Chapter 2

By the time Du Feili laid eyes on Qiao Qingshuang, he had already activated the Rewind Skill ninety-seven times.

The distance he could rewind back to the past was growing shorter and shorter with each use—barely reaching December 15th anymore. This filled him with mounting anxiety and dread. So when he finally spotted the protagonist, Qiao Qingshuang, it felt like a grueling journey’s end, beholding a bodhisattva at last and wanting to weep with relief.

Heavenly Master Qiao Qingshuang peered into the heavens’ secrets from above and exorcised evil anomalies below. He was the true protagonist of this horror novel, a beacon of purity and orthodoxy in a world overrun with strangeness.

Even if he was aloof and proud, even if his temper was foul, even if his emotions swung wildly… his moods were just too unstable!

Du Feili had never met or even heard of a young miss with a temper as explosive as Qiao Qingshuang’s. He flew into rages at the drop of a hat, grew hypersensitive over nothing, and crumbled into breakdowns without warning. But he was like a stabilizer for the world—as soon as he cracked, fissures would open in the earth, letting strangeness seep through. Yin Bujie would sense it, and they’d be right back at square one!

Du Feili’s true breakdown came one night when he saw Qiao Qingshuang clutching a heart in his hand. His pale face was dotted with crimson specks like plum blossoms, and his cool eyes had turned blood-red. He murmured to the heart, “If it stops beating, it won’t bother me anymore.”

Even the protagonist was a freak in this twisted world.

The “mad flower blood moon” from Mad Flower Blood Moon had to refer to these two. The mad flower was that overwhelmingly present underground freak, the Strangeness King, while the blood moon was this Heavenly Master—seemingly a bright orb hanging high in the sky, but brimming with torrents of blood within!

After yet another failure, Du Feili madly clawed at his hair, wishing he could just die and be done with it. To hell with it all—let the world end!

He had wandered their world like one of the Living Dead for a full month, but Du Feili rallied himself. It was he who had provoked those beings, dooming their world to destruction. He couldn’t give up like that.

He opened his diary and thought calmly.

Through all these failures, he had pieced together some patterns.

One key pattern: Aside from the first time, when the Book Transmigration Bureau’s system brought him back, every subsequent transmigration allowed him to return only on the night of the fullest moon each month.

If it was a clear night with a full moon and he evaded notice from the three, he could slip back unnoticed. But if he lingered in their perceptive range, his return dragged apocalyptic disaster with him.

Another useful pattern: He could bring others into the novel world with him.

These repeated failures underscored his own helplessness and the crisis’s urgency. He decided to seek help. Through the forums, he connected with a few skilled, trustworthy book transmigrators. They formed a small transmigration team and experimented with different approaches.

They concluded that evasion alone wouldn’t work against these apocalypse bosses—though some, like the underground Strangeness King who innately craved world destruction, were best avoided if possible. And he was devilishly hard to dodge, with strangeness lurking everywhere in this world.

For the other two, different tactics were viable. Divert the Living Dead’s attention to something new, easing his boredom and emptiness. Stabilize the Heavenly Master’s emotions by eliminating whatever triggered his breakdowns.

Both tasks were Herculean. The Living Dead had “lived” for centuries—his salt consumed outstripped their rice. He’d seen worlds beyond counting; what novelty could they offer?

The Heavenly Master was an even tougher nut. In this horror-riddled world, ordinary people like them struggled against baseline threats. Wiping out factors that broke him? They’d be obliterated first.

They had despaired countless times, quit repeatedly, cycled through teammates endlessly, tweaking endlessly—until one full-moon night, they finally made a “clean” escape back to their world.

Racing toward their hidden safe point, a teammate pointed at the moon overhead. “Look! The moon’s growing fur!”

Du Feili glanced up on instinct. That night’s moon was perfectly round, its edges bleeding ominous crimson. More unsettling still, the dimming orb sprouted slender hairs, swaying as if kissed by wind—or alive, writhing of their own accord.

One white hair drifted down on the breeze. Tracing its path backward, they spotted a body already blanketed in white fur. The fur spread rapidly as the flesh rotted away into a moldy, fuzzy slab of meat.

Flesh and bone vanished utterly, the white fur scattering like dandelion seeds.

“Run! Run!”

They bolted madly for the teleport point, escaping back to their world just before the fur overtook them.

Before Du Feili could catch his breath, one teammate clawed at his chest in frenzy. He tore open his shirt, revealing white hairs piercing his skin from within, sprouting outward.

The hairs erupted from his heart, burrowing up through his skull and down through his soles, bursting from every pore. His teammate’s upright form slumped into a matted puddle of rotting flesh.

His bloodshot eyes reflected the white fur flying outward—one strand linking to the heavens—turning the world into a moldy, furred steamed bun adrift in the cosmos.

That rewind attempt made him cough up blood. Though his apparent age held steady, it felt like eons had passed; his face looked years older.

