Invasion of reality (4)
Chen Li’s rational mind screamed that he couldn’t let them keep playing—but ever since the little girl had entered the room, he’d been frozen in place. Even his soul form was somehow restrained.
He could only watch helplessly as the girl sat on the floor surrounded by dolls, holding the baby in her arms. She reached out and grabbed a toy carrot.
“Why won’t you listen?”
A rough male voice suddenly rang out in the room. It was identical to the man’s voice from the earlier argument outside. Startled, Chen Li looked around in alarm, but couldn’t see who had spoken.
Then another voice rang out—and this time, Chen Li’s gaze snapped to the source in shock.
The little girl’s lips were moving, but what came out wasn’t her childish voice—it was a woman’s sharp, accusing tone:
“Why are you bullying your little sister?!”
“Children who misbehave don’t get to eat!”
“You’re too selfish!”
She muttered to herself, but every word was an adult’s scolding voice, overlapping in a terrifying loop. The voices circled around her like a curse. Her eyes gradually went blank, hollow.
With each word, she forcefully shoved the carrot toward the baby’s mouth, playing “house”—pretending to feed her.
But the movements grew rougher and more violent. The baby’s face began to twist into something unnatural—first turning a deep, poison-like purple, then warping grotesquely. Its mouth remained wide open and bright red.
Then, to Chen Li’s horror, the toy carrot suddenly turned into a gleaming, ice-cold knife.
In that moment—seeing what the sister was doing to her “baby sister”—Chen Li finally regained the ability to move and speak.
He screamed: “Stop it!”
The baby’s head snapped around to face him.
Its grotesquely deformed face split into a bizarre grin. Then, with a mechanical hehehe, it spoke in a flat voice: “Mommy, Daddy, I love you.”
It was no baby at all. It was a silicone doll, its face still twisted into that unnatural shade of purple.
Clutching his chest in shock, Chen Li finally understood why it hadn’t bled when stabbed—only its face had changed.
It wasn’t real. Just a fake baby.
But before he could fully process the absurdity, the baby’s face suddenly zoomed toward him, enlarging several times until it was right in front of his eyes—nearly nose-to-nose.
“Mommy, Daddy, I love you.” The doll whispered, red mouth wide open.
Just like a startled cat reacting instinctively, Chen Li didn’t scream or run. His first reflex was to slap it hard. The doll flew across the room, landing on the floor with a lifeless thud.
Even the little girl seemed stunned. She stared blankly at him, along with the rest of the dolls.
What should have been a terrifying scene now felt strangely frozen, almost absurd.
Amid the thick silence, Chen Li blinked wide-eyed and asked carefully: “Did I break it?”
“Huh?” The girl looked at him, then at the “sister” on the floor—and suddenly burst out laughing.
“Hahahahaha!”
Not even the sound of the door opening or the man and woman walking in disturbed her laughter. She just kept laughing until the man grabbed her and slapped her hard across the face.
The laughter stopped abruptly.
The girl’s eyes went dull and lifeless the moment she saw the two adults.
The woman let out a pained cry: “How could you treat your own sister like that?!”
Her already sharp features twisted into something cruel and venomous: “You killed your sister! You’re a hopeless, wicked child!”
The girl, who had just looked so calm in front of Chen Li, now turned red-eyed under her parents’ scolding. Like a cornered animal, she let out a ragged scream: “No! That’s not my sister!”
“Shut up!” The man roared like a furious bull, nostrils flaring. Breathing heavily, he grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into the bedpost.
“Aah!” she cried out in pain, tears and blood streaming down her face. Struggling against him, she shouted, “My sister died half a year ago! That thing’s just a toy! It’s fake!”
She didn’t understand why the parents who used to love her had become so terrifying. All she wanted was to finally release the pain, neglect, and fear she had endured over the past six months.
“She’s dead! Why are you pretending she’s still alive?! I don’t have—mmph!”
She hadn’t finished speaking when the woman—her mother—covered her mouth. The woman’s gaze was cold as she looked at her and said: “You’re sick. Just get some sleep and you’ll be fine.”
Blood matted the girl’s hair to her forehead. The cold indifference on her mother’s face made her shiver. Finally, fear overtook her. She began trembling, even begging—but it was no use.
Her parents dragged her by the hair to the bathroom sink.
The faucet was turned on. Water quickly filled the basin.
Chen Li was once again paralyzed, his hands and feet ice-cold as he could only watch helplessly while the atrocity unfolded before his eyes.
In that moment, he suddenly understood—this wasn’t a dream, but a place akin to the girl’s memory. That’s why he couldn’t change or stop anything from happening.
“Mommy, Daddy, I love you. Mommy, Daddy, I love you. Mommy, Daddy, I lo—”
The doll that had fallen to the floor kept repeating the same phrase due to a faulty connection. Its head was turned precisely toward the bathroom, its plastic eyes reflecting the entire scene.
“Good girl, be a good girl,” the woman’s voice suddenly turned gentle, but her hands were brutally cruel. “Just go to sleep, and everything will be normal again. You’ll be the daughter Mommy and Daddy love the most.”
