I grew up reading fairy tales. I had read the stories of princes and princesses hundreds, even thousands, of times.
When I grew older, I became obsessed with romance novels.
Because the male protagonists in those novels were as charming and beautiful as princes, fulfilling all my expectations of a fairy-tale hero.
Later on, just like an innocent, naive girl, I became obsessed with transmigration and rebirth stories.
I was completely enthralled.
So enthralled that I would spend days and nights reading without eating or sleeping.
I had a cousin who was five years older than me, and she was just as obsessed with these stories of earth-shattering love. She was even more addicted than I was. Apart from sleeping and eating, she did nothing but read novels.
At first, our family thought it was nothing serious, just a temporary obsession. Only later did they realize that things were far more serious than they had imagined.
As it happened, I was the first person to notice that something was wrong with my cousin.
One night during the Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone was sitting on chairs on the terrace, chatting. I went to the bathroom, and as I passed through the living room, I discovered that my cousin was actually talking to thin air, waving both hands around nonstop.
I was so shocked that I hurriedly grabbed her hands. “Cousin, what’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”
My cousin looked at me, her eyes glowing with an eerie light like a cat’s eyes.
I was covered in goosebumps and abruptly let go of her hands.
“Do you know that there is another world beyond this world?” My cousin’s voice carried an uncanny quality. “And there’s him. He’s so, so beautiful.”
“What are you talking about, Cousin?”
My cousin didn’t answer. Instead, she looked toward the space beside me.
I instinctively turned to look, but there was no one there.
My cousin waved her hands at the empty air again. “She’s my cousin, not an outsider.”
My hair stood on end. I rushed onto the terrace. “Mom, Uncle, Auntie, hurry—hurry and go see Cousin!”
Everyone in the living room looked at me.
Mom frowned at me. “You’re already eighteen. Why are you still shouting like a little kid?”
I stomped my feet, practically on the verge of tears. “Mom, hurry and go see Cousin!”
All the relatives, including my cousin’s parents, went into the living room…
That very night, my father and my uncle, my cousin’s father, sent her to the hospital.
Our relatives and friends all thought that my cousin had become obsessed with romance novels to the point of losing her mind, because she kept saying that she had encountered an incomparably handsome prince and wanted to be with him forever.
After that, Mom threw away and burned all my romance novels.
It was practically the literary equivalent of book burning.
My aunt once broke down in tears in the hospital room and frantically asked my cousin, “Tell me! Hurry up and tell me! Which novel is he from?”
My cousin turned her head away and refused to say anything. My aunt was as frantic as an ant on a hot pan, but there was nothing she could do.
After hearing what Mom told me, I broke out in a cold sweat.
Oh no, oh no. Would I end up like that someday too?
So when Mom threw away and burned all my romance novels, I had no complaints whatsoever.
I was terrified that I would go crazy like my cousin.
Because I was a hardcore novel addict too.
A month later, I heard that my cousin’s condition had stabilized, so I mustered up the courage to visit her in the hospital.
My cousin leaned weakly against the hospital bed, her face completely devoid of color.
“Cousin, are you okay?”
“Mm.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so my cousin closed her eyes.
Ten minutes later, just as I was preparing to leave, she suddenly opened her eyes and unexpectedly grabbed my wrist.
“Lana, I’m begging you. Don’t let my mom burn my book.”
I was startled. “But your books have already been burned by Auntie.”
“No. There’s still one left. She definitely didn’t burn it, because I hid it somewhere nobody knows about.”
A strange light flickered in my cousin’s eyes.
As I tried to pull free, I said fearfully, “C-Cousin, let go of my hand first.”
“Lana, you’re the only one who can help me now. Please, I’m begging you as your cousin.”
I hurriedly pulled my hand back. “I don’t know if I can help you.”
“You definitely can.” Her eyes were filled with pleading again.
I had no choice but to say, “Fine, I’ll try. Just try.”
She was overjoyed, her eyes lighting up. “That book is hidden in the suitcase under the floor beneath my bed. There’s another hidden compartment underneath the bottom of the suitcase. The book is inside.”
I asked, “Cousin, did you transmigrate into the book? Is that why you were talking to the air, imagining the characters from the book appearing in front of you?”
“It wasn’t an imagination. Someone really was talking to me,” my cousin argued.
“Someone from the novel?”
My cousin ignored my completely disbelieving expression and grabbed my hand again, pleading, “Lana, promise me. You have to help me get that book.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” I was afraid refusing would cause her to break down, and besides, I had already agreed.
After leaving the hospital, I let out a long sigh.
To be honest, I didn’t want to go to my cousin’s house. I was a little scared. But since I had promised her, I could only force myself to go.
Carrying a basket of fruit and some nutritional supplements, I arrived at my uncle’s house.
Only my aunt was home. When she saw me, she first pulled me aside and complained about everything for a while, then hurriedly said she would make a few more dishes and immediately went to the market.
That left me alone in the house.
