Have you ever wondered that some functions of the apps you use every day are actually helping you see things you shouldn't?
I never did. Not until that Friday afternoon.
My name is Lin Shu, twenty-six years old, working as a product operator at an internet company. After the pandemic, the company adopted hybrid work, and I usually worked from home on Fridays.
There was a weekly meeting at 2 PM that day—nothing serious, just progress updates from each project team. I made a cup of coffee, opened my laptop, and clicked into the Tencent Meeting link five minutes early.
A few people were already online. Brother Wang, our team leader, had his avatar on but his camera off. Xu Li from the business department had her camera on with background blur; all I could see was her pale yellow blouse and freshly washed, fluffy hair. Xiao Zhou from the testing team had his camera off too, only sending a "Here I am" in the chat.
I turned on my camera and habitually enabled background blur. My place was actually tidy, but for some reason, I always felt awkward letting others see my room during video calls. Background blur was just psychological comfort for me, like drawing a safe zone around myself.
The meeting hadn't started yet, and everyone was chatting casually. Xu Li complained about the renovation downstairs giving her a headache. Brother Wang sighed about his son fighting at school, saying the teacher had called him in. I sipped my coffee and chimed in occasionally. The atmosphere was so ordinary it was almost drowsy.
At exactly 2 PM, Brother Wang called the meeting to order and asked us to report our project progress one by one.
I went first, taking about ten minutes. After finishing, I muted myself and leaned back to listen. Xiao Zhou said he had a bug to fix and might need a two-day extension. Xu Li mentioned a new business campaign launching next month, requiring our team to create supporting materials.
I jotted down notes while listening, glancing at the screen every now and then. Xu Li was still speaking; her feed was in the top-right corner, background blurred so only her figure was clear.
Then I saw the private chat window flash.
It was a message from Xu Li—not in the group, but sent to me directly.
"Lin Shu, are you home alone?"
I found it odd but replied: "Yeah, why?"
She took about ten seconds to write back.
"Who's standing behind you?"
I froze.
Behind me? I twisted around instinctively.
All I had behind me was a white wall with a few sticky notes of to-dos. Next to it was a closed wardrobe door. There was no one else in the room—not even a cat; I'm allergic to cat fur.
I typed back: "No one's here. Just me."
She went silent for nearly half a minute. Then she sent me a screenshot.
It was the meeting feed from her end. In it, I sat at my desk in a gray home T-shirt, hair messy, face blank with work focus. My background was blurred; normally, only my silhouette would show, with everything else melted into fuzzy blobs.
But in that screenshot, right behind me, within the blurred background, stood a human figure.
The "person" was about a meter behind me, half a head taller than me, with an unnervingly clear outline—you could make out its shoulders, neck, and two slightly hanging arms. But its face was a blurry patch of skin tone, as if someone had erased all facial features with an eraser. Further behind it, in the deeper blur, there seemed to be another fainter shape, though I couldn't make it out clearly.
This wasn't a misrecognition by the blur algorithm—no mistaking a chair back or a clothes rack for a person. I stared at the screenshot again and again. The shape was too human, so much so that my breath caught. It was even standing slightly sideways, as if watching my screen.
I spun around again.
Still nothing. White wall, sticky notes, wardrobe door, black mug on my desk. Sunlight streamed through the window onto the floor. Everything was normal—too normal for anything to be wrong.
I turned back, stared at the screenshot for a few seconds, then typed: "Are you messing with me?"
"Why would I lie?" she replied quickly, followed by another message: "Look for yourself. It's still there."
I glanced at my own feed. With background blur on, only I was visible, the background a uniform mess that hid everything. But Xu Li claimed she could see it—beneath the algorithmic blur, a human figure stood right behind me.
I tried turning off background blur.
The background sharpened instantly: white wall, sticky notes, wardrobe door, all crystal clear. No one. No blurry figure. Nothing at all.
I turned it back on.
The feed returned to showing only me, background faded into a haze. I noticed the black mug on my desk warped into a strange shape in the blur, stretched by some force—yet it looked normal when blur was off.
Another message popped up from Xu Li.
"It's still there."
"Closer than before."
I stared at the words, my fingers hovering over the keyboard, unsure how to respond.
"Don't scare me," I typed and sent.
Xu Li didn't reply. Her avatar flickered gray then back to color. The meeting continued. Brother Wang talked about a requirement change; Xiao Zhou sent an emoji in chat. Everything went on as if nothing had happened. Xu Li was still on screen, pale yellow blouse, fluffy hair, listening earnestly and nodding occasionally.
