Sensing the pain radiating through his body, Chen Mo struggled to lift his head. By the light of a passing lightning bolt, he realized his seatbelt-bound body was hanging upside down inside the car, wedged in place. His taxi, it seemed, had overturned in the rain after a violent collision.
Then, Chen Mo noticed with a jolt that a protruding corrugated steel guardrail had pierced through the vehicle during the impact, pinning the passenger in the back seat to the seat itself.
Blood gushed steadily from the body, its warmth fading into the cold night.
Had the male passenger who hailed his taxi just died like that?
Was it an accident, or the work of some supernatural force?
Tonight's events were stretching Chen Mo's understanding, but he vaguely recalled that before the crash, the man had been terrified, brandishing a knife and shouting something like, "You know everything." That meant the "story" broadcast on the radio wasn't just a story—it was a real crime that had occurred.
And that final voice in his head sent a faint chill of danger through him.
Just then, he saw a dark mass slowly emerge from outside the car window.
A woman's hair!
Chen Mo shuddered in fright. Drawing on some unknown strength, he unbuckled his seatbelt with one hand and shoved the car door open with all his might, scrambling out of the twisted driver's compartment.
A woman, seemingly pieced together from severed limbs and covered in blood, was slowly crawling out from under the car!
She moved on all fours, her bones cracking audibly as she twisted her body in a grotesque manner, then crawled toward him at an unbelievable speed.
In an instant, goosebumps erupted all over Chen Mo. Though he had no idea what this thing was, his survival instincts kicked in. He scrambled to his feet and bolted into the heavy rain!
Splash! Crackle!
His footsteps pounded through puddles, sending up sheets of water. Only after running a long distance did Chen Mo gradually slow down.
Then, he sensed something was off.
The crash had occurred on a mountain road on Nanshan, surrounded by woods and wasteland. But as he ran, the scenery shifted to dark alleyways.
The strangest part was that the entire street was devoid of any light.
Just as Chen Mo was stunned by the sudden change in setting, a rustling sound came from behind him again. A bloodstained white figure appeared not far in the distance!
After running so far, he still hadn't shaken off that thing, which seemed stitched together from body parts.
He was about to sprint again when Chen Mo suddenly stopped.
He could keep running, but where would it end? How long could his stamina hold out?
And that thing clearly wasn't something he could escape by running alone.
He needed to think calmly. What should he do?
Maybe he was missing something.
It was like a game—if you tried to brute-force a boss you could defeat with skill, wasn't that just asking for death?
Chen Mo's gaze swept around.
And then he spotted something: a faint light had appeared in the alleyways, standing out starkly in this pitch-black world.
"Could this be a hint?"
The female ghost was closing in. Without time to overthink, Chen Mo turned and ran toward the lit area!
The chilling aura surged behind him. Chen Mo dashed up the steps in two or three strides and pushed hard at the door. It swung open!
Relief washed over him as he slipped inside. The noise behind him abruptly stopped. Standing in the doorway, he looked back to see the terrifying female ghost standing just outside, glaring at him through the glass with venomous intent.
As if something inside was preventing her from entering.
...
After glaring at Chen Mo coldly for a moment, the ghost's form slowly faded into the darkness.
He had some scrapes, now stinging with pain, but Chen Mo ignored them. He pulled out his phone and dialed several numbers.
As he'd guessed earlier, none of them connected.
"Hard to believe... but the only explanation is that I've been dragged into a supernatural world. If I don't finish this story, I probably can't leave."
"For now, it seems safe, but the danger I'm facing isn't over yet."
Muttering to himself, Chen Mo stood up. Since the hint had led him into the apartment, the clues to solving the mystery must be inside.
The first floor of the apartment had twelve doors and an elevator. Chen Mo pressed the button casually. The elevator doors opened with a ding—it was still working.
Even if it worked, Chen Mo had no intention of riding it. After all, in horror movies, elevators were prime spots for fatal mistakes.
Still, he noticed something odd.
From the outside, the apartment building looked at least ten stories tall. But inside the elevator, there were no upward buttons—only B1, B2, B3... all the way down to B100!
That meant this elevator only went underground!
Leaving the elevator, Chen Mo tried a few nearby doors. Every single one was locked.
This gave him a strange feeling. It was like a game world where, aside from the scenes that triggered the plot, everything else was just "background"—visible but un-interactable.
Their only purpose was to make the world feel "real."
Since he wasn't taking the elevator, Chen Mo pulled out his phone's flashlight and pressed on.
Soon, he found the apartment's stairwell. But like the elevator, the stairs only went downward. It was as if the ten-plus stories visible from outside were just a facade.
The apartment seemed safe on the surface, but it was steeped in eerie strangeness!
"Damn it... I'll just have to tough it out..."
With no other choice, Chen Mo began descending the stairs step by step, as if he were heading not into a basement but into the eighteen levels of hell.
As he went down, he pondered the story the female host had been telling.
There were still many questions.
Was the female ghost the thing that crawled out of the passenger's suitcase? What was the relationship between the killer and the victim?
Unraveling these secrets might be the key to resolving the incident.
Standing on B2, Chen Mo took a deep breath, his mouth twitching.
On this underground second floor, light was seeping through the crack of one door.
That was it—the light he'd seen from outside the apartment.
"This damn supernatural story makes no sense..."
Chen Mo walked over slowly and tried the door handle. It was still locked. But when he pressed his ear to the door, he heard faint noises inside.
The tap of footsteps, voices, laughter.
Things that would be normal anywhere else felt utterly abnormal in this setting.
Just as Chen Mo steeled himself to try breaking the door down, the light inside suddenly went out.
At the same time, a click sounded—like something unlocking.
Chen Mo froze.
This story wasn't going to pull a door-opening kill, was it...
He turned the handle. The door was indeed unlocked. A musty smell hit him, and his eyes took in dusty furniture, scattered items, and a swaying chandelier.
Thud. A red-covered notebook fell to the floor right in front of him, as if placed there deliberately by the story.
Chen Mo walked over, picked up the red diary, and began reading carefully by the faint glow of his phone screen.