An Unusual Life Beginning with Evil Spirits

Volume 1. Let the Game Begin

So... what would happen at twelve o’clock??

Was it the start time of this game?

But no matter how I looked at it, this APP didn’t seem like a game at all?

With some curiosity, I shifted my gaze away from the countdown and looked at the three options instead.

On the minimalist interface, the three options plainly displayed their functions.

One was ‘Points’.

I looked at it first and found that there were actually three hundred points here?

The second was a bit strange... just two characters: ‘History’, and the third was ‘Attributes’.

"Is this a game?"

Frowning, I tapped the ‘History’ option with my finger.

Then a scene appeared on the phone screen, and the moment I saw it, I felt a chill down my spine!!

Because... the entire phone screen suddenly went black, and on the pitch-black screen, that grin reaching the ears, those blood-red eyes... that creepy Grinning Face that had killed me actually appeared on the screen!

I almost screamed out loud, instinctively covering my mouth and curling up my body, staring blankly at the screen.

However... that Grinning Face on the screen didn’t snap my neck again.

Gradually, as time passed, I calmed down somewhat.

The phone screen didn’t change at all.

Cautiously tapping on the screen with my finger, I instantly felt a cold sensation spread from the screen through my entire body, making me shiver uncontrollably.

At the same time, the image suddenly changed, and that Grinning Face... actually winked at me!!

Just when I was ready to bolt, the screen suddenly scrolled down, and a line of text appeared.

‘Congratulations to the passerby for clearing the first game. At the moment you survived, you became a beginner game player. Please continue to work hard and survive.’

As I finished reading this line, it was as if something inside the phone was peeking into my consciousness.

The screen changed again, and another line of text appeared.

‘The rules of the game are very simple. Please follow the rules provided in each round to find a way to survive.’

After reading this line, the phone screen refreshes itself again.

You know... I hadn’t made a sound.

It was as if this phone could peer into my mind, my thoughts.

The moment I finished reading, it automatically switched to another line of text!

‘Based on the player’s physical condition, the APP will not issue any emergency tasks in the near future.’

After this last line appeared, suddenly, the screen turned blood red!

The color of the blood was so realistic, as if it might spill out from the screen!

The thick, sticky blood flowed across the phone screen, forming a line of text!

‘Please note, the time until the start of the permanent task is 02:32:12. The duration of this permanent task will be 1 hour. Please strive to survive.’

‘Note: The rules of this permanent task are as follows:’

‘First: The anomalies will not actively open any boxes or cabinets, nor will they actively crouch down to search under beds or tables.’

‘Second: The player must escape the hospital before 1 a.m. If it goes past 1 a.m., the outer and inner worlds will reverse, and the anomaly will be able to instantly locate the player’s position.’

‘Third: The player carries a one-time substitute toy. Throwing the substitute toy will cause the anomaly to switch targets, granting the player ten seconds. The substitute toy will become invalid after 1 a.m.’

‘Fourth: The player may not leave the ward before midnight.’

‘Fifth: This game will find seven passersby within the scene to participate. Those who survive will become beginner players.’

‘Note: Please make good use of points to exchange for survival tools.’

After reading all of this... I lay dumbfounded in bed.

The soft mattress and heavy quilt gave me no warmth at all.

My whole body felt as if plunged into an icy cave.

The cold crept up from my spine to the top of my head, and my crown felt like it had been cracked open, with a chilling wind drilling straight into my brain!

“……”

“……”

“……”

I opened my mouth but had no idea how to react.

What kind of international joke was this?

A game?

What the hell did that have to do with me?!

What do you mean, beginner player?!

I was already freaking dead, okay?

My urn was still on the nightstand!

Want to check?!

However... this time, no matter what I was thinking, the phone no longer responded.

What remained was the screen returning to the history interface.

In the history interface, there was a chart.

The first row of the chart showed that terrifying and helpless Grinning Face, and next to it was a remark.

Bus Incident:

Deaths: 13 people

Danger level: S-Class

Survivors: 1 person

Global Danger Ranking: Thirty-fourth place.

And at the end of the chart, there was actually a ‘Replay’ button.

I couldn’t help but feel speechless toward this APP...

How bored did you have to be to include a replay?

Was the whole thing recorded or something!?

Putting the phone aside, I closed my eyes.

After sorting through all the questions in my mind, I felt calm again and picked up the phone once more.

There were still more than two hours until midnight.

That was enough time for me to figure out the current situation.

Player... APP... horror event... death count... passerby...

