Chapter 1

Shhhhh.

The rain was particularly heavy that night. The air was humid and stifling, thick moisture permeating the entire small room.

Yet the window had been pushed open. Along with the rain and wind, the window sash creaked back and forth. Large raindrops pelted inside, soaking the entire windowsill and the floor below. The rainwater converged into streams, twisting and flowing in winding paths.

A woman stood before the window, her hair jet-black, her lips crimson red. She gazed at the night obscured by the blurry rain curtain, silent as a doll. In the flickering light, she seemed utterly devoid of any trace of human vitality.

The woman slowly turned her head. A flash of lightning tore through the sky. The world before her eyes turned stark, blinding white. The extreme visual contrast made her seem like a Fierce Ghost.

Zhu Ming felt dazed. Her heart suddenly gave an icy, convulsive lurch.

She didn’t want to listen.

Yet she had to.

“Why don’t you just extract Zhu Ming’s soul?”

“Not yet. I want to modify the plan slightly.”

“Have you really fallen in love with her?”

A soft chuckle rang out. “Love? Would an existence like us fall in love with a human? That seems like a novel experience, but unfortunately, I haven’t felt it yet. What I feel for her isn’t really love… Hmm? She’s awake?”

The woman by the window sauntered over to the girl lying on the floor, half-fainted, half-awake. She bent her knees, crouching down. Her slender, slightly cool hand gently brushed the stray hair from the girl’s forehead. Zhu Ming narrowed her eyes with difficulty, looking up at the woman towering over her.

This was her beloved, the most beautiful being in her heart.

Yet now, with her eyelids aching, Zhu Ming saw something she shouldn’t have been able to see. In the center of her lover’s body, composed of countless overlapping phantoms, was…

BOOM—

A thunderclap split the air. The woman on the bed, her brows tightly furrowed, sat up abruptly. She grabbed her forehead, pressing and rubbing her temples forcefully.

Another dream. That nightmare again.

Zhu Ming pounded the bed in frustration. Looking up, she saw the window had been blown open by the wind at some point and was now swinging back and forth with a clattering sound. Rain was pouring into the room. Everything was so similar to the scene in her dream.

…This did nothing to improve Zhu Ming’s mood.

With a dark expression, she got out of bed, intending to properly close the window she’d forgotten about last night.

But something more outside the window instantly caught her attention, making her forget about closing it.

A figure, holding an umbrella and trembling violently, was lingering in front of the main gate downstairs. Suddenly, as if sensing something, the figure looked up sharply, revealing a pale, blurred face.

Zhu Ming and the figure stared at each other. The shadow let out a shriek and, to her surprise, turned to flee.

Zhu Ming lived in a small two-story house. She gripped the window frame, swung her long legs over, and prepared to jump down. The umbrella-clutching figure glanced back inadvertently, saw this, and was so startled she slipped on the waterlogged ground.

Just then, the tightly shut main door flew open with a whoosh. Another person charged out, grabbing the visitor and pulling her back inside before she could even get up.

Moments later, a bright, warm light illuminated the first-floor living room, revealing everyone present clearly.

Li Xiuya, who had just slipped and dropped her umbrella, was soaked from head to toe. The usually glamorous woman hadn’t been this disheveled in years, but right now she couldn’t spare a thought for her appearance.

The girl who had rushed out and pulled her in had a thick, glossy black braid hanging past her hips. She didn’t look Han Chinese; she possessed a certain simplicity and charm typical of ethnic minorities. When her light-colored, clear pupils looked at you, they calmed the most restless heart… This effect would be even more pronounced if you hadn’t just experienced her impossibly immense strength.

Li Xiuya gave her a polite smile, then turned to look at the woman opposite.

Just moments ago, this person had been leaning out the second-floor window. Amid the lightning and thunder, all Li Xiuya could see was a vague black silhouette. In the dead of night, a figure lurking by the window, staring at her… Li Xiuya, fresh from a bizarre encounter, couldn’t bear such a fright.

Fear had caused this awkward misunderstanding. But now, seeing clearly, she realized it wasn’t some Female Ghost, but a living, breathing human.

She had a completely different aura from the innocent-looking girl. Her messy, choppy hair reached her collarbone, with a few strands of red dyed on the left side. Her features were exquisite, her brows sharp and bright with a hint of heroic spirit, giving her an aggressive, intimidating look.

However, at this moment, she was smiling warmly, speaking polite words. The unconsciously exuded aura of ‘stranger danger’ was suppressed.

“Why did you run just now? It’s the middle of the night, but since you’re here, just tell us what’s going on.”

Zhu Ming greeted her enthusiastically, then called out, “A-Zou, get the Guest some hot water and a towel.”

