.
“That… that thing, what exactly is it?”
“Did they… succeed? Will the boy’s scream let ‘that thing’ in?”
“I think they’re all dead! Look at how they were smiling, they didn’t look like living people at all!”
“No! I think it succeeded! That’s why grandfather smiled so happily! He was telling the boy we’re okay now!”
After the silence, intense discussions erupted like a virus.
In the late-night diner, the guests forgot to eat.
In the taxi dispatch center, the drivers forgot to take calls.
In the university dormitory, the boys forgot to sleep.
In countless families, countless offices, countless social network groups, the next day, discussions about An Shizhi’s third episode Family Precept completely exploded.
People were no longer satisfied with mere sensory stimulation of “so scary,” but began frantically analyzing the plot, interpreting details, and speculating on the ending.
What happened to that boy? What was the fate of that family? What terrifying truth was hidden behind that eerie “family precept”?
This open-ended, unresolved ending was like a huge hook, firmly catching every audience member’s curiosity. It forced people to think, to discuss, to recommend to those around them—”Hey, did you watch it? That animation called An Shizhi on Tokyo Television Station, last night’s episode was insane!”
The snowball of word-of-mouth, after the initial two days of silence, finally began rolling at a speed beyond everyone’s imagination.