But I noticed that while she listened, her eyes kept darting to one spot on her screen—the exact spot where my feed was.
I typed: "Where is it now?"
A few seconds later, she replied:
"Right behind your chair. Really close."
"It's looking down at you."
I work in tech. I know algorithms. This couldn't be a misread.
So I made a decision that now strikes me as incredibly stupid.
I didn't end or leave the meeting. I picked up my phone, opened the camera, and took a photo of the space behind me.
Nothing in the picture. White wall, sticky notes, wardrobe, curtains, floor, my chair back. That was all.
I even stood up and filmed every corner of the room. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I sat back down and typed to Xu Li: "I took photos. There's nothing there. Must be an algorithm bug."
Xu Li replied with one word: "Oh."
I couldn't tell what that "Oh" meant—whether she believed me or just dropped the subject.
The meeting went on for another twenty minutes. Brother Wang wrapped up, wished everyone a nice weekend, and one by one, people left the call.
I exited too.
After leaving the meeting, I sat blankly in my chair. The room was quiet except for the hum of the fridge compressor. Dust floated slowly in the sunlight slanting across the floor. Everything felt so normal that I wondered if the past few minutes had been a hallucination.
I even suspected Xu Li was pranking me. We weren't close, but she loved joking around—during team building, she'd send scary pictures in the group to spook people. Maybe she'd been bored and edited a screenshot to scare me.
Yeah, that must be it.
I brushed it off and spent the rest of the afternoon replying to emails and drafting next week's work plan. After five, I went out to buy groceries, cooked dinner, watched a show, showered, and went to bed.
I slept deeply that night, dreamless.
The next day was Saturday. I woke up naturally around ten. After washing up, I was about to make breakfast when my phone vibrated.
Brother Wang had sent a message in the department group: "@Everyone The big boss wants a Q3 review at 10 AM Monday. All teams prepare materials, don't wing it."
I replied "Received" and opened WeChat.
There was a new message from Xu Li, sent at eleven last night.
"Lin Shu, you didn't turn on that blur again later, did you?"
It was 10:14 AM Saturday when I saw it. I'd already been asleep by eleven last night and missed it.
I typed back: "No. Why?"
She replied almost instantly.
"Good."
"Don't turn it on."
I stared at the two short replies, and that uneasy feeling returned. I was about to ask why when she sent another message.
"I had a video meeting last night too, with background blur on."
"I saw it too."
I froze, fingers hovering over the screen.
"You saw it too? Saw what?"
Her status showed "typing" for a long time, before she finally sent just one sentence.
"Never mind. I must be overthinking."
Then she sent a "Happy Weekend" emoji, as if nothing had happened.
I didn't press further. Not because I didn't want to, but because I could tell she didn't want to talk—and it wasn't just "overthinking."
I kept myself busy for the rest of Saturday: cleaning, doing laundry, clearing out old food from the fridge, going downstairs to the supermarket. I deliberately avoided thinking about the previous day, the screenshot, or Xu Li's words about it getting closer.
But some things don't just go away because you ignore them.
Around five in the afternoon, my college friend Li Mu called, asking to meet for dinner. He worked as a game planner, lived nearby, and we hung out every week or two. I agreed, saying I needed to get out.
We met at a Hunan restaurant at half past six.
Li Mu was already there, sitting by the window looking at the menu. I sat down, and he glanced up: "You look off. You okay?"
"Didn't sleep well," I said.
"Stayed up watching shows again?"
"Nope."
I hesitated, wanting to tell him what happened, but the words died on my tongue. How could I explain it? That I'd seen a nonexistent person in a meeting? That a colleague said something was standing behind me? No one would believe that—not even me.
Dishes arrived, and we chatted while eating. Li Mu ranted about work troubles, and I nodded along.
Halfway through the meal, he suddenly asked: "You still working from home some days?"
"Yeah, Tuesdays and Fridays."
"You still use Tencent Meeting for meetings?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Nothing." He took a bite. "Something really weird happened to me in a meeting last week. I'll tell you."
My heart skipped a beat.
"What happened?" I asked.
"We had a new guy on the team. He turned on his camera and background blur during our weekly meeting. A colleague next to me messaged me, saying, 'Look—isn't there someone in his feed?'" Li Mu chuckled. "I looked, and sure enough, there was a blurry human figure standing behind him in the blur. I thought it was someone from his family and didn't think much of it."
"What happened next?"
