The background of the photo was inside a pitch-black tunnel. The person standing in the middle held a flashlight. The excessive exposure made the people in the image appear pale and strange.
There were seven people in total, three men and four women. Aside from one man who looked slightly older, the rest all appeared to be in their twenties. Judging from the way they were dressed, the photo should have been taken quite a few years ago.
Shen Kui zoomed in on the image.
The “Shen Kui” in the photo stood at the rear right of the group, her body slightly turned to the side. A faint, almost imperceptible smile lingered at the corner of her lips as she stared straight at the camera. On her fair and delicate face, a vicious flesh-colored scar could be clearly seen, slashing from the left cheekbone across to the temple, until it disappeared into her sideburns.
Too similar…
If not for that scar, even Shen Kui herself probably wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.
She subconsciously let out a long breath. A heavy stone in her heart finally dropped to the ground, yet at the same time, a deeper confusion surfaced from the bottom of her heart.
If it wasn’t her, then who could it be? Could there really be two people who looked this alike?
She recalled the messages her classmates had sent. Switching back to the WeChat interface, she read through them again. Only then did she realize that someone had shared a forum link in their elementary school classmates’ group chat and tagged Shen Kui, which had sparked everyone’s discussion. Because it was so late, Shen Kui did not reply to her classmates’ concern. She only sent a message to her best friend.
Her best friend was named Tian Ke. She worked in IT and kept an upside-down schedule all year round, never going to bed before dawn. Because her daily routine was perfectly staggered from Shen Kui’s, the two of them could only chat by leaving messages on WeChat most of the time. Recently, however, because of the “three a.m.” curse, Shen Kui had often been forced awake in the middle of the night, and instead they had chatted off and on a few times.
Kui: “I’ve read the post. The person in the photo isn’t me.”
Sweet K: “Ah! Huahua, you finally replied to me! You have no idea. That photo really scared me to death! I also don’t think it could be you, but it looks way too similar!”
Sweet K: “Can two people really look that alike? Could it be some distant relative in your family or something? And isn’t this all a bit too much of a coincidence?”
It really was a coincidence.
Shen Kui pressed her lips together. Although she knew the person in the photo wasn’t herself, the whole matter still seemed to be closely tied to her.
Kui: “You know my family situation. My parents don’t have any siblings either. It should just be a coincidence.”
She thought for a moment, then added another line.
Kui: “Don’t worry.”
Sweet K: “But someone has already come forward in the comments under the post to identify her. Did you see that?”
Sweet K: “A netizen said they’re a survivor of that incident back then and that they know the person in the photo!”
Shen Kui’s fingers paused as she was typing. She immediately switched back to the forum interface and scrolled down from the photo posted earlier.
Sure enough, among a string of replies questioning the original poster for being deliberately mysterious, she saw the following message:
412L: I am one of the survivors of the Huaixihe Line 1 accident back then, and also a family member of one of the seven people in the photo released by the original poster. I am now issuing a solemn warning to the original poster. Whether or not you are involved in this matter, and whatever your purpose is in posting these things, please stop exploiting the deceased!!! If I see you post anything else about this accident again, I will immediately report you to the police and hold you legally responsible! I mean what I say!
413L: Th-that’s pretty fierce…
414L: I’ve long been fed up with the original poster. Acting all mysterious and exploiting the dead. You have no shame!
415L: Looks like this has flushed out someone directly involved, huh. Sigh, over a hundred lives… It’s already been twenty years, and someone’s still digging it up to stir things up. That’s really too much…
416L: Just quietly asking. Didn’t they say there were only seven or eight survivors? What a coincidence to just happen to see this post?
417L replying to 416L: I’m 412L. Not a coincidence. Someone I know sent it to me.
418L: Even so, since the original poster managed to get these photos, even if they’re not directly involved, they must at least be someone closely connected to the incident back then, right? What would they gain from exploiting the deceased? Just for attention? And what’s going on with the photo of Huaixihe Station? Feels like there’s quite a lot hidden behind this.
419L: Could it be that the original poster discovered some truth about what happened back then and is trying to subtly pass some kind of message to the survivors through this method?
420L: Damn, the person above actually makes some sense!
It wasn’t entirely impossible.
Looking back at the original poster’s actions, it was clear that they had been deliberately guiding the direction of public opinion all along.
First of all, the forum the original poster chose was the largest online discussion platform in the country by traffic, and also one of the few platforms that still supported anonymous posting.
Secondly, the title the original poster used was highly provocative, especially the phrase “trapped in the subway”. It was very pointed and held a strong appeal for people who had experienced similar situations.
Shen Kui carefully recalled each of the original poster’s responses.
The first reply narrowed the scope of the incident to Huaixihe Station in City A, thereby leading to discussions about the accident back then.
The second reply used several photos that should not have existed to raise doubts about the truth of the Huaixihe incident.
And in the third reply, the original poster directly locked the focus onto the seven people in the picture.
At this point, a strong intuition suddenly surged within Shen Kui. After going around in such a big circle, could the original poster’s ultimate goal have been simply to release this photo?
This photo… what special meaning did it hold?
And that sentence, “I’m waiting for you here”, who was it meant for?
She continued scrolling down.
It was unclear whether 412L’s warning had worked or whether the goal had already been achieved, but no matter how much the netizens speculated afterward, the original poster never appeared again.
After reading through the entire thread, the sheer amount of information was overwhelming. Her sleep-deprived brain could no longer handle such intense processing. She felt dizzy and muddled, in urgent need of rest.
She glanced at the time. It was already past four. The thought that she still had to get up at seven to go haul bricks made her feel instantly despairing, to the point that even the fear brought on by the eerie post faded quite a bit.
