Chapter 1 The silver-haired handsome boy, now possessed by a demon, suddenly looked up and smiled at me...
I grew up reading fairy tales, and I've read the stories of princes and princesses hundreds of times.
As I grew up, I became obsessed with romance novels.
Because the male protagonist in the novel is as charming and handsome as a prince, fulfilling all my expectations of a fairy tale male protagonist.
Later, like an innocent and naive girl, I became obsessed with time-travel and rebirth novels.
Completely infatuated.
I was so engrossed that I watched it for days and nights without eating or sleeping.
I have a cousin who's five years older than me, and we're both obsessed with these kinds of novels. My cousin is even more obsessed than me; she spends all her time reading them, except when she's sleeping or eating.
At first, the family thought it was nothing serious, just an accident, but later they realized it was far more serious than they had imagined.
Come to think of it, I was the first person to notice that something was wrong with my cousin.
On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone was sitting on the chairs on the terrace talking. I went to the bathroom and, as I passed through the living room, I noticed that my cousin was talking to thin air, waving her hands around non-stop.
I was shocked and quickly grabbed her hands. "Cousin, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"
My cousin looked at me, her eyes gleaming with an eerie, cat-like light.
I was horrified and abruptly let go of her hand.
"Do you know? There's another world beyond this one," my cousin said with a strange tone. "And there's him. He's incredibly beautiful."
"What are you saying, cousin?"
My cousin didn't answer, but looked at the person next to me.
I looked over instinctively, but there was no one there.
My cousin waved her hand at the air again, saying, "She's my cousin, not an outsider."
My hair stood on end, and I rushed onto the balcony, shouting, "Mom, Uncle, Aunt, quick, quick, go check on my cousin!"
Everyone in the living room looked at me. My mother frowned at me, "You're eighteen years old, why are you still yelling like a child?"
I stamped my feet, on the verge of tears, and cried out, "Mom, come and see my cousin!"
Relatives, including my cousin's parents, came into the living room... That same night, my cousin was taken to the hospital by my father and uncle, who is also my cousin's father.
Friends and family all think my cousin is obsessed with romance novels because she keeps saying she's met an incomparably handsome prince and wants to be with him forever.
After that, all my romance novels were thrown away and burned by my mother.
Nothing could be more egregious than the burning of books and burying of scholars alive.
My aunt once cried frantically in the hospital room, asking my cousin, "Tell me, tell me quickly, which novel is he from?"
My cousin turned her head away and refused to say anything, while my aunt was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan, but there was nothing she could do.
I broke out in a cold sweat after hearing what my mom said. Oh no, what if I end up like that someday?
So when my mom threw away and burned all my romance novels, I had no complaints.
I was terrified that I would go crazy like my cousin.
Because I am also a novel enthusiast.
A month later, I heard that my cousin's condition had stabilized, so I mustered up the courage to visit her in the hospital.
My cousin leaned weakly against the hospital bed, her face pale.
"Cousin, are you alright?"
"Um."
I didn't know what else to say, and my cousin closed her eyes.
Ten minutes later, just as I was about to leave, she suddenly opened her eyes and unexpectedly grabbed my wrist. "Lana, I beg you, don't let my mother burn my books."
I was startled by her. "But your aunt has already burned all your books!"
"No, there's another one. She definitely didn't burn it, because I hid it in a place no one knows about."
My cousin's eyes flashed with a strange light.
As I struggled to break free from her, I said fearfully, "Cousin, please let go of my hand first."
"Lana, only you can help me now. Please, I'm begging you."
I hurriedly pulled my hand back. "I don't know if I can help you."
"You can definitely help me." My cousin's eyes were pleading again.
I had no choice but to say, "Okay, I'll give it a try, just a try."
She was overjoyed, her eyes shining. "I hid that book in my suitcase under my bed and under the floorboards. There was a hidden compartment at the bottom of the suitcase where I hid the book."
I asked, "Cousin, did you travel into the book? Is that why you're talking to thin air and imagining characters from the book appearing in front of you?"
"It wasn't a figment of my imagination; someone really spoke to me," my cousin explained.
Is he a character from a novel?
My cousin ignored my disbelieving look and grabbed my hand again, pleading, "Lana, promise me you'll get this book for me."
"Okay, okay." I was afraid that refusing would cause her to break down, and besides, I had already agreed.
As I walked out of the hospital, I breathed a long sigh of relief.
To be honest, I didn't want to go to my cousin's house; I was a little scared. But since I had promised her, I had no choice but to bite the bullet and go.
Carrying a basket of fruit and some nutritional supplements, I arrived at my uncle's house.
