The flying pig: Do you really want to know?

The flying pig: Do you really want to know?

The flying pig: Do you really want to know?

...

Brother Lei began to send the same message to me over and over again. It was unnerving to see such strange behavior from the administrator.

Me: Uh, yeah

When I replied, Brother Lei immediately stopped sending the repeated message and quickly sent through a file.

It was a video. Although it was a large file, it appeared on my desktop the second I clicked on it. Strange.

Instead of opening the video right away, I sent another message to Brother Lei.

Me: Hey man, you okay?

Brother Lei did not reply, yet QQ showed that he was still online. I sent several more messages that went ignored.

I looked back at the file and noticed the title: "We are true family." I didn't know why, but I didn’t want to open it. Suddenly, the face of a ghost, like one in a horror movie, flashed into my mind. I shuddered.

I continued to send messages to Brother Lei, but got no response. Had something happened to him? My bad feeling from earlier grew, along with a twinge of guilt. Was I somehow responsible if something had happened?

I struggled with my feelings for an hour, continuously checking QQ to see if Brother Lei had replied, but eventually, I clicked on the video.

When the video started playing, I quickly realized there was no audio. The video started with a shot of a beautiful woman touching her rounded belly. She was smiling and laughing at the camera, and occasionally would put her palm over the lens like she was pretending to be shy. She seemed to be interacting with the man who was holding the camera. The video reminded me of a newly married couple recording their life together.

The camera then slowly panned down the woman’s body to her belly. She teasingly lifted up her shirt to show her round, white stomach. A small bear drawn in ink was curled up on the surface, as though it was protecting the baby inside.

The camera stayed on the woman’s belly, but the picture began flashing, and the background started to change, as though time was passing quickly. The bump appeared to grow bigger and bigger, yet the bear that protected the baby never changed size.

For a while, the woman disappeared. Then suddenly the screen was taken up by an ugly baby. The camera shook violently during this portion. I could sense that the cameraman didn’t like what he saw.

Now the video had sound—hushed, distressed voices that made me uneasy. I listened closely. Most of the sounds seemed to be people arguing and expressing doubts.

The video continued like before, but with the child replacing the woman’s stomach. The sounds of scolding became clearer. I realized the voices didn’t just belong to the cameraman and the woman; they appeared to belong to men and women, the old and the young. It seemed as though wherever the child went, someone was scolding him.

The smile that the child had worn disappeared slowly and his expression became flat. The background of the video continued to change, and the child continued to age, but his expression remained frozen in place. Disturbing.

When the child appeared to be about 12 years old, he suddenly disappeared, and was replaced by a stream of changing faces that all appeared to be angry.

I was becoming dizzy from how quickly the video changed scenes. I rubbed my eyes, and suddenly the screen changed again. My face appeared on the screen with the same blank expression the child had worn, and there was a big question mark hovering over my face.

I quickly pushed myself away from the screen. However, the leg of my chair was stopped by the rug beneath, and I struggled to hold onto the desk to stay upright.

"What happened?" My mom burst into the room, concerned. Seeing that I was just using the computer, she relaxed and left.

I stared at my face on the screen, until I noticed the background. It reminded me of something so familiar, but I couldn’t place it for a few moments. Then my blood went cold. The background in the picture was of my home, in front of my computer. But my computer didn’t have a camera..

The screen began to flash once more, then slowly went black. A child’s voice began to pour out of the speakers, repeating a single sentence.

“It is because we are family.” He sounded determined.

“It is because we are family.” Cold and flat.

“It is because we are family.” Ferocious.

As the sentence repeated, the child sounded angrier and angrier, until his words were like teeth gnashing at my skull.

I felt pain. I felt hurt and anguish and sorrow as though my heart would explode. Suddenly, when I could hardly stand the sound anymore, my bracelet emanated a dim red light. I fell down to the floor when the light appeared, and it was like a spell was broken.

I tried to stand, but I felt weak. My body was drenched in sweat, as though I had just taken a shower.

"Rui’er." The door of the bedroom opened and, seeing me collapsed on the floor, my mom rushed into the room. She hurried to help me stand up as Witch Yan entered behind her, looking at the computer screen. I looked up at the screen as well.

The video had closed. The computer screen just showed my desktop, with the few neatly arranged icons I always had there. Witch Yan looked at me curiously.

I hobbled to the bed, supported by my mom. I spilled the events of the last few minutes to both of them. My mom looked concerned, then immediately knelt in front of Witch Yan and begged her to help me.

“Get up, get up. Don’t kneel like that. Yes, of course I will help him,” Witch Yan said exasperatedly to my mom, who was now bawling. Mom wiped her tears, then she stepped to the other side of the bed so that Witch Yan could perform religious rites.

However, rather than start a ritual, Witch Yan quickly slid over to my computer and opened QQ. She immediately started reading the chat records between me and Brother Lei. I saw that his repeated question—"Do you really want to know?"—had disappeared. It seemed as though everything that had happened was all in my imagination. However, I knew it had happened; Brother Lei’s other messages were still there.

Witch Yan read with amusement for a long time. Eventually, she took out a handful of rice, stained with incense ash, from her canvas bag and smeared it on the screen. The rice that touched the screen slowly turned black.