The NPC's Beauty Trap

The last thing He Xitang remembered was the imported red wine she had just warmed in her apartment.

Dewdrops clung to the crystal glass. Wearing a silk nightgown, she sat beside the floor-to-ceiling window. The instant her fingertips touched the stem, a sudden, tearing pain seized her heart.

The city lights before her twisted, their brilliance blurring into indistinct spots. The next second, her consciousness plunged into endless darkness.

There had been no warning, no struggle. At twenty, she had simply died for no apparent reason.

When she opened her eyes again, He Xitang found herself in a strange room.

The walls were pure white, the floor a deep black. There were no doors, windows, or furniture, only a silver platform hovering in the very center, radiating a cold light.

The air carried the scent of metal after it had cooled, icy enough to make her instinctively wrap her nightgown tighter around herself. It was the same outfit she had died in, yet now it was completely intact.

“Where is this?” she asked without thinking. Her voice was hoarse from waking, and a faint echo drifted through the empty room.

Fear wound around her heart like a vine. It wasn’t frantic terror, but a suffocating dread born of the unknown.

An NPC?