Only my aunt was home. When she saw me, she first pulled me aside and complained for a while, then hurriedly said she would cook more dishes and went to the market immediately.
I was the only one left in the house.
I slipped into my cousin's room. The room was spotless, and the wardrobe and desk were exactly the same as before, except that there were no more books on the bookshelf.
I took a deep breath, crawled under the bed, and dragged out my suitcase.
The hidden compartment at the bottom of the suitcase was quickly found. It was very well hidden; you wouldn't notice it unless you looked closely.
I'm very curious, how can a book be hidden in a hidden compartment?
I soon found out the answer.
This book is very thin, only eight pages, so it can be tucked into a compartment.
Half an hour later, my aunt returned from grocery shopping. I lied and said I had something to do, then hurriedly fled with the book in my hand.
That evening, I sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and took out this book.
The title of the book is printed on the first page: "The Mysterious Elf Chronicles".
It seems to be the name of a movie. I vaguely remember watching it a few years ago, but I've almost completely forgotten the plot. Could this book be a text version?
After a brief pause, I turned to the second page, where a beautiful picture of a castle immediately caught my eye—
On the vast sea, a majestic black castle stands atop a cliff. The castle is black, the sea is black, and the birds flying in the sky are black.
Black waves crashed against the black cliffs, the waves were so high that the black castle on the cliff top seemed about to be knocked down, teetering on the brink of collapse.
I was stunned, and a sudden, inexplicable shiver ran down my spine.
The brushstrokes and colors are absolutely superb; the lines are so vivid and lifelike, it's as if it were real. I feel as if I'm actually in this castle, about to be swept into the sea along with it during a storm…
It took me a long time to come to my senses, and I turned to the third page with trembling hands.
The dilapidated, dark, winding corridor, the dust-covered, worn-out floor, and the cobweb-covered, crumbling corners resembled a sinister and terrifying murder scene from a detective novel.
Suddenly, a sense of danger and fear, along with a feeling of helplessness and loneliness, welled up from the bottom of my heart.
This feeling inexplicably made my whole body tremble, and it also had a strange sense of familiarity.
It took me a long time to suppress this feeling and turn to the fourth page.
A massive spiral staircase appeared like a maze, with hundreds of staircases spiraling upwards, reaching all the way to the top of the castle, as if in the clouds.
I have never seen such a stylish and imposing spiral staircase. Even today, it is still considered an outstanding architectural design and is truly awe-inspiring.
I stared at it intently for a long while before reluctantly turning to the next page.
Suddenly, a stunning image struck my vision and my soul—the most outstanding one.
—It is breathtaking and captivating.
The walls were stained with blood, the floor was covered in blood, and a beautiful silver-haired boy in tattered clothes was tied to a red-hot iron stool.
The iron stool was suspended in mid-air by several thick iron chains, with a blazing fire burning below it.
The silver-haired pretty boy's two long legs dangled in mid-air, swaying from side to side, being fiercely roasted by flames, enduring some kind of torture.
My eyes were wide open, and I didn't blink.
Just then, the silver-haired handsome boy suddenly looked up and smiled at me—
Extremely beautiful, extremely gorgeous, extremely enchanting.
I froze for ten seconds, then screamed, threw down the book, and scrambled out of the room.
******
It was two in the morning when I finally calmed down. I went back to my room, picked up the book that had fallen to the floor, and, with trembling hands and a deep breath, turned back to the previous page—
He was still that silver-haired boy.
They were still suspended and roasted.
But the deadly, alluring smile from before was gone.
It was as if what I had just witnessed was just my hallucination.
The house was quiet, and the parents were still asleep, as if nothing had ever happened.
I stared intently at this alluring young man. Could he be the reason my cousin went crazy?
As dawn approached, I turned to the last three pages, hoping to see the ending of the comic, but all I saw were three blank pages, and a thought stirred within me…
The next day, I rushed to my cousin's hospital room with this comic book.
I flipped directly to page five, pointed to the silver-haired boy, and asked my cousin, "Did he cause you to end up in the hospital?"
My cousin had just woken up and seemed a little dazed. She stroked the silver-haired boy's handsome features and said, "I'm not mentally unstable."
"Is he talking to you?" I asked again.
"yes."
I asked in surprise, "You got yourself into a mental hospital just because you were obsessed with this face?"
"You don't care?" My cousin suddenly snatched the comic book away. "Give it back to me."
"No!" I immediately snatched it back. "I'm going to burn it. It's a horror comic."
Give it back to me.
"No."
Neither of us would give in, and we fought fiercely.
With a tearing sound, the comic was ripped in two and scattered all over the ground.
