Chapter 374: Number Eight's Story

"I am Xia Chi. I'm only telling you now because the timing wasn't right before." Number Eight pointed at the Electric Chair and the helmet. "I wouldn't lie. You could say I entered this game purely for this moment. You're suspicious and cautious; under normal circumstances, you'd probably doubt me. But you saw what happened to Number Two. Liars are punished with electrocution."

Number Eight's voice was steady, tinged with exhaustion, and his eyes held a deeply complex emotion I couldn't yet understand. "Not necessarily," I said. "It's hard enough to combine an electric chair with a lie detector in the first place. Maybe Number Two didn't die because he lied, but simply because the organizers wanted him dead."

It was a simple hypothesis. The hidden twelfth person knew all the other participants' secrets and controlled everything from the shadows, triggering the electrocution remotely whenever the person in the Electric Chair lied. That would create the illusion that the chair itself could detect lies.

"Whether you believe me is up to you. Still, let me give you a warning: when it's your turn to sit here, whatever you do, don't lie—it really will get you killed." Number Eight gripped the Electric Chair with both hands, his tone solemn.

"I'm only here today to tell you one thing. I can't say it outright, but the answer lies in the story I'm about to tell." Number Eight frowned in thought for a moment before adding, "Before I begin, I hope you'll take off your Brooch and turn off your phone. Some things can't be heard by anyone outside this room."

"You know about the Brooch?" I was a little surprised. As far as I knew, Xia Chi had never been through an evaluation broadcast, and the pinhole camera was filming equipment issued only for official Underworld Live Show broadcasts.

"There's a lot more I know," Number Eight said meaningfully.

I casually removed the Brooch and stuffed it into my pocket. "Is that good?"

He nodded. "Trust me. I won't hurt you."

"My name is Xia Chi. Five years ago, I was a student at Xinhu High School—completely ordinary, with no special talents and average grades. About the only unusual thing in my life was that I had a very special deskmate."

"She was a very smart girl with a sweet face, a mature, steady demeanor, and a meticulous mind. Her biggest hobbies were reading detective novels and investigating supernatural phenomena."

"I can't tell you her name. For now, I'll just call her Xiao A."

"Xinhu High School was a closed boarding school. During late-night chats, students inevitably brought up various campus legends—like Miss Hanako in the last stall of the restroom, the piano music drifting from the music room at midnight, or the anatomical models that could move on their own."

"Most students just treated these rumors as jokes. Only Xiao A was different. More than once, people spotted her wandering around the sites of those campus legends late at night, holding a strange Large-Screen Phone."

"She was an eccentric girl, but that didn't dampen my feelings for her."

"Unfortunately, the falling flowers have intent, but the flowing water is heartless. Xiao A had no interest in romance whatsoever. She seemed to live in a higher world, completely out of my reach."

"Everything began to change shortly before the school was shut down. One morning, Xiao A handed me three bottles of mineral water she'd bought off campus and warned me not to drink the school's water no matter what."

"At first, I didn't understand what she meant. It wasn't until people at school started jumping off buildings that I began to understand."

"Classmates who had been talking and laughing the day before would hit the cold ground the next moment, their bodies broken in a blinding bloom of blood."

"It was as if the school had been struck by some kind of curse. From the teachers to the students, no one was acting normal anymore."

"In the final nights before the school was permanently shut down, torrential rain poured down and everyone was on edge. Rumors that the school was haunted spread among the students and teachers, growing wilder by the day. Teachers forbade students from going outside, many parts of the campus were sealed off, and the police patrolled the grounds every day."

"Yet none of it changed anything. People at school still committed suicide every single day. It was as if they had all agreed on it beforehand—they would walk up to the roof together and drop off the edge like dumplings into a pot."

"Once, I saw one of the victims' faces up close. It was terrifying. Right before he died, he wore a dazed, trance-like smile. He gripped the railing with both hands and, as if hypnotized, leapt right off."

"That scene still lingers in my memory even now. I can't forget any of it—those dead people still live on in my Dream Realm."

"On the final night before the school was shut down, classes had already been suspended, and the remaining students were sent home."

"I packed my things, unable to wait to get out of that hellhole. To my surprise, though, Xiao A came to find me on her own. She said that after sharing a desk with me for two years, I was the only person she could trust, and she wanted me to do something for her."

"I had always liked her, and I figured I might never see her again once classes were suspended, so I agreed without a second thought."

"She told me then that Jiangcheng would plunge into chaos on a rainy night. A psychopathic serial killer would go on a rampage, and she wanted me to stop the killer."

"She gave me a few locations and told me to stake them out in order."

"I readily agreed, but that night, my younger sister suddenly came down with a high fever. Left with no choice, I had to rush her to the hospital in the middle of the night, so I naturally never completed the task Xiao A had entrusted to me."

"After that, I lost contact with Xiao A. I never saw her again."

"Five years passed. That peaceful life was broken a few months ago. I had graduated from college and was at home looking for work when I suddenly got a call from Xiao A."

"She asked me to help her one more time. I'd always felt guilty about breaking my promise five years ago, so I agreed without thinking twice."

"We arranged to meet at Xinhu High School."

"When we met, we only made a bit of small talk. Five years is long enough for a lot of things to fade. I tried to reminisce with her about the old days, but she told me there was no going back to the past. All in all, she seemed very strange to me that day."

"Just as we were about to part ways, she handed me a Live Show Advertisement Card and said a few baffling things. The gist of it was that earning ten thousand points was an utterly impossible task, and she wanted me to take her place in filming a few live broadcasts."

"I had no idea it was a scheme, so I took the Live Show Advertisement Card and nodded in agreement. I took her phone and went to do the broadcasts in her place."

"This was a secret between her and me. No one else knew. For every stream, I wore the mask she had given me."

"That phone issued broadcast tasks at regular intervals. The early tasks were simple—like sneaking into a hospital blood bank to steal a specific blood bag, or entering a Haunted House late at night to twist off a puppet's head. But gradually, the tasks grew deranged—things like chopping off a stray cat's hind legs in a back alley, or killing ten birds within a time limit."

"To help her, I did all of it. But the final task that appeared completely terrified me."

"The task demanded that I kill my own sister—Xia Qingzhi—within three days, with no restrictions on methods or means."

"I began to realize that this broadcast was no ordinary thing. I searched everywhere for Xiao A, but she seemed to have vanished completely."

"My calls wouldn't go through, and she didn't reply to any of my messages. I wanted to call the police, but when I got home that afternoon, I found that my sister was missing."

"My parents told me that Xia Qingzhi had taken the Live Show Advertisement Card I kept in my drawer and left. They had no idea where she had gone."

"Shortly after four in the morning, Xia Qingzhi came home. Her appearance, tone, and eyes were identical to my sister's, yet I couldn't shake an uneasy feeling—as if a stranger's soul had taken up residence inside my sister's body."

"I wanted to uncover the truth, so I tracked down the location using the address on the Live Show Advertisement Card."

"I believe you've been to that place too. The long corridor is lined with countless rooms. Before pushing open a door, no one knows what's hidden inside."

"The night I went, every door from the first to the fourth underground floor was shut tight. To find my sister, I had no choice but to keep heading down to the underground Fifth Layer."

At this point, the expression on Number Eight's face finally cracked, revealing deep remorse. "Anything below the fourth floor isn't a place for the living. Once you go down there, you never come back."