Slaughterhouse
Lu Congxing looked around at everyone’s faces and said, “Illusionary realms are often born from obsessions. Are you really completely clueless about what triggered your own nightmares?”
As he spoke, he observed each person carefully.
Sure enough, a few of them showed subtle, uneasy expressions.
The silence in the air was heavy. The ticking of the classroom clock echoed like it was pressing on everyone’s nerves.
Lin Yang opened his mouth as if to speak, but in the end, said nothing.
Maybe it was because she had just been frightened out of her wits by that little girl in red and was afraid she might come back— the woman standing at the front couldn’t take it anymore. Under the clear gaze of Lu Congxing, she finally spoke up: “I… I once hired a shaman woman from the village. She said she could let me see my dead son one more time…”
Her eyes filled with fear. “She performed a ritual, but it didn’t work. After that, I started having nightmares.”
She still looked terrified, and had expected others to mock her foolishness. But instead, her words only made the atmosphere even stranger.
Once someone took the lead, the rest followed naturally.
Deng Zhi licked his sharp upper teeth, clearly irritated. “Do you guys know the Four Corners Game?”
Some nodded, others looked confused. Pang Ziwen eagerly raised his hand and said, “I do! It’s like that Pen Fairy game—meant to summon ghosts.”
“At midnight, four people stand in the four corners of an empty room. Then the lights are turned off. The first person walks from their corner along the wall to the next one. They’re not allowed to turn around or look around. When they reach the second person, they tap them on the shoulder, and that person starts walking, doing the same thing. Everyone moves in the same direction.”
Those who hadn’t heard of the game before were now paying close attention. Pang Ziwen lowered his voice and continued, “Eventually, one person ends up walking while the rest are in the corners. That leaves one corner empty. When someone reaches the empty corner, they have to cough once. If the summoning succeeds… then there will be one more person in the room.”
The creepy vibe of the classroom, combined with his deliberately eerie tone, made the game sound far more unsettling than it should have.
Lu Congxing looked straight at Deng Zhi, an uneasy suspicion forming in his mind. “Something went wrong with your game, didn’t it?”
He honestly never understood why humans were so obsessed with playing creepy games like this. With a normal human’s spiritual energy, summoning ghosts or gods is almost always doomed to fail—but still, every year, a few rare incidents do happen. The odds are even lower than winning the lottery, but not zero.
Deng Zhi looked like the stereotypical rebellious school bully from a teen drama. His trendy jacket had been discarded during their earlier panicked escape, soaked with sweat. Now, dressed in a clean button-up shirt, he seemed much less aggressive than when he’d first started arguing.
Lu Congxing’s direct gaze made him feel oddly self-conscious. Frowning, Deng Zhi bared his shark-like sharp teeth and muttered, “It wasn’t my idea—they insisted on playing. I’m not that childish.”
Right now, he just wanted to go back in time and punch the friend who suggested the game.
His answer didn’t really make sense, and the way he dodged the question forced Lu Congxing to ask again.
“Did something go wrong with your Four Corners Game?”
This time, Deng Zhi’s expression turned thoughtful. He gave a small nod.
That night, there really was one extra person and no coughing ever came.
No one knew how many rounds they’d walked, but the person who had first suggested the game finally couldn’t stand the creeping dread anymore. He stepped away from his corner and abruptly turned on the light.
In the sudden brightness, it looked like a dark shadow scattered. But once their eyes adjusted, they saw—there were only four of them left in the room, just standing there, staring at each other in silence.
He was a staunch materialist, so he naturally chalked up that shadowy figure to a trick of the eyes.
As for why there were no coughing sounds during the later rounds of the game, he had assumed back then that one of the three friends had done it on purpose to scare the rest. It was a game that was easy to cheat at anyway—someone could simply stop coughing or backtrack to an empty spot to create the illusion of a “fifth person.”
No one admitted to cheating, and the four of them ended up parting on bad terms.
But now, his twenty-plus years of unwavering materialism had crumbled, and that game’s ending had suddenly taken on a more unsettling meaning.
