Who Writes a Diary Like a Normal Person?

"Name."

"Huai Shi."

"Age?"

"Seventeen..."

At the police station, Huai Shi, who was giving his statement, increasingly felt that this conversation was far too familiar. Hadn't it already been repeated several times somewhere?

Afraid something might go wrong, after the statement was finished, he even grabbed the officer's hand and repeatedly asked, "You don't recruit male escorts here, do you?"

"..."

The officer's expression twitched. Not wanting to deal with him, he poured him a cup of tea and told him he could leave after the examination was done.

Huai Shi sat in his chair and sighed, still shaken.

The alley, the corpse, the little goldfish, the iron box.

With so many bizarre elements thrown together, even someone as battle-hardened and life-weathered as Huai Shi found his mind struggling to process it all.

But one thing was certain: this was definitely not normal!

And thinking of the explosion at the harbor earlier, it was probably some drug dealers settling scores among themselves!

What if there were a couple ounces of snow-white powder in that box? If Uncle Policeman caught him with it, that would be fun.

It was true that he was poor enough to nearly starve, but there was no need to go looking for an all-you-can-eat buffet in prison, right?

In a situation like this, as a citizen of the East Xia Republic—no, as anyone with even a little Common Sense—calling the police was the right thing to do, wasn't it?

"That's right. You did very well. In a situation like this, asking the police for help immediately is the most rational thing to do."

In the evidence room, the officer returning his belongings nodded in agreement. "What if it hadn't been white powder but a bomb? That would have been even worse..."

"But what exactly was in that box?"

Huai Shi asked curiously.

"No idea. We ran it through X-rays and checked for explosives. There shouldn't be anything dangerous inside, but it looks like an antique. We'll wait for the experts to arrive tomorrow before opening it. There's nothing more for you here, though. Go home first."

As he spoke, he placed a basket in front of Huai Shi.

Because the matter involved a death, all of Huai Shi's belongings had been taken apart and inspected. The moment he got them back, he pulled out the thick notebook he had carried for years and checked it over.

No one had messed with it.

The evidence-room officer noticed how tense he was and burst out laughing. "What, afraid we read your diary? Young people still write diaries these days? Hahaha, don't worry, we didn't read it. Didn't read it..."

Huai Shi smiled awkwardly and stuffed the notebook into his pocket. Then, when he picked up his phone, he accidentally saw the text message showing his bank balance again, and his heart immediately ached once more.

After repeatedly confirming with the police station that there was no reward for making this report, he walked out in grief, feeling that the whole world was bleak.

As he trudged down the street with his head hanging, the streetlights cast a long shadow behind him.

Within the swaying shadow, it seemed as though a Crow spread its wings and took flight.

Boom!

Thunder flashed across the night sky.

As though it had been waiting for Huai Shi to leave, the torrential rain that had briefly stopped in the evening came roaring back amid lightning and thunder.

By the time Huai Shi got home, he was soaked through.

Standing before the huge iron gate, he sighed, took out his key, unlocked the chain wrapped around it, and forced the gate open through a screech sharp enough to cut through the downpour.

"I'm back..."

No one answered from the darkness.

Under his phone's flashlight, the ancient residence, blanketed in dead leaves, revealed its crumbling and dilapidated face.

Beneath layers of Boston ivy and vines lay walls whose plaster had long peeled away. The leaf-strewn courtyard behind the iron gate was a complete mess. The neglected fountain had long run dry, and the Stone Sculptures on either side were broken and incomplete, making the place look strange and cold.

A sharp bolt of lightning suddenly lit up the cloud-covered sky, illuminating the sinister outline of the ancient house looming at the back of the courtyard.

At the foot of Qing Xiu Mountain near the outskirts of Xin Hai City stood Huai Shi's home.

Long ago, it had been called Yu Garden Stone Marrow Hall. Back then, this garden had taken five years and an enormous fortune to build, and its extravagance had been unmatched. Flowers bloomed year-round, lush pines and cypresses stood evergreen before its gates, and the splendor within needed no description. Its owner had been one of East China's foremost wealthy merchants, and carriages and vehicles had crowded the entrance every day...

But that had all been ninety years ago.

The world changed too quickly. In just ninety years, it had gone from the steam of the old era into the electronic age, then from the electronic age into a new electronic age; from peace into chaos, and from chaos back into peace... Too much had happened, and too much needed to be remembered. By comparison, many things simply no longer seemed worth remembering.

