Chapter 1: Water plants

The air was filled with a faint, salty dampness.

Hua Qi’an felt as if she had smelled it somewhere before, but she couldn’t recall where.

She tried to get up, only to find her limbs as heavy as if they were filled with cement, utterly immobile for the moment.

Even moving a single finger was impossible.

She vaguely remembered reading about this symptom somewhere…

Was it called… sleep paralysis?

The thought brought a faint wave of panic creeping into her heart.

Under normal circumstances, she might not have felt such fear.

But now, the place where she lay was none other than a “haunted house”—

Experiencing sleep paralysis in a haunted house inevitably conjured unsettling thoughts.

“Ugh…”

A sense of suffocation gripped her mind.

No matter how hard she tried to breathe, it was futile.

It felt as though a heavy weight pressed against her chest, blocking the flow of air in her body.

The struggle to breathe left her in great discomfort.

Her eyelids were heavy.

As if weighed down by a thousand pounds of sand.

Yet Hua Qi’an forced herself to pry them open with great effort.

Her vision was severely blurred, everything a hazy mess.

Still, she could vaguely make out the room’s furnishings…

It was no different from the room she saw before going to sleep.

She was indeed still in the haunted house’s bedroom.

Gritting her teeth, she strained to look toward her chest.

“Ah…!”

The sight before her was so shocking that her strength gave out instantly, and her head, barely lifted a few centimeters, fell back onto the makeshift pillow of folded clothes.

In that fleeting moment of haze, she had seen a translucent red figure, like a human shadow, crouched over her chest—

What was that?

Why was it pressing down on her?

“…”

The salty, damp smell grew stronger.

It was as if it was condensing into something tangible in the air.

Was it because of her movement? In her peripheral vision, that faint red shadow began to stir.

It seemed to slowly draw closer to the side of her face.

Hua Qi’an had no strength left to move.

All she could do was close her eyes, willing herself not to look or think.

A faint, feminine voice whispered softly in her ear, as if sharing secrets meant only for the two of them.

But she couldn’t make out the words.

All she could hear was a soft chuckle, as if coming from a distant place—

Why had things come to this?

One day earlier, Hua Qi’an had taken on a part-time job called “Haunted House Vlog.”

As the name suggested, it involved filming a vlog in a haunted house.

Perhaps it was the unusual nature of the job that allowed her to snag it.

Due to her poor health, and since she was looking for part-time work, her resumes were usually rejected in the first round.

Even if she made it to the second round of interviews, she couldn’t escape being turned down.

So when that strange recruitment text message arrived on her phone, she filled out the application form sent by the sender with a “why not” attitude…

The whispering and soft laughter in her ears seemed to stop.

But Hua Qi’an still didn’t dare move.

The pressure on her chest hadn’t gone away.

The heart she had just begun to relax shot back to a peak of tension.

“Hiss…”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

A cold, slick sensation, like a slimy tongue, suddenly began to coil upward from the sole of her foot.

It reached her ankle, the icy touch seeping through her delicate skin, causing Hua Qi’an to tremble lightly.

The chill traveled up from her ankle, making her breathing grow heavier without her realizing it.

That slick, cold sensation tormented her senses relentlessly.

As if savoring a treat.

The slimy feeling inched upward greedily.

Wherever it passed, it left a winding trail of moisture.

A lingering, cool dampness remained.

It made Hua Qi’an feel deeply uncomfortable.

Her voice, like her limbs, refused to function properly.

It was stuck in her throat.

She wanted to scream or curse, but she couldn’t utter a single word.

Her uneven, heavy breathing now sounded almost like suppressed gasps.

The slickness wrapped around her thigh.

Each tightening, writhing motion and friction sent a shiver through her.

Hua Qi’an’s mind went blank.

The cold, slimy sensation seemed intent on reaching an even more intimate place—

“Ding ling ling—!”

Hua Qi’an’s eyes snapped open.

With a jolt, she sat up in bed.

The clothes covering her slid down with her movement.

Her pale, prominent collarbone was exposed.

Perhaps due to what she had just experienced, a thin layer of sweat coated her body.

Her skin glistened faintly with moisture.

Hua Qi’an casually turned off the alarm and glanced around the room.

It must be early morning; the sun had just risen.

Only faint sunlight filtered through the gaps in the gray curtains.

It was enough for her to clearly see the room’s furnishings.

They seemed no different from what she had seen earlier.

But the difference was obvious—there was no strange red shadow.

Instinctively, she touched her smooth leg.

Long and slender, the vivid sensation from before seemed to linger.

But now, as she touched it, there was nothing unusual.

No strange water stains either.

If anything, there was only a thin layer of sweat from the bizarre dream.

Hua Qi’an’s tense heart finally began to ease.

It was just a nightmare, after all.

Having such a strange dream in a place like this didn’t feel good at all.

Hua Qi’an shook her head, certain her face must look terrible right now.

“…”

She picked up the jacket that had fallen when she sat up and shook it out to smooth it.

This house had been abandoned for who-knows-how-long, so there were no usable pillows or blankets.

Naturally, Hua Qi’an hadn’t gone out of her way to prepare such things.

When she slept, she simply used her jacket as a blanket and a piece of clothing as a pillow.

Now that she was awake, she felt a slight chill.

So she slipped her long-sleeved jacket back on.

Turning to sit on the edge of the bed, Hua Qi’an prepared to put on her socks and shoes for the day’s planned filming.

“Hm?”

Sensing something off, she looked curiously at her ankle.

Her ankle was slender, with prominent veins crisscrossing her pale skin.

A dark, thin object stood out starkly against it.

At some point, a dull-colored waterweed had wrapped itself around her ankle.

The waterweed was long dried out, far from slick.

It was rough and lusterless from dehydration.

It clung weakly to her skin like a dodder vine.

Hua Qi’an hadn’t even noticed it earlier.

No wonder she had such a strange nightmare.

So this was the “culprit.”

She reached down and brushed the waterweed off her ankle onto the floor.

Her porcelain-white fingers stood out clearly, and for a fleeting moment, Hua Qi’an had the illusion that the waterweed was about to wrap around her hand.

But it was just a lifeless, dehydrated waterweed after all.

When had it gotten tangled around her?

She had no recollection.

After tidying her clothes, Hua Qi’an grabbed her phone and flashlight and headed out of the room.

The room fell back into silence and dimness.

A long time passed.

A streak of crimson slowly materialized in the center of the room.

A shrill, resentful voice seemed to rise from the depths of a well, carrying a wet, echoing reverberation.

[Pray for peace… Pray for peace… Pray for peace…]

[You’ve finally… come to find me… hehehe…]

Hua Qi’an, separated by a single wall, noticed nothing amiss.