Chapter 1 Kaidan (Strange Tales)

Early in the morning, under the plane trees.

The sun was warm, a gentle breeze blew, leaves swayed, casting mottled shadows.

A short-haired boy in a blue-and-white school uniform leaned against the tree, devouring a steaming hot seaweed rice ball, gazing absentmindedly at the shimmering surface of the canal ahead.

Li Cheng was a sophomore in high school, orphaned from a young age, and currently living with his aunt's family.

For some reasons, there was a peculiar atmosphere at home, so every morning, Li Cheng would ride his bike to school and use the excuse that he liked the rice balls from a small food stall on the eastern side of the school to deliberately take a longer route to avoid walking with his cousins, who attended the same high school.

Before he knew it, the seaweed rice ball was gone. He crumpled the plastic bag into a ball and casually tossed it in the trash can, telling the stall owner, "Uncle Chen, I'm heading out."

The stall owner nodded, "Alright, be careful on the road."

Pushing his bike, Li Cheng hesitated and then asked, "Uncle Chen, will you be setting up your stall tonight?"

The stall owner looked puzzled, "Of course, I've got kids to send to school."

"Well, just be careful. It hasn't been very peaceful in town lately."

That's all Li Cheng could say before he rode off toward school.

In the past year, bizarre and eerie urban legends circulated more and more online:

A bus that only drove at night, filled with corpses;

A murderous text message that killed the recipient after seven days;

Mannequins in shopping malls, cloaked in human skin, posing as humans;

Li Cheng even saw a short video on the internet—a group of teenagers skateboarding in a park accidentally knocked over a trash can, and a charred human head swarming with maggots fell out.

Li Cheng used to visit that park often as a child, so he knew it well, and the video was timestamped just a week ago.

What was outrageous was that this incident was utterly silent on domestic networks, not a trace to be found. The park was still bustling with people as usual.

Out of some concern, Li Cheng had specifically bought a Swiss Army Knife from Taobao and kept it in the outer pocket of his backpack—though he knew that if real danger came, such a short blade would probably be of little use.

His bicycle crossed several intersections and turned into a tree-lined avenue. Beyond the stream of luxury cars, he could vaguely see the gilded letters of Zhuoyue Middle School.

As a private middle and high school with comprehensive conditions ranked among the top in the city, Zhuoyue's student body consisted either of children from wealthy or powerful families, students who were exceptional in academics, or average students whose families had to pay a hefty sum for their enrollment.

Blending in with his flashy classmates, the unremarkable Li Cheng walked into the campus and with the sound of studying echoing around him, entered Classroom 5 of the sophomore year.

"Li, you finally came. Let me copy your homework. I was up all night playing that VR horror game produced by Prometheus Company, and I must say, it's really addicting."

A close childhood friend named Han Letian skillfully pulled the math exercise book from Li Cheng's backpack, which was hanging on the back of his chair, and began copying against several other homework books, muttering now and then, "Is the answer to this question B, or 13? Why is everything written so blurry?"

"Time to turn in the homework, time to turn in the homework."

The girl in the front row, named Mu Yulu, turned around and saw Li Cheng daydreaming and asked, "What are you thinking about, spacing out like that?"

"I was thinking, the third smartest animal on Earth is the dolphin, the second smartest is the chimpanzee,"

Li Cheng turned his head back and asked seriously, "So what's the smartest animal?"

"You're out of it again. You seem in a good mood."

Mu Yulu rolled her eyes, took the English homework from his desk, and passed it to the front row.

Mu Yulu, Li Cheng, and Han Letian had known each other since childhood.

As a child, Li Cheng was exceedingly lively and imaginative, perfectly fitting the description of someone with a broad-minded, joyful demeanor typical of a crazy person.

Fetching Shariputra from crematoriums, leaving corpses in morgues;

Bleeding from the nose and thinking he was the reincarnation of a tomato;

During a school-organized visit to a nursing home, he gave English listening exercise papers to hard-of-hearing elderly gentlemen and ladies to "exercise" their hearing;

He even once stood on a teacher's desk during a farewell to a substitute teacher and cosplayed from "Dead Poets Society";

He almost got taken to the police station by startled police officers when he was furiously inhaling white allergy medication powder at a subway security check while continuously murmuring "too, too, too" in relief.

With age, he had mellowed quite a bit, turning into a normal person.

Or at least, he seemed like a normal person on the surface.

"Good morning."

A girl named Ye Jiaying walked into the classroom, smiling sweetly as she greeted Li Cheng and sat down next to him.

"You too," Li Cheng was taken aback before realizing.

"Come on, Li," Han Letian elbowed him playfully with a teasing smile, "That response was pretty low."

Li Cheng glanced at him and lowered his voice, "What else should I say then? Got any better lines?"

Han Letian replied seriously, "You should say, 'Seeing you makes the morning good.'"

"Ugh, could you be any cheesier? The U.S. military is gonna invade you for all that oil," Li Cheng rolled his eyes, "Just do your homework already."

School life was as tranquil as ever.

The routine was typical: classes, recess, lunch, a nap, then dismissal. Li Cheng shouldered his bag and rode his bike to Zhao's Dessert Shop for work.

