Chapter 213: Levi’s Group Admission |
Levi sat in the living room, staring at his phone for more than half an hour.
His curious yet panicked face was reflected on his phone screen.
He felt as if he was being watched.
It wasn’t like passive surveillance, where certain apps collect data through your search history, key logs, and things that you mention by mouth.
Really, it wasn’t uncommon—many American shows feature plots where secret agents eavesdrop on sensitive information through a tapped phone.
Levi knew this because after his girlfriend added a certain item to his online shopping cart, it was all that was recommended to him days later.
But it was different now.
It was a paranoia that haunted him—something terrible was observing his every move from inside his phone. Even if he taped the camera and microphone or replaced his phone, it was still there.
Levi felt that he had encountered something weird, and it was all because he applied to join that damned group chat.
Mystical customs, like fortune-telling rituals, were common in the countryside, and many jobs involved these mystical things.
Levi’s grandfather was a well-known sage in their hometown.
He is said to have encountered divinity, but Levi has never seen his grandfather encounter anything for that matter. Most of the time, all he does is tell fortunes, reads Feng Shui, and hosts funerals.
He had the idea of passing these skills on to Levi, but it was boring to him. After learning some bits and pieces, he no longer paid attention to them, and they were sealed in the dusty crevices of his brain.
It wasn’t until the nights became long and urban legends began to manifest into reality that videos, forums, and chat groups about urban legends naturally began springing up on the Internet like mushrooms after a spring rain.
Levi never thought of himself as attractive or capable, and the Internet was an escape for him.
Soon, he unknowingly became well known in his corner of the Internet as [MASTER LEVI].
After gaining a certain reputation, he simply quit his job and opened up an online shop, and he mainly sold amulets, prayer beads, exorcism charms, and other products.
As for whether those trinkets work, he didn’t know.
If anything, the people buy it for their peace of mind. If they really did encounter an urban legend, they might even chalk it up to the urban legend being too strong or that their trinket was too weak.
In short, urban legends are just a tool for him to make money and pick up girls.
When he wasn’t maintaining his online store, he would browse through certain websites, using things he did not necessarily understand to deceive people.
In half a year, he used urban legends to go through four or five girlfriends; when he was satisfied, he would make love to them; when he got bored of them, he would simply say, “Fate does not allow us to be together. If we continue, there will be consequences.”
He wasn’t a very good person.
However, such days ended abruptly half a month ago.
One evening, half a month ago.
The sky was strangely dim, and underneath the dark sunset, the sky seemed to be filled with a weird atmosphere.
As soon as Levi returned home after going out to retrieve materials, he made himself a simple dinner and then sat alone in the living room. He mixed cinnabar, spread out a stack of yellow paper, and followed what his grandfather taught him loosely until late at night.
He was like a vampire—the later it was, the more energetic he was.
After making a batch of amulets, he turned on his computer and was prepared to browse through websites to see if there were any beautiful girls he could target.
Logging into the forums, he noticed a message abruptly being sent to him.
100 2/3 Cats? Who is this? And why did they send me an invitation to join a group chat?
“Hah!” he smiled. “An urban legend group chat made by the University’s students? There must be a lot of females for me to catch in there!”
He accepted the invitation with zero hesitation.
[MASTER LEVI HAS JOINED THE GROUP CHAT.]
[YOU CAN NOW CHAT WITH EVERYONE.]
[internetperv01: A newcomer? M/F? Any nudes?]
[internetperv01 has been banned from the chat group for 1 hour.]
[StreetLoner: @MASTER LEVI, don’t pay attention to him… I don’t know how that guy keeps coming back.]
Levi was speechless. This was the first time he had encountered someone taking the initiative.
[StreetLoner: You arrived just in time 😊. Today happens to be the night of urban legends for this group, so you’ll be able to hear our admin tell us stories about the urban legends in this city.]
[MASTER LEVI: Oh!]
Urban legends? He sneered. I know them like the back of my hand.
In the next hour or so, he didn’t pay much attention to the group chat because he thought that the stories they shared were insulting to his brain. Loopholes, unrealistic… it wasn’t worth it to read.
Soon, it was approaching the dead of night. Just as he was about to turn off his computer and go to sleep, a new message popped up.
