Arrested on Livestream

To be honest, it looked a bit like a virtual projection—the kind of technology that can turn your 2D waifu into a 3D waifu.

The figure was faint at first, like a watercolor bleeding into a pool of water, but it gradually intensified, finally revealing the translucent form of a girl. She was about our age, with short hair and a cute, slightly round face, looking quiet and gentle. It was the same girl who had been bullied in the visions.

“My girl!” I heard the somewhat scruffy middle-aged man let out a great cry that was almost a sob. “So you were here…”

Only then did I understand. The daughter the man was looking for was not the influencer-faced girl who had been imprisoned here, but this female ghost, the true final boss, floating by the railing.

All the clues clicked into place.

In room [1-404] of this dormitory building, there were once two girls: one with a long-haired influencer face, and the other with a cute, round-faced, short-haired girl. The influencer-faced girl often bullied the round-faced girl, and it got worse and worse. During the final chase, the round-faced girl fled to the rooftop. Whether she was pushed by the influencer-faced girl or wasn’t paying attention herself, she broke through the dilapidated guardrail and fell from the top of the building, dying on the spot.

This was the student falling incident we had heard about when we first enrolled. It was this very incident that caused the school to abandon this No. 1 female dormitory building. Afterward, rumors began to spread about a female ghost wandering the abandoned dorm. Whether it was a lucky guess or someone had actually witnessed something, there really was a female ghost in this abandoned dormitory—the round-faced girl who had fallen to her death due to bullying.

The round-faced girl, having become a ghost, naturally resented the influencer-faced girl who had bullied her in life, pushed her to the rooftop, and ultimately caused her death. However, her range of activity was limited to this abandoned dormitory; she couldn’t leave to exact her revenge. That is, until a homeless man took shelter here from the rain.

She tortured, coerced, and controlled this homeless man, breaking his spirit and making him, in a daze, help her capture the influencer-faced girl who had caused her death and bring her to the abandoned dormitory. What followed… was brutal torture.

And the stubbled man in the faded T-shirt, this ghost’s father, had somehow heard that his daughter was still wandering in this abandoned dormitory, so he came looking for his deceased child.

The one who had pushed the round-faced girl to her death step by step was the influencer-faced girl. And the round-faced girl, after becoming a vengeful spirit, had tortured to death the influencer-faced girl who had pushed her to her death. Everything tonight was trapped in this cycle of hatred born from bullying.

The stubbled man staggered to the broken section of the guardrail and threw his arms around his dead daughter. But his rough hands embraced only empty air, passing through the translucent image.

Saber and Yukino quickly ran behind the uncle and held him, preventing him from losing his footing and also falling from the rooftop.

The ghost girl with the cute, round face also had a sorrowful expression. However, having become a ghost, she seemed to have lost the ability to cry. She could only say in a thin, choked voice, “Dad… Daddy… you have to live well with Mom! Even without me, you two have to live well…”

Her voice was ethereal and otherworldly, seeming to echo in the void. It was not a sound a living person could make.

The man, held by Saber and Yukino, sat on the dirty concrete floor, sobbing uncontrollably. He couldn’t speak, only gaze at his daughter, his face streaked with tears.

The cute ghost girl looked at her father with an expression that wanted to cry but couldn’t. After a long moment, she seemed to have come to some understanding. Her quiet eyes first looked at Saber and Yukino nearby, then shifted to Exusiai and me further away. She gave us a slight nod, a greeting for our first and final meeting. Then she bent her small body and, even though she couldn’t touch him, tried her best to embrace her father.

The round-faced ghost girl, separated by the boundary of life and death, held the middle-aged man who was crying like a child. Her body gradually faded, eventually disappearing like a popped bubble, as if she had never existed.

Was this… having fulfilled all her wishes, she had completely left the mortal world?

I couldn’t say for sure, but it was a fact that only the tear-streaked middle-aged man was left by the broken guardrail on the rooftop.

I didn’t know what I could do or say at this moment, so I just silently turned my attention to the stream.

Due to the lighting, the influencer-faced girl’s body was not clearly shown in the stream. From the stream’s screen, you could only see a blurry, human-shaped shadow, as if it had been censored by a dark fog.

The comments were much sparser than before, but the number of viewers hadn’t decreased at all. It seemed that this scene had left most of the audience lost in complex emotions, not knowing what to say. Even the few bullet comments were filled with sorrow:

[I just couldn’t sleep and decided to watch this stream, how the hell did it make me cry]

[My eyes are a little wet too. This can’t be real, can it?] 

[It should be real. I go to the same school as the streamers. I’ve heard about the girl falling from this abandoned dormitory.]

[I cried… and also, I peed…] 

[To be honest, at this point, I actually hope this whole stream was staged. Otherwise, this is just too tragic…] 

[Do you guys hear police sirens?]

Seeing this comment, I immediately focused my attention on the surrounding air. There was indeed the faint sound of police sirens piercing the night from afar.

The stars twinkled in the sky and the round moon hung high. The cool night wind rustled my slender ponytail, making it sway endlessly in the night.

Standing on the high rooftop and looking into the distance, I could see more than one police car with flashing red and blue lights driving onto the campus. It was probably because the viewer who sent that comment had called the police.

I pursed my soft lips, lifted my phone to the camera, and tried to smile but couldn’t. I could only manage to curve the corners of my mouth, and with a face filled with complex emotions, I said to the viewers who were still watching after midnight, “Friends, this is the end of tonight’s stream. If we continue filming, we’ll probably be arrested on live TV. Look over there… the police cars are already here. So that’s it for this time. If we have the chance, we’ll see you next time.”

With that, I operated my already hot phone and ended the stream.

By the time the police cars with their flashing lights and wailing sirens arrived at the foot of the abandoned dormitory building, the man who had seen his daughter for the last time had finally calmed down a little.

He pushed himself up from the concrete floor, stumbling to his feet, wiped his tears, and looked at us a little embarrassedly, saying in a hoarse voice, “Sorry, you had to see that.”

“It’s okay…” I shook my head. After a moment’s hesitation, I felt I couldn’t miss this opportunity, so I asked the question that had been buried in my heart since just now. “Uncle, this might be a bit presumptuous, but may I ask… who told you that you could find your daughter here?”

The man was stunned, perhaps not expecting me to ask such a simple question so seriously. He answered without hesitation, “I received a letter. It was this letter that told me I could find my daughter here. I remember the signature on the letter was a strange name. I think it was called…

…The Mourning Council.”