These things kept spinning back and forth in my mind, but no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a definitive answer.

Still, at least now I understood one thing...

I had become a player in some kind of eerie game, and the goal of the game was for players to experience strange events and then survive.

I couldn’t fall asleep anyway, so I turned over and sat up.

My lower leg was still in a brace.

Escaping from this hospital wouldn't be an easy task.

I lived on the seventeenth floor, and if I could use the elevator... no, no, no, the game wouldn’t be that simple!

I glanced back at Aunt Zhao.

She was sleeping soundly.

I hesitated for a moment but didn’t disturb her.

This hospital room was a suite.

In fact, the floors from seventeen to twenty were all suites, specially reserved for the wealthy or powerful.

I grabbed the notebook and pen from the nightstand, bit them with my mouth, then picked up my crutches.

Carefully, without waking Aunt Zhao, I made my way to the living room.

My leg hurt... but it was bearable for me.

My dislocated arm had already healed by the third day after I woke up.

Under the influence of a powerful soul, my body healed at a rate beyond that of an ordinary person.

Sitting on a chair, I turned on the light in the living room, opened the notebook, unlocked my phone, and started looking for special details.

"There are certain rules in the game. While they restrict the players, they also restrict the ghosts... wait a second..."

"Anomalies... the APP didn’t refer to them as ghosts, but as anomalies. That suggests... the enemies might not be ghostly beings, but some other unknown entities?"

"If they're anomalies, then what exactly are they? From the game rules, we can see that the ghost doesn’t actively open boxes or crouch to look under tables. So if I carry the table around, would that be safe?"

After a slight hesitation, I shook my head.

"No... if this is a survival game, it won't be that simple. The opponent doesn’t proactively check, but that doesn’t mean it can’t lift the table. So judging from that... these things can move. Escape the hospital... then this is a fixed scenario? In other words, the location of this so-called permanent task is within the hospital?"

"A one-time substitute toy, just as the name suggests, should be an item that can take your place and attract the anomaly’s attention—a game prop, essentially?"

"Judging from certain aspects, these things probably don’t have the ability to phase through walls, but might patrol the hallways?"

"Points... oh, there’s even a shop here. Let me see... hmm, mostly all survival items. Nothing that can be used to fight the anomalies. In other words... this game doesn’t support confrontation between humans and anomalies? Or rather, humans are incapable of confronting anomalies?"

At that thought... I couldn’t help but frown, recalling my first experience.

That’s right... anomalies were too bizarre.

I couldn’t even figure out how I had died.

Using current human means to fight back was nearly impossible.

"Seven passersby... but it didn’t mention players. Could it be that I’m the only player in the hospital? And what I care most about are those four words... ‘outer and inner world reversal’—what does that mean?"

Seven passersby... hiss!

"Something’s wrong... seven passersby, that number doesn’t feel right? No... that’s too broad a range. Passersby... wait, the game didn’t specify how many players there are. Could there be other players in the hospital besides me?? Seven people... how would I even identify these seven? If one of them is actually an anomaly in disguise, how would I defend myself?"

After sorting out this series of questions, I looked at my notebook, then at my foot, and finally... at my hair.

Hair that’s too long won’t do.

I needed to find a way to tie it up.

Thinking for a moment... I gave up on the idea of cutting it.

I opened my phone, found a tutorial online for tying hair, and tied it behind my head, then continued looking at my phone.

As a beginner game player, out of my 300 points, 200 were extra rewards for surviving the S-level game alone, and 100 were given as a starter bonus for entering the game.

I checked the items available for exchange on my phone.

There were a lot, including the one-time substitute doll, which cost about 15 points.

And at the bottom of the shop, there was even an option to directly convert points to real-world money.

1 point could be exchanged for 100,000 USD.

One hundred points... equaled ten million USD!?

That meant my points could be exchanged for thirty million!?

Converted to RMB... damn! Two hundred and ten million!?

I instinctively held down the hand that almost tapped ‘exchange’ and took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down!

"No, no... can’t be greedy. Calm down. If points are worth this much, it means they’re extremely important!"

It took me nearly five minutes to give up on those 210 million and quickly scrolled back to the top of the screen, starting from the first item.

"Game Exit Ticket, five thousand points?"

"Time Rewind APP? Can return to any moment within ten minutes. Can only be used once per game."

"World Watch? Three hundred points!!? Damn, is a watch really worth that much? Can pause time for five seconds, reusable, but can’t be used more than three times in a single game? This thing’s awesome... it’s just too expensive, five seconds of time freeze..."