The Ultimate Horror Live Stream - Chapter 28 - Who's Playing the Piano?

The reddish-brown sludge mixed with tiny gravel didn’t feel like blood at all.

“A false alarm,” I muttered, turning off the faucet. The gurgling sound from the pipes ceased.

“This place is eerie, but there’s no sign of any sinister presence. It’s as if something dirty is playing hide and seek with me,” I thought, feeling the immense pressure. This Live Streaming Task was far more torturous than waiting for doom at Anxin Inn. It felt like an invisible hand was manipulating my fate, and it was driving me nuts.

I pushed open the inner door, revealing a row of individual stalls.

“Shen Meng? Are you here?” I called out, but there was no response. I tried to push open the stall door.

“Wait.”

Xiumu had entered unnoticed and grabbed my hand. “Streamer, you know the restroom taboo, right? Opening a slightly ajar door at night might get you snatched by a ghost doll.”

“A ghost doll?”

“There was a girl named Huazi at this school. She was just sixteen when she got pregnant. The guy transferred schools and vanished. Poor Huazi ended up committing suicide in this restroom.”

“If the guy was an adult, he could be sentenced to death legally,” I said, expressionless, shaking off Xiumu’s hand and pushing open the first stall door.

Broken tiles were covered in moss, and the walls were mottled with unknown substances.

“Don’t take this lightly. These campus stories have some basis,” Xiumu insisted, moving to the second stall. “Before opening, you should knock and ask.”

He knocked on the white-painted door, saying, “Is anyone there? Huazi, I’m here to play with you.”

His odd behavior, the low voice, and the specific setting created an inexplicable sense of fear.

I took a deep breath, raised the camera, and quickly opened the doors in sequence.

“Bang! Bang! Bang… Boom!”

As I reached the last door, the familiar “boom boom” sound echoed again.

“Strange, this door is locked?” It’s common knowledge that restroom doors can only be locked from the inside. I signaled the three kids to step back, lightly tapping the ground with my right foot.

“What are you doing?”

“Boom!” A loud noise reverberated through the laboratory building as I kicked the door open.

I aimed the camera at the stall. Though there were no ghosts or monsters, the sight still startled me.

On the toilet sat a plush toy with its head twisted off.

Dusting off the toy, I zoomed in with the camera. “Looks like it’s been here for ages.”

The toy’s head had been cut off with scissors, exposing the ragged stuffing. Upon closer inspection, I noticed two faint Chinese characters on the toy’s belly.

“Xue Fei?”

Time had blurred the letters, and I could only half guess, “Same name? Or…”

“What did you see, Streamer?” Xiumu and Xue Fei crowded around.

“Nothing, just a broken toy,” I said nonchalantly, tossing it aside. “Shen Meng isn’t here. Let’s keep searching. We can’t waste any more time.”

Leaving the restroom on the first floor, we headed up to the second. As we ascended, Xiumu counted the steps, hoping for something unusual, but there were only twelve, no extra step to surprise him.

Most classrooms on the second floor were locked, except for the music room and the healthcare room, whose doors could be opened.

The two rooms were far apart. Holding the camera, I first opened the door to the healthcare room. Beds were separated by curtains, tightly drawn, making it impossible to see what lay beyond.

“Povidone-iodine, alcohol, reagents…” The cabinet at the entrance was a chaotic mess of various medicines, and the floor was littered with used yellow-brown bandages. Further ahead, scattered medical records could be seen.

I bent down to pick them up; most were dated five years ago. The paper had been gnawed by mice, the writing blurred, but in the name column, the words Guo Junjie were faintly visible.

“It seems that child was a regular here, suffering not only mental abuse but frequent physical torment as well.” Surprisingly, all the photos on the medical records had been torn off, as if the child’s appearance was a secret the school wanted to keep.

“Minor injury to the left ear, slight fracture of the little finger, multiple bruises on the thigh…” Each record noted minor injuries, but the frequency and concentration of these injuries on one person spoke volumes.