After a brief period of glory, Yu Garden had endured a long decline into silence and ruin, forgotten by most people.

Wild Grass grew everywhere, and its former luxury was gone. Spreading Boston ivy covered the cracks in its mottled walls, while most of the sculptures in the courtyard had broken apart beyond recognition. After generations of wastrel descendants squandered and ravaged it, the former mansion had become empty and bare, nearly turning into... no, it had already become a haunted house that was not even particularly famous.

For Huai Shi, this wreck of a house, an equally old cello that was barely holding together, and his miserable life were all he had.

But as the old house became more dilapidated by the day and cracks began appearing in the cello's glue joints, Huai Shi felt as though even his life was preparing to say goodbye to him.

"Checking account ending in 8193: current balance, 144.444 yuan..."

Amid the howling wind and rain outside, Huai Shi finally checked his bank card balance.

"Mother of God... how am I supposed to live like this?"

Even ignoring that oddly symbolic string of change at the end, he felt an overwhelming urge to die.

What could he do?

This was the legacy his own father and mother had left him.

When Huai Shi was born, his family had at least possessed some assets. If he had worked hard enough, rebuilding the family fortune might not have been impossible. But after his grandfather died when he was three, Huai Shi's parents began their descent at faster-than-light speed, squandering the entire family estate in just a few years with breathtaking efficiency.

The pair of addicts ate, drank, whored, gambled, and did drugs. Before the company went bankrupt, they ran away with the money, leaving Huai Shi alone to face the crazed shareholders who came demanding debts...

Almost everything valuable in the house had been taken away.

If Huai Shi's grandfather had not specifically made a will before his death, entrusting a lawyer to leave this old residence to Huai Shi so he could formally inherit it upon adulthood, Huai Shi would probably have long since wandered the streets like a stray dog.

Sometimes, a person's capacity for endurance truly was limitless. Take Huai Shi—ever since he was ten, he had felt like he was going insane. Yet he had never expected his nerves to be a little too tough; even now, he showed no signs of schizophrenia.

At most, he occasionally heard phantom footsteps in the old house, dripping upstairs in the middle of the night, or someone sighing while he slept...

Life had to go on.

Even if it couldn't, it still had to.

Thinking about it carefully, the fact that he had survived until now was a miracle.

Everything had originally been getting better little by little. He would grow up, earn a special university admission with a full scholarship through his grades, and find a job that paid more. At last, life seemed to be slowly moving back onto the right track.

He was only poor enough to nearly starve to death, that was all.

"Is life always this painful, or is it only childhood that hurts like this?"

Unfortunately, there was no middle-aged uncle who liked raising flowers to answer him.

He was neither a child nor Matilda.

So, amid the long and miserable night, Huai Shi squatted on the balcony smoking, staring at the distant rainstorm and sighing helplessly.

Thunder rumbled.

Cold rain poured from the sky, as though it were about to swallow the entire world.

The anger Huai Shi had accumulated over the past several days finally erupted from his heart, making him roar at the sky, "You thieving heavens, what's the point of piling all this crap on me? If you've got the guts, just come kill me outright!"

"—I'll defy heaven!!!"

With that roar, the pent-up frustration in his heart spilled out, and Huai Shi finally felt a little better.

But immediately afterward, he heard another thunderous roar. The storm clouds pouring endless rain and lightning suddenly shook, bursting with the sharp screech of tearing steel.

Above the Stone Marrow Hall, the clouds were abruptly ripped open by a massive breach. Then a blazing bolt of lightning lashed down like divine punishment, striking the railing before Huai Shi in a straight line and blasting the aged railing to pieces.

Amid the acrid smell of ionized air, shattered stone flew everywhere, and Huai Shi collapsed to the ground.

"Mother of God... was that seriously that effective?"

He scrambled back into the house, then gathered the courage to stick his head out before closing the window and shouted, "I won't defy heaven anymore! I won't! Big brother, I was joking!"

Bang!

The window slammed shut.

Huai Shi sat in his chair, on the verge of tears, and could not help wanting to howl at the heavens again.

There was no way to live like this!

His bank savings had successfully fallen to three digits. He had nearly applied for a job at a male escort club by accident. He had encountered a bizarre death on the way home. And when he got home and tried to defy heaven, he got a lightning-strike warning...