I slipped into my cousin’s room.
The room had been cleaned spotless. The wardrobe and desk were still exactly as they had been before, except that there were no longer any books on the bookshelf.
I took a deep breath and crawled under the bed to drag out the suitcase.
I quickly found the hidden compartment at the bottom of the suitcase. It was extremely well concealed. If you didn’t look carefully, you would never notice that there was another compartment beneath the bottom.
I was curious. How could a book possibly be hidden inside such a compartment?
I soon found out.
The book was very thin, only eight pages long, which was why it could fit inside the compartment.
Half an hour later, my aunt returned from the market. I lied that I had something to do and hurriedly fled with the book.
That evening, I sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and pulled out the book.
The title was printed on the first page:
“The Strange and Eerie Elven Casebook.”
It seemed to be the title of a movie. I vaguely remembered watching it several years ago, but I had forgotten almost everything about it. Could this book be the written version?
After pausing for a moment, I turned to the second page.
A beautifully drawn picture of a castle filled my vision—
In the vast sea, a towering black castle stood atop the peak of a cliff. The castle was black, the sea was black, and even the birds flying through the sky were black.
Black waves crashed against the black cliff. The waves rose incredibly high, and the black castle at the top of the cliff seemed as though it might be knocked down at any moment, swaying precariously.
I was stunned. An inexplicable shiver suddenly crawled up my back.
The brushwork and colors were simply extraordinary. The lines were vivid and lifelike, almost as though the scene were real. I felt as if I had been transported into the castle itself, about to fall into the sea together with it beneath the raging storm…
It took me a long time to come back to my senses before I tremblingly turned to the third page.
A dilapidated, dark, winding corridor; a dusty, worn-out floor; crumbling corners covered in spiderwebs—it looked just like a sinister and terrifying murder scene from a mystery novel.
An inexplicable sense of danger and fear suddenly rose from the depths of my heart, along with a strange feeling of helplessness and loneliness.
This sensation inexplicably made my entire body tremble, yet there was also a bizarre sense of familiarity.
It took a long time before I could suppress the feeling enough to turn to the fourth page.
A gigantic spiral staircase appeared before me like a maze. Hundreds upon hundreds of steps wound upward, circling around and around until they extended all the way to the top of the castle, seemingly reaching into the clouds.
I had never seen such a magnificent and imposing spiral staircase. Even by today’s standards, it could still be considered an outstanding piece of architectural design. It was breathtaking.
I stared at it without blinking for quite some time before reluctantly turning to the next page—
Suddenly, an extraordinarily shocking image violently assaulted my vision, striking straight into my soul. It was the most remarkable image of them all.
—Shocking to the heart and soul-stirring to the very depths of one’s being.
The walls were covered in blood, and the floor was soaked with it. A beautiful silver-haired young man in tattered clothes was bound to a red-hot iron chair.
The iron chair was suspended in midair by several thick iron chains, with a blazing fire burning fiercely beneath it.
The silver-haired youth’s two long legs dangled in the air, swaying from side to side as the flames roasted them, as he endured some kind of torture.
My eyes widened, and I didn’t blink.
At that very moment, the silver-haired young man suddenly raised his face and smiled sweetly at me—
Utterly beautiful. Utterly enchanting. Utterly bewitching.
I froze for ten seconds before screaming and abruptly throwing the book away. I scrambled out of the room on my hands and knees.
It wasn’t until two in the morning that I finally calmed down.
I returned to my room, picked up the book from the floor, took a deep breath, and tremblingly turned back to that page—
It was still the same silver-haired youth.
Still suspended there and being roasted.
But the deadly, bewitching smile from before was gone.
It was as though the image I had just seen had merely been an illusion.
The house was completely silent. My parents were still asleep. Everything seemed as though nothing had ever happened.
I stared intently at the enchanting young man.
Could he be the reason my cousin had gone crazy?
Just before dawn, I turned to the final three pages. I had originally wanted to see how the comic ended, but all I found were three blank pages. A strange thought stirred in my heart…
The next day, I hurried to my cousin’s hospital room with the book.
I flipped directly to the fifth page and pointed at the silver-haired youth above it. “Is he the reason you ended up in the hospital?”
My cousin had just woken up and looked somewhat dazed. She gently ran her fingers over the silver-haired youth’s gorgeous features.
“I’m not mentally ill.”
“Is he the one talking to you?” I asked again.
“Yes.”
I was shocked. “You ended up in a psychiatric hospital just because you became obsessed with this face?”
“None of your business.”
My cousin suddenly snatched the comic away. “Give it back to me.”
“No.” I immediately snatched it back. “I’m going to burn it. This is a horror comic.”
“Give it back.”
“No.”
Neither of us was willing to give in, and we began struggling fiercely over it.
With a ripping sound, the comic was torn in half, the pieces fluttering all over the floor.
