Suspense novelist Su Yao has been stuck in a creative slump for three months. Her readers' demands for updates and her editor's reminder to write “a masterpiece that will shake the world” weigh on her like two massive boulders. Then an anonymous email catches her eye: “If you want to write a truly great suspense novel, come to the abandoned Rose Manor.” The attached photos are covered in rust and withered vines, yet they hit exactly the right note with her longing for the unknown.
Ignoring her best friend's pleas, she enters the old Republican-era mansion hidden deep in the mountains. The iron gate creaks open, and the stench of decay mingles with the dust of dried roses. Charred marks in the courtyard hint at the devastation of the great fire that once raged there. In the only intact building, she finds a dark red diary. Its elegant handwriting shifts abruptly from mundane daily details to “weeping in the basement,” “strange symbols,” and crucial pages that have been torn out, piecing together unsettling fragments.
Even more strangely, the diary's contents begin to overlap with reality: footsteps in the hallway late at night, objects mysteriously moved, and a ghastly white face flashing past the window drag her into a mystery spiraling out of control. Just then, Lin Yu appears, searching for his missing younger sister. The keepsake she left behind bears the same “circle enclosing a triangle” symbol as the one in the diary.
The two join forces to uncover a hidden door beneath the study floor and follow a narrow passage into a secret laboratory. Pale green liquid in glass containers, photographs of human experiments on the walls, and records of a mad scientist's genetic modifications finally help them piece together the truth about the fire: a failed experiment to create superhumans caused a catastrophe.
Before they can process the truth, black-clad figures guarding the secret surround them. Trapped