[100 2/3 Cats: @everyone, today’s round of stories will start in five minutes, and everyone will be muted.]
Is it about to start? He smiled and sat up straight, waiting in front of his computer.
In the past, in other group chats like this, Levi would establish his dominance by refuting all of the members’ stories in order to gain recognition. This was his usual routine.
His purpose in accepting the invitation was not just for girls. Now that he saw an opportunity present itself, he was planning to do so again.
[Group Owner has muted all users.]
[100 2/3 CATS: This story takes place in a corner of Huacheng, and it follows a young man named Xiao Zhang. One morning, he picked up a dollar at the gate of his community; nothing to be seen here…
Then, the next night, he picked up a ten-dollar bill in the same place.
But on the third night, he picked up a hundred-dollar bill, and he was elated that he was able to keep picking up money.
“That’s it?” he said, shaking his head. “Now what? They’re probably going to say that his greed took over, and a vicious urban legend will come and claim his life for all the money he took for himself. Predictable!”
Levi closed the group chat and went to the bathroom, planning to read through the chat after he was done.
Ten minutes later, after washing up, he sat back in front of his computer and reopened the group chat.
Opening it, he found that this strange [100 2/3 Cats] hadn’t finished telling their story, and he couldn’t help but frown.
“How are you even telling this crappy story for ten minutes? I’ll give you credit for that.”
He heard multiple variations of this story more than 20 years ago from his grandfather. He told him that a person can only earn a certain amount of money in their life; if you spend it all, it means that your life is nearing its end.
If something wants to harm you, it will send you money in advance, and after you spend it, you will die a premature death.
Levi wasn’t scared when he first heard this. Now, he thinks it’s a great way to teach children to save their money, but he surely wasn’t the slightest bit scared now.
[100 2/3 Cats: After Xiao Zhang was done washing up, he sat back in front of his computer when suddenly there was a knock on the door.
Naturally, he asked, “Who is it?”
But nobody answered. The faint knocking continued—it was soft, but you could hear metal scratching, like a hand with long nails clawing at your door.]
Levi began shifting uncomfortably, scratching at his forehead. The protagonist in this story was doing something similar to what he just did, and he couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable.
[100 2/3 Cats: You see, Xiao Zhang was naturally courageous. After hearing the knock, he stood up, walked straight up to the door, and looked out through the peephole.
The sight caused his soul to shudder in fear. Outside the door, a lone white dress hovered—headless, limbless.]
“Bo-ring.”
The predictable story line wore away at his patience as he spat at the screen and turned off his computer. He leapt on his bed and fiddled with his phone for a little before falling asleep as the video lulled him to sleep.
The need to pee woke him up.
His head felt heavy, and his world began to swing. He didn’t remember where he was for a long time.
After lying on the bed for a moment, he came back to his senses and glanced at his alarm clock by his bed.
[2:22]
The room was strangely chilly. When did the temperature drop?
He rubbed his sore temples and shuffled his feet into his slippers to go to the bathroom. At this moment, he could hear knocking on his door.
Knock… knock…
It was soft and quiet but loud enough to be heard. However, listening in closer, he could hear the sound of nails clawing at his door as the knocking persisted.
Hearing this, he immediately woke up from his state of half-sleep, and goosebumps ran across his body.
Immediately, he concentrated on listening to the noise coming from the dark side of his living room and shivered.
His house is an old-fashioned apartment that his parents left behind for him. It wasn’t too small, and transport was not an issue. The only drawback was that the walls were thin, and if anybody did anything, he would be able to hear it. In fact, all of his neighbours could hear it.
At this moment, he listened carefully; strangely, it didn’t sound like it was coming from the door but from the other end of the corridor outside his apartment unit.
He bravely gulped and marched towards the door, looking through the peephole. The corridor was dark, and nothing could be seen.
Phew.
Suddenly, a pale, white dress flashed into view from the other end of the corridor, and in an instant, his body was filled with chills as he staggered back a few steps away from the door.
Calming down, he looked out the peephole again, and his heart calmed down when he saw that it was just a white dress hanging on a clothing wire.
The moonlight shone down quietly, illuminating the dress.
The corridor was dark, but he could see that the white dress was dripping with water as if it had just been washed. It dripped onto an iron board on the floor, which caused the knocking sound.
