For ordinary people, the college entrance exam is an incredibly precious turning point in life.
Especially for Tong Yang, who could only pin her hopes on academics, the exam was an "event" where she would either thrive through studying or perish from it.
Midnight in the old residential district—not a single light was on.
The rows of buildings stood like neatly arranged coffins, while the howling wind whistled through the hollow structures, carrying with it the creaking moans of aging doors and windows on the verge of collapse.
A candle flickered on the desk, its flame dancing under the cold draft seeping through the window cracks. In the wavering light, Tong Yang, who had been scribbling furiously, suddenly stopped when she wrote a wrong stroke. Her pen hovered over the densely filled scratch paper.
Her teacher had once said that neat handwriting was an easily overlooked yet crucial part of the exam. Writing every character flawlessly was nearly impossible.
"Ruined at the last step!"
Tong Yang clutched her head in despair. This had been her closest brush with perfection!
Even if a single wrong stroke wouldn’t cost her points, her nerves had already frayed to the point of obsession.
"Ding dong—"
Suddenly, a notification chimed, yanking her back to her miserable reality.
"Ding dong—"
"Ding dong—"
She picked up her cracked phone. Despite the district-wide blackout leaving her with no signal, the status bar now showed full reception. A group chat named "Gossip Squad 007" popped up on the screen.
A few days ago, she had scanned a QR code promising cash rewards, only to be added to this gossip group.
Tong Yang had no interest in anything unrelated to money or the exam, and she was about to exit and curse out the shady advertiser when she noticed something odd—the group’s creation date read May 2026, even though it was currently May 2024. Had this group been created two years in the future?
Assuming it was a glitch, Tong Yang joined and asked if anyone else had noticed. But the members insisted the date was correct—May 2026—and dismissed her question as nonsense.
Curiosity kept her from leaving, and she began checking in occasionally. The group buzzed with juicy gossip, but none of it matched reality. For instance, right now, they were discussing:
[OMG!!! Did you see Weibo???]
[Yeah! Unbelievable!]
[Ji Jiaen actually died?? I just watched her live stream the other day!]
[No way… I loved her debut role. How could this happen?]
[Did you see the video? So gruesome! Covered in blood!]
[You have it?? Send it!]
Ji Jiaen—the rising star whose posters plastered every street, the actress her classmates wouldn’t stop gushing about.
Dead? Impossible.
[Ding dong—]
[Content under review. Please wait.]
[Ugh… the video won’t send. Too graphic.]
[Damn, censorship’s strict these days.]
[Anyone got a backup link?]
[Forget it. Cloud storage’s cleaner than your face—instantly blocked.]
[Screenshots! Heard they last a minute.]
[Let me try.]
The chat fell silent. Tong Yang exited and searched Weibo for "Ji Jiaen death."
#Rising Star Ji Jiaen’s Emotional On-Screen Death Moves Fans to Tears
#Ji Jiaen’s Character Death Compilation
#Ji Jiaen Reenacts Tragic Role on Variety Show, Audience in Tears
#Ji Jiaen Clarifies: "Wrapping Filming Isn’t Death"
After skimming the headlines, Tong Yang confirmed none of them were about the actress’s actual death—just her roles.
So here was the bizarre contradiction: in the group, Ji Jiaen had met a violent end; in reality, her career was thriving.
Tong Yang firmly believed in the world she lived in and dismissed the group’s antics as edgy teens spinning wild tales for kicks.
Still, with the crushing weight of the looming exam, she indulged in the absurdity as a rare distraction.
[Ding dong—]
[Ding dong—]
Just as she was about to exit, new messages flooded in.
[Image.jpg]
[Image.jpg]
[Image.jpg]
…
A member had spammed seven or eight screenshots. Tong Yang, figuring there was no harm in looking, tapped the latest one.
The dimly lit bedroom was barely visible, a blurry figure crouched in the corner. She zoomed in, but the details remained indistinct.
Swiping to the previous image, the scene sharpened slightly—a woman lay on the floor, her back to the camera, drenched in blood.
"Who could even tell that’s Ji Jiaen?" Tong Yang muttered. Still, she had to admit, they’d gone all out for their creepy fanfic.
Then she swiped again—and froze.
The woman had turned toward the camera. Her porcelain face was ghastly pale, eyes wide with terror, staring straight through the screen as if locking onto Tong Yang.
"Holy—!!" She nearly flung her phone, barely catching it before the family’s sole electronic device met its doom.
[Image removed]
The photo vanished instantly, flagged by the platform.
[Did you guys see that??]
[AAAAH! I’m never sleeping again!]
[100% murder! Hope the cops solve it fast, unlike last time.]
[I regret clicking so fast. Too scared to pee now.]
Tong Yang wasn’t scared, just baffled. Weibo showed no trace of Ji Jiaen’s death, yet the screenshot undeniably depicted her—too lifelike to be fake.
