Doomsday Girl

Mid-September, ten in the morning.

Most people were at work or school at this hour, but I had asked for leave from the university I attended and stayed in this rental apartment off campus. What I had to do today was far more important than attending class.

I knew perfectly well that what I was doing was something I couldn't let anyone know about.

Feeling guilty as a thief, I hadn't opened the windows for ventilation that morning. When I walked over to the window, I only dared pull the curtains open a crack. Blinding sunlight fell across my face, and the morning scenery of the residential complex came into view.

The outside world was peaceful. No one knew that two people society couldn't tolerate were hiding in this room.

I picked up the metal object on my right, which was radiating a chill, and raised it before my eyes.

It was a handgun.

I didn't know its exact type or model. In all my years, I'd never come into contact with real firearms or ammunition, and I knew next to nothing about them. The only thing I could identify was that this definitely wasn't a toy model gun like the ones I'd played with as a child. It was the genuine article—a real gun that could blow someone's brains out with a pull of the trigger, while sending me to prison for the rest of my life.

Confirming whether it was real was simple. Awkwardly, I removed the magazine. Inside were three cold, yellowish metal bullets, while another had already been chambered, brimming with murderous intent. There was no doubt about it: these were live rounds.

The legal provisions I'd looked up online automatically surfaced in my mind:

Anyone who illegally possesses or secretly stores firearms or ammunition shall be sentenced to not more than three years in prison, criminal detention, or public surveillance. In serious cases, the sentence shall be no less than three and no more than seven years in prison.

After examining the deadly weapon in my hand for a long while, I turned to look at the beautiful girl sitting restlessly on the bed.

"Let me repeat what you said just now. You said that in the future, the world would fall into an unprecedented catastrophe, strange phenomena would appear one after another, monsters would roam everywhere and slaughter people, and human civilization would be shattered under the impact of countless supernatural forces..." I sorted through the information I'd just heard, along with my emotions. "And you are a survivor of the apocalyptic world who crossed through time and space from a distant future to this point in time?"

She nodded.

"Then what is your purpose now?" I continued asking. "Do you want to stop the apocalypse from arriving in this era?"

"That's right..." She looked at the gun in my hand. "So, could you give me my gun back?"

-

I first met this strange and dangerous girl last night, when I went to an abandoned construction site nearby to investigate a Ghost Story.

Investigating Ghost Stories was my hobby. More specifically, it involved personally examining whether the Ghost Stories and urban legends circulating among the public were really as extraordinary as people claimed.

The act of verifying such things wasn't particularly unconventional. Everyone had a natural curiosity. Some schools had ghost stories circulating among the students, and the students there might spontaneously investigate whether the rumors were true. What I did was fundamentally no different.

If there was anything special about it, the decisive line separating me from other people was that I'd been doing this since childhood.

Ever since I was young, I'd been fascinated by the fantastical stories described in books. I loved imagining myself experiencing those thrilling adventures, battling powerful enemies capable of destroying the world; I was also drawn to the baffling oddities and strange tales of reality, such as the unsolved mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, the wild man of Shennongjia, and the Slender Man and Kuchisake-onna that were popular online. Those unreal existences, so far removed from my real life, filled me with longing.

I was also very fond of concepts steeped in an intensely unreal and mystical atmosphere, such as feng shui, qimen dunjia, and black magic, and I didn't hesitate to practice them myself in an attempt to verify whether they were real.

Needless to say, my firsthand experiments almost always ended in disproof or simply went nowhere, while my explorations of Ghost Stories and legends earned me some unpleasant notoriety.

Whenever I heard that someone in the area had witnessed a supernatural phenomenon that couldn't be explained by science, I'd find a way to visit them and verify whether it was true. Some had simply misunderstood what they'd seen, some were superstitious people lacking even basic scientific knowledge, and some were evasive or deliberately changed the subject. Occasionally, they'd even become embarrassed and angry when questioned.

Some people who came away frustrated by me would angrily tell those around them, "That Zhuang Cheng is nothing but someone who fears the dragon he claims to love. If he ever encountered the real thing, he'd be scared out of his wits!" Some listeners agreed wholeheartedly.

At university, most people also regarded me as an eccentric who insisted on standing apart from the crowd. I didn't cause much trouble, but students who interacted with me normally were indeed few and far between. My only friend at university was puzzled by my efforts to chase after things that didn't exist. He once tried to sound me out and persuade me to stop.

"Since you've never seen any real supernatural power, why do you keep investigating Ghost Stories and legends?" That was probably what my friend asked at the time. "No matter how passionate you are at first, you should lose interest after a few failures. But I've heard you've been doing this since you first entered middle school. Isn't that strange?

"You're not even doing supernatural livestreams or anything. You don't earn anything from it, and you've never had the slightest result. You must have some positive feedback... Some evidence or clues related to it, or you wouldn't be able to keep going. Isn't that right?"

I understood what he was really getting at, so I went straight to the point. "Don't beat around the bush. If there's something you want to say, just say it to me directly."

Hearing that, he stopped being evasive and frankly stated his opinion. "I think you should stop taking risks to investigate Ghost Stories."

