I really don't want to work in the world of weird rules!

>The Mysterious Exploration Record of Ghost Stories / Ghost Stories

[A choice between life and death]

The anomaly that appeared in "Tales of the Strange and Mysterious" has the identification code: Qterw-F-243.

Participants will be chased by murderers or evil spirits, and once caught, everything will start all over again.

Han Yan's voice echoed in the collapsing space.

"Relax and have fun!"

Happy my ass!

Who throws a new employee into a field ghost story on their very first day of work?!

Gu Changyuan didn't even have time to curse before he was plunged into complete darkness.

He stood up unsteadily.

"It's so dark."

The air was cold and musty, and visibility was extremely low.

The only light source was the flickering cold light emanating from the beverage freezer in the distance.

He held his breath and tiptoed toward the light source.

The silhouette of the quiet convenience store was faintly visible in the darkness.

With each step, the sound of his shoes scraping against the floor terrified Gu Changyuan, and cold sweat trickled down his spine.

Currently, there doesn't seem to be anything around.

He stopped in a dark corner where no light could reach.

This convenience store is quite large, about the size of a coffee shop.

The goods on the shelves were arranged almost eerily neatly, without a speck of dust.

All you need is water and compressed biscuits; just find a place to hide them.

Gu Changyuan was very self-aware; his inability to look at scary pictures meant he was definitely not good at playing hide-and-seek.

If he could, he wouldn't even want to eat cookies. As long as he didn't make a fuss, he wouldn't die from starvation for a day or two, which was better than encountering a ghost.

But he needs water.

He found bottled water in the freezer, which was the closest and most obvious target to him.

Gu Changyuan reached out and touched the edge of the freezer.

Because the freezer door is made of glass, he can see that it is filled with various brands of water, but the labels are blurred.

However, when he got closer...

Gu Changyuan's blood froze instantly.

That's the kind of face you see in webpage screenshots.

The eyeballs are bulging and the skin is bruised and swollen.

ghost!

The moment their eyes met, a twisted, sinister grin appeared on that face, and his eyes bulged wildly.

"How did this ghost end up in the freezer...!"

He instinctively stepped back and turned to run away.

But then he suddenly realized...

The ghost wasn't in the freezer, but in the reflection of the glass door.

It was right behind him.

His back struck something cold and hard.

Several withered, cold, heavy, and stiff fingers gripped the back of his neck tightly.

Those are the hands of a drowned person.

I've got you.

Darkness descended instantly.

Hide and seek is over.

......

"Whoosh—ha!"

Gu Changyuan suddenly opened his eyes.

The air was frigid, and the view was dim.

The light from the beverage freezer in the distance was still flickering.

He returned to the starting point.

Once caught, everything will start all over again.

"Are you kidding me...?"

Are we going to waste three days here? We might as well just kill him!

No, it's even worse.

If he can't hold on for three days, he will fall into an endless cycle until he completely breaks down mentally.

We must find another way.

Gu Changyuan bypassed the freezer and reached for the cashier.

There were many things to hide behind the cashier, and he planned to hide there first to buy himself some time to think.

Just as he was about to crouch under the counter.

He peered through the gap in the counter.

I saw the lower half of a ghost.

A few pale toes were writhing at an inhuman rhythm, making a teeth-grinding grinding sound.

Gu Changyuan covered his mouth tightly and lay motionless under the counter.

Until the strange footsteps faded into the distance.

He was panting heavily, his back soaked with cold sweat.

In a place like this, it's impossible to move around normally. The light from your phone will give away your location. The only thing you can rely on is the memory in your brain!

He had read the investigation records of these F-level ghost stories many times before.

However, there is a huge gap between theory and practice!

Gu Changyuan tried desperately to recall.

"Mountain villa, basement, zebra crossing, fast food restaurant, abandoned school..."

neither.

But among those records, there is indeed one extremely special case.

>The Mysterious Exploration of Ghost Stories/Ghost Stories/【A Choice Between Life and Death】

>Exploration Log #23 (Irregular Case)

He was being chased by a mad doctor in an abandoned hospital late at night.

>※Special Circumstances: The exploration will be forcibly terminated after 16 hours and 11 minutes.

This is it!

Gu Changyuan began frantically retrieving every detail of this memory.

......

The ghost stories included in "The Secret Record of Ghost Stories Exploration" all have one thing in common: the more popular the ghost story, the higher the probability of unexpected changes in the exploration record.

That's not surprising, given that there are countless creators.

The earliest ghost stories were recorded by those who strictly adhered to the rules, but once they gained popularity, countless people followed suit and continued to write them, and the situation changed.

In order to break away from routines and boredom, various exceptions began to emerge like mushrooms after rain within the scope of "logical consistency".

At this moment, Gu Changyuan's mind was racing with such a typical case: the J team of the "Daydream Weavers" on-site investigation group had documented an exploration of an abandoned hospital. Originally, all they needed to do was endure twelve hours of the night to complete the task, but...

[Special Notice: The exploration has concluded after 16 hours and 11 minutes.]

This awkward, neither-here-nor-there timeframe confirms the existence of "time variables" in ghost stories, except that this particular variable actually prolonged the period of entrapment.

The exploration clearly went awry, causing the investigators to be trapped in the ghost story for well over twelve hours, far exceeding the set time limit.

Gu Changyuan pressed his forehead hard, trying to recall the details of that record from his memory.

I remember now, I didn't receive the time notification!

[(03:12) Commissioner Li Zhen mistakenly cut off the telephone line at the nurses' station.]

Because of this little incident, the shift change call that was supposed to go to the nurses' station didn't ring on time. This directly caused the doctor, who was supposed to be off duty after a 12-hour night shift, to fall into a frenzied state of endless ward rounds.

(12:12) It's past 7:12 AM, but the sun hasn't risen yet.

No matter how time passes, the night is never-ending.

The employee who had just entered the ghost story area and set his watch to 7 PM went on a mental breakdown after discovering that it was still dark.

Gu Changyuan recalled that the team even got into a fight over whether to "just let the ghost grab him and start over," and in the end, the employee was tied up by his teammates.

Fortunately, a few hours later, another team member risked his life to reconnect the phone line, and time returned to normal, saving everyone from a life-threatening situation.

[(16:09) Telephone line repair successful. The phone rang immediately. Everyone retreated to 3 meters away from the nurses' station and waited.]

[(16:11) The doctor answered the phone and disappeared; the escape was successful.]

The strange tales that didn't end even after the time limit were enough to send chills down one's spine, but Gu Changyuan saw a glimmer of hope in them.

Although the previous case involved time extension, the underlying mechanism was quite clear: there must be a "trigger" in the ghost stories that announces the end of time.

In the abandoned hospital, the trigger was the shift change phone.

If the trigger malfunctions, the ghost story will be delayed indefinitely. Conversely, if we activate the trigger that indicates the time ahead of schedule, wouldn't we be able to complete the game at lightning speed?