Lu Congxing let out a thoughtful “hmm,” but didn’t comment on the game. Instead, he looked toward the others. “Has anyone else done anything related to the supernatural before the nightmare started? Games, rituals, ceremonies—anything like that could serve as a medium.”
Deng Zhi, annoyed that the “little lamb” was ignoring him, acted out like a petty little boy trying to get attention. He purposely stood next to the man in the suit and gave him a shove. “Yeah, you. Why don’t you tell us what you did?”
Despite his own rebellious and abrasive personality, he had nothing but contempt for the suit guy—especially after everyone saw him take advantage of the chaos to steal Xue Shuangshuang’s report card.
His scummy behavior meant that although he looked half-dead and had to be helped in, not a single person cared enough to ask what had happened to him.
If anything, they all just wanted to stay far away—who knows who he’d drag down next?
The man in the suit nearly passed out from the kick. The only thing keeping him conscious was the talisman Lu Congxing had stuck on him—a clarity talisman. If he actually passed out, nobody would be kind enough to carry him around.
But talismans weren’t medicine. They couldn’t heal injuries this serious. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he said, “I-I really haven’t done anything related to ghosts or spirits.”
Deng Zhi clicked his tongue in disgust, looking at him like he was a pile of trash—non-recyclable, at that.
Lu Congxing didn’t press him. He just said calmly, “It’s normal to not remember. You might’ve unknowingly come into contact with something dirty.”
These things are tricky. Maybe you accidentally stepped on joss paper burned for the dead, or picked up some cursed little trinket without realizing it.
Wen Yi frowned, clearly troubled. “I haven’t come into contact with anything weird lately…”
Pang Ziwen shook his head too. “No idea why this is happening to me. I’ve been holed up at home the whole time—not like I’ve had the chance to mess with anything supernatural.”
Lu Congxing nodded, then turned his gaze to a man in the group who had remained silent the whole time.
Feeling the weight of that gaze, the man flinched. He stammered, “I-I recently came across a jade piece meant to be held in the mouth…”
Lu Congxing and Lin Yang both looked stunned.
Lin Yang raised his voice slightly. “A jade burial piece? Why would you get involved with something so sinister?”
This kind of jade is known as “burial jade.” It’s usually carved into the shape of a cicada and placed under the tongue of the deceased when they’re buried. The cicada symbolizes rebirth.
But because it’s been buried with corpses for years, it tends to absorb a lot of yin energy—and can bring misfortune to the living.
Lin Yang took a deep breath. “Where did you get that jade?”
The man mumbled, “A friend of mine who’s a tomb raider gave it to me…”
Lin Yang’s expression darkened. Exorcists like them had nothing but disdain for tomb raiders. He scoffed, “So it was stolen from someone’s grave. No wonder you’ve been cursed with bad luck.”
The man didn’t dare talk back and lowered his head.
Only Xue Shuangshuang was left. She stood at the farthest edge of the group, gripping the corner of her shirt as she spoke in a voice as soft as a mosquito’s: “I… I played the Pen Fairy not long ago…”
As soon as the words left her mouth, her eyes reddened. Deep down, she already had a bad feeling.
Still, she didn’t try to hide anything and continued, “I’m a senior in high school. The pressure is huge. One day, a friend asked if I wanted to relieve some stress and suggested we sneak back into the classroom at midnight to play Pen Fairy. I care too much about my grades… The teachers at our school always look down on students with poor performance, and no matter how hard I tried, my grades just kept slipping. I was scared—scared I’d become one of those students the teachers talk about behind their backs.”
If malevolent ghosts had tiers, things like the Pen Fairy or Sadako would definitely be in the legendary category.
It was a real headache for the entire exorcist community.
She stopped halfway through her sentence, clutching her head and crying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… I didn’t know things would get this serious.”
The others looked at her with complicated expressions. It was now painfully obvious whose obsession had created this illusionary realm.
The man in the suit couldn’t hold back his anger and snapped, “Everything that’s happened to me is your fault!”
Startled, Xue Shuangshuang recoiled in fear and nearly fell—only to have her wrist caught just in time.
Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked up at Lu Congxing, who had grabbed her.
There wasn’t a trace of anger or blame in his eyes—only calm.
Lu Congxing handed her a report card—the one that rightfully belonged to her. “Here. This is yours.”
It was like something inside her had been triggered. The sobs she had been suppressing in her throat finally burst out. A wave of long-held grievance washed over her. It was the culmination of years of pressure—anxiety, misunderstanding from parents and teachers, falling grades… all of it finally found an outlet in that moment.
She grabbed the report card and, as if trying to tear apart her former timid self, ripped it to shreds. The fragments flew through the air as she threw them high with all her strength.
A sound like shattering echoed through the air.
Lin Yang’s eyes lit up in surprise. “The illusionary realm is broken!”
As Xue Shuangshuang finally let go of her obsession, the source of the illusionary realm’s power disappeared too.
Everyone stood up with joy, watching the cracks that had appeared in the world rapidly spread until it completely shattered.
But their smiles hadn’t even had time to settle before they were replaced with confusion and dread.
Pang Ziwen was the first to shout, “W–Why can’t we leave yet?! Where are we now?!”
Beneath their feet was a completely unfamiliar environment. They had left the classroom behind, only to find themselves in a place thick with the stench of blood.
Even Lu Congxing was caught off guard this time. Sensing the denser, more oppressive yin energy in the air, he said slowly, “It’s realms within realms.”
The only problem was—how many layers deep did this illusionary realms go?
Everyone began to grow uneasy. The man in the suit was the first to shout, “What the hell? Didn’t we already break the realm? Why is there another one!?”
Deng Zhi didn’t like his aggressive tone. He raised his fist with a warning look. “What, you think there was only one problem?”
His words struck a chord with Lu Congxing, who now wore a complicated expression.
That’s right—if Xue Shuangshuang’s obsession was enough to form an illusionary realm, then it was only natural that others could too.
So in truth, Xue Shuangshuang wasn’t the source. She was just one piece of this layered construct of realms within realms.
The true origin of this illusionary realm lay elsewhere.
And the illusionary realm she had indirectly created was probably just an entry-level one. Just judging by the density of yin energy here—far heavier than what they’d felt back at the school—this place was on a whole different level of danger.
He didn’t say any of that out loud, but Lin Yang had already picked up on it. They exchanged a quick, subtle glance before Lin Yang clapped his hands and said cheerfully, “Alright, if we could break the last one, we can break this one too. Now’s not the time to start turning on each other.”
Deng Zhi let out a snort-laugh, his whole demeanor prickly like a cactus. “Someone like him isn’t even worth turning on.”
After saying that, he glanced over at the timid one but chose not to continue.
Lu Congxing felt a headache coming on. He hadn’t expected the situation to be this complicated—far beyond anything he’d planned for. The only small mercy was that within the illusionary realm, his spiritual energy wouldn’t go haywire and turn him into some random small animal.
Lost in thought, he accidentally took a step backward—
And immediately felt something sticky beneath his shoe.
He looked down to see bright crimson flesh and blood, and let out a disgusted “Ugh.”
Only then did he fully take in their surroundings. This place… was a giant factory.
No—calling it a factory wasn’t quite right. The blood-slicked conveyor belts and the knives hanging above them told a different story.
It was a slaughterhouse.
The floors and walls were splattered with dried and fresh blood. The stench of it crawled into their noses and clung to their tongues. In the earlier chaos, they’d been too distracted to notice—but now, with their emotions cooling, the horror of this place was unmistakable.
Everyone’s faces turned grim.
The knives around them were massive—clearly not meant for chickens or ducks. Some still had chunks of bloody flesh clinging to them. Just a glance was enough to make one’s skin crawl.
Standing on the blood-soaked ground, they looked up at those grotesque tools and, for a split second, felt as if they were the ones waiting to be slaughtered.
If the fear level of the school realm had been a five out of ten, then this blood-red hell was a full ten.
Author’s note:
President He will be making a personal appearance next chapter to catch Xing Cub.