My cousin’s expression changed drastically. She screamed and lunged at me, trying to hit me. Frightened, I kept backing away while shouting and resisting. The family members of the patient in the neighboring bed hurriedly pressed the emergency button in alarm, and nurses and doctors rushed over.
In the ensuing chaos, my cousin was forcibly given a sedative injection, while a nurse drove me out of the disorderly hospital room.
Clutching the comic, torn cleanly in half, I ran desperately through the silent hospital corridor, gasping for breath.
Sunlight streamed into the pure-white corridor. It looked so much like my cousin’s sickly, obsessive love—pale and faint, tinged with grayness and something eerie.
I ran all the way to a small alley outside the hospital and rushed into a little shop to buy a lighter, intending to burn the comic.
As I set fire to the paper, my overly imaginative mind suddenly came up with an absurd thought.
Perhaps the moment it turned to ash, I would fall into the comic and fall in love with the silver-haired youth.
Maybe this silver-haired youth was a king who would marry me and make me his queen, allowing an ordinary girl to reach the pinnacle of her life.
Just imagining it sounded glorious.
But after I finished burning the comic, nothing happened. I let out a long sigh of relief.
Half a month later, my cousin was discharged from the hospital. She was locked in her room, unable to come looking for me and pick a fight.
But then something strange happened.
I was clearly in the library researching material for a paper and taking notes as I went, yet I was horrified to discover that I was drawing.
Involuntarily. Completely beyond my control.
My pen sketched one scene after another…
A vast, gloomy gray sea, a black castle atop a cliff, a spiderweb-filled room, a gigantic spiral staircase, and a fiery-red room that looked like hell itself.
Then, beneath my pen appeared an enchanting, gorgeous silver-haired youth.
Dark blue, shadowy lashes. Pale-blue, luminous eyes. A high, sharply defined nose. Tender, translucent red lips.
And a waterfall of silver hair so beautiful it was almost deadly.
And—
A red-hot iron chair, iron chains thicker than a strong man’s arm, and two beautiful, long legs dangling in the air.
Even though the raging fire beneath the iron chair had scorched them black and filled the air with smoke, his sharp chin still radiated stubbornness and cruelty.
He turned his profile toward me and smiled enchantingly and recklessly.
Like a poisonous and breathtaking poppy, wantonly blooming amid the flames of hell.
I could hardly believe it. The fountain pen slipped from my hand, ink splattering everywhere and staining the drawing…
I screamed continuously, ignoring the strange looks from passersby as I hurried toward my cousin’s house.
Panting heavily, I asked her, “What exactly is going on with this comic?”
My cousin, leaning against the headboard, narrowed her eyes and asked in return, “Why are you asking about this?”
“After reading this comic, I can actually draw exactly the same things.”
My cousin suddenly burst out laughing. “I’ll show you something.”
She jumped out of bed, dragged the suitcase out from underneath it, and pulled sheets of drawing paper from the hidden compartment.
I was horrified.
It turned out that the comic I had burned earlier had been drawn by my cousin.
My cousin stopped laughing and said in a trembling voice, “Do you know, Lana? I accidentally tore this comic apart originally, but a few days later, I couldn’t control myself. I started drawing it page by page. I couldn’t control myself at all.”
“Then how did the original comic in your possession appear in the first place?” I asked, my voice trembling too.
“I don’t know. I don’t know…”
She burst into tears again.
This time, her crying attracted my aunt. She rushed into the room, saw the drawings scattered across the floor, flew into a rage, gathered them all up, and threw them into the kitchen trash bin…
Half an hour later, I crouched beside a trash bin on a street corner, holding my breath against the stench as I fished out several discarded sheets of paper.
I opened the final few pages.
I desperately hoped to see the last three pages of drawings. I couldn’t draw them, but perhaps my cousin could. Maybe she had seen the original version of the comic.
But when I opened them, I was stunned.
Page six was blank.
Page seven was blank.
Page eight was still blank.
This… this…
A night breeze gently swept past at that moment.
A strange, magnetic young man’s voice drifted into my ear.
“You have to guess what happens on the last few pages. Guess correctly, and there’s a prize.”
“A prize? What prize?” I was so startled that I fell onto the ground. “Who are you?”
“Guess.”
“A ghost! A ghost!”
I screamed in terror and wildly waved my hands at the empty air in front of me. “Go away! Get away from me!”
I kept screaming without stopping, running wildly down the street and rushing home…
Two days later, just like my cousin, I was sent to a psychiatric hospital.
Forced restraints, sedatives, being forced to take medication—all of it followed one after another…
But do you think the story ends there?
No.
The story has only just begun.
On the night I was admitted, I disappeared.
No one knew how I disappeared, including me.
Sheets of discarded paper were scattered all over the single-patient room. No one could tell what had originally been drawn on them, because they had all been torn into tiny shreds.
When two nurses pushed open the door, the first rays of morning sunlight were spilling over the snow-white scraps of paper, as though an entire story filled with drifting dust and ashes had been left behind…
Author’s Note: