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Wei Yuan lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
He was absolutely terrified.
Not long ago, he'd just gotten off work. He and a few of his drinking buddies had gone out for hotpot, singing songs while they ate.After that, they found a KTV and kept the party going—drinking, singing, dancing nonstop.
Maybe he drank too much, because right after finishing a song, a wave of dizziness hit him hard. Everything spun around him—and before he knew it, he blacked out.
When he came to, he found himself lying in a tiny, shabby little straw hut.
The walls of the place were made from yellow mud, full of cracks and holes, looking like it could fall apart any second.
Wei Yuan took a deep breath—and instantly regretted it. The air was thick with the musty smell of mold.
Then he noticed something... was off with his body.
Panicking, he jumped up to check himself. He was wearing a ragged, patch-covered hemp robe.
Worse, the abs he'd worked so hard to build in the gym—gone, just like that.
Looking at his thin and frail body, Wei Yuan muttered, "Did I... get younger?"
He looked around the hut but didn't see a mirror or anything reflective, so he couldn't tell if he'd really gotten younger or not.
"Ugh, my head…" His skull throbbed like someone had bashed it with a stick. His ears were ringing like crazy.
Then suddenly, his nose felt hot. He reached up to touch it—
What the hell? Blood?!
Not just his nose—his mouth, eyes, and ears were all bleeding.
Bright red blood was oozing from every hole in his face.
This... this was real widespread bleeding from his facial orifices.
And then, as if things couldn't get any weirder—
A strange, indescribable whispering started echoing in his mind, blending with the ringing in his ears.
The voice was near and far at the same time, a chilling murmur that kept looping in his head.
Wei Yuan shook his head hard, trying to focus. He took a deep breath.
Slowly, he walked toward the door of the straw hut and carefully pulled open the broken, battered door just a crack to peek outside. The sky was dim.
The last sliver of sunlight was fading behind the distant hills. In the faint light, Wei Yuan saw that his little hut sat on the side of a hill.
Not too far away at the bottom of the slope, he could barely make out a small village—thirty or forty other straw huts clustered together.
But something was wrong with the village. It was shrouded in a strange, thin black mist.
The whole place was eerily silent, like not a single soul lived there. Just as Wei Yuan was about to step out, a wave of freezing cold suddenly rushed over him, making his skin crawl and his body break out in goosebumps.
BOOM!
A massive shadow fell from the sky, crashing down into the middle of the village and smashing one of the straw huts into the ground.
Wei Yuan's pupils shrank. He was frozen in shock. What the hell was that?!
He squinted, trying to get a better look—the shape of the shadow looked like a giant human hand.
The huge hand started digging through the rubble of the collapsed hut. After rummaging for a few seconds, it grabbed a villager.
Only the villager's head and part of their legs were visible, dangling helplessly in the monster's grip.
The moment it was caught, the person screamed and thrashed wildly, like they knew they were about to die.
The blood-curdling screams tore through the silent air and into Wei Yuan's ears.
He followed the direction the hand was moving with his eyes—
And the moment he saw it, his mind went blank from fear.
That giant hand belonged to an enormous monster.
The thing stood tall in the thick, dark fog—its full form was hard to see, but compared to the tiny huts, it looked like a towering skyscraper.
Worse yet... it seemed to have eight arms.
Wei Yuan rubbed his eyes hard, trying to get a clearer view of the creature's face. But the dense fog blocked everything.
And then, to his horror, he watched as the huge hand raised the captured villager to the monster's mouth. One of its hands tore the villager's clothes open with ease.
Then, the creature opened its gaping mouth—rows and rows of sharp, bone-white fangs shining inside.
With a sickening crunch, the villager was swallowed into the pitch-black abyss of its mouth. Blood sprayed everywhere.
The creature casually tossed the shredded clothing aside.
And then it repeated the whole process. It smashed another hut, grabbed another person, and shoved them straight into its mouth.
The villagers' terrified, high-pitched screams—mixed with the raw horror in their voices—rang out clearly in Wei Yuan's ears. That thing… it was eating people. Wei Yuan was paralyzed with fear. He still had no idea what was going on.
Could this really be a dream?
Yeah. Yeah, it had to be. No way this was real. This had to be a nightmare. He had to wake up. Now.
"....."