I Wasn't Born Lucky

Ri Yan didn't know what to do. He didn't have time to rush to the elevator and the sound seemed to come from the stairs. Apart from these two methods to leave the ninth floor, all the rooms in the corridor were locked. The only one that could be opened was the room that didn't exist. However, it was undoubtedly a dead end. It was like drinking poison to quench thirst.

"Wu, wu, wu…"

The crying was getting closer and closer. Ri Yan could tell that it was a female crying. The woman should be a bit older because her voice wasn't delicate. It was hoarse and coarse.

Ri Yan wanted to collapse in place. His eyes were moist and he covered his mouth as he stared in the direction of the crying on the other side of the corridor. There was nothing, even though he could clearly hear that the source of the cry had turned from the stairs and entered the corridor.

What was going on? His mind stalled for a moment. Then he hurriedly used the selfie stick to set up a live broadcast, directly entering the live broadcast room from a button on the live broadcasting device.

The moment Ri Yan started, the audience who had subscribed to his room got the news.

[What happened? Is the anchor going to stream more? Fortunately, I am a cultivating immortal. I am the champion of staying up late tonight.]

[You haven't gone home? Isn't tonight's horror movie enough?]

[Anchor, why is your face white? Are your kidneys deficient? Why are your eyes red?]

Ri Yan was unable to pay attention to what the barrage was saying. He quivered as he adjusted the angle of the camera and looked across the corridor. This time, the shadow of a person appeared in the camera.

It was a woman with long hair. Her head was bowed and her long hair was separated on both sides of her cheeks. Her hands covered her face and her body shook as she sobbed and slowly walked toward Ri Yan.

She was crying. The woman was dressed in white and the hem was messy, as if it had been torn by others, revealing a pair of nude feet. The toes of the feet were black and from the ankles down, covered with spots of varying sizes.

[What the hell is this?]

[Oh my god, the anchor is so poisonous late at night. I want to die. I won't be able to sleep tonight. This crying is terrible.]

[Where are you? Not out of the hotel yet? I was almost scared to death by you. My heart jumped out of my throat.]

The woman approached step by step, her crying like a mosquito's wings hovering by Ri Ya's side. He really couldn't bear such fear and didn't want to sit in place. Eventually, he covered his face with his arm and rushed into Room 909. He closed the door tightly, put door the selfie stick and grabbed a chair to block the door.

This wasn't enough for Ri Yan. He looked around in a circle and unplugged the TV. He moved the TV to the chair, reinforcing it with a heavy object. In fact, if the bed hadn't been fixed in place then he would want to move it over. Having done all of this, Ri Yan crouched in the corner and reopened the barrage.

There were tears in his eyes as he stammered out words. "You may not see me again. I really shouldn't have opened the door… I opened the door of a strange story. Since then, I have encountered all types of strange things. I… I might die…."

Outside the door, the crying was getting closer and closer. Nothing was more terrible than the fear before death. Ri Yan covered his face and burst out crying. He groped around for the mobile phone. "I… I'm going to call my mother."

[How… how could this happen? Where is the handsome guy who was with you before? Isn't he here?]

[Anchor, don't do this. I will also panic. I'll help you forward the post to see if I can stir up a bit of heat for you.]

[Wait… the door that doesn't exist, legs chasing on the stairs, the weeping woman… why do these all seem like strange stories I've heard about?]

Ri Yan was desperate. He pinched his nose and felt like he had just been dragged out of water. At this time, he saw this comment and paused in his phone call. He asked, "The latter two are also strange stories? I've only heard about the first one."

[Yes, the non-existent room at Cavill Hotel is the most well-known while the other two aren't very famous. I was very young when I heard my grandmother talk about them. I had long forgotten and only remembered now.]

[The legs chasing on the stairs are about a person walking on the stairs and two legs will chase after them. The weeping woman is about a woman who fell in love with a man and was pregnant before marriage. She gave birth to three children for him but the man didn't want to marry her and cheated. Finally, one day, the woman couldn't help it. She drowned her three children in the bathtub and then herself in the river. After her death, her soul turned into a weeping woman who is looking for her children.]

