Work Text:
[Transcript Begin]
Title: WE SPENT A NIGHT IN A HAUNTED SUBWAY STATION AND REGRET EVERYTHING (Lan Zhan almost arrests a ghost)
Channel: SpiritSignal
The video opens in total blackness.
There is a long scraping noise, then Wei Ying’s voice swears very quietly.
Wei Ying (whispering): “I hit my shin on the stupid… okay… okay we’re good. Starting over.”
A shaky beam of phone flashlight jumps to life. It jerks across a tile wall that is the exact color of bad decisions: a grayish yellow that must once have been white and now looks like it was steeped in nicotine. Rust streaks down the grout lines like dried blood. The walls sweat. The air is awful. Damp, metallic, sour.
You can hear water dripping somewhere, rapid and nervous, like something pacing.
The camera swings too fast and catches a blur of motion. For half a second, the outline of a woman can be seen at the far end of the platform. Too tall to be comforting. Too still.
The view stabilizes on Wei Ying. She’s in a patched bomber jacket with half a talisman stuck to the sleeve, hair pulled into a messy bun, bangs limp from humidity. She looks unreasonably thrilled to be in the type of subway station that God abandoned in the late 90s.
Wei Ying (brightly): “Hello internet gremlins. Hello insomniacs. Hello my beloved cluster of people who really, really should not be watching ghost content alone at night but absolutely are. It’s us. I’m Wei Ying, and behind me is the one, the only, the ice queen of exorcism, the woman who has never jaywalked in her life… Lan Zhan.”
The camera rotates with a small shudder.
Lan Zhan stands a few steps away, facing down the tunnel like she is personally preparing to discipline it. Her coat is pristine. Her boots shine. The air doesn’t dare cling to her. She holds what looks like a guqin in miniature—lacquered black wood, subtle silver inlays—but when the flashlight catches its side, a tiny blue pairing light blinks. Bluetooth. Three thousand years of cultivation history and someone built it into a speaker.
Her expression does not shift.
Lan Zhan: “Hello.”
The sound carries strangely. Like the tunnel listens.
Wei Ying leans toward the camera like she’s letting viewers in on a secret.
Wei Ying: “She’s excited. You can tell. That’s her excited face. If she gets any more excited, she might actually blink.”
Lan Zhan does blink, once, slowly, and Wei Ying cackles.
They walk deeper onto the platform. The tiles change texture underfoot, from the uneven grit of old grime to newer patches where someone tried to repair the floor and gave up halfway through. Mold in the shape of continents blooms along the walls.
There is graffiti that says “DON’T LOOK BACK.” Another, in a frantic, jagged hand: “UNDER THE TRACKS.”
The flashlight beam sways with their steps. Something in the tunnel clicks rhythmically. Not a natural drip. Too syncopated.
Wei Ying (soft): “So. This station. Officially closed in 1999 for structural issues. Unofficially closed because of spiritual distress patterns, spectral interference, and one very angry janitor who quit after being pushed into a mop sink by something invisible. That last part is real. We checked.”
Lan Zhan: “We interviewed him.”
Wei Ying: “Yes. And he made you tea. And you accepted it. And you said thank you with a bow. And he almost fainted.”
Lan Zhan: “I did not intend that.”
There’s an odd, mournful hiss from the tunnel. Both women look toward it.
Wei Ying: “Okay. Before we go closer, let’s set our protections. Lan Zhan will demonstrate the classical approach. Very refined. Very spiritual. Very ‘my ancestors would be proud.’ And then I will demonstrate my approach, which is best described as ‘a hazard to myself and others.’”
Lan Zhan kneels with controlled grace. She places a talisman the size of her palm on the ground. It is pale rice paper with ink strokes so heavy they look wet, each one precisely placed. As she presses her fingertip to the center, it glows. The glow is soft, blue-white, like moonlight through water. It spreads into a thin dome that settles over the platform edge, humming with restrained power.
Her posture is perfect. Her concentration absolute. The camera lingers on her hands, steady and elegant. Wei Ying directs the camera back to herself.
Wei Ying: “Beautiful. Classic. Approved by every cultivation elder this side of the Pacific. Now observe my masterpiece.”
She rummages in her backpack. The sounds coming out of it are not promising. At one point there is a loud clack that might be a spoon, followed by a crunch that might be something electronic dying. Finally, she pulls out… something.
It used to be a Tamagotchi. It still has the general shape—oval, pastel plastic—but now there are copper wires looped around it, a quartz shard taped on the side, and what appears to be a runic circuit drawn in glitter pen. It hums faintly like it’s nervous.
Lan Zhan (flat): “No.”
Wei Ying: “Yes.”
Lan Zhan: “It is unstable.”
Wei Ying: “It gets that from me.”
The device emits a small, offended chirp, then sparks.
Lan Zhan: “Wei Ying.”
Wei Ying: “Look, look, it detects spiritual fluctuations by translating residual yin energy into an electromagnetic pattern readable by normal electronics. Probably. It’s fine. Science is happening.”
Lan Zhan stands. The guqin-speaker in her hands buzzes once, low and resonant, a tone so pure it feels like it scrapes the dust out of the air.
The tunnel responds. The shadows shift like something stirring under water. The flashlight stutters. For a moment, the video catches a tall silhouette far behind them. It is upright but wrong. Too narrow. Too elongated at the neck. The head tilts.
Lan Zhan’s eyes narrow.
Lan Zhan: “It approaches.”
Wei Ying: “The ghost?”
Lan Zhan: “Yes.”
Wei Ying: “Do we like that for us?”
Lan Zhan: “No.”
Wei Ying: “Okay. So we’re aligned.”
She lifts her grim little Tamagotchi device. The runes flicker pink. The quartz crystal glows.
Then the air goes sharp. It feels like stepping into a freezer. Cold crawls along the back of the lens, frosting the edges. A whisper moves past the microphone. It isn’t language, but it sounds like it used to be. Lan Zhan steps forward, calm as a temple gate, and places herself very deliberately between Wei Ying and the dark.
Her voice lowers.
Lan Zhan: “Do not cross the threshold.”
Wei Ying: “I wasn’t gonna. Not intentionally. I’m accident-prone, not suicidal.”
The ghost slides forward, not in a walking motion but like a puppet being dragged on a wire. The lights overhead distort. For a split second, its face appears: stretched cheeks, hollow eyes, black water dripping from the jawline.
