CH 1

【 My dear,

You are the moonlight beneath the abyss, the dark cloud kissed away by Death.

……

I am the Abyss, I am Death. 】

·

·

At half past three in the morning, Ye Zun was suffering from insomnia as usual. After tossing around in bed, unable to fall asleep, he felt for the phone beside his pillow out of habit.

【 Refreshing horror, be careful ! Careful ! ! Careful ! ! ! 】

With this kind of title, it made people want to click on it even more.

The situation of servers crashing didn’t get any better even at night and his finger tapped on the post for a long time before the page refreshed.

【 This landlord just experienced a supernatural event. Even now, the fingers typing this post are still trembling. If you are a stray passer-by who came in here, let me remind you, it’s not too late to leave now. 】

[T/N: 楼主/landlord: original poster. Will be using ‘I’ from here on out. Replies are different ‘floors’]

No one responded.

In the dark rental home, a finger slid across the screen.

【 I couldn’t fall asleep at midnight. The co-renting Xiao-jiemei* worked customer service and had not returned from the night shift, so I thought about going downstairs to buy a midnight snack and wait for her to come back along the way. The new community where I just moved into has pretty good security, so I wore my home clothes and went out with my phone and keys.

Now that I think about it, from that point on, I was already flustered for some unknown reason. But at that time, I didn’t know why. 】

[T/N: 小姐妹: can mean an older sister or younger sister (not related), xiao/little is just an endearment]

[T/N: the ‘community’ in this setting is a few low-rise apartments closely built together, with maybe a small field that the buildings surround]

3rd floor: Trembling, crouching*.

[T/N: camping out to wait for more]

4th floor: Scared but still want to read it, tightly wrapping myself in my little quilt.

【 The community my rental place is at is close to the streets outside. It’s a very active but old neighbourhood. However, the location of my house happens to be facing the streets. It’s fine during the day, but once it hits 9 at night, there’s no one on the streets when I look out the window.

Because it is an old community with few floors, there are no elevators installed, and the sensor lights between some floors are still broken. I felt a little regretful halfway down the stairs, but when I thought about going back up, I felt even more unwilling, so I continued walking down.

Just wanted to mention, me and my xiao-jiemei’s rental room is on the sixth floor, and the floor with the broken sensor light is on the third floor. However, there is no fourth floor in this community*; the floor above the third one is the fifth. 】

[T/N: ‘four’ in chinese is a homonym for death (both pronounced ‘shi’) so it is strongly avoided, especially in old apartments that were built by more superstitious people in the old days. 4 is considered unlucky in many east asian cultures (china, korea, taiwan, japan to name some)]

There were finally a few replies from passers-by in the post, ones who urged the landlord to update quickly, ones who said they were already too afraid to continue reading, and ones who comforted the landlord that it was normal not having a fourth floor, that it was a similar situation on their end too.

Ye Zun glanced over the comments, finger sliding up the screen to continue reading.

【 The first time I considered that something supernatural was going on was when I was going down the stairs.

Because the sensor light on the third floor are broken, I get nervous every time I walk down to the third floor and will consciously count every floor I pass afterwards, because when you reach the first floor, there is a dark corner near the iron gate at the exit of the unit building.

However, when I walked down three floors this time, this dark corner did not appear. In front of my eyes, another staircase heading downstairs appeared in front me.

At that time, I froze. 】

There were various comments expressing their fear and amazement, as well as the passers-by who suspected that the landlord must’ve remembered it wrong.

Ye Zun continued to read.

【 I felt a chill in my heart at that the time, but thinking that I must have counted wrong, I went down another floor.

I should point out, this community is rather inhuman. Except for the third and fifth floors, the other floors are not marked by their numbers and all the walls are blank white. After I bit the bullet and went down another floor, the first floor’s dark corner still hadn’t appeared, and there was another downstairs staircase. If I did not count wrong, the stairs would’ve been heading down to a negative second floor.

A few days after I moved in, I vaguely recall hearing that the community had an underground garage, but I’m not too sure whether the passage to the underground garage is connected to the stairs.

At this time, I didn’t dare to think about anything. Because there was a sensor light, I only hesitated a little before walking down another floor. This time, I finally saw the familiar dark corner on the first floor.

In other words, going by my senses while walking from the third floor to the first floor, this landlord walked down five floors! 】

Reading up to here, Ye Zun pondered for a while.

