[The title and blurb may be revised frequently before the story begins, but the main premise won't change. Feel free to bookmark it~]
2025.08.23: The protagonist's name has been updated. His personality and skill effects still seem a little off, so they're still being revised. The old notices about blurb edits have been moved to the end for the record. I'll delete them before the story begins.
(Blurb under revision)
Xie Zhouxing has had a special constitution since childhood. The more malicious a person is, or the more terrifying a monster comes from the depths of darkness, the more irresistibly they seem to be drawn to him, seeing him as prey.
Some want to keep him as a possession. Others want to eat him.
Some are like shadows that follow him wherever he goes, impossible to distinguish from the darkness, watching him from the gaps in everyday life.
Though danger was never far away, Xie Zhouxing managed to grow up safe and sound under the strict protection of his family and mentors. Accustomed to being watched over and cared for, he was like a pearl hidden away in a box, never exposed to daylight: pale and beautiful, his fragility a mark of his preciousness, waiting to be handed over to his next protector.
Then, on the day he finally left the house for the first time on his own, after being cooped up indoors for so long, Xie Zhouxing was hit by an out-of-control ambulance and thrown into a horror survival game.
[Static crackles... Loading... "bzzt"... Character attributes activated... Confirming starting skill... Binding assistant system...]
[Instance storyline generated. Assigning player roles...]
[Beginner level starting]
[You are a low-ranking lackey at school, targeted by spoiled rich kids out of malice. Timid and constantly bullied, you were locked alone in an abandoned classroom rumored to be haunted for an entire night.]
[Nothing seemed to happen that night. But after you were let out the next day, you discovered in horror that a terrifying presence had joined the classmates you saw every day...]
[Clear conditions: Escape the campus or identify the ghost]
"Host, don't panic. According to the data, the initial beginner instances are based on the player's real life, so the difficulty usually isn't... Wait, what on earth is all this?!"
As the System screamed, Xie Zhouxing entered the instance and discovered that everyone at the school was a monster. He was the only helpless, vulnerable human being.
The monster teacher demonstrated swallowing a student whole in class. Monster classmates tossed their limbs around as they roughhoused between lessons. The monster top student dissected himself in his spare time. The monster school bully would twist a lackey's head off and kick it around like a ball... Did this school really need to be haunted, too?
And even though his role was that of an outcast whom everyone avoided and despised, every "person" Xie Zhouxing met was enthusiastic about him, eagerly inviting him to join their activities, as a companion or as a prop.
How familiar, this feeling of being wanted...
Speechless, Xie Zhouxing opened the system interface. The monster-attracting constitution he'd had for twenty years had been recognized by the game as an "initial character attribute," displayed in plain sight on his character sheet.
And, as another familiar side effect of his bait-like constitution...
[Passive Skill "Divine Protection": Everything that happens to you will bring you a corresponding reward.]
Xie Zhouxing counted the monsters gathered around him: a werewolf desk mate with messy hair and furry ears on top of his head; a roommate who was an intricately constructed, ornate doll; an upperclassman who seemed to have taken the form of a slime, casually tossing his detached doubles around; and fish skeletons gliding through the artificial lake...
The monsters wanted the pleas, pain, and tears of their prey. They wanted to devour their prey's flesh in the end. But the "reward" Xie Zhouxing wanted couldn't be merely a fleeting, false show of pity.
...So whom should he choose first, and what kind of payment or price should he offer, to lure a hunter into his trap as prey and make them his first protector in this brand-new hunting ground?
* The love interest is a nonhuman creature whose fragments may coexist in an instance. Some fragments are deranged and twisted, or nonhuman monsters, and may do all sorts of awful things to the protagonist. They may willingly die for him, or be killed by his own hand. The fragments may also kill one another, though all of their memories will eventually be restored. If you can only find such plotlines horrifying or heartbreaking, rather than sexy, your tastes may not be compatible with ours. Please proceed with caution.
* The fragments will merge later on. The romance ultimately goes both ways, and neither switching roles nor pairing the characters with anyone else is allowed.
* I plan to save up thirty chapters before starting the story. After it begins, I'll post the number of chapters in reserve here.
↓↓↓↓ Below are records of blurb revisions. I forgot to save the earliest versions, alas. ↓↓↓↓
2025.02.15: Major revision. The protagonist's name needs to change... I originally chose "Taoxi" for the image of a Peach Blossom Spring: beautiful and peaceful, but also a little eerie. Then, while researching, I discovered the phrase was already an allusion with a meaning that didn't quite fit (How embarrassing to be so ignorant!). So I had to change it. I'm still racking my brain for a suitable replacement. Also, as I kept writing and got to know the protagonist better, I realized his personality was a little different from what I'd first imagined. The little bonus scenes need to be rebuilt, too. The blurb will probably undergo major revisions back and forth for a while, so I've hurriedly edited it and put up this notice for now.
Theme: Hold fast to your principles in adversity, and use your strengths to achieve success.