"H-However, I'm not her child." Ri Yan wiped away tears and talked to the audience. "I.. if I say that, would she let me go?"

[I don't know. It is just one of the strange stories I've heard. My grandmother said there were a total of six. I don't remember the others very well…]

"Did your grandmother say how to break the strange story?"

[She didn't… Ri Yan, I'm sorry. I'll ask for help from my grandmother again.]

Ri Yan wanted to con asking but there was the sound of crying outside the door. There was no doubt that the weeping woman had stopped at the door. The thin door, the chair and the heavy thing on it… were obviously impossible to stop her.

Once Ri Yan thought of the words on the screen, he gritted his teeth and yelled, "You… listen to me, I'm not your child! You have found the wrong person. Hurry away and find someone else, I'm begging you. Your children are waiting for you to find them!"

To his despair, it didn't work. Intuition told Ri Yan that the weeping woman standing at the door was waiting to break in.

*************

The reality plane.

The moment that Ri Yan disappeared, the sleeping Xie Zeqing immediately opened his eyes.

He didn't capture Ri Yan disappearing. He sensed a ghost energy and then found Ri Yan was gone. Xie Zeqing immediately jumped from the bed, grabbed the clothes on the chair, hurriedly put on his shoes and went to the other rooms to wakeup the reincarnators.

Three minutes later, the veteran reincarnators gathered in Xiao Li's room. Xiao Li hadn't completely woken up. He rubbed his eyes, splashed some cold water on his cheek and asked Xie Zeqing, "He disappeared?"

"Yes, I was sleeping and felt a ghost's energy. He was gone when I opened my eyes." Xie Zeqing replied.

In the instance world, such disappearances often meant death.

If this was a plot person in other instances then the reincarnators might not risk their lives to rescue him. However, Ri Yan's role in this instance wasn't the same. First of all, the cameras on the reincarnators' mobile phones weren't very convenient. Secondly, Xiao Li always felt that the role of the live broadcast wasn't only this. If it was only a camera then Ri Yan could have another identity, such as a person filming a documentary. An anchor was a relatively special industry.

"I can't sense his breath at all." Xie Zeqing finally said.

Hull heard it. He stepped aside and interjected, "I have an item that can track people. Let me try it."

He took a compass out of his pocket. Hull opened the shell of the compass and spun the needle counterclockwise. Then he chanted the name 'Ri Yan' and released his hand. The compass' pointer turned clockwise, helplessly spinning back in place. Hull shook his head. "I can't track him."

The instance ghost's trick might also happen to reincarnators so everyone was frowning. Xiao Li had been playing with his mobile phone. He brought up the call inter and called a number.

"Do you want to call Ri Yan? Do you know his number? In addition, our phones should have no signal?" Xie Zeqing asked with surprise.

Xiao Li took another banana from the fruits basket, stuffed it into Xie Zeqing's mouth and motioned for him to shut up. "I'm calling a transit station."

Xie Zeqing took out the banana and put it back in the fruits basket. He didn't understand what Xiao Li meant at first. Then he remembered the previous instance and his eyelids twitched. "Are you…"

Xiao Li didn't give him a chance to finish because someone on the other side answered. After the connection, no one spoke. There was only the hissing that belonged to the telephone line.

Xiao Li gave his routine greeting. "How are you?"

The phone ghost asked, "What do you want?"

"I remember that you have the ability to track the target's phone? I didn't give you my phone number yet you could get it. Very good."

The phone ghost muttered, "…What do you want?"

She became a repeater.

Xiao Li told her, "Do me a favour. Call the host called 'Ri Yan' and ask him where he is and how he is now."

Phone ghost, "……"

She said nothing and hung up. Xiao Li looked at the 'end call' button on the phone and made an OK signal. "Let's wait for news."

Xie Zeqing, "……"

This was the first time he had seen someone using the phone ghost as a messenger…

Hull was unsure and asked Xie Zeqing, "Who did Moriarty call?"

Xie Zeqing spoke with no energy. "The 114 telephone inquiry desk."

Hull, "???"

*******

At the same time, Ri Yan's side.

