As Jiang Wei’s mind stirred, the items stored in…
Jiang Wei gradually calmed down. The dormitory was quiet, with only the continuous sound of rain outside the window; no strange entities leaped out at her.
She glanced at the phone box on the desk. The words “Forever Yours” printed on it were bright red and eye-catching, yet a different feeling welled up in her heart—was this ultimately a curse, or a blessing?
At the very least, one thing was certain: the person who sent this phone was definitely not some “pursuer.” There was no need to consider returning it to its rightful owner, which meant—it belonged to her forever!
Jiang Wei squeezed the phone tightly, a heavy weight lifting off her chest as a subtle smile curled up the corners of her mouth.
“I have a new phone!”
Even after experiencing something so unbelievable, the thing that made her happiest was surprisingly still just this.
Yes, she really was that easily satisfied.
Weighing the gold prayer bead in her hand again, Jiang Wei couldn’t feel much weight. She squeezed it hard, but the golden bead didn’t budge at all—it seemed to be solid.
“It couldn’t be fake, right? If it’s real, it should be worth quite a bit of money!”
Jiang Wei muttered to herself. Without bothering to fix her hair or makeup, she immediately threw on a coat, put on her shoes, and dashed out of the dormitory.
As she stepped out of the dorm building, cool rainwater fell onto her skin, making her realize she had forgotten an umbrella. But she couldn’t care less about such minor details, rushing straight toward the commercial living area outside the university city through the drizzling rain.
At Fortune Plaza, on the first floor inside a jewelry store:
The sales assistant spoke in a gentle, soft voice, “Hello, what are you looking for today? I can help show you around.”
Jiang Wei pulled that golden prayer bead from her coat pocket. “Gold—do you buy it? It might not be real, it was a gift from a friend. Could you help me check it, please? Thank you.”
“We do,” the sales assistant replied, taking the gold bead with both hands. “However, a professional appraisal might damage the outer appearance of the item. Are you okay with that?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Jiang Wei nodded repeatedly.
The sales assistant led Jiang Wei to the buyback counter and asked her to sign a “Buyback Form” before starting the test.
When the blue flame from the testing blowtorch roasted the gold prayer bead, her heart leaped into her throat, terrified it might evaporate into thin air.
A moment later, the sales assistant turned to Jiang Wei and nodded. “It’s genuine gold, and the purity is very high.”
Jiang Wei stood dazed for a moment. Even though she knew this magical phone could pull off surreal feats like “matter teleportation” and wouldn’t fool her with fake gold, receiving this confirmation still gave her an surreal feeling.
Seeing her lost in thought, the sales assistant smiled and said, “Your friend is really generous! You’re so pretty, how could anyone give you something fake? We have a few new necklaces in our shop that would suit you very well. If you trade in, there’s even a discount…”
“Uh-huh,” Jiang Wei absentmindedly responded to the sales pitch, squeezing the phone in her pocket while silently thinking, Thank you, friend!
Seeing that Jiang Wei truly had no intention of shopping, the sales assistant gave up and placed the gold bead on an electronic scale to weigh it. “5 grams. Today’s gold price is 631 RMB per gram, which converts to…” She skillfully tapped a few numbers on a calculator, “…3,155 RMB.”
A few minutes later, Jiang Wei walked out of Fortune Plaza holding a receipt, still feeling somewhat dazed.
“Just like that, I earned over three thousand. Is making money really this easy?”
She opened her phone to confirm her savings once more. Adding her original 926 RMB, she now had a total of 4,081 RMB.
Previously, the highest amount she had ever received at once—from third-class scholarships or part-time job earnings—was a little over two thousand RMB. Usually, as soon as she received the money, she would immediately use it to reload her cafeteria card or buy daily necessities, and her savings would quickly shrink back to three digits.
After solving her immediate survival needs, she had never possessed such a “huge sum of money” in her life that she could freely control.
Adding the phone itself, her income today definitely exceeded ten thousand RMB—maybe even twenty thousand!
People came and went along the commercial street, and gusts of coffee aroma wafted from somewhere unknown. From time to time, pedestrians glanced her way; even without makeup or fancy clothes, her simple attire couldn’t hide her beauty, and she had never lacked attention since childhood.
