Qi An’s gaze grew distant as his thoughts drifted back to that night half a year ago.  

Xiao Pang finished eating a burger and was the first to step onto the balcony.  

He had Qi An turn off the balcony light from inside. The wind howled outside, rattling the glass window in rhythmic thuds.  

He walked three circles on the balcony before returning to the room, then jumped three times in front of the bed. Grabbing the doll he’d asked Qi An to buy from the toy store after school, he gave it three hard smacks.  

After he finished, A Jun and Qi An followed suit, repeating the same steps.  

With the lights off, the three boys lay side by side on the same large bed, clutching the dolls uncomfortably as they tried to sleep.  

According to the post they’d read online, if they did this, there would be loud banging on the door in the middle of the night—and the noise would grow increasingly louder.  

The most important rule: Do not open the door!

No matter what, they must not open it!  

If they did, the consequences could range from serious trouble to death within seven days.  

The three of them were teenagers, fresh out of middle school and just starting high school—an age where they feared nothing.  

They had no concept of reverence or caution.  

Before falling asleep, Xiao Pang even tossed his doll toward the ceiling, laughing. “What ghosts? If one comes, I’ll beat it up. If two come, I’ll take them both down!” 

A Jun smirked, equally dismissive. “I hope it’s one wearing embroidered shoes. If it’s not, I don’t want it.”

Qi An, on the other hand, felt a creeping unease, though he didn’t take it too seriously.  

“One in a Qing dynasty official’s robe and hat would work too, haha.”  

Xiao Pang nearly died laughing and shoved Qi An. “Dude, wrong horror trope.”  

And so, the three of them fell asleep clutching the dolls they usually hated, the clock ticking away as time passed.  

At half past midnight, the boys were jolted awake by the eerie wailing of the wind.  

BANG! BANG! BANG!  

The strange, piercing noise sent chills down their spines in the darkness.  

Qi An’s bedroom door faced the balcony directly.  

The terrifying sound made it impossible to tell whether something was really pounding on their door—  

Or if it was just the winter wind hurling sand and branches against the window.  

But that didn’t stop the three of them from freaking out and immediately flinging their dolls to the floor.  

Qi An fumbled for the light switch by the window, pressing it several times—but nothing happened.  

The power was out.  

“Shit!”

Cursing under his breath, he grabbed his phone and quickly turned on the flashlight.

With the light source, they were noticeably less scared.  

The tallest of the three, A Jun, mustered his courage and suggested, “Should we go open the door?”  

Qi An kicked him. “Are you out of your damn mind?! The post said not to open it—if we do, the best-case scenario is bad luck, and the worst is death!”  

“If you wanna die, be my guest, but I’m not joining you!”

Xiao Pang burst into laughter, clutching his stomach as he pointed at Qi An. “Dude, you’re totally chickening out!” 

Qi An was furious. “Who the hell are you calling a chicken?!”

He wouldn’t have cared if they called him ugly, but cowardice? That was a step too far.  

A Jun and Xiao Pang both looked at him. “If you’re not scared, then come open the door with us!”  

[666, what kind of fake friendship is this?!]  

[Y’all really trying to hold hands and march straight into the underworld together? I’ll never understand men!]  

[Of course women wouldn’t get it—meanwhile, five of you in one dorm can make seven group chats, scheming all day like it’s a palace drama!]  

[Oh, look who thinks he’s an expert. Quick quiz—without Googling, were the perpetrators in that infamous college roommate poisoning case male or female?]

[LMAO, ‘quick quiz’ is sending me. Peak comedy.]

[Stop arguing, I just wanna know if Qi An and the others actually opened the door.]  

Huo Ning slurped another mouthful of spicy sour noodles before answering for Qi An, “They did.”  

[Well, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. So, did anything weird happen afterward?]  

Qi An’s face paled. “Xiao Pang got caught cheating on his midterms and skipping class to go to an internet café. His homeroom teacher was furious and called his parents.” 

