Chapter 42: The Beginning
On Thursday morning, the night was as dark as ink, dyed by countless tiny lights, like a watercolor painting not yet dry.
In countless corners of Tokyo, the lingering terror of the office ghost story brought by last night’s 《An Shizhi·Paper》 had not dissipated, and a new fear ritual had quietly begun.
In the late-night diner, Xiang Shuishang did not watch the television, just lowered his head to wipe a willow blade knife, its blade reflecting the lighting, clear and cold like the chilling moonlight. But this could not hide the ripples in Xiang Shuishang’s heart.
Or rather, precisely because his heart was in turmoil, he used the excuse of wiping the willow leaf blade kitchen knife to cover up the panic in his heart.
And right outside the bar counter, the guests were all like they had been fixed in place, their gazes locked dead on the old television in the corner.
【An Shizhi·Video Tape】 was broadcasting.
The story’s stage was a typical Japanese-style room, the last day of summer vacation, three middle school students in school uniforms gathered around an old VCR, their faces carrying the unique expression of adolescence, mixed with boredom and seeking stimulation.
“……They say this video tape can show ghosts.” One of the boys said mysteriously, inserting a black video tape with no label into the machine.
On the TV screen, there was first a burst of noisy snow, then the image stabilized. It was a cemetery, the lens shaking, just like the rough texture of a home video.
Nothing was there.
“Tch, boring.” One boy yawned.
But at that moment, the boy who took out the video tape’s pupils suddenly contracted, he pointed at the screen, his voice carrying a barely perceptible tremble: “Hey……look, over there……isn’t that a human shadow?”
In the image, behind a tombstone, a blurry white figure flashed by.
“Where?” The other two didn’t take it seriously.
“There really is! It……it’s getting closer! Coming nearer!” The boy’s voice began to turn fearful.
The white figure in the image, like an out-of-focus ghost, with an illogical, jumping posture, rapidly approached the lens.
Then, just as it was about to occupy the entire screen, it suddenly disappeared.
“See! Did you see it?! It’s gone!” The boy abruptly turned his head, wanting confirmation from his companions.
But behind him, two icy cold, overlapping voices came eerily.
“What……did you see?”
The boy stiffly turned around.
That huddled in the corner, where were they still his classmates.
They were two ghosts and monsters all pale, with black liquid flowing from their eyes, grinning at him, silently smiling.
The end.
……
On Friday morning, in Shinagawa’s taxi dispatch center, the large room was filled with smoke.
The drivers weren’t playing cards, nor complaining about those drunk clients with bad breath as usual.
They just gathered around the television, like waiting for some fateful verdict.
【An Shizhi·Tomoya-kun】 aired.
On the street after school, a female high school student in a sailor uniform saw several children sitting together, pointing at the ground.
“What are you playing?” She asked curiously.
“We’re playing with Tomoya-kun.” The children looked up, their innocent faces carrying a strange excitement. They pointed at a humanoid shadow on the ground, like it had been splashed with thick ink, “Older sister, want to play together?”
The girl smiled and refused.
The next day, she met the group of children at her doorstep again.
“Older sister, Tomoya-kun says he wants to come play with you.”
The girl had to work part-time, so she refused again.
At dusk, when she dragged her fatigued body home, the doorbell rang.
It was those children again.
Their faces no longer had the daytime excitement, only a deadly calm left.
“Older sister, we brought Tomoya-kun……here.”
The girl impatiently shooed them away and locked the door. But when she walked into the living room and looked up, all the blood in her body instantly froze.
On the pristine white ceiling, a huge humanoid shadow was slowly wriggling like a living thing.
Tomoya-kun……had come.
……
Saturday night was the last tranquility before the storm.
Countless families in Tokyo, countless university dorms, countless sleepless souls late at night, all focused their gazes on that small screen.
What they awaited was the final chapter of this two-week terror feast.
【An Shizhi·Painful Body】
In the countryside summer, cicadas noisily chirping.
Three elementary students in shorts squeezed together, using an old telescope to spy on a haunted house in the distance rumored to have “painful body” appearances.
One timid child left first.
The remaining two were still there.
“Look! There’s movement!” One child held the telescope, lowering his voice in exclamation.
In the distant house, several blindfolded people walked out, like sleepwalking, lining up, slowly walking. And behind them, something formless like a meat tumor was constantly trembling.
“Quick, let me see!” The other child impatiently grabbed the telescope.
He aimed the lens at the haunted house, but found that the blindfolded people were gone.
“Huh? Where are the people?” He puzzledly turned the telescope, searching around.
The lens swept over the fields, over the woods, over the small path leading to their house.
Then, his movements suddenly froze.
He saw it.
Through the lens magnified dozens of times, he saw that the blindfolded, distorted human shadows had, at some point, arrived right in front of them.
They began to distort in his telescope lens!
The end.
……
Thus, on Saturday morning, in Suzuki’s Classroom in the Tokyo Television Production Bureau Headquarters Building, a scene occurred.
“Late-night Animation 《An Shizhi》, final ratings: 6.01%!”
“Late-night Animation 《Oni-bō Samurai》, sixth ratings: 5.87%.”
The dust settled.
That magnificent castle built from capital and resources was, in the final moment, thoroughly crushed in a devastating, almost humiliating way by that seemingly insignificant “slideshow”.
In Iwata’s Classroom, there was a deathly silence.
And in Suzuki’s Classroom, the emotions suppressed for a whole week, like a volcano, finally erupted at this moment.
“We won! We won! We’re ichiban! The real ichiban!”
Hoshi Minamimura and Roji Hase like two madmen threw the documents on the desk high into the air, the sheets of paper flying like confetti at a celebration.
Kiyoto Suzuki looked at the revelry before him, his old face also streaked with tears.
He walked to that corner, to the young person who had quietly watched everything from beginning to end, heavily patted his shoulder, a thousand words ultimately turning into a sigh full of endless emotion:
“Nohara-kun, this era……perhaps truly belongs to you young people.”
“You’re too kind, Suzuki Kenkyo.” Hiroshi Nohara just smiled, his gaze calm and profound.
He knew that this was only the beginning.
