“Eh, it’s not even a big-deal ghost tale, Weiwei. You’re overselling it.”

Her words drifted like thin smoke over the candle’s flame.

Li Yao tilted a smile at Xiaoxiao Ji, a gentle signal to relax, like a palm smoothing ripples.

But fear rose first in Xiaoxiao’s chest like cold mist; in the wavering wax-light, Li Yao’s pale face looked carved from bone.

Unlike Zhao Yue’s earlier pallor, this face held an eerie clarity; to Xiaoxiao’s eye, faint blue veins laced under the skin like winter vines.

The sight crawled over her nerves like ants in the dark.

“This tale’s something Weiwei and I heard this afternoon when we came to campus,” Li Yao said, voice calm as pond water.

“In our building, there was a strange case: a student vanished like a stone dropped in the lake.”

“And the teller swore that case ties right back to the ghost story Weiwei just mentioned.”

Her tone stepped lightly, but each word fell like a pebble.

“Well, it all happened in the same dorm building, so it does make you wonder.” Qiangwei Zhong laughed, bright as clinking glass.

“I forgot to add this— the hanged girl lived in this very building, our building, though we don’t know the room. If I knew, I’d go take a look.”

“Huh?”

The sound slipped from Xiaoxiao’s throat like a startled bird.

She wanted to run for her ghost sister, a warm memory like a lamp behind a paper screen.

But a glance around told her the ghost sister at her side had vanished like mist in sun.

The living room held only her and two roommates whose courage was a blade that cut comfort.

Pinned between Qiangwei and Li Yao, a thin chill slid down Xiaoxiao’s back like melted ice.

She hated that the teacher had assigned her to a place with old strangeness hanging like damp clothes.

Worse, she’d landed two roommates obsessed with ghost tales, their curiosity like cats at a shrine.

Her ghost sister was missing; the only person she could lean on was in the bathroom, washing up, water whispering.

Frustration pricked her like nettles, though at least this was just the building— not the rumored haunted room itself.

“Hey, it’s only a small overlap,” Li Yao said, voice soft as a quilt.

“The story I’m telling happened after the hanged girl; Xiaoxiao, no need to be so tense.”

She watched Xiaoxiao as she spoke, her gaze steady as a lantern’s eye.

The white candle’s flame shimmed and rocked, one breath away from black, and the room fell still, breath and shadow held.

“After news of the hanged girl spread in this building, students rushed to request room changes like leaves blown by a front,” Li Yao went on.

“Dorm space was limited, and the school wouldn’t abandon a whole building over one storm.”

“So they made a compromise: anyone willing to live in Building Three would get forty percent off housing.

Many complained like sparrows on a wire, but to poorer students, it was rainfall after drought.”

“In the end, Building Three didn’t go dark.

Enough students moved in that most had a whole room to themselves, which felt like a calm shore— but that was only the first wave.”

“Nothing strange happened at first; days passed quiet as folded paper.

Then, with time settling like dust, the girl who took the hanged girl’s old room began seeing, at midnight, a blurred figure standing at the bathroom door.”

“She first thought it was clothes left to dry, a shadow like a shirt sleeve.

Only when she walked closer did the shape knit into a person.”

“A soaked woman in pajamas— a woman who’d hanged herself— standing there like rain shaped into flesh.”

Li Yao spoke with a focus sharp as a needle, like she’d walked those halls alone.

“The girl jolted, mind a kite in wind, and tried to run.

Suddenly she woke— it had been a dream, a phantom tide that pulled back.”

“The false safety didn’t soothe her; it stung, a thorn under the nail.

The next night she left the light on, slept solid as a rock, but when she woke, a murky puddle lay in the middle of the floor, as if dripping down from above.”

“She blamed the upstairs unit, damp leaking like a weeping wall.

She brushed it off, until another night brought the same dream— and then she saw the truth.”

“That puddle didn’t fall from the ceiling.

Every morning, it appeared from the ghost herself, water dripping off the soaked woman like night rain.”

“Nightmares circled her like wolves.

