(I)
Liu Ming lived in an old communal building in Shanghai's Zhabei District, the kind where the stairwells forever reeked of mold and the acrid smell of cheap coal briquettes. The green paint on the walls peeled like scales, revealing faded political slogans from decades past, like a stubborn skin disease.
He lived on the fourth floor, apartment 402.
When he slid the key into the lock, Liu Ming's hands were still trembling. The morning's encounter at the Xinhua Bookstore burned into his mind like red-hot iron: Bai Ye's translucent body, her rotting face, the distorted shadows between the bookshelves, and the store clerk who had suddenly collapsed and died...
The door creaked open. The room was cramped, barely enough space for a wooden bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. The half-open window let in damp wind that stirred the curtain—faded peony patterns printed on the fabric. Liu Ming slumped onto the bed and pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked, but still usable.
He dialed Chen Meng.
"Hello?" came her clear voice from the other end, with the background noise of a school library.
"Can you come to my place?" Liu Ming kept his voice low, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Right now."
There was a two-second pause. "What happened?"
"Bai Ye…" Liu Ming's fingernails dug into his palm. "She came to find me."
He heard a chair scrape back on the other end. Chen Meng's voice tensed. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
After hanging up, Liu Ming walked to the window. Down below, a narrow alley stretched out. A few elderly people sat on bamboo chairs fanning themselves while children played near a gutter. The slanting sunlight cast long shadows of clothes hanging on lines across the rooftops. Everything looked so ordinary—as if the morning's horror had been a hallucination.
But when he looked down, he saw a fine layer of dust on the windowsill, marked by several faint fingerprints—slender, delicate, unmistakably a woman's.
(II)
Chen Meng arrived even faster than expected.
She wore a simple white T-shirt and jeans, her high ponytail revealing a smooth forehead. She carried the warmth of summer air with her, along with the faint scent of gardenia—the fragrance of her usual hand cream.
"What happened exactly?" Chen Meng shut the door, her eyes scanning Liu Ming's pale face and sweat-soaked shirt.
Liu Ming took a deep breath and began recounting everything—from the bookstore encounter with Bai Ye, to the bizarre death of the clerk, to her request that he deliver a mirror to a girl in a psychiatric hospital. His words came out disjointed, his voice sharp one moment, raspy the next, like a radio with a bad signal.
Chen Meng listened, her brows tightly furrowed. She walked to the window, gently tracing the dusty fingerprints.
"Are you sure it was Bai Ye? Not… some kind of hallucination?"
"If it was, then why did the clerk die?" Liu Ming let out a bitter laugh and pulled a crumpled page from his pocket—an inner leaf from a high school exam prep book he'd picked up off the bookstore floor. Scribbled on it were the words: "Hong Yu, Shanghai Psychiatric Center, 7th floor, Section B, Bed 12."
Chen Meng took the paper, her fingertips trembling.
"Did she say anything else?"
"She said... 'Mirrors aren't for reflection—they're for breaking.'"
The room fell silent. In the distance, children's laughter echoed from the alleyway, jarringly cheerful against the room's oppressive stillness.
Chen Meng suddenly turned, pulled a black-covered notebook from her backpack, and flipped to a certain page. "Do you remember what happened in sophomore year? When Bai Ye framed Mr. Zheng?"
Liu Ming nodded. That incident had destroyed Mr. Zheng's teaching career and turned Bai Ye into a 'victim' in the eyes of their classmates.
"I had a feeling something was off," Chen Meng murmured, almost to herself. "Later, I started researching... on malicious entities."
"What?"
Instead of answering directly, she pointed to a hand-drawn figure in the notebook—a vague humanoid shape, its body semi-transparent, the right side festering and decayed, the left pristine. The margins were filled with dense annotations, some already smudged with time.
"There's a legend in folk tales about creatures called 'Face Eaters.'" Her finger brushed the paper. "They're souls twisted to the extreme in life, and after death, they linger in the world in semi-physical form, feeding on human negative emotions—especially fear."
A cold shiver crept up Liu Ming's spine. "You're saying… Bai Ye became one of these things?"
"More than that." Chen Meng shut the notebook, her gaze intense. "'Face Eaters' usually need a medium—like a mirror. They can't be seen in mirrors, but they can use them to affect the real world."
Liu Ming thought of Bai Ye's rotting face and her cryptic words about breaking mirrors.
"The girl—Hong Yu…"
"She's the key." Chen Meng stood up. "Bai Ye choosing you wasn't random. You used to… like her, didn't you?"
Liu Ming's face flushed, then went pale.
"That was a long time ago," he muttered.
Chen Meng didn't press. Instead, she walked over to his desk and picked up a small round mirror—his shaving mirror, rusting at the edges.
"We need more information." She handed it to him. "But first, you need to talk to someone."
"Who?"
"My father." Her voice turned firm. "He's a folklore professor. He's studied this stuff for decades."