"Then the new guy asked in the group, 'Did any of you see something behind me during the meeting?' We all said we did. He said he was home alone. He turned blur off and on again, said the figure was still there—and had moved."
Li Mu's smile faded a little.
"I got chills and searched online. Guess what? I wasn't the first one. People posted about it on Weibo, Zhihu, even Xiaohongshu—seeing blurry figures in Tencent Meeting's background blur. Some said it was an algorithm bug, some said light refraction, and others said…"
He paused.
"Said what?"
"Some said it isn't a bug."
"That some things aren't visible to human eyes—only to cameras."
Li Mu looked at me, waiting for a reaction.
I said nothing. Because I suddenly realized something.
When I first saw the figure in the blur, I'd blamed an algorithm error. But later I thought: normal blur only softens the background, it doesn't preserve a full human outline. If the algorithm recognized it as human and "cut it out" from the background, that meant it registered as a person—not furniture. For something to be identified as human by the algorithm, it must have a head, torso, limbs. If the algorithm saw it, it really was there.
I just couldn't see it.
"You okay?" Li Mu noticed my expression.
"Fine," I said. "What happened to that colleague of yours?"
"Which one?"
"The new guy."
"Oh, him." Li Mu shrugged. "He quit the next day."
"Quit just because of that?"
"He said it wasn't the reason, that he'd already planned to leave. But honestly, anyone would be creeped out. There was more than one figure in his feed."
My chopsticks froze mid-air.
"More than one?"
"Yep. He sent another screenshot from the next day's meeting. With blur on, there were three blurry figures, all standing behind him."
Li Mu spoke in a flat tone, as if commenting on the weather. He even took another bite before continuing: "I guess it's all in your head. Come on, eat up—the fish head here is great."
He quickly changed the subject, and I played along, but I could barely taste the food for the rest of the meal.
When we walked out, it was completely dark. We parted at the crosswalk—Li Mu headed for the subway, I scanned a shared bike and rode home.
I thought a lot on the ride: Xu Li's messages, Li Mu's story about the new hire, people online claiming to have seen the same thing. I should have searched for more accounts, but for some reason, I was too scared.
Back home, I showered and sat on the sofa watching TV—a noisy variety show. I stared for half an hour without processing a single word.
Around ten, I turned off the TV and prepared for bed. I lay down, turned off the lights, and closed my eyes.
Then I heard a very soft *click*.
Like a joint moving. Or crumpling plastic.
Right behind me.
My bed was against the wall. The wall belonged to the neighbor, but the building had decent sound insulation; I rarely heard them. And this sound was too close—not from the other side of the wall, but inside my room, right behind me.
I didn't move. I kept my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, telling myself it was just old pipes expanding and contracting.
But I knew better.
About ten seconds later, the sound came again.
*Click.*
Closer this time. So close I could feel something right behind my pillow, a blurry figure leaning over my bed, staring down at me.
I flipped over violently and opened my eyes.
Nothing. Pillows, wall, a sliver of streetlight through the curtains.
My heart hammered so loud I heard the blood rushing in my ears. I took deep breaths, telling myself I was just spooked by Li Mu's stories.
But I didn't turn off the lights that night.
I kept the bedside lamp on, pulled the blanket up to my chin, stared at the ceiling, and didn't fall asleep until nearly four in the morning.
Sunday came, and I woke up around noon. Sunlight streamed through the curtains, brightening the whole room. The fear from the night had faded in daylight, and I even felt silly—twenty-six, scared of something imaginary enough to sleep with the lights on.
I got up, washed up, cooked noodles, then sat at my computer to refine next week's work plan. WeChat logged in automatically, and several messages popped up.
One was from Xu Li, sent at 8:12 that morning.
"Lin Shu, did you hear anything last night?"
My chopsticks nearly slipped from my hand.
I set them down and typed: "What did you hear?"
She didn't reply instantly. I waited two minutes before my phone vibrated.
"Clicking sounds. Like someone cracking their knuckles."
Cold chills ran down my spine. I'd heard a single click; she heard repeated cracks. But it was the same thing—not pipes, not old house creaks.
It was moving.
"Xu Li, what exactly did you see?" I typed. "Tell me the truth."
She replied quickly, but not with text—she sent a photo.
I opened it. It was a phone picture of a laptop screen, taken in dim light. The screen showed Tencent Meeting with background blur on; a person sat at the desk—clearly Xu Li herself.
And behind her stood a blurry figure.
No—two figures.
