Soul-Capture App (Part 2)
It was only after seeing that reply that she truly began to believe the person chatting with her might actually be herself.
How to escape this place—that had been the only thing on her mind for the past five days.
No food, no water, no need to sleep, and yet she remained unchanged from five days ago. This forced her to accept the reality that she was no longer truly human.
Even so, she couldn't just remain trapped here.
Despite her caution, warnings still came, and the punishments were always inventive in their cruelty. The one constant theme was pain.
Beyond the punishments, the darkness and silence were even more unbearable.
Apart from the one or two hours of WeChat conversation each day, she had nothing to do, talking only to herself.
She knew that if this went on much longer, she would be driven mad.
But what was the way out? Finding a solution within this space was impossible. She had to rely on outside help, and the only person she could communicate with was the self behind that WeChat account.
But getting a rescue message past the content review seemed impossible.
Just as she was at her wits' end, a breakthrough finally appeared.
Today, at 8:13 PM, she began her WeChat conversation with that other self.
She quickly completed today's directive—setting up the time and place for tomorrow's meeting—then proceeded as usual to chat about topics that interested her.
Around nine o'clock, she noticed that after sending messages on WeChat, the system no longer displayed the "Approved" notification, yet her messages were still going through to the other person.
What was going on? Her first thought was that the system had malfunctioned, skipping the approval step entirely.
But if that were the case, that scumbag would surely have noticed.
That left only one other possibility—he had voluntarily stopped reviewing the messages.
Hah! Men! It had only been a few days and he couldn't even be bothered to check what she was sending him anymore? His laziness was already eroding his discipline. But then, this was the same man who'd been too lazy to have a real conversation on a first date, so why should she be surprised?
Well, his negligence was her opportunity.
Right then—send a WeChat message to Sarah Chen and tell her to rescue her!
No, wait. Before starting to type, she realized this approach had a problem.
It was too early. The scumbag might have stopped reviewing, but his phone was surely still nearby. If a chat notification appeared on his screen, he might see the content.
This kind of opportunity required absolute success on the first try.
So she'd wait.
After ending the conversation at 10:21 PM, she chose to hold back for now.
The best time for a rescue message would be after the scumbag fell asleep. She carefully recalled their chat contents—he probably didn't stay up too late. He'd mentioned that once, hadn't he? Something about an early meeting the next morning.
As for herself—her other self, the one out there in the real world—since she didn't need to wake up early for work tomorrow, she'd typically watch videos until one or two in the morning. But her phone automatically went into sleep mode at midnight, silencing WeChat notifications. So she needed to send the message before then.
The timing had to be precise. Too early and the man might still be awake, phone in hand, able to glance at the screen. Too late and the message would be buried in sleep mode, invisible until morning—by which point the review feature would likely be reactivated.
At 11:55 PM, at the optimal time she'd calculated, she finally pressed send, then prayed silently in her heart.
No obstruction, no warning. The two words appeared in the chat window: "Help me!!!"
3
When Mark Wang's phone rang, he was fast asleep. Groggily seeing it was Sarah Chen calling, he felt puzzled—why would she call at this hour?
But after hearing what she had to say, and then going back to check the WeChat chat history, all traces of sleepiness vanished.
It was partly his own fault.
The user manual had explicitly stated that disabling the review feature was not recommended during initial use. But his nightly chats with Sarah Chen were getting longer and longer, eating into the time he usually spent gaming. Figuring there wouldn't be any problems, he'd taken a shortcut—and now this trouble had cropped up.
Telling Sarah Chen the truth was out of the question. That would mean letting this nearly-cooked duck fly away, and all his effort would have been for nothing.
Fortunately, Mark Wang quickly composed himself. He told her his WeChat had been hacked, told her not to worry, and to go back to sleep.
After finally managing to get Sarah Chen off the phone, he immediately reinstated the review feature, then went back and re-read that chat log.
Thankfully, the conversation hadn't lasted very long before Sarah Chen had called him. The content hadn't mentioned anything about the App—otherwise his secret would truly have been exposed.
