Invasion of reality (2)
System 001 spoke up shakily: [Could it be that you remembered wrong? We already passed the sixth floor.]
Chen Li stared at the glowing red number 7, his delicate Adam’s apple bobbing slightly as he replied: [Hmm, then I’ll go back down and take a look.]
This time, he didn’t let himself get distracted looking for Pipi. He stepped down steadily, one foot after the other, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the stairwell.
“The… sixth floor?” Chen Li suddenly stopped in his tracks, his scalp tingling as he stared at the number 5.
It was a stairwell he knew like the back of his hand, yet right now it felt eerily unfamiliar—ominous and terrifying.
[Aaaaaaahhhhhh—!]
Chen Li froze for a second before realizing the scream was coming from System 001, shrieking directly inside his mind.
[System, what’s wrong with you?] he asked, instinctively covering his ears, though it did no good.
The sound was coming from within his brain, loud and jarring—like something straight out of a horror film.
System 001 screamed: [It’s a ghost hitting the wall!]
Chen Li: [Weren’t you the one who said you’re not scared of this kind of thing?]
System 001 faltered, suddenly hesitant: [That was when we were inside the game. From my perspective, it all just felt like playing.]
But now they were encountering something supernatural in the real world—and that changed everything.
[…]
As they talked, Chen Li kept running downward. He should’ve reached the fourth floor by now, but no matter how far he went, he was still stuck on the fifth floor—running in circles, going nowhere.
Panting slightly, he leaned against the stair railing. Just then, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps from above.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Heels. The sound of high heels clicking against the floor.
Startled, Chen Li looked up and, through the gaps in the railing, he saw a pair of black high heels. Above them was a short black skirt ending just at the knees.
Worried he might see something he didn’t want to, Chen Li quickly looked away.
Xiao Qian leaned forward slightly, a few strands of her wavy shoulder-length hair falling to obscure her face: “Mr. Chen?”
Hearing her voice, Chen Li quickly responded: “It’s me.”
Xiao Qian looked anxious: “You’re stuck in the ghost hitting a wall too?”
“Yeah,” Chen Li nodded, rubbing his arms.
He looked back up at Xiao Qian.
She said: “I heard that to break out of a ghost hitting a wall, you have to jump out of the cycle. Try opening that door.”
Chen Li turned to look at the door to his right. This was the fifth floor—his floor. Behind that door was his apartment.
As if drawn by some invisible force, he placed his hand on the door, about to push it open—when a sudden jolt of unease flashed through his mind.
Just moments ago, Xiao Qian had clearly been heading downstairs—so why was she now above him?
A chill slowly crept up from the soles of Chen Li’s feet. He froze in place, too afraid to move.
Xiao Qian’s puzzled voice came from above. She was staring at him intently through the gap in the stair railing: “Why aren’t you opening the door?”
For no logical reason, Chen Li had a gut feeling that opening that door would lead to a bottomless abyss—that he would be smashed to pieces.
Whether it was instinct or intuition, he let go of the doorknob.
The once-normal-looking door revealed its true form: a charred, pitch-black wooden door. No matter how he looked at it, this was not the door to his apartment.
Seeing him let go, Xiao Qian’s voice turned frantic and angry: “What are you doing?!”
She suddenly reached out, trying to grab him. Her once-delicate face twisted into a terrifying expression, as if she were about to devour him.
He must not let her grab him—
That thought surged violently through his mind. Chen Li turned and bolted a few steps. But she moved even faster—her long, sharp fingernails were almost at his back.
From who-knows-where, a burst of courage welled up inside him. Chen Li pushed off with both hands, vaulted over the stair railing, and leapt straight down the central stairwell.
But the pain he was expecting never came. He hadn’t actually fallen all the way from the fifth floor—his feet landed firmly on solid ground.
He stumbled a bit, then looked up and saw a number—6.
He had escaped that ghost hitting a wall nightmare!
As he was finally recovering from the shock, System 001 stammered in his head: [A-Are you crazy!? If that had been the fifth floor, even if you didn’t break any bones, you’d be limping for weeks!]
Clearly, spending too much time around Fu Moyang had rubbed off on him. This system used to have such a sweet and gentle host—now it was picking up his madness.
Chen Li wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and smiled slightly at the voice: [Don’t worry, I’m fine.]
His heart was still pounding violently.
System 001 huffed proudly: [It’s not like I was worried about you or anything.]
Chen Li continued down the stairs. This time, he easily made it to the ground floor, where he saw Xiao Qian calling out for Pipi in a worried voice.
When she saw him, she ran over without hesitation: “So Pipi wasn’t upstairs either, huh?”
She looked completely normal—aside from her slightly smudged makeup.
System 001 whispered in his mind: [That probably wasn’t the real her just now.]
Even though he had just gone through all that, Chen Li still felt his skin crawl as she approached.
Xiao Qian muttered sadly: “Pipi must be so scared…”
Chen Li forced himself to offer a few comforting words. Then, almost casually, he asked: “You… didn’t go upstairs just now, right?”
What he really wanted to ask was whether she had experienced anything strange—but he didn’t want to alarm her.
After all, encountering supernatural stuff in the real world was downright terrifying.
Until he figured out whether he was the problem, or if the real world had gone wrong, he had no intention of letting it show.
Xiao Qian looked genuinely confused and shook her head: “Nope.”
Chen Li gave a strained smile: “It’s fine. Let’s keep looking.”
After what had just happened, he really couldn’t bring himself to let Xiao Qian—just a girl—search for the dog alone at night.