She pointed to the girl with the ethnic minority look. “My name is Zhu Ming. She’s Yun Zouchuan, my employee. Since you found your way here so late at night, you must know what we do, right?”

Li Xiuya quickly nodded. “I know.”

No. 126 Peace Street, South District, Flower Capital. Little Fire God Strange News Studio. The location was rather remote and hard to find. If not for the utterly unacceptable events of tonight, Li Xiuya would never have driven here alone in the early hours.

Rumor had it they could solve strange occurrences that defied common sense—to put it bluntly, they caught Ghosts. Li Xiuya would never have believed such things before, but now she had no choice but to believe.

Soon, hot water and a towel arrived. Clutching the teacup, Li Xiuya began her story, trembling as she recalled.

“Something strange has been happening at my home. To be precise, about half an hour ago, my house was haunted!”

Li Xiuya suddenly became agitated, nearly spilling the tea. Seeing she was too frightened to even feel the heat, Zhu Ming reached over, took the cup, and set it down.

“Take it slow, don’t rush. We’re very experienced with this sort of thing. Whatever strange occurrence it is, we’ll help you resolve it.”

Seeing Zhu Ming’s unflustered demeanor and encouraging smile, Li Xiuya gradually calmed down. “Actually, strange things have been happening for days. But when I told the people around me, no one believed me. Until tonight. I really couldn’t take it anymore. I saw… I saw my husband, crawling on the floor like an insect!”

Li Xiuya covered her mouth. Overwhelming fear triggered a gag reflex. “I screamed his name, but he acted like he couldn’t hear me. The lights wouldn’t turn on, and my Mobile Phone had no signal. Everything was normal before bed. Oh, right… I woke up because I felt cold.”

Sleeping restlessly during the thunderstorm, and feeling a chill on her skin, Li Xiuya had groggily woken in the middle of the night to find the blanket pulled off her. Turning her head, she saw her husband at the bedroom doorway.

The man she saw every day, so utterly familiar, had suddenly become strange and terrifying. His upper body lay inside the door frame, facing her. The lower half of his body was hidden in the darkness beyond. His eyes were closed, his head slowly turning left and right.

Little by little, he arched his body, squirming, like a giant insect wearing human skin, crawling towards her just like that.

Li Xiuya watched, paralyzed with fear, until a clap of thunder jolted her. She scrambled out of bed, trying to escape this nightmare-like scene.

But it wasn’t a dream. In the end, she could only drive away from her once-warm home to seek help.

Li Xiuya anxiously wrung her fingers. “What should I do? How could this happen?”

A man crawling like an insect? Zhu Ming thought for a moment, then asked, “What other strange things happened before? When did it start?”

Li Xiuya swallowed hard. “Thinking back, the strange events probably started six days ago. That day, my husband returned from a business trip. We were intimate for once, a rare occurrence. But after falling asleep, I dreamed I was… being intimate with someone whose face I couldn’t see. I felt something was off. I got scared and woke up, only to find my husband… being intimate with me in reality. I was angry and pushed him away. But he just rolled over and fell straight to sleep, as if he knew nothing.”

After that, things got stranger. She frequently dreamed of intimacy with someone. In the dreams, the person became increasingly clear… and increasingly terrifying. It wasn’t a person; it was a Monster.

If it were just dreams, it would be manageable. But the strangeness gradually seeped into real life, forcing Li Xiuya to turn to her friends for help.

First, her husband became clingy and sleepwalking at night, with no memory of it in the morning. Then, his entire temperament and appearance began to change. Yesterday morning, while brushing her teeth, Li Xiuya glimpsed her husband standing behind her in the mirror.

The familiar man was staring at her with a cold, malevolent gaze. Looking through the mirror, his features appeared distorted, almost melting. Under the stark white bathroom light, the corners of the man’s mouth were pulled up grotesquely and exaggeratedly, like a smile, but not a smile.

Startled, Li Xiuya whirled around to look at him. Her husband yawned tiredly. Aside from looking haggard, he didn’t seem much different from before.

By this point, Li Xiuya still hadn’t quite believed she was seeing Ghosts. On one hand, she thought her friends might be right—she was just hallucinating from too much stress. On the other hand, she couldn’t help but doubt reality and started looking for solutions in the paranormal realm.

The Little Fire God Strange News Studio was an ad she’d found on an old local forum in the Flower Capital. The account level was very low. Most replies were mocking, ridiculing them for still pulling this stuff after all these years. The only supportive account had replied to several people, claiming their problem was truly solved. But they were either accused of being a hired shill or suspected of being a fool who’d been scammed.

Li Xiuya read that account’s comments repeatedly. In their rebuttals, she detected a firm sense of authenticity and trust.

So tonight, when her husband underwent a terrifying transformation, the distraught Li Xiuya drove straight over.