The screen tears with static. The Tamagotchi device screams in digital agony. Lan Zhan lifts the guqin-speaker with one hand and strikes a chord. It sounds like a blade on crystal.
The ghost recoils. The tiles tremble. A distant metal pipe bursts, spraying a fine mist across the platform.
The flashlight steadies enough to catch the figure retreating down the tunnel, limbs jerking like a broken marionette.
Wei Ying exhales sharply.
Wei Ying: “So. That was our welcome committee. Thoughts?”
Lan Zhan: “This spirit is bound. It was not manifesting freely.”
Wei Ying: “Bound how?”
Lan Zhan: “Not by its own will.”
Wei Ying blinks at the camera.
Wei Ying: “You heard it here, folks. Something is making the ghost do ghost labor. It’s union busting for the undead.”
Lan Zhan has no visible reaction, which only makes it better. The scene ends on a long pullback shot of the empty tunnel. The dripping has stopped. The silence is worse.
Then the video cuts to black.
[Pinned Top Comments]
Cryptidfan301: I don’t know who the tall woman is but she scares me and I would follow her into war.
Ghostfactsbutgay: lan zhan looks like she could arrest me for jaywalking and I would thank her
Graveyardshiftgrrl: wei ying’s device looks like it crawled out of a Radio Shack dumpster and achieved sentience. powerful lesbian energy.
Sunfishsupremacy: is nobody going to talk about the THING at 4:12. hello?? its whole head did a 90 degree rotation like an owl that hates you
Lotusroot19: lesbian rights. ghost rights. ghost daddy rights.
Witchcraftandwifi: the classical cultivation vs science-gremlin contrast is my Roman Empire. I think about it every day.
[More Comments (Unfiltered)]
skeptic_snek: It’s literally just a dude in a Halloween costume. You can see the zipper if you pause at 3:55.
Uncannyvalleydenier: Ghosts aren’t real. Subway mold is. Yall saw mold hallucinations.
Paranormalpolice: I work in VFX and the distortion at 4:12 is obviously AfterEffects. Yall are getting duped by lesbians with good editing skills.
Deadinsideengineer: As an electrical engineer I can confirm that the Tamagotchi thing is 1) not safe and 2) not detecting ghosts. It’s detecting regret.
Atheistbuthot: Look I don’t believe in ghosts either but Lan Zhan could absolutely convince me of the supernatural or anything else honestly.
fullmoonFails: Why is nobody asking why the tall one is so wet. Like genuinely why is she damp. What environmental factor is that.
Realestatehorror: As someone who works in property management: that ghost is the least scary thing about that station.
Logic_and_lattes: If ghosts were real every subway station would be haunted because like five people die a day from slipping on the stairs.
Dramaticgamer384: Yall really out here believing everything you see on lesbian ghost YouTube. Grow up.
Tiredmedstudent: Idk about ghosts but the way lan zhan steps in front of wei ying is giving… something. Something that makes me weak.
Provincial_exorcist: Actually some spirits can mimic human silhouettes. Stop dismissing stuff you don’t understand just because you're scared. (Also Lan Zhan’s ward technique is legit, that’s classical Gusu style even if the audio isn’t perfect.)
Hongkongcitycryptid: THE THING BLINKED SIDEWAYS. WHAT HUMAN BLINKS SIDEWAYS. PLEASE.
Unclearonmagic: I am personally begging you to stop using glitter pens on historically significant runic structures.
Curdledmilkshakes: The only supernatural thing here is the fact that Wei Ying is not dead yet.
Skepticalbutnice: I don’t believe in spirits but the editing was cool and the lesbians are pretty so I will be back for episode two.
hauntoberWatcher: If it’s fake then why did the light flicker exactly when Lan Zhan hit that note. Explain that, rationalists.
Janitor_99: I used to work at that station. None of this surprises me and I hope the ghost sues the city.
⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧
Wei Ying’s laptop sounds like it is actively begging for death.
It wheezes as she drags the playback bar across the timeline for the fifteenth time, fan rattling like a dying cicada. The editing software lags, spins, and then crashes in a way that suggests it did not simply close. It ascended.
Wei Ying throws her head back and groans like a Shakespearean ghost.
“Why. Why. Why is this my life.” She flops sideways in her chair and kicks lightly at her desk with the heel of her foot. A stack of external hard drives shivers in fear. “Algorithm hates me. The universe hates me. This stupid laptop hates me. The subway ghost probably hates me. YouTube hates lesbians. It’s a conspiracy.”
Their apartment is a cramped shoebox above a laundromat, and it looks like a tech graveyard and a shrine had a child. Coiled extension cords snake under the furniture. Three ring lights lean against the wall like broken halo props. A joss stick smolders in an old Starbucks cup in the corner, incense smoke swirling around the ghost of a frappuccino from last week.
Someone taped talismans to the ring light with glitter tape. The talismans were never supposed to sparkle. These sparkle. They sparkle accusingly.
A cat-shaped blanket mound is asleep on the couch and is, unfortunately, not a cat but a pile of laundry Wei Ying keeps insisting she will fold “after I upload this video or maybe after ten thousand years on a mountaintop.”
She drags the laptop closer, muttering, “God, this thumbnail is tragic. Why is the lighting like that. Why do we look like we were filmed inside a haunted humidifier.”
A soft sound comes from behind her. She doesn’t look up until a warm porcelain mug slides into her peripheral vision. She blinks, then brightens with Pavlovian joy.
“Tea.”
Lan Zhan stands beside her, a quiet silver silhouette in pajamas the color of soft fog. Her hair is down, long and glossy, falling over her shoulder like she stepped out of a shampoo commercial for immortal cultivators. One sleeve hangs off her wrist just slightly, which is somehow worse than perfection. It is perfection weaponized.
She holds the mug with two hands like it is a ritual object.
“It will calm your mind,” she says.
Wei Ying snorts.
“You think I have a mind left? It leaked out of my ears around the time that ghost did the neck thing.”
Lan Zhan frowns slightly, concerned in her microscopic way. She reaches out and taps Wei Ying lightly on the temple with two fingers. “Your mind is intact.”
“Sure,” Wei Ying says, leaning into the touch dramatically. “You say that, but the Tamagotchi might have absorbed part of my soul.”
“You should not have used that device.”
“It is art.”
“It is dangerous.”
“All art is dangerous, Lan Zhan.”
“No.”
They stare at each other. A silent, long-suffering, deeply married stare.
Wei Ying finally grins, victorious, and turns back to her screen. “Anyway. While you were communing with the tea gods, did you know you’re trending again.”
