At six the next day, the sky was just turning bright, and the rain had stopped. The Shang family lived in a villa area; the house was surrounded by green trees and grass. The mist after the rain hung dense in mid-air, flowing slowly.

Shang Nan closed his door, preparing to go to school.

He hadn't slept well; he was frightened by Yu Zhibai's eyeball and woken up again by the Little Paper Person. His room was the second to last room in the second-floor corridor. The very last room held Shang Nan's father's relics. Shang Nan didn't have the key; the key was with Dai Lili.

In the huge villa, the Auntie was placing breakfast on the table. Porcelain clashed against the marble dining table. Outside, birds were chirping, crisp and bright; it was a very refreshing morning after the rain.

"Squeak."

Like a strange noise emitted by a cheap plastic toy produced in a toy factory after being squeezed flat.

It came from Dai Lili's room.

She didn't live in the master bedroom, saying the master bedroom was dirty. She lived in the first room to the right after going up the stairs.

The room door was slightly ajar, leaving a very narrow crack.

Shang Nan stood where he was, fingers resting on the handrail, looking into Dai Lili's room seemingly inadvertently.

Dai Lili's white sleeping robe reached her insteps. With a gentle expression, she sat on a leather sofa with clear texture at the foot of the bed. A small wooden box was placed next to her.

Shang Nan's gaze slowly fell upon the thing in Dai Lili's hand that was making the sound—a cloth doll over twenty centimeters long, with slender limbs and superior head-to-body proportions, wearing a school uniform exactly the same as the one on Shang Nan. The doll was held steadily face-up in Dai Lili's hand, facing the ceiling. Its abdomen was pierced full of dense silver needles.

The thin and long silver needles were what Dai Lili took out from the wooden box beside her, twirling them between her thumbs before slowly stabbing them into the doll's abdomen.

"Squeak."

The doll cried out.

The corners of Dai Lili's mouth rose slowly; one could tell her mood was very pleasant.

The dim daylight pounced from outside the window into the room like a net. The doll's body was half in the light and half in the dark. The silver needles, dense as hair, occasionally refracted blinding light within the brightness.

The sky was a bit brighter than before.

Shang Nan saw clearly that what Dai Lili held in her hand didn't seem to be a cloth doll, but a Paper Person realistic enough to pass for the real thing.

A chill ran through his whole body.

In movies and TV dramas, and in stories heard from old people, this kind of doll was always used to do wicked things.

Shang Nan had never seen such things in real life, nor encountered such events, but the shock only lasted for a very short time because he immediately thought of the Little Paper Person in his schoolbag, and Yu Zhibai... they were already things even more bizarre than curses.

So in this grotesque and gaudy world, no matter what one sees or what happens, it seems nothing is strange.

Shang Nan's heartbeat slowly became regular and steady again.

......

Huinanfang was a southern city. During the change of seasons between autumn and winter, the rain was particularly heavy. Yesterday's rain was the last rain of this month according to the weather forecast.

But today, the sky did not clear up after the rain either.

Grey mist shrouded overhead, and visibility was very low. The air was wet and cold. Shang Nan wrapped a very thick white down jacket over his school uniform. The down jacket was large and fluffy; the velcro went all the way to the top, and the upright collar blocked the lower half of his face.

Shang Nan had an exclusive driver who had taken leave for family matters a few days ago and returned to his post today.

Driving onto the elevated road, the driver Li Houde drove leisurely. He glanced at the Young Master sitting in the back without saying a word and said, "The Madam has been getting more and more superstitious lately. She even started avoiding meat and only eating vegetarian food."

Shang Nan's eyelids were half-closed. "As long as she's happy."

According to what 14 said, it was his father who had wronged Dai Lili. It was a love scam from beginning to end, deceiving Dai Lili thoroughly. How could she not hate? How could she not go mad?

Li Houde was somewhat surprised by Shang Nan's reaction.

Because in the past, the Young Master was very averse to the Madam engaging in these things. The Young Master was a youth of the new era, a staunch materialist, and had always scoffed at theories of ghosts and gods. What's more, the things the Madam did were harmful to the body. Setting aside whether they were real or fake, whether the goals could be achieved, or if it was all a scam, just the Madam being superstitious and crazy all day long had exhausted the Young Master's patience and pity for her.

Why was he... suddenly so calm today?

However, Li Houde didn't think too deeply about it. In wealthy families like the Shang family, strange things and shocking, earth-shattering secrets... there were plenty of them.