They stood on either side of her chair, outlines shockingly clear, as if real people were there, yet their faces and bodies had no details, only blurred skin tone. The left one was taller, the right shorter. They weren't stiff; the left tilted its head slightly, as if watching her screen.
I shifted my gaze and noticed a small detail.
In the bottom-right corner of the screen, a floating Tencent Meeting prompt read:
**Multiple people detected in frame. Enable portrait background blur?**
Beneath the photo, Xu Li sent a line of text, followed by garbled characters, as if disrupted.
"When I turn on blur, it says multiple people detected. When I turn it off, there's nothing behind me."
"And they're getting closer."
"Yesterday… at the door… now… behind the chair…"
"Lin Shu, when I heard that sound last night, I turned around."
"I saw it."
The messages stopped there.
I stared at those last four words for a long time.
"What did you see?" I typed.
The message showed as read, but she didn't reply.
I waited five minutes, ten, twenty. Xu Li's avatar was online, but she sent nothing else.
I wanted to call her, but I put my phone down. I didn't know what I felt—fear, curiosity, something else. All I knew was that once something like this starts, you can't pretend it never happened.
Around two in the afternoon, I made a decision. I had to test whether this thing was real or just a Tencent Meeting glitch. If it was a bug, everyone should see the same thing. If only certain people could…
Then it meant something far worse.
I opened Tencent Meeting, started a test session alone, turned on my camera and background blur, and stared at my own feed for a full minute.
Nothing. Only me, the background a uniform blur with no abnormalities.
But I didn't exit. I remembered Xu Li's words: "It's still there, closer than before." If this thing existed, it might not stay still.
I stood up, walked to the other side of the room, then slowly returned, trying to view the screen from different angles. Nothing changed. Only me in the frame.
I sat at my desk for ten minutes. Nothing happened.
Just as I was about to end the meeting, my phone vibrated.
A WeChat message from Xu Li.
"Lin Shu, are you in a meeting right now?"
My chest tightened. I hadn't told anyone I was testing.
"How do you know?" I typed.
"Because I can see it too."
"When you turned on blur, I saw one."
"It's standing behind you."
I stared at the message and spun around.
Nothing. Still the white wall, sticky notes, wardrobe.
But when I looked back at the screen, my feed flickered—not a network glitch, but like the camera refocused, shifting from me to something behind me.
When the image stabilized, I noticed something different.
Normal background blur centers on the person and softens everything else. But now, a gap had appeared in the blur: behind my left side, a small area wasn't fully blurred. It formed a faint but distinct human shape—paler than the one in Xu Li's screenshot, yet clearly there.
My fingers rested on the mouse, unsure what to click.
Then I saw the figure move.
It lifted its head slightly.
The movement was tiny—so small I would've missed it if I hadn't been staring directly at it. But it moved, like someone who'd been hanging their head suddenly raising their face.
The face was still a blurry mess.
But I knew.
It was looking at me.
Not at the camera. At me.
I turned off my camera and left the meeting.
The room fell silent again, save for the fridge and distant traffic. Everything felt normal—so normal it hurt.
I sat staring at the closed Tencent Meeting window, mind blank. After half a minute, I picked up my phone and opened my chat with Xu Li, reading her last message.
"It's standing behind you."
I scrolled up to the screenshot she'd sent earlier—the one with two figures behind her.
I looked again and spotted a detail I'd missed before.
Behind the two figures, in the corner of the room, there was a third.
Much fainter, almost melting into the blur. But it was there. Its shape was different from the others—they stood upright, but this one was crouching.
Or crawling.
It lay on the floor, head facing Xu Li's chair.
I stared at that detail for a long time, then set my phone down.
I didn't know what this was. Where it came from, what it wanted, whether it only targeted Xu Li and me or everyone. I only knew one thing.
Tomorrow was Monday. I had to go to the office. The company used a different video conferencing software, not Tencent Meeting.
But what if its background blur also detected it?
What if it wasn't just in Tencent Meeting?
What if it had always been there, and we'd only just found a way to see it?
My phone vibrated again.
Xu Li sent a voice message. I hesitated, then played it.
It was short—only four seconds.
It was her voice, but wrong—soft, hoarse, as if speaking through a thick barrier.
She said: "Lin Shu, don't look back."
I froze in my chair, phone in hand.
And at that moment, I heard a sound behind me.
Not a click.
The fridge fell silent. In the dead quiet, a very faint breath brushed against the back of my head, less than ten centimeters away.
I did not turn around.
The camera light was still on.