CH 1

This is the third day after Yan Junze was reborn on this planet after the explosion in the laboratory. The location of his rebirth is a country called Huaying Dadu.

Tianmeng District, Shuntian City, was equivalent to a second or third-tier city in C country before Yan Junze’s reincarnation.

Unlike other reincarnated individuals, Yan Junze’s parents were alive and well, and his health was so good that even health supplement salesmen who claimed “as long as 98***, take them all home” could find no way to start.

***98 internet words for Let’s go, so the phrase would be: as long as they go, he could take them all home.

Moreover, Yan Junze was an only child, he had no older or younger sisters, so any orthopedic enthusiast can directly go to the upper right corner***.

***Orthopedic is a slang refers to sibling CPs

***Upper right corner reference to upper right corner of the screen where you can go to find solution/answer to a problem

The only difference was that this reborn world was permeated with an inexplicable strangeness.

For example, at exactly 2:00 am, the door outside the living room would be knocked on. In the silent night, a pure and mechanical knocking sound that makes one’s skin crawl and hair stand on end.

Or, for example, the family strictly prohibited anyone from entering the bathroom after midnight. Usually around 11:50 p.m., the bathroom door would be locked with a key.

Of course, people couldn’t be left to hold their urine and feces until morning, so a simple toilet was prepared in the bedroom.

After his reincarnation, Yan Junze did not regain the memories of the original owner. Therefore, he had to slowly build his understanding of this family, this world, and the inexplicable strangeness that permeated everywhere.

It was on the second day after his rebirth, which was a Saturday, when Yan Junze searched for information online to roughly understand the situation of this world.

The so-called strangeness here was referred to as supernatural events.

Starting from half a year ago, supernatural events had constantly been popping up in this world. Initially, it was thought to be rare incidents, but soon supernatural events spread throughout the world.

Numerous supernatural websites have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, and there are a large number of netizens who have uploaded countless supernatural pictures and videos of personal encounters. There were also dedicated chat Organizations, B-station live streams, and so on.

Fortunately, if a supernatural event occurred, it was generally limited to a specific area. If one did not come close to the affected area, usually nothing abnormal would happen. It was why Yan Junze’s parents forbid him from entering the bathroom after 12:00 am.

Yan Daguo, his father, had set a rule that the bathroom door must be locked every night at 11:50 pm and could only be opened at 6:30 am the next morning. As for the reason behind this, Yan Daguo was tight-lipped.

However, there were always exceptions to the rules, and considering that Yan Junze had just been reborn and had not fully formed his cognition in this regard, coupled with him not accustomed to his current body, it was not until he returned to his bedroom after washing up on that Saturday night that he realized his glasses were still on the bathroom sink.

This body belongs to a third-year high school dog who spends all day and night reviewing and doing exercises, resulting in over 300 degrees of myopia, but his other bodily functions are still okay.

As long as he could get through this year, he would have the courage to lay dead after the college entrance examination. The original owner’s thoughts were somewhat naive that made him speechless.

Yan Junze deliberately checked the time, and the clock was already pointing to 11:54 PM. It wouldn’t take more than a minute to go and retrieve his glasses, and it wouldn’t violate the rule set by his father, Yan Daguo.

Besides, he had not yet established a deep understanding of the seriousness of entering the bathroom.

Supernatural events? Does a cup jump up by itself to catch water, does blood flow from the faucet, does a scary face appear in the mirror, or does a towel hanging on the hook play “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars?

Before experiencing it firsthand, everyone believed that true terror was far away from themselves, and Yan Junze subconsciously thought the same way.

Walking out of the bedroom, Yan Junze squatted in the corridor and pulled out the key hidden under the water-absorbing mat in front of the bathroom door. He quickly inserted the key into the lock and turned the door handle.

The bathroom is relatively narrow, with a sink and a toilet occupying half of the space, and the remaining space is left for the shower. However, when taking a shower, water will definitely splash onto the sink, and even onto the mirror in front of it.

The entire bathroom is covered with red and white checkered square tiles, with only the sink and toilet being pure white.

Turning on the bathroom light, the narrow space emitted a warm yellow light, but the overall light in the bathroom was still dim.

Yan Junze inexplicably became a little nervous. His blurry eyes scanned various objects in the bathroom, but nothing seemed abnormal. He took a few steps forward, grabbed his glasses from the sink, put them on, returned to the bathroom door, and reached out to turn off the light.

With his glasses on, Yan Junze’s eyesight improved significantly. As he turned off the light, his gaze inadvertently swept over the bathroom, and then he suddenly trembled, staring at the corner between the sink and the toilet.

There, standing in the corner was a little girl with disheveled hair.

The girl was about five or six years old, facing the corner with her back to the bathroom door. She was wearing a red lace dress that exposed her arms and legs, which were covered in bruises. Her neck was twisted 180 degrees to the right, as if it had been broken, but the skin was not torn.

Her two small feet were bare, with her right foot’s sole backward and only connected to the leg by skin. A white, bony fragment protruded through the skin, acting as a substitute for the sole to support her weight on the ground.

It was reminiscent of Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, whose prosthetic leg could also hold liquor and was quite impressive. However for the girl in red, it was quite terrifying.

What was even more eerie was the girl’s spine, which bent like an old tree trunk, forming an S shape. She stood there, motionless with her tangled and dirty hair hanging behind her.

Yan Junze didn’t have time to think about Captain Barbossa’s peg leg and its hidden compartments; the overwhelming sense of fear took over, causing his body to tremble involuntarily. A cold, ominous feeling permeated from the bathroom, spreading towards the corridor.

Yan Junze felt his breathing had stopped.

This was a supernatural event, something that was erupting all over the world.

