The Off-Limits Third Floor

As night deepened.

Chen Feng grew more and more nervous.

Just then, a flash of white light streaked past the window, followed by a sudden crash of thunder.

Crack!

Chen Feng jolted and looked up. The lights flickered violently a few times, then went out completely.

The power was out. The rain had probably damaged a wire somewhere.

The darkened Internet Cafe erupted in noise.

"Fuck! My pentakill!"

"What's going on, staff?"

The staff's response to the angry customers was almost comical: "Restart."

Like hell a restart would fix this.

Chen Feng nearly laughed. This coworker has a sense of humor.

Amid the chaos, a loud bang came from the Internet Cafe's entrance, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

What the hell was that?

Customers switched on their phone flashlights and aimed them toward the noise. All they saw were shards of glass on the floor, rainwater slowly seeping in, and a cold wind blowing through the doorway.

Chen Feng relaxed a little. "I thought something else was going to happen. It was just the wind."

Then a burly man with tattooed arms sitting near the door suddenly went rigid, his eyes widening.

"What's wrong?"

As the people around him questioned him, the man's face turned red. He couldn't get a word out.

Then came a crack.

In the glow of the phones, Chen Feng saw it. Everyone saw it: the man's head abruptly turned a hundred and eighty degrees. His neck had been twisted clean around.

Something else had happened after all.

To his neck.

Chen Feng's mind went blank.

At first, he had thought he'd crossed into a City World romance world.

After all, he'd become an Internet Cafe attendant right away, with three beautiful coworkers to boot. Wasn't this straight out of "Oh No, I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Girls!"?

But after witnessing something so bizarre, Chen Feng realized he had it all wrong. This was a world of ghost stories!

Oh no, I'm surrounded by ghosts!

"Someone's been murdered!"

"There's a ghost!"

A scream sent the entire Internet Cafe into a frenzy. People shoved each other, footsteps thundered, and gaming chairs toppled. Everything dissolved into chaos.

This place is dangerous! Time to get out!

Without a moment's hesitation, Chen Feng charged up the stairs.

He reached the second floor.

Hearing the commotion downstairs, customers from the private gaming rooms gathered around.

"What happened? What's going on?"

"Something happened downstairs!"

Chen Feng told them what had happened on the first floor and urged them to call the police.

"There's no signal!"

"What's wrong with this stupid phone?"

Classic.

Whenever something bad happened, phones became useless bricks.

Chen Feng sighed. Just then, the sounds of fighting, screaming, and agonized cries from downstairs grew much quieter.

A little while later, everything fell silent.

Was it over?

Then why had no one else come up?

Was everyone downstairs dead?

Questions weighed on everyone's minds.

"Is anyone brave enough to go down and look?"

"Easy for you to say. Why don't you fucking try?"

Everyone had something to say, but no one dared move.

Chen Feng looked around. He couldn't see either of the two receptionists or the Landlady, and his heart sank.

Had they been killed?

It now seemed likely that this monster had killed him the first time around.

A monster that could turn invisible and was strong enough to twist a person's neck a hundred and eighty degrees.

Chen Feng could accept dying at the hands of something like that. What he couldn't understand was why he had no memory of the monster at all.

Was I strangled in my sleep?

But with screams that loud, even a pig would've woken up. Besides, I locked my door before bed.

As Chen Feng puzzled over it, the sound of running water suddenly came from the restroom.

"What's that sound?"

A young man in flip-flops, fearless in his inexperience, boldly pushed open the restroom door. A tap was running full blast, and water had overflowed the sink, soaking the floor and carpet.

It looked like someone had forgotten to turn off the tap after using the restroom.

"Who does that?"

Pinching his nose, the young man stepped forward to turn it off. Then he felt a cold draft brush his neck. Why's the air conditioner set so low?

Halfway through the thought, he almost laughed. The power was out. How could the air conditioner be running?

Wait. If the air conditioner's off, why is it so cold?

