Ghost Story Game

As Qin Manjiang lightly touched the screen, the grinning ghost face rippled and twisted like disturbed water, slowly dissolving into the black screen.

In its place appeared two short words in blood-red text:

[Code name:]

Code name?

After a moment's thought, he understood the intention.

The game seemed to want to avoid linking reality and ghost stories too closely.

The code name here probably meant a name used exclusively in another setting.

In other words, he needed to give himself another name.

Crash-

Several chunks of rubble suddenly fell from overhead, and the drizzling night rain seeped into the cinema through the exposed gap.

Qin Manjiang tilted his head back and looked through the hole at the pitch-black night sky.

Wind and rain raged that night. Everything above and around him seemed like a bottomless abyss.

He thought briefly, then reached out and entered just one word in the code name field-

Abyss.

[Code name: Abyss.]

The word "Abyss" seemed to sink into water, swiftly swallowed by the black screen.

Then lines of red text rapidly appeared:

[Single-player mode activated. (Clear it to unlock multiplayer mode.)]

[Ghost story: Threshold Ghost Tales]

[Located at 36 South Sky Road, Fucheng, Threshold Cinema was built fifteen years ago.]

[The cinema features lavish furnishings, complex electrical wiring, and abundant combustible and flammable materials. In the event of a fire, the flames can spread rapidly.]

[Since a fire ten years ago, strange incidents have occurred frequently at Threshold Cinema.]

[Some people have seen others in the restroom mirrors. Others have spotted unidentified figures in seats that should have been empty during screenings.]

[Rumors ran rampant, and attendance plummeted. Recently, however, the combination of new horror films and a cinema with its own urban legends has drawn considerable attention.]

[People have begun returning to the cinema...]

Although the text scrolled extremely quickly, Qin Manjiang committed every word to memory. Only now did he understand what Li Xijiu had meant earlier.

A game...

Yes, this really was a game.

A Ghost Story Game that took place in the real world.

Who designed this game?

Qin Manjiang was neither intimidated nor stunned with fear. He watched every piece of information on his phone screen, determined to engrave it all in his mind.

With a phone as its medium and a game as its format, this could not possibly be the work of some supernatural force.

In other words, this game released among the public had definitely been designed by a person!

Who?

What was their goal?

Why was it hounding me?

What was special about me?

Questions piled up in Qin Manjiang's mind, but for now, he had no answers.

The long explanatory passages on his phone screen had vanished, replaced by a ten-second countdown in blood-red text!

"Ten."

"Nine."

"Eight."

"Seven."

"..."

"Three."

For no apparent reason, Qin Manjiang's breathing quickened. He utterly despised the feeling of losing control over his own body.

"Two."

His heart began to burn, as if someone had pressed a red-hot iron against it and seared a hole straight through.

"One!"

At that instant, the whole world seemed to become waterlogged, and everything around him began to twist unnaturally!

Fighting the intense discomfort, Qin Manjiang kept his eyes fixed on the phone screen.

The moment the countdown ended, the grinning ghost face appeared again. This time, it actually burst out of the screen, opened its hideous maw, and swallowed him whole!

Qin Manjiang instinctively raised both arms to shield himself.

But a moment later, he was astonished to see himself, still holding both hands in front of his body, his left foot stepped forward and his right heel lifting.

He had frozen in that pose amid the cinema's ruins, suspended in time and space, eerie and strange.

Then the world suddenly moved. Defying all logic, time hurtled backward!

Raindrops that had fallen into the cinema flew back into the sky. The stones that had just collapsed rose eerily back into place...

Dust, rubble, and interwoven light and shadow shifted constantly!

Night retreated into day, and the setting sun reversed its course to become the rising sun.

The sky went from dark to light, then from light to dark. In the blink of an eye, stars filled it once more!

Firefighters in protective suits held up hoses to battle the flames, while search-and-rescue dogs sniffed and searched everywhere...

Time was moving backward!

As time and space flowed past, that eerie, immense power cast shifting shadows over Qin Manjiang, making his expression flicker between light and darkness.

The process might have lasted a minute, or perhaps only an instant.

Then, at one particular moment, Qin Manjiang suddenly felt his body regain its ability to move. His awareness returned from that of a spectator to his own body, and his sense of control returned.

Before him stood Threshold Cinema, brightly lit beneath the night sky, not yet destroyed by fire.

He was still in the restroom, but every stall was intact, clean, and brightly lit.

The disbelief in Qin Manjiang's eyes gradually faded into silence. He picked up his phone and looked at the screen. A line of blood-red text appeared-

"Game started. Good luck."

"Strange Tales Player—Abyss."

The image abruptly disappeared. The screen went black, then lit up again with its normal display.

The time read-

August 11, 11:05 p.m.

He really had returned... returned to the unburned cinema, in the same time and space as Li Xijiu.

Just then, he suddenly heard a wail. "Ah..."

Qin Manjiang whipped his head around. He was about to swing his phone's powerful flashlight at whatever had made the sound, but forced himself to stop when he saw that face.

A stall door had opened, and a tall, cheerful-looking, handsome young man with neatly cropped hair poked half his face out, staring at him with wide eyes. Who else could it be but Li Xijiu?

Qin Manjiang clapped a hand over his mouth. "Shh! Don't scream!"

Li Xijiu shook his head repeatedly, pulled free of Qin Manjiang's hand, and caught his breath. "It took me ages to work up the courage to open the stall door, and then you suddenly appeared in the restroom! You scared the hell out of me!"