Speaking of this App, it had been passed to him by his old classmate Alex at a reunion a while back.
Alex had started his own little company after graduation, developing Apps and mini-programs. He was the entrepreneurial type—always tinkering, always pitching, always chasing the next big thing.
This app called Soul-Capture was their company's latest creation. Billed as the ultimate wingman tool, it was perfect for single homebodies like Mark Wang.
The claim was that you just needed to take a photo of a woman, and the App would search the internet for mountains of information about her, then generate a virtual persona that would chat with her on your behalf. The success rate was remarkably high.
Since the App was still new, Alex had asked Mark Wang to be one of the first beta testers and provide feedback.
Mark Wang had been skeptical at first, but he didn't want to turn down a friend. Once he tried it, though, he discovered the App genuinely worked.
Sarah Chen had been completely indifferent to him, but this virtual persona seemed to truly understand her. The conversation topics were exactly what interested her, and thanks to it, they'd secured tomorrow's date.
But what did these messages mean?
Mark Wang frowned at the WeChat texts. Being locked in a dark place, asking someone to rescue her?
Could it be that the virtual persona was so good at chatting not because of big data analysis, but because there was an actual living person inside?
The thought was absurd, but it still sent a chill down his spine.
It seemed he wouldn't be getting back to sleep without asking some questions. He immediately called Alex and told him what had happened, as well as his own seemingly ridiculous theory.
Sure enough, after listening, Alex laughed for a good while, saying Mark Wang must have watched too many horror movies.
As for the chat content, it was probably a system debugging issue. They'd been upgrading the entire system recently, so minor glitches were inevitable. But Alex promised to sort it out as quickly as possible and told him not to worry.
After hanging up with Alex, Mark Wang felt much more reassured. Thinking back on his earlier notion, he had to admit it was pretty ridiculous.
He checked his phone—it was already past 1 AM. He yawned hugely and burrowed back under the covers.
4
"Happy birthday, darling! I'll be back this afternoon. Dinner tonight, okay?" Sarah Chen received this WeChat message during her lunch break, and the pout she'd been sporting all morning finally gave way to a smile.
She'd thought he'd been too busy on his business trip to remember her birthday. She'd been thinking that even if he couldn't make it back, he should at least wish her a happy birthday.
Thankfully, he remembered the things that mattered to her.
Before she knew it, she and Mark Wang had been officially together for over five months. Counting their earlier talking stage, it had been half a year since they met through that blind date.
Despite her poor first impression of him, they'd clicked conversationally. Sharing her daily observations and moods with him via WeChat had become second nature.
In person, Mark Wang was still not much of a talker, but he'd improved considerably from the beginning.
Nobody's perfect. Sarah Chen felt she should be content. Plus, Mark Wang's work kept him traveling frequently, so their time together was limited, which made it all the more precious.
Should she spend the rest of her life with this man? Sarah Chen had been pondering this question a lot lately.
With her birthday today, she was turning twenty-eight—not young by any measure. It was time to start thinking about marriage.
At least for now, Mark Wang was a solid choice.
They could talk easily. He was attentive to her. His family background was comfortable, his job was stable. Aside from minor flaws, she couldn't find any major deal-breakers.
And Mark Wang had been dropping hints lately about wanting Sarah Chen to meet his parents. She knew perfectly well what that implied, but she always felt they hadn't been together long enough to rush things.
Recently, though, her own parents had started getting restless, insisting that since she had a boyfriend, she should bring him home.
Just last night, her mother had pulled her aside for a long chat, essentially telling her that when the feeling was right, she should seize the moment—don't drag it out and let the man get away.
She'd never been able to stomach this kind of talk before. But somehow, last night, it had actually struck her as reasonable.
The truth was, she'd genuinely fallen for Mark Wang this time. Once she understood that, so many other things clicked into place.
Tonight's dinner seemed like the perfect opportunity to agree to meet his parents.
5