At this point, he could only hope that some idiot netizens might bring a little joy into his miserable life.

With a sliver of hope, Huai Shi opened his phone. Then he saw that someone had posted a photo of him standing outside the male escort club in the class group chat. A whole crowd was tagging him, while two people named Beast and Slaveheart shouted, "Congratulations to Boss Huai on debuting as the center of the male escort world! Want the girls in class to sign a flower wreath and send it over?"

"Fuck off. I don't like girls. I only like smooth, tender baldies like you two!"

After replying, Huai Shi turned off his phone and covered his face.

Great. Now the whole world knew he had almost become a male escort...

What was the most stifling thing in the world? It was not having a reputation built over ten years ruined in a single day. It was having your reputation ruined before you had even done any Beastly deeds.

What a loss!

Why had it turned out like this?

He had clearly gotten such a big house, and he had also gotten a golden finger. Those two joys should have overlapped, their double joy bringing even more and more joy. He should have gained a dreamlike time of happiness already, but why—

Boom!

Before he could finish speaking, another clap of thunder struck outside the window. It startled Huai Shi even through the glass. He no longer dared let his thoughts run wild and could only tearfully pull that thick notebook from his bag.

"Can't you be a little more useful? Look at other people's golden fingers. Some can add points, some issue quests, and some can even turn into cute girls. Why do you only know how to write a diary?"

That was right. This thing was his golden finger.

Ever since he found it after a high fever when he was nine, he had known it was no ordinary object. He had kept it safe, and after growing a little older, he dreamed every day of hearing a mysterious voice say, 'Super XX System loading complete,' into his ear. Then he could rise above the masses, become a Buddha or patriarch, turn his life into a power fantasy, count money until he burned out hundreds of bill-counting machines, and become so famous that after he died, he could turn into a cute girl and enter the Gacha Pool...

Yet even now, he had not figured out what this piece of junk was actually for.

It looked like an ordinary lousy notebook. It could not be torn, ripped apart, burned, or soaked through. Its only seemingly impressive feature was that it automatically wrote a diary every day, updating in real time with everything he did at every moment... as though it were saying that it would record every stupid thing he did during his cringe phase and show it to him later.

When he opened the thick cover, the silhouette of a Crow on the title page was as conspicuous as ever.

Huai Shi flipped directly to the end and reviewed the fantastical events of his day. When he read the passage describing his departure from the police station, he froze.

"Within the swaying shadow, it seemed as though a Crow spread its wings and took flight?"

After reading it, Huai Shi could not help sighing. "Didn't expect this piece of junk to be able to write atmosphere, too... Maybe someday I can copy a few passages and write a fantasy novel to scam some money."

Naturally, that embarrassing remark was recorded without mercy as well.

"..."

Huai Shi sighed, then casually flipped further back. He had not expected the pages after that to be blank, but near the end there was now a thick divider page. Behind it were several strange files...

They looked like résumés from somewhere, complete with two-inch ID photos.

Most belonged to burly men with huge heads and thick arms, each capable of beating several Huai Shis at once. There were also several unfamiliar girls with unnaturally pointed faces, as well as a balding, prematurely aged middle-aged man whom he seemed to have seen in the local news...

Chen Bo, Wang Quan, Mu Jing, Lu Bai...

Those strange files multiplied at an astonishing speed until, when they finally stopped, there were more than seventy of them.

"What the hell..."

Huai Shi stared at the notebook in his hands in shock, stroking his chin in thought. Had getting struck by lightning activated it?

He opened the window, placed the notebook on the balcony, and shouted at the sky, "Could you try hitting it a few more times?"

Heaven ignored him, not even bothering to throw another dog at him.

In the awkward silence, only the newly updated record in the notebook documented the stupid thing he had just done...

"Ahem. Let's all pretend that never happened."

Huai Shi sighed, brought the notebook back inside, and tossed it onto the table.

Forget it. He could not figure out what was going on anyway. He still had to keep looking for work tomorrow, so he might as well sleep first. Dreams had everything...

He threw himself onto the bed and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he saw a hunched figure standing beneath the dim glow of a streetlamp. It crouched halfway like an ape, and when it lifted its head toward him, it revealed a savage mask.

The next instant, he died.

Subtitle: Terrifying! Failed Attempt at Selling Himself, Destitute Youth Dies Tragically at Home

Second update today~