Mystery

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.

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…]

The first time I went to a nightclub after starting university, I ran into the neighbor who had disappeared a year ago.

He had his arms around two scantily-clad beauties, looking like a total delinquent.

When he saw me, his gaze flickered across my chest before he let out a soft, dismissive “tsk.” Later, he pinned me against a corner. His finger pressed against my lips as he leaned down, demanding I call his name. It was only then that it dawned on me. He wasn’t my Zhou Yanzhi.

Three months after I moved into Old River Bend, the old lady next door died. While I was helping clear out her belongings, I found a diary.

The first page read: “My daughter died three years ago. The person living next door to me is a ghost.”

But I knew there was something wrong with her daughter from the very first day, because I’m a ghost, too.

At the school evening party, four girls from the Dance Club collapsed from poisoning while performing ballet.

After being sent to the hospital, three died from the poison, and one was lucky enough to survive.

The one who survived was me.

The one who poisoned them was also me.

Before my grandmother passed away, she left me three brocade pouches.

“On the seventh day after my death, give these to the seventh person who offers incense.”

On the day of the funeral, I followed her instructions to the letter. When the man who received them opened the brocade pouch, his face turned pale with terror, and he fled in a panic.

It wasn’t until later that I learned the man was a rapist and a murderer.

He had intended to target me that very night.

The first brocade pouch was filled with his criminal record.

She told me to open the second brocade pouch before I got married and consummated the union.

This time, the brocade pouch felt very thin.

Inside, there was only one word.

“RUN!!!”

My sister went to Yunnan to teach as a volunteer, but shortly after, she vanished.

All she left behind was a bizarre post on her social media feed:

“Black dogs grow white scales, the Flesh Well blinks with a thousand eyes, and humanity cannot escape Ailao Mountain!”

After failing to reach her privately, I turned to the police for help, but they refused to open a case.

Left with no other choice, I had to travel to Yunnan alone.

At that time, I had no idea that the terrifying truth buried deep beneath the surface had already begun to emerge…

After my ex-boyfriend, Gu Yanzhou, died, his will specifically named me as the one who had to read it aloud. He left me one billion in equity, three video recordings, and a final message: “Don’t be so quick to hate me. Among the people sitting across from you tonight, there is one who killed me-and your brother.”

In my third year as Empress Dowager, my greatest fear is not the court officials, nor the brushes held by the court historians.

It is the moments when I wake from a dream in the dead of night and instinctively call out the name of Xie Wuyang.

As the palace lanterns flicker to life, I am reminded that three years ago, I was the one who personally wrote the secret order sending him to his death at Yanhui Ridge.

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.