But for the first time in her life, she felt like the “main character.” The gazes of the crowd no longer made her feel uneasy or exposed.
The rain had stopped, though the sky remained overcast. Light flowed softly through the layers of clouds, casting an indescribably bright glow.
Jiang Wei took a deep breath, turned around, and walked back into the plaza. Holding a grand sum of over four thousand RMB, the glittering displays behind the shop windows were no longer irrelevant to her.
Soon enough, she took a liking to a water-green dress and casually asked about the price.
Well… it was still irrelevant to her.
“A single dress costs several thousand RMB? Why don’t you just rob a bank?!”
Jiang Wei slunk out of the building sheepishly, deciding online shopping was better after all—online shopping was far more affordable.
Calming her excited mood, she casually found a restaurant by the roadside to enjoy a feast. Though she called it “casual,” this single meal cost over a hundred RMB—enough to feed her at the cafeteria for a full week. In the past, she naturally wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to spend it, but to her current self, it was nothing.
Buying a cup of coffee on the way, she prepared to head back to the dorm to continue watching horror movies. But as she passed by an internet cafe, Jiang Wei suddenly paused.
“No matter how good a phone screen’s picture quality is, it can’t compare to a big screen after all. That horror movie just now—if I watched it on a computer or TV, the fear points harvested would definitely be more than 10.”
Jiang Wei changed her mind on the spot and decided not to return to the dorm. However, she didn’t step into the internet cafe right in front of her—standing at the door, she could already smell cigarette smoke. Instead, she walked a bit further to a famous high-end internet cafe near the university district. Its interior was decorated like a tech company; she had only walked past its entrance before and had never been inside.
Reaching the reception desk, Jiang Wei booked a private single room. The price was indeed as grand as its reputation—even with a membership, it cost over thirty RMB an hour. Watching a movie would take nearly two hours, a price almost matching a movie theater ticket.
But when she entered the private booth, she instantly felt it was worth every penny. The booth was spotlessly clean, featuring a massive curved monitor and a comfortable sofa chair, both of which she liked immensely.
Anyway, watching one horror movie could net her several thousand RMB; a cost of a few dozen RMB was just a drop in the bucket!
The thing that satisfied Jiang Wei the most was that the lights inside the booth could be turned off.
She turned off the overhead light, and the booth dimmed instantly. While not pitch-black, the atmosphere was dialed to the maximum.
Then she booted up the computer, put on headphones, clicked into the internet cafe’s built-in video software, and found the second installment of the horror movie she had watched earlier today. Suppressing her excitement, she clicked play, took a big gulp of coffee, and sank comfortably into the sofa chair.
“Money, here it comes!”
The movie began to play, the computer screen dimmed, and the booth fell into obscurity. Eerie, mournful music echoed in her ears. It felt as if she had swallowed a giant gulp of ice water in the dead of summer, instantly chilling the excitement coursing through her body.
Only then did she recall that prior to today, she was a coward who couldn’t handle any scary visuals.
The big screen before her eyes was so large it made her slightly dizzy, yet it delivered an unparalleled sense of immersion that no phone screen could ever match.
A Japanese-style estate appeared in the dim, aged movie footage. Behind every pitch-black window, a vengeful spirit seemed to be staring out at her.
Jiang Wei’s hair stood on end. Even though no ghosts or monsters had jumped out yet, the eerie atmosphere alone made her want to back out, regretting that she hadn’t left the lights on.
Grit her teeth, Jiang Wei pinched her thigh hard:
“Woman, you have to be ruthless to yourself!”
“This can’t possibly be harder than working a part-time job!”
“Three thousand, three thousand, three thousand!”
Perhaps to many people, watching horror movies was a form of entertainment, but Jiang Wei was certainly not among them.
Furthermore, her approach was like forcing someone who couldn’t handle spicy food at all to go straight for extra-spicy Chongqing hot pot—it was pure torture!
She was tortured like this for two full hours. Her eyes turned lifeless, her lips grew pale blue, her complexion turned ghostly white, and tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes.
In the darkness, countless terrifying ghosts seemed to be staring fixedly at her with venomous eyes. She was like a terrified little animal, huddled inside the sofa chair, not daring to move a single inch.
