Shh! It's Watching You [Infinite]

[Next book: Echoes of the Old Days, a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Blurb below]

★ The third arc is complete. Updates every night at midnight.

1.

Forensic doctor Wen Zhuo received a train ticket that “invited” him to board a train at an abandoned station.

The train was rife with deception and vile crimes. At every stop, passengers had to survive a dangerous game and complete its mission before they could move on to the next station.

“Welcome aboard Train 044, Passenger Wen Zhuo. The train's next stop is [Li Family Village]. Passengers bound for Li Family Village, please prepare to disembark and follow the train's rules.”

A strange, isolated mountain village.

A residential complex where the only light at night came from the red lanterns outside the bun shop.

A running commentary that babbled on inside a chaotic rental apartment.

A psychiatric hospital no one could escape.

A chaotic city filled with the living dead.

There was fear and danger here, and someone who had vanished without a trace ten years ago.

When they met again, the other man greeted Wen Zhuo with the same affection as before: “Little Fish, long time no see.”

Wen Zhuo pressed something cold against his throat, their breaths mingling. “Touch me again and you might not make it past this stop.”

But the game had a special rule:

[Reminder: Please keep your SAN level stable. If it gets too low, you may randomly lose one of your senses!]

Wen Zhuo, whose vision suddenly went black: “...”

Someone murmured against his ear: “If you're blind, don't wander around. You're safest with me.”

No matter which direction Wen Zhuo stumbled into in the dark, he always ended up in that familiar embrace. The man stroked the base of his ear. “My little fish... You can't go anywhere.”

“Xi Wengui spent ten years learning. He learned how to lie, how to smile with just the right curve, and how to whisper sweet nothings in the most suggestive tone... At last, he became what a ‘person’ should be. And so he returned to his little fish, wanting to give him the purest love.”

But his little fish had grown up into a pufferfish covered in spines, pricking him at the slightest provocation.

2.

(Plot-focused blurb)

“Ladies and gentlemen, the train has arrived at [Li Family Village]. Please disembark in an orderly fashion.”

“Find your ticket to the next stop here before boarding again.”

“Uncover the crime hidden in the story of the game. Identify the criminal among you who committed it, catch them, and vote to condemn them.”

“One final reminder: Contraband is forbidden aboard the train. Stowaways and fare evasion are prohibited.”

Everyone who had committed a heinous crime received a ticket and became one of the passengers fighting to survive aboard the train. In every game, one passenger would become the “criminal,” and the others would judge their crimes.

But perhaps at the next stop, you would be the criminal on trial.

The lofty presiding judge looked down at them without the slightest compassion. “Only by cleansing yourselves of your sins and earning absolution and forgiveness will you have a chance to obtain a ticket back to reality.”

My new book, Echoes of the Old Days, is now underway. If you're interested, check it out and add it to your collection:

At the start of the Great Collapse, a crack split the sky. A blinding substance called “light” shone through it, awakening Them from their slumber and irreversibly invading the world.

Later generations would call this catastrophe [Light Pollution].

If you are fortunate enough to be among the last survivors, make sure you memorize the Lighthouse Survival Rules.

Everything outside the lighthouse is wasteland.

-

Li Wei and You E had been bitter rivals for years. Their opposing beliefs had driven them to fight to the death, and they spent three days poring over every word the other said, trying to decide if it was true. Their greatest wish was to make the other bow and submit.

After one battle, You E collapsed among the rubble, covered in blood. Li Wei used the moment to do something unforgivable.

Facing the dusky evening wind, he knelt before his dying nemesis and gave him a bloodstained kiss, then sighed. “You E... I've suffered because of you for so long.”

Only he knew how much of that was true and how much was a lie.

When the other man died with his eyes still open, Li Wei could barely hide his amusement. For years afterward, he would savor the look on You E's face in his dreams.

As one of the rare Order Keepers, Li Wei was the subject of many tales around the lighthouse. They called him a divine envoy, the strongest commander in the latter days of the Collapse, and claimed every “Awakened” person bowed to him at first sight. Some even said it was because he had a face that could entrance anyone...

Most of the rumors were true. Only two were completely false.

The first false rumor was that Li Wei had an exceptionally powerful companion.

It was common knowledge that Order Keepers needed their companions' soothing presence to maintain their sanity, and the stronger the companion, the higher the Order Keeper's mental threshold.

But Li Wei had no companion. One day, he would descend into madness, and nothing around him would be spared.

And the second false rumor...

The day he neared losing control, Li Wei left the lighthouse of his own accord and went to a quiet place to await death.

Yet countless phantom tentacles searched the ruins for him. They coiled around his ankles, their cold, clammy touch creeping upward to grip every vital spot.

At the same time, a sinister, tender whisper reached his ear: “My dear commander, I heard that you flayed me, tore out my bones, and ground them to dust all those years ago?”

“...” His eyelid twitched violently.

“But all I remember is a kiss. It clung to my soul and haunted my every dream. Even after I died without a body intact, I crawled out of the ground to find you... My dear commander, don't you think you owe me an explanation?”

“What kind of thing are you now?”

“What kind of thing?” The surroundings had already become a sea of tentacles. Countless black strands gathered in front of him, forming a twisted silhouette that was at once strange and familiar. Its voice was wet and sticky. “Didn't you want to be soothed? Come here and please me.”

“...”

Perhaps because of all the terrible things he'd done, his nemesis, supposedly “ground to dust,” had mutated into his companion.

The grotesque monster even took advantage of the moments when Li Wei couldn't control himself to deliberately leave him disheveled and covered in grime, just to see him fly into an embarrassed rage.

“How was it last night?”

“Not bad. It performed best last night.” Li Wei picked up a tentacle and planted a lazy kiss on it. “That's its reward.”

“...?”

PS:

1. Two strong leads, with a touch of ensemble cast. The gong is the shou's companion. The tentacles are only part of his true form, not the whole thing. He has a humanoid form.

2. Post-apocalyptic wasteland, with some tabletop role-playing and Lovecraftian elements. Lots and lots of original worldbuilding.

Theme: Be a good person, okay?