The link led to an unlisted Bilibili stream. No chat. No likes. Just a live feed of a different room: a basement, walls lined with old calendars from 2019. In the center, a radio crackled. A voice—same boy, older now, maybe seventeen—whispered into the mic:
By June 2020, “The Lantern” had 80,000 followers. Bilibili’s official team noticed and offered server support. The original video—20200401—never resurfaced. But its ghosts found a home. deliver us from evil 2020 bilibili
In the spring of 2020, when the world felt like a held breath, Lin Wei, a 22-year-old college student in Shanghai, found himself scrolling Bilibili at 2 a.m. again. The pandemic had turned his dorm into a gilded cage. His days blurred into livestreams, danmaku scrolling like digital rain, and the hollow comfort of autoplay. The link led to an unlisted Bilibili stream
He messaged @OldSoul_2003 again: “What do you need?” Just a live feed of a different room:
The reply came as a single danmaku, green text against black: “To be seen. To be heard. To be delivered.”
He traced the usernames. Most were new accounts, created April 2020. But one stood out: , whose upload history was a single, private playlist titled The Quarantine Tapes .