Chapter One: "God-Slaying Sutra"

“I want to call the police, I need to call the police…”

“I… I… I’m being followed by a ghost. This ghost, it’s been following me for three days… Please, I beg you, save me, save me…”

…

The frantic voice over the phone made the young, beautiful female dispatcher frown deeply. Her delicate face was now tinged with frustration, all because of this call.

“Sir, please be careful with your words. If you make a false police report, you will have to bear the legal consequences.”

“I… I’m not lying, I swear, really, something’s happened! I’m being followed by a ghost—a terrifying ghost! If you don’t come soon, I might die!”

The voice on the phone suddenly grew louder, the terror in it overwhelming.

“My name is Li Ming, I’m a doctor at Hospital 789. A few days ago, after work, I saw some animals, like rats, bullying a stray cat. I… I had a wicked thought, and I ran some of them over with my scooter. That’s when the horror began. Every night, I have nightmares! I keep seeing a blurry face in my dreams! As a doctor, I should have known better. I was wrong!”

“I love going hiking with friends… That day, after work, hoping to avoid nightmares, I agreed to go barbecuing and stargazing at Great Black Mountain near Hulu City at around seven or eight with three friends…”

“Two of them are a married couple, and the other brought a pretty girl, so I was left alone… As they paired up to stargaze through binoculars, I got bored and wandered into the mountain.”

“Near our tents, there was a small river, neither too big nor too small. That night, the moon was bright, the ground was lit up. I… was watching the river… Suddenly, a clump of fur floated up! More and more kept appearing! The river was covered with wet, grass-like fur! Yellow—it was yellow!”

“Gulp… gulp…”

He swallowed hard on the phone.

“I ran, I ran immediately. Behind me, there was a splash of water. I glanced back—and saw a ghostly woman in white!”

“She was covered in yellow fur, I swear I wasn’t mistaken. The fur was knotted, tangled on her white clothes, and under the moonlight, I saw it clearly, like tiny twigs… Her eyes were red! She looked at me! I broke out in a cold sweat! That was definitely not human! No human could have eyes like that!”

“…”

You must have seen tree branches.

And all that yellow fur—maybe she was wearing a mink coat?

The policewoman wanted to say these things.

But then, she didn’t dare make light of it. She felt a cold sweat on her own back.

“…I fainted, scared to death. My friends found me and brought me home. I also thought it was just a dream. But after they left, my hand itched and felt wet. I opened my hand—and found a big clump of yellow fur!”

“Ahh… That was the ghost’s fur! I swear it was hers! She’s after me, she’s haunting me!”

“That night, there was knocking at my door! I looked through the peephole but saw nothing! At 3:10 a.m., exactly as shown on the wall clock, there was knocking! The next morning, I saw a puddle of water and a big clump of yellow fur outside my door!”

“I was terrified, too scared to live alone. Yesterday, I went back to my parents’ house. Last night, at 3:10 again, there was knocking… this time, at my bedroom door! My parents said they didn’t hear anything. This morning, I opened the door… Outside… there was water! And again… gulp… a big clump of yellow fur!”

“Help me… Officer, I beg you, please help me. It’s after three now, I’m afraid to open the door… my parents aren’t responding, they’re asleep… Ahh… the knocking… the knocking’s starting again!”

“Ahh… it’s here, it’s here… the knocking… help… the ghost… she’s here… Ahh… the fur, the yellow fur… save me, it’s… it wants revenge, it wants to kill me…”

…

“Huff… huff… what’s wrong? Hello? Hello? Are you still there, sir?”

The policewoman tried to steady her breathing. Her lips were dry, her throat burned—she desperately wanted to ask more, to confirm the condition of the caller.

“Zzz… zzz…”

There was a burst of static and electromagnetic interference on the line.

Soon, everything went silent.

---

The policewoman held her breath, not daring to make a sound. After a moment, a cold, cackling laugh echoed through the phone.

“How dare you harm my offspring? I am Lady Huang Jiu… I will kill you… kill your whole family… heh heh, heh heh, heh heh…”

A chill crawled down her spine.

…

Shengjing City, Shengjing College, Building Three.

Perhaps because it was Friday night, the building was sparsely lit.

Lin Yi glanced at his phone and shook his head.

“These ghost stories are just too fake. This is the twenty-first century…”

“But then again, something’s been off lately. The world seems to be changing… Three years ago, ninety-nine places of mist appeared around the world. Half a year ago, thirty-three of them began to show vague silhouettes of mountains. Could it be that all these monsters and demons are emerging because of the mountains rising out of the mist?”

