Free to Read

In remote mountain villages, strange things happen and stranger tales are told.

Corpse retrieval, spirit possession, talisman water, the paper-effigy craft, the Temple of the Five Immortals, rice divination and crossing into the underworld, the flood dragon’s run from Yin Mountain…

I walk beyond the crowds and the mundane world, living through one hidden, uncanny event after another–things ordinary people could never glimpse.

Now, I will tell them to you.

[A brother-obsessed System top + mystery + male/male romance + a horror-game NPC + two powerful leads + wish fulfillment + the Fourth Calamity]

Your newly bonded System tells you that you’re actually cannon fodder in a melodramatic romance novel. Your opening act is to humiliate the campus beauty and beat up the man she’s cheating with: the classic setup for an overpowered hero’s rise.

But when he coaches you through your lines, he’s so embarrassed that he stammers and stalls. His tone turns peculiar, yet he still mischievously coaxes you along.

[Ge, repeat after me. Thirty years on one bank of the river, thirty on the other. Never look down on… um…]

And you, Zhao Xiuming, can only ask, “Huh?”

You know there’s more to the System than he lets on, even if he insists he’s an adorable Cuddling System, a warm, nurturing system.

But at school, you encounter a campus beauty carrying a ghost fetus.

At the hospital, her lover rises from the dead as an alien creature, muttering, “Bro, you smell so good.”

In your rented room, you share a bed with a blood-drenched young boy pretending to be a girl.

At your part-time job, the killer in the shop can’t get enough of you. And when you enter an isolated-island horror story, you finally discover who you are…

You, Zhao Xiuming, are certain the Horror System is keeping you captive as his pet. He even plays puppy in front of you on purpose. [Woof.]

Then you realize you aren’t normal either. You stop fearing the System and praise him. “Good boy, Little Darling.”

Before you read: Don’t approach this as a conventional story about a player clearing instances. The protagonist is an anomaly NPC, through and through. Read it as a mystery.

Players from different horror games enter the protagonist’s world, creating all kinds of instances. The “Fourth Calamity” tag is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the havoc players wreak on a world’s native inhabitants.

Rule-based horror descended upon Blue Star, and each country had one Chosen One selected to enter the Horror World and fight for survival.

If a contestant died, their country’s national fortune declined and disaster struck.

If they successfully cleared the scenario, the country’s national fortune rose and the entire population received rewards.

Su Chen happened to be selected and entered the terrifying zoo horror scenario.

1. If the elephants you see look different from what you know elephants to be, do not panic. Open your eyes wide and tell yourself that seeing is believing.

2. This zoo has an Aquarium. If a staff member offers to sell you an Aquarium ticket, accept. There is a backup exit there.

3. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the zoo’s safety measures. No animal could possibly escape, and small herbivores in particular are kept in sealed enclosures where they cannot be touched. Therefore, if you see a rabbit running loose, pet it and carry it to a staff member. Rabbits can comfort you…

Just then, Su Chen awakened the Horror Rule Analysis System. As long as he deciphered the rules of the Horror World, he could earn rewards.

[Ding! Congratulations, Host. You have received the Death Rollback reward!]

From that moment on, the entire Horror World took a turn for the bizarre.

Su Chen: What do I do now that I’ve turned the zoo into a vacation resort? Urgent, waiting online!

The Mountain Trail, Mental Hospital, and School Horror Scenarios: Stay away from us!

Longguo: Su Chen is truly a blessing to Longguo!

Ugly Nation + Kimchi Nation + Sakura Nation: I’d like to report someone for cheating, but I have no proof!

I was born untamable.

After my parents died, I was passed from one relative to another.

At every house, I beat up the entire family—even the dog got a couple of slaps.

Then a delicate noblewoman adopted me and offered the perfect deal: food, a home, and permission to beat anyone except her and her cat.

Her household full of unruly adopted children never stood a chance.

Neither did the capital’s arrogant young nobles.

But her beautiful, sickly son might just be the one person who wants to shelter my sharp edges instead of putting them to use.

I was an abandoned child, and a blessed girl revered in every village for miles around.

Whenever a woman became pregnant, all I had to do was touch her belly, and she would have a son.

People were overjoyed.

But little by little, they stopped rejoicing…

I got up in the middle of the night to wipe the condensation off the window—and suddenly saw comments floating before my eyes: [Why’s the sleeping wife awake?

The male lead’s downstairs in the garden, coaxing our sweet girl!]

[Please don’t catch them!

I’m waiting for him to get some right under his wife’s nose!]

[The sleeping wife mustn’t wake up!]

Without changing my expression, I breathed on the window to fog it up again, then turned and lay down.

Mustn’t wake up?

I’d never truly been asleep.

I was an emperor.

Now I have become another emperor.

But this one has made a miserable job of it.

The crown princess is sleeping with the imperial tutor in the Eastern Palace.

My daughter is imprisoned and humiliated in her own residence by her husband.

Even my favorite niece has been judged by the country-bred heir to the Marquis of Xuanyang: “Fit only for a concubine, never a wife.”

Well.

You are all remarkably brave.

How about we find out how sharp my executioner’s blade is?

The prince’s heir acquired a famous sword.

A fine sword deserved a beautiful woman.

My looks earned me the position of his sword-bearing maid.

Later, he took me to Taicang for the Sword Trials.

Someone saw me and remarked, “Baseborn to the bone.”

Everyone roared with laughter.

Only years later did they understand.

What the man had actually said was, “Blade-born to the bone.”

There was a fool in my village who was always muttering: “Rock, scissors, cloth…”

The order had to be right.

If anyone got it wrong, he flew into a rage.

One day, a body turned up in the abandoned mud-brick house beside mine.

Even I became a suspect.

When the police carried the body out, it was still wrapped tightly in coarse cloth.

But when the fool saw it, his muttering changed to: “Cloth!

Cloth!

Cloth…”

I thought I understood why his rock, scissors, cloth had to come in that order.

I took a concubine for my husband.

The concubine was tall and long-legged, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and extraordinary beauty.

My husband nearly lost his mind.

Because when the concubine pulled it out, it was bigger than his.