In deepening despair, he tried dozens more times, each failing predictably. The last rewind landed him only on December 10th—four days shy of entering the novel world.

Worse still: On December 13th evening, before even crossing over, he sensed a familiar, terrifying power in his neighborhood. Black miasma—Yin Bujie’s.

He truly shattered.

Perhaps from too many crossings, the worlds had linked somehow. The novel world was invading theirs.

As the black mist thickened and his strength ebbed, Du Feili finally resolved to tell the Book Transmigration Bureau.

He didn’t care if they’d charge him with crimes against humanity for endangering the world.

He braced for a battle to convince them, but it proved far simpler than expected.

Du Feili had some fame among transmigrators, plus he’d tipped them off about the Anomalous Bureau’s existence. Sure enough, their scans confirmed anomalous, dangerous energies in his neighborhood.

The incident was tagged SSS-class emergency. Meetings convened in a frenzy, escalating with ever-higher brass each round.

Du Feili was mandated to attend every one, recounting his tale for at least three hours per session. He cooperated fully, spilling every detail he knew—but offered no suggestions. He was a mess of chaos, despair, and agony; he had no clue how to halt the novel’s encroachment.

He left all decisions to the Bureau, content to be a mere executor. No more thinking.

At his young age, white hairs had crept in. Tragically, spotting them triggered panic attacks—he’d jolt awake nightly, yanking them out for months until shaving his head bald.

Endless retellings amplified his torment, making him grasp why some called this forbidden tome “God’s agonized vomit.”

Finally, the Bureau selected 180 book transmigrators and death row inmates, halting all other transmigrations. The master system threw full support behind their first joint push.

Using death row inmates wasn’t new; the Bureau had sent them into hazardous novels before. They’d haul back resources, earning their world some boon—and a sentence reduction.

Many convicts were hardened, fearless types.

Two in their squad were such lifers. Du Feili got their devil-may-care vibe toward the novel world, but when one craned out to tail the Boy, he swung a fist straight at the man’s head.

“I’m saying it once more: This ain’t your average novel world. Wanna die? Do it solo—don’t drag down the team. Got it?” Du Feili pinned the fallen man underfoot, leaning in with icy menace.

The convict’s reflexive curse died on his tongue as he met Du Feili’s reddened glare and ragged, explosive breaths.

With the mission briefing and crash forum access—the Bureau lacked time for full training—the convict had learned Du Feili’s rep. The guy had smashed the highest-danger novel record back in college; no one had topped it. He’d even snagged a secret skill that made the Bureau accord him respect.

Pre-transmigration, the Bureau and Anomalous Bureau heads had stressed: Beyond scouting, their critical duty was safeguarding Du Feili. The subtext? Everyone else could drop dead—but not him.

He wasn’t suicidal stupid. Killing this guy in-novel? Piece of cake for him.

The convict swallowed his filth, forcing a stiff grin. “Got it, Captain Du.”

A female transmigrator yanked Du Feili off, smoothing things over. “Captain Du’s right—this world’s not like others. It’s massive, hyper-real. Check it: Celebrities not even mentioned in the book, all named, gorgeous like Nuwa sculpted them herself.”

She’d been his teammate once, though rewinds had wiped her memories. Still, the world’s terror seemed etched into her soul; glimpsing the Boy set her trembling.

She trusted Du Feili utterly, felt echoes of his dread. To calm him and lighten the mood, she pointed at a distant skyscraper’s billboard.

“Steer clear of celebrities too,” Du Feili said after one glance—the face dazed him momentarily before he wrenched away his gaze. “Strangeness abounds here. Stars might be mind-bewitching freaks in disguise.”

“Right, right. So, Captain Du—what’s our next move?”

“Blend into Everbright Street. Become part of it.”

After a pause, he added, “And don’t let that Boy get hurt or sick.”

They’d dive back in many times later before learning the white fur stemmed from him. The hairs sprouting from hearts seemed a contagious curse. They’d witnessed it erupt around his death.

Paired with the Heavenly Master’s breakdowns spawning dangers, the Boy’s injury or illness might unleash horrors too.

Du Feili reiterated, “We know next to nothing about this Boy. He’s the biggest unknown—and potential threat. Utmost caution. Don’t lay a finger on him.”

He vividly recalled that first full-moon night: the white-furred husk they’d seen—a grotesquely malformed strangeness, barely resisting itself. What chance did mere mortals have?

That was precisely why, among the four Apocalypse Bosses, he—the one with the most experience—had been dispatched by the Book Transmigration Bureau to the Boy.

“Captain Du, you don’t even know his identity?” the female Book Transmigrator asked.

Qiao Qingshuang was the Celestial Master whom everyone revered with awe. Yin Bujie was the Underground Strangeness King. The Living Dead were the zombies that wandered the mortal world. Surely the Boy had to have some identity of his own?

Du Feili replied uncertainly, “He seems to be some kind of welfare recipient?”

“Hah?”