Wang Jian’s encounter was by no means unique.

Thanks to Light Prism TV Station’s relentless streaming on various online platforms.

At this moment, in front of countless screens in Lower City District 9.

"Ahhhh!!"

Some viewers were so engrossed and courageous that they screamed, kicking over their TVs or smashing their monitors with their keyboards.

In short,

According to incomplete statistics, appliance sales in Zone 9 surged by 17% that month. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Among them, the repurchase rate of display products reached a historical high.

Just like the slogan Wei Guangming shouted, he wouldn’t allow anyone in Zone 9 to miss such an exciting broadcast.

He basically achieved that!

......

Let’s rewind the clock a bit.

Wang Xiuli stumbled out of her house, her hair clinging messily to her sweat-drenched forehead.

She stood by the roadside, waving frantically, and a yellow taxi screeched to a halt in front of her as the driver rolled down the window.

"Where to?"

"Eighth Academy! Please, hurry..."

"Damn!"

The driver’s face changed abruptly, cursing loudly as the tires screeched against the road, spraying exhaust in Wang Xiuli’s face.

The third, fourth... Wang Xiuli lost count of how many cars she tried to stop.

She could only run along the road, unsure of how long she’d been running, the soles of her shoes spilling blood.

But Wang Xiuli didn’t even notice, as if the glass shards in her shoes were slicing iron, though her soles were already soaked through.

There were bloody footprints with each step along the curb.

Wang Xiuli moved mechanically, her breathing heavy like an old bellows, and passersby thought she was a madwoman, avoiding her in fear.

Screech—

Finally, an old taxi stopped in front of her.

The window slowly rolled down, revealing a driver wearing a black mask, half his face visible.

His brow ridge was high, eye sockets deep, and crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes.

"Where to?" His voice was magnetic, like a cello’s resonance.

"Eighth, Eighth Academy..." Wang Xiuli gasped, clutching her knees, "Nearby... is fine..."

The driver looked at the disheveled woman, his gaze lingering on her bloodied feet for a few seconds: "Get in."

The leather seats inside were icy cold, and Wang Xiuli collapsed into the back seat, drenched in sweat.

A faded talisman for safety hung from the rearview mirror, swaying slightly as the car started.

The car radio was playing a ghost story, the storyteller’s magnetic voice echoing inside, vividly describing a girl holding her friend’s head as she slept in the school’s dormitory.

Sitting in the car, Wang Xiuli suddenly felt the intense pain in her feet.

But she couldn’t be bothered, urgently telling the driver.

"Sir, please... faster."

The taxi driver glanced at the woman in the rearview mirror.

"Around Eighth Academy..."

He leisurely turned the steering wheel:

"There’s a monster around Eighth Academy, miss, what’s your..."

Wang Xiuli replied with a trembling voice: "My daughter, husband, and son are all there."

"Oh?"

The driver drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, the rhythm inexplicably unsettling.

The car suddenly accelerated, the engine roaring.

"The whole family is there..." His voice under the mask carried a profound sentiment, "Better get there fast."

But Wang Xiuli didn’t hear what the driver was saying, clumsily fumbling with her phone, it took a whole 2 minutes to find the Light Prism TV Station app in the app store.

Her entire attention was focused on that slowly advancing download progress bar.

10%...35%... each number change felt like eternity.

The ghost story on the radio reached its climax, the voice undulating captivatingly, but Wang Xiuli didn’t hear a word.

The taxi driver glanced at the rearview mirror again, furrowing his brow slightly, discreetly turning up the volume, the eerie voice echoing in the car.

But Wang Xiuli’s eardrums seemed blocked, her pupils reflecting only that damned progress bar—89%!

Ding!

The notification of installation completion sounded like a heavenly melody.

Fumbling, Wang Xiuli opened the app, and the moment the live broadcast screen popped up, two identical sinister smiling faces filled the entire screen.

Wang Xiuli gasped, yet she held onto the phone tightly, as if her eyes could drill directly into the screen.

The live broadcast screen shook violently; in the brief glimpse, she saw at the right edge of the screen, a blurry back of a head, about 1/3 visible.

But perhaps a mother’s instinct, Wang Xiuli immediately felt that hair crown was like her daughter’s.

"Yuhuai!" Wang Xiuli instinctively tried to touch the screen, fearlessly brushing against [Mask]’s cheek, but her fingertips only touched the cold glass.

The next second, a blinding white light swallowed the entire image.

In the intense light, the screen spun, suddenly, a deformed face was pushed onto the screen, eyes unable to open, the nose clearly broken, blood gushing from the mouth.

The live feed abruptly cut off, static and snow filled the screen.

Wang Xiuli’s phone fell onto her lap with a thud as the ghost story on the radio fittingly narrated:

"...when she finally found her daughter, she discovered..."

The ghost story on the radio continued, the driver’s low voice mixing with electrical noise saying something.

Yet Wang Xiuli’s ear canals were filled with shrill tinnitus, as if thousands of poisonous bees buzzed within her skull.

Her temples throbbed, her vision a dizzying blur.

After what seemed like ages, the car radio stopped, and the taxi parked by the roadside.

"We’ve arrived, up ahead is the Eighth Academy, I won’t go further."

Wang Xiuli hesitated for a moment, then as if waking from a dream, she fished out all her money from her pocket and handed it to the driver, then quickly got out of the car.

The spot where the taxi stopped was still a bit away from the Eighth Academy, but not too far.

Not caring for anything else, Wang Xiuli got out and started running towards the Eighth Academy, her bloody soles leaving winding trails on the asphalt.

Inside the car, the driver turned off the engine.

He removed his mask, revealing a handsome face.

The blue light from the dashboard washed over his features, turning his deep-set eye sockets into dark pools.

His gaze stuck to Wang Xiuli’s stumbling figure like a shadow until she completely disappeared from sight.

"Alas..."

After a while, he let out a long sigh, taking out a gilded pocket watch from the inner pocket of his wool coat.

When his fingers brushed the delicate engraving at the edge of the cover, there was a subtle pause—"We don’t create corpses, we are merely carriers of the dead."

The script was in a complicated font from the last era, each stroke like congealed blood traces.

Of course, not every corpse merited transportation.

"It shouldn’t be," the misfortune surrounding this woman was thick enough to drip blood, why...

The pocket watch suddenly clicked loudly, the ticking of the second hand becoming oddly urgent.

The driver ceased pondering, instead shifting his gaze to the manhole cover not far away.

"Forget it, giving that woman a ride was just a convenient act of kindness, today’s real target is..."

Not far off, the manhole cover trembled slightly, the iron edge scraping against the ground, producing an unsettling "squeak".

A swollen, decaying hand slapped open the manhole cover, the skin looked scalded by boiling water, covered in uneven craters, with black-red grime stuffed under each fingernail.

The car’s ghost radio station switched channels, starting a new gripping story:

"...Let us continue today’s special broadcast, remember, dear listeners, everyone is the protagonist of their own story... and also the ghost in their story!!"