Only after a long while did she pull the phone from her coat, open the black app, and her lifeless eyes instantly lit up.
The phone screen clearly displayed: [Fear Value: 28]
She immediately sat up straight, her groggy mind becoming incredibly sharp again. “Just two points short of redeeming three gold prayer beads! One bead is worth over three thousand—that’s almost ten thousand RMB!”
“Ten thousand RMB!” Jiang Wei repeated in her mind, tears streaming down her eyes once more—no longer out of fear, but sheer joy. She instantly felt those two hours of suffering hadn’t been in vain.
“Not only was it not in vain, it was insanely worth it! What kind of job lets you earn ten thousand RMB in two hours? I’m set for life!”
“Why do I feel a little uneasy, though? Should someone slap me twice to help me balance things out?”
Jiang Wei held her phone and giggled foolishly in the dark, looking like a young girl in love staring at sweet messages sent by her crush.
Her heart suddenly tightened: Can I still buy more? That gold prayer bead won’t go out of stock, right?!
She immediately clicked into [Sacrificial Offering] and tapped on [Gold Prayer Bead]. Only when another cool, gleaming golden bead appeared in her palm did her mind settle completely.
Without realizing it, all her fear vanished into thin air, and even the last trace of concern at the bottom of her heart dissolved.
Jiang Wei stowed away that gold bead without buying more, afraid she might accidentally lose them. It was better to accumulate more fear values first and buy them all at once later!
“Alright then, let’s keep going!”
Jiang Wei used a search tool to look it up. This Japanese horror film was claimed to be the scariest of its kind, featuring a whole series including videotape editions, theatrical releases, US adaptations, and several spin-offs—adding up to over a dozen titles in total.
She had only watched up to the second installment. She felt that if she finished this entire series, she would achieve financial freedom—not only could she pay off her student loans, but she could also dine out every single day. As for those dresses costing several thousand RMB in the mall, she would… still absolutely refuse to buy them!
Hmph, even if her money came easily, it wasn’t blown in by the wind either.
Wiping away her tear tracks, Jiang Wei gathered her composure and clicked on the third installment of the series.
A few hours later, a woman with disheveled hair slowly walked out of the internet cafe. Her eyes were dull and her movements sluggish, as if her soul had been completely burned out.
“Classmate, are you alright?” A male student wearing glasses passed by her, noticed her state, and asked with a hint of hesitation and concern.
Jiang Wei froze for a moment before turning her head, staring at the guy with wide, clear, yet unusually hollow eyes, slowly shaking her head.
The guy’s heart shivered, and he hurriedly left. Although he had wanted to strike up a conversation, he felt that if he asked any further, he might get wrapped up in something troublesome.
Jiang Wei had watched three horror movies in a row this afternoon, feeling as though her body had been drained completely. She tremblingly pulled out her phone and opened the black app.
[Fear Value: 63]
Adding the gold prayer bead worth 10 fear points, she had earned 73 fear points this afternoon—seven gold prayer beads.
Each gold bead was worth over three thousand; seven beads amounted to over twenty thousand RMB.
Normally, if she suddenly had such a huge sum of money on hand, she would be happy for an entire month. But at this very moment, she really couldn’t bring herself to feel happy—she was completely numb.
It started raining again as dusk fell, and neon lights flickered on one after another.
Jiang Wei felt like a vengeful ghost crawling out of a dim grave, suddenly returning to the mortal realm. She took a deep breath of the cool air:
“I want a feast!”
Jiang Wei arrived at a busy barbecue shop near the school. Only after downing seven or eight skewers did she feel like she had come back to life.
Just then, a message popped up on her phone:
“Weiwei, where did you run off to? We’re back already. Hurry back to the dorm, there’s good stuff!”
It was dorm leader Zhou Fuzhen. Jiang Wei smiled softly and snapped a picture of the skewers in her hand: “Zhenzhen, want some barbecue?”
“Yes, yes! I want belly pork!”
“Eating pig will turn you into a pig.”
Zhou Fuzhen replied with a “not afraid” pig meme.
Jiang Wei then called the owner over and ordered a massive pile of barbecue to pack back to the dormitory.
