Something Possessed

“What’s wrong? Do you have something to tell me?” Nan Changgeng asked.

Zhao Shengxiao was facing her, and she nodded at once. “Baiyu has something to say.”

As Nan Changgeng walked toward her bed, she turned her head to look over. “What is it that has to wait until this late hour? Is it urgent?”

“It’s not exactly urgent, but it is important. I was afraid you’d be too busy during the day, so I never went looking for you.”

Lin Baiyu let go of Chen Xia and sat up, her expression turning serious. “Do you have time tomorrow? I promised to help Yu Mao with something, but it didn’t work out. I think you definitely can.”

“Yu Mao...” Nan Changgeng paused, then quickly gathered herself and sat down on her own bed, turning to face them. “I should have time, but I only know music; I probably won’t be able to help with anything else.”

She was laying the groundwork in advance so she could refuse anything difficult later, and do it with justification.

Lin Baiyu’s reaction, however, was a little unexpected.

“Yes, yes, it’s music-related.” She nodded quickly and began patiently from the beginning.

“Yu Mao sang that song with more than enough technique, but she couldn’t bring any emotion into it. Her teammates came up with the idea of making her expressions richer, but then they realized she couldn’t even smile naturally. When they asked why, it turned out to have something to do with her childhood. Her parents had a terrible relationship; her mother was unhappy with life and took it out on her. If Yu Mao smiled, she’d get hit... Tch, those two scumbags. They’re just trash.”

As she spoke, her expression darkened, and she couldn’t help cursing.

Yu Mao’s story was one of the most shocking things circulating among the contestants; whenever it came up, everyone had plenty to say, and Zhao Shengxiao was no exception.

When Lin Baiyu paused, she added,

“It’s not just that, either. Later her parents fought, and her dad hacked her mom to death. You know what Yu Mao said? She said her mom was already dead, so she shouldn’t be scared anymore; she just didn’t understand why she still couldn’t smile.”

Nan Changgeng’s lips parted slightly, and she remained stunned for a long time.

She felt that the story the two of them had sketched out in just a few words was very far from her, but then the thin, sullen figure that came to mind made it suddenly feel painfully close.

A chill crept up her back, slithering along her spine like a poisonous snake; coldness rose in wave after wave from the bottom of her heart.

Along with a dull, sinking ache.

Not everyone loved their children... She had already learned that truth deeply enough for it to cut to the bone.

Even so, she was still profoundly shaken.

She remembered their first meeting, when the other girl had come up to greet her on her own and, just before turning to leave, had shown that smile.

At the time, she had noticed that the smile looked a little unnatural, as if it had been forced. She had even thought Yu Mao was frightened of her appearance...

Seeing Nan Changgeng stare in silence, Lin Baiyu understood her reaction perfectly. After all, she had been the same when she first heard it.

“All of this was told to me by Yuan Li. She asked me to teach Yu Mao expression management, but no matter how I taught her, it still looked really off. So I thought, why not just have you teach her singing directly and solve the problem at the root?”

Lin Baiyu propped her chin on her hands and blinked at her, a faint plea hidden in her eyes.

“She can cover your song so well; if you teach her yourself, she’ll definitely learn.”

The corners of Nan Changgeng’s lips moved, but she couldn’t quite manage a smile. Her expression was gentle, though. “Got it. I’ll go find her tomorrow.”

Compassion was not something only Lin Baiyu had.

It was just that Nan Changgeng didn’t know whether her earlier evasiveness had hurt that girl’s feelings.

...

Yu Mao, who had slept plenty during the day, had no trace of drowsiness now.

After Nan Changgeng returned to the dorm, she followed her upstairs and wandered around the empty corridor like a wandering ghost.

After much hesitation, she still didn’t go back to her own dorm; instead, she crouched at the door of Nan Changgeng’s room.

Outside the window at the end of the hall, a few strands of moonlight fell in, softly spreading across the girl’s back. Her long hair nearly touched the floor, carrying a faint silver chill.

In the deep black of night, her slender figure knelt on the ground; her heavy hair, dark as ink, swallowed her thin body whole, making her look eerie and mysterious.

She closed her eyes, crossed her hands over her chest, and moved her lips only slightly. Her voice was as light as morning mist that would scatter with a single brush of the hand, murmuring the prayer she had never once missed for years.

“Under the sacred moonlight, I offer You with reverence my gratitude for this night, my wholehearted faith, and my endless awe. My Lord who saved me... It was You who gave me this precious life, You who granted me the senses by which I remain in this world, You who returned to me the ability to think and to bear happiness..."

“I wish, in every sunrise and moonrise, to pray for You with all my soul; may my voice cross time and space to reach the sea of Your spirit... I will offer up everything I have, whether material wealth or treasures of the soul, without reservation, only hoping to express my deep gratitude and love for You..."

“May You always be in good health. May Your heart be filled with happiness and joy. May Your wishes, like dewdrops in the dawn, be crystal-clear and all come true one by one... My merciful Lord, may Your voice moisten my soul like spring rain, and may Your figure warm my world like sunlight.”

“In this endless prayer, I bind my soul tightly to Yours... May Your name be praised forever, and may Your glory endure for all eternity.”

...

Little Feixia, with its night-vision red glow, hovered silently in the air, recording the entire scene in full.

It wasn’t too late yet, and there were far more viewers in the livestream than there had been last night; the last bit of sleepiness they had left was blown away in an instant.

[I knew the best part of the night stream would still be here with Yu Dinding... the second she gets bored, she’s quietly up to something big]

[Not just big; it’s downright explosive... What is she kneeling at someone’s dorm door and muttering to herself for?]

[This is insane! Is this really something that should be happening on a music variety show!! It’s as shocking as seeing a ghost!]

