The following morning, as soon as Lin Lu arrived at the Training Room, she noticed the atmosphere was not quite right.
Hoshino Hikari was sitting upright for once, rarely seen without her phone in hand.
Lin Qingqing wasn’t lying down to catch up on sleep either; instead, she was staring blankly at several pieces of paper pinned to the whiteboard.
Minazuki stood before the whiteboard, her expression solemn.
“What happened?” Lin Lu asked, setting down her bag.
“The Technical Department found something.” Minazuki turned around and handed her several printed sheets.
“A strange website appeared on the internet recently, but it can only be accessed within the range of Beijiang City.”
Lin Lu took the papers and quickly scanned them.
It was a log of website access records.
The IP addresses were virtual, making it impossible to determine the exact locations.
“Only for Beijiang City?” Lin Lu frowned as she looked at the location data.
“Yes.” Minazuki nodded, “After several days of investigation, it’s also been confirmed that Lin Xiaoyu once visited this website.”
She handed over another sheet.
It was a post from a psychological self-help forum.
The title read: [Does anyone else feel like living is so tiring? In dreams, you have everything. If only reality were a dream.]
The post was from one month ago.
The replies below weren’t very numerous, mostly consisting of words of encouragement like “Keep going” and “Hang in there.”
However, one reply had been deleted by the poster.
The Technical Department had recovered the content of that reply.
It was only one sentence: “If you’re really tired, I can help you. Click here.”
A link followed the text.
Lin Lu stared at the line of words, a chill running down her spine.
“Who made this post? Can it be traced?”
“We can’t find them.” Minazuki shook her head, “The account used was temporary and was deleted immediately after use. The IP was also virtual.”
“But at least we know how it finds, or rather, filters its victims.” Hoshino Hikari stood up.
“It makes a post and just sits there waiting for people to take the bait.”
Lin Qingqing asked, “Is it still posting now?”
Minazuki adjusted her glasses and replied, “The Technical Department is checking. No new posts have been found yet, but we can’t be sure if it has switched to a different method.”
The Training Room fell silent for a moment.
“There’s one more thing.” Minazuki spoke, her tone growing heavy, “While tracking the website, the Technical Department discovered a strange access record.”
“What kind of record?”
“Someone from the same IP address has been repeatedly visiting that website.” Minazuki looked at the files in her hand and said, “Not just once or twice, but every day. It’s been going on for nearly a week now.”
Lin Lu’s heart skipped a beat, “Who is it?”
“We can’t tell.” Minazuki shook her head, “The IP belongs to a public network with a broad area of coverage. But the Technical Department has narrowed it down to a general region — “
She pinned a map to the whiteboard and drew a red circle.
“Beijiang District, Old City Area, near Nantang Road.”
“Should we go check it out this afternoon?” Hoshino Hikari suggested.
“No rush.” Minazuki shook her head and said, “The Technical Department is still analyzing the data. We’ll go when we have a more precise location. Going now would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Hoshino Hikari nodded and sat back down.
Lin Lu took a photo of the map and saved it on her phone.
***
After finishing her school classes in the afternoon, Lin Lu walked home alone.
The setting sun dyed the streets orange-red, and the shadows of pedestrians were stretched long.
“Sigh… training, classes, investigating Shadow Beast cases…” Lin Lu sighed.
‘Being a magical girl is a tiring profession too…’
As Lin Lu walked down the street, lamenting her workload and wondering what to eat for dinner, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man talking to thin air by the side of the road.
‘Huh?’
Lin Lu blinked, stopping her pace to observe him.
He wore an ordinary jacket, his hair was graying, and his back was slightly hunched.
He was carrying a supermarket plastic bag containing several cartons of milk and some snacks.
“Were you good at kindergarten today?”
The man lowered his head, his tone tender.
To Lin Lu’s surprise, there was no one beside him.
‘Who was he talking to?’
It wasn’t even dark yet; was she seeing a ghost?
“The teacher said you drew a picture? What did you draw?”
As the man spoke, he reached out his hand, making a “holding” gesture.
His palm was slightly curved as if he were holding a small hand.
“Daddy bought you milk and those strawberry cookies you like.”