Lan Zhan settles onto the desk next to her, graceful even when folding herself up in a tiny space meant for approximately one half of a human. She sits so close their knees press together.
She looks at the editing timeline with polite interest, unaware that her proximity is doing psychic damage.
“Trending,” she repeats.
“Yes,” Wei Ying says, jabbing at her mouse with unnecessary force. “On the internet.”
“Which part of it.”
“All of it.”
Lan Zhan considers this, the way someone might consider an unfamiliar but harmless food. “Why.”
Wei Ying spreads her hands wide. “Because you’re hot.”
Lan Zhan blinks, slow and tragic. “I am not.”
“You are literally the internet’s collective thirst trap. You are people’s gender goals. You are the lesbian gothic dream. You are the top trending word next to ‘ghost’ and ‘milf.’”
Lan Zhan simply stares at her. Wei Ying swallows her laughter and waves at the laptop like she is presenting evidence in court.
“Look. Look at this graph. Look at this analytics spike. This is you.”
“I do not understand.”
“You don’t need to understand. You just need to accept that people online have dubbed you ‘hot ghost daddy’ and now you must carry that title forever.”
“I am not anyone’s father.”
“No,” Wei Ying says, sipping her tea. “But apparently, you have… energy.”
“What energy.”
“You know.” She waggles her eyebrows.
“I do not,” Lan Zhan says, glaring. “Explain.”
Wei Ying chokes on her tea and has to slam the mug down to avoid spilling it. “No. Absolutely not. The student becomes the teacher, but the teacher refuses to be horny-bullied by her own student.”
“I am not your teacher.”
“You taught me that talisman array in 2021.”
“That was instruction.”
“That is teaching.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Lan Zhan, you’re fighting a losing battle.”
She leans her head against Lan Zhan’s shoulder. It is a casual gesture, practiced from years of doing it without thinking. Lan Zhan doesn’t move away. She simply turns slightly so Wei Ying fits more comfortably.
The apartment hums gently around them. Incense. Keyboard taps. The soft rush of the heating vent cycling on. Somewhere downstairs, the laundromat thrums, rhythmic, steady.
Wei Ying exhales.
“You know, sometimes I think the algorithm is personally targeting me.”
“It cannot target a person.”
“It can target a lesbian.”
Lan Zhan takes her mug and sets it aside so it doesn’t get knocked over when Wei Ying inevitably makes a wild gesture. She watches the screen again, eyes flicking to each chaotic jump-cut.
“You should not edit while angry,” she says. “Your creative impulse becomes impulsive.”
Wei Ying groans. “My creative impulse is always impulsive.”
“That is the problem.”
“It is my charm.”
“It is reckless.”
“That is my brand.”
Lan Zhan makes a quiet sound, halfway between disapproval and a sigh that has been building since the day they met. Wei Ying melts under it like a plant exposed to sunlight for the first time.
She nudges Lan Zhan’s knee lightly. “Thanks for the tea.”
“You require it.”
“You care.”
“I am preventing dehydration.”
Wei Ying grins up at her. “You like me hydrated.”
“I like you alive.”
“So romantic.”
Lan Zhan’s ears turn faintly pink. “You are impossible.”
“And yet here I am.” She nudges her shoulder again. “And here you are. Sitting on my desk. In pajamas. Bringing me tea like a wife.”
Lan Zhan blinks very slowly, like she is processing this, rejecting it, and filing it under “unsolvable problems.”
“I am not your wife.”
“Yet.”
“Wei Ying.”
“I’m kidding.” A beat. “Mostly.”
Lan Zhan’s hand rests on the desk next to hers. Not touching. Hovering. Close enough to count as contact for anyone who looks.
Wei Ying gently shifts her pinky so it brushes Lan Zhan’s. The contact is tiny. Electric.
The editing software finally reloads.
Wei Ying sighs. “Okay. Back to work. Sit there and look pretty. I work faster when I’m being judged.”
“I am not judging you.”
“You are judging me constantly.”
“Only your choices.”
“That is… all of me.”
Lan Zhan’s lips twitch. Almost a smile.
Wei Ying sees it. She doesn’t comment. She stores it away like treasure.
The world outside continues, loud and messy and ordinary. Inside this tiny apartment, they exist in a pocket of warmth, chaos, and unspoken devotion.
And the editing continues.
⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧
Wei Ying’s inbox pings with the high, pathetic sound of a stressed-out email client trying to survive under the weight of too many subscriptions, three different sponsorship inquiries she keeps forgetting to answer, and an ongoing back-and-forth with a brand that wants them to promote ghost-repellent shower gel. She glances up from the timeline and watches the notification appear like fate written in bold, where the subject line immediately draws her eye: HELP. Something lives in my walls.
The words sit there with the comfortable weight of a problem she is absolutely not equipped to leave alone. She makes a noise that is half caffeine, half delight, and spins her chair so hard the wheels skid on the hardwood and the entire desk trembles as if bracing for impact.
“Mail,” she announces grandly, as if this is a royal decree and she is the harbinger of chaos.
The notebooks and half-charged power banks surrounding her shiver from the shift in air pressure. A talisman taped to the ring light flutters weakly, threatening to detach itself and fall onto the Starbucks cup where three crumpled joss sticks lean like exhausted soldiers. The apartment’s atmosphere thickens with a faint swirl of sandalwood incense mixing with the lingering smell of microwave ramen. The tiny space feels less like a home and more like a shrine built by someone who grew up in a digital wasteland and decided to compensate with spiritual hoarding.
Lan Zhan sits at the desk’s edge, her posture elegant even in soft, loose pajamas that look like they were stitched from the fabric of a cloud and ironed by a benevolent deity. Her hair, freed from its usual tight, impeccable style, falls in a long dark sheet down her back, the ends brushing her waist like a quiet promise of something both ancient and domestic. She turns her head toward the screen with that serene attentiveness that makes Wei Ying feel simultaneously cherished and very, very observed.
Wei Ying clicks into the email, her lips twitching upward as she reads the first line aloud in a dramatic whisper.
“A fan. A subscriber. A soul in distress. A fellow renter betrayed by their landlord.”
She scrolls down, letting the momentum drag her forward like a bloodhound following a scent.
