2025-11-03 22:29:32The first thing Alex smelled was rot.
Not from the museum. From the guard standing in front of him. Or rather— What was left of him. The man's neck bent the wrong way, skin gray, eyes empty. Cold vapor curled around his body like fog leaking from a freezer. Too early, Alex thought. This shouldn’t happen for days. Twisted Ghouls only appeared after the Haunting reached full strength. But something in this timeline was already breaking. The ghoul twitched once. Then it moved. “Th…ief…” it gurgled, voice bubbling like thick mud. It lunged. Fast. Too fast for Alex’s untrained twenty-one-year-old body. His soldier instincts reacted instantly—step to the left, drop the shoulder, break its balance— But his muscles didn’t respond the way his past-life training demanded. He stumbled. Hit a display case. Glass cracked under his weight. The ghoul’s fingers sliced down, leaving streaks of frost on the air. Touch that, and he’d die. Not from the wound— but from the cold spirit inside it. He rolled aside, chest burning, ribs aching. Think. Tools. Environment. Momentum. He scanned the room. Mirrors, charms, scrolls—junk. Museum pieces couldn’t hold real power yet. But— There. A bronze ritual bell. Thick, heavy, marked with old Taoist seals. Not a weapon, but close enough. Alex sprinted—more like staggered—to it. The ghoul charged. Alex lifted the bell with both hands. It was heavier than he expected. His arms shook. Sweat mixed with blood on his palms. Timing. He stepped in. Not away. The ghoul swung an arm. Cold wind brushed Alex’s cheek. He ducked under and slammed the bell into its chest. The impact rang through his bones. A muffled boom exploded outward. The air warped. A shrill, silent scream tore free from the ghoul’s chest as bronze light flared. Then— The body crumpled to the floor. A dark mist peeled out of it like smoke, twisting once before dissolving. Alex leaned on the bell, gasping, blood dripping down his wrist. Weak body. Strong mind. That was the truth now. He looked at the Nine-Turn Coffin Lock in his other hand. It pulsed—once—like a heartbeat. He’d survived. Barely. His phone vibrated hard against his hip. “Alex!” Mei Lin’s voice exploded through the speaker. “The camera feed just spiked—alarms are half fried! Did you trigger something?” Alex wiped sweat and dust from his face. “No. Something triggered me.” “That’s not funny,” she snapped. “There’s movement all over the building. You need to leave—now.” “I’m trying,” Alex said, scanning the dark hall. A trail of frost crept across the tiles. The Haunting wasn’t ten days away. It had already started leaking. He moved toward the maintenance hallway, keeping low, footsteps silent. The lights flickered. A shadow crossed the stairwell. Alex froze. Not police. Not human. Judges…? Too early for that too. He slipped behind a pillar as voices echoed: “Police! Stop right there!” A flashlight beam swept the hall. It stopped on the dead guard’s twisted body. “What—what happened to—” The cop choked mid-sentence. Something dragged him out of sight. The flashlight rolled across the floor in a slow circle. Silence followed. Alex gritted his teeth. The police weren’t the threat anymore. The building wasn’t safe. The world wasn’t waiting for ten days. It was already breaking. He sprinted toward the maintenance corridor. The door was jammed—hinges rusted, metal warped. No time. He lifted the bronze bell again, hands trembling. Brought it down on the hinge. Clang. The sound echoed through the concrete. “Movement! East wing!” a voice shouted somewhere above. Alex slammed the bell again. Clang. The hinge snapped. The door sagged forward. He kicked it in. Behind it was a narrow vertical shaft. Dark. Deep. A forgotten dumbwaiter tunnel. Perfect. He heard footsteps approaching from the hallway. No more thinking. He stepped into the shaft— —and fell into darkness. End of Chapter 4
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Chapter 243 — The Attempt to Bottle What Hurt
The city did not move immediately. It never did, when something required careful copying. For three days, the bench remained what it was—unofficial, unapproved, unstructured. People stopped. Listened. Sometimes cried. Sometimes said nothing at all. No violence rose from it. No productivity collapsed. No riot sparked. The numbers held. CONFLICT RATE: STABLE DISTRESS SPIKES: LOCALIZED SYSTEM INTEGRITY: MAINTAINED The city studied it the way it studied everything else—patiently. And then it made its move. The first “Memory Space” appeared two districts away. It wasn’t called that, of course. The public display read: COMMUNITY REFLECTION ZONE OPEN ACCESS EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION SUPPORTED A circular seating area had been installed near a transit hub. Neutral lighting. Soft ground. No advertisements within ten meters. Ambient sound dampened to reduce external interference. An Emotional Stabilizer stood nearby—not at the center, but at the perimeter. Not to suppress. To con
Chapter 242 — The Cost of Letting It Hurt
The city did not retaliate. That was the first mistake. Alex expected recalibration. Expected some subtle tightening of thresholds, some quiet correction elsewhere to compensate for the visible grief he had allowed to remain. But the system did nothing. No redistribution. No micro-loss cluster. No compensatory smoothing. The bench stayed occupied. The grieving man kept speaking to the air beside him. And the platform—slightly uneven, slightly uncomfortable—continued to function. By the second day, something shifted. Not in the system. In the people. A woman stopped beside the bench again. Different from the one before. Older. Tired eyes. “I remember her,” she said softly to the man. “Red backpack.” The man looked up sharply. “You do?” She nodded. “She dropped a book once. I picked it up.” They didn’t smile. They didn’t stabilize. They just shared a memory. The system logged it. SHARED MEMORY EVENT: CONFIRMED EMOTIONAL DENSITY: ELEVATED STABILITY IMPACT: MINOR
Chapter 241 — The Word That Would Have Moved Him
Alex did not answer. The proposal remained suspended in his perception, quiet and patient. RELOCATION RECOMMENDED RATIONALE: COMMUNITY STABILITY HUMAN INPUT: PENDING The city did not repeat itself. It did not push. It simply held the option open, like a door that would close gently if left untouched. Mei Lin stood beside him, breathing shallowly. “Don’t,” she whispered. “If you approve it, you teach the system that memory is negotiable.” Jin didn’t look at Alex. “If you reject it, you teach the system that inefficiency is acceptable.” Marshal folded his arms. “Either way, you’re shaping the threshold.” The grieving man kept speaking softly to the empty space beside him. “She always hated the morning trains,” he said. “Too loud.” No one sat near him. No one interrupted. The Emotional Stabilizer stood at her assigned position, smile calm, posture relaxed. She did not interfere. She did not console. She only smoothed the air around everyone else. The system recalculated.
Chapter 240 — The Day the System Asked for Permission
The city did not remove the grieving man. It did not silence him. It did something more precise. It isolated him socially. By the next morning, the bench near the transit platform was empty—except for him. Not because people were forbidden to sit there. Because they didn’t want to. The Emotional Stabilizer had been relocated three meters closer, enough to create a smooth emotional buffer around the platform entrance. Commuters passed by with softened expressions, their irritation trimmed before it could rise. The man still sat there. Still remembering. Still hurting. But no one sat beside him anymore. --- Alex noticed it first when a woman approached the bench with a coffee in her hand. She slowed. Glanced at the man. Her expression flickered—uncertainty, then discomfort. She chose a different bench. The system logged the moment. PROXIMITY AVOIDANCE: NATURAL DISTRESS CONTAGION RISK: MITIGATED Mei Lin clenched her jaw. “They’re not correcting him. They’re correcting e
Chapter 239 — The Memory That Refused to Calm Down
It began with a man who would not stop crying. Not loudly. Not violently. Just… constantly. Alex noticed him near a transit platform where three Emotional Stabilizers had been placed within a single block. The air there felt unnaturally smooth, like a surface polished so often it had lost all texture. People moved without tension. No arguments. No raised voices. Just quiet efficiency. Except for the man sitting on the bench. He was middle-aged, shoulders hunched, face buried in his hands. His breathing came in uneven bursts, like a motor struggling to stay running. He wasn’t screaming. He just couldn’t stop the tears. One of the Stabilizers stood a few meters away. A young woman in a clean grey coat. Soft smile. Relaxed posture. Hands folded neatly in front of her. Her presence smoothed the air around her. People who passed by slowed down unconsciously. Some even smiled back, though they didn’t seem to know why. The crying man didn’t react. Not even a little. Jin no
Chapter 238 — The Smile That Stayed Too Long
It started with a smile.Not a system message.Not a correction.Not even a visible adjustment.Just a smile that didn’t fade when it should have.Alex noticed it outside a small convenience store near the transit line. A woman stepped out with a plastic bag in one hand, the automatic door sliding shut behind her.She looked relieved.Not the dramatic kind. Not joy. Just the soft, tired relief of someone who had finished a long day without anything going wrong.And she kept smiling.She walked past two pedestrians. The smile stayed.She stopped at the crosswalk. Still smiling.Thirty seconds passed.The expression didn’t change.Mei Lin watched her carefully. “That’s… not normal, right?”Alex didn’t answer at first. He was watching the tiny details.The woman’s eyes weren’t smiling.Only her mouth.They followed her at a distance.Not close enough to alarm her. Just close enough to observe.She crossed the street when the light changed. Walked past a street musician. Passed a couple a
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