Chapter 2

Perhaps I sounded too serious to be joking.

Jingqi stopped laughing. Her voice grew guarded.

“Who'd believe you? Besides, ghosts don't exist.”

I caught a trace of panic beneath her words and repeated myself.

“Worse than a ghost. Something you can't afford to provoke.”

She called me crazy a few times and hurriedly hung up.

Xiaocao turned over. Her bed creaked.

I didn't know whether she'd heard the call.

For a long time, there was no other sound.

Then she lifted her bed curtain curiously.

“Xu Jia, is there really something worse than a ghost?”

4

I didn't answer that question.

“The world is vast. Strange things happen. Not seeing something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There's still so much we haven't discovered. All we can do is show those things due reverence.

“Knowing too much won't help you. Just remember one thing: don't take a single yuan of that ticket's money.”

Xiaocao was a gentle, good-natured girl.

When I confronted Feifei, she had been the only one brave enough to defend me, even if she'd been silenced a moment later.

I gave her an odd look and asked slowly, “Do you know why Guanyin has to break an arm?”

She didn't understand.

“Yours? I really don't.”

“Guanyin has always been graceful and dignified. People usually call her Guanyin Bodhisattva, but she's actually a Buddha. A Buddha saves all living beings. That's why she can hear in every direction, listening to every cry for help. From praying for children to praying for rain, she can help with anything.

“Willow Guanyin holds a vase of pure water and a willow branch, sprinkling sweet dew to heal illness and avert calamity.

“Child-Giving Guanyin is the most responsive to prayers for children. Thousand-Armed, Thousand-Eyed Guanyin saves all beings and sees all suffering. Horse-Headed Guanyin subdues demons and drives evil away…

“She has thirty-three manifestations, each answering a different kind of person.

“But the Guanyin in my hometown doesn't concern herself with all that. Prayers for other things don't work. She does only one thing.

“She warns us.

“In fact, many people's Guanyin never gives a warning in their entire lives. Even mortal danger usually isn't enough to make her break an arm to save herself.”

I looked at Xiaocao with something that wasn't quite a smile.

“What do you think could frighten a Guanyin who's stood among the gods for thousands of years so badly that she cuts off her own arm and can't flee fast enough?”

She thought for a moment. For some reason, her hair seemed to stand on end.

She quickly covered her ears and shook her head.

“No, no! I don't want to hear it! Don't tell me. I'm terrified of this stuff!”

Feifei ignored my advice.

Instead, she publicized my well-meant warnings, calling me a freak who worshipped Guanyin in the dorm.

She knew exactly how to exploit an online talking point and stir up viewers' emotions.

“Since someone says I'll die if I collect the prize, I'll livestream the whole process. Come and see whether I end up dead. Hehe!”

The spectators piled onto me with every kind of lie and slander.

Plenty of people were genuinely curious too. They set reminders for the stream well in advance.

Unable to bear her smears, I demanded she meet me face-to-face.

She deliberately avoided me, staying in the hotel day after day.

Now the whole internet knew her as the lucky seven-million-yuan winner. She kept streaming to capitalize on the attention.

On prize day, she started at seven in the morning.

Within minutes, the stream was trending on the platform.

More than ten million people were watching.

Virtual gift effects filled the screen.

With exquisite makeup and a Chanel-style dress, she swept into the lottery shop like a star.

Jingqi had clearly forgotten my warnings. Flushed with excitement, she praised Feifei extravagantly on the stream as “the goddess chosen by good fortune.”

Watching from the dorm, I shook my head.

“No advice can save someone determined to die. Chosen by good fortune? More like chosen by misfortune.”

She probably still had no idea…

how terrifying something that frightened even Guanyin could be.

5

“Congratulations to Miss Qiao Feifei on her seven-million-yuan jackpot! Let's give her our warmest applause. She's our city's first million-yuan prizewinner of 2026!”

Jingqi clapped first.

Then thunderous applause rose like a tide, engulfing the venue.

