Hiromi Collection

Chapter 41

(a) QQ Games

At 9 p.m., after taking a shower, Ye Miao turned on his computer.

A familiar little square appeared on the screen. He skillfully entered a few digits of password on the second line. A little penguin flapping its wings appeared in the lower right corner of the screen. Soon, a long blue program interface appeared in the upper right corner of the screen.

The speaker emitted a series of beeping sounds, and system messages and mini-homepages popped up one after another. After quickly browsing through them and finding nothing of interest, Ye Miao closed the windows. Instantly, the noisy beeping subsided, leaving Ye Miao feeling a little uneasy for a moment.

A long list of friends is displayed on the right, with all sorts of strange and unusual names, but at this moment, they are all shown in gray.

Is nobody here? Or have they all gone invisible?

Dragging the slider, Ye Miao searched for several familiar figures.

"Hey, are you free tomorrow? Let's go to Hanfeng for barbecue?" Ye Miao quickly typed a line on the keyboard, copied and pasted it, and sent a few messages.

Ye Miao pulled open the can with one hand, took a few gulps of beer, and waited for a response.

A deathly silence.

"Damn it, where did all of them go this weekend?" Ye Miao felt uneasy, not understanding why he was panicking. He just knew that cursing made him feel better.

I quickly opened several group chats to check – those with my college classmates, those with whom I play online games, and those on forums. They're usually so lively that I need to mute them, but today, strangely, not a single person is online.

The night was quiet. The street downstairs, which was always considered noisy, was also quiet today. Even the annoying Pekingese car next door had somehow learned to be silent. It felt a bit eerie!

Suddenly, Ye Miao felt as if the whole world had abandoned him.

"The last man on Earth was sitting alone in a room when suddenly there was a knock on the door..." A line from Frederick Brown's novel involuntarily popped into Ye Miao's mind, and a gurgling sound came from his throat... It was the sound of beer escaping, but because of the extremely quiet environment, that strangely hollow sound startled Ye Miao himself for a moment.

Ring ring—

The sudden ringing of the telephone startled Ye Miao so much that she almost fell off her chair. She frantically searched for the telephone among the waste newspapers and the tattered remains of a white lunchbox, and answered the phone somewhat flusteredly.

"Hello, Miaomiao, is this Mom? Why aren't you coming home this weekend?"

As Ye Miao heard her mother's gentle nagging voice on the other end of the phone, her heart, which had been beating erratically, gradually returned to normal.

"Okay, I'll eat well, don't worry. Yes, I'll be back next week." After hanging up the phone, Ye Miao breathed a sigh of relief. What was wrong with her today? It was rare for her to lose her composure like this.

The speaker, which I thought had stopped working, started playing again by chance just as I hung up the phone.

Beep beep beep...

Ye Miao glanced at the screen and saw an unfamiliar avatar jumping in the lower right corner. The small square contained indistinguishable complex graphics, but the colors seemed exceptionally vibrant. Ever since QQ introduced the custom avatar feature, Ye Miao had been unable to figure out what others had put on their profile pictures, which had caused his ability to identify his friends to decline sharply.

Ye Miao pressed Ctrl+Alt+Z as usual, waiting for the dialog window to pop up.

Sender: asdfasdf

Who is this?

Ye Miao looked at the ID strangely. The dialog box below the ID contained a long message, interspersed with some strange symbols that Ye Miao couldn't understand. Ye Miao only recognized the stars and squares among them.

"This is a mysterious spell from ancient Egypt..."

After reading just the beginning, Ye Miao understood. This was a message that had been widely circulating on QQ for a long time, containing a spell and a curse, demanding that the recipient forward the message to a certain number of people to receive benefits such as love, or face punishment. The punishments varied, ranging from financial loss and physical harm to the death of a family member—it was a very malicious message.

Although it sounds absurd, nobody wants those so-called retributions to actually happen, so they can only forward it. Because sending it to friends will definitely get them scolded, many people randomly add strangers on QQ and send ominous information to them. This "asdfasdf" is clearly like that; even the ID looks like it was chosen temporarily, probably to avoid giving others a bad impression if their "real" identity was seen.