The dormitory building was buzzing with voices, no longer as deserted as during the day. When Jiang Wei arrived at the door of Room 1706, she felt a surreal sensation of returning from another lifetime.
Before leaving today, she was still a poor girl; now she carried over ten thousand RMB on her person.
As she was feeling emotional, the door suddenly opened. Roommate Wang Jingjing walked out and saw Jiang Wei standing at the doorway, her face lighting up with surprise. “Dear daughter, you’re finally back!”
As soon as Jiang Wei stepped into the room, she was pulled into a tight hug by Zhou Fuzhen.
“Weiwei, where did you go? You didn’t spend another whole day soaking in the library, did you? It’s no fun without you.”
Zhou Fuzhen was a striking beauty. Even in a place filled with attractive people like Jianghai Film Academy, she stood out significantly. Her family background was wealthy; even if one couldn’t recognize the luxury brands she wore, her natural aura of confidence was enough to intimidate most guys.
She was not only the head of Room 1706 but also Jiang Wei’s best friend, who had always taken great care of her.
Feeling bad that Jiang Wei was alone in the dorm, she had bought a large bundle of pastries and desserts, having waited for quite a while.
Another roommate, Pei Xiaomin, shouted, “Dorm leader, ‘Dear Daughter’ is back! Can we start eating now?!”
The items Zhou Fuzhen bought were naturally expensive—a single palmier cost dozens of RMB. Normally, they wouldn’t bring themselves to buy them. Pei Xiaomin and Wang Jingjing had helped pick them out for half the day without getting a single bite yet!
“Thank you, Zhenzhen,” Jiang Wei felt a warmth in her heart and lifted the barbecue in her hands. “Let’s eat the barbecue first!”
“Let’s eat together!” Pei Xiaomin couldn’t wait to tear open a box of chocolate mille-feuille and began devouring it happily.
The four of them ate and chatted together in the dorm, enjoying a warm atmosphere. During the meal, her roommates noticed Jiang Wei’s new phone and praised it, greatly satisfying her vanity. However, when asked about where the phone came from, Jiang Wei could only answer vaguely, saying she saved up from part-time work.
After the meal, Jiang Wei received a digital red envelope from Zhou Fuzhen with the note “meal money.”
“No need, my treat this time,” Jiang Wei replied with a smiley face.
Zhou Fuzhen gave Jiang Wei a curious glance but said nothing.
A little while later, Jiang Wei stepped out to go to the bathroom.
It was almost lights-out time, and the dorm building had quieted down with few people in the long corridor. As Jiang Wei walked toward the end of the hallway, various terrifying scenes from the horror movies she watched that day suddenly flooded her mind. The closer she got to the bathroom, the more she felt chills in the air, making it difficult to even take another step.
Suddenly, a hand slapped onto her shoulder from behind!
Jiang Wei shivered violently, almost screaming out loud, only to turn around and see Zhou Fuzhen.
“Hey, why do you walk without making any sound?”
“Weiwei, are you alright?” Zhou Fuzhen looked genuinely concerned.
“What’s wrong with me? Aren’t I totally fine?”
“You didn’t take out online loans, did you?!”
“Huh? Hahahahaha!”
“Otherwise, where did you get the money?” Zhou Fuzhen understood Jiang Wei’s financial situation very well. How could she suddenly pull out such a large sum to buy a phone? And even if Jiang Wei actually had the money, knowing how frugal she was, she would never buy such an expensive device.
“To tell you the truth, I won the lottery! Scratch cards—have you heard of them? The shop at the east gate of the campus?”
Zhou Fuzhen looked dubious. “Is your luck really that good?”
“Just because you were reborn as a wealthy young lady doesn’t mean us common folk can’t make a modest fortune, right?” Jiang Wei pouted.
“Alright, alright. But if you ever need help, just say the word,” Zhou Fuzhen said earnestly.
Jiang Wei looked deeply at Zhou Fuzhen. “Zhenzhen, if you were a guy, I would definitely marry you.”
Zhou Fuzhen giggled. “Society is very open nowadays…” Her playful hand reached out.
“Get away from me!”