She nodded, then glanced at his face: “You sure you’re okay? You look super pale.”
His face really was handsome. No girl could ignore that.
“I’m fine.” Chen Li took the lead and started calling out, “Pipi! Pipi!”
System 001: [What kind of dog is it, anyway?]
Chen Li: [A slightly chubby corgi. Short legs, but really well-behaved.]
System 001 had gone off to look up pictures of corgis. When it came back, its tone was a little sour: [What’s so great about dogs anyway? Just a bunch of fur. Round shapes are obviously the ideal companions for humans.]
Chen Li chuckled: [Mhm, a round and chubby system is very cute.]
As if he had read System 001’s mind, he added seriously: [001, even if I never have to play another Horror Game again, I still think of you as my best companion.]
With a whoosh, System 001 turned red and started mumbling, too flustered to say anything.
While they were chatting in their shared mindspace, they had already walked through half the neighborhood garden. Not only was there no sign of the dog—there wasn’t even a stray cat in sight.
Normally at this hour, quite a few residents would be out for an evening walk, but tonight, no one had come out.
Only a few people passing by from work hurried along without stopping.
Chen Li hesitated and stopped walking: “Has anything strange happened around here lately?”
“Huh?”
The moment Xiao Qian spoke, Chen Li immediately realized something was wrong.
Too close. Her voice was way too close.
It was practically spoken right against his back.
He took two casual steps forward, trying not to show any reaction. Xiao Qian reached out toward him: “You…”
“Hey, aren’t you Chen Li?”
A voice suddenly called out from behind, interrupting her.
The speaker was someone Chen Li didn’t recognize—a man in his thirties, approaching quickly. Strangely, Chen Li felt relieved.
“You are?”
The man sped up and stopped in front of him: “My girlfriend watched your competition livestream a while back! Said you won the youth division at Golden Butterfly, right?”
He usually didn’t follow that kind of thing, but Chen Li had been trending online several times back then—and with looks like his, he was hard to forget.
This was the first time someone had recognized him as a champion. Chen Li looked a little shy: “Yeah.”
The stranger was naturally friendly and didn’t seem to mind Chen Li’s introverted demeanor. He greeted him cheerfully: “Things have been weird around here at night lately. What’re you doing out this late?”
Chen Li froze for a second: “Weird?”
The man scratched his head awkwardly: “Oh, I guess you’re one of the skeptical ones, huh?”
“What?” Chen Li looked genuinely confused.
With his delicate, dazed expression, he looked like a lost little animal. Anyone would soften at the sight.
The man was surprised: “You haven’t heard? It’s been all over the internet.”
Chen Li shook his head and gave the most believable excuse he could think of:
“I’ve been painting the past two days. Haven’t checked my phone.”
Hearing that, System 001 finally realized something wasn’t right. It immediately connected to the internet through its own consciousness.
The man believed him without hesitation—after all, a champion’s word was as good as truth.
He said: “Just two days ago, tons of people online started saying they’d seen ghosts. Some even talked about stuff like Horror Game and instances or dungeons. At first, I didn’t believe any of it either. But then, this afternoon, the authorities suddenly issued a statement advising everyone to stay home at night and avoid going out alone. That’s when I figured… something serious must be going on.”
System 001 returned, clearly shaken after finishing its online search: [Host, everything he said is true—and the situation is way more complicated than we thought.]
It was frustrated with its own carelessness—how could it have taken several hours after returning to the real world to notice any of this?
Noticing Chen Li’s uneasy expression, the man assumed he’d scared him and quickly added: “But don’t worry too much! Even if ghosts are real, they don’t bother normal people—as long as you don’t do anything reckless. I’m just a corporate slave, so I still have to go out. That’s why I watched a crash course today. Some guy claiming to be a ‘player’ livestreamed it—said if you don’t go looking for trouble, you’re fine.”
“Looking for trouble” included things like playing horror games or wandering around alone in the dead of night.
Right now, even though it was nighttime, it was only 8 PM.
In a bustling city, 8 PM was still prime time—plenty of people were still out and about, so the “yang energy” of the night was relatively strong. Under these conditions, being outside wasn’t dangerous.
Still, after saying all that, the man couldn’t help but feel a chill in the air. Goosebumps rose on his arms. He quickly asked Chen Li for a selfie and waved goodbye, hurrying off.
Horror games. Instances. Players…
Words like these had always been restricted by the game rules—never allowed to be mentioned in the open. This was the first time Chen Li had heard someone say them in real life.
That sudden split between realities almost made him wonder if he was still trapped in the game.
[001, just now he said normal people won’t encounter ghosts unless they go looking for trouble, right?]
Chen Li’s voice tightened. A creeping sense of unease began to rise in his chest.
But before the system could respond, Chen Li continued: [Then… what about people like me, who naturally attract ghosts?]
As if on cue, footsteps—clack, clack—echoed behind him.
The doubts he’d tried to ignore finally came to the surface. The woman’s flawless makeup, her elegant dress and high heels—none of it matched the story she’d told earlier, about searching for a lost dog all night and all day.
Even the slightly smudged eyeliner had been caused by those tears she’d shed—on purpose—outside his door just now.
It was like a perfectly staged performance… ruined by a costume that didn’t fit the role.
System 001 shouted in alarm: [RUN!!]
There was no need to ask questions. With that one cry, Chen Li took off without hesitation.
Behind him, the sound of high heels followed fast and sharp. Xiao Qian twisted her head unnaturally as she ran, chin to the sky and scalp facing down, grinning as she called out: “Why didn’t you open the door?”