"You don't have to express your fear by screaming. You could just slap yourself."

"But wouldn't that hurt too much?"

"You'd get used to it."

Qin Manjiang put away his flashlight. Everything was brightly lit now, so he had no use for it for the moment.

"Listen. We don't have much time. Let me explain what's going on."

"..."

"Huh?"

Li Xijiu let out another "Huh?" before exclaiming, "If we can't solve this ghost story, we'll be trapped here until we die? Burned alive? It's a death game!"

"You believe me just like that?" Qin Manjiang glanced at him.

"You said it," Li Xijiu replied, as though that settled everything. "I'm counting on you, Brother Qin. You know how my brain works."

Qin Manjiang ignored him. The guy was just lazy. Although Li Xijiu had dropped out, he had gotten into Fucheng University on his exam results alone, without resorting to any tricks.

"Come on. Let's get out of here first," Qin Manjiang said.

"We can't, man. That lunatic's still patrolling outside." Li Xijiu grabbed him.

"What lunatic?" Qin Manjiang asked.

"I don't know. I couldn't see his face clearly. He looked like a man, holding a gleaming machete. Tall and skinny, almost touching the ceiling."

That was what Li Xijiu said.

Qin Manjiang looked up at the ceiling. That had to be almost three meters high. Was he even human?

"We need to go downstairs and ask around."

Although the "man outside" Li Xijiu had described was dangerous, Qin Manjiang still decided to look for a chance to leave.

"Ask about what?" Li Xijiu looked puzzled.

"Ten years ago. The fire. The victims."

The moment he finished speaking, the restroom lights abruptly flickered. Then they heard faint, intermittent laughter, incredibly eerie, like a child's.

"Q-Q-Q-Q-Q... Brother Qin... th-that... j-just now... that... that sound..."

Li Xijiu stammered, his whole body tense with panic.

"I thought you weren't afraid of anything." Qin Manjiang was not particularly frightened. He had seen this kind of ominous buildup in plenty of films. Besides, a vague theory had already begun to form in his mind.

"I'm not afraid of heaven or earth, but I'm afraid of dogs, snakes, ghosts, murderers, lunatics..."

"Enough," Qin Manjiang interrupted expressionlessly. If Li Xijiu kept going, he could talk until the cinema caught fire and they all burned alive. "I have two options. Pick one."

"Can I pick neither?"

"Sure. Find yourself a stall and stay there. I'll leave first."

"Wait... man... let me hear them..."

Li Xijiu grabbed Qin Manjiang's sleeve, afraid he really would abandon him. The constantly flickering restroom lights and sinister child's laughter were making his scalp crawl.

"First option: there's a wrench in my backpack. I give it to you, and you take it out into the hallway and fight that lunatic. Once you knock him down, we can go downstairs, get information, and solve this ghost story."

"I pick the second."

Li Xijiu's greatest strength was knowing when to yield. Intimidated by the first option, he agreed without even hearing what the second was.

"Yeah, I think the second option's better too." As Qin Manjiang spoke, he walked toward the restroom door. The lights had stopped flickering, but small black handprints had begun appearing on the mirrors, looking particularly chilling.

Yet Qin Manjiang acted as though he did not care at all, while Li Xijiu was too frightened to release his sleeve.

Qin Manjiang poked his head out and took a look. At the far end of the hallway, where it connected to the elevator and stairs, there really was a tall, thin "man"!

He held a gleaming machete, and his physique was grotesquely unnatural.

First, he really was almost three meters tall, nearly touching the ceiling.

Second, perhaps because of his height, his knees were bent at an extremely unnatural angle, and his arms were far too long and thin.

Rather than a human... he looked more like a scarecrow planted in a rice field to frighten away birds or wild animals.

"Listen. This cinema's overall layout is a U-shaped loop. The left side connects to the stairs, and the right side connects to the escalator. That lunatic's guarding the stairs right now. We need to split up. One of us draws his attention, while the other circles around to the escalator."

Qin Manjiang spoke quietly.

"Man... the restroom mirrors are covered in handprints. Are we really going to be okay...?"

Li Xijiu asked, trembling.

"The doors to the other screening rooms are open. Each room has an entrance and an exit, so we can lead him in circles. Pick one. Do you want to keep him chasing you, or go downstairs and ask for information?"

Qin Manjiang posed the question.

Li Xijiu calmed down a little and thought it over carefully, then said with a miserable expression, "I wouldn't even know what to ask. You go. I'll keep him chasing me."

"Okay. I'll count down from three, then we move."

"Wait, wait, wait!"

Li Xijiu had not expected Qin Manjiang to act so quickly. He hurriedly grabbed him. "I'm not ready yet. Let me get some oxygen."

"What oxygen are you going to get in a restroom? It's all ammonia."

Qin Manjiang steadied himself too, then pressed his hands firmly against Li Xijiu's shoulders and said seriously, "Be careful. You getting caught up in this... I owe you."

Li Xijiu looked utterly bewildered, but at least he felt a little calmer.

"Brother Qin, let me ask you something."

"Yeah?"

"What did you enter for your code name?"

"Abyss. Why? What about you?"

Li Xijiu grinned and thumped his chest:

"Invincible Tyrannosaurus Warrior!"

Qin Manjiang's expression darkened:

"Move."

The novel has already been submitted for a contract! Its contract status should update soon. Feel free to invest in this book-you have my word!

(End of chapter)