Mysterious Revival - Chapter 1 - Ghost Stories on the Forum

I bet you’re lying in bed reading a novel right now, probably on your side, and your phone might even be charging.

Yang Jian, a senior in high school, was lying in bed, bored, scrolling through his phone. He casually clicked on a post where many netizens were replying.

“Damn, the original poster¹ is a genius. How did they guess that?”

“Haha, should I tell you all that I’m currently squatting in the restroom? Don’t ask, my legs are numb.”

“If you’re getting a tattoo, get Zhou’s. Then you’ll never have to work again.”

“Impressive, impressive.”

Yang Jian closed the post and opened another one with a high click-through rate. It started with this sentence:

“I am a practicing doctor at the Third Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I want to tell you something. Recently, something very terrifying happened at my hospital. I’m so scared that I don’t dare to go to work and am currently on leave at home.”

“Stop it, I’m not buying shoes or adding WeChat².”

“The original poster must have been harassed by a patient. If I’m wrong, I’ll eat shit and die.”

“Look, he’s scamming for food and drinks again.”

Yang Jian found the replies a bit boring, so he clicked on “Show Only Original Poster.”

Immediately, the post became clean, leaving only the one from the self-proclaimed doctor, whose online name was Thunderbolt King.

The post continued: Here’s what happened. Last week, it was my turn to be on night duty. Around midnight, an ambulance brought in an old man. The paramedics said the old man had fallen from the fifth floor. At that time, my colleague had an emergency, so I was the only one responsible for the diagnosis. I could say with 100% certainty that the old man had no signs of life and was already dead.

Moreover, based on the characteristics of the old man’s body and the temperature of his chest, I concluded that the old man could not have died from the fall that night.

Anyone with a bit of common sense knows that in a normal temperature environment, a body’s temperature drops by about one degree per hour within ten hours of death. After 24 hours, the body temperature would be close to the ambient temperature. But the old man’s body temperature was at least ten degrees below the normal temperature, if not more. The temperature that night was 22 degrees Celsius.

At that moment, I concluded that the old man had been dead for more than a day.

Immediately, netizens commented:

“The original poster’s ‘bit of common sense’ is terrifying. I bow to you.”

“Quick, check if the patient’s shoes fell off. If not, there’s still a chance to save him.”

“This is deeply unsettling. Original poster, please update. I’ve already hidden under my blanket.”

Yang Jian continued scrolling down.

Thunderbolt King continued to post: Based on my experience of watching over 300 episodes of detective anime in middle school, I immediately concluded that the Old Man didn’t die from an accidental fall. Instead, he was likely murdered, and his body must have been stored in an ice cellar. At the time, I chose to report it to the police and informed them about the situation.

However, what I want to talk about today isn’t that incident, but what happened afterward.

The post paused for a moment, and the update came two hours later.

Sorry, someone just knocked on my door to ask about the incident. It wasn’t the police, nor did they seem like a reporter, but they had some kind of national ID, claiming to be criminal police. Anyway, never mind.

It was probably the next morning.

I wasn’t on duty yet, but I heard from my colleagues that the Old Man’s body, which was brought in the previous night, had mysteriously disappeared from the morgue. The police were investigating thoroughly, suspecting that the murderer had stolen it. The commotion was quite significant-they pulled up all the hospital’s surveillance footage, but in the end, they couldn’t find the missing Old Man’s body or the culprit.

Tonight, it’s still my shift…

But the events of the day left me a bit uneasy. A patient at the hospital claimed to have seen the Old Man’s body-not being carried out, but walking out on its own. The patient even accurately pointed out the route the Old Man had taken, which indeed led from the direction of the morgue.

Hearing this, I felt a bit scared, but thankfully, I’m an atheist, so I didn’t fully believe what the patient said.

Later, the head nurse mentioned that Dr. Fang from the neurology department was planning to increase the patient’s medication dosage, which made me feel a little better.

Indeed, not believing the patient was the right call…

But what I want to talk about isn’t that, but something that happened during my night shift.

It was around 2 a.m. I was in the Emergency room, playing Greedy Blue Moon. You can’t even imagine how fun that game is-if you’re a real bro, come and fight me…

“Damn, original poster, you’re a freaking genius.”

“What happened to honesty between people? You hit me with a plot twist I didn’t see coming.”

“Impressive, impressive. I guessed the beginning but not the ending. By the way, third floor, where’s the promised shit-eating?”

A flood of comments followed, making the Forum lively.

Yang Jian, lying in bed, couldn’t help but laugh and cry at the same time. Have advertisements really gotten this clever nowadays?

But as he scrolled further, something felt off.

Thunderbolt King continued to post: Sorry, sorry, I’m really not here to advertise. But something truly bizarre and supernatural happened that night-something you probably couldn’t imagine in your wildest dreams. At exactly 2:15 a.m., while I was playing a game in the Emergency room, I suddenly felt a chilling cold, exactly like the kind you’d feel in the morgue. I got goosebumps all over.

Then, guess what?