The body of the email is nothing short of unhinged. Each line is uneven, breathless, the typographical equivalent of crying while running. The sentences ramble into one another without punctuation, and the desperation radiating off the screen is so palpable Wei Ying can practically feel the frantic finger-smashing that produced it. She reads:
hi sorry if this is weird but ive been hearing noises in my walls not like mice not like pipes actual knocking
sometimes whispering landlord says its “settling.” it’s not settling. nothing that settles says my name. pls help i saw ur videos i dont know who else to ask
i havent slept in two days
pics n audio attached
– A.
Wei Ying breathes out a long, satisfied “oooooh,” like she just opened a box labeled CURSED FAMILY HEIRLOOM and found a second, even more cursed box inside. She scrolls again to the attachments, clicking the first file with dangerous enthusiasm.
The photo loads slowly, as if reluctant to reveal itself. The moment it resolves, the breath she pulls in tastes metallic, like the air at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The picture shows a wall corner in the subscriber’s apartment, plaster peeling in drooping sheets as though whatever is behind it is trying to push outward. There’s a shadowy stain near the baseboard, too dark and irregular to be just a spill. The paint texture near it wrinkles, warped by moisture—or something else entirely.
Lan Zhan leans closer, her hair grazing Wei Ying’s cheek in a soft brush that sends an involuntary shiver down her spine, though she pretends it’s from the picture and not the proximity. When the second image appears, the faint lines sharpen into long scratches etched deep enough to expose the underlying structure. They’re not random like an animal’s panicked scrabble. These run parallel, deliberate, and just slightly curved inward, like fingers curling.
The third picture is worse. A hole punched through the drywall from the inside, the plaster cracked outward in jagged wings. The shape of it is unsettlingly organic, like the opening of a mouth mid-scream. Dust surrounds it in an uneven ring, disturbed by something pressing up against it repeatedly.
The fourth image is the one that makes both women freeze. A set of grime-darkened handprints smeared across the wall—too thin, too long, too many knuckles. They overlap, like someone trying repeatedly to push through.
Wei Ying sits back, eyebrows climbing high.
“Oh, we’re absolutely going. This is premium, grade-A haunted real estate.”
Her eyes sparkle with that particular feral enthusiasm she only gets when they stumble upon something deeply inadvisable.
Lan Zhan studies the handprints, her expression tightening the way it does when she recognizes something she does not like but refuses to fear.
“This is not ordinary. Their landlord should have contacted authorities.”
“Landlords never contact authorities,” Wei Ying says. “Landlords contact bleach. If that fails, they contact denial.”
She gestures expansively at the screen.
“But this? This is special. This is the kind of haunting that comes with metaphysical fine print.”
She clicks the first audio file before Lan Zhan can protest. The speakers hiss, then settle into a steady static that sounds like wind scraping against an old radio antenna. Beneath it, a faint knocking begins. Slow. Deliberate. Spaced with eerie precision.
Tap tap…
…tap tap tap…
…tap.
Tap tap.
Wei Ying’s hand goes still on the mouse. Her whole posture changes, shoulders rising slightly as if her instincts tap her like a conductor calling for silence. Her eyes narrow with sudden clarity.
Lan Zhan picks up the shift in an instant. She leans forward, alert, her voice lowered.
“What is it.”
Wei Ying replays the clip, this time turning the volume up. The tapping repeats. It is not random. The rhythm is too exact, the spacing too symmetrical, the intervals too thoughtful. And then, at the very end, something sharp and brittle like a breath slithers through the static. A single syllable emerges, distorted but unmistakably shaped by human intention.
Wei Ying inhales sharply and whispers, “No way.”
Lan Zhan places her hand lightly on the desk to anchor herself.
“Explain.”
Wei Ying taps her fingers on the wood, keeping pace with the recorded knocks.
“This sequence. This exact sequence. It’s from the Chifeng sect codebook. Pre-split. That’s ritual cadence. Early invocation stage. Old invocation. Older than the cultivation divisions. Older than most of the chants we still use.”
Lan Zhan’s eyes sharpen, her pupils narrowing like she’s peering into a memory or a warning.
“Pre-split Chifeng rhythms do not manifest accidentally. They are always deliberate.”
“Exactly,” Wei Ying says, pointing at the waveform like it personally offended her. “This isn’t a random haunting. Something inside that wall is trying to start a ritual. Or finish one. Or escape something that was never finished. This is trapped energy. Forced energy.”
“And if it is invoking,” Lan Zhan says slowly, “then something bound it there.”
Wei Ying nods hard enough to make her bun wobble.
“Yep. Someone stuffed a spirit into a structural cavity and slapped a metaphysical lock on it. This is centuries-old craftsmanship. This is advanced haunting architecture. This is… god, this is sexy.”
Lan Zhan turns her head very slowly and gives her a look that communicates an entire lecture on propriety, ethics, and long-term consequences.
“Wei Ying.”
Wei Ying waves her off, too excited to stop.
“Not sexy-sexy. Conceptually sexy. Like, academically spicy.”
“That is not better.”
“It is for me.”
She clicks the second audio file without hesitation. Another hiss. Another knock. This time the whisper is clearer, brushing up against her nerve endings like chilled fingers. If she listens closely, the voice is not saying “hello.” It is saying her name. Or something achingly close to it.
Lan Zhan’s hand moves before she speaks, her fingers brushing Wei Ying’s wrist in a barely-there touch that is neither controlling nor gentle but undeniably protective.
“Do not play that again.”
Wei Ying smiles crookedly.
“Concerned for my mental health. Cute.”
“I am concerned for your soul.”
“Even cuter.”
She looks back at the email, reading the sender’s shaky words one more time. The plea sits heavily in her chest now, undercutting her excitement with a line of genuine worry.
“We have to go,” she says, but it comes out softer this time, less giddy and more grounded in the kind of certainty that comes only when something inside her aligns perfectly with a threat.
Lan Zhan nods with quiet finality. “Yes.”
Wei Ying swivels in her chair and gestures broadly. “Get dressed.”
“I am dressed.”
“In pajamas.”
“They are functional.”
“They are soft.”
“They permit full movement.”
“They are pajamas.”
Lan Zhan hesitates, as if weighing the merits of arguing versus simply obeying. She eventually turns toward the bedroom, her steps measured but faster than they were five minutes ago. Before she disappears, she glances back at Wei Ying with an expression that contains trust, irritation, affection, and the resigned knowledge that she will absolutely be dragged into a haunting tonight whether she likes it or not.
“Wei Ying,” she says, voice low, “wait for me.”
“Always,” Wei Ying replies, already scrolling back to the audio waveform like she is rereading a love letter written in the language of ghosts.
From the laptop speakers, the tapping continues.
