Chapter 01: Xia Mi

September 21st marked the tail end of summer. The night finally offered a hint of coolness, so Xia Mi switched off her energy-inefficient air conditioner and opened the window. A wave of humid, sweltering air, laced with a faint cool breeze, pressed against her face.

Xia Mi would have preferred to keep the AC running, but the electricity at her rented apartment was simply too expensive. At 1.5 yuan per kilowatt-hour for commercial-rate electricity, it was a burden she could hardly afford as a recent college graduate.

During the day, the heat was lethal without the AC, but at night, it was bearable.

Xia Mi returned to her desk and continued working through her “Collection of Provincial Civil Service Exam Papers: 2014-2024.”

The job market had been bleak these past two years, and Xia Mi hadn’t been able to find an ideal position. She had decided to burn her bridges, choosing to remain unemployed to preserve her status as a fresh graduate¹ and focus entirely on the civil service exams.

It was a difficult decision. Even with her parents’ support, the pressure was immense.

She had rented a single-room apartment near a civil service training center. She attended classes on weekends and worked part-time jobs during the week to earn a bit of pocket money.

Her family was certainly willing to provide for her, but Xia Mi felt uneasy taking their money. Instead, she used her accumulated savings, New Year’s gift money, and the wages from her senior year internship to pay three months’ rent. Her daily expenses were covered by her odd jobs.

Supporting herself meant saving wherever possible. If she could open a window, she would never turn on the AC!

One year. Xia Mi had given herself exactly one year to focus on the exams and secure a Bianzhi². If she couldn’t make it within a year, she would abandon this path entirely.

She set an alarm, strictly following the official exam time limits, and focused all her attention on completing a set of past exam papers.

Xia Mi possessed incredible focus, she could tune out all surrounding noise while working. It wasn’t until the alarm signaled the end of the test that she noticed the incessant buzzing of a mosquito in her ear.

She set down her pen and looked at the mosquito circling her. It was nearly the size of a dragonfly.

It was so large that Xia Mi could see its needle-like proboscis. It was so large that she doubted it was a mosquito at all, but rather some kind of monster.

“Bugs in the south really are huge,” Xia Mi said, her expression unchanged.

Xia Mi was from the north but had attended university in a southern city. The first time she saw a southern cockroach fly directly at her face, she had nearly jumped out the window, brandishing a chair and declaring that only one of them would leave the room alive.

Now, faced with this exaggeratedly large mosquito, she calmly picked up a slipper. With lightning speed and ruthless precision, she slammed it down.

As a former university badminton champion, Xia Mi was quick-eyed and nimble. Her strike was accurate and forceful, pinning the mosquito against the wall.

After the successful hit, Xia Mi lifted the slipper, only to find to her surprise that the mosquito wasn’t dead. Its proboscis, nearly two centimeters long, had pierced the bottom of the slipper and was stuck, the insect struggling and emitting a loud, vibrating hum with its wings.

“Still not dead? Are you even a mosquito?” Xia Mi asked.

The mosquito didn’t understand her, it was busy trying to wrench itself free from the slipper.

Xia Mi felt a moment of confusion. She felt this thing couldn’t be a mosquito, but then she remembered the size difference between northern and southern cockroaches and figured this was just how things were here.

Before the mosquito could break free, she raised the slipper and slammed it against the floor several times. The mosquito finally died, leaving behind a smear of bright red blood.

“Good thing I didn’t squash it on the wall. If I’d left a bloodstain that big, the landlord would definitely find an excuse to keep my deposit,” Xia Mi said, feeling lucky.

She cleaned up the carcass and the blood, then inspected the screen window. Finding a small hole, she patched it with clear packing tape to prevent any more giant mosquitoes from crawling in.

With that minor task finished, Xia Mi returned to her desk to grade her paper. Seeing a score of 83 on the Administrative Aptitude Test³, she let out a satisfied smile.

That was a very high score!

She had only done the mock test for the Administrative Aptitude Test today, she would tackle the Essay Writing for Civil Service⁴ tomorrow.

By the time she finished, it was already 10:30 PM. Xia Mi stretched, opened her laptop, and found a random horror-themed puzzle game, intending to play for a bit to decompress before bed.

She selected a free game called “Hani Apartments.” The objective was to escape a haunted apartment building. She took control of the character named “Xiao Mi,” but in less than three minutes, Xiao Mi was dead.

The cause of death was poisoning.

Xiao Mi had a needle-like puncture wound on her neck, suggesting a lethal injection.

Looking at the puncture mark on the screen, Xia Mi’s mind inexplicably flashed back to the mosquito from earlier. She couldn’t help but feel it looked like a mosquito bite.

“Why am I making such weird connections?” Xia Mi shook her head, tossing the strange thought aside.

She restarted the game. This time, she checked Xiao Mi’s neck immediately. Seeing no wound yet, she wrapped a scarf around the character’s neck, successfully avoiding the first death.