The Old Man who had gone missing from the morgue the day before appeared outside the Emergency room at some point. He wasn’t dead. Instead, he was slowly, step by step, making his way out of the hospital.

Oh my God, this was impossible. I had seen with my own eyes that the Old Man was dead-and not just for a day. How could he have come back to life?

A prank? A zombie? A medical miracle?

In that moment, a thousand thoughts raced through my mind. But maybe because I’ve dealt with corpses so often in my line of work, I wasn’t as scared as I might have been. My first instinct was to grab my phone and take a photo, planning to post it on social media.

Below is the photo. Proof with pictures-definitely not Photoshop.

Yang Jian scrolled down, and immediately, a photo appeared before his eyes.

The photo wasn’t blurry-on the contrary, it was very clear. In the picture, taken through the glass window of the Emergency room, an Old Man was walking by outside.

The Old Man was wearing a black, full-length robe, giving off a somewhat vintage vibe. His body was thin and withered, his skin a brownish hue, covered in spots. From the angle of the photo, you could see one of his eyes-and what an eye it was. Gray, hollow, devoid of any life, radiating a terrifying stillness.

The photo itself wasn’t bloody or gory, but the aura the Old Man exuded was enough to make anyone’s hair stand on end and send shivers down their spine.

Adding to the fear was the fact that Thunderbolt King, the doctor, had clearly stated earlier that this Old Man had been a cold, lifeless corpse. The thought alone was enough to stir up a deep sense of dread.

And the longer you looked at the photo, the more unsettling it became.

It was like looking at a dead person-or, more accurately, a ghost.

“You scared me to death! This photo is terrifying. The more I look at it, the more frightened I get. Where did you find this, original poster?”

“Why are there so many spots on the Old Man’s hands? I have trypophobia.”

“Those are postmortem lividity spots. It means the Old Man is already a corpse.”

“Begone, evil spirits! I, Lam Ching Ying³, am here!” one netizen posted a picture of a Taoist priest.

“Pfft, you’re Lam Ching Ying? I’m the one with the loli voice.”

However, no matter how the netizens commented, Thunderbolt King continued to post: The photo is real. I took it myself. Later, the Old Man walked out of the hospital like that, and I have no idea where he went. But if anyone is in the same city as me, be careful. Even though I’m an atheist, there are some things you just have to believe.

Wait, it seems someone is knocking on my door again. Probably the police coming to take my statement. I’ll be right back. I’ll talk about what happened next in a bit.

But less than a minute after the post, Thunderbolt King sent another message: Damn it, damn it! It’s the Old Man who ran away from the hospital. That thing is standing at my door, knocking. I saw it clearly through the peephole. What do I do now? I feel like I’ve messed with something I shouldn’t have.

“Original poster, are you having fun trolling us?”

“Holy crap, is this for real? It can’t be this creepy, right?”

“Call the police, quick! Dial 110!”

“Original poster, stop pretending. This has to be fake. If it’s not, I’ll double down on eating feces.”

“Oh, it’s you again, the feces-eating boy. You still owe us from last time!”

But then Thunderbolt King posted again: I called the police, but what do I do now? That thing is still knocking, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to leave. Oh no, just now, the lights in my living room suddenly went out. I’m too scared to go in there now.

I’ve locked my door, and I’ve turned on all the lights I can, but the Old Man is still knocking.

At this point, Thunderbolt King’s posts were coming in rapid succession, less than thirty seconds apart, and some words were even misspelled.

It was clear that the doctor posting this was terrified and panicking.

Yang Jian also felt a chill run down his spine. Even though he knew the story might be fake, the thought of the Old Man from the photo standing outside his door, knocking, gave him goosebumps.

An Old Man who had already died coming back to life and showing up at your doorstep, knocking-anyone would be terrified if they encountered something like that.

But the thread didn’t stop there. It continued: No, no, it’s bad. I hear footsteps in my living room. Oh my God, I’m the only one at home. I think the Old Man who was knocking at the door has come inside. He must be in the living room now. What the hell is going on? I didn’t even hear him open the door. How did he get in?

The footsteps stopped right outside my room.

That thing is knocking again. I feel like something’s very wrong. I’ve recorded the sound as evidence, and I’m leaving my phone number here. If you can’t reach me, then something must have happened to me. Please, someone call the police: 138…

“Knock, knock, knock…”

Below the post was an audio file. When opened, it revealed a heavy, oppressive knocking sound.

Each knock seemed to echo in the listener’s chest, making it hard to breathe.

The thread paused there for a moment.

Yang Jian scrolled to the end and saw the final line: The Old Man has come in…

Footnote:

1. Original Poster(楼主): A term used in online forums and social media to refer to the person who initially started a discussion thread or posted a question.
2. WeChat(微信): A multipurpose Chinese messaging, social media, and mobile payment app. It’s widely used for text and voice messaging, video calls, sharing moments, and various services like booking, shopping, and payments.
3. Lam Ching Ying(林正英): A Hong Kong actor and martial artist, famous for his roles in “Mr. Vampire” and other Hong Kong cinema classics. He was well-known for his portrayal of Taoist priests in supernatural comedies.