On the third day inside the game, Ye Shu was finally invited in for tea—a polite way of saying she was brought in for questioning.
Within the interrogation room, Ye Shu reiterated for the hundredth time that she truly had nothing to do with Zhang Daquan. It was a pity, though, about the concealed handgun on his person.
"Comrade Ye," began Officer Chen, "you were the last person to see Zhang Daquan... And about what happened on Line 1 in F City..." He summarized the subway incident in spare, ominous tones.
Ye Shu’s expression twisted with terror, as if she’d just glimpsed something unspeakable. "A subway butcher? Thank heavens I left early yesterday. I might have become one of the victims." She clutched her chest for good measure, visibly relieved.
Officer Chen hesitated, wanting to say more. Their surveillance review had revealed that neither Zhang Daquan nor Ye Shu had left their rooms—not once. The bloody scene at the subway, identical to the uproar that shook the station yesterday, left no sign of human involvement.
The remaining surveillance even captured something inexplicable: for a fleeting second, the camera recorded an image so unnatural it defied explanation.
Ye Shu was genuinely in the dark, her clear eyes wide and innocent as she looked at those across the table.
The middle-aged man exchanged glances with the mediator at his side, their last slivers of suspicion dissolving. Every movement Ye Shu had made since leaving the subway station was accounted for.
They’d done a background check, too: she was a delicate, fair-skinned girl with no family, surviving on part-time jobs and scholarships.
"Officer Chen, did you catch the killer?" Ye Shu asked guilelessly, never mentioning anything 'supernatural.' NPCs in this world couldn’t hear the truth—and if she risked revealing it, she might be branded insane.
"No." The man’s brow furrowed. For unknown reasons, this subway case was being deliberately covered up by those above—they claimed only a ‘serial killer’ was at large.
After a few perfunctory questions, Ye Shu was ‘released without charge’. As she was leaving, the mediator—a female officer—only advised her to change her lodging.
Clearly, they knew something they weren’t saying.
It was now 10 a.m., less than five hours till daylight faded. Ye Shu hurried home—her hotel, now sealed due to the murders, forced her to find a room nearby.
With time against her, she didn't dare tempt fate. Interacting with outsiders only raised her odds of dying.
After securing her new keycard, Ye Shu took the elevator, retrieved her stashed supplies, and couldn’t help but marvel. How many times had she envied web-novel protagonists with pocket dimensions? If only she had one—she’d be positively exuberant.
She tore into a box of instant hotpot, spicy wide noodles paired with ice-cold soda, and finished it off with some fruit. The way she saw it, life was brutal enough in this game—why not live a little?
Checking her game panel, she saw the number of survivors was holding at about half a million. No surprise, given this was the first time anyone had been yanked into a survival game, and the scenario was so against reason. The death toll only kept rising.
Her talent power still had a day before cooldown ended. Best to hole up for now, she decided, and not go out until her safety buffer refreshed.
…………
Tick-tock, tick-tock...
Ye Shu furrowed her brow. The persistent drip of water seemed to linger forever at her ears, never nearer, never farther away. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake it.
She tried to rise, but her body wouldn’t obey. She was utterly paralyzed.
Just as she tried to force her eyes open, a sudden heat pricked at her wrist.
Her mind cleared as if struck by cold water; her body lightened as if freed from a leaden weight.
It’s luring me—trying to make me open my eyes!
Seeing the figure on the bed remain motionless, a knock sounded at the door—four sharp raps that shattered the nighttime stillness.
Four knocks. That meant it was no human.
Ye Shu squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to answer anyone.
"Shushu, open up! It’s me—Jiang Ying."
"Open the door. Aren’t we best friends? Why won’t you talk to me? Did I do something wrong?"
The knocking sharpened in ferocity, the ghostly thing outside raging as if it would batter down the door.
Just keep your eyes shut. As long as she pretended not to see or hear it, the specter couldn’t get in.
Otherwise, she’d be shredded to pieces by now.
Not daring to slip even a glance, Ye Shu weathered the entire night, terrified that even a moment’s curiosity would be her end.
The fourth day inside the game dawned.
The first sunbeam crested the horizon. Feeling no heat on her wrist, Ye Shu shot out of bed and sprinted to the bathroom to take care of urgent needs.
Staring at her own reflection—almond eyes rimmed with red, dark circles beneath, a pallid and haggard face—she managed a frail pep talk.
"It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine!"
The door-ghost had only left at sunrise, and Ye Shu had forced herself to stay awake all night, terrified she’d accidentally open her eyes in her sleep.
She checked her room’s surveillance. No anomalies. But from sundown onward, the hallway had shown a shadow—faint, blurry, pacing back and forth.
So, it was just a trick, a way for the weirdness to spook her into opening the door.
As for the midnight blackout, her room’s lights going out for no reason? No way it was an accident. Definitely the specter’s doing.
Wolfing down breakfast, Ye Shu idly scrolled her phone to see frantic cries for help flooding the web:
【Stargazer: Someone help me! Someone’s knocking at my bedroom door. My parents aren’t home. What do I do?!】
【The Cilantro Crusader: Help! I’m trapped in the elevator, and I think there’s an extra person in here with me. I’m too scared to look. Whoever saves me, money’s no object—address: Jiangbin Gardens, Chenglong District】
【Meatbun Chasing Dog: Has anyone else noticed the daylight is getting shorter? Not a conspiracy—ever since three days ago, the shadows around me feel wrong. Like something’s about to crawl out.】
【Just Turned Twenty-Eight: Damn, so it’s not just me! +1, I thought it was all in my head.】
【+1...】
Ye Shu looked up at the sky: just as she feared, the sun was veiled in a silvery curtain. Most of F City stewed beneath heavy cloud, upping the challenge for everyone inside the game.
She’d wanted to relocate to another city and hide, but, predictably, every outbound ticket sold out instantly. She couldn’t even hire a driver at a premium.
Across the hall, Pang Tong was so scared his soul seemed halfway out of his body, fists clutching the bedsheet, his moon-round visage puckered in terror. The knocking had continued almost all night—anyone would crack under that.
No food all day, and a sleepless night—by now, Pang Tong was at his breaking point.
…………
As she opened her door, Ye Shu almost collided with the pale, trembling Pang Tong, who staggered down the corridor as if pursued by phantoms.
She hesitated a second, then turned away without a word.
Seeing Ye Shu didn’t attack him, Pang Tong finally relaxed. It seemed accurate: the clue he’d found in Jinshan Temple had said that these specters couldn’t act in the sunlight.
He was terrified of ghosts. So, as soon as he’d entered the game, he’d hired a high monk from Jinshan Temple to perform rites, even paying a fortune for protective talismans and holy water.