At three in the morning, horror novelist Lin Shen wakes in an unfamiliar old mansion. Before him are two red coffins and a paper-figure wedding procession.
“Welcome to the Abyss System,” a cold electronic voice announces. “The beginner instance, ‘Night of the Ghost Wedding Banquet,’ has begun. Mission: survive until dawn and uncover the truth. Failure penalty: become part of the wedding.”
Beneath the red bridal veil is not a bride’s face, but a pair of hollow, blood-soaked eye sockets. The guests at the banquet have no features, and human fingernails are hidden in the dishes. To stay alive, he must follow the wedding’s bizarre etiquette, but every rule could be a deadly trap.
Lin Shen soon realizes this isn’t any novel he has written. But when he calmly observes the situation with a professional’s instincts, a prompt suddenly appears: [Professional compatibility detected: 92%... Talent “Horror Resonance” activated. Your understanding of horror tropes will become an advantage for survival.]
But the dangers go far beyond that. There’s a nurse in the sanatorium who changes the rules, a reflection in the mirror that mimics his movements, and a faceless doctor who keeps saying, “The patient is always right.” Every instance brings together the deepest fears of East and West.
Even more terrifying, the System seems to conceal a greater secret. Why are all the instances like unfinished drafts he wrote? Why are the voices trapped inside the walls calling his name?
“We’re not the first, and we won’t be the last,” a physicist in a wheelchair says calmly. “But this time, perhaps someone can truly break the cycle.”
When Lin Shen finally stands before the core of the System and sees the familiar black notebook, he understands at last: the source of all this horror is...
