Players, Please Board the Train

”Item: Seven-Color Gloves. Can be removed seven times daily, changing seven colors, refreshes every twenty-four hours. Seeking to exchange for one train ticket.”

The post included a short video showing someone wearing a single red glove on one hand. Each time they removed it, the thin glove would change color like shedding skin—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, all seven colors.

It was unclear whether the glove still counted as the same item each time it was removed.

The Omnipresent String could only be used once on any object. Carrying around a stack of gloves was inconvenient, and sourcing materials locally wasn’t cheap either. If there were an item that could refresh repeatedly, using the String would become much more convenient.

Xu Huo immediately sent a private message. After waiting a while with no response, he shut down the computer and went to catch up on sleep.

He slept until midnight, half-dreaming and half-awake when he saw a shadow standing by his bed. Reacting on instinct, he kicked out but hit empty air. Sitting up and turning on the light, everything in the room remained exactly as it was before he slept.

Getting up to check the window, from the fourteenth floor height he could see the entire residential complex clearly.

”Knock knock.” The door sounded. He pulled it open to find Painting Woman holding up a piece of paper: ”I heard a second person’s voice.”

Xu Huo raised an eyebrow slightly. If that was the case, then what just happened wasn’t his imagination.

”Go call Yuan Yao over.”Painting Woman left and soon returned with Yuan Yao, who had dark circles under his eyes. ”Brother Xu, what’s up in the middle of the night?”

”Someone appeared in my room just now. Help me track an address—I suspect we’re being targeted.” Xu Huo opened the forum to that post; the private message still hadn’t been answered.

”Who has such nerve!” Yuan Yao immediately perked up. ”Brother Xu, don’t worry, I’ll definitely find this person!”

He sat down at the computer and began working.

”What happened?” Huang Junjie asked, drawn by the noise.

Xu Huo pointed at the computer. ”Let’s wait and see first.”

Soon Yuan Yao looked up with a strange expression. ”The other party’s address is actually in a haunted house.”

”Last year there was a massacre here—everyone in the household registry died. The place has been sealed ever since. Why would someone be accessing the internet from there? Could it be haunted!”

”Maybe someone’s hiding there,” said Huang Junjie, the rational type. ”What exactly happened just now?”

”Someone entered my room, then vanished in the blink of an eye,” Xu Huo pondered. ”Didn’t look like a living person.”

Yuan Yao rubbed the goosebumps on his arms. ”Bro, please don’t tell ghost stories in the middle of the night, okay?”

Huang Junjie gave him a complicated look. ”Not being living doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a ghost. Could be some strange item or characteristic.”

”Are you sure it’s this poster causing trouble?” he asked Xu Huo.

”Just intuition,” Xu Huo paused. ”Could this be a fake address?”

A post coming from an uninhabited haunted house was abnormal in itself.

”How about we check this place out tomorrow?” Yuan Yao suggested tentatively. ”If the other party is really targeting us, we should strike first.”

”Could be a trap,” Huang Junjie said. ”I think it’s best not to get involved. If the other party has some purpose, they’ll definitely come again.”

Xu Huo shared this thought—whatever that black shadow intended to do, having failed once, it would certainly try again.

He just didn’t expect the second attempt to come so quickly. As dawn approached, a black shadow slowly extended its head from the computer screen.

In the darkness, Xu Huo watched through half-open eyes as the figure squeezed its body out of the narrow rectangular frame and crept stealthily toward his bed.

Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a person. It more closely resembled a training dummy—having human contours but lacking a face or facial features.

It stopped by the bedside, then bent forcefully at the waist, stretching its head toward Xu Huo’s face. Halfway there, it suddenly halted as if frightened, jerked backward violently, and then vanished into thin air.

Xu Huo couldn’t sleep at all after that, so he simply got up to go running and bought breakfast along the way.

At the breakfast table, when he recounted what happened, Yuan Yao thought seriously for a moment before saying, ”This ghost isn’t some pervert, is it?”

Xu Huo paused while drinking his soy milk. ”What led you to that conclusion?”

Yuan Yao chuckled. ”You said it yourself—it didn’t do anything, just shoved itself toward your face. Maybe it’s coveting your good looks... never expected it to be a lustful ghost.”

”Stop joking around,” Huang Junjie said helplessly. ”Since we’re being targeted, we need to be careful. I’m free today—I’ll patrol the area.”

”Brother Xu, do you have plans today?” Yuan Yao looked at Xu Huo.

”I’m going to the film studio,” Xu Huo said.

”Why go to the film studio? Chasing celebrities?” Yuan Yao asked, confused.

”Work.”

After breakfast, Xu Huo went to the film studio by himself.

His extra work payment had been settled, but the casting director had asked him to help with a fight scene. They had some history, so he agreed.

Taking a taxi to the film studio, he arrived at a xianxia drama set where Cai Zhiyuan intercepted him from afar. ”Was just about to call you—didn’t expect you’d arrive before I got the chance.”

”Today’s shoot is canceled.”

”Something wrong?” Xu Huo glanced toward the noisy soundstage where several young women were busily moving luggage and makeup cases into a luxury van. A woman’s voice urged from inside the vehicle: ”Hurry up! I can’t stand this damned place for another minute!”

A moderately famous director stood beside the van, speaking quietly to whoever was inside.

”I’ll pay the penalty fee in full, but I won’t continue filming this series,” the woman’s voice stated firmly.

The director, frustrated but helpless, could only turn and walk away.

”Big celebrities from the capital really are different,” Cai Zhiyuan tutted. ”If it were an ordinary actor, they wouldn’t dare leave even if knives were falling, let alone because of some ghost rumors.”

”Ghost rumors?” Xu Huo expressed mild surprise. ”More rumors?”

The film studio had some rather ancient props, and certain crews would intentionally create fake news about these locations for publicity during filming.

”No, it’s real,” Cai Zhiyuan pulled him aside and lowered his voice. ”During night filming two days ago, the big star encountered a ghost in the dressing room. She said a black shadow ran past behind her. Everyone thought she was seeing things, but then when she returned to her hotel, a shadow actually crawled onto her bed.”

”A stalker?”

Cai Zhiyuan shook his head mysteriously. ”No way—you think the big star’s bodyguards are useless? Nobody entered her room at all.”

”Once or twice might be excusable, but the next day while napping on set, the big star saw that shadow again.”

”This time she wasn’t the only one who saw it—her assistant bringing water also spotted it. The lighting was dim, so they couldn’t make out features, just saw a black shadow running from the window. But when they chased after it, guess what?”

”There was absolutely nobody there!”

”The cameras were running and happened to capture outside the window—nobody came out at all.”

”Don’t you think that’s strange? Two people saw it, but the cameras captured nothing. That’s why the big star refused to continue, even willing to pay compensation to leave.”

Xu Huo’s gaze swept over the computer bag in the assistant’s hand before he turned back to Cai Zhiyuan. ”Brother Cai, I’m planning to change jobs.”