She controlled Xiao Mi for a while longer, but after dying three times on the quest “Find a weapon for self-defense on the Rooftop,” she simply shut down the computer, planning to try again tomorrow.

There were no weapons on the Rooftop at all. Every time she reached the top floor, Xiao Mi would be cornered by monsters. She was either forced to jump to her death or bitten to death by the creatures, there was no way out.

Yet, “Find a weapon on the Rooftop” was a mandatory quest that couldn’t be bypassed.

Xia Mi guessed she must have missed some hidden tasks, which was why the weapon wasn’t appearing. She would likely need to restart and look for details from the beginning.

However, it was already 11:30 PM. The game was proving difficult, and she didn’t know how much longer it would take. Xia Mi had classes at the training center tomorrow and needed to be asleep by midnight. She decided to play again the following evening.

Turning off the lights and lying in bed, Xia Mi thought about her uncertain future. A sense of unease settled in her heart, making it hard to sleep.

She opened WeChat and scrolled through the chat history with her boyfriend, sighing softly.

Their most recent exchange was from two months ago. The last message was from him, saying that an older woman at his workplace had set him up on a blind date. The girl also worked within the system, and her family background was excellent.

Xia Mi replied: [If you want to meet, then let’s meet.]

Her boyfriend never replied again.

He had passed the civil service exam a year ago. When he first got the job, they still chatted frequently, but once he started working, the contact gradually dwindled.

Their conversations had shifted from intimate words to simple exchanges like “Did you eat today?” “Yes.” “What did you have?” “Canteen food,” until finally, they had no common language left at all.

Back in school, she often heard the saying, “The first strike of the sword after reaching the shore⁵ is aimed at the lover.” At the time, Xia Mi had taken it as a joke, but now she was the one being struck. Although she had told herself to face reality, her heart still felt a lingering sense of resentment.

It wasn’t resentment over her boyfriend’s change of heart, but rather a frustration at falling behind others, a bitterness that she had accomplished nothing so far.

“Go to sleep. Study early tomorrow. I can definitely pass!” Xia Mi made a silent resolution, closed her eyes, and tried her best to sleep.

She managed to drift off while listening to political study materials⁶, but just as she fell asleep, a massive thud from the ceiling startled her awake.

The couple upstairs was fighting again.

The apartment Xia Mi rented had a diverse mix of tenants. Upstairs lived a cohabitating couple who were inseparable when things were good. The apartment’s soundproofing was poor, and Xia Mi would often hear the sounds of their intimacy at two or three in the morning, which made her feel incredibly awkward.

When things were bad, however, they would argue loudly and smash dishes. Xia Mi would faintly hear the woman screaming, “I’ve sacrificed so much for you…” and the man shouting back, “Just drive me to my death then!” It was always that kind of bickering.

But today’s fight sounded particularly violent. Usually, it was just a broken bowl at most, but today it sounded like a heavy object had been slammed down, making the floorboards vibrate.

A “thud-thud” sound followed, like someone hammering the floor with something heavy. Just as Xia Mi began to consider whether she should call the police, the noise stopped.

Xia Mi listened intently. She seemed to hear the girl’s low sobbing and the boy’s comforting voice. Guessing they had made up, she finally relaxed.

She was just about to settle back into sleep when a loud, crisp slap echoed from next door, followed by the harsh, grating cry of a boy whose voice was breaking, sounding like a distressed duck.

Xia Mi lived in Room 703. Next door in 704 lived a mother and son. Word was they were from a small town, and no one knew how the child had managed to enroll in a middle school here in the city.

The mother lived there solely to support the boy’s studies. His grades didn’t seem very good, Xia Mi often heard the mother’s hysterical shouting and cursing, though she rarely heard the boy’s voice.

“Sigh, everyone has it hard,” Xia Mi sighed deeply.

She and the other people in this apartment were just part of the masses living in the big city, each with their own suffering and their own reasons for being unable to leave.

Xia Mi didn’t want to hear everything so clearly. She got up and closed the window to stop the noise from next door from drifting in.

To do this, she was even willing to turn on the air conditioner, even though it would increase her living expenses.

Just as she closed the window, a heavy pounding erupted from her thin wooden apartment door.

Her heart skipped a beat.

As a young woman living alone, her sense of vigilance had always been strong.

Moreover, it was already past midnight. Even someone without a high sense of caution would be startled by a late-night knocking at the door.

Xia Mi didn’t respond to the knocking. Instead, she crouched down, reached under the bed, and pulled out an outdoor Mountain-Splitting Axe.

This was a housewarming gift her boyfriend had given her when she first moved into the apartment.

At the time, he had sent a message saying he had a surprise for her. She had happily opened the package, only to find this axe with a total length of 90 centimeters and a weight of 2.5 kilograms. Her feelings had been… complicated.

She had searched for it on a shopping app, the axe cost over 200 yuan. It was quite expensive, making it a decent housewarming gift in its own way.

Her boyfriend had messaged her: [I know you’re strong enough to swing an axe, so I picked the longest, heaviest, and most expensive model for you.]