"Why? Are you also like those people, thinking that I'd be scared out of my wits if I encountered the real thing?"

"I'm not worried about that. I'm just afraid you'll break the law." He complained, "Sometimes you give off an utterly lawless air that scares me. You wouldn't rob an ancient tomb or perform some kind of evil cult ritual just for thrills, would you?"

"..."

"You wouldn't, right?" His voice changed.

Regardless of whether I'd ever planned to do such things, perhaps he wasn't truly afraid of me breaking the law. Maybe he'd only resorted to such exaggerated wording to avoid a conflict after I responded so sharply. After all, I had always been a good, law-abiding citizen.

In any case, he still failed to convince me.

Recently, I had turned my attention to an abandoned construction site near the university.

According to rumor, the place was haunted. A Vengeful Ghost who had died in a construction accident would appear late at night, covered in blood, and abduct female students passing by.

On the very night I heard about it, I picked up my large flashlight and walked there alone.

The site of the incident was an unfinished building at the abandoned construction site. Because construction had been halted, not even doors or windows had been installed in the walls. After I passed through the pitch-black doorway, all I could see in every direction were dreary gray concrete walls, with dust and construction debris scattered everywhere.

Not even vagrants came near the place, and even mosquitoes seemed unwilling to enter this barren wasteland. The lights and noise of the outside world were gloomily shut out, leaving only deathly silence and darkness in the air. The only things accompanying me were my lonely heartbeat and breathing.

The flashlight's beam could illuminate only what lay ahead. The darkness behind me seemed almost tangible as it pressed damply against my back, making me want to turn around. Yet the moment I looked behind me, I would worry that something had appeared ahead. I remained on edge at all times, looking this way and that.

Despite being spine-chilling, this unreal atmosphere also made me feel strangely at home.

My friend had a point. No one could remain passionate forever about a direction in which they saw no hope.

At some point, I had come to understand a truth without anyone teaching me: the real world wouldn't be as bizarre and fantastical as the stories of imagination. The truth behind many mysteries was always mundane and monotonous. People who claimed they could use magic were merely skilled at performing tricks; those who claimed to be good at divination were only adept at psychological techniques; Taoist priests who could supposedly bless people with safety merely had a silver tongue, aided by believers skilled at deceiving themselves. For a time, I had indeed sunk into a swamp-like depression.

But in the end, everyone had to die.

Compared to dying in an uneventful life, I would much rather die amid a bizarre adventure straight out of a story.

I wanted to break free of my life's restraints. I imagined a monster suddenly bursting into the classroom and slaughtering the teacher and students in front of everyone. If such an absurd situation really occurred, how would I react? Perhaps I would display courage even I hadn't expected, or perhaps I would be more cowardly than anyone could imagine. I wanted to know. I wanted the world I lived in to lose control.

What truly left me unable to stop wasn't narrow-minded belief in ghosts and spirits, but an unpredictable, incredible adventure that completely transcended my experience and life.

Although I didn't expect to encounter anything truly extraordinary this time, I still honed my vigilance as much as possible. A truly extraordinary experience would inevitably bring danger beyond imagination. Even I couldn't guarantee that I'd make it out unharmed.

As I advanced cautiously through the ruins, I used the beam of my flashlight to meticulously scan every detail of the surroundings. I imagined lethal danger hiding in those hard-to-notice corners, crouching there like ferocious beasts holding their breath, waiting to pounce the instant I relaxed or blinked and bite through my throat.

Monster, if you truly exist, show yourself before me.

I would prove that I wasn't someone who feared the dragon he claimed to love.

Suddenly, the violent collision of a hard, heavy object rang out nearby.

This space had already been so silent that I could clearly feel my own heartbeat. When that sound erupted, it was like thunder from a clear sky, pounding brutally against my heart.

I snapped to attention, immediately pinpointed the direction of the sound, and sprinted toward it.

It was only the length of a corridor. I quickly reached the place where the target was and, with the aid of my flashlight, saw the source of the sound clearly.

It was a scaffold lying on the ground. I see. A heavy object like that would indeed make a tremendous noise when it fell. But a scaffold wouldn't topple for no reason. Someone must have knocked it over.

I soon noticed from the corner of my eye that, at the edge of my vision, a blurry black shadow was sitting on the ground in a dark corner with its back against a concrete wall.

Blood flowed across the ground, like several winding little snakes slowly, slowly slithering out of the darkness and into the light cast by my flashlight.

I'd heard that the thing appearing at this abandoned construction site was a Vengeful Ghost who had died in a construction accident, covered in blood.

A suffocating feeling clamped around my throat. I'd been holding my breath without realizing it. My isolated and helpless situation left my hands and feet stiff and cold as a corpse's.

With trembling anticipation, I slowly moved the flashlight's beam and illuminated the blurry black shadow.

What appeared before my eyes was indeed a person covered in blood.

But it wasn't the terrifying Vengeful Ghost I'd imagined.

It was a beautiful girl in blue-and-white-striped patient clothes, with slender hands and feet and delicate features.