Chapter 34: Intellectual Terror!
Unlike the icy cold of Iwata’s Classroom, which felt like a Siberian cold front had passed through, Suzuki’s Classroom was filled with the enthusiasm and clamor of a midsummer festival.
“Next week… still airing?”
When Kiyoto Suzuki announced the notification he had just received from the Screening Department, the entire office erupted.
“That’s great! I knew it! Our 《An Shizhi》 is the best!” Hoshi Minamimura exclaimed, waving his fists excitedly.
“Although the ratings on Saturday early morning might be artificially inflated because people don’t have to work the next day, this is definitely the station’s greatest affirmation of us!” Roji Hase also said excitedly.
Everyone’s faces were filled with a sense of hard-won, heartfelt joy. They looked towards that corner, at the young person who had been quietly drawing something from beginning to end, their eyes filled with almost fanatical worship and trust.
Kiyoto Suzuki also looked at Hiroshi Nohara, his eyes holding a question, and a hint of reliance that he himself hadn’t noticed.
It was as if as long as this young person was there, they had a pillar of strength, and the confidence to face any challenge.
Hiroshi Nohara stopped the pen in his hand and pulled out another thick stack of manuscripts from under the desk.
He placed the stack of manuscripts gently on the desk, a gesture as if presenting a game of chess, ready to guarantee a win.
“The seven episodes for the second week are all here.” His voice was calm and steady, yet carried a power that calmed the soul. “《Umishin-sama》, 《Possession》, 《Moon》, 《Video Tape》, 《Tomoya-kun》, and the final episode, 《Painful Body》.”
He raised his head and his gaze swept over everyone. His clear eyes sparkled with wisdom that saw through everything.
“Everyone, our snowball has only just begun to roll. What we need to do next is to make it roll bigger and bigger, until it forms an avalanche that can drown everything.”
“Ooooh—!”
The office erupted in thunderous cheers once more.
Everyone seemed to have been injected with the strongest stimulant. They picked up the brand-new manuscripts, on which every storyboard and every line of dialogue seemed to contain some kind of magic, making them eager to bring them to life.
They knew that they were not just participating in the production of an animation.
They were creating a legend for this era, a legend called 《An Shizhi》.
——
Sunday night descended quietly amidst this stiff atmosphere. Tokyo, like a weary giant, after a week of bustling activity, finally retracted its daytime claws and settled down heavily, leaving only countless tiny, scale-like lights stubbornly flickering on its dark fur.
The light carried the last trace of laziness of the weekend ending, and also the gossamer-thin sorrow of Monday’s approach.
However, in this vast sea of stars, composed of countless window panes, a considerable portion of the light did not choose to sleep.
They converged into small, bright spots of light, stubbornly waiting for a moment to arrive.
In the university dormitory in Setagaya, the air was filled with the slightly sour smell of cheap beer and hormones mixed together.
A few young men who had just returned from a mixer, for the first time ever, did not turn on their game consoles. Instead, they gathered around a small television, like they were gathered around a campfire, preparing to perform a secret ritual of courage, a ritual for men.
In the late-night diner in Shinjuku, the L-shaped bar was packed.
The food and drinks in front of the customers were barely touched. The aroma of food, meant to console loneliness in the dead of night, was at this moment overshadowed by a more intense atmosphere of anticipation and nervousness.
Xiang Shuishang quietly wiped a glass, but his gaze involuntarily fell on the old television in the corner.
In countless such corners, countless such eyes, on this night, chose to pay the price of sleep to attend a date with fear.
00:20 AM.
The familiar children’s song and drumbeat arrived as promised.
A man wearing a mask pulled back the curtain, his hoarse voice sounding as if it came from a dry well, carrying echoes of the past.
【An Shizhi: Contradiction】
The story began in an ordinary, warmly lit single apartment. A young girl was preparing to go to bed.
The telephone suddenly rang.
It was her friend, Mayumi.
“Save me… save me…” The voice on the other end of the line was filled with extreme panic and trembling.
The girl’s heart leaped into her throat.
Mayumi recounted haltingly that she and her boyfriend Ache had gone to explore an abandoned hospital tonight.
“…As soon as we went in, I felt something was wrong. It was… too cold in there, and there were strange noises everywhere…”
“…But Ache, he was like he was possessed, just kept walking further in. No matter how much I called him, he wouldn’t listen…”
“…Then, he walked into a hospital room, and that door… closed on its own. I was scared, so… I ran out by myself…”
“I’m downstairs at your place now, I’m so scared, can you… can you let me in?”
The girl agreed without hesitation. But just then, Mayumi’s voice on the other end of the line suddenly became incredibly eerie.
She began to speak to herself in a dreamy, emotionless tone.
“…Ache… Ache came out… He found me… He… he’s smiling at me…”
“…His face is so pale… Heh heh… Heh heh heh…”
Listening to the eerie laughter on the phone, the girl’s blood felt like it had frozen.
Just then.
“Knock knock knock.”
Her apartment door was knocked on.
Trembling, the girl shuffled step by step to the door and peered out through the peephole.
A man in a jacket stood outside.
It was Ache.
He was raising his head, looking at the peephole, his face wearing an incredibly bright, yet incredibly stiff smile.
The girl was so terrified she almost lost her soul, and she stumbled back. The phone in her hand dropped to the floor.
But the call did not hang up.
From the handset, Mayumi’s eerie laughter, as if from the depths of hell, continued to emanate.
“Heh heh… Heh heh heh… Open the door…”
“Let us… in…”
“Ding dong—”
The doorbell and the laughter on the phone overlapped at that moment.
The screen abruptly cut to black.
The End.
……
“Ah—!!!”
In the university dormitory, an earth-shattering cry erupted, a mixture of fear and extreme excitement.
In the late-night diner, there was dead silence, only the crisp sound of a few chopsticks falling to the floor.
This episode of 《An Shizhi》 had no sudden jump scares, no bloody scenes.
It played with pure, soul-piercing logical sophistry.
It made you frantically think between two seemingly contradictory options, trying to find the safe, rational explanation. But when you were immersed in it, it told you that both options were doors leading to hell.
This was a terrifying form of intellectual, crushing horror.
It made you feel an ineffable, icy chill rising from your tailbone the moment you understood the truth!