The man bent down and lifted the plastic bag to knee height, as if showing it to a very short person.
“I’ll make you something delicious when we get home, okay?”
Then he straightened up, his right hand maintaining the posture of holding something, and continued walking.
After a few steps, the man stopped and made a “hugging” motion — arms wide open, then closing them as if hugging a very small child.
“Lift you high? Hahaha, okay!”
He raised his arms upward, his movements very light and careful.
“Up we go!”
Lin Lu stood rooted to the spot, watching the man’s receding back.
As the wind blew past, she heard the last few words.
“Daddy missed you… baby.”
Lin Lu was deeply confused, ‘What on earth… did this man go through?’
She then went into a supermarket and grabbed a bottle of water from the shelf.
The cashier was a 40-year-old woman.
She scanned the barcode on the bottle and asked casually with a smile, “Is this all?”
“Yes.” Lin Lu handed over the money, hesitated for a moment, and then spoke, “Ma’am, I wanted to ask — that man just now, the one with the plastic bag talking to the air, do you know him?”
The cashier’s hand paused.
She looked up at Lin Lu and sighed, “You mean Old Zhao.”
She handed the change back to Lin Lu and continued, “He’s lived around here for several years. He didn’t used to be like that.”
“Oh?”
The cashier leaned against the counter, her tone filled with an indescribable sorrow, “Old Zhao used to work at the factory. His wife stayed home with the kid. They had a decent life, no worries about food or clothes. His daughter, Zhao Xiaoduo, was incredibly cute. She wore two little braids, and every time she came to buy things with her dad, she’d sweetly call me ‘Auntie.’ Then…”
She paused.
“Then what happened?” Lin Lu asked.
“Then there was a car accident.” The cashier’s voice dropped.
“Old Zhao was driving his wife and kid back to their hometown for the New Year. On the highway… they were rear-ended. His wife died on the spot. His daughter was rushed to the hospital, but after a few days of emergency treatment, she didn’t make it either.”
Lin Lu’s fingers tightened around the water bottle.
“He was the only one left.” The cashier shook her head.
“After that, Old Zhao became a completely different person. He stopped going to work and locked himself inside his house every day. Everyone around here thought he wasn’t going to make it.”
“So what’s happening now?”
“In the last one or two months, he suddenly started coming out again.” The cashier said.
“But… he became like this. Talking to the air every day, smiling at nothing.”
She glanced out the window.
The man had already walked far away, his figure disappearing into the twilight.
“It breaks our hearts to watch. Some say he’s gone mad; others say he just can’t accept reality and is lying to himself. But who’s to say? Imagine a happy family going home for the New Year, and only one person comes back. Who could handle that?”
Lin Lu remained silent.
“Right,” the cashier suddenly remembered something.
“The strangest thing is that this past week, he’s been saying things like ‘Xiaoduo is back’ and ‘Daddy sees you.’ You tell me… how is that possible? The dead can’t come back to life. It’s not like he’s actually seen a ghost, right?”
Lin Lu thought for a moment and replied, “Maybe he just misses his family too much, and his mental health is failing?”
“Who knows.” The cashier shook her head, “Sigh, maybe having hallucinations or lying to himself is the only way he can keep living. Even if it’s a dream, for him, it’s better than reality.”
Lin Lu thanked her and walked out of the supermarket with her water bottle.
The sun had already set, leaving only a final smear of orange-red on the horizon.
Lin Lu lamented the unpredictability of the world.
The cashier had a point.
For that man, perhaps a dream where his daughter was still alive — a dream where he could pick her up from school every day, buy her strawberry cookies, and watch her grow up — was indeed better than the reality that caused him so much pain.
Lin Lu retracted her gaze and quickened her pace toward home.
When she reached the bottom of her building, she looked back once more.
The man’s silhouette had disappeared around the corner.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something really was standing in that empty space beside him.
“Ding-dong!”
A message notification sounded from Lin Lu’s phone.
After seeing the message, her hand couldn’t help but tremble…
[Shimotsuki: Xiao Lu, get ready tonight. You’re doing a livestream at 9:00 PM to interact with the fans.]