Radiant, Feifei declared to everyone present and the tens of millions watching, “I will donate three hundred thousand yuan to our city's stray animal welfare organization, and seven hundred thousand to the organization protecting minors!”

The applause grew louder.

She flashed a V sign at Jingqi's phone, her eyes narrowing with a brilliant smile.

“Xu Jia, I know you're watching. I've collected the seven million. Well? You said the ticket would kill me. Aren't I standing here perfectly healthy?”

Jingqi poured fuel on the fire.

“I think someone's just jealous.”

The audience, swept along by them, joined in mocking me.

I sat in the dorm and calmly watched the screenful of ridicule.

Worried, Xiaocao sat beside me and hugged me.

“I believe you. You wouldn't say things like that for no reason. Ignore them.”

“Thank you. But you don't need to worry about me now.”

My gaze darkened.

“Feifei won't escape. They're here.”

“Who?”

I didn't answer. I turned to get water, then went into the bathroom.

Night fell.

A cold front suddenly swept through the warm March weather. The temperature plunged.

Feifei paid the tax and pocketed the remaining millions.

Her prize-collection livestream still hadn't stopped.

In a few short days, she'd gained almost three million followers and become the most popular female streamer of the moment.

No one believed me.

Even the two girls in the dorm gradually turned against me.

Bang!

One roommate kicked my washbasin into the corner, breaking off a piece.

I frowned.

“What do you mean by that?”

She rolled her eyes, set her own basin neatly in place, and said, “Nothing. Thanks a lot.”

Before I could understand, she went on bitterly.

“You said the ticket would bring her bad luck and told us not to take her money. And now? She's streaming happily, with the prize and the fame…”

Her sour tone made me understand.

“She offered you money?”

“What do you think?”

She rolled her eyes and walked past me.

“If it weren't for you, I wouldn't still be scraping by on food vouchers every day.”

The others said nothing, apparently accepting her words.

Neither did I.

The next moment, her phone rang.

Feifei was inviting her to a party.

Feifei had withdrawn from university. Jingqi had followed her out.

“Feifei! Yes, yes! I'll be right there!”

Excitedly, she ended the call and looked around the room.

“She's generous. She's not holding it against us that we turned her down before. She's having a party. Anyone who wants to come can go. Oh, not you, Xu Jia. You're not invited.”

Half an hour later, only Xiaocao and I remained.

The next morning, the police summoned me.

Feifei had died the night before.

6

An up-and-coming streamer collected seven million by day and died mysteriously that night.

The news spread across the internet overnight.

Everyone mourned the young millionaire's premature death. She'd barely got the money and hadn't even enjoyed it.

Naturally, I—the girl who'd predicted disaster—became a leading suspect.

But I was soon released.

First, I had a complete alibi.

Second, the manner of her death was too… strange.

An ordinary university student like me couldn't have done it.

She'd been frightened to death.

Her party was at the hotel where she was staying. She'd only gone to the restroom for a moment.

She never returned.

When her friends found her, her body was stiff. Her eyes bulged, her mouth gaped, and she lay on the floor with an expression of utter terror.

Leaving the station, I bowed my head in thought.

From the police's questions and the scraps circulating online, I could roughly guess what had killed her.

It hadn't even had time to act.

The sight of it alone had frightened her to death.

“Xu Jia!”

Jingqi, her eyes full of tears.

She pushed open the dorm door and immediately fell to her knees, knocking her head against the floor before me.

None of her old arrogance remained.

“I wronged you! Punish me however you like. I don't want to die! I don't want to end up like Feifei…

“Please save me! I'll pay whatever you want. I'll work for you like a slave for the rest of my life. Please! I don't want to die!

“My parents struggled so hard to put me through university. I haven't even started working to repay them!”

She thought I'd soften.

After all, I was known in the dorm for being easygoing.

But when she looked up, she met an utterly cold gaze.

I shook my head.

