Chronicles of the Burning Lamp

An exploration blogger who makes a living by "finding patterns" falls into an altar that has burned for a thousand years. When he wakes, he finds himself in another world where "rules are nooses."

Nothing here is frightening without reason. Every night, a dry well counts the living, and if the numbers don't add up, it takes another person. The thick fog bites only shadows: the shadow dies first, then its owner. There's a city where no one can tell the truth, because anyone who does is swallowed by the entire city. Every horror has a flaw, and every flaw is paid for in human lives. Chen Shi has only a pen, a notebook, and eyes that can spot when something is "off."

Lamps must be bought with lives. He can't go home, and light must be kindled with blood. He proceeds carefully through this lightless darkness, recording every eerie pattern stroke by stroke, because he has always believed one thing: as long as the world still has rules, he hasn't lost.

But the deeper he goes, the more he discovers that this world has already died once. And he himself is being written into its ledger.

Chronicles of the Burning Lamp: The world is so vast, yet he still can't go home.