The strange descends, and the Rules of Horror System activates by force.
While everyone else is still crying in terror over the first rule, Xiao Ce studies the writing on the bottom of a tray and spots a no-win situation. The rules say to take the cup with both hands, but the person handing it over deliberately tilts it. Take it, and spilled wine means death. Refuse, and breaking the rules means death.
“The rules themselves are creating a violation.”
As one of the best auditors in the business, Xiao Ce treats the world of horrors like a contract full of loopholes. He suffers from extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder and absolute rationality. In his eyes, every strange rule is a text that can be taken apart, and every terrifying dungeon is an account that can be audited.
During his first hidden trial, he held his breath in a morgue for twelve hours and pried a copper coin worth one life from a corpse’s mouth.
During his second, in an old mansion hosting a ghostly wedding, he faced a fatal wedding cup. He held the cup and let the wine spill, then used the copper coin to withstand the death verdict. The old woman’s pupils shrank sharply at that moment. She had never seen anyone test the rules with their own life.
As the strange fully invades reality, places of legend become real dungeons: Fengmen Village, an abandoned hospital, an underground morgue... Others enter with almost no chance of survival, but Xiao Ce walks through them as if no one were there.
While humanity across the globe struggles in despair against the strange, Xiao Ce sits at the end of a dungeon, holding a freshly audited log of rule changes.
“I’ve balanced the books of this world of horrors.”
Tags: Rules of Horror, Smart Protagonist, Chinese Folk Customs, Mind Games, Infinite Worlds
