Midnight Visitor

Staring at the mottled, aged booklet on the table, the consciousness of Zheng Que was muddled and hazy. He just sat there, dazed and confused.

A cold wind, wrapped in freezing mist, poured in endlessly through the gaps, causing visibility to drop rapidly. Darkness surged like a tide, howling and sweeping forward, swallowing everything around him bit by bit.

Gradually, the remaining outline of the main hall vanished; the grand armchair vanished; the long table vanished... Only the booklet inscribed with the words "Life and Death Book" remained, floating lonely in the darkness.

In his bewilderment, Zheng Que felt he should do something, but his thinking was incredibly sluggish. Every thought was a struggle to form, and he could only stare blankly at those three blood-red characters.

He did not know how much time had passed before the darkness climbed onto the cover of the booklet like smoke. It quickly soaked the yellowed pages into an ink-black color, then coiled layer by layer toward the blood-red characters.

When the final blood-red character was submerged in the darkness, Zheng Que bolted upright in bed. Before his eyes was a familiar room: a bed, a table, a chair, a wardrobe, and a bamboo coat rack in the corner with two outer garments draped over it. It was his bedroom.

There were no lights on in the room. Moonlight, clear as water, shone in through the back window, covering the floor in a layer of frost.

He gasped for air, cold sweat sliding rapidly down his forehead. In the blink of an eye, his undergarments were soaked through.

Looking around, Zheng Que frowned.

This dream again...

Ever since he transmigrated into this world, he had been having this dream frequently.

Everything in the dream was very blurry; only that yellowed Life and Death Book remained deeply etched in his memory.

But every time he was in the dream, his consciousness was never clear. Like a block of wood, he didn't know what to do, just sitting blankly in front of the table until he woke up.

Furthermore, perhaps because of this dream, he had been exceptionally sensitive to "death" since he was young.

The reason he was able to choose correctly among those seven bowls of wine during the day was precisely because of this extraordinary intuition for death...

Just as he was thinking, a knock on the door suddenly rang out.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Disciple, come out quickly and return to the mountain with your master!"

A familiar voice came from outside the door.

Hearing this, Zheng Que immediately recognized it as the voice of the gray-robed old man who had taken him as a disciple during the day.

He snapped back to reality and, not daring to delay, quickly replied, "Yes!"

As soon as the words left his lips, Zheng Que suddenly felt his heart sink. It seemed as if, from the unseen void, an intense chill had descended, firmly enveloping his entire body.

The movement he was making to get out of bed and put on his shoes froze instantly.

He was very familiar with this sudden, bone-chilling cold.

It was the scent of death!

The next moment...

Creak.

The door, which had been securely latched, was pushed open by something. Outside, the moonlight was like water, yet no figure could be seen. Only a gust of eerie, chilling wind drifted in, howling as it entered the room.

Tap, tap, tap... The sound of footsteps was clearly audible, moving from afar to near. Yet, on the packed dirt floor, there was clearly nothing there.

"Disciple, hurry and come with your master."

"Disciple, where are you?"

"Disciple, stop hiding, come out now!"

The familiar voice drew closer along with the footsteps. The surroundings grew colder and colder; the chill, like falling into an ice cellar, was almost surging and boiling over.

Zheng Que sat on the bed, not daring to move a muscle. He stared fixedly at the cloth shoes placed one facing forward and one backward in front of the bed, his pupils dilating violently, his heart beating like a drum.

That thing, which kept calling him "disciple," was not his master!

He shouldn't have answered just now!

"Disciple! Come out quickly!"

"Hurry! There isn't much time left!"

"Disciple... Disciple..."

The voice continued to urge him on, growing increasingly urgent and irritable.

Zheng Que's scalp tingled. He slowly raised one hand to cover his mouth tightly. He did not know what the thing that had entered the room was, but he was certain that if he answered one more time, he would surely die!

Even if the shoes in front of his bed were placed one forward and one backward, it made no difference.

Time ticked by slowly. The familiar voice and footsteps circled the bed again and again. Seemingly having found nothing, they gradually moved away, the footsteps growing fainter and fainter.

After another moment, the door closed once more. The surroundings fell into a deathly silence, as if those movements had never existed at all.

Outside the window, the moonlight was bleak and desolate. There was no one there; it seemed to have returned to normal.

However, the chill that felt like the arrival of death had not faded from Zheng Que's body in the slightest.

The danger had not been resolved. That thing mimicking his master's voice was still in this room!

As expected!

Not long after, a familiar voice with a hint of a smile suddenly rang out right against his ear: "Disciple, I've found you!"

Zheng Que's blood instantly froze, and his heart nearly stopped along with it!

But soon, he forcibly suppressed the fear in his heart, checking the urge to desperately flee the room.

A chilly wind blew in from outside the window, causing his sleeves to flutter.

In the darkness, his entire body remained motionless, and even the frequency of his breathing dropped to the bare minimum.

After a long stretch of deathly silence, that familiar voice sounded once more: "Disciple, your master is going to eat you now!"

This time, the voice clearly came from about a foot away from the foot of the bed, filled with undisguised rage.

Thump, thump, thump!

The footsteps in the room suddenly became heavy, as if many people were running around everywhere.

The floor vibrated unbearably; furniture like tables and chairs began to tremble, and jars and bottles fell to the ground one after another. Amidst the clattering, there were dull, heavy thuds—boom! boom! boom!

It was as if something was desperately slamming against the walls.

The sudden, deafening clamor made the entire room seem as if it were about to jump, yet only the bed and the pair of shoes—one facing forward and one backward—in front of it remained unaffected.

Zheng Que watched all of this with his nerves taut, his heart gradually calming down.

Right now, as long as he didn't make a sound and didn't get off the bed, the thing that had entered the room seemed unable to find him!

The moonlight outside the window was pale white; there was still some time before dawn.

Zheng Que dared not close his eyes. He sat on the bed, motionless, waiting patiently.

The chilly wind circled and twisted within the not-so-spacious room, howling and roaring. At times, it would sweep up pots and pans, smashing them to pieces; at others, it would knock over furniture, repeatedly slamming it against the floor; at others still, it would shake the doors and windows, making the entire house emit a precarious groan... There was also the sound of sharp claws scraping against wood, constantly ringing out.

Time seemed to be exceptionally drawn out at this moment, every bit of it passing with agonizing slowness.

In a daze, the moonlight faded and the twilight dissipated. A rooster crowed from far away. Zheng Que snapped back to his senses and immediately turned to look out the window. He saw a hint of fish-belly white in the east, with scattered rays of light wrapped in the dawn; it was daybreak!

He was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he immediately realized that the cold, almost tangible chill lingering on his body had still not receded.

Zheng Que's brows furrowed tightly. Now that it was bright and the sun was about to rise, the thing that had entered the room still hadn't left!

This was trouble!

However, just as he thought this, he suddenly felt the foot of the bed sink slightly, as if something had climbed onto his bed...