Startled, Chen Mo suddenly realized that the pale-faced little girl was exactly the same as the one he had seen in his "dream," and he was almost certain—this little girl… was not alive!
Realizing she had been spotted, the little girl seemed frightened, immediately stood up, turned, and ran upstairs, leaving a series of thumping sounds behind.
Although Dai Minghan hadn't seen the little girl, he also heard the sudden noise. The footsteps were clearly heading toward the second floor.
"Come on, let's go up and check."
Without a word, the two dashed up the stairs in a single bound. After rushing up, they were met with an even more chaotic bedroom—dim light, an empty room, and no sign of the little girl anywhere.
In other words, what we just saw was indeed a ghost… but this spirit didn't seem to harbor any ill will toward us?
The wooden floor on the second floor, perhaps due to years of neglect, creaked with every step. After a few steps, Chen Mo noticed a page of paper and some scattered crayons lying by the door of a bedroom. He picked them up and saw that the paper appeared to be a child's doodle—clumsy strokes depicting a family of three.
Looking up, the dusty little room before him seemed to be the home of the doodle's creator. The walls were also covered in graffiti, confirming it was indeed the work of a mischievous little girl.
As he surveyed the surroundings, suddenly, *ding-dong, ding-dong*—the phone in his pocket rang with that eerie tune again. Chen Mo's heart tightened, and he quickly pulled out the phone. Sure enough, the game screen had updated with new story content.
In the game, the red room appeared once more. What sent a chill down their spines was that the room's furnishings were identical to the real one—completely the same!
Seeing the game screen mirror reality exactly, only pixelated, Chen Mo and Dai Minghan both gasped. Unlike the previous game screen, this time, a male character they hadn't seen before appeared in the room.
Could this be that deceased programmer named Yin Xiong?
Was his ghost now in the game?
At that thought, Chen Mo's heart tightened silently. Just then, a little girl character suddenly ran into the frame from the bottom of the screen.
"Daddy!"
"Ah, it's Xiao Wei."
The man turned around, welcoming the little girl as she leaped into his arms.
"Daddy! Daddy!" Clinging tightly to his arm, the little girl seemed both sulky and pleading. "Daddy, can you not leave today? Can you stay with Xiao Wei?"
"Sorry, Daddy's very busy with work. But once I finish what I'm doing, I'll definitely make time to be with Xiao Wei."
With that, the man hesitated but still pushed away the clinging little girl and walked out of the screen without looking back.
"Daddy…"
"Daddy… why are you always so busy…"
"Why can't you stay with Xiao Wei…"
In the empty room, only the little girl's lonely figure remained.
"No matter how much I beg, why won't Daddy ever stay…"
"Did Xiao Wei do something wrong…"
After this scene, the new story seemed to end, leaving only the wandering little girl in the room. Chen Mo checked the time and then turned off the phone screen.
This story prompt seemed to reveal more about this family's tale. Thinking that this once-happy family of three had all become ghosts in the game, it was hard not to feel a pang of melancholy.
Just then, Dai Minghan let out a "Huh?" "What's this?"
In his hand, he held a sketchbook he'd found somewhere. The page Chen Mo had picked up at the door seemed to have fallen from it.
Opening the sketchbook and flipping through a few pages, Chen Mo's eyes lit up slightly.
This wasn't just a doodle book—it was a diary.
A diary kept in pictures by a little girl who could barely write!
Since it was a diary, this sketchbook held significant meaning. Perhaps it would help the participants glimpse the tip of the iceberg of this story's greatest secret!
Page by page, Chen Mo slowly opened the sketchbook.
The sketchbook, about a dozen pages long, was quickly read. Though the drawings were childish, the hidden meaning sent a chill down their spines.
The earliest pictures mostly showed a lonely little girl, sometimes sitting in a room, sometimes gazing out the window. Occasionally, a man's figure appeared, and then the little girl seemed especially happy.
Combined with the game's story, this likely referred to the programmer named Yin Xiong, who neglected his family due to work.
Then one day, something seemed to happen that made the whole family very happy. In the drawing, the man lifted the little girl high above his head, while the woman beside him beamed with joy.
Above the three figures, the child, perhaps trying to depict an imagined scene, had drawn a big circle. Inside the circle was a picture of a coastline and a lighthouse.
"Does this mean the father's work made progress, and he promised to take the family on a trip? The circle represents the place the child wanted to go?"
"Makes sense." Chen Mo nodded and turned to the next page.
But this page didn't show the imagined family outing. Instead, it depicted a lonely man holding the same crayons and paper as the child.
On the next page, the man seemed not to have gone to work but locked himself in his room. The floor was littered with messy papers and a computer smashed on the ground.
On the page after that, a fierce argument seemed to have erupted between the man and woman. The child's clumsy strokes used bright red to depict anger like flames.
The angry woman left home, while the man locked himself in the house. The picture again showed only the lonely little girl, with large teardrops exaggeratedly smeared across the entire page!
Though it was a picture diary, it was clear that a major upheaval had struck this family!
"Could this upheaval refer to the father being fired?"
For some reason, Chen Mo felt a vague uncertainty. In the previous picture, the whole family was very happy, seemingly planning a bright future. But in the very next page, the change happened abruptly.
There must be another secret hidden in this transition!
With that thought, Chen Mo immediately pulled out his phone to call Zhang Yiming again. But before he could dial, a sudden, urgent ringtone sounded.
The call was from Lin Tianheng!