There was no fourth floor in that community. Above the third floor was the fifth floor. To call it a six-floor apartment complex, the truth was, there were only five floors.

In other words, the landlord had to treat the floor she came from as the third floor in order for her to go down five flights of stairs in total.

Counting the wrong floor was normal, but counting two floors wrong consecutively…no wonder it was labelled as horror.

But what if she was in such a daze that she counted the wrong number twice? For example, if you were in a hurry to go downstairs, you might subconsciously add one floor to your mental count while you are only halfway down the stairs, and then you accidentally count it again when you arrive on the actual floor?

Curious about the real reason, Ye Zun continued to scroll down, ignoring the analysing replies from other passers-by.

【 Although it was a bit scary to have counted the floors wrong, but because nothing actually happened, I tried to ignore it, thinking that it was because of my carelessness. Since the passage from the corner of the first floor to the exit of the unit door was very dark, I hurried forward. Only when I opened the iron gates of the unit building and stepped outside did I breathe a sigh of relief.

The greenery of this old community was very good, that is, there were many outdoor lights, but the view is still very dark. I once again regretted the impulse to come downstairs, but I thought that it’ll be fine once I head out. The street outside the community is very busy and the supermarket is open for 24 hours. I planned to give a call to my xiao-jiemei on the night shift once I reached there.

At that moment, I didn’t know why, but my heart was constantly and inexplicably restless, so I subconsciously made a movement.

I lifted my head up in the direction of my rental house and glanced at the window.

Because in my subconscious, I was still thinking about the two sets of stairs I walked down, and I wanted to confirm just how many floors this building had.

But this one glance showed me something that makes me feel cold all over even when I think about it now. 】 

There was a long line of horrified comments from the passers-by.

Ye Zun held his breath slightly and pulled his blanket up, then continued to read the follow-up of the post under the light of the phone.

It wasn’t until more than 20 meaningless responses from other readers that the landlord’s continuation appeared again.

【 Sorry, this landlord was just writing a long paragraph when I was suddenly frightened and my trembling made me accidentally press the exit button. This is all re-typed by this landlord.

When I raised my head and looked up, there was actually nothing wrong at first glance. There were basically no lights on from other units after three in the morning, so every room was dark except for the lights through the windows of this landlord’s place.

Yes, this landlord consciously left the lights on when she went out, because I am afraid I would be greeted with a cloud of darkness whenever I return and open the door, so whenever I go out, I would rather waste electricity and leave the lights on.

Since there is no fourth floor, looking in from the outside, the actual location of this landlord’s window should be on the fifth floor.

However, when I counted down one by one, I saw five windows under the lit up windows from my place!

In other words, there was an extra floor beneath the top floor. The fourth floor that did not exist had appeared! 】

This continuation from the original poster managed to dig up all the readers who previously lurked without commenting, all of them analysing with careful consideration.

Ye Zun blinked and gulped slightly, then shrank farther into his blanket. With only a pair of eyes exposed, he laid on his side while tightly wrapped in the blanket, letting the phone rest against the pillow to relieve his sore arms.

And then, he continued to scroll down.

This time, the sliding motion of his finger was a little slow, and he glanced at the other replies in the post.

One of them wrote, “Is it convenient for the landlord to disclose in which city? If it is V City then it isn’t difficult to understand, because the old communities in V City generally don’t have a fourth floor, but there will be an extra floor between the first floor and the exit. Some of these extra floors have viewing windows, some basements have skylights. From the outside, if you don’t look carefully it appears like an extra layer of windows.”

“This is probably the real situation behind counting the wrong floors.”

“Line up*.”

[T/N: may be referring to people who agree, they will line up with “+1” etc. after the explanation]

“+1.”

This person’s explanation greatly eased the horror atmosphere in the post. Many people brought this floor down* and reminded the host to take a look at this explanation.

[T/N: reposting (?) so it can pop up in the latest comments. Remember, a floor is a new comment]

After more than a dozen floors, the landlord reappeared.

【 The internet connection is very bad and this landlord is very scared. I’m afraid that once it breaks, I will not have the courage to finish writing.

Actually, this landlord didn’t just see the extra set of windows, the window on the fourth floor also had light coming through. My curtains are an earthy yellow and I have ordinary warm lighting, but the window on the fourth floor was red. Yes, like the chilling penetrative red in a ghost film. Moreover, the most important thing was that there was a tall and thin figure behind the red curtain. It stood by the window, looking at me.

