A High School Student’s Survival Diary of Rules and Mysteries

Before he turned seventeen, Zheng Gengling thought he was just an ordinary high school student. His adoptive father, Chen Jianjun, was a neighborhood security guard, and his childhood friend, Guo Zongzhang, was always dragging him out of class to play online games. Life was as bland as plain water. Then one night, the lights in the study hall went out. Three unfinished rules appeared on the blackboard, and a gap-toothed child outside called his name. His adoptive father smashed through the wall and used his own life to shove Zheng Gengling to safety. The official conclusion was heart disease. But Zheng Gengling knew something was wrong: his adoptive father had clutched a rusty coin, his identity card had been canceled eighteen years ago, and a metal box under the bed held a photo of a man who looked exactly like him. On the back were written the words: Zheng Yue, died in battle in the Central Plains. From that day on, strange events followed him everywhere. Stairwells, rooftops, abandoned old courtyards… Each place bore three and a half fragmentary rules, and every incident ended only when someone died. Zheng Gengling and Guo Zongzhang survived in the gaps between the rules, using a broken tin frog and a cracked red cord with a copper coin to ward off disaster time and again, but each item broke after a single use. Gradually, he discovered that the world was living in a layer of false peace, and that his surname was Zheng. This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.