My cousin's face changed drastically. She screamed and lunged at me, tearing at my flesh. I was so frightened that I backed away and cried out in resistance. The family members of the patient in the next bed panicked and pressed the call button. Nurses and doctors rushed over.
Amidst the chaos, my cousin was forcibly injected with a sedative, and I was kicked out of the messy ward by the nurses.
Clutching the comic book torn in two, I ran desperately down the quiet hospital corridor, panting heavily.
Sunlight streamed into the pure white corridor, much like my cousin's morbidly pale love, pale and white, tinged with gray and eeriness.
I rushed to the alley outside the hospital and went straight into a small shop to buy a lighter, intending to burn the comic book.
As I lit the paper to burn, a ridiculous thought suddenly popped into my head, which is always prone to wild imagination: perhaps the moment it turns to ashes, I will fall into a comic book and fall in love with a silver-haired boy.
This silver-haired boy might be a king who married me and made me his queen, elevating a commoner woman to the pinnacle of life.
It sounds amazing.
But after I burned the comics, nothing happened, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Two weeks later, my cousin was discharged from the hospital. She was confined to her room and couldn't confront me.
But then, something strange happened.
I was clearly looking up research papers in the library, taking notes as I went, when I was horrified to find myself drawing, involuntarily and uncontrollably creating scene after scene...
The pen tip flows out a vast, gray sea, a black castle on a cliff, a room with spider webs, a giant spiral staircase, and a room scorching red like hell.
Then, a bewitching and alluring silver-haired boy appeared in my writing.
Deep blue, dark eyelashes; light blue, bright eyes; a straight, high nose; and tender, bright red lips.
She also has a head of stunningly beautiful, waterfall-like silver hair.
besides--
The iron chair was glowing red-hot, the iron chain was thicker than a strong man's arm, and two beautiful long legs swayed in mid-air. Even though the iron chair was charred and smoking from the fire under it, the sharp chin still revealed stubbornness and cruelty.
He turned his head to face me, smiling alluringly and unrestrainedly.
Like a beautiful, highly poisonous poppy, it blooms recklessly on the flames of hell.
I couldn't believe it; the pen slipped from my hand, ink splattering everywhere and staining the page...
I screamed and ran as fast as I could towards my cousin's house, ignoring the strange looks from passersby. I asked her breathlessly, "What's going on with this comic book?"
My cousin, who was leaning against the headboard, glanced at me and asked, "Why are you asking this?"
"After reading this comic, I was able to draw the exact same thing."
My cousin suddenly burst out laughing, "I'll show you something."
She jumped out of bed, dragged her suitcase out from under the bed, and pulled out sheets of drawing paper from the hidden compartment.
I was horrified and shocked.
It turns out that the comic book I burned before was drawn by my cousin.
My cousin stopped laughing and said in a trembling voice, "You know what, Lana? I accidentally tore this comic book, but a few days later I couldn't help but draw on it page by page. I couldn't control myself."
"Then how did the earliest comic book you have come about?" I asked in a trembling voice.
"I don't know, I don't know..." She burst into tears again, this time attracting her aunt. Her aunt rushed into the room, saw the paintings on the floor, and flew into a rage, grabbing them all and throwing them into the kitchen trash can...
Half an hour later, I squatted by the trash can on the street corner, enduring the stench, and fished out a few sheets of discarded drawing paper, turning to the last few pages.
I was hoping to see the last three pages of illustrations, but I couldn't draw them. Maybe my cousin could, or maybe she had seen the original version of the comic. But when I opened it, I was dumbfounded.
Page six is blank.
Page seven is blank.
Page eight is still blank.
This...this...
A gentle night breeze stirred, and a strange, magnetic young voice drifted to my ear, "You'll have to guess the last few pages. There's a prize for the correct guess."
"An award? What award?" I was so shocked I fell to the ground, incredulous. "Who are you?"
"you guess?"
"A ghost! A ghost!" I screamed in terror, waving my hands wildly at the air in front of me. "Get out of here, get out of here!"
Screaming incessantly, he ran wildly through the streets, rushing home...
Two days later, I was sent to a mental hospital just like my cousin.
Forced binding, sedatives, and forced medication followed one after another...
But did you think the story ended there?
No, the story has only just begun.
***
I disappeared the night I was admitted to the hospital.
Nobody knows how I disappeared, including myself.
The single-patient room was littered with scraps of paper, none of which could be made out what the original drawings were; they had all been torn into tiny pieces.
When the two nurses pushed open the door, the early morning sunlight shone on the snow-white crumpled paper, which seemed to be full of stories of dust and grime...
A note from the author:
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