Linjiang City.
The early morning sunlight was golden, full of vitality and vigor.
Xu Yinan walked through the streets and, after half an hour, arrived at a medical research center at nine o'clock sharp.
As a healthy, unemployed drifter, he relied on the occasional drug trial as an important source of income. Generally, such trials observed and assessed possible adverse reactions to medication, and accidents were extremely rare.
But today was a little different. This was not a drug trial.
A doctor led him into a special room hung with white cloths and handed him an old flashlight, telling him to press the switch and shine it on the cloths.
Xu Yinan was completely baffled, but for the sake of the money, he did as he was told.
The flashlight was ice-cold, as though it had just been taken out of a refrigerator, and no matter what he did, he couldn't warm it up. The light it gave off was a creepy purple, and the longer he looked at it, the more sinister it seemed.
About a minute later, the doctor said the test was over and took him to a lounge, telling him to watch for any physical discomfort over the next few hours.
The whole process was utterly baffling.
Xu Yinan sat in a chair, casually took out his phone, and started scrolling through short videos to pass the time. It seemed as though a long time had passed without anyone coming to disturb him, but when he glanced at the time, only five minutes had gone by!
That wasn't right. Why did he feel like he'd already been waiting for hours?
Thinking carefully, he seemed to have watched only two videos, yet for some reason it had felt long and tedious.
He didn't know what was going on and wanted to stand up and move around. At that moment, he clearly noticed something was wrong!
The act of standing up felt as though it had taken a minute, but in reality, only a second had passed.
Xu Yinan panicked a little and hurried to find the person in charge of the experiment.
"How are you feeling now?"
"I feel like time is passing especially slowly. It's only been a few minutes, but it feels like I've spent hours here."
"Don't worry, that's a normal reaction."
The doctor explained that time hadn't slowed down. Rather, his perception of time had become distorted.
For example, a forty-five-minute advanced mathematics class and a forty-five-minute food appreciation class lasted the same amount of time but felt completely different. Xu Yinan's current situation was much the same, only more severe.
He was told that the side effect would disappear within a few hours. Of course, to him in his current state, it might feel like days.
The doctor told him the test was over and gave him some money. Strangely, it was cash rather than a direct deposit into his bank account.
He had the money in hand anyway, so Xu Yinan didn't dwell on it. But he had to admit, the trip back home was truly terrifying.
Time passed slowly and agonizingly in his perception. Worse still, he accidentally stubbed his little toe on the way, and intense pain swept through his body. The pain should have lasted only a short while, but he felt as though he had been tortured for hours!
The research center was only half an hour from his home, but by the time he'd made it halfway, he felt as though ten days had passed!
An ominous feeling rose in his heart. The side effect wasn't weakening over time; it was getting worse!
Realizing how bad things were, Xu Yinan immediately turned back. He guessed that the doctor probably had a way to eliminate the side effect quickly.
If I'd known, I wouldn't have taken part in this trial. This fucking sucks! He cursed inwardly as his irritation continued to build. By now, he could clearly feel that his perception of the passage of time had slowed even further.
The side effect seemed to be growing exponentially. At first, one second in reality had felt like a minute to him. Now it felt like an hour, and it was still getting worse!
By his own perception of time, it took him hours to turn around, days to walk down a street, and another few days to wait at a traffic light.
Unfortunately, when it rained, it poured. Just as he was crossing the crosswalk, a car driving in violation of traffic rules passed by him. It didn't hit him directly, but it grazed him.
At first, he felt nothing, but soon an agonizing pain spread through his whole body. It hurt so much that he couldn't help crying out, yet it felt as though he had been shouting for an entire month!
The experiment's side effect had worsened to an outrageous degree. One minute in reality felt like a month to him!
Xu Yinan suddenly realized that he seemed to be beyond saving. Getting from here to the research center, taking the antidote, and waiting for it to take effect might be an extraordinarily long nightmare lasting years or even decades for him, and he would also have to endure the immense pain caused by the accident!
Despair spread through his heart.
Something even more despairing was yet to come.
He blinked, and after a long stretch of darkness, he opened his eyes again. It felt like a lifetime had passed.
Xu Yinan completely broke down. Even if he killed himself immediately to end this absurd ordeal, the process of dying would be prolonged indefinitely. Endless pain would torment him relentlessly, leaving him no peace for eternity.
What should I do? Someone, save me!
To the passersby, it looked like a young man had been grazed by a car and fallen to the ground with a contorted expression, his mouth open as though screaming soundlessly.
Some called the police to report that the driver responsible had fled, while others called for an ambulance. Its siren soon drew closer from afar, and the professionals swiftly lifted Xu Yinan onto a stretcher.
But during the process, a moment of carelessness sent the things in Xu Yinan's pockets spilling out. A gust of wind whirled past, sending countless banknote-sized pieces of white paper flying through the air, just like the paper money scattered at a funeral.
"Oh no, why has his heart stopped?"
"Quick, resuscitate him!"
"His vital signs are gone, and his pupils are dilated. Give up and notify his family."
"[Eerie Flashlight]: It looks like an old flashlight, with an eyeball embedded where the bulb should be. The pupil is purple, and when the switch is pressed, it emits a purple light.
Everything within the range of the light is brought to a standstill. If the user is an ordinary person, the flashlight's light can only be maintained for 15–20 seconds. At the same time, the user's perception of the passage of time will be severely distorted, and they will die suddenly within the next 0–3 hours.
No recorded use by a ghost controller.
People or ghosts exposed to the light show no obvious adverse reactions after leaving its range."
The above were the results of Hu Jiu's tests on the flashlight.
Last night, he had noticed the hidden danger posed by the Ghost Book and used the flashlight to restrain it briefly. He had also discovered things he had overlooked all along—the cover and the flyleaf.
Normal methods couldn't leave any marks on either of them, and the sentence on the flyleaf remained a mystery.
But his efforts hadn't been entirely fruitless. He had discovered that the Ghost Book did possess a simple sense of self, similar to an infant's instincts. As long as he maintained eye contact with the eyeball on the cover for more than five seconds, he could receive some kind of signal from it.
After spending the entire night on it, Hu Jiu had received only three messages—
"Hungry."
"Ghost Pen."
"The holder is not the owner."