The man’s words were even colder: “You brought this on yourself for bullying your sister. You need to be taught a lesson. We’ve spoiled you too much.”
Water was forced into the girl’s mouth, nose, and ears. At first, she kicked and struggled, but gradually her resistance weakened until, in the final moment, her delicate hands stopped moving and fell limply over the edge of the sink.
The entire scene was reflected in the mirror, and through that reflection, Chen Li clearly saw the expressions on their faces.
It was also the moment the girl lost all signs of life that the world around him began to shatter. The ground beneath his feet split apart, and he plummeted straight down. The intense sensation of weightlessness caused his body to jerk—and he woke up in bed.
But the moment he woke, he felt an icy chill creeping up from his ankle, as if it were seeping into his bones.
[Host! Host! There’s a ghost! Ahhhh! It’s grabbing your foot!!!]
Chen Li tried to pull his foot back, but he couldn’t move.
Not only had he encountered the mirror ghost again—he was also experiencing sleep paralysis.
This time, he could hear System 001’s voice, but he couldn’t respond.
No matter how hard he tried—even with all his strength—he couldn’t move a single finger.
With great effort, he cracked his eyes open just a sliver and saw a vague, misty figure in the shape of a girl rise from the end of the bed and step directly onto his chest.
“Big brother, come play house with me, okay?”
His consciousness began to fade. Chen Li couldn’t move or speak—he could only struggle to keep his eyes open, desperately trying not to be dragged back into that “memory.” His instincts told him that if he fell into it again, he might never wake up.
But it was hard for a human’s will to fight against a ghost’s power. His resistance only bought him a few more seconds, and just before he fully lost consciousness, a furious shout rang out.
“Don’t bully my host!!!”
A glowing ball shot forward like a cannonball, slamming into the mirror ghost’s waist and sending her flying two meters before crashing off the bed.
Only then did Chen Li realize that the voice hadn’t come from inside his head—but from beside him.
The moment the mirror ghost left the bed, Chen Li snapped out of the trance of sleep paralysis. At that moment, he couldn’t even worry about being scared: “001, you have a physical body now!?”
“Eh? Oh wow, I do!” System 001 spun in circles, delighted.
The mirror ghost, now ignored, glared with furious eyes: “I’m going to eat you, you rotten brat!”
System 001 dodged nimbly, shouting “Ahhh!” as it psyched itself up—and charged again.
Not only did it have a physical form in the real world, but since it had been created by the Ghost King, it existed outside the Three Realms and could touch ghosts directly.
And so, against all odds, it actually started brawling with the mirror ghost.
But one was a ghost, and the other was just a puffy little spirit ball—with no real combat ability. It didn’t take long for System 001 to fall into a disadvantage.
While it was struggling, Chen Li didn’t just stand there blankly—he reacted instantly. He jumped up, grabbed a random vase, and rushed into the bathroom. There was a cracking sound, followed by the shattering of both the vase and the mirror.
The mirror split into countless cracks, reflecting the figure in a fragmented, shattered way.
Without hesitation, Chen Li grabbed a large bottle of body wash and smashed it against the mirror, breaking it even more thoroughly.
As soon as the mirror broke, the mirror ghost’s form immediately became blurry and illusory, until it completely disappeared. But before Chen Li could even exhale in relief, faint noises came from the bathroom in the living room.
Gritting his teeth, Chen Li grabbed a wooden rack from the living room. By the time he reached the bathroom, the mirror had already begun to reform, shrouded in a layer of mist. Without a second thought, he slammed the rack against the mirror again.
The bathroom mirror in the living room shattered completely.
Finally, the entire house fell silent.
Without an intact mirror to serve as a medium, the vengeful ghost could no longer enter the house without the owner’s invitation, and was forced to wander in frustration.
Chen Li, panting heavily, put down the wooden rack. Floating beside him, System 001 chirped curiously: “Host, how did you know the key was the mirrors?”
He recounted everything he had seen before falling asleep to the system. After listening, System 001 pondered for two minutes, then suddenly brightened up and said: “I found a related case!”
It circled around Chen Li proudly and explained: “This was a news story from five years ago. A couple had two daughters, but after the younger daughter passed away, the grief-stricken parents fell into deep guilt and hallucinated, mistaking a cloth doll for their deceased daughter. Their elder daughter, only nine years old, couldn’t bear their behavior and destroyed the doll, which led to her being brutally murdered by her parents.”
System 001 clicked its tongue: “After killing their elder daughter, the couple calmly kept the body together with the doll, until relatives who came to visit ten days later discovered the corpse’s foul smell. The couple is now undergoing treatment at a psychiatric hospital downtown.”
After reciting the news, System 001 added: “You humans are truly complicated.”
Chen Li said nothing and sat down on the sofa. The sunrise streamed in, casting light across the cushions.
He gently stroked Pipi, who was sleeping soundly, and the Ghost Bus nestled beside Pipi. His eyes gradually hardened with resolve: “Let’s go. We’re going to find Fu Moyang now.”
Watching his host’s growth, System 001 let out a soft, fatherly sigh.
Ah, my child has truly grown up.
Author’s note:
001, if you keep taking advantage like this, someone’s definitely going to smack you!