From seeing it on TV to experiencing it firsthand, he realized that they were not even in the same league. Only now did he realize the difference between the two was as wide as a chasm.

His palms and back were drenched in cold sweat, and he wanted to close his eyes and not look at the back of the girl in red. However, he couldn’t move his gaze away from her, still staring at her strange figure without blinking.

Suddenly, the motionless girl with her twisted neck slowly turned towards the bathroom door, accompanied by the sound of snapping bones rubbing against each other like an old tree branch breaking. On this silent night, the sound was particularly harsh.

At that moment, Yan Junze’s limbs turned ice-cold. He quickly reached out and grabbed the bathroom doorknob, slamming the door shut with a loud bang. He turned the key twice in the lock, taking it out and trembling as he held it in his hand.

His parents’ bedroom opened immediately, and his drowsy father, Yan Daguo, and his mother, Li Man, walked out.

“How long have you been studying? Why aren’t you asleep yet?” Li Man asked in surprise, then looked at the closed bathroom door.

“Were you just in the bathroom?” Yan Daguo’s drowsiness had completely disappeared, and he immediately grabbed his phone to check the time.

4 minutes to 12 o’clock.

Yan Daguo walked out of his bedroom and approached the bathroom door. He twisted the handle and found it locked, then noticed Yan Junze holding the key with trembling hands.

Taking the key from Yan Junze, Yan Daguo turned to Li Man and spoke sternly, “I told you to keep the key safe and not just leave it lying around for the sake of convenience.”

Li Man had already understood what had happened from Yan Junze’s still-shaken expression and simply nodded. Yan Daguo was in a heated mood at the moment, so she didn’t say anything.

Yan Daguo turned to Yan Junze and looked into his eyes. Although his gaze was stern, he couldn’t hide the concern in his eyes as he asked, “Did you see her?”

Yan Junze did not answer.

“It’s okay, as long as you don’t enter the bathroom during the time when she appears,” Yan Daguo comforted him.

“Dad, that thing didn’t appear exactly at 12 o’clock.” Yan Junze spoke up.

“That’s why I demanded that the bathroom be locked ten minutes in advance,” Yan Daguo replied, then turned to Li Man and said, “The key cannot be left in front of the door next time. I will personally keep it and lock the door on time every night, then open it on time the next day.”

“I won’t let it happen again,” Li Man said apologetically as she walked up to Yan Junze and placed a hand on his shoulders.

“Dad, haven’t we reported the supernatural occurrences in our home?” Yan Junze couldn’t help but ask.

Through internet research, Yan Junze had learned that there was a civilian organization in Huaying Dadu called the “Supernatural Event Organization”. This organization was born in mystery and had special personnel to deal with supernatural events that occurred throughout the region.

These people were called “exorcists”.

As long as a supernatural event occurred, one could dial the special hotline number 4747 of the Supernatural Event Organization instead of calling the police, because real police officers could not handle supernatural events.

However, the number of supernatural events was increasing rapidly these days, and even reporting to the Supernatural Event Organization***, they might not deal with it immediately.

***this is a mouthful to write and say, I’ll just abbreviated to SEO

At the beginning of the outbreak of supernatural events, Buddhism and Taoism were popular for a while. However, people gradually realized that various talismans and magic tools used for exorcism, demon-sealing, and ghost-subduing were not effective against modern supernatural events.

As a result, some people who blindly believed in tradition kept dying tragically one after another, and everyone realized that only the supernatural event organization could effectively handle these things.

However, SEO also paid a high price in order to study how to kill the supernatural. The means to kill them were very secretive, and only specialized exorcists had the opportunity to learn and practice them.

Yan Daguo sighed, “I reported this a month ago and they said I had to wait in line, but we still haven’t been in line yet.”

Yan Junze was speechless.

Although this world was very strange, there’s no shortage of social favors. When they said they had to wait in line, some people might have been constantly cutting through special relationships.

Waiting for the exorcists from the SEO to arrive might take forever. In the meantime, the only solution was to temporarily seal off the area.

Thankfully, the girl in red in the bathroom didn’t seem to be the type who is looking for trouble. Although her appearance was a bit disturbing for the spectators, she looked as quiet as a quail. As long as they didn’t go into the bathroom during the time she appeared, nothing should happen.

Yan Daguo worked in an office at a paper mill as an ordinary employee with a monthly salary of less than ten thousand yuan.

Yes, just over three thousand yuan.

The mother was a cleaning lady at a cleaning company, it seemed that the couple are of one mind, as her monthly salary is similar to Yan Daguo.

They lived in an old-fashioned community with the house having only two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen.

It was not realistic to ask the Yan family to move out and leave this haunted place.

Now that they had reported the supernatural event, it was unrealistic to rely on Yan Daguo’s and Li Man’s connections to cut the line.

So the situation remained deadlocked.

Unless the supernatural event caused a huge impact and affected a large area, and the government applied pressure, the SEO would not come to deal with it quickly. Otherwise, things like the little girl in red appearing suddenly in the bathroom would have to wait in line for three to five months, which was unfair to her docile and adorable character.

Yan Junze returned to his bedroom. His mother, Li Man, followed and comforted him with several words. Yan Daguo checked the lock on the bathroom door again and confirmed that the living room door was also locked. Finally, the couple turned off the lights and went back to their own bedroom.

However, Yan Junze couldn’t fall asleep. The scene just now was the first time he had ever witnessed the existence of a ghost with his own eyes, and the vivid sense of experiencing it still gave him goosebumps.

There was another reason why he couldn’t fall asleep. After seeing the girl in red in the bathroom, a map suddenly appeared inexplicably in Yan Junze’s mind.