Ghost Student 1.1
Bloodstained Campus: The Ghost Student Case Files
[Late-night campus forum]
Title: [Warning: Enter at your own risk] Has anyone ever seen "another version of yourself"?
Posted by: Anonymous
Time: 2:17 AM
I stayed up all night at the library last night. When I went to the restroom to wash my face, the person in the mirror smiled at me... but I didn't move at all.
What's even scarier is that my roommate said this morning that I came back in the middle of the night, but I've been in the lab the whole time.
Addendum: I checked the surveillance footage, and there is indeed a person in the video who looks exactly like me.
[Hot Comments Section]
1st floor (a male student from the Physics Department):
I suggest you watch fewer horror movies; your symptoms sound like hallucinations caused by sleep deprivation. [doge]
2nd floor (a nobody in medical school):
@Forensic Medicine Department Senior Situ, please explain! Is this considered self-awareness disorder?
3rd floor (Wen, who loves potato chips):
Wow, that's exciting! Which college are you from, OP? I'll come check the security footage with you~ (gets dragged away by Li Weimian by the collar)
The Criminal Investigation Team's Involvement
Li Weimian pushed the tablet to the center of the conference table. On the screen were comparison images of five similar police reports: "In the past two weeks, five students from J School have claimed to have seen 'mirror images of themselves,' two of whom have gone missing."
"Where's the surveillance footage?" Yu Yan poked at the coffee stains on the table with the tip of his dagger.
“It’s all snowflakes.” Jiang Zhaoyan lazily twirled his pen. “Interestingly, these students have all participated in the same project—the ‘Brainwaves and Virtual Reality’ experiment.”
The door to the autopsy room was suddenly pushed open, and Fan Jinci walked in carrying an evidence bag containing several strands of silver fiber: "Extracted from under the missing student's pillow, the material is consistent with the nerve conduction lines in Ryan's laboratory."
Wen Lin suddenly choked: "Wait! So someone is using advanced technology to create 'clones'?!"
Situ Jin silently raised her tablet, which displayed a new post on the campus forum:
Title: Tonight at 10 PM, on the rooftop of the School of Humanities, you will see "her".
Posting IP: Library 302 Computer Room
Moonlight streamed through the stained glass windows, casting eerie patches of light. The moment the group pushed open the iron door to the rooftop, a black cat darted past their feet.
"Ouch—" Wen Lin jumped dramatically to the side, grabbing a passing male classmate in the process, "Don't be afraid, classmate! I'll protect you!"
Male student: "...I just came to collect the laundry."
Li Weimian suddenly squatted down, her fingertips tracing the ground: "Fluorescent reaction." She looked up at the edge of the rooftop, "Someone stood here for a long time."
As if in response to her words, an old Nokia phone suddenly vibrated on the railing.
SMS content:
"Looking back"
Yu Yan suddenly turned around, pointing his gun at the empty air—
In the shadows on the other side of the rooftop stood a girl in a white dress. Her face was blurred in the moonlight, but the curve of her lips was exactly the same as described in the forum.
"That's... Lin Xiaoyu, the missing literature student?" Situ Jin's voice was unusually tense.
The girl slowly raised her hand and pointed behind the crowd.
Two figures of Fan Jinci were clearly reflected in the glass window.
3:17 AM, Fan Jinci's apartment
The doorbell rang particularly jarringly in the deathly still night.
Fan Jinci opened his eyes from a light sleep, his gray-blue pupils slightly contracting in the darkness.
He was a very light sleeper, and his habit of always having a scalpel with him meant that he would grab the handle of the scalpel under his pillow the moment he woke up.
Knock, knock, knock.
The knocking was soft, but the rhythm was precise—three knocks, a pause, then two more.
—That's Situ Jin's habit.
Fan Jinci frowned, threw back the covers, and got out of bed. Through the peephole, the motion-sensor lights in the corridor flickered, illuminating Situ Jin's pale face. He was wearing the same white shirt he had worn during the day, but the collar was stained with a suspicious dark red stain.
"Teacher Fan." The voice of "Situ Jin" outside the door sounded like a poorly recorded message, with subtle electronic noise. "Could you open the door? I've discovered something..."
Fan Jinci's fingertips stopped on the doorknob.
Situ Jin never bothered him late at night, and she never used honorifics.
The bathroom light suddenly turned on by itself.
Fan Jinci turned around, the mirror reflecting a faint blue light in the darkness. The "he" in the mirror was still lying on the bed, now slowly sitting up, a smile he would never show on his lips.
“You’ve finally figured it out,” the person in the mirror said in his voice, his fingertips tracing the glass. “We are one.”
The scalpel flew through the air, shattering the mirror in response.
The doorbell stopped abruptly the instant the shards of glass hit the ground. Fan Jinci flung open the door—
The corridor was deserted, except for an old Nokia phone on the floor, its screen displaying the last text message:
"Don't trust mirrors."
8:23 AM, Criminal Investigation Bureau
"This is absolutely Ryan's legacy!" Wen Lin slammed the test report on the table. "The neurotransmitters detected in the silver fibers are the same as those found in the 'Yan Kang' incident back then!"
Li Weimian fiddled with the Nokia phone: "The computers in room 302 were remotely activated last night. Someone used a device from twenty years ago to send all the forum posts." She suddenly opened the back cover of the phone. "Look at this."
—A yellowed photograph was pasted in the battery compartment, showing young Ryan standing in front of the old library of J University, with a little girl in a white dress beside him.
“Lin Xiaoyu?” Situ Jin leaned closer. “No, this photo is at least thirty years old…”
"It's Cheng Xue." Jiang Zhaoyan appeared at the door at some point, carrying a bottle of mineral water.
"The first volunteer in the 'consciousness projection' experiment in 1989." He unscrewed the bottle cap, and the water suddenly turned an eerie fluorescent blue. "By the way, your water source has been contaminated."
Yu Yan kicked over the water dispenser: "Damn! That Fan-ge just now—"
His phone suddenly rang. The caller ID read: Fan Jinci.
The voice coming through the receiver, however, was synthesized electronically:
"The game begins."
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