Knock… knock…
Levi breathed a sigh of relief: “I knew it.”
Rubbing his head, he turned back to the bathroom.
Releasing his bladder, he came out of the bathroom and passed through the living room. For some reason, his head couldn’t help but glance in the direction of the door again.
The living room was dark, with just a dim light coming in through the windows cast by the street lamp. The outline of his door seemed strangely distorted.
The story that he saw in the group chat traced through his mind again, and he felt a little uneasy.
Turning around, he grabbed a handful of the amulets he had made from the coffee table in the living room and hurriedly went back to his room, stuffing them under his pillow as he fell back asleep.
After that night, he suffered from a severe cold and was bedridden. All he could do was rely on the remaining food he had left in his refrigerator.
Three days later, his condition improved, and he left the house. As soon as he went out, he smelled the strong scent of incense candles. In the empty corridor, there were wreaths on the wall and a few wisps of ash that sprouted out from the paper money that was being burnt, carried along by the soft breeze.
The corridor seemed gloomy, and inadvertently, he could hear weeping.
Soon, he learnt that there were deaths in the corridor. Three people died over the last three days, and the first to die was a young man named Xiao Zhang, whose corpse tightly held a handful of crumpled banknotes.
As the auntie spoke to him about the news, he broke out in a cold sweat on the spot before running home and leaping straight into his computer desk. He hurriedly logged into the forums, attempting to find the group chat.
However, it was as if the group chat had evaporated into thin air.
Levi could feel his heart sink to the floor.
That night, he was plagued by a nightmare; he dreamt that he woke up in the middle of the night and saw a strange woman lying beside him in his bed, with the moonlight illuminating her.
She was wearing a white dress and laid face up like a corpse. Her face was paler than her dress.
“W-who are you?”
She didn’t answer. Her body rose as she was suspended in mid-air and slowly moved towards him.
He could feel his bones turning into slush, and he couldn’t move.
The stiff corpse was suspended over him, with her face still facing upwards. Her arms hung limply, and her hair hung over his face. A putrid stench could be smelled emanating from her body.
And she turned over.
As soon as he saw her pale face and cloudy eyes, all he could hear him say was, “How much money do you have left?”
Waking up from that nightmare, he began piling up his amulets, prayer beads, and other trinkets he had at home like a nest. They kept him company every night, and he found it difficult to fall asleep.
Every time he fell asleep, he could see the face of that wretched woman.
He spent several days in fear until he received an invitation to join the group again.
[100 2/3 Cats has invited you to join a group chat.]
[Confirm] [Deny]
His heart thumped against his chest, and his pupils shrank slightly. Before he could click on [Deny], his cursor seemed to be controlled by a strange force, forcing him to click on [Confirm].
[You have successfully joined the University Urban Legend Group Chat (REVIEW). You can now chat with everyone.]
The group chat was lifeless. Even though there were more than two hundred users, their profile pictures were all grey, but only his profile picture and 100 2/3 Cats were displayed.
Just as he was about to leave the group chat in a panic, he received a message from that strange user.
[100 2/3 Cats: @MASTER LEVI, congratulations on passing the preliminary offline review. Now, you are in the second review group! Please edit your profile so it matches your identity.]
[100 2/3 Cats: @MASTER LEVI, we will finalise your entry into the group very soon. There are currently 19 users ahead of you.]
He didn’t know what to do.
A week later, he was almost desperate.
He tried everything to get rid of that group chat of his nightmares, but it seemed to inch itself back into his life in weird ways.
And the list was counted down by two to three users per day. As of yesterday, there were only two people left to be reviewed.
In other words, either today or tomorrow, he will be audited by that weird group chat.
And in his suffering, the sky turned dark.
Levi’s cell phone vibrated slightly like the devil himself was calling to him.
He picked up his phone and peeked at the message, and a crazed smile appeared on his face.
[@MASTER LEVI, you will undergo your second review tonight. Please head to the slaughterhouse in the southern suburbs at midnight and stay there alone until dawn.]
“A slaughterhouse… aha, hahaha!”
Levi felt numb, and his head began to ring. He felt like a death row prisoner waiting for their execution.
That slaughterhouse was abandoned three years ago due to a strange incident.
Rumour has it that a group of animals keep humans in captivity in the dark crevices of the slaughterhouse.
