Horror

While sorting through my mother’s belongings, I found a crumpled notebook tucked under her pillow.

Four words were scrawled unevenly across the title page: “The Kill List.”

The first name on the list was the obstetrician who had delivered me.

The date noted beside it was the day I was born.

The second name was my father’s.

The date was the day he died in a mining accident.

The third name belonged to a stranger.

The date noted was yesterday.

The police told me that this person really did die yesterday, but my mother was buried over a month ago.

The couple living across from me fought until midnight every single day, while their child wandered around scavenging for trash to eat.

Anyone who dared to give the boy food was met with a barrage of verbal abuse at their doorstep, or even targeted with malicious sexual rumors.

One day, as I was passing through the stairwell, I spotted the boy hiding in a corner, too afraid to look at me. “Hey kid, want something to eat?” I asked.

He claimed he wasn’t hungry, but his stomach was growling like thunder. “Big sister, just leave me alone,” he sobbed. “My mom isn’t a good person.”

I leaned down and looked him in the eye. “Well, neither am I.”

I am blind.

Inside the refrigerator, I felt my boyfriend’s corpse.

And someone was standing right behind me,

waiting to see how I would react.

I had been kidnapped. Me-a burly man nearly two meters tall, with a face that made me look like Zhang Fei-had somehow been abducted and dragged deep into the mountains! I woke up briefly during transport. My hands and feet were bound in iron chains as thick as a forearm, and the slightest movement made a tremendous racket. I didn’t stay conscious for long. Soon, I passed out again. When I woke up the next time, I was lying inside a dilapidated wooden hut. The moment my senses began to return, I caught a thick, overwhelming stench.

I am an NPC in the game City of Desire.

By day, I sell fragrant, freshly baked bread; by night, I find my pleasure in butchering men.

On the night the bakery closed early, a heavy rain was falling.

A man walked in. Beneath his black raincoat was a naked body and a sharp knife.

I took a bite of my toast and bowed in welcome. Then, as his eyes filled with terror, I raised the chainsaw I had been hiding behind my back.

Bang! Ten minutes later, his head exploded inside the oven. As flesh and blood splattered everywhere, I beamed with joy.

“Welcome to City of Desire, Player. I hope you enjoy your game!”

My virginity was sold by my family to a seventy-year-old tycoon for the steep price of one million yuan.

The price was fair, all things considered. After all, I wasn’t just selling my virtue; I was selling my life.

On our wedding night, the old man squeezed my throat and asked, “Do you have any final wishes?”

To stay alive, I told him three stories.

And then, I made a prophecy.

“You will die within my third story.”

Chapter 0

I unexpectedly entered Wonderland.

But what awaited me was a rules-horror nightmare.

Players who violate the rules will become the red paint used to color the white roses.

Rule 2: Both cookies and potions are poisonous. Please consume with caution.

Rule 3: The hat is the Mad Hatter’s most precious possession. Do not touch it lightly.

Rule 6: Mr. White Rabbit’s pocket watch is faster than the actual time.

Rule 10: Under no circumstances should others be allowed to see your rules.

Welcome to Alice’s Nightmare.

Good luck, Player Tong Yu.

I stared at the playing card that had appeared in my hand at some unknown moment, printed with these bizarre rules, and fell into deep thought.

Five minutes ago, I was still sitting in a theater seat, quietly waiting for the post-credits scene of the movie Alice in Wonderland.

I had seen this animation when I was a child. While shopping at the mall, I had unexpectedly won a free movie ticket, so I stopped by to revisit the classic.

After the film ended, I intended to leave directly like most of the audience, but the theater staff blocked the exit and suggested we stay to watch the surprise post-credits scene before leaving.

Was my memory failing me? In my impression, there were no post-credits scenes at the end of this film.

It wasn’t until the credits finished rolling that the big screen suddenly went blank, and all the lights in the theater extinguished simultaneously.

The next second, a blood-covered, red-eyed rabbit suddenly appeared on the screen.

Accompanied by the screams of the audience, a terrifying giant rabbit crawled out from the two-dimensional screen, opened its bloody maw, and swallowed everyone whole.

When I opened my eyes again, I had arrived in this strange world along with the other audience members.

A mysterious forest and a White Rabbit in formal wear looked almost identical to the scenes from the film.

It had been exactly one week since the last time I entered a bizarre and absurd fairy tale world.

I had thought it was just a premonitory dream.

But the card in my hand with the eerie rules seemed to tell me that this was likely only the beginning.

Standing in the center of the crowd, Mr. White Rabbit glanced at the pocket watch on his chest, cleared his throat, and said:

“Everyone, welcome to the first stage of Alice’s Nightmare Trial: Broken Pocket Watch.”

As soon as the White Rabbit finished speaking, an identical pocket watch suddenly appeared in everyone’s hands.

“Adjust the time to the correct position and press the button on top of the pocket watch to submit your answer.”

I leaned in and saw the time on the pocket watch on his chest.

It displayed a fixed moment that never advanced.

20:27.

I lowered my head and re-examined the rules.

The only useful information was Rule 6: Mr. White Rabbit’s pocket watch is faster than the actual time.

But how could I know exactly how much faster it was?

There are thirteen ranks in a deck of cards, but I had only received four scattered cards.

The other half of the clues for this puzzle should be on the other cards I hadn’t received.

This was a game that required cooperation.

Just as I was planning to look for teammates among the people around me, the man standing in front of me suddenly exploded into a blur of flesh and blood.

Droplets of blood splashed onto my card.

At the same time, explosions began to occur one after another throughout the crowd.

The White Rabbit held a paint bucket, collecting plasma while saying, “A reminder to everyone: once an answer is submitted, it cannot be changed. Please cherish your only chance.”

When the village held funerals, it had a custom called “Ox-Cutting.”

Each member of the bereaved family would take a blade in the mourning hall and hack a live ox to death as an offering to the departed.

A friend brought me along to watch the ritual.

I never imagined that when I woke up, I would have become that “ox.”

The villagers closed in around me with knives in hand.

But what they didn’t know was that I was the sole Earth Master successor.

At my grand wedding to my Boyfriend, a stranger pushed open the door and walked in elegantly.

Who is he? What does he want? Is he here to bless me, or to destroy me?

When the man smiled, raised his hand, and lightly pushed me off the rooftop, I finally remembered who he was.

After fate destroyed me once more, it granted me the chance of Rebirth.

Since then I have decided: I will never bow my head or admit defeat. Even if I fall into Avici Hell, I will stop at nothing.

At 3:00 AM, an official emergency alert jolted you awake. The message read: “Do not look up at the moon.”

At the same time, you discovered that your phone had received hundreds of messages from unknown numbers: “The night is so beautiful. Look out the window.”