Don't Look Back!

[Rule one: don't look back]

Xia Shou stared at the scrawled handwriting on the yellowed paper, his face taut with despair. His backside stayed nailed to the chair, utterly motionless.

He could feel a woman's hands gripping his neck from behind.

[...If you can see this line, it means you have already made it past the first hurdle.]

"Whew..." Xia Shou took a deep breath. The hands around his neck loosened slightly with the movement of his breathing, then slowly tightened again, like an icy scarf.

One second earlier, he had been sitting in the exam hall for his college entrance exam. In the blink of an eye, the exam paper in his hands had turned into this bizarre notebook.

There was no doubt about it... this was a supernatural event.

And the only thing he could do now was keep reading the notebook.

Xia Shou lowered his gaze to the notebook.

[The one gripping your neck right now is the Grudge Spirit "Alice." You can think of her as a special servant, provided you follow the rule I just mentioned: don't turn your head.

You may use a mirror to look behind you and to either side, but you must never turn your head more than 60 degrees.]

"A... a Grudge Spirit?"

The terrifying face of the Demon Nun from The Conjuring 2 automatically surfaced in Xia Shou's mind, making him shudder.

Aside from the notebook, there was a mirror on the desk. It seemed to be something the notebook's owner had deliberately prepared to help him observe his surroundings.

Xia Shou carefully picked up the mirror. It reflected a pair of deathly pale hands wrapped around his neck.

He slowly adjusted the angle of the reflection, looking upward to see what was behind him.

The first thing that came into view was a black-and-white maid's uniform, followed by a pale neck, a softly rounded jawline, rosy lips, and a finely sculpted nose...

The next second, a pair of empty, mangled eye sockets suddenly burst into view!

Xia Shou silently lowered the mirror, looking as though he had swallowed a dead fish.

[Alice is a spirit I contracted specifically for you. You can ask her to make coffee, fold your bedding, or cook. She will dutifully fulfill your requests within the scope of a maid's duties. That is what she wants, too.

But I also hope you will treat her as a quiet friend. Although she currently resembles a mindless ghost, given the right opportunity, more of her self-awareness will gradually awaken. Then she will be able to help you even more.]

[Alice can rob others of their vision and let you see through it. She can be a great help in combat, but be mindful of how frequently and intensely you use her.

This notebook, which contains my personality, is called the [Death Record Notebook]. I am leaving it to you to atone for the wrong I have done you, but know your limits when reading it. Turning the pages too frequently comes at an enormous cost.

Once the writing becomes blurry, do not continue turning the pages unless it becomes clear again.

Now you may leave the study and look around the apartment, but remember!

Do not open any closed door in this place yourself!!!]

"So it's an otherworld survival guide?"

Whoever had dragged him here was clearly no saint, but leaving him this notebook showed they had at least some conscience.

Xia Shou took a deep breath and rose from his chair, turning stiffly to survey his surroundings.

The study had a distinctly old-fashioned decor, modeled on Victorian interiors. The bookshelves and floor were clean and free of dust; it did not look unoccupied.

Outside the study was a corridor leading straight to the living room.

The corridor's walls and ceiling, and even the floor beneath his feet, were packed with strangely shaped doors.

There were medieval prison doors, ancient Egyptian stone doors, doors with bronze reliefs... some were wrapped in red thread and covered in yellow talismans marked with cinnabar; others looked futuristic, as though they came from a cyberpunk era; some were even made of writhing flesh, with bloody eyeballs half opening and closing amid strands of sinew.

Xia Shou fell silent at the sight of those doors.

Who the hell would open any of these?!

Forget the notebook saying not to open them-even if it hadn't, I wouldn't touch them!

Only protagonists in horror movies would be stupid enough to mess with them!

"Anyway, let's keep looking around," Xia Shou said to bolster his courage.

Before he had finished speaking, the chill on one side of his neck suddenly vanished.

One of the hands that had been gripping his neck let go.

"?"

Puzzled, Xia Shou tilted his head up and saw that one of Alice's hands had left his neck and grasped the handle of the battered wooden door overhead!

"Shit, Grudge Spirits can open doors on their own?!"

It had never occurred to him that Alice, who had come with him from the start, might stab him in the back!

Click!

The wooden door opened.

Xia Shou's pupils dilated.

A bizarre red humanoid thing fell out of the doorway and hit the floor in front of him with a smack!

The strange red body looked as though it had formed from melted candle wax that had cooled and hardened. White bone fragments and tangled black hair were embedded in it, and it radiated an intensely sinister aura.

Xia Shou held his breath and stared fixedly at the red wax figure before him, not moving a muscle.

Was it alive?

Or dead?

Suddenly, the wax figure burst into pale blue flames, and an indescribably eerie shriek filled the air!

The lines of space trembled before Xia Shou's eyes!

A sense of being pulled away from reality swept over him!

The corridor, the doors, the corner at the far end... the outlines of everything around him began to unravel, disintegrating one by one like a sketch being taken apart!

The shrieking grew increasingly piercing, until it became unbearable, almost enough to drive him mad!

Darkness, cold, suffocation...

Xia Shou opened his eyes.

An exceedingly dim, deep green light flickered through the flowing water.

Beside him was a depth gauge: 1,200 meters.

The gauge began moving upward.

...sretem 0421

...sretem 8621

No, he was sinking!

The numbers on the gauge were increasing, and he was sinking faster and faster!

Crushing water pressure bore down on him from every direction. Amid the agony of rupturing flesh and shattering bones, his body broke apart like porcelain. Several drifting clouds of blood billowed into the seawater before him, gathering into indistinct words-[Blood... stop...]

Before Xia Shou could make out the bloody words in the water, it happened.

The next second, he began rising, and the numbers on the gauge climbed back up with him.

Through his fading consciousness, the last number he saw was 1,300 meters.

Below 1,300 meters was a red line whose meaning he could not fathom...

The suffocation and agony receded like the tide. Light flooded in, and before him was the same corridor packed with doors. Beneath his feet, however, lay a thick, unidentified black liquid.

The black liquid covered the entire corridor like a swamp. The red wax figure was rapidly sinking into it.

[Consumption progress: 57%...]

A line of blood-red text appeared before Xia Shou's eyes.

"What's going on?"

Xia Shou stood rooted to the spot, his back soaked in cold sweat.

The agony in that illusion had felt utterly real, but now all that remained in his body was an indescribable terror.

[67%...89%...]

As the wax figure continued sinking, the numbers kept rising.

Finally, the wax figure sank completely into the black swamp and disappeared.

[Consumption progress: 100%]

The black sludge beneath him writhed and contracted like a living thing, rolling toward Xia Shou's feet until it became his shadow.

The red characters before his eyes trembled, then changed into a passage of text.

[Consumption complete. You have gained a skill-[Death Road]]