The owner, Uncle Zhao, was kind, and the hourly wage was decent. When the shop wasn't busy, Li Cheng, working as a delivery rider, brought cakes to customers. If the shop was busy, he'd help out making them too. A year of practice had made him quite skilled.

After working for a few hours in the dessert shop and checking the time, it was nearly eleven PM.

Li Cheng shouted, "Uncle Zhao, I'm off work."

"Oh okay." The boss's voice came from behind the plastic curtain, "Take the milk tea on the table and drink it, a customer canceled their order last minute, don't waste it."

"Mm, thank you, uncle."

Li Cheng slung his backpack over his shoulder, grabbed the milk tea, and rode his bike away from the dessert shop.

The night had deepened, the alleys in the old district were narrow and dim, and the boy leisurely pedaled his bike while sipping the milk tea.

Boom—

A muffled sound came from far away, not like thunder.

Li Cheng looked in the direction of the sound and saw the lights of the city in the distance suddenly go out, from the neon on high-rise buildings to the street lamps, all plunged into darkness.

Boom!

Another muffled sound, and another area's lights went out.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The sounds came faster and faster, as if the entire city was experiencing a massive power outage, plunging into pitch black.

Only the streetlights in the block where Li Cheng was still emitted a faint glow.

The sudden eerie situation made his heart thump uncontrollably. He instinctively pulled out his phone, and the top-right corner showed no signal.

What's going on...

Just as he was bewildered and shocked, a monstrous force struck Li Cheng's back, sending him and his bike crashing heavily against a brick wall in a residential area.

"Cough, cough."

Li Cheng's eyes were seeing stars as he coughed and got up, only to see what had sent him flying was a grotesque monster.

It resembled a mix between a spider and a killer bee, about the height of a person, with four pairs of compound eyes on its head, with three blood-red droplets embedded in the center like red amber. It had two pairs of thin membranous wings on its back, its body was brownish-yellow with fur, and its tail sported a long, narrow needle.

Pfft! Pfft!

The creature spat out a dense webbing, precisely covering Li Cheng's mouth, nose, and hands, sticking him firmly to the stone wall. He couldn't break free.

Only then did Li Cheng notice that he wasn't the only victim on the street—two others were also stuck to the wall opposite him.

One in a suit and leather shoes, looking like he had just gotten off work from a company, and the other wearing a cycling helmet, dressed in a standard blue vest, seemingly a ride-share driver.

All three prey were stuck to the wall, and the bee-like monster leisurely flew close, arriving in front of the first victim, ignoring his struggles and screams. It plunged its needle into the man's chest and began to slowly suck.

Accompanied by a "gollum gollum" sound, the monster's large tail writhed continuously, pumping out blood and bile like a water pump.

The victim's chest and abdomen visibly shrank at a rapid pace, his skin loose and hanging off his bones.

The entire feeding process was neither hurried nor slow.

The ride-share driver beside him was terrified out of his mind, desperately kicking against the wall, trying to break free. However, with his hands trapped, it was futile.

Li Cheng was helpless to assist. His nose, cheeks, and jaw were all smothered in webs, preventing him from breathing, the suffocating lack of oxygen rushing to his brain, his vision growing increasingly darker. He was in no position to save himself.

Through the haze, he saw the bee-like monster had drained the first victim dry and had plunged its spike into the chest of the second man.

The ride-share driver's cries for help quickly weakened, like a snuffed-out candle.

At this life-and-death moment, Li Cheng's agonized expression suddenly calmed, his brain as if immersed in ice water, his thoughts extremely clear.

The first priority was to escape. His left wrist was stuck with webbing, immobile, but his right hand had only the wrist of his shirt stuck, his hand itself still had some freedom of movement.

Using all his strength, he twisted his body, retracted his right hand, and slipped it out through the collar of his shirt.

One arm free, he tried to peel off the webbing on his face, but found it had already solidified, extremely tough and impossible to tear off.

The suffocation intensified, Li Cheng reached behind to unzip the outermost pocket of his backpack, where a Swiss Army knife specifically meant for self-defense was hidden in a compartment.

He took out the knife, unfolded it, and desperately cut at the webbing on his face with the sharp blade. After twenty seconds, he only managed to cut through the outermost layer.

His lungs felt like they were about to burst, his heart was pounding as if it would jump out of his chest, his vision getting darker and darker.

The only way to save himself remained.

A strong, cold realization formed in his mind.

Li Cheng's pained expression calmed down, he held the knife blade horizontally in front of his throat, closely under the Adam's apple by about one inch.

Then, he forcefully cut across.

As his throat was slit open, blood flowed out. Li Cheng held his chest out, tightly pinching the knife with his chin, and while doing so, his feet reached for the milk tea not far away, kicking it like a soccer ball right in front of him.

It wasn't for the sake of drinking the tea, but for the straw.

Snap!

His right hand accurately and flawlessly caught hold of the thick straw, and he inserted the tip of the straw, diagonally into his trachea through the cut made by the knife.

Inhale—Exhale—

Oxygen greedily filled his lungs, the dimness caused by the lack of oxygen quickly faded, and Li Cheng survived.

Temporarily.