The young man approached the sink. Water washed over his flip-flops and touched his feet, chilling him to the bone. That wasn't right. Even if it was raining outside, the pipes had baked in the sun all day. How could the water inside be so cold?

Before he could figure it out, he felt a pair of cold, slippery hands close around his neck.

Another crack rang out.

The young man never got the chance to make sense of it.

"Run! It's come upstairs!"

Everyone shouted and fled for their lives again.

The Landlady had said not to go to the third floor, but with his life on the line, Chen Feng couldn't worry about that. He grabbed the railing and raced upward.

But as he ran.

Chen Feng suddenly realized how quiet everything had become.

Something was wrong.

He looked up. No one was ahead of him. He turned around. No one was behind him, either.

What was going on? Where had everyone gone?

Chen Feng couldn't make sense of it, but the monster was downstairs. He didn't dare go back to look for anyone, so he forced himself onward.

Just as the Landlady had said, the third floor was unfinished: one large, undivided hall. The air reeked of cement dust and a strange, sickening stench he couldn't place.

Did someone's septic tank explode?

Chen Feng covered his nose. Countless thick hemp ropes hung from the ceiling, packed close together, with what looked like quilts dangling from their ends.

Why were so many quilts hanging up to dry?

Chen Feng moved closer and sucked in a sharp breath. Their surfaces were shriveled, with the faint outlines of facial features still visible. Limbs dangled from the sides. What hung from the ropes weren't quilts at all. They were flayed human skins!

Ah!

The hellish sight made Chen Feng stumble back a few steps. His shoes tapped twice against the floor.

There wasn't the slightest breeze.

Yet every human skin began to sway. Then they turned, their empty eye sockets facing Chen Feng.

Th-this is...

Chen Feng's scalp prickled. In an instant, a flood of information surged into his mind.

[Det-detecting that the original host has di-di-died. Sc-sc-scanning new host information. Bi-bi-binding in progress.]

A mechanical voice riddled with echoes sounded in his ears, followed by a barrage of notifications.

[Ding! Congratulations! You have successfully bound the DS-01-ZBDL Show-Off and Face-Slapping System...]

[Ding! Congratulations! You have successfully bound the XH-02-SLJD Deep Blue Attribute System...]

[Ding! Congratulations! You have successfully bound the DS-03-SHFX Tycoon Cashback System...]

The feeling was hard to describe. It was like hundreds, even thousands, of people sending him friend requests at once. Mechanical dings kept ringing in Chen Feng's ears.

After a long while, the confusion in his mind began to settle.

Chen Feng shook his head and finally calmed down enough to work out what had happened:

When they were alive, these people had been transmigrators with systems, just like Chen Feng. They had been murdered, leaving their systems behind with their skins.

And Chen Feng had become those systems' new owner.

I inherited my predecessors' systems?

There was no Joy on Chen Feng's face, only overwhelming terror. What kind of place is this? How did it kill so many transmigrators before me?

"Didn't I tell you not to come upstairs?"

A sultry voice tinged with sleepiness came from ahead.

That voice!

Chen Feng's eyes widened. The Landlady, He Ting, had emerged from the Skin Forest, swaying her hips as she walked.

Even an idiot could tell that the Landlady had something to do with his predecessors' deaths.

"Stay back!"

If I survive, I'll have another chance.

Chen Feng turned to run, only to fall to the floor. He looked down at his legs, thinking something had tripped him. Instead, he found that they had somehow become withered and deeply wrinkled, like the legs of an eighty-year-old man on death's door.

What was happening?

Chen Feng felt as though his entire body were being drained. His life force ebbed away at a terrifying pace, and an endless wave of drowsiness washed over him.

I want to sleep.

I want to sleep so badly.

I want to...

Chen Feng closed his eyes. At last, he knew how he had died the first time.

And when he opened them again.

The air was hot and humid, cicadas chirping lazily. A beautiful woman stepped out of the Internet Cafe and slowly approached Chen Feng, who stood frozen in place:

"Handsome, you don't look well. You'd better find somewhere to shelter before it rains."