Between cursing him out and accepting it graciously, Xia Mi had chosen to accept it.

It was a thoughtful gesture from him, after all. She figured she could at least use it to crack walnuts.

At this very moment, Xia Mi was immensely grateful to the boyfriend she was about to break up with.

Amidst the heavy, late-night pounding on the door, this axe represented security.

Xia Mi put on her sneakers, gripped the axe firmly, and stood quietly behind the door.

If anyone dared to break in, she would swing the axe without hesitation.

The knocking stopped after five minutes. Xia Mi listened closely, she didn’t hear footsteps, only the sound of something dragging across the floor.

Immediately after, she heard knocking from Room 702 next door.

Three guys shared Room 702. They were also university graduates who had stayed in the city, huddling together in a single apartment to save on living costs.

No matter what kind of bad person was out there, three men should have some ability to protect themselves.

Xia Mi breathed a small sigh of relief and quickly pulled out her phone to call the police.

Someone knocking on doors in the middle of the night was definitely not a normal occurrence. She had to report it.

However, there was no signal. No matter what she tried, the emergency call wouldn’t go through.

Xia Mi dialed again and again, while simultaneously paying close attention to the sounds outside. Then, she heard a bone-chilling sound of chewing.

What exactly was happening next door?

A thick sense of unease filled Xia Mi’s heart. She began to consider the possibility of escaping through the window.

She lived on the seventh floor. If she could step onto the external air conditioning unit, she might be able to climb down.

Xia Mi hesitantly opened the window, only to see pitch-black darkness outside. She couldn’t even see the city lights.

The entire building was shrouded in a dense fog. It was so dark she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, as if the residential complex had been isolated from the rest of the world.

Everything was too abnormal.

Xia Mi realized that whether she jumped out the window or rushed out the door, both were terrible decisions.

“Am I dreaming? Did I play too many games tonight and I’m dreaming about a horror game?” Xia Mi tapped her head.

If she could wake up, she swore she would never play horror games before bed again.

Unfortunately, she didn’t wake herself up. Instead, she gave herself a headache because she had tapped too hard.

After a moment’s thought, she turned on her phone’s flashlight and shone it out the window, trying to see what was happening outside.

This faint glimmer of light couldn’t penetrate the darkness at all. Xia Mi could see nothing.

Just as she was about to turn off the flashlight in frustration, her phone vibrated slightly. A text message had actually come through.

She tapped the message open and saw it was from an extremely Unknown Number: [Xingfuli Apartments is dangerous. Please leave as soon as possible!]

Xia Mi had no idea who was on the other end, but this message was her only lifeline. She hurriedly replied: [I want to leave too, but there’s something outside my door. I’m afraid to go out.]

The other side replied quickly: [You can receive my messages?]

Xia Mi: [I got it! I got it!]

Unknown Number: [I sent messages to every mobile number in the entire apartment building. You are the only one who can receive them and reply.]

Xia Mi: [Are you inside the building or outside?]

Unknown Number: [I’m outside, right downstairs.]

Xia Mi looked down, but it was still pitch black. Below her were swirling currents of turbid black mist, she couldn’t see a thing.

She began drafting a message: [If I jump right now, can you catch me downstairs…]

Before she could finish typing, the Unknown Number sent another: [There’s no time to explain. If we delay any longer, the entire apartment building will be swallowed by “Zhuo⁷.” I know your name is Xia Mi. Only you can receive my messages. Please cooperate with me and help save all the residents in this building.]

Xia Mi deleted her draft and re-edited her reply: [I don’t know who you are, but aren’t you overestimating me? I’m just a student who recently grad…]

Before she could hit send, another message arrived: [If we successfully save the residents, I will apply to my superiors to fulfill your legal wishes to the best of my ability.]

Xia Mi paused. Familiar terms like “save the residents,” “superiors,” “apply,” and “legal” activated the civil service exam knowledge stored in her brain.

This familiar phrasing led her to a few reasonable assumptions.

Xia Mi typed rapidly: [What kind of legal wishes can you fulfill? Give me an example.]

Unknown Number: [Xia Mi, 2024 university graduate, currently enrolled in the XX Civil Service Exam preparatory course, fully preparing for the National Civil Service Exam⁸ at the end of the year. If your legal wish is to enter the civil service, as long as you cooperate with me to save the residents of Xingfuli Apartments, you will be granted a Special Recruitment Slot⁹.]

In that instant, the doubt, fear, and panic in Xia Mi’s heart were blasted away, replaced by a surge of boundless courage and strength.

She gripped the axe and swung it twice like a racket. The sharp blade whistled as it cut through the air.

She was trapped in this eerie apartment building anyway, facing unknown dangers.

Since she was likely to die either way, she might as well take a gamble. She might even manage to secure a Bianzhi out of it.

Her blood boiling with passion, she sent a message: [I am willing to shed my blood and sacrifice my life for the people!]

Unknown Number: […There’s no need for you to shed blood. Your safety is also important. Staying alive is the true victory.]

Translator’s Notes