This time, the whisper behind it is unmistakable. It says her name. Not distorted. Not imagined. Not confused. Just clear. And waiting.
⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧
They get to the client’s building just after nine, the kind of hour where the city feels like it has unclenched a little but not enough to trust anyone. The lobby smells like old carpet and new anxiety. A dusty chandelier flickers overhead with the enthusiasm of a dying firefly. The elevator has a sign taped to it that reads OUT OF ORDER in handwriting that looks like the building gave up halfway through writing it.
Wei Ying stares at the sign, at the elevator, at the stairwell door propped open with a brick, and says, “This is either a haunting or a homicide waiting to happen. Which is honestly exactly the vibe I wanted.”
Lan Zhan gives her a look that contains a request for better self-preservation instincts, a quiet acceptance of defeat, and an unspoken promise that she will carry Wei Ying up all six flights if she gets dramatic. They take the stairs, their footsteps echoing off the concrete like a warning knock.
The hallway on the client’s floor is narrow and dim, lit by a single overhead bulb that buzzes with an electrical stutter, the light flickering in uneven pulses. At the far end, a window shows the dark outline of fire escapes and a sliver of orange streetlight. There are six apartment doors, each painted a slightly different shade of beige, all chipped at the corners. The walls are too thin, the acoustics too live. Every breath feels amplified.
Wei Ying sets down her backpack, which holds exactly two functioning cameras, one possibly functioning camera, two dead batteries, a handful of talismans she forgot to finish inking, three rolls of tape, her cursed Tamagotchi-device, and a bag of gummy worms she swears are medicinal. She pulls the first camera out and hands it to Lan Zhan with exaggerated ceremony.
“Wife, hold this.”
“I am not your wife,” Lan Zhan murmurs, though she accepts the camera with careful hands, smoothing her thumb over the lens as if blessing it.
“Wife,” Wei Ying repeats, because if she says it often enough one day the universe will get tired and give in.
While Wei Ying begins unloading tripods and lights, the client opens their apartment door. They are a young person in their twenties, wearing a hoodie that has seen better days and sweatpants that look like they are holding an emergency meeting at this very moment. Their hair is frazzled, their eyes ringed with exhaustion, their shoulders tense in a way that suggests they have not slept for so long they can barely remember what dreams feel like.
They greet the pair with the kind of smile people wear when they are trying very hard not to appear as terrified as they currently are.
“You came,” the client says, voice thin around the edges. “Thank you. I really—something is wrong. Like really wrong. It knocks like it knows when I’m alone.”
Wei Ying’s face lights up with unholy delight, which she rapidly rearranges into something resembling professional concern. “We believe you,” she says, and she actually does, because people do not send emails with HELP. Something lives in my walls unless they mean it. “We’re going to take a look. Try not to worry.”
The client laughs a little hysterically. “I’ve tried.”
While Wei Ying talks them down from their panic—gestures animated, voice warm, body language open and grounding—Lan Zhan quietly steps past them into the hallway. She kneels on the worn carpet and begins taking out her warding materials without a word, arranging them with the precision of someone laying down musical notation. Pale blue talismans with crisp calligraphy strokes. A small jade charm that hums softly when her fingers brush it. A compact guqin-shaped speaker that she places beside her knee like a meditation bowl.
The overhead light flickers once, then stabilizes. Wei Ying watches it, then smirks.
“See that?” she whispers to the client. “That’s her. She scares electricity into behaving.”
“I can hear you,” Lan Zhan says, calmly, not looking up from her work.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying replies, “that’s part of the charm.”
“Untrue.”
“Wife.”
“No.”
Wei Ying rolls her eyes and turns back to the client.
“Anyway. These wards will help keep whatever’s in your walls from spreading into the hall. Spirits like easy escape routes, so we block those first. Think of it like ghost baby-proofing.”
The client stares at her.
“Is that… real.”
“Yes,” Wei Ying says. “And sometimes no. It depends on the ghost.”
She pulls out her phone and opens TikTok’s recording interface, flipping the camera to face herself. “Time for a behind-the-scenes educational moment,” she announces, before launching into an explanation with the enthusiasm of someone who absolutely should not have been given an audience.
On-screen, she holds up her Tamagotchi abomination, wires glinting under the hallway lighting. “For everyone asking how modern cultivators adapt to the technological age, this beauty right here uses electromagnetic field differentials to map spiritual density gradients. Which basically means it screams at me when something spooky is near.”
She gestures dramatically around her. “Spiritual field readings often interfere with wifi signals. So if you’re in your apartment and your router keeps dropping for no reason, yes, it might be your ISP being a goblin, but it might also be a ghost passing through the room. Wifi hates ghosts. Ghosts hate wifi. Mutual hostility. It’s a whole thing.”
Wei Ying ends the recording and pockets her phone with a flourish, clearly pleased with herself.
“That’ll clear up the basics,” she murmurs, then pulls out her second camera and begins mounting it on a tripod angled toward the hallway wall.
The comments begin appearing on-screen in real-time after the TikTok is posted.
@wormgirllove: I thought this channel was a joke but she just explained magic like she was teaching a college physics class
@thirsty_cryptid: hot ghost daddy is doing calligraphy on the floor help
@skeptic_snek: no bc how did she say that with a straight face
@lanfan420: DOES LAN ZHAN KNOW SHE HAS FANS
@wifiisdownplshelp: my wifi drops constantly does this mean im haunted or broke
Lan Zhan finishes placing a ward and rises with her usual controlled grace. She moves along the hallway slowly, fingers brushing the baseboards with deliberate, meditative precision. The jade charm hums again, responding to the ambient spiritual interference. The client watches her like someone witnessing a surgeon performing a delicate procedure.
“That’s… really beautiful,” the client whispers, almost reverent.
Wei Ying beams with pride she has no right to take credit for.
“I know. Isn’t she impressive.”
Lan Zhan glances at her, expression unreadable except for the faintest flicker of warmth in her eyes.
“Focus,” she says.
“I am focused,” Wei Ying says, even though she is very much not.
The hallway air shifts, temperature dipping as the wards activate one by one. A faint vibration runs under the floor like something unsettled is recognizing it cannot move freely anymore. The far end of the corridor seems to pulse for a moment, the shadows deepening with a quiet warning.
The client swallows hard.
“Is that normal.”
Wei Ying pats their shoulder.
“Normal enough that we’re not running yet. You’re fine. Probably.”
Lan Zhan straightens, stepping to Wei Ying’s side without a word, their shoulders brushing.