Shang Nan kept looking out the car window, watching the car get off the elevated road and drive into the Red Stone Tunnel. The 887m long tunnel was lit up as bright as day inside. There was only their car; there were no other vehicles ahead or behind on the opposite side.

Li Houde was driving and noticed Shang Nan had lowered the window in the back. He immediately shouted, "Young Master, the air conditioner is on. Once the window opens, the heat runs out. It's very cold outside!" Even though he was anxious, his tone when speaking to his employer was exceptionally good, simply assuming Shang Nan felt stifled inside the car and wanted some fresh air.

Shang Nan withdrew his gaze from outside the car and looked at the back of the driver's seat, deep in thought. "Why have we been driving for so long in an eight-hundred-meter tunnel and we are still inside?"

Li Houde let out an "Eh" sound. "Let me check the map."

As Shang Nan expected, after Li Houde opened the navigation software, it took a long time to connect to the network. Li Houde even held up his phone. "Why is there no signal?"

Shang Nan rested his fingers on the window, looking at a light that was broken and hadn't been repaired yet. "This is the sixth time we've passed this light."

Li Houde turned pale with fright. "What?" He thought he had heard wrong. He had lived most of his life and driven for decades without ever having a major or minor car accident. He would slow down when encountering stray cats and dogs. He didn't expect that nearing fifty, he would encounter this kind of bad luck.

The car speed got slower and slower. Li Houde stepped on the brake. He looked at the tunnel exit just over a hundred meters ahead; it was dimly lit. But the time was already nearing seven o'clock; the sky should have been fully bright. It shouldn't look so misty and unlit, as if a giant beast with a bloody mouth wide open was quietly waiting behind the thick fog.

Li Houde broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead. He looked back through the rearview mirror—the empty road had no cars, let alone people. It was terrifyingly silent. With trembling fingers, he pressed the three digits 333. Before dialing, he asked Shang Nan uncertainly, "Young Master, does the fire department have a ghost exorcism service?"

Shang Nan had been leaning against the backrest and finally sat up straight, his down jacket making rustling sounds from the friction. His face was flushed slightly red by the heater. "Uncle Li, don't worry."

Li Houde wanted to speak but stopped. He was afraid dirty things would come in, but he didn't dare to repeatedly mention ghosts in front of Shang Nan.

The Young Master was a staunch materialist. What coping methods could a staunch materialist come up with?

"We must have encountered a 'ghost hitting the wall'," Shang Nan mumbled.

Upon hearing this, Li Houde almost choked on his own saliva. What happened to the agreed-upon materialist?

[14: Nannan, what do you plan to do?]

Shang Nan was dressed thickly and moved a bit clumsily. He struggled to fish his mobile phone out of his pocket. "Yu Zhibai did this; his phone will definitely connect."

He thought of the Little Paper Person he hadn't forgotten to bring and said, "Maybe, he is just waiting for me to actively seek him out."

Li Houde didn't know what Shang Nan was busy with in the back. His heart was stuck in his throat, beating wildly. The surroundings were quiet, as if a bloody, dismembered body could appear at any moment.

Any sound disappeared at this moment, and the entire world quieted down along with it.

Inside the car, there were only the sounds of two people breathing.

Li Houde kept wiping his sweat. He lay on the steering wheel, constantly trying to call 333, but there was no signal. He stared unblinkingly at the number 333, attempting to distract himself.

Yu Zhibai answered the phone.

"Hello, who is it?" The other party's voice was suppressed very low, barely louder than the faint sound of electric current.

Shang Nan also lowered his voice. "Yu Zhibai, I'm trapped in the Red Stone Tunnel."

After a long while, Shang Nan heard Yu Zhibai ask him in a low and considerate voice, "Is there anything you need my help with?"

......

If question marks could materialize, Shang Nan was sure his head and face would be covered in them right now. He looked ahead, then out the window, cupping the phone. "I even helped you pick up things yesterday; you can't treat me like this." His tone revealed a faint sense of grievance, though he didn't know if a monster would buy this act of playing pitiful.

Yu Zhibai was silent for a few seconds, then simply said, "Throw away the Little Paper Person in your schoolbag."

'Mhm, he buys it,' Shang Nan thought. However, he didn't like to get to the bottom of things, so he didn't continue to ask the other party why.

Shang Nan buried his head in his schoolbag and rummaged for a long time before seeing the small piece of paper sticking firmly to the back cover of his math book. It was obviously very unwilling to leave Shang Nan's schoolbag.