He trembled as he waited for the verdict of his fate. There was a puddle of water flowing through the crack of the door. This showed that the crying woman was at the door. It was as if she was deliberately taking delight in Ri Yan's fear. The locked door handle had no use for the woman. Instead, there was a sound and the door handle slowly turned inward.

At this time, Ri Yan felt the phone he had been holding vibrate. He looked at his phone in a panic, only to see '444444' on it. This number… it was like a ghost call in classic horror movies.

Ri Yan was about to cry. He just opened a door. Why were these ghosts tangled up in him? He certainly had no courage to accept it. It was just that when he tried to reject the ghost call, his fingers trembled so hard that he accidentally pressed the other side of the screen and connected the call.

A hoarse female voice came from the phone. "Ri Yan."

The main point was precisely captured. It was Ri Yan's name. This ruined Ri Yan's plan to deceive himself that it was a wrong number. Ri Yan tearfully tried to hang up but the name that emerged from the phone in the next second stopped him. "Moriarty asked where you are and how you are."

Ri Yan didn't know if it was his illusion but he always felt that the other side said the name 'Moriarty' with gritted teeth. In any case, he knew Moriarty so he thought the other person on the phone wasn't a ghost. Ri Yan held the mobile phone like it was a treasure and spoke into the receiver, "I-I'm not good. I met a woman who keeps crying. The comments on the barrage said it was another strange story. Why am I so unlucky? Moriarty, help me. Please, please. I am in Room 909…"

The female ghost on the other side of the ghost call didn't speak. She just coldly hung up the phone and the next second, called Xiao Li's phone. The moment Xiao Li picked up, he heard the phone ghost eagerly repeated Ri Yan's words.

The weeping woman. He had heard of this strange story. It also existed in reality.

Xiao Li took an apple from fruits basket and didn't eat it. He threw it up and down as he listened to the phone ghost and repeated it. Before the other person hung up the phone, he interrupted. "Currently, Room 909 hasn't appeared. He should've been pulled into Room 909, which isn't a real space. Can you locate his exact position?"

The phone ghost was silent for a moment before reluctantly saying, "…Okay."

Xiao Li spoke affectionately, "You can locate and call, you must have Gaode maps and China Mobile. How many surprises do you have that I don't know?"

The phone ghost, "……"

Oops, the wrong decision. She hung up directly. Ten seconds later, a text message was sent to Xiao Li's mobile phone. The sender was '444444.'

The text message had the sentence: [He isn't dead. 30seconds later, Room 909 will return to reality.]

Xiao Li stood up. He held the beautiful red apple between his index finger and thumb before putting it on the back of his hand. "Let's go."

The reincarnators, other than Xie Zeqing, were a bit confused. They only knew that Moriarty had made a phone call and called a ghost (……). Then the ghost called back. They hesitantly looked at each other before following.

The moment he came out of Room 908, Xiao Li saw the end of the corridor had extended and Room 909 had appeared, followed by a crying sound. The crying didn't stop and became louder, tearing at the heart and lungs. There was a row of wet footprints in the corridor, coming from Room 909.

Xiao Li looked at the footprints and sighed. "This girl's feet are really big."

Xie Zeqing's mouth twitched. "…Now isn't the time to say this. I sense 'it'."

"I think you're nervous so I'm just telling you a joke to relax." Xiao Li told him.

Xie Zeqing didn't appreciate it. "…I don't feel relaxed, thank you."

By this point, the weeping woman had entered Room 909. The chair and television blocking the door had fallen to the ground under the force at which she pushed open the door. The chair was pushed half a metre away.

Ni Yan was shivering in a corner. He had closed his eyes the moment the door was pushed in. He didn't dare look directly at the weeping female ghost walking toward him. However, the other side deliberately tortured him and he could hear every movement.

Just as Ri Yan was feeling despair, he heard footsteps from others outside the door. He gripped the selfie stick in his hand and opened his eyes, observing the outside world. The weeping woman had entered the middle of Room 909 and was a metre away from Ri Yan in the corner.

Xiao Li stood at the entrance of the room, raising a hand to the door frame. "Don't cry. Why do you want to cry?"

The weeping woman had covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking from time to time with her cries. She slowly turned her head and looked at Xiao Li. Xiao Li stood up straight. He stuffed the apple into his pocket and pulled out the little yellow book.