“We begin inside,” she says.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying agrees, adjusting the camera angle, “because whatever’s in there wants to be heard.”
“And we will listen,” Lan Zhan finishes.
They exchange a look, the kind of look two people share when they have survived enough insanity together that danger feels like a familiar rhythm.
Then Wei Ying turns to the client, grins with wild affection, and says, “Let’s go meet your haunted roommate.”
The inside of the client’s apartment feels wrong in a way that doesn’t announce itself immediately but subtly tightens around the lungs, like the air is holding its breath. The living room is dim, illuminated only by a floor lamp with a crooked shade and the twitchy glow of a streetlight leaking in through the blinds.
The place looks normal enough at first glance—secondhand couch, thrift-store coffee table, microwave balanced on top of a mini-fridge—but the longer they stand inside, the more a strange pressure gathers, low and insistent, like something is pressing an ear to the walls from the other side.
Wei Ying lifts her camera, but her posture shifts subtly, hips angled toward the hallway as though expecting movement. The floorboards beneath her feet feel warmer than the air, and not in a comforting way. More like something trapped is radiating heat in uncomfortable pulses.
Lan Zhan moves first. She crosses the room in a straight line, stopping by the far wall where a mismatched patch of wallpaper pulls away from the plaster. She raises one hand and places her fingertips lightly against it. The wallpaper shivers, almost imperceptibly, as if responding. The temperature dips sharply. The little jade charm at her hip vibrates once, a soft, glassy hum that makes the client flinch.
“This,” Lan Zhan says quietly, “is inhabited.”
Wei Ying crouches beside the baseboard, running her fingers along the wood. Her eyes narrow.
“Look here. See how the paint’s bowed out? This isn’t water damage. Something pushed.”
The client hovers nervously near the kitchen threshold, arms wrapped around themselves.
“Is… is it inside the wall or like… part of it.”
Wei Ying stands and wipes plaster dust off her palms, accidentally smearing it across her jacket. “Both,” she says, voice gentle now, stripped of the bravado she uses like armor. “Something got trapped between the floors. Probably decades ago.”
Lan Zhan nods, tracing the curve of a warped stud with two fingers.
“The resonance is old.”
Wei Ying glances at her sharply.
“How old.”
“Forty to sixty years.”
Wei Ying exhales. “That tracks with the email. The building had a partial collapse back in the seventies, didn’t it.”
The client nods mechanically.
“That’s what the landlord said. But they told me no one died.”
“That,” Wei Ying says, turning back to the wall with a dark look in her eyes, “is a lie.”
A sudden knock echoes through the apartment—sharp, close, like a fist striking from the inside of a coffin. The lights flicker. The floorboards shake. It’s not violent, but it’s desperate, frantic, the unmistakable rhythm of someone begging to be heard.
Lan Zhan steps closer without hesitation, her presence steady as a pillar. Her spiritual pressure rolls outward in a soft, soothing wave, something ancient and careful, like the sound of steady breathing after a long nightmare. The knocking pauses, then shifts. A faint scrabbling sound moves upward through the wall, climbing toward where her palm rests.
“It is reaching for you,” Wei Ying murmurs.
“It seeks stability,” Lan Zhan answers, and her voice is so soft the words almost dissolve.
The wall pulses once, bulging toward her hand as if something inside is pushing through. A cold draft sweeps down the hallway. The client yelps and jumps back, knocking a stack of magazines off the counter.
Wei Ying moves instantly. She steps between Lan Zhan and the growing pressure, shoulders squared, expression fierce.
“No,” she says to the wall, and though her words are directed at the haunting, her concern is unmistakably for Lan Zhan.
“You do not get to go through her. You go through me.”
There’s a beat of silence, a charged inhale from the apartment itself, and then the wall cracks.
Not in a dramatic, horror-movie burst. Not violently. It fractures the way ice does on a lake—thin, whispering fissures radiating outward from a single point where something is pressing gently but insistently from behind.
The LED work light they set up earlier flickers wildly as the spirit’s energy spikes, casting the room in stuttering intervals of brightness and shadow. Each flash reveals a faint outline moving behind the plaster, like a silhouette trying to swim upward through layers of stone.
Wei Ying reaches into her backpack with her free hand and pulls out a half-finished talisman. The ink is slightly smudged but the strokes are correct enough. She presses it over the largest crack. The paper warmens, glowing faintly. The wall’s trembling slows.
Meanwhile, Lan Zhan kneels with the guqin-speaker in front of her, plugging it into the smallest of their portable battery packs. The device hums, then emits a single, low note that vibrates the floor gently. It is not a note humans normally hear. It is round, resonant, and ancient. The plaster dust on the wallpaper dances in layered waves.
The spirit responds immediately. The silhouette shifts toward the sound, its outline clearer now—a hunched figure, one hand braced against the inner side of the wall as though still trying to push their way out of the space they were buried in.
Wei Ying’s throat tightens, but not in fear. “Lan Zhan,” she says softly, “they’re not trying to hurt us.”
Lan Zhan nods, her gaze scraping over the lingering, trapped energy. “They died alone.”
“Trapped,” Wei Ying adds. “And no one remembered them enough to mark the spot.”
The spirit’s hand presses harder against the plaster. The entire wall bows outward, forming a visible palm shape just beneath the surface. A soft moan seeps through, low and hollow, as if filtered through stone.
The client whimpers. Wei Ying shoots them a reassuring look—sharp, steady, believable.
“Hey,” she says gently, “it’s okay. They’re scared, not angry. They’ve been calling for years and no one answered.”
She turns back to the wall.
“Until now.”
Lan Zhan adjusts the bluetooth guqin, fingers moving over the polished wood as if tuning a real instrument. Another note rings out, clearer this time—a high, keening thread of sound that brushes aside the static and hums directly into the heart of the apartment. The spirit’s outline shivers, its form sharpening into something more distinctly human.
The cracking intensifies. Dust rains down. But the energy is shifting now—not frantic, not wild, not trapped in blind panic. Responding.
Lan Zhan reaches for her jade charm and presses it to the wall, letting the soft green glow seep through the cracks. Wei Ying places her hand beside hers, fingers brushing just slightly, grounding the charm with her own chaotic, fearless energy.
Together, the charm and the talisman create a thin slit in the paranormal tension—like a seam being unpicked from the inside.