Ye Miao lightly tapped the left mouse button with his right index finger, and then, as long as he released his hand, the window would close, and then the stranger would be dragged into the blacklist... Ye Miao had operated a similar program several times, but this time, for some reason, he stopped halfway through.

Midway through, the left mouse button is pressed down on the "X" sign in the chat window.

"This is a mysterious spell from ancient Egypt, 〓〓★**~○▲**〓□〓~☆**~◆★※☆〓〓. The person who receives this message will receive a gift from the underworld. If you forward this message to more than twenty friends via QQ within three days, you will get what you want most. Otherwise, you will pay with your life in three days."

Ye Miao's finger trembled slightly on the left mouse button. A few seconds later, he carefully moved the mouse away from the "X" and began typing text in the dialog box.

MiaomiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "Why did you send me this kind of thing?"

Ye Miao thought the other party would refuse to answer, but two seconds after the message was sent, a "beep beep" notification sound came from the speaker.

asdfasdfTO Miaomiao Miao: "I had no choice, someone else sent it to me, I don't want to die."

As expected, Ye Miao quickly typed four words.

MiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "You believe that?"

This time, the other party remained silent for a long time, so long that Ye Miao thought the person was gone, but finally the unpleasant "beep beep" sound came from the speaker.

asdfasdfTO Miaomiao Miaomiao: "Someone has already...someone has already died..."

Ye Miao's hand trembled slightly.

MiaomiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "Who died?"

asdfasdfTO喵苗淼妙: "A friend who received this message but didn't follow it."

My heart felt like it skipped a beat.

MiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "==|||| You're kidding, right? Stop bragging!"

asdfasdfTO喵苗淼妙: "I didn't."

MiaomiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "I'm getting angry!"

MiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "You were lying to me, weren't you?!"

MiaomiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "Hey, talk to me!"

MiaomiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "If you don't make a sound, I'll scan your IP address. If I find you, I definitely won't let you off the hook!"

MiaomiaomiaomiaoTOasdfasdf: "Speak!!!"

The grayed-out avatar remained there silently, never moving again, as if no one had ever spoken to Ye Miao using that number.

"Damn it!" Ye Miao angrily opened the person's profile box. Apart from the ID name "asdfasdf", there was no information. The level was 1, which confirmed Ye Miao's earlier guess. The other party was indeed using a newly registered ID.

Ye Miao noted down asdfasdf's number, changed his ID, and logged back into QQ. He planned to add the other person as a stranger and investigate them thoroughly.

Click "Search," then "Precise Search," then search by "Number," and press the OK button. A penguin with a magnifying glass appears in the blue box. Ye Miao patiently waits for the results to appear.

"Operation timed out".

"Operation timed out".

"Operation timed out".

"operate……"

No matter how many times the experiment is conducted, the result is always the same.

I can't find the person named "asdfasdf", whether using their QQ number or ID name...

The neighbor's dog started barking again, cars were coming and going downstairs, and truck drivers heading to the nearby construction site were honking their horns relentlessly. The air was moving again, that restless, sultry air that was unique to summer. The air conditioner was humming outside the window, and Ye Miao sat in the computer chair, feeling icy cold all over.

(II) Ghost

“Yuanyuan majored in Chinese literature in college, so she was practically your classmate. Don’t let her pretty looks fool you; even though she had a lot of suitors in college, she’s always been very virtuous and has never been in a relationship…”

"Auntie!" the long-haired, pretty girl called out somewhat awkwardly. Her gaze fell on Luo Lin's face, but she immediately lowered her head, two blushes instantly appearing on her face.

"Hey, this girl's pretty good, aren't you serious about dating her? Lin? Lin!! If you don't want her, I might just take her without hesitation!"

The black-haired youth frowned, his obsidian-like eyes fixed on a table not far away.

"Liao, that girl..."

The noisy voice in my head stopped for a moment, then started again.

Which type do you like?

