I'm the Only Living Person in This Chat Group?

Chapter 85: Chapter 3: Post: Rainy Woman

Post #4

Cat-Eating Fish:

The videotape my father left among his belongings turned out to be just a meaningless recording, which was a huge letdown for both me and my friend. I turned off the VCR and put the matter out of my mind.

A few days later, I had completely forgotten about having gone to the video store. I never expected things to go so wrong.

As I mentioned before, my friend runs a vintage video store, mostly out of a sense of nostalgia. In this age of smartphones, very few people pay any mind to the disappearance of videotapes.

So while he’s minding the shop, he also edits videos for people on the side to make some extra cash. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to make ends meet.

He recently took on a job editing a wedding video for a newlywed couple. After he finished and sent it over, he was immediately hit with a complaint. The newlyweds called, screaming at him in a furious rage, and told him to take a good look at what the hell he had edited. They said they had no history with him, so why would he use AI to add something so bizarre to their video and bring such bad luck to their marriage.

My friend was completely baffled. He’s always been professional about his work; he would never use AI to mess with someone else’s wedding video. It wasn’t until he opened the file he’d sent them that he realized something was terribly, terribly wrong.

It wasn’t what he had edited at all.

In what should have been a normal wedding scene, as the bride walked along in her pure white gown, a strange woman was following her. She wore gray clothes, had a large build and short legs, and was holding a huge umbrella. No matter how the camera moved, the umbrella always managed to perfectly block her face.

The woman with the umbrella followed incongruously behind the bride. The groom, the bride, the officiant, and all the guests—not a single person seemed to notice the Rainy Woman’s presence, right up until the wedding ceremony ended.

My friend swore up and down that he hadn’t added that bizarre woman to the video. When he called and told me what happened, I didn’t believe him at all. The story was just too outlandish.

It wasn’t until he forwarded me the video that I was forced to accept the truth.

The Rainy Woman we saw on my father’s videotape had transferred herself into a new video.

...

Post #5:

Cat-Eating Fish:

Back then, we still didn’t realize what a paranormal event was.

After that, things became more and more terrifying.

While visiting an art exhibition, I saw the exact same Rainy Woman again, this time in a master’s painting.

She was standing inside the oil painting, rendered in oil, and that face, half-hidden beneath the umbrella, seemed to be watching me with a cold sneer.

While I was on a video call with my long-distance girlfriend, the woman with the umbrella appeared in the background of her dorm room, just standing there sinisterly behind her. I let out a scream and told her to turn around, but the woman’s figure vanished.

The Rainy Woman’s figure started appearing in more and more of the videos my friend edited, haunting his every creation like a persistent specter.

Soon, because of a flood of customer complaints, he was blacklisted by the industry. His reputation was ruined, and his video store went out of business.

That newlywed couple eventually found someone else to remake their video. But it seems that anyone who sees the Rainy Woman is doomed to a bad end.

I read in the newspaper that they went missing during their honeymoon.

They were in the Maldives. That day, it was drizzling.

Everyone who had seen the Rainy Woman had fallen under some kind of terrifying curse. The moment it started to rain, they would disappear, one by one.

Even my friend called me out of the blue in the middle of the night, sobbing, telling me he was afraid he was going to disappear soon. He said that no matter where he went, he could see a woman with an umbrella in the crowd, watching him with a sinister gaze.

I asked him where he was, but all he said was, "There’s not much time left," before hanging up.

That was the last conversation I ever had with him. The weather forecast said it would rain the next day, and just as I feared, he vanished. I went to his video store and his home, but there was no trace of him anywhere.

...

Post #6:

Cat-Eating Fish:

Either way, I know I saw something I shouldn’t have. So many people have disappeared. As I type this, it’s raining outside, and I can’t shake the feeling that a pair of eyes is silently watching me.

I have a feeling that I’m going to disappear soon, too.

...

Post #9:

Netizen C:

This is terrifying. OP, are you being haunted by something unclean? Have you tried calling the police?

...

Post #10

Netizen D:

Can you stop trying to drag other people into this? The cops are human too. Give them a break, for crying out loud.

Someone in the other thread mentioned it. There’s a mysterious phone number for a department called the "Spirit Disaster Bureau." If you run into any paranormal trouble, you just call them, and they’ll send experts to take care of it.

...

Post #11:

Cat-Eating Fish:

I already called that mysterious number a long time ago.

The customer service agent on the other end told me they would send someone to handle it soon.

But when I called back five days later to check on the status of my case, the number was out of service.

...

Post #12:

Netizen E:

You’re scaring me to death.

You don’t mean... that mysterious organization sent experts to deal with the problem, and they were the ones who got "dealt with"?

...

Post #13:

Cat-Eating Fish:

I don’t know.

I can see her now. On the platform of the building across from my window, a woman holding an umbrella has silently appeared. She’s come for me.

I don’t have much time left. I hope everyone will be careful in the future.

If you see a woman holding an umbrella in a video on any platform, please, delete it immediately. Pretend you never saw it...

But even deleting the video is probably useless. The moment you see her, your fate is already sealed...

...

Post #14

Netizen F:

OP, hang in there!

...

...

Gao Tian checked the account. The user named "Cat-Eating Fish" had long since been deleted, its avatar turned gray and inactive.

’Of all the supernatural incidents I’ve scrolled through these past two weeks, the Rainy Woman has to rank in the top three for sheer danger, right?’

From what he’d read, there were plenty of incidents that even the Spirit Disaster Bureau’s experts admitted they couldn’t solve, telling victims to just fend for themselves. But this was the first time he’d heard of the investigators themselves getting eliminated.

Gao Tian switched off his phone and lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling and letting his mind go blank for a moment.

He remembered something about this curse. In the chat group, Ghost Infant had mentioned that back when Ghost Cave was still alive, his entire family had been killed by the Rainy Woman.

For some reason, his temples were throbbing, and he couldn’t get the description of the Rainy Woman out of his mind.

He was perfectly safe here in the Living Apartment. But if most of Shanghai became overrun with supernatural corruption, then, as they say, when the nest falls, no egg remains unbroken. Life in the apartment wouldn’t be so easy anymore.

’I can’t just step outside and find the streets completely overrun with ghosts, can I?’

Gao Tian fished out his phone, planning to call Xia Ta and ask her about some of these supernatural incidents.

He tried dialing several times, but Xia Ta’s number wouldn’t connect. She was probably swamped on her end.

’Beating people up all day must be pretty exhausting.’

Gao Tian pulled up Jiang Yang’s number.

’With Xia Ta gone, he’s the temporary manager of the apartment. He must have some unique insights about the Rainy Woman.’

Just as he was about to make the call, his phone suddenly vibrated.

The caller was Jiang Yang.

He was calling him.

...

...

Ten minutes earlier, Jiang Yang was standing on the crowded subway.

Lately, Jiang Yang had also noticed a sharp and rapid increase in supernatural incidents throughout Shanghai.