“When he got home, his parents beat him hard and cut his allowance in half for the month.”  

“A Jun got hit by an electric scooter while crossing the street. Got a huge gash on his leg.”  

[Don’t just talk about them—what about you? What happened to you?]

This time, Qi An fell silent.  

His eyes gradually reddened, tears streaming down his face.  

Huo Ning sighed when she saw his reaction.  

“He was fine, but his family’s five-year-old Labrador died a week later.”  

The dog’s death hit Qi An hard.  

By that point, he had already lost any desire to keep playing these so-called ghost-summoning games.

But A Jun and Xiao Pang had their own explanations—  

One claimed he got hit by the scooter because he was staring at his phone instead of watching the traffic light.  

The other insisted that skipping class and getting caught cheating were just normal, everyday occurrences for students.  

As for the Labrador’s death? They brushed it off as the dog simply being old and succumbing to illness.  

The two of them were still hungry for more thrills, not yet satisfied with the adrenaline rush of these games.  

And Qi An… deep down, he still wanted to see if he could encounter a real ghost.  

So, in the end, the three of them embarked on their third and fourth rounds of tempting fate.  

This time, they even dragged a girl into it—A Jun’s crush.  

“This time, we played the Ouija board and the Pencil Spirit game.”  

Qi An’s face turned deathly pale, his pupils trembling with terror.  

“The Ouija board was fine, but during the Pencil Spirit game… we lost control of the pencil. All four of us were pulling at it desperately, and in the end, the pencil snapped.” 

“After that, we stayed away from these ghost-summoning games for a long time. We didn’t even dare to talk about them.”  

Huo Ning slurped another mouthful of her spicy sour noodles.  

She shot Qi An a glance, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes.  

“You did lay low for a while. But after two months, when nothing worse happened besides some shoulder pain, you all went right back to chasing thrills.”

“You even went as far as playing Bloody Mary and the Four-Corner Game!” 

[What are Bloody Mary and the Four-Corner Game? Someone explain!]

[Bloody Mary is when you go into the bathroom alone, turn off the lights, lock the door, and stand in front of the mirror with a candle lit on each side. Close your eyes, focus, and slowly say “Bloody Mary” three times. Then open your eyes and look into the mirror.]

[No one knows exactly what will happen—anything is possible. Here are some potential outcomes:]  

[A face with torn flesh might appear in the mirror, and the evil spirit could scare you to death.]  

[The ghost might drive the player insane.]  

[You might see a pair of sinister red eyes in the mirror, or even witness blood seeping from the mirror and walls.]  

[The malevolent spirit could drag you into the mirror itself.] 

[Holy crap, that’s intense! So, Qi An, did you guys see anything in the bathroom that night?!]  

Qi An shook his head with a bitter smile. “No.”  

That night, they didn’t encounter anything terrifying—not even in their dreams.  

And in the days that followed, nothing unusual happened to them.  

That was why their courage grew… until they attempted that eerie Four-Corner Game.  

The Four-Corner Game, as the name suggests, is played in the dead of night inside a rectangular, empty room. All lights are turned off, with one person standing in each corner, facing the wall—never looking back.  

The game begins when one person silently walks to the next corner and taps the shoulder of the person standing there, then takes their place.

The tapped person then walks to the next corner in the same direction (everyone moves either clockwise or counterclockwise) and taps the third person’s shoulder.

This continues until, eventually, someone reaches an empty corner. When that happens, they must cough once, wait five seconds, then skip that corner and move to the next occupied one.

[Heh… after a while, you’ll notice something strange: the coughing stops. That means every corner is occupied—but you can still hear footsteps moving. So who—or what—is the extra person walking among you?]

Qi An’s face turned ghostly pale, and he shivered violently on camera.

“That night, halfway through the game, the girl A Jun liked suddenly started screaming and crying, begging to leave. No matter how much we tried to calm her down, she refused to stay.”

“We had no choice but to take her home.”

And the strange occurrences began that very night.