Survival

Jiang Li starts in hell, in a mental hospital, her money embezzled by her stepmother, and her boyfriend taken away by her stepsister. Now, she is unexpectedly caught up in a supernatural side quest, confronting the bizarre head-on…

A strange voice filled with malice says: “Please select the most important thing in your life.”

With sincere eyes, Jiang Li replies, “Family! Without them, there would be no me now!”

“Now officially entering the first side quest: Horror Anniversary. The mortality rate is extremely high, please prepare, chosen one.”

In the side quest, there are sounds of meat being chopped in the middle of the night, a toilet constantly flushing, and a long-haired woman hiding under the bed…

Is it a rhythm to kill? Hah, Jiang Li laughs instead of being scared. She doesn’t know if she will die, but they are definitely doomed. Facing the big screen, Jiang Li gently makes a “shh” gesture to her family. “My dear family, I wish you—Happy Death Anniversary.”

When I was a child, my father once gave me a ten-yuan bill as pocket money.

He said he had picked it up on the road.

I remember very clearly that on the back of that bill, written in black ink, was a line:

“There is a pyramid scheme on the fifth floor. Help.”

I took the money to show my father, and he smiled and told me,

“Who knows how many people have used this bill? Who knows when those words were written? Maybe the person who wrote them has already been rescued.”

I was in a hurry to buy chocolate, so I didn’t think much about it.

Because chocolate is sweet, after all.

Not long after, there was a piece of news on TV.

“A man mistakenly entered a pyramid scheme den, was beaten to death, and then dismembered.”

As a child, I stared blankly at the television.

My father also stared blankly at the television.

I asked him what was wrong.

He shouted at me angrily, telling me not to meddle in his business, and then left the house.

At the time, I didn’t know what was going on; I just felt confused.

It wasn’t until the New Year, at the family dinner, that my father got drunk and cried uncontrollably. In front of all the relatives, he confessed to picking up that bill.

The place where he found the money was directly below the den mentioned in the news.

In other words, the words on that ten-yuan bill were very likely written by someone who had fallen into that pyramid scheme, possibly even the person who was dismembered.

He sobbed, clutching a bottle of liquor, saying that it was his fault that the man died. The whole family comforted him, but I just stood aside, dumbfounded and at a loss.

So… I used that money to buy chocolate…

Something indescribable seemed to awaken within me.

Throughout my later life, I would often think of that ten-yuan bill.

I wondered, was the original owner of that money alright? Was he really rescued? Or… did that money really come from the man who was dismembered?

If it really came from him, he must have endured painful beatings and inhuman torture before finally seizing a chance one day to write those words for help on the bill and toss it out the window.

He must have clung to hope for rescue until the very moment he died.

Yet my father ignored that hope.

I always ask myself, if I had been the first to find that bill, could I have saved him? Or would I have overlooked the writing, just like my father?

This thought haunts me like a ghost, tormenting my mind more and more as I grow older.

Until that day.

A new “bill” appeared before me.

…

My roommate was murdered, and her body was hidden in her wardrobe.

I quietly closed the wardrobe and locked the door.

Because the killer was outside, playing cards with us.

I knew that if I didn’t act well, we’d all die.

I am a chef.

I provide in-home cooking services.

My employer requested that I prepare an all-beef feast.

But in his kitchen, I discovered a basin of Black Bear meat.

“Bears are the most vengeful. If you kill its cub, the Mother Bear will soon come for revenge.”

“You… won’t be able to escape.”

As soon as I finished speaking, there was a knock at the door.

At first, no one paid attention to this disaster. It began with several dozen days of relentless heat, with temperatures soaring above 45 degrees.

Soon after, the fields dried up and the lakes ceased to flow.

By the time people truly realized the severity of the problem, the end had already arrived.