“I can't save you. I told you: anyone who spends that ticket's money will die.”

Xiaocao's heart softened.

“Why not help her? We are roommates, after all.”

I only shook my head again.

Jingqi cried until she nearly collapsed, barely able to breathe, choking violently several times.

I sighed, sat down, and spoke.

“I can't save you. But I can tell you one thing. If you see it, don't panic. Pretend you haven't noticed. You might survive the first disaster.”

I wasn't doing it out of any great kindness.

I was curious myself.

What was it?

She rushed up to me, her voice full of fear.

“Who is it? Is it very frightening?”

“I don't know.”

I shook my head, then gave her a meaningful look.

“Frightening enough to kill.”

That was all I could tell her. I didn't know the details either.

But she had her own ideas.

She believed that the more people there were, the stronger their yang energy would be. Instead of staying home, she went to a public square to livestream.

There would be people around her and people online. Surely the thing wouldn't dare approach.

The person she connected with was me.

The moment her stream began, tens of thousands poured in.

【Here for the show. Will she survive tonight?】

【No idea. Who's connected with her?】

【I checked. Apparently the one who said the lottery winner would die.】

【Holy shit. Is the ticket cursed?】

【Could it really be?】

7

She put her phone on a stand, aiming the camera at herself.

Several people in the square recognized her, took photographs, and discussed her.

She had no attention to spare them.

Sitting on a chair, she drank water and kept scanning her surroundings.

“Anything unusual?” I asked.

She nodded, then immediately lowered her head and fell silent.

On the stream, I saw her body suddenly stiffen upright, as though she'd become intensely tense.

I knew at once something was wrong.

“Jingqi, what's happened?”

Without looking up, she said something that chilled every viewer.

“It's opposite me.”

But they could see nothing.

The chair opposite her was plainly empty.

She began crying in terror.

“It… it's here! What do I do?”

I rubbed my brow.

“Don't look at it. Keep doing what you were doing.

“Tell me. What does it look like?”

Trembling, she lifted the cup of juice from the table and drank.

She choked, coughing violently.

“It… it has so many hands. It's tall. Huge. Arms and legs all tangled over its body…

“But… it looks familiar…”

“How?”

She raised her head toward the camera, forcing a smile uglier than tears.

“Xu Jia, its face… looks exactly like your Guanyin.”

In the next instant, her head came off.

It bounced like a ball toward the flowerbed.

Then her arms and legs severed in midair.

Her body became a bloody heap of flesh.

The head set off terrified screams across the square.

“Holy fuck” comments raced through the livestream.

The next moment, the platform shut it down for graphic violence.

I stared blankly at my phone.

Jingqi had said…

its face was exactly like my Guanyin.

Speculations rushed through my head.

I clutched my chest and gasped, my heart pounding wildly with fear.

Jingqi was dead.

The police sealed the square. Panic gripped the city.

Feifei's death could have been called an accident.

But now countless viewers had watched Jingqi die unnaturally.

Everyone who'd attended the party lived in terror.

Including the two roommates who'd resented me for stopping them from accepting money.

Both had spent money from the ticket.

By the time they brought the others to the dorm to find me, I'd long since requested leave and gone.

I was kneeling in the Guanyin temple back home.

Afraid of being implicated, I'd fled overnight. I completed the ritual with sincere bows and received a new statue.

My parents were quietly relieved.

It wasn't something you could ask for whenever you liked. You had to complete the rite of drawing divination lots.

If you couldn't draw the lot, Guanyin didn't want to follow you.

You could only return a year later.

After receiving her, I stayed at the temple.

The little statue was identical to my old one: graceful, its eyes half closed, a gentle smile on its lips.

I placed it at the most visible spot at the head of my bed and bowed to it daily.

Fortunately, it showed no unusual signs.

At last, I could relax.

But in the middle of the night, I suddenly heard porcelain break.

I switched on the light at once and looked toward the bedside table.

The Guanyin I'd only received that morning…

had lost an arm again.