The silhouette pushes through that seam, pouring itself forward in a rush of pressure that feels like cold breath on the back of the neck. The LED lights flare, the guqin output stutters into a harmonic crescendo, and Wei Ying whispers something low and soft that sounds like a prayer but isn’t one.
The air thickens. The room holds still.
Then, slowly—agonizingly—the spirit pulls free.
It emerges not as a dramatic spectral figure but as a shimmer of light and shadow suspended in the air, the suggestions of limbs drifting like smoke. The face never fully forms, but something human lingers in the space where a forehead might be, a jawline, a trembling mouth trying to speak.
Lan Zhan bows her head in acknowledgment, palms open.
Wei Ying steps forward, reaching out with two fingers extended in a gesture that predates modern cultivation by centuries.
“It’s okay,” she says, voice soft and human in a way even she rarely lets anyone hear. “You’re out. You’re done. We’ll help you go the rest of the way.”
The spirit leans toward her, the faint outline of a hand lifting until it nearly touches her cheek. The energy is cold but yearning. Gratitude radiates outward, mixed with deep exhaustion—the kind that outlasts death.
Lan Zhan raises the guqin speaker again and plays a final, gentle note. Wei Ying’s talisman flares warm. The jade charm pulses.
And then, with a sound like a breath finally released after fifty years, the spirit dissolves in soft, settling waves, like dust finally allowed to drift toward the earth.
The hum fades. The temperature eases. The apartment exhale comes long and quiet, as though the room itself had been holding the ghost in its lungs and has at last let go.
Wei Ying lets her shoulders slump as she leans back on her heels, relief rippling through her body. Lan Zhan rises beside her, her presence calm and steady, and the two share a long, wordless look that holds both the rush of danger and the deep satisfaction of having handled it together, perfectly balanced in instinct and purpose.
“We did good,” Wei Ying says finally, brushing plaster dust from her hair.
“We did what was necessary,” Lan Zhan replies.
Wei Ying grins.
“Which is my definition of good.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t smile, but something bright flickers in her eyes.
“Yes,” she agrees softly. “Good.”
For one perfect, aching moment, the apartment is quiet. The kind of quiet no one earns, the kind that only happens after something trapped too long finally leaves the world in a gentler shape. Wei Ying stands near the cracked wall, breathing slowly, feeling the faint tingle of residual energy fading into the air. Lan Zhan is beside her, calm, steady, her fingers still curled loosely around the jade charm as if grounding the final threads of the ritual.
Then, behind them, a distinct clicking sound echoes through the apartment.
It is the unmistakable sound of something turning on. Wei Ying twists around so fast her knee pops.
“Did you… did you leave the cameras on.”
“No,” Lan Zhan says, just as one of the tripods planted in the hallway emits a soft digital beep and the recording light switches from orange to bright, accusatory red.
The second camera follows a moment later. Then the third. Then the ring light blazes to life, talismans flickering in its glare.
The smart TV chirps, pauses the client’s paused Netflix, and auto-opens YouTube to SpiritSignal—subscribed, notifications on. The client screams as the on-screen indicator flashes LIVE in the bottom corner of the smart TV mounted above their microwave. A moment later, a chat window erupts like a plague.
“NO,” Wei Ying says, lunging toward the nearest camera as if she can physically intimidate it into shutting up.
“NO NO NO NO NO. We were not streaming. This is illegal. This is actually illegal. This is technology rebellion.”
“It activated itself,” Lan Zhan says, serene in the face of disaster, which only makes it worse.
“No,” Wei Ying insists, pointing dramatically at the lens. “You listen to me. I will unplug you with my bare hands if you betray me right now.”
The laptop on the coffee table pings with repeated notifications. The viewer count skyrockets. 1,456… 3,292… 7,811…
A flood of comments begins to scroll across the screen so fast they blur:
holyshitTHETALLONEliterallyjustlookedintomysoul
did they summon that thing on purpose
I THOUGHT THIS CHANNEL WAS LOW BUDGET HELLO???
is that plaster dust or ghost dandruff
the hot one is glowing someone explain
The client makes a noise best described as despair melting into disbelief, while Wei Ying spins in a small circle, hands in her hair, muttering curses at the camera gods.
“Okay,” she finally says, clapping her hands, voice strained in the way someone’s voice gets when they are moments away from stabbing technology. “We’re just going to pretend this is intentional. Lan Zhan. Smile.”
Lan Zhan does not smile. She does something even worse: she turns toward the camera with her usual priestess-like composure, which only makes the chat combust harder.
But before either woman can address the accidental livestream, the temperature shifts again.
Not the violent cold from earlier. Something softer. Quieter. The ghost’s final echo.
A shimmer ripples across the cracked section of wall, the plaster trembling like a thin membrane between worlds. The silhouette forms again, weaker now, stretched thin with exhaustion. It hovers at the edge of visibility, like a sigh taking shape.
Wei Ying steps forward immediately, instinct carrying her even as thousands of viewers screenshot the moment.
“Hey,” she murmurs, her voice dropping into that warm register she never uses on camera—but now she is on camera. “You’re okay. You’re almost there. You don’t have to push anymore.”
The apparition shivers, a ripple of light dipping toward her outstretched hand. The shape’s edges fray, loosening like fog pulled apart by dawn. The chat erupts:
are we watching a ghost bond with her HELP
SHES TALKING TO IT LIKE ITS A STRAY CAT IM CRYING
someone explain why this feels emotional
I would die for them both actually
Lan Zhan steps to Wei Ying’s side, the guqin-speaker cupped in her palms. She presses the charm to its surface, and the device sings a single, pure harmonic. It vibrates the wooden floorboards, warps the overhead light into a halo around her, and pulls the spirit gently away from the wall’s broken structure.
Her voice, when she speaks, is low and steady, carrying the authority of rituals practiced long before TikTok existed.
“You may rest now. No one will bind you again.”
The spirit wavers, its form tugged upward by the harmonic resonance. Wei Ying keeps her hand half-lifted, guiding it like one might guide a frightened animal across a river—steady, gentle, unafraid.
The charm pulses once, twice, each beat softer than the last.
Then the ghost dissolves into a bloom of pale light, drifting upward like dust motes rising through a sunbeam.
The apartment exhales again.
The livestream chat does the opposite.
