Updates
In order of when it landed. Use the chips to narrow.
Chapter 27 - Gradually
Asuka led him through the park at a pace he refused to match. Past the dense crowds, over a small arched bridge spanning a reed-fringed lake, along a mossy stone path that wound through a belt of dense trees, across wide lawns dotted with b
Chapter 10 - Arrival
The flight touched down at Eastern Airport at two in the afternoon. Japan was only one hour ahead — no jet lag to speak of. From the moment Ma En stepped off the plane, the clock was running. The sooner he settled, the sooner he could begin
Chapter 44 - Second Contact
Whether it was the aftermath of what he'd just survived or something objectively wrong, the silence felt different now. Ma En stood in the corridor, studying the doors — all shut, all dark, every room asleep — and couldn't shake the sense t
Chapter 45 - Dream's Continuation
After Room 3's door closed, Ma En stood in the hallway for a long while. The words the Room 3 occupant had spoken kept echoing through him, the information they contained seeming to decompose continuously — recombining with other fragments
Chapter 1 - Prologue 1 Ma En's Problem
Prologue 1 Ma En's Problem *Remember: This story is purely fiction!* Ma En had an unusual interest in strange things — and not the kind of unusual that normal people meant when they said they liked weird stuff. His ran deeper. But he didn
Chapter 20 - Secret
Ma En and Hirota Masami's dinner did not end until nine at night, and that was only the first round. They left the restaurant and wandered the streets for a while, though the conversation no longer touched on the apartment's strange residen
Chapter 9 - Departure
How did a person determine what was bizarre? What was inexplicable, beyond the ordinary? Ma En had a method. It was stupid, and he knew it. Study — that was the whole thing. Study expanded the boundaries of what he understood, and anything
Chapter 7 - Cat Head
He spent all of Saturday on housework. No research that evening. Ma En was exhausted — two nights of bad sleep, the kind where he couldn't remember dreaming but hadn't slept deeply either. His consciousness seemed to stay active the entire
Chapter 12 - Ghost Story
Starting from zero degrees on the ecliptic, the sun travels fifteen degrees along its path, and the time that passage takes is called one solar term. Three hundred sixty degrees a year. Twenty-four terms. Two per month. The first term of e
Chapter 15 - Profound Mystery
By now Ma En was hungry, and he had no intention of continuing to study the strange book and its strange characters. Until the job was settled, he couldn't think of anything urgent to do beyond adjusting to life in Japan. Before word came f
Chapter 39 - Another Bowl
Something in the living room's air had changed. The sudden knocking had rattled Hirota badly. Ma En acted as though nothing had happened, but looking at it from another angle, her reaction seemed disproportionate — the knock had been loud a
Chapter 14 - Fine-Tuning
Ma En spent the entire morning with the two elderly people by the fountain, and their conversation didn't revolve entirely around ghost stories. He could sense that the grandmother's aversion wasn't limited to the apartment's ghost story —
Chapter 38 - Who's at the Door
Hirota's work turned out to be less structured than Ma En had expected. She was a magazine editor, yes, but the job went well beyond interviewing, writing, and editing. If anything, she seemed to spend more time on miscellaneous tasks than
Chapter 7 - Old Qin
According to Ning Yi's previous plan, he'd originally intended to go directly to Yushan Academy after running a circuit outside, but now completely soaked through, he had no choice but to turn back and change clothes. It was already early i
Chapter 16 - Hindsight
The carriage entered through the Su residence's side gate, coincidentally encountering Second Uncle and his group returning home seven parts drunk, and they asked a few questions about Su Tan'er's experiences tonight, whether she'd enjoyed
Chapter 22 - Late Autumn, Early Winter (Part 1)
After Cold Dew¹ in the ninth month, the temperature dropped more noticeably each day, and when heavy rain fell, Jiangning seemed shrouded in misty patches. Deep autumn rain lacked summer's clamor, carrying the approaching winter's chill, se
Chapter 4 - Group Portrait - Old Man, Little Maid, and Young Master