Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When Yu Lingling woke up, she found herself locked in a pitch-black place reeking of rot. Her hands and feet were bound with rope, something had been taped over her mouth, and muffled sobs sounded beside her.

She listened to the crying and the faint barking of dogs outside. After sitting there and thinking for a moment, she realized something was terribly wrong.

Had her mental illness gotten worse again? Was she not only hallucinating now, but developing schizophrenia too?

She had a follow-up appointment tomorrow. What if she failed her mental evaluation and they locked her up again?

Suddenly, a panel appeared before Yu Lingling’s eyes.

[Welcome to the Horror Game.]

Yu Lingling blinked. Once she read the words on the panel, she was delighted.

The Horror Game?

She had been confined to a psychiatric hospital since childhood and had only gotten out at eighteen after fooling every doctor there. She had never played a real game before, and she had long since grown bored of the games in her hallucinations. This Horror Game was something entirely new.

Could it be that she had finally developed a new hallucination?

Yu Lingling excitedly shifted in place and waited for the panel to display the rules.

[You are currently experiencing your first Horror Game Instance.]

[Game Reminder: Do not make them angry.]

Yu Lingling was still waiting for the rest of the introduction when the panel disappeared. Bewildered, she raised her bound hands and scratched her chin.

By now, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Only then did she notice that her hands had gotten smaller.

What Yu Lingling didn’t know was that the four children sobbing behind her were watching her with cruel, vicious eyes. The malice in their gazes was so intense that even the viewers in front of their screens felt chills run down their spines.

On a livestreaming app, the newcomer section was filled with countless small screens. Every screen showed someone wailing, begging on their knees, or panicking helplessly.

Yu Lingling’s screen stood out starkly among them and drew the attention of a few viewers, who selected her stream.

“She’s a newcomer, right? Why was a newcomer assigned to this instance?”

“Judging by the setting, isn’t this the Auspicious Village instance?”

“A newcomer’s first solo instance is usually a freebie, isn’t it? For a rookie who doesn’t know anything, this one is basically hell difficulty.”

“A newcomer has no chance of surviving this instance. I’m not wasting my time. I’m out.”

“I want to see if she can last fifteen minutes.”

“I bet she won’t even make it past the first stage.”

“She’s pretty, so I bet she’ll survive sixteen minutes.”

There weren’t many viewers in the Livestream Room, but not a single one believed Yu Lingling could clear the instance.

Yu Lingling couldn’t see the comments. She didn’t even know she was being livestreamed.

The dogs outside suddenly stopped barking, and footsteps came from somewhere above her.

Whoever was walking must have had an injured or disabled leg that couldn’t bear any weight. They were dragging it across the floor.

Yu Lingling had already noticed how tightly the rope was tied. Her hands had very little room to move, and the rope was so thick that biting through it would take quite some time.

Neither the four children behind her nor the person about to enter would give her enough time.

But that wasn’t enough to stop Yu Lingling. Even a psychiatric hospital hadn’t been able to keep her tied up, let alone this place.

Yu Lingling had plenty of experience. She braced her wrists against the bony outer edge of her knee. Keeping her wrists still, she moved her body up and down, using the bone to rub against the rope. As soon as the knot loosened, she wrenched her hands free without caring whether the rope scraped her skin raw, then quickly untied the rope around her ankles.
By the time Yu Lingling rose to her feet, the four children behind her were staring at her in stunned silence. They had even forgotten to cry.

Her hands were torn and bloody, yet she seemed incapable of feeling pain. She gave the rope a hard tug to make sure it wouldn’t snap, then silently took two steps toward the shadows.

Before long, however, she stopped and turned to look at the four children, who were also tied up.

“Is she trying to save them? What an idiot.”

“Exactly. I thought she was pretty smart just now, but it turns out she’s still an idiot. Those four kids aren’t simple.”

“Who knows how many people ended up dying because…”

Before the comments in the Livestream Room could finish scrolling by, Yu Lingling returned. But instead of untying the others as the viewers expected, she grabbed the girl in the innermost corner and dragged her over to where she herself had been sitting. Then she shoved an empty crate into the corner before heading toward the dark spot she had chosen earlier.

Judging by her surroundings and the sound of the approaching footsteps, this dream was probably set somewhere like a cellar.

The space was narrow at the top and wider below, making it most likely a shaft-style cellar.

As the footsteps drew closer, Yu Lingling excitedly ran her tongue over one of her little fangs. The thrill in her eyes was impossible to suppress.

A metal key slid into the keyhole with a soft scrape.

Yu Lingling heard the key turn stiffly, catching several times, and immediately reached a conclusion.

The hatch was secured from the outside with an old-fashioned padlock the size of a palm. It was both heavy and rusty, which meant it had probably been exposed to damp conditions for a long time.

That meant this was somewhere with frequent rainfall, most likely the south or the eastern coast. However, cellars were rarely used along the eastern coast.

Yu Lingling was now seventy percent certain that this dream had taken her somewhere in the south. She had long wanted to see the scenery there. Her excitement mounted, yet her mind only grew calmer.

“Click.”

The lock opened.

“Scrape, scrape.”

The heavy metal padlock was removed from the hatch.

“Clack.”

The lock came free.

“Clang.”

It was set on the ground, producing a short, abrupt sound.

As the cellar hatch was lifted, the wet earth around it made a series of squelching noises. Yu Lingling felt clumps of dirt fall onto her head, but she remained perfectly still. Even the sound of her breathing had nearly vanished.

With a thud, the hatch was flung fully open and landed on the ground.

The person above first lowered a crude bamboo ladder into the cellar. Then a burly man holding a faded, old-fashioned flashlight in his right hand shone its beam around the cellar from above. Thanks to Yu Lingling’s earlier preparations, a cursory sweep was not enough to reveal that one person was missing.

The four bound children wore vacant expressions, as though they had been frightened senseless and no longer even knew how to cry.

After confirming that nothing seemed amiss, the burly man began climbing down, holding the flashlight in one hand and steadying himself on the bamboo ladder with the other. He failed to notice the pair of eyes in the darkness, fixed intently on his legs.

The instant Yu Lingling determined which leg gave him trouble, she struck. Before the man could finish climbing down, she slammed herself hard into his impaired leg.

“Crash!”

The burly man lost his balance and tumbled off the ladder. Before he could react, Yu Lingling had already slipped the loop she had knotted in the rope around his neck and yanked it tight.

She swiftly threaded the other end through one of the bamboo ladder’s rungs and tied it securely to the ladder.

With Yu Lingling’s current strength, strangling a grown man to death was nothing but a pipe dream. All she wanted was to keep him trapped.