He wrote the name of the ancient painting on it and succeeded in calling out the female singer to reality. The crying woman was slowly turning toward Xiao Li, her crying becoming more and more frightening. It had its own reverberation, like the crying of ghosts in the field at night.

The others had blocked their ears with their hands in an attempt to stop the crying. Xiao Li didn't move. He smiled at the crying woman and placed a finger against his lips. "Silence, silence is coming."

He had just finished speaking when the painting appeared in front of him. The peach tree in the painting was filled with life as the female singer came out of the painting. She turned in a circle in the air, sleeves raised to block the weeping woman's mouth.

Then it was like a mute button had been pressed on the crying. The weeping woman couldn't cry. She became a woman who couldn't cry.

Even the weeping woman was stunned for a moment. Then she put down the hands that had been covering her face the entire time, but her face couldn't be seen. She lowered her head, long hair almost falling to the ground as she ignored the female singer blocking her mouth and continued to approach Xiao Li.

As she approached, the weeping woman's long hair rapidly extended on the carpet like a flexible black snake, wrapping around Xiao Li's ankles. Xiao Li looked down at his ankles. Tan Li's long hair emerged at the same time from Xiao Li's pocket, entangling with the other side's long hair. They fought each other like two black snakes.

Xiao Li reacted very quickly. He drew a scalpel from his sleeve, the blade reflecting a bit of coldness.

"Take back your hair," he told Tan Li.

There wasn't the slightest bit of hesitation as Tan Li retracted her long hair. The next second, Xiao Li bent down. He used the scalpel to cut off the long hair of the weeping woman.

The others, "……"

The others, "!!!"

The woman's long hair left the weeping woman and lost their vitality, falling to the ground. It became the common, cut off hair of a salon. Taking advantage of the time when the weeping woman couldn't respond, Xiao Li grasped the remainder of the long hair, stepping forward and directly cutting the hair at the neck.

The weeping woman, "???"

The long hair fell intermittently, like a bad barber. The ends were uneven, jagged like a dog biting. The weeping woman watched her long, knee-length hair turn into short hair that couldn't cover her face.

Despite still being affected by the silence, she squeezed a cry out of her throat. "…Ahhhhh!"

Even if they didn't look at the expression, just based on this sound, it was obviously the weeping woman's worst scream.

Xie Zeqing didn't want to sense the other side's thoughts but this time, even if he didn't take the initiative, the weeping woman's mood was so strong that it was directly transmitted to him. He held his temple and translated, "She…she is in pain. Her long hair, which was smooth and straight, could attack and defend. Her heart hurts. It is the deep pain of something being removed.

Xiao Li, "…"

He made an innocent look. "She started it. I was just passively defending."

The female singer hesitated. She touched her long hair and took back her sleeve from the weeping woman's mouth. The weeping woman covered her face and cried louder.

Xiao Li wondered, "…Can't you grow it out?"

The weeping woman, "Wu"

Xie Zeqing simultaneously translated, "Have you ever seen a ghost growing hair?"

Xiao Li coughed.

Hull witnessed everything and was a bit confused. "Excuse me?"

*********

On the other side, Ri Yan stood up in the corner of Room 909 with a disbelieving expression.

Due to the long time he crouched down, his feet were numb. This didn't hinder the joy of survival in his heart. At this time, Xiao Li was surrounded by a soft halo. He wanted to run to hug the other person but the weeping woman was still standing at the door. He didn't dare leave and could only stop in the room, expressing his feelings toward Xiao Li with his eyes.

The screen of the live room was quickly filled with comments:

[It turns out… this is the operation of a big man. 66666. There was such an operation.]

[Maybe my mind is wrong but I don't think this is short enough. I'm imagining how the weeping woman would look with shaved hair…]

[Me too. Think about my childhood nightmare. If Sadako's hair was an inch long then… it doesn't seem so scary.]

[Oh, this is the feeling of the heart. I'm moved by Moriarty, it is my heart.]

[A horror movie has become a comedy movie. Give this big man a cappuccino.]

The author has something to say:

Weeping woman: I'm crying loudly tonight.