“When the weak are bullied and silently endure without fighting back, those bullies become even more ruthless.”

I pulled back the curtain beside a bed, revealing bloodstains that looked shocking.

Though it had been a long time, the blood had dried and fused with the sheets, the color faded, yet it still sent chills down my spine.

“What happened here? Why is there so much blood?”

I rummaged through the cabinet and finally found the most recent medical record.

“Fall from a height, pelvis shattered, massive internal bleeding, skull fracture…” These symptoms reminded me of an online rumor about Xinhu High School, where several students reportedly jumped to their deaths before the school was completely shut down.

The medical records stored in the cabinet indirectly confirmed that the suicides were not just rumors. Looking at the blood-stained bed, I was puzzled.

A normal school would isolate the scene and call the authorities, not move the bodies, let alone bring them to the healthcare room.

As I examined several records, my expression grew serious.

“Death was not an isolated case.” Before the school was shut down, there were records of five students who jumped, and this was only what was documented. Excluding those deliberately hidden, I estimated the number of suicides was likely much higher.

“Academic pressure? Relationship issues?” I shook my head. “The pattern of collective deaths suggests something more, as if it was planned.”

“What happened to these students?” Five years was enough to erase the truth, and the records were incomplete, with most names illegible, leaving only black-and-white printed photos.

“The cause of death is key to solving the mystery. We might need to linger in this healthcare room a bit longer.” I lifted the curtain beside the second bed, revealing a crumpled sheet stained black with blood.

With one hand, I lifted the sheet, and as it unfurled, it revealed a school uniform wrapped inside.

I endured the stench and laid the school uniform flat on the bed. “Wang Xiu?”

The name tag pinned to the front of the uniform had a name composed of three characters, but the last character was too blurred to make out.

I pulled back the curtains of several more beds, and the situation was similar. When I reached the last bed, just as I grabbed the curtain, I suddenly felt something touch me from inside.

“Shen Meng?” I stepped back a couple of steps; the sensation told me there was definitely something hidden inside.

I adjusted my phone’s light to its maximum, and the edge of the curtain was still bouncing up and down, as if there was a live fish that had just been caught onshore inside.

“Is it you? Say something!” No response came. I approached again, hand gripping the edge of the curtain.

“Ding ding ding!”

Suddenly, urgent piano notes echoed from the other end of the hallway, startling me into a shiver, and I didn’t manage to pull the curtain open.

I grabbed the camera and quickly headed to the classroom where the sound was coming from. After I left, the healthcare room fell into silence, but from the last bed, a plastic model’s arm slowly extended out.

“What’s going on?” Panting, I reached the end of the hallway where three kids were gathered around the piano. “Was it you playing just now?”

“Ask him, it’s all his doing!” Xue Fei pushed Xiumu towards me.

Xiumu looked a bit aggrieved. “You guys are really wronging me this time. I didn’t touch the piano at all.”

“I was in the hallway with Yingzi. You were the only one in the room at the time. If it wasn’t you playing, then did it play by itself?” Xue Fei grabbed Xiumu’s collar.

Xiumu’s feet left the ground, but his voice was stubborn. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me! There’s definitely something else in this room!”

“Nonsense! I’m telling you, if we don’t find Shen Meng today, you won’t be going back either!”

“Stop arguing, maybe it really wasn’t Xiumu playing just now.” I held the camera tightly, my palms sweating. “All four of us are in the room now, but listen carefully…”

Outside in the hallway, footsteps gradually became clearer, approaching from afar.

“It’s Shen Meng!” Xue Fei released his grip on Xiumu’s collar and ran towards the door.

I reached out to stop him but missed.

“Shen Meng, you’re back?” The footsteps halted at the door, and Xue Fei looked up hopefully, only to see a vacant plastic model’s face awkwardly peering into the room!