Because of these ninety-nine mist-shrouded places, all schools introduced martial arts and meditation classes.

With the appearance of the mountains, these courses became even more popular.

But to Lin Yi, these so-called martial arts and meditation classes were just physical training and mental expansion—ways to let the brain rest.

Thinking this way, Lin Yi began to feel maybe these things were true after all.

Otherwise, the government wouldn’t be pushing these courses so hard.

Muttering to himself, Lin Yi turned off his phone and took from his backpack a small, old book, no bigger than his palm, like a comic for children.

The book’s title was “The God-Slaying Canon.” It was like a heavenly scripture, its text resembling oracle bone script—completely unintelligible to Lin Yi.

The book was terribly worn; its cover was a deep black-red leather, origin unknown, spattered with dried blood.

Inside, the yellowed pages looked chewed by mice and riddled by insects, almost falling apart.

The musty odor spoke of its great age.

Before he died, Lin Yi’s grandfather had handed him “The God-Slaying Canon” with a gravity Lin Yi had never seen on his face.

According to the old man, Lin Yi’s parents had long lives, but not enough fortune to suppress the book.

But Lin Yi’s fate was strong as a rainbow, piercing the heavens.

So, since childhood, his grandfather had taught him all the mystical things he knew.

That’s why, reading these horror stories online, Lin Yi felt not fear, but only mild curiosity.

He’d never thought about it before, but now, seeing the book might be connected to strange people and events, Lin Yi decided to test it with blood.

“Let’s see what happens with a drop of blood!”

He licked his lips.

Taking a pencil sharpener’s blade from his bag, he gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and cut his finger, letting a drop of blood fall on the book. He waited more than ten minutes, but nothing happened.

The only change was a new bloodstain on the cover.

Sighing, Lin Yi thought no more of it. It was already after nine, and the building would soon close. He decided to return to his dormitory.

He packed up, turned off the classroom lights. The motion-sensor lights in the corridor flickered on as he closed the door.

Oddly, tonight the lights made a creaking, sizzling sound—like faulty wiring.

They flickered on and off.

Lin Yi shook his head, turned on his phone’s flashlight, and headed downstairs.

---

Downstairs, under the streetlamp, there was no one else around.

The moon hung high and bright, the stars shining, bathing the world in silver—a scene that should have been tranquil.

The heat of midsummer had faded, replaced by a cool breeze—a normal enough occurrence, but Lin Yi felt that shivering in the cold was not.

Shengjing College, eager to advance its status and establish new labs and doctoral programs, had decided to build new structures behind the campus, near the wild hills.

In their rush, they’d torn down the wall separating the school from the hills.

By coincidence, Building Three stood right next to this area.

“Dong dong dong… dong dong dong…”

Suddenly, Lin Yi heard the sound of drumming.

Tambourines, firecrackers—an ear-splitting cacophony.

It was the kind of drumming and clanging from his childhood, from the days when folk dances were all the rage.

The sounds weren’t loud, but they grew closer—from a distance, from ground level, not the air.

Lin Yi felt his heart pounding with the rhythm.

He was bewildered. Drumming at night in the school—was he hearing things?

Just then, a sharp, commanding voice echoed from afar.

“Rodents, how dare you!”

Along with the shout, a beautiful woman came running at top speed.

Her steps were impossibly light.

Lin Yi recognized her—she was the most admired girl at Shengjing College.

Usually gentle, but with an aloofness that kept admirers at bay: An Miaoyi, the campus goddess.

Why was she here, late at night, rushing toward Building Three—and toward him?

In the blink of an eye, An Miaoyi had closed the forty or fifty meters between them to just ten.

Watching her speed, Lin Yi was sure she could rival any short-distance track star. With that pace, she could play forward on a soccer team and be compared to CR7.

“Hehehehe… Little girl, I advise you to stay out of this. My ancestor is the fearsome Lady Huang Jiu… I’m her eldest grandson—you’d best not cross me!”

The drums and gongs abruptly stopped. Suddenly, a sharp, childlike voice pierced the silence.

Looking for its source, Lin Yi felt his heart seized by terror.

The speaker was not human.

It was an animal.

Barely a meter long, with a pointed snout and monkey-like face, yellow fur shining brightly in the light.

It was a yellow weasel.