Rubbing her forehead, she went to the bathroom to splash some water on her face. When she looked into the mirror, she deliberately examined herself.
The face was still the same. The resemblance was real. But perhaps it was psychological, or perhaps the bathroom light was too bright and made her eyes blur. As she kept staring, her reflection gradually overlapped with the woman in the photo.
The woman’s shoulder-length short hair, the black leather jacket, even the faint dimples that appeared at the corners of her mouth when she smiled…
Wait!
Shen Kui suddenly sensed that something was wrong. She turned and rushed back to her room, pulled out a photo album from under the bed, and flipped through it quickly.
“Found it!”
She took out her phone, snapped a photo of one of the pictures, and sent it to her best friend.
Kui: “Look at this. [Image]”
Sweet K: “Isn’t that a photo of your uncle and aunt?”
Kui: “Look closely. The jacket my mom is wearing—it’s exactly the same as the one on the woman in that photo!”
Shen Kui remembered it clearly. That genuine leather jacket had been a gift her father brought back for her mother from a business trip out of town when she was five years old. Leather coats were expensive in those days, and few families could afford them. After receiving it, her mother had been happy for a long time. She liked to wear it on every important occasion. Even on the day they had the accident, she had been wearing that very jacket.
She hadn’t recognized it at first because the shock of seeing a face identical to her own had been too overwhelming. In addition, the lighting in the photo was uneven. The dim background and the overexposed shot had caused the black leather jacket to almost blend into the surroundings, making it hard to notice.
Shen Kui couldn’t help but think: the woman in the photo had a face highly similar to hers and was even wearing the same jacket her mother had worn on the day of the accident… Even if she didn’t know this woman, she must have had some connection to her parents.
She just didn’t know what role this woman had played in that accident. And why had she never heard of this person’s existence?
Kui: “You might be right. This person really could be some distant relative of mine.”
Sweet K: “…Damn, I’ve got goosebumps. This is too creepy. What on earth is going on?”
Sweet K: “Why don’t you reply to the thread and ask?”
Kui: “No rush. Let’s wait and see.”
Sweet K: “Yeah, that’s fine. Isn’t that 412L also one of the survivors? Let’s see if they say anything else.”
Sweet K: “Come to think of it, if someone hadn’t happened to see this post and shared it in the group, we wouldn’t even have known about it.”
Sweet K: “It’s been so many years, and they still recognized you at a glance. That’s true love, huh~ haha. No, I’ve got to go see who shared this post…”
Tian Ke probably sensed Shen Kui’s anxiety and deliberately changed the subject to lighten the mood. But Shen Kui found it hard to truly relax.
One coincidence after another, each response laden with implication. They were clearly hinting that there had been hidden circumstances behind the accident that had taken her parents’ lives all those years ago.
She even had the impulse to confront the original poster directly, regardless of the consequences, and demand to know what secret they were hiding…
But… she couldn’t.
The whole matter reeked of strangeness. Rashly stepping forward might not be a good thing. She steadied herself and tried to reassure herself. Let’s wait and see a little longer.
She would check again tomorrow to see if there were any new developments.
She sent Tian Ke a goodnight message. There was no reply. It was already close to five. She prepared to force herself to sleep a little longer.
Just as she lay back down, there was a “ding”, and her phone screen lit up again.
Sweet K: “Huahua, I need to tell you something. Don’t be scared.”
Sweet K: “You remember, right? I was the one who created our class group. Back then, to get everyone together, I called people one by one, invited them in one by one, and even asked everyone to change their display names.”
Sweet K: “But I just realized that at some point, an extra person appeared in our class group.”
Sweet K: “The one who shared the post—he’s the extra one.”
“An extra one.”
Shen Kui’s mind went blank for a moment. She subconsciously repeated the words, then suddenly shuddered.
Her fingers trembled as she typed: “Are you sure?”
Sweet K: “There are 48 people in our class in total, right? Aside from the two classmates we truly couldn’t get in touch with, when I created the group, I added 44 people. Including the two of us, that makes 46. Open the WeChat group now. The total number displayed at the top hasn’t changed. It still says 46. But if you count the members one by one from the member list, you’ll find the actual number is 47!”
Sweet K: “I went through all the chat records since the group was created. This person was never invited, and they’ve never been counted in the total number. At first, I thought it was a system bug, so I contacted customer service to check. But customer service said there was no abnormality. The scariest part is, I checked each member one by one, and the one who shared the post is exactly the extra person!”
Sweet K: “What should we do, Huahua? This is too creepy. Should we call the police?”
Shen Kui took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down for a moment, and typed: “Don’t panic. It hasn’t reached that point. All of this is just speculation. Besides, I haven’t been affected in any substantial way. The police won’t take the case.”
She reassured Tian Ke a couple more times, then opened the WeChat class group, scrolled to the part where the other party had shared the post, and tapped to view the account.
The person’s profile picture was a pitch-black image. The WeChat ID was a string of garbled characters automatically generated by the system. The Moments page was completely blank, without a single piece of information.
The more Shen Kui looked, the more her back prickled with unease. This was clearly a zombie account, quietly lurking in the group from some unknown time, as if it had been lying in wait for this very day.
What exactly was this person’s purpose?
Had they gone to such lengths to infiltrate the group merely to ensure that she would see that post?
What kind of hidden truth lay behind the accident all those years ago, that someone would painstakingly scheme for twenty years over it?
Shen Kui couldn’t help but shiver. Even though it was the height of summer, she felt a chill seeping into her bones.
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Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152