Whenever she slept, no matter where, she slipped into an observer’s eye, back in her room, watching herself asleep— and the hanged woman a few steps away.”

“From first blur to sharpened detail, terror stitched itself tight.

Each time she woke, the puddle crept closer to her bed, inch by inch, like a tide under the moon.”

“Round and round it went until only one step remained.

In her dream, she could see the woman’s face at her bedside, clear as cold glass.”

“The girl felt herself breaking, nerves fraying like old rope.

One more sleep, and the woman would reach her throat, fingers pale as bone.”

“She begged for help, but people laughed like crows on a wall.

So she prepared proof: on the last night, she set her phone recording on the bed, the red dot a tiny ember.”

Li Yao paused, eyes turning playful, like a cat batting a ribbon.

“Xiaoxiao, do you know what happened?”

“W-what happened?”

Her voice fluttered like a moth.

“The girl vanished, gone like steam into sky; nobody knows where she went.

All she left was a broad, murky puddle on the bed, her phone drowned in it, silence thick as silt.”

“I-is that so… ha… haha… pretty scary.”

“Anyway, it’s late. I’ll wash up and get ready to sleep.”

Wedged between them, Xiaoxiao Ji’s mind scraped against the room like a knife in a sheath.

She could only give a dry laugh and stand, moving toward the bathroom like a clockwork doll.

Maybe fear was painting everything darker; the room felt oppressive, a lid clapped over a jar.

If only her ghost sister were here— one more layer of warmth against the chill.

Muttering, she pushed open the wooden door, the grain like old river lines.

She meant to ask Zhao Yue about morning plans, but froze at the sight in the mirror’s silver.

Zhao Yue stared at herself, vacant as sleepwalkers, leaning closer, closer— like the glass was pulling her in, a mouth of light.

Fear struck first, a bell in Xiaoxiao’s chest, then she lunged and grabbed Zhao Yue’s waist, dragging back hard.

She pulled and shouted Yue’s name, voice a rope thrown over stormwater.

But Zhao Yue was caught, body rigid as a hooked fish, unmoving no matter how Xiaoxiao hauled.

It was like someone inside the mirror had hold of Zhao Yue’s head, dragging her face toward the glass, a cold invitation.

Her whole body bent at a wrong angle, cheek hovering inches from the skin of the mirror.

Just as her face was about to touch— “Snap!”

Xiaoxiao’s hands went strangely light, and she toppled backward like a crate knocked loose.

“Ah—!”

“Ow, ow, ow…”

Rubbing her tailbone, she scrambled up fast, heartbeat a sparrow’s wing.

She went first to check on Zhao Yue, breath tight as string.

“Yue Yue! Yue Yue! Are you okay?”

Her words shook like leaves.

“Xiaoxiao! What happened?”

The commotion in the bathroom pulled Qiangwei Zhong and Li Yao from the living room like fish following ripples.

They reached the doorway and saw Xiaoxiao clutching Zhao Yue on the floor, tension sharp as wire.

Both roommates stiffened, surprise flaring like sparks.

“Xiaoxiao, what’s going on with Yue Yue?”

Qiangwei’s courage was steel wrapped in silk; after a heartbeat of shock, she rushed in and helped lift the unconscious Zhao Yue.

“I—I—I don’t know how it happened!” Xiaoxiao’s face had gone pale, fear folding her words.

“I walked in and saw Yue Yue pressed to the mirror, like someone inside was dragging her through the glass.”

“Someone in the mirror dragging her in?”

Qiangwei and Li Yao traded a look, a silent line of worry.

“Xiaoxiao, maybe you’re still wound up from the story and misread it,” Li Yao said, laying Zhao Yue flat on her bed, voice firm as warm tea.

“This building had a ghost tale, sure— but ghost tales aren’t science.”

“Yeah, Xiaoxiao, Yue Yue probably fainted from anemia,” Qiangwei half-joked, a smile like a paper fan.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting back at me for scaring you.”

But Xiaoxiao’s tone locked in, steady as a nailed door.

“Impossible. I didn’t see wrong— because while I was pulling Yue Yue back, the Yue Yue in the mirror kept looking right at me.”