All Novel

I fell into a world of Strange Tales, but I thought I was playing a romance otome game.

At the stroke of midnight, the cobweb-covered landline rang. A raspy, eerie voice drifted through the receiver.

“You watched that videotape, didn’t you? In seven days… I will come for you…”

Me:

“Why seven days? Are you just not going to contact me at all during that time? Is this the silent treatment?

“And you’re only messaging me at midnight? Ah, I get it. You probably just finished spending time with someone else, and now your conscience is pricking you, so you’ve come to check on me.

“What’s the point of just calling? If you actually cared about me, you’d be by my side constantly. I absolutely hate long-distance relationships!”

Strange Tale: “Uh… I’ll come sooner, then.”

The other participants struggling to survive: “? No, wait, man! He said he’d take our lives in seven days-why the hell is he starting his shift early?”

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I found the plane tickets hidden in the drawer by Lin Yuezhou.

I thought he was planning a surprise for me, but when evening came, all I got was a sentence: he was going on a business trip.

Unable to sleep, I scrolled through social media and saw his first love’s post:

[Eighteen-year-old wish list-Go to Iceland with the one I love most to see the aurora. Today, it finally came true!]

The photo showed her kissing Lin Yuezhou under the northern lights.

I didn’t cry, nor did I message him to question anything.

After chasing after him for so many years, I’m truly exhausted.

I am the sole Earth Master successor. While leading a group of elderly wealthy businessmen to Xiangxi to treat their corpse poison, we were kidnapped and dragged deep into the mountains.

The villagers forced us to work the fields, but they had no idea that after the sun went down, the things that came for us weren’t human at all.

I was born on the First Day of the Eighth Month in the Year of the Wood Rooster. I came into this world with a single tuft of white hair on my head. The midwife said I was a solitary Yan bird born in mourning, and that if my family kept me, one of us would die every three years.

To save my life, my grandmother pawned me as a Dead Pawn to a pawnshop in Wufu Town to serve as a sacrificial offering.

After being cast aside so many times and living under the roofs of others, I learned from a young age to be sweet and obedient.

Who would have thought that eighteen years later, I would become the true Manager of that pawnshop?

I speak the softest words, cling to the strongest allies, and collect the most powerful Yin Evil Objects!

Welcome to Spirit Snake Pawnshop!

Liu Junyan (Snake Lord): “Xiao Jiu, you were the one who provoked me first this time! If you try to run, I’ll break your legs.”

Hu Yulin (Fox Lord): “Xiao Jiu, no matter what happens, you can always come to me. I’ll be waiting.”

Feng Xianqiu (Phoenix Master): “Xiao Jiu, you’ve had your fun. It’s time to come home.”

My name is Zhou Jiu, and I’m a professional haunted-house test sleeper.

Tonight, the company assigned me a new job: the old house where my entire family burned to death fifteen years ago.

But that house had long since been reduced to a barren wasteland.

I returned with a black-and-white photograph of the fire scene.

In the shadows of that photo, a person who looked exactly like me was already waiting at the door.

Chapter 0

I am the most low-maintenance Canary in the Shanghai Circle’s elite social scene.

On the surface, I have no interest in causing trouble; in reality, I am single-mindedly focused on making money.

Everything the Big Boss gives me, I liquidate.

Stocks, bonds, and physical investments-I let the money breed more money, compounding the interest.

I secretly invested in his rival’s company and even took the opportunity to acquire shares in the Big Boss’s own firm.

On the day the truth finally came out, the Big Boss looked at my thick stack of asset reports and let out a cold laugh.

“Other Canaries want to climb the social ladder and take a seat at the table,” he said. “You, on the other hand, want to usurp the throne.”

When my Adoptive Father first saw me, I was eating a bowl of spoiled rice.

Hungry flies were fighting me for the food, and I couldn’t even spare a hand to shoo them away.

Later, he took me home. He threw me a party for my seventh birthday.

He said, “Xiao Jue, today is your new beginning. From now on, this day will be your birthday every year.”

Everyone smiled at me. Only my Adoptive Mother roared after the banquet had ended, “She’s your illegitimate daughter, isn’t she?”

The night I was sent into the Royal Palace, snow was falling from the heavens.

One hundred and twenty silver lamps lined the steps, but their wicks were not made of cotton; they were segments of little finger bones coated in white wax.

Everyone said that as long as I sold my last box of matches to the Crown Prince, Baili City would survive this winter.

Only I knew that the flames capable of conjuring the scent of bread, the crackle of a hearth, and the warmth of a grandmother’s smile were not blessings from God.

They were the final dreams of children who had frozen to death in the streets.

Tonight, the Royal Palace was coming for mine.

On the day of the grand wedding, every guest in the hall witnessed Ah Ying take a sword strike intended for Gu Yanzhi.

No one knew that the blades, arrows, and poisons she had endured for him throughout her life were already enough to have killed her many times over.

All she had ever waited for was to die in his arms and hear him call her name just once.

My husband and I have been sleeping in separate rooms for two years now. We’ve grown distant, with no passion left between us.

But last night, after he’d been drinking, he climbed into my bed and went absolutely wild…

I said, “Honey, you were nothing like yourself last night!”

Later, I saw a message from an unknown number on his phone:

“You slept with my wife, so I’m going to sleep with your wife. Only then are we even!”

My husband’s latest reply was:

“Now we’re square, right!”