Realising what I just saw, I was stunned for a moment, and my whole body turned cold as if I had fallen into an ice cellar. I couldn’t react at all, I just felt terrified. My mind was full of that thing looking straight at me. It found me.

I was so frightened that tears came out. My legs and feet were shaking, but I did not dare to run.

I didn’t know why, even though I was so scared I did not dare to run. Back in my mind, I felt that if I ran, something terrible would happen.

But any normal person knows that when you are in danger, you should run away. I tried to keep myself sane and gathered the courage to run to the community’s gates where people were, but then my phone suddenly rang.

I was startled at first, but immediately realised that the call was from my co-renting xiao-jiemei.

In a terrifying situation, receiving a call from an acquaintance really feels like you’ve been saved. The chill on my body all dissipated, and I even suddenly thought that the person behind the window was just a weird person, that it was my brain overreacting.

Thinking this, I didn’t delay answering the call from the xiao-jiemei.

“Where are you? When are you coming back? I came out to pick you up,” I said, light-hearted and as if nothing had happened. 

The little sister on the other end of the phone did not immediately reply to me.

“Wei, talk ah, where are you?” I could hear my own voice trembling. The other end of the phone was very quiet, with a slight undecipherable noise.

[T/N: 喂/wei: greeting when you pick up the phone]

At that time, I inexplicably became nervous, but then the xiao-jiemei’s voice immediately came through. Because she was tired from working overtime, her voice sounded weak. “Did you go downstairs ah? I’ve already returned. I didn’t bring my keys, but you’re not opening the door even though I’ve knocked so many times.” 

I was surprised at first, and then confused. “You already came back? When?”

“Just now. I just came upstairs. Didn’t I say I couldn’t find the key to open the door?”

I was perplexed. “But, I also just went downstairs. I’m at the bottom, but I didn’t see you ah.” 

The little sister’s voice was normal, the same as before, but slightly tired, and there was a moodiness that she was clearly trying her best to suppress. “Maybe we happened to miss each other ba, forget it, when are you coming up? What are you doing out in the middle of the night?”

“I’m a little scared, so I wanted to come out to buy some snacks and wait for you to come back along the way.”

At that time, I subconsciously glanced up at the fourth floor. After the lights went out, the window on the fourth floor looked normal, and with the little sister’s murmuring complaints, I felt a little wronged. This feeling of being wronged diverted my attention, and that bit of fear evaporated.

Xiao-jiemei probably heard the grievances in my voice. Her voice became much more gentle and patient. “You should quickly come up ba, I’ve already brought some snacks back. Don’t go out next time, you can wait for me at home. You know how dangerous it is to go out at night ah.”

By then, I was not scared at all and started walking back. I even wanted to tell the little sister about my embarrassing suspicions while going downstairs.

After swiping the card to enter the unit door, the sound of the iron door automatically closing and locking echoed in the corridor. The emptiness was a little chilling.

I’ve mentioned before that the cornered path from the stairs to the first floor to the unit entrance was really dark and cold.

I don’t know if it was because of this atmosphere, but as soon as I walked in, I suddenly felt the inexplicable panic I experienced when walking downstairs.

The xiao-jiemei on the other end of the phone said, “Lin Lin, come up quickly ah, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.” 】

The author has something to say:

【 Reading guide 】 【 Must read 】:

1 This novel is different from the previous casual comedies. This novel is really scary, 50% plot (horror), 50% romance (very sweet).

2 The timid little angels, please consume after reading the introduction of each chapter. GuGu will mark each one according to the degree of horror.

[T/N: ‘Gu’ is the first character in author’s name. As for the heads up, I won’t put any indicators, so if you’re easily scared, check the titles on jjwxc for the more ‘scary’ chapters. Number 3 below ranks the scariness of chapters in the TOC]

3 (one point ‘little scary’, refer to the level of this chapter) (two points ‘little scary’) (three points ‘little scary’) and the highest (really scary ah, recommended you to read during the day).

4 Chapters that are not marked as above are usually emotional dramas. The little angels can choose when to read or skip chapters according to their own preferences.

5 But really, it’s not too scary. For the more bold little angels, it may be just so-so. 

In the story, Ye Zun starts pretending to be the Boss after experiencing the first instance of the Demon Lord’s Amusement Park.

Gong appears in Chapter 6.
RECENTLY UPDATES