Survival

On the night of my wedding, the Queen ordered her guards to pin me down and force those Glass Slippers back onto my bleeding feet. She said that if the shoes were not sated by my blood before the thirteenth bell toll of midnight, she would carve out my heart to feed the mirror. The entire hall waited for me to become a Princess Consort, but only the groom, Su Zhichuan, leaned in and whispered into my ear, his voice trembling and hoarse. He said, “Don’t believe in fairy tales. Kill me before dawn, or you’ll be the one who dies.”

The Mountain God’s Bride The day I was sold into Blackstone Village, they told me I was to be the Mountain God’s bride.

One month later, I walked back out from the mountains wearing a red bridal gown, stilt-walking, and wearing a Nuo mask.

Behind me, a three-mile-long Fire Dragon illuminated the main street.

On behalf of the Mountain God, I asked them: “We remember every girl you’ve sent in over the years. Are your own daughters ready?”

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 was trapped in the company building, dying in a loop ninety-nine times.

The ways I died were varied: the elevator falling, electrocution from the copier, a pen tip piercing my brow…

Each time I opened my eyes, it was nine o’clock sharp on the same morning, just as I sat down at my desk.

After seeking help multiple times, my Physics Professor Husband finally believed me.

Following his instructions, I searched step by step for a way to escape the cycle of death.

But on the hundredth time, I saw the Jade Bracelet my husband had secretly bought, worn on the hand of an Aloof Female Colleague beside me.

…

On the 101st attempt, I decided to face the desperate situation head-on, determined to leave the building alive!

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.”

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…

A wave of metaphysics has swept through the entertainment industry, leading to the creation of an adventure variety show.

The production team invited two Feng Shui masters to oversee the proceedings: one is a Hong Kong Master, and the other is me.

Everyone mocks me for being so young.

What they don’t know is that I am the sole Earth Master successor.

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.

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.

…