[I turned the volume all the way up and could barely catch a few broken bits. It sounds like she’s reciting a prayer...]

[Is she religious? No, that still doesn’t make sense. Oh my god, my grandma... what the hell, what religion makes you kneel at someone’s dorm door and pray?? Is it some kind of cult?!]

[If she hadn’t been kneeling diagonally to the door, I’d have thought the god she was worshipping was inside that room]

In the director’s room, the assistant director who had stayed behind for the night shift was already thinking of heading back to sleep when he saw the contestants return to the dorms. The moment he saw this, he nearly lost his breath.

He knew contestants stirring up trouble and bringing traffic was a good thing... Tomorrow’s buzz would definitely explode again.

But this was a little too hardcore!

Was this kid’s reason definitely still intact? Was she having a mental breakdown? His face fell as he grew increasingly restless, rubbing his insulated cup in his hands for a long while; he didn’t even drink a sip before setting it down again.

He never would have thought that Yu Mao’s complete lack of concealment was, in fact, part of fulfilling the promise she had made to the production team; otherwise she would have long since stuffed Little Feixia into the charging dock and forcibly powered it down.

Yet her willingness to make such a sacrifice only made the director afraid.

The uneasy assistant director stared at the screen and was thinking about whether he should call security to go take a look upstairs.

But before he could even pick up his phone, he was interrupted by a scream.

“Ah!! A ghost——”

A shout like thunder suddenly tore through the night’s silence.

Xu Yang, who had just stepped out of the dorm and hadn’t even gone far, stumbled backward in a panic and fell flat on her backside. Eyes wide in terror, she frantically scooted herself backward on the floor.

In the blurry moonlight before her, a mass of black hair seemed to sway at the sound; then, in a flash, it vanished without a trace.

In the blink of an eye, that thing had disappeared before her eyes, only further proving that it had to be a ghost, and Xu Yang became even more hysterical, clinging desperately to her own dorm door and howling in tears.

“Mom, help meeeeeee!”

She had been startled awake from a nightmare and couldn’t sleep, so she wanted to go back to the practice room and keep rehearsing her song; who had she offended?! Why did she have to run into something like this, sob sob sob...

Within moments, the lights of every dorm on the entire floor came on.

The contestants, awakened by the noise, opened their doors one after another to look out, some not even having time to put on their shoes.

Even some of the contestants staying in the upstairs dorms came down in succession to check what was happening.

But at first glance, there was nothing in the corridor except Xu Yang, crying and wailing at the top of her lungs.

“What happened? Xu Yang, what’s wrong with you?”

As they asked, the door to the dorm Xu Yang was clinging to suddenly opened as well. Caught off guard, she fell straight inside and slammed headfirst into He Yuan’s leg behind the door.

“Ah!” He Yuan cried out in pain and hurriedly tried to back away.

But she was no match for Xu Yang’s quick reflexes; Xu Yang wrapped both arms around her leg in one motion, clinging to it tightly, her whole body shaking.

“Waaah I really ran into a ghost... I knew those news stories about an entire girl group dying after running into ghosts on a talent show were true! The dormitory buildings for shows like this really do have ghosts!”

She was crying to He Yuan with snot and tears all over her face, her voice miserable beyond belief; clearly she had been frightened badly.

“...” He Yuan opened her mouth, then closed it again.

She exchanged glances with Bai Manwen and Yirui An in their dorm, then looked down the corridor at the contestants, all of them bleary-eyed and confused.

A curse word got stuck in her throat and had to be swallowed back down.

After she failed to pry her leg free, she lowered her head to look at Xu Yang and forced out a fake smile, her voice squeezed through her teeth. “A ghost; where?”

“I really saw it!”

Hearing the disbelief in her tone, Xu Yang grew anxious and indignant. She let go and started talking with both words and gestures. “That ghost was covered all over in hair, just a black blob, and the blink of an eye was enough for it to disappear. If that wasn’t a ghost, then what else could it have been!?”

In the director’s room, the assistant director watched the situation unfold, leaning back in his leather chair with the calm assurance of a man who had seen it all; he lifted his insulated cup and took a sip of tea, completely unhurried now.

In fact, he was downright amused.

Xu Yang had done well; she had instantly dragged the original vaguely eerie incident straight onto the road of comedy, and there was no turning back. A music variety show with more memes than a comedy show; if they didn’t blow up, who would?

“Maybe you just saw wrong. There aren’t any ghosts in this world.”

The other awakened contestants didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Why don’t you think it over more carefully? Where did you see the ghost, and what did it look like? Did you really see it clearly?”

“It was too dark. I didn’t turn on the light, so I couldn’t see very clearly...” Xu Yang mumbled softly, then immediately pointed toward the dorm door of Nan Changgeng’s room and said with great certainty,

“But I really did see it! At that time, it was right at Lin Baiyu’s dorm door, about half a person tall, and it could move! It absolutely wasn’t my imagination!”

Seeing so many people gather in the corridor, the fear in her heart gradually faded, but her sense of collapse only grew stronger.

Now the whole production knew she was afraid of ghosts and had been scared into shrieking. She was embarrassed all the way to her grandmother.

Her image! Was! Completely! Gone!

If this still wasn’t enough to prove there really was a ghost, then wouldn’t all that embarrassment have been for nothing!?

Her heart burning with grief and indignation, but with people around her, she still had to force herself to act like nothing was wrong. Xu Yang accepted the tissues her roommate handed her; her fingers trembled slightly, and she wanted nothing more than to smash her head into a wall and be reincarnated.

“Right in front of Lin Baiyu’s dorm door?” Yuan Li’s heart suddenly gave a jolt, and she turned her head to the right. “Then isn’t that..."

Nan Changgeng’s dorm.”}