Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Ghostly Scholar

The reason I say the sound of the keyboard is eerie is partly because the house is deathly silent at this moment, with only the sound of the keys being struck breaking the stillness. On the other hand, the keystrokes come at a steady, almost mechanical rhythm—once every two seconds—and in the intervals between, I can distinctly hear a tortured groan.

There were seven of us present, yet an inexplicable chill crept through me. We exchanged glances, and without hesitation, Wang Feiyang, carrying his contemptuous scythe, was the first to approach the room from which the keyboard sounds emanated.

At the door, Wang Feiyang took a deep breath and pushed it open in one swift motion. The scene inside was so horrifying that every one of us froze in shock.

The dimly lit room contained an ancient netbook—a low-end laptop meant solely for browsing the internet, incapable of running games. Its screen emitted a faint glow, displaying a Word document filled with several lines of text. Sitting before the computer was a figure so bizarre it defied belief.

He was almost translucent; through his body, the light from the screen shone clearly. He wore no clothes—not even underwear—but was entirely wrapped in a layer of cling film, including his head, which was tightly sealed by the plastic wrap.

This man seemed fully aware of our intrusion. Slowly, he turned around. Because his face was shrouded in cling film, his features appeared grotesque and terrifying. His semi-transparent body gave off an X-ray-like effect; I could even discern his internal organs and skeleton.

Noticing his nakedness, Bai Rushuang and Qin Yu quickly averted their eyes the moment he turned.

“You’ve finally come,” the hoarse voice came from him. It took me a moment to understand his words through the muffling cling film.

“Ghost Scholar?” I asked instinctively. Initially, I thought this Ghost Scholar might be the driver who killed Wang Lun, but given the circumstances, perhaps I was mistaken.

He nodded and turned back to the keyboard, placing his hands on the keys and beginning to type again, letter by letter.

At that moment, I noticed that with each keystroke, his fingers appeared corroded halfway through, causing him to emit a painful groan.

Simultaneously, I caught sight of the content on the Word document—it was the piece he was writing, titled "Paper Puppet." At that moment, he was typing the final paragraph of the revised ending: If one day, on a foreign street, you encounter an old acquaintance who has long since died, what would you do? You have three choices.

As Ghost Scholar's fingers laboriously hammered the keyboard, none of us moved. We had already concluded that this figure, wrapped in cling film and nearly transparent, posed no threat to us.

Taking advantage of his slow typing, I asked Wang Feiyang beside me if he knew why the man's body had become this way.

Wang Feiyang frowned and nodded. “This is the body of a Paper Puppet, the result of severe corrosion.”

“So, you mean he’s a Paper Puppet too?”

“Exactly,” Wang Feiyang answered decisively. “And judging by his condition, he’s been like this for at least two months. The layer of oil and fat on his body has completely corroded. He must know he’s become a Paper Puppet, so to prevent his body from falling apart entirely, he wrapped himself tightly in plastic cling film to buy some time.”

“But it seems that tonight’s the end—cling film or not, he’s doomed.”

I sucked in a breath and said, “In that case, this Ghost Scholar definitely isn’t the driver who killed Wang Lun. He must be another victim.”

At that moment, Ghost Scholar finished typing the last word and clicked ‘upload.’ He exhaled deeply as if completing a monumental task, then turned to us and said, “Fortunately, you arrived just in time.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You’ve been waiting for us?”

Ghost Scholar nodded, then used his tongue to push a hole open in the plastic film covering his mouth, making his previously muffled voice clear and distinct.

“Why have you been waiting here for us?” I asked.

“Because I need your help.”

Then, Ghost Scholar began to tell his story.

He was once an obscure paranormal author who published physical books. Back in the day, he did fairly well, but the rise of the internet severely impacted his traditional publishing path. Coupled with years of creative drought, his fortunes declined sharply.

One day, without understanding why, his memories suddenly became hazy. Soon after, he noticed changes in his body.

At first, while bathing, he found his skin would peel off in chunks when rubbed. Then, he felt his bones becoming fragile. Even the slightest touch could cause his body to develop horrifying holes.

Initially, Ghost Scholar was terrified and confused by his inexplicable condition. He wanted to seek medical help but lacked the money. Over time, his body deteriorated further, and his skin began to resemble fragile paper.

Desperate and bewildered, he wandered aimlessly one day until he reached a remote area where he witnessed two thugs robbing a car. One thug stole the driver’s bank card and ran off to withdraw money, while the other stayed behind to guard the driver.

Then, a chilling scene unfolded: a green-eyed monster, cloaked and wrapped tightly in cloth, crawled out of the car’s trunk and tore the remaining thug into pieces.

Afterward, the monster and the driver dug a pit in the nearby woods and buried the dismembered remains.

Frozen with fear, Ghost Scholar hid in the bushes, only to discover that the first thug who had gone to get money was also hiding nearby, trembling uncontrollably.

Once the monster and driver left by car, Ghost Scholar and the surviving thug fled in panic. Back home, Ghost Scholar was so terrified he didn’t dare leave for a week.

As his condition worsened, he finally resolved to visit a hospital. But on the way there, something even more unbelievable happened.

He had an appointment at dermatology due to widespread skin ulcers. At the clinic’s entrance, he saw someone he thought was impossible to see again—someone who had been dead for over a week.

It was Wang Lun, the man gruesomely dismembered by the cloaked green-eyed monster, alive and standing right before him.

Terrified beyond measure, Ghost Scholar fled without seeing a doctor and stayed home for two days, during which his mindset shifted dramatically.

He was a struggling paranormal writer, suffering creative block. After this shock, he wondered if this was a chance given by fate.

Thus, he conceived the idea of turning these strange experiences into a book. Unsure of the title, he used the sentence he had written as both the book’s name and its opening line: “If one day, on a foreign street, you suddenly encounter an old acquaintance who has long since died, what would you do? You have three choices.”