Liu Ming hesitated. "Are you sure we should involve him? What if—"
"No 'what if.'" Her eyes were calm and cold. "Bai Ye has her eyes on you. If we don't figure out what she wants, you might be the next to die."
Outside, dusk was falling. Parents called their children in for dinner, and laughter faded from the alley. Just before full darkness descended, a chill breeze blew through the room.
Chen Zhi's office was at the far end of the Shanghai University Folklore Institute. The wooden door bore his nameplate, tarnished and dusty, the characters barely visible: "Professor Chen Zhi."
Liu Ming followed Chen Meng, his heart pounding. The hallway lights flickered like something was interfering with the current. His fingers were icy, but sweat slicked his palms.
Chen Meng knocked.
"Come in," said a low voice.
The office smelled of old paper and herbal medicine. Bookshelves lined every wall, overflowing with ancient texts. The desk was covered in manuscripts and strange items—bronze mirrors, dried plant specimens, rusted coins, even a piece of obsidian-black stone with hairline cracks across its surface.
Chen Zhi sat behind the desk. A thin man with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes, he wore reading glasses and a faded gray shirt stained with ink. His fingers were long and bore old scars at the joints—as if cut by sharp blades.
"Dad," Chen Meng said softly. "I brought Liu Ming."
Chen Zhi brightened. He stood and greeted Liu Ming warmly, then poured him a glass of orange juice from a mini-fridge.
The old clock's pendulum swung behind its glass case. Liu Ming sat on a faded fabric sofa, the cool glass of juice in hand, fingers tracing the condensation.
"So, you've been studying hard, I hear," Chen Zhi said with a smile, holding a worn book titled Local Anomalies and Strange Tales.
Liu Ming's throat tightened. The orange juice tasted sour.
"Dad, not now," Chen Meng interrupted, still damp from her shower. "He needs to tell you something."
"I see…" Liu Ming put down the glass, which clinked softly on the table. He started recounting everything, his voice growing quieter until it was a barely audible murmur.
Chen Zhi's expression grew serious. He took off his glasses and wiped them with his shirt—a gesture that made him look like a tired father. But when he put them back on, his gaze was sharp as a scalpel.
"You said... she was nearly transparent in sunlight?"
Liu Ming nodded, palms sweaty. Chen Meng quietly grasped his hand, her warmth grounding him.
Chen Zhi quickly flipped through a leather-bound notebook, filled with photos and clippings. He stopped at a black-and-white photo of a girl standing in the rain—her outline blurred unnaturally.
Half-transparent, a split mouth, claw-like fingers. Below, old characters labeled it: "Face Eater."
"She's not a vampire. Not a werewolf," Chen Zhi said. "Vampires need blood. Werewolves follow the moon. But Face Eaters… they're something else."
"What exactly?" Liu Ming whispered.
Chen Zhi tapped the page. "They're not ghosts. Not demons. They're born aberrations."
Outside, night deepened.
The desk lamp flickered, briefly dimming. Chen Zhi shut the heavy curtains and pulled out the obsidian stone, placing it on the desk.
"Vampires need blood. Werewolves change with the moon. But Face Eaters—" he paused, "—they don't need anything external to exist. They are complete in themselves."
"Then how do they survive?" Chen Meng asked.
"They feed," Chen Zhi replied. "Not because they must, but because they enjoy it. They can eat anything—animals, plants, even humans. But feeding is pleasure, not necessity."
Liu Ming clenched his fingers.
"Why did Bai Ye want me to deliver a mirror to that girl?"
Chen Zhi was silent for a moment. "Because a Face Eater's true form only manifests once they reach maturity. Hong Yu isn't eighteen yet—her powers aren't complete. Bai Ye, though… she is."
"So she's helping her?"
"No." Chen Zhi chuckled darkly. "Face Eaters don't have a sense of kinship. She's just... playing."
The air seemed to freeze.
"Playing what? What does that mean?"
"You won't know until you meet her."
"Then... what do we do now?" Liu Ming's voice quivered.
Chen Zhi was quiet, then said, "Tonight, we go to the psychiatric hospital."
At midnight, the iron gates of the Shanghai Psychiatric Center gleamed under the moonlight.
Liu Ming, Chen Meng, and Chen Zhi stood outside, looking up at the gray-white building. The seventh-floor windows were dark—except one: Section B, Bed 12, where a faint light flickered, as if someone had lit a small lamp inside.
Chen Zhi pulled out the obsidian stone again, murmured a few words, and it glowed faintly red.
"She's waiting," he said, frowning.
Liu Ming's heart pounded.
"What about Bai Ye? Where is she?"
Chen Zhi didn't answer. He reached into his bag and pulled out a bronze mirror, handing it to Liu Ming.
"Take this. If she appears—use it."
Liu Ming took the mirror. His fingers were ice-cold.