Shang Nan ruthlessly tore the Little Paper Person off the back of the book and then threw it out of the car window. The Little Paper Person seemed to really be just an ordinary scrap of paper, drifting slowly onto the road surface.

The instant the small paper scrap was thrown out of the car window, the sky before them suddenly brightened. The busy traffic of the rush hour naturally revealed itself. The honking sounds that usually felt noisy now sounded particularly friendly.

Shang Nan leaned on the window and looked behind the car. Their car had just emerged from the tunnel, leaving the tunnel exit behind them.

He saw, amidst the traffic dense as a woven net, a woman with long hair in a red dress appear at some point in the spot where he had thrown the Little Paper Person. She bent down and gently cupped the Little Paper Person in her hands.

Vehicles passed through the woman without obstruction, but her skirt hem would lift because of it. Her appearance was clear and beautiful, her temperament delicate and weak, looking blankly in the direction Shang Nan was leaving.

The driver realized it with hindsight.

"Oh Mother, why did this car start moving by itself!" Li Houde had been lying on the steering wheel, but heard the sound of the car engine and saw his right foot stepping on the accelerator. He was shocked, gripping the steering wheel and looking left and right. Finding everything was normal, he murmured, "This was really a ghost encounter."

He glanced back and found Shang Nan leaning against the window in a daze, his expression calm and composed. He couldn't help but marvel in his heart: 'As expected, a materialist!'

"Let's take a detour tomorrow." Li Houde hadn't yet detached himself from the strange event just now; his eyes kept glancing at the rearview mirror. "This tunnel isn't clean."

Shang Nan felt a bit apologetic; clearly, he had attracted the trouble.

"By the way," Li Houde's face slowly regained color, and his brain started turning, "I remember that quite a few years ago, a very serious car accident happened in Red Stone Tunnel. A luxury car hit an electric scooter. The luxury car owner was fine, but the woman riding the electric scooter died on the spot. The blood flowed for several meters, and it was even on the local TV station in Huinanfang."

"Car accident?" Shang Nan paused.

"Yeah, it was a car accident. But for so many years, Red Stone Tunnel hasn't had this kind of strange occurrence." Li Houde was completely confused. "Hey, Young Master, do you think we should ask the Madam?"

Shang Nan replied, "Her condition is already bad; let's not tell her."

Li Houde thought about it; that was true. It couldn't be said.

Shang Nan tapped on his phone and entered the keywords "Huinanfang," "Red Stone Tunnel," and "Car Accident" into the webpage, selecting the first entry to search.

Not many results popped up; besides text, there were pictures.

The woman's red gauze dress was like the bright sunset in the sky. Her head was tilted, eyes wide open looking to her side. The face wasn't pixelated, so Shang Nan saw it very clearly—she was the woman in red who had just appeared in the tunnel.

So... the accident just now had nothing to do with Yu Zhibai, but why was it fine after throwing away the Little Paper Person? The Little Paper Person was Yu Zhibai's thing, so wasn't it still related to Yu Zhibai?

The picture only captured the woman, the surrounding onlookers, and an electric scooter that had been smashed to pieces. Everything else was blurred out, including the license plate of the luxury car emitting black smoke.

However, the photographer obviously overlooked one place, but it was also very inconspicuous; otherwise, the photographer wouldn't have failed to notice it.

A little boy's face appeared in a corner of the photo. The lower half of his face was covered in blood. A piece of glass was stuck vertically in his eye socket. Fresh blood flowed from the corner of his eye to the ground, turning into a pool of thick black liquid.

[14: This is eight-year-old Yu Zhibai. The one in the car accident was his mother. Yu Zhibai's left eyeball was destroyed, and due to lack of timely treatment, his right eyeball also lost its function. That is why you saw his prosthetic eyeball last night.]

The car stopped at a red light at an intersection. Shang Nan's fingers rubbed the edge of his phone. "Then didn't you say he is a Paper Person?"

[14's acquired information is slowly increasing: He is a Paper Person. I am not clear on how he became a Paper Person.]

[14: But what I can be sure of is that he died long ago in that car accident ten years ago.]

[14: He is the monster of this world. The shadow of his mother dying before his eyes accompanies him. The misery of being bullied and insulted has lasted from elementary school until now. His hatred for this world is growing deeper and deeper.]

[14: I have obtained information regarding his perception of you here. Nannan, he doesn't hate you that much anymore.]

The author has something to say: Paper Person: I don't hate wife.