Following the gaze of the black-haired youth, one could see a college student-looking girl with short hair, wearing a white T-shirt and a short skirt. The girl was sitting alone at the table, drinking bubble tea and frequently checking her phone, as if she was waiting for someone.

"She's alright looking, but she's nowhere near as good-looking as this Zhou Yuanyuan. Are you really sure you want to choose her?"

"Did I say I was picking a girlfriend?" Luo Lin picked up the ice water beside him, took a sip, and gave the girl in front of him, who had been secretly looking at him, a friendly smile.

The girl was stunned for a moment, then her eyes lit up with joy, but she immediately seemed to realize her lapse in composure, blushed again, and lowered her head.

"Liao, should I not have smiled at her?" Realizing that his purely polite smile might have caused some misunderstanding in the woman, Luo Lin asked the monster who shared his body somewhat helplessly.

"My God, you're only realizing this now?" An exaggerated and energetic voice boomed in Luo Lin's mind, almost causing him to reflexively drop the cup in his hand. Luo Lin's aunt, who was acting as the matchmaker, and the girl looked at Luo Lin with some curiosity, but this little oddity was quickly forgotten, replaced by Luo Lin's aunt's exaggerated introduction that had been going on since earlier.

"Oh dear, look at me, I got so caught up in talking that I forgot the time! It's already this late! Auntie has to rush back to buy groceries. Xiaolin, you and Yuanyuan have a good chat!" Judging that the time was almost right, Luolin's aunt wisely said goodbye and left the table, leaving only the two young people behind.

Unfortunately, she didn't know that what she left behind were actually two young people and a monster.

"Luo...can I call you Brother Luo?"

"Just call me Luo Lin." Completely oblivious to the fact that the girl's words, which she had so painstakingly mustered the courage to say, had made her incredibly embarrassed by his overly evasive response, Luo Lin's attention remained fixed on the girls at the previous table.

"Do you... like that type?" Noticing Luo Lin's gaze as well, the gentle and obedient girl finally couldn't help but speak up.

"You like her?" Luo Lin paused, then looked away. "No, I'm not interested in that girl."

Before the girl sitting opposite could even manage a relieved smile, Luo Lin continued, "I was looking at the ghost standing behind that girl..."

A glass of iced orange juice was splashed over without mercy.

"You...you've gone too far!!" The usually well-behaved and sweet girl finally snapped. "Even if you didn't want to go on this blind date, you didn't have to play me like this! Goodbye!"

She hastily pulled out a few bills from her bag and threw them on the table. Under the watchful eyes of everyone in the teahouse, the girl ran out with tears in her eyes.

"Am I...dumped again?" Luo Lin finally realized, much slower than usual, as she watched the other woman's beautiful figure disappear from the doorway.

"Oh dear, oh dear, I've been dumped again." The demon Liao groaned, "You're nothing like your grandfather. You're so sensitive to demons and such, but terribly oblivious to human relationships!"

"Are you alright?" A hand offered a handkerchief. It was a simple, crescent-white cloth handkerchief.

"Thank you. I...it's you?"

The short-haired girl smiled and said, "My name is Zhang Anqi, you can call me Angel. Was that your blind date just now?"

“Yes,” Luo Lin wiped the yellow liquid from her face with a handkerchief and smiled helplessly, “but it has already failed.”

“If you keep staring at me, of course she’ll get angry!” Zhang Anqi seemed to be a very talkative girl with a cheerful personality. “Waiter, excuse me… um, a glass of iced orange juice too.”

"You've been watching me for so long, at least buy me a drink."

"Hush—" Liao whistled in Luo Lin's mind, "She's trying to hook you!"

"I've told you so many times, don't use those nasty and strange words all the time!" Luo Lin was so annoyed by that monster who always used strange words and was good at distorting human thoughts that she didn't want to correct him anymore.

The fresh orange juice was served quickly. Zhang Anqi smiled, her eyes crinkling, and took a big gulp.

"Phew! That feels so good. Summer is all about drinking ice-cold things! Hey, do you only drink ice water?"

"Uh... well, I don't drink beverages much."