Mystery

Every night, Chen Youlan’s grandmother kowtows backward before a red-draped Buddha, cursing the family whose prosperity was bought with her blood.

When Grandma dies smiling and Youlan is chosen to inherit the ritual, the old house begins exposing every bargain, every stolen life, and the true firstborn hidden behind the family’s lies.

To survive until dawn, Youlan must decide whether the weeping statue is a god, a demon, or merely the patient judge of a debt generations in the making.

That morning, I was still a filthy beggar.

By nightfall, I had been scrubbed clean and smelled sweet.

I had sold myself to a brothel.

The madam looked me up and down, a smile spreading through the creases of her forehead.

“The Mid-Autumn Festival is in five days.

You’ll start taking clients then.”

I didn’t look at her.

The money was in my pocket.

Did she really think she still had a say?

All I wanted now was a good night’s sleep.

The room was lovely in every way, except that the fragrance made my head swim.

I shut the door and pushed open a small, carved window.

A streak of white light squeezed through the gap.

It widened until it filled my vision.

Why was there a luxurious room outside my window?

A man sat straight-backed at a writing desk, his head bent over the bow he was polishing.

He looked up and saw me too.

He wasn’t surprised, but he was very angry.

“I asked for nothing in return.

Who brought you into my residence?

This is absurd!”

Only then did I see his face clearly.

He was extraordinarily handsome.

It was Song Shan.

Wait.

Song Shan?

Hadn’t he been put to death by slow slicing at the third quarter of the noon watch that very day?

I had watched it myself.

When I was five years old, my mother and I died in a car accident.

The people who orchestrated the accident were my father and my mother’s best friend.

After receiving two insurance payouts, they got married and lived happily together as a family.

Occasionally, That Woman would get scared: “The mother and daughter who died-won’t they turn into Vengeful Ghosts and come back to take revenge on me?”

My father would laugh at her for being superstitious.

But they didn’t know-I wasn’t dead.

And the me who returned alive for revenge would be far more terrifying than any Vengeful Ghost.

I’m the Sea Queen, and I’m all about living in the moment. (“Sea Queen” refers to a playful woman who has many boyfriends and enjoys a carefree lifestyle.)

Body and mind-I never shortchange myself.

One boyfriend isn’t enough; if one won’t do, I’ll make it two.

On a luxury cruise, I ran into true love again.

But even a Sea Queen can misjudge people. I realized I’d been scammed.

After seeing through the con, I thought I’d make it through the trip safe and sound.

I never expected a far bigger plot-one that would tear me to pieces.

Along the way, the killer gave me ten chances to save myself.

By the time I understood what was happening, there was only one left.

I died of a sudden asthma attack while being bullied.

My family sent my bruised and battered body straight to the incinerator; no one went to my school to demand justice for me.

Later, my brother started dating the girl who bullied me.

He turned her into the blade he would use to avenge me.

The school was locked down for seven days. Every one of us received a text message:

[Please follow these 25 rules. You may only leave once the school lockdown is lifted in seven days. As for those students who leave early…]

I met a girl at a bar while I was away on business and ended up sleeping with her.

I thought it was just a one-night stand.

Little did I know, it was the beginning of a nightmare.

In the wake of a violent storm, a beautiful woman suddenly appeared out of thin air on the Deck of a deep-sea fishing vessel manned entirely by men. When the ship finally returned to shore, only a single madman remained on board.

The summer I turned ten, my younger sister went missing.

She vanished on her way to deliver lunch to our parents.

There were no security cameras, and no one had seen her.

Because I was the one who was supposed to have gone, my mother never spoke another word to me again.

Fifteen years later, I became a police officer. I retraced the path my sister took that day, over and over again.

The past began to resurface in my mind, piece by piece.

Slowly, I pieced together a heartbreaking truth.

The neighbor’s kid jumped off the building after being bullied.

She landed directly on my brand-new car, her head lolling, hanging off the windshield.

She died, and her mother lost her mind.

When the neighbors held the funeral, several of the bullies actually showed up at the scene.

They mocked the mother relentlessly: “Your family line is completely dead now. You don’t even have a single relative left, do you?”

They were making too much noise.

I slowly pushed open my door to teach them a lesson: “A near neighbor is better than a distant relative.”

Besides, her neighbor might just be insane.