After laughing and messing around, Jiang Wei sent Zhou Fuzhen off. The smile on Jiang Wei’s face gradually faded as she squeezed the phone in her pocket. This was her biggest secret, involving supernatural powers—even to her best friend, she couldn’t be fully candid.
Although the money came easily, its source was a bit hard to explain. Oh well, she’d just stick with the lottery story for now! Nobody would pay that much attention anyway.
Currently, her biggest challenge was still—using the bathroom!
The hallway was completely empty, with no one around all of a sudden.
“Oh dear, I forgot to ask Zhenzhen to come with me,” Jiang Wei scratched her hair in frustration, but then thought, If I go alone, I might gain some fear points, right?
“I’ve really gone crazy!”
…
In the days that followed, Jiang Wei utilized all her spare time, immersing herself completely in the world of horror movies.
She originally wanted to skip some unimportant classes, but having been an obedient student for so long, she couldn’t bring herself to do something so rebellious. She decided to treat class time as a period to rest and recover, taking in some lively human energy so she could gather her spirits to go online at night.
During the first few days, she often felt on the verge of a breakdown, suffering nightmare after nightmare every night. Terrifying images pieced together in shattered fragments like paintings of hell. In her dreams, she stood right at the center of hell, hunted down by all sorts of bizarre ghosts and monsters, forced into corners time and again, and even killed directly.
Yet strangely enough, she would never wake up from these nightmares. Even when backed into a dead end in a dream and jumping off a rooftop with her skull shattering like a watermelon, the nightmare would never end.
Even stranger, sometimes she would turn into a ghost herself—filled with venomous hatred, covered in blood, with a shattered body or limbs like pale, withered trees… crawling, squirming, floating, and flying across eerie, terrifying scenes, hunting down her own self.
Only when morning arrived and her phone alarm rang—echoing through hell like divine music—could she wake up from the nightmare, feeling like she had survived a catastrophe.
The only saving grace was that her fear points would rise significantly. Yes, no matter when or where, as long as she felt fear, her fear points would increase without fail.
So despite going through such grueling ordeals, she had no intention of stopping whatsoever.
Inside her phone, the fear value ticked up bit by bit, converting into gold prayer bead after gold prayer bead. Not only did she pay off her student loans, but she also cleared her long-accumulated shopping cart. Though none of it was exceptionally lavish, it brought her an unprecedented sense of relief and joy.
“Let the fear come even stronger!” Jiang Wei called out in her heart.
However, human adaptability was truly profound. In less than half a month, the nightmares receded like a tide.
On this day, inside the pitch-black internet cafe booth, Jiang Wei finished another horror movie, took a sip of coffee, and smacked her lips:
“This movie doesn’t seem that impressive, huh?”
In truth, it wasn’t that the movie lacked terror, but under such high-intensity stimulation, her nerves had toughened up significantly. Ordinary horror films could no longer evoke much fear in her.
Jiang Wei understood the reasoning behind it and felt a slight regret—it seemed earning a million a year purely by watching horror movies wasn’t going to be that easy. Still, she wasn’t overly worried. In life, experiencing joy might not be easy, but experiencing fear—how hard could that be?
She wasn’t a greedy person either. As long as she could exchange fear for gold, even if she didn’t work any job, it would be enough to live comfortably without worry.
“Still, I should have accumulated a hundred fear points by now, right?”
After her initial round of revenge spending, as the balance in her bank account steadily climbed, Jiang Wei wasn’t in such a rush to convert every point into gold beads right away. Instead, she planned to accumulate more at once to save herself a few trips to the jewelry store.
She pulled out her phone to check. Sure enough, although the movie was average, it still contributed six fear points.
The screen displayed: [Fear Value: 100]
“Huh?”
Before Jiang Wei could celebrate, she suddenly noticed at the bottom of the page, right next to the [Sacrificial Offering] button, a new button had appeared called [Abyss].
“Another new feature?”
Delighted, Jiang Wei quickly took off her headphones and tapped on [Abyss].
Instantly, the phone screen turned completely black.
The booth was already very dim, but after Jiang Wei clicked into [Abyss], it grew even dimmer, as if all the light was being sucked into the small phone screen.
