Even Dying Is Just Part of the Show

[Seeking advance readers for my new novel, Haunting in the Backrooms. Blurb below.]

Chen Mo has had one question she could never figure out since she was little.

Everyone would cheer excitedly, "It's in!!! What an amazing shot!"

She would stare at the two feet swinging from the ceiling beam on the television, looking confused.

Everyone would cheer, "Three, two, one... Happy New Year!" during the Spring Festival Gala, while she watched a crowd on television being chased by a faceless, long-haired woman, screaming in terror.

No matter how many times everyone changed the channel, she could only see the same supernatural horror adventure show, called "Screamfest."

Then one day, the show's host had an accident, and the program suddenly vanished.

For years, she couldn't let it go. She kept wanting to find the show, but never could. Eventually, she gave up and decided it had just been a childhood nightmare. Then one day, she woke up to find a triangular symbol flickering on the old TV at her grandfather's house. An excited voice said out of nowhere, "Welcome to the Screamfest program! You'll be joining us as an intern host!"

Chen Mo: "?????"

Chen Mo: "I refuse."

The production team: "Here's your pay stub."

Chen Mo: "When do we start?"

There are always places in the world that humans can't explain: the bizarre, the supernatural, strange customs, and a chilling malice. A show seen by fewer than one percent of people livestreams explorations of these places.

[The Legendary House of Angels]

[Hong Kong's Little Red Building with Eight Coffins Sealing the Dead]

[The Thousand-Year-Old Witch of Tibet]

The host has to stay alive and make sure the guests cooperate with filming. Most importantly, the show must be entertaining, its viewership must rise, and the episodes must be completed at any cost.

Chen Mo: "...Don't come crying to me later."

The production team: "Hmph."

Until Chen Mo fights her way through every obstacle and finally points the camera at the production team.

The production team: "Wait, hold on, wait!"

Chen Mo: "I gave you a chance to take it back."

The production team: "..."

She doesn't want to spend her whole life being led around by the production team, or have anyone control her life. She belongs only to herself. So she grabs money wherever she can and works like crazy, becoming the biggest workaholic on the entire production team. The more dangerous the place, the more fired up she gets.

Onlookers: ...Is this the power of being broke?

Her left hand quietly raises itself: Actually, I can take care of you...

Chen Mo: You, a little parasite that feeds on my flesh and blood and can't do a thing without me?

Left hand: Boo?

A cool-headed, secretly ruthless, danger-averse but poverty-fearing workaholic girl × a male lead who parasitizes the girl, gets psychologically manipulated, and keeps falling for her

Reader's notes:

The heroine is an ordinary person with flaws and room to grow.

The romance is one-on-one.

Includes some Lovecraftian elements.

PS: This is not an infinite-flow story, not an infinite-flow story, not an infinite-flow story. The title may sound like an infinite-flow game, but every section is connected by cause and effect. There are no dungeon runs or farming stages. It may look like a series of dungeons, but the story focuses on plot and romance.

PS: The romance develops relatively slowly, but the male lead isn't just a background character. He has an important role in the main plot.

PS: The heroine has no hidden identity. She's just an ordinary person, just an ordinary person, just an ordinary person.

(New book, please add it to your advance-read list. Daily updates, so you won't regret it.)

People call the place where humans live the Frontrooms.

Every Frontroom has a door, and the world behind it is called the Backrooms.

Rumor has it that the door between the Frontrooms and the Backrooms must never be opened. Everyone follows this ironclad rule.

Jiang Tang, who died in the Backrooms and woke up in the Frontrooms, kicks the door open. "So what?"

Just as prisoner 0001, the most closely guarded inmate in the Backrooms' prison, is about to be executed, her subordinates betray her. When she wakes, her consciousness has attached itself to a young girl in the Frontrooms named Jiang Tang.

To find a way back to the Backrooms and avoid the enemies coming from there to drag her back to prison, Jiang Tang plans to lie flat and keep a low profile. But entities keep appearing in the Frontrooms, frightening everyone into screaming for their mothers. Then they see Jiang Tang, the girl they used to bully without restraint, tearing monsters apart with a blank expression and stomping zombies underfoot.

Everyone: ?????

The people who bullied her without restraint cling to her desperately. "Xiaotang, you're such a good person. You'll forgive us for treating you badly before, right?"

Her ex-boyfriend, who dumped her, waits for her at the spawn point every day. "Tangtang, I really can't live without you! You have no idea how much I love you!"

Her father, who drained her dry to support his precious son, brings a group of relatives and holds out his hand. "My good daughter, we're family. Can you really stand by and watch us die?"

Before these people can come over and morally blackmail her, a girl claiming to be her friend drops out of the sky and handles every problem herself.

Jiang Tang: My friend? But I don't even know you!

Tong Xin kicks them all far away without looking back. "You do now."

#So this is how people in the Frontrooms make friends #I really don't understand how you people in the Frontrooms think

As Jiang Tang keeps lying low, she realizes that something isn't right.

More and more people are crawling out of the gaps in the entity she keeps as a pet. A monster falls out today, a wanderer crawls out tomorrow, until a bloodied person tumbles from the gap. It's the very enemy who imprisoned her in the Backrooms, the one who is sworn to destroy her.

What does it feel like when your enemy comes right to your door without you lifting a finger?

Jiang Tang: I can't help laughing even in my dreams.

After several failed assassination attempts,

Jiang Tang gets angry. "Zhou Qiansheng, are you messing with me on purpose???"

#When can I go back to the Backrooms! #This person from the Backrooms has something wrong with his head too!

During the days when Jiang Tang is forced to live with Zhou Qiansheng and Tong Xin, everyone but Jiang Tang is uncomfortable.

If it weren't for Zhou Qiansheng frowning and warning her every day, "You must never trust Tong Xin,"

and Tong Xin pulling her aside every day to whisper, "You have to be careful around Zhou Qiansheng,"

life might actually be pretty nice.

But Jiang Tang has never asked them:

"Do you two really trust me that much?"

Reader's notes:

[1] If you don't know about the Backrooms, don't worry. The story doesn't use much of the original official lore. Most of the setting is original and applies only to this book. The Backrooms are simply threshold spaces and higher-dimensional levels.

[2] The heroine is a native of the Backrooms and has never been shaped by the rules of modern society, so she has no human moral values. The characters' worldviews do not represent the author's. Please don't read too much into it.

[3] Entities can be understood as monsters. There are many kinds, which are described in the story.

Theme: My fate is mine to command, not Heaven's.