THE TALL ONE IS LITERALLY A LESBIAN EXORCIST MILF
I FELT THAT NOTE THROUGH MY SPINE WHAT THE HELL
WHY AM I CRYING. IS THIS NORMAL.
did we just watch a ghost funeral
was that CGI because if so it deserves an oscar
are they girlfriends or am I hallucinating
lan zhan please arrest me I have done nothing wrong but I want the experience
I THOUGHT THIS WAS A PARODY CHANNEL WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY JUST FREED A SPIRIT
Wei Ying finally realizes what is happening as she sees dozens of heart emojis stream up the corner of the screen and the chat begging for “part 2” like they didn’t all just witness an ancient rite normally performed behind closed temple doors.
She groans loudly and drops her forehead onto Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
“This is my nightmare. This is literally my nightmare. We just performed an exorcism and the internet thinks it was a Marvel trailer. Jiang Cheng is gonna kill me.”
Lan Zhan pats the back of her head with the slow, methodical gentleness of someone soothing a wild animal. “It is done.”
“No, it’s not done,” Wei Ying says, muffled. “We are going to be memed. I can feel it. We’re going to be turned into GIFs.”
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says.
“That wasn’t agreement. That was acceptance. I heard it. You resigned yourself to the memes.”
“Yes.”
Wei Ying groans again and finally picks her head up, running a hand down her face before turning reluctantly toward the still-streaming camera.
“Hi internet. That was not special effects. Please don’t call OSHA.”
The chat explodes even harder.
I FREAKING KNEW IT WAS REAL
NO BUT THE WAY SHE TALKED TO THE GHOST LIKE A GIRLFRIEND
YOUR CHEMISTRY IS BETTER THAN HALF OF NETFLIX
do the lesbians know they are lesbians
this is a spiritual romance film im sorry
Lan Zhan leans in just enough to brush her shoulder against Wei Ying’s. Their proximity sends the chat into nuclear meltdown.
Wei Ying glances at the screen, grimaces, and mutters, “I hate everything.”
Lan Zhan, eyes soft, murmurs, “No.”
Wei Ying looks at her.
Lan Zhan continues, “We helped someone. This is good.”
And even though the livestream is accidentally capturing it, Wei Ying’s expression softens into something warm and unguarded.
“Yeah,” she says quietly. “We did.”
The camera auto-focuses on their faces, perfectly framed.
The viewer count hits 42,000.
And with the gentlest exhale imaginable, Lan Zhan steps forward and switches off the stream.
⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧
By the time they get home, the adrenaline has burned off and left Wei Ying hovering in that strange liminal, post-exorcism quiet where her brain feels like someone hit the dimmer switch on all her emotions.
The apartment looks different after the haunting, though nothing has changed: the glow from the streetlights filters through the blinds in wide yellow stripes; the incense ash still curls in the Starbucks cup like a relic; the pile of unfolded laundry still slouches across the couch cushion like a defeated monster. Yet there’s a softness to the space now, an aftertaste of something sacred.
Wei Ying drops her backpack next to the desk with a thud that rattles her empty cans and sends one of her notebooks sliding off the edge. She catches it before it hits the floor and laughs under her breath, the sound thin but genuine. Her laptop is already humming, its screen waking up as though it knows what she needs before she does. She sinks into her chair and clicks open the video manager.
The thumbnail from the accidental livestream stares back at her like a challenge: she and Lan Zhan standing in that ruined apartment, light flaring behind them, the outline of the spirit dissolving upward. It looks staged. Cinematic. Like something a team of very stressed editors spent six months animating.
But she knows it wasn’t. And so does her body. Her bones feel hollow in the pleasant way that follows danger successfully navigated. When she sets the stream archive to “Public,” she feels the relief ripple through her chest like warm water.
A soft rustle comes from behind her, the sound of someone toeing off their shoes with the precision of a person raised to believe dropping anything on the floor is a moral failing. Wei Ying doesn’t turn—she doesn’t need to. She knows the rhythm of those movements by heart now, each one familiar as her own handwriting.
Lan Zhan crosses the room with the silent certainty of someone whose presence shifts the energy of the space without effort. She lowers herself onto the couch, her hair down, her pajamas changed into a fresh pair the color of pale tea. She sits with her back straight at first, but as the silence settles, she lets herself lean, just slightly, into the couch cushion. The soft lamp behind her makes a halo around her hair.
Wei Ying scoots over without looking away from the screen, her knee bumping Lan Zhan’s leg in a casual, unconscious motion. Their shoulders meet in the middle, warm against warm. The contact is small but grounding. They both exhale at the same time.
For a minute, neither speaks. Wei Ying watches the upload bar crawl forward at a painfully slow pace. Lan Zhan watches Wei Ying in profile, her gaze soft in the way she never allows when anyone else is present. The apartment hums quietly, the world reduced to warm skin, late-night light, and the residual ache of having done something meaningful.
When the video finishes processing, the thumbnail pops into the grid. Wei Ying lets her head fall back on the couch cushion with a sigh.
“You know,” she says, sounding exhausted and smug all at once, “they’re already calling you hot ghost daddy again.”
Lan Zhan turns her head a fraction, just enough for Wei Ying to catch the faint crease between her brows.
“I am not anyone’s father,” she says, tone flat but edged with a softness that betrays her weariness.
Wei Ying snorts, a little thread of laughter catching in her throat.
“Tell them that, not me. I’m just the messenger. A very beautiful messenger who saved a soul tonight.”
Lan Zhan’s eyes lower to Wei Ying’s hands resting loosely in her lap. She reaches over, slow enough that it feels like intention rather than instinct, and rests her fingers lightly atop Wei Ying’s. It is a delicate touch, a feather-light press, but it lands with the weight of a vow neither of them are ready to name.
Wei Ying doesn’t startle. She doesn’t joke. She turns her hand palm-up and lets their fingers slip together like that’s always been the shape they were meant to make. Her chin drops, her eyes closing briefly. She leans more fully into Lan Zhan’s shoulder, and Lan Zhan shifts to meet her halfway.
“It’s not a confession,” Wei Ying says quietly, almost to herself.
“No,” Lan Zhan agrees, her thumb brushing once against the back of Wei Ying’s hand, steady and sure. “It is simply true.”
They stay like that for a while—close, warm, silent—until Wei Ying remembers the world exists and reluctantly reaches for the trackpad. On-screen, the newly uploaded video already has thousands of views.
One notification blinks bright.
Video Trending #4 in Live Events.
The corner of the page shows the top comment:
“Not to be dramatic but I think they just saved a soul live on camera. Also please date each other.”
Wei Ying snorts again, laughter low and fond.
Lan Zhan, looking at the same comment, says nothing. But her hand stays in Wei Ying’s, steady, warm, and unmistakably there.