In such dimness, she couldn’t even see her own hands clearly, yet the phone screen stood out remarkably black—like a hole embedded in the darkness.
That hole was bottomless, as if it truly connected to an abyss.
Jiang Wei’s eyes also turned pitch-black and deep. She tried tapping gently on the center of the screen.
The abyss stirred slightly, and something emerged from the deep darkness—first, a speck of bright red.
Blood!
In an instant, that single drop of blood covered the entire screen. A wave of bloody light illuminated Jiang Wei’s face; her breathing grew slightly rapid, and for a moment, she felt the blood might overflow directly from the phone screen.
However, the blood vanished as quickly as it came, and the screen returned to darkness.
“What does this mean?”
Puzzled, Jiang Wei slid the screen back to the main menu, only to find another button next to [Sacrificial Offering] and [Abyss]—[Blessing]—with a red number 1 in its upper right corner.
Jiang Wei grew excited again and quickly clicked into [Blessing]. Inside was only a blood-red icon with a text description below:
[A Stain of Blood]
“Is this something I pulled out from the abyss? Stored here inside [Blessing]?”
Jiang Wei tapped on the blood-red icon, but nothing happened. After studying it for a while without figure it out, she had no choice but to exit the [Blessing] interface. Just as she prepared to head back to the dorm to continue researching, her eyes landed on the spot displaying fear value at the top of the screen, and her pupils shrank—the number had reset to zero.
‘Fishing’ something out from the [Abyss] actually consumed 100 fear points?!
Did her 30,000 RMB just vanish like that?!
“What use do I have for a stain of blood? Am I supposed to make blood curd with it?!”
Jiang Wei stared fixedly at the zero behind [Fear Value], clutching her phone and gritting her teeth, only to notice that at some unknown moment, a black ring had appeared around the stick figure in the center of the screen.
That black ring was so perfect, so harmonious, and so natural—as if it had existed from the very beginning, and she had simply failed to notice it until now.
The black stick figure inside the ring also became increasingly vivid—it looked… practically identical to her.
Jiang Wei took a deep breath, suppressing the various strange sensations in her heart, and tapped on the black stick figure. That black ring expanded silently.
That single tap felt as though it broke through something.
Crack! Something seemed to burst from its shell, expanding outward from within Jiang Wei’s body!
Inside the pitch-black booth, light suddenly flooded in. The keyboard, computer, wallpaper… everything became crystal clear down to the finest detail.
Jiang Wei opened her mouth in astonishment. She could actually see her own stunned face, while simultaneously seeing the back of her head, the intricate wiring behind the computer screen, and the tiny dead insects inside the ceiling light…
All of this—top and bottom, front and back, inside and out—was presented in her mind simultaneously in a form that transcended three-dimensional space, yet without any sense of confusion. Instead, it was clearer and more natural, allowing her to grasp the precise shapes of objects and their relative positions.
Jiang Wei was not a follower of any religion and didn’t know if an all-knowing, all-powerful deity existed in this world, but if God truly existed, then this must surely be the way He viewed the world.
“Know thyself”—the ultimate pursuit in the hall of philosophy—was, at this moment, nothing more than literal.
She could even count how many teeth she had and see the beating of her own heart.
Everything was completely within her grasp.
With a thought from Jiang Wei, that [A Stain of Blood] stored inside [Blessing] instantly flowed onto the floor of the booth, a metallic scent of blood filling her nose.
“Oh dear, this won’t be easy to clean up!”
She had only focused on trying out her new ability, ignoring her current surroundings. If the cleaning lady came in later, she might suspect someone had slit her wrists here. A thought immediately arose: I want to stop everything.
In an instant, the booth dimmed down again, and [A Stain of Blood] on the floor vanished without a trace. Everything that had just happened felt like nothing more than an illusion.
Yet in the darkness, a smile curled up on Jiang Wei’s face, carrying a sense of confidence and composure she had never possessed before. She could clearly feel that the power to perceive all things resided right within her physical shell—she didn’t even need to light up her phone screen anymore.
“Hahaha, I’ve succeeded!”
Author’s Note:
…
[The items inside [Blessing] are pulled from the [Abyss]—that is, a [Blessing] coming from the [Abyss].]