Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The doctor told me I only have six months left to live.

So, I quit my job, moved, and planned to spend my remaining half-year in peace and quiet by myself.

I found a real estate agent online.

I told him my only requirement for a house was that it had to be quiet and secluded.

The agent took me to see a place that very same day.

The complex was called Cloud Garden, located in a scenic suburb with lush mountains and clear waters. It was a mid-to-high-end neighborhood where property prices were exorbitant, yet the rent was incredibly low.

The agent told me he was the manager of this particular apartment building. The owners, a married couple, had gone abroad on vacation and entrusted him to rent the place out.

When I asked why the rent was so cheap, the agent stammered through an explanation: the owners were wealthy and didn’t care about the money; they just wanted someone to stay there to give the house some “life.”

I believed him.

The interior decor of the house suited my taste perfectly, so I settled on it on the spot.

As if afraid I would regret it, the agent had me pay the deposit, the rent, and a brokerage fee that very day.

I moved into the house the following day.

I arrived at dusk. After unpacking my luggage and placing my daily necessities around the house, I went to sleep.

During the night, a heavy rain began to fall. I was startled awake by the thunder and lightning, and behind the curtains billowing in the wind, I saw the faint outline of a figure.

It looked like the silhouette of a man.

At first, I was terrified, thinking someone had broken in. But after observing for a while, I noticed the shadow seemed to flicker in and out of existence.

Was it a hallucination?

I watched quietly for a moment and shivered.

The wind was freezing.

I got out of bed, went to the window, and shut it.

The sound of the thunderstorm outside instantly muffled, and the figure did not appear again.

I turned off the light and fell into a peaceful sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining brightly.

I sat up and stretched, wanting to soak in as much of the warm sunlight as possible, so I pulled back the curtains.

Then, to my surprise, I saw a bloody handprint starkly imprinted on the pristine window pane.

In an instant, the blood in my veins felt like it was rushing backward.

I remembered clearly that when I was cleaning yesterday, there was nothing on the glass.

But after a moment, I calmed down.

I left the window and went to the bathroom to grab a rag.

I opened the window and reached out to wipe the spot where the bloody handprint was on the outside.

However, even after scrubbing hard a few times, the bloody handprint remained perfectly intact; the mark hadn’t faded in the slightest.

Only then did I realize that the handprint had been pressed on from the inside.

Now I was certain-this house had a problem.

The thought of a supernatural phenomenon took root in my mind.

But then again, I had already accepted death itself with composure. What else was there that I couldn’t accept?

I moved the rag to the inside and wiped. This time, it came off after just a few strokes.

I went back to the bathroom to wash the rag, thinking back to the figure I saw behind the curtain before bed and the bloody handprint that suddenly appeared this morning…

I concluded that the house might be haunted.

Calmly, I wrung out the rag and looked up into the mirror above the sink.

My reflection was expressionless, but then it slowly curled its lips into a grin, revealing a smile that was eerie in the extreme.

But I clearly wasn’t smiling.

I watched as the mouth of my reflection stretched wider and wider, nearly reaching its ears.

While smiling like that, it raised a hand and used a finger to write my name, stroke by stroke, from the other side of the glass-

Qu Lingling.

The handwriting was stained with blood, and the gore slowly dripped down. It was exceptionally bizarre. How did it know my name?

I couldn’t help but frown and said to the mirror, “What are you doing?”

My reflection froze. The grotesque expression crumbled, replaced by a cold, terrifying look as it glared at me fixedly.

Then, fine cracks began to appear on the mirror, as if the entity inside was enraged.

I quickly took a few steps back and raised my arms to protect my face.

My prediction was correct. Within two seconds, the mirror exploded with a roar.

The sound was deafening. Shards fell to the floor, and when I looked down, the scattered fragments reflected countless versions of me, all staring back coldly.

Then, everything returned to normal.