Chapter 1

Lin Beici sat cross-legged in the corner, his face expressionless. “What on earth is going on?”

At this moment, he found himself in a dark, cramped room filled with a strong scent of blood, as if it were a crime scene.

However, he wasn’t particularly concerned about that. What bothered him was his eyes, which had been incessantly tearing up since he woke up ten minutes ago. He felt like his eyes were going to cry themselves blind, and the most frustrating part was that he couldn’t stop it.

The system had traveled with him, but due to some disruptions in the world’s timeline, it took a while to activate, finally chiming in with a “ding.”

System: “Hold on a moment.”

It took a quick glance at the timeline. “Are you afraid of ghosts?”

Lin Beici let out a derisive laugh. “Afraid of ghosts? Hardly.”

System: “…”

As long as you’re not afraid.

Seeing Lin Beici’s impatience, with one leg almost crossed over the other, the system didn’t say much more and directly transmitted the timeline to him.

Lin Beici closed his eyes slightly, and a flash of light appeared between his brows.

Less than a minute later, he opened his eyes and stared silently at the mottled wall.

The character Lin Beici had transmigrated into was named Yu Mingze, a ghost hunter with the ability to see spirits.

Yu Mingze was quite handsome, came from a good family, and had a grandfather who was a renowned ghost hunter, highly respected in the field.

Yu Mingze could see ghosts and had the talent for exorcising them. Unfortunately, he was timid to the point of absurdity—he would jump half a meter high if he heard a mosquito buzz. If he actually encountered a ghost, he would faint on the spot without needing to be scared further.

No wonder the system had asked if he was afraid of ghosts earlier.

Yu Mingze’s cowardice was so notorious that it could infuriate both gods and humans alike. He was also a naive and simple person, with no cunning whatsoever. Whether due to bad luck or someone’s malicious setup, he had somehow ended up in a haunted mansion to catch a fierce ghost that had been wreaking havoc for years.

Yu Mingze was just a minor character, with only a brief introduction and an even more casual ending.

When Yu Mingze entered the mansion, he nervously looked for an exit, but despite the mansion’s small size, he wandered around for over an hour without finding a door. Instead, he accidentally stumbled into a strange room.

After he fell in, the door closed automatically, and a rustling sound filled the air, like the soft noise of hair dragging across the floor.

Yu Mingze struggled for a while before finally turning around to see where he was. His entire body froze.

Countless bloody heads surrounded him, all staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

In the middle of the small room sat a person dressed in white, cross-legged on the floor. This person was reaching out to touch each of the heads one by one, while a creepy voice echoed around the room.

“Which one should I wear today?”

Yu Mingze looked more closely and realized that the person didn’t have a head.

The headless ghost, like someone picking out clothes, tapped on the heads one by one, saying, “This one? Hmm, it doesn’t really match my body.”

Yu Mingze twitched.

Hearing some noise, the headless ghost turned around. Even though it didn’t have a head, Yu Mingze felt a gaze fall on him, making his skin crawl with goosebumps.

The headless ghost was surprisingly friendly. “Oh, you’re awake. Can you help me pick a head?”

Yu Mingze: “…”

He held his breath, and everything went black.

He was scared to death.

It took less than half a minute for the system to scan the information it had given him. Lin Beici took a moment to digest the memories, and finally, his tears stopped.

He rubbed his nose, finding the surrounding smell unbearably awful, and his face showed clear disgust. “This is the first world you picked for me?”

System: “You’re not afraid of ghosts, so this should be easy.”

Lin Beici: “So, who’s the villain I need to reform?”

System: “The most vengeful ghost in the mansion—Su Yunhuan.”

Alright then, others come to exorcise ghosts, but he comes to reform them.

Lin Beici pushed himself up, feeling a sticky, strange sensation in his palms. When he looked down, he saw they were covered in blood.

This was a mansion on the outskirts. Looking out through the diamond-shaped window, even though it wasn’t late autumn yet, a cold wind was howling outside, and the snow was falling harder and harder. Soon, only a vast whiteness could be seen outside.

The headless ghost had apparently chosen a head and gone off somewhere. Lin Beici wiped the blood on his hands onto his clothes, kicked away the pile of heads stacked like a small mountain, and casually walked toward the door.

The room was small, eerily decorated, with severed heads scattered all over the floor. Lin Beici had no intention of staying any longer. He reached the door in a few steps, only to find it had been locked from the outside.

He took a few steps back and started figuring out how to kick the door open.

The system chimed in at the right moment: “This door has two layers of wood. If you try to kick it down, it might—”

Before it could finish, Lin Beici kicked the door, producing a deep, creaking sound.

System: “…”

Alright then.

Lin Beici kicked it a few more times.

The system didn’t try to stop him anymore.

After a while, the door still hadn’t opened, but Lin Beici stopped on his own.

System: “What’s wrong?”

Lin Beici, expressionless: “My foot’s gone numb from the impact.”

System: “…”

Lin Beici looked around the room, searching for something he could use to smash the door open. Suddenly, a strange sound echoed through the quiet room, like metal scraping across the floor, mixed with the wet sound of something sticky, making his scalp tingle.

Lin Beici turned around.

The headless ghost had somehow reappeared in the room, now with a head attached. It was probably the one it had carefully chosen earlier, as the face was quite handsome.

Blood was seeping from where the neck joined the head, staining the bandages wrapped around its neck.

The ghost was holding an axe, its face dark as it looked at the scattered “decorations” on the floor, before finally fixing its gaze on Lin Beici.

The headless ghost’s neatly arranged “head collection” had been knocked all over the place. Though it initially looked furious, its expression changed as soon as it saw Lin Beici, lighting up with the delight of a child spotting a favorite toy.

Lin Beici thought, “Looks like it wants my head.”

He rubbed his wrist, his eyes narrowing slightly.

The system, alarmed, sensed that he was having thoughts of violence and quickly said, “You’re Yu Mingze right now; you can’t break character.”

Lin Beici’s hostility didn’t fade, and at the same time, Yu Mingze’s body started crying again out of fear of seeing the ghost.

Lin Beici’s eyes hurt from crying so much. Annoyed, he rubbed them and said, “So, according to Yu Mingze’s character, I should just stand here and wait to die?”

The system was silent for a moment before replying, “You can’t break character just yet.”

Just yet?

While Lin Beici was arguing with the system, the headless ghost had already swung the axe toward him.

That axe had probably chopped off many heads, as it was covered in layers of blood, with two or three notches in it.

Lin Beici let out a cold laugh.

Before the system could stop him, it watched as Lin Beici quickly dodged the axe aimed at his head. With a slight turn, he kicked the headless ghost right in the chest.

He had calculated it well—the axe landed exactly on the door lock.

With a loud crash, the door lock was smashed off, and the axe got stuck in the door crack.

The headless ghost didn’t expect that the little coward who had cried for his mommy the night before would dodge the attack. Before it could react, it was kicked hard into the door, getting stuck there.

The system couldn’t take it anymore. “Be careful! Don’t break character too much!”

Lin Beici ignored it completely. He walked up and kicked the headless ghost in the waist, then grabbed its hair and yanked its head back, saying coldly, “You seem pretty good at taking other people’s heads, huh?”

The headless ghost screamed, “What are you doing!? Let go of me! You guys barged into my home uninvited, so what if I took your head? Ever heard of ‘an eye for an eye’!?”

Lin Beici: “…”

Without blinking, Lin Beici gave a hard pull, yanking the headless ghost’s head clean off.

System: “…”

The system suddenly started glitching, probably shocked by its host’s brutality.

The headless ghost, who had never encountered someone so tough in all these years, let out another scream. Its hand froze in midair, not daring to make another move.

As the two inside the room continued to face off, footsteps approached from outside. A man and a woman stopped at the door and exchanged a glance.

The man in the black hoodie, named Zou Xing, held three copper coins in his hand and asked in confusion, “Wenshu, is it him?”

Yue Wenshu, sensing the struggle inside, looked serious and shook her head. “No, but this vengeful ghost has deep resentment. It won’t be easy to deal with. Someone inside is trying to subdue it—wait, don’t go in just yet. With our abilities, we’d be no match. Where’s Shen Yun? We should wait for him.”

“He’s still looking for that little ghost,” Zou Xing replied, stopping in his tracks obediently. “It’s been more than ten years now, and no one’s managed to capture that little ghost. Who knows what kind of powers it has?”

Yue Wenshu looked around and sighed. “This villa is indeed strange. Inside… well, someone who can stand off against such a powerful vengeful ghost for this long, besides Shen Yun, the only other person I can think of is Zhong Xi. But Zhong Xi didn’t come this time. Who could it be in there?”

Zou Xing shrugged. “We’ll see when they come out, right? By the way, I heard Yu Mingze is here too. Is that true? With his rabbit-like cowardice, coming here is practically a death sentence.”

Yu Mingze’s reputation as a coward was well known in their circle. When people heard he was coming, most of them were eager to see just how cowardly he could be in this situation.

The door lock had already been broken, and it only needed a twist to open the door.

The noise had been so loud that Shen Yun finally came down the stairs from the second floor, frowning. He saw the two standing not far from the door and glanced at the battered door.

“What’s going on?”

Yue Wenshu sighed with relief when she saw him. “It seems like there’s a master inside trying to subdue the vengeful ghost. That ghost’s resentment has become very strong, making it difficult to handle. We didn’t dare approach.”

Shen Yun was tall, calm, and stern. Seeing how the two treated him like their backbone, it was clear his abilities were formidable.

Shen Yun also seemed to sense the vengeful ghost’s intense resentment inside the room. With a serious expression, he pulled out a talisman, painted with intricate dragon and phoenix designs in red ink.

Just as he was about to throw the talisman, the noise in the room suddenly stopped.

The broken door handle was turned from the inside.

The three people outside froze.

Lin Beici calmly opened the door and stepped out, dragging the headless ghost by its collar.

Yu Mingze’s face was well-known among people in their field, so when the three saw him walk out, even someone as composed as Shen Yun was momentarily stunned.

Yue Wenshu tilted her head. She had just said that the person inside must be a master on par with Shen Yun. Now, seeing Yu Mingze’s face, she hesitantly asked, “M-Master?”

Lin Beici, still holding the headless ghost, casually lifted his tear-streaked face.

Suddenly, the system’s cold voice rang out: “Character integrity compromised by 100%. Initiating forced character reset. 3, 2, 1…”

Everyone watched as Yu Mingze, holding the headless ghost, slowly raised his head and looked at them, his face covered in tears.

The three: “…”

Yu Mingze glanced at the headless ghost in his hand and suddenly burst into loud, wailing sobs, his cries echoing painfully in their ears.

“Ahhh! I’m dead, I’m dead!” Yu Mingze cried out in despair, barely coherent. “There’s a ghost! I’m holding a ghost! Ahhh, why am I not dead yet? Help! Mom!”

Lin Beici, forcibly ejected from Yu Mingze’s body: “…”

Damn it!

Everyone else: “???”