Was this group really from two years in the future?
Would Ji Jiaen truly die on this day, two years from now?
After a long pause, Tong Yang opened the chat box, hesitating.
Should she ask for next week’s lottery numbers? Or the 2024 Yaocheng science exam answers?
—Of course, she asked nothing.
Ridiculous. As a staunch materialist raised on nine years of compulsory education, she’d never believe in such supernatural nonsense.
Shaking it off, she silenced her phone and collapsed into sleep.
The next day passed like any other grueling high school grind. Exhausted, Tong Yang trudged home to Yaocheng’s East Poplar District, a crumbling complex where water and power shut off at 11 p.m. sharp to ration for the coming summer.
Only she and her younger brother, Tong Le, lived there. Their parents? Dead in a car crash.
With the exam consuming her, she’d enrolled Tong Le in boarding school, seeing him only on weekends.
After a rushed pre-blackout shower, Tong Yang lit a candle and buried herself in math problems.
Whether it was a group chat created two years later or the tragic death of Ji Jiaen, nothing was going to disturb her focus on the college entrance exams.
As long as she met the school's targets and ranked within the top 50 in the province, she could secure a scholarship to cover all four years of university!
Even if Ji Jiaen's ghost were standing right behind her at this very moment, she wouldn’t spare a single glance.
Nothing in this world carried more resentment than a high school senior in their final year!
After finishing a set of math problems and double-checking for any mistakes, Tong Yang stretched her arms and straightened her back.
She picked up her phone—12:07 AM.
"That’s odd…" she muttered. The signal in her neighborhood was usually terrible, often cutting out entirely after a power outage, making even emergency calls impossible. Yet for two nights in a row, her phone showed full bars.
Tong Yang didn’t dwell on it. She turned on mobile data, and group messages instantly flooded in with a series of ding-dong notifications.
Unsurprisingly, the only one active at this hour was "Gossip Enthusiast 007."
[The details of Ji Jiaen’s death are seriously chilling…]
[It’s exactly like those murder cases in Yaocheng two years ago.]
[This is terrifying! Could it actually be something supernatural?!]
[No way! I refuse to believe it! Recites socialist core values]
[But the police released the surveillance footage—the killer vanished into thin air after murdering Ji Jiaen in the hallway.]
[No trace in the hallways, rooftop, elevator, or corridors. It’s definitely not human! Even the authorities can’t explain it.]
The killer… vanished?
Tong Yang froze. Come to think of it, two months ago, Yaocheng had another bizarre homicide. The police report was baffling—the killer seemed to appear out of nowhere, committed the crime, and then disappeared without a trace.
The incident had caused quite a stir, sparking widespread panic for a while.
From what Tong Yang knew, similar cases had happened abroad too, though they hadn’t gained much attention.
[Maybe it’s a glitch in the surveillance system? There’s no other explanation.]
[But Ji Jiaen’s hotel had so many guards and cameras—how did the killer get in and out without being caught? The police still have no leads.]
[This is getting way too paranormal. I’m tapping out.]
[We don’t even know if it’s a person or a ghost.]
[The surveillance caught a shadow, so it must be human.]
Their claims sounded eerily convincing, leaving Tong Yang half-skeptical, half-intrigued.
Studying for Money: [Random question—what’s the time where you all are?]
[00:10]
[00:10]
[00:11]
Studying for Money: [And the year?]
[2026? What’s with the weird questions?]
[2026]
[2026 +1]
[2026 +2]
Tong Yang swallowed hard. Forget the bizarre murders and disappearing killers—none of that mattered right now!
If these people were really from 2026, there was one thing she desperately wanted to know.
Her mock exam scores had consistently been above 710. Though she’d never admitted it to anyone, deep down, Tong Yang believed that if she performed normally in the actual exams, she might even clinch the provincial top scorer spot in science…
Studying for Money: [Was Tong Yang the 2024 science top scorer in North Hope Province?]
[Tong Yang?]
[Tong Yang from Dongyang Community, Old Yaocheng, North Hope Province???]
They knew her? Her confidence surged. Unless she became the provincial top scorer, there was no way her name would make headlines.
Studying for Money: [Yes, her. Did she get the top score in 2024?]
[Girl, are you living under a rock?]
[In 2024, Yaocheng had two high-profile unsolved murders. One was the March 19th bakery homicide—you haven’t heard of the other?]
Tong Yang was speechless. The year 2024 wasn’t even over for her yet—it was still May. How would she know about future events?
She was aware of the March 19th bakery case, the recent unsolved murder making headlines.
But none of that mattered to her. Right now, absolutely nothing was more important than the college entrance exams.
Studying for Money: [So, was Tong Yang the top scorer or not?]
[...]
[You seriously don’t know?]
[Tong Yang never even made it to the exams…]
[She died just days before!]
