"Feng Fan, if you're not possessed, say so now, or I'll kill you!"
Feng Fan's eyes snapped open. His vision was blurry at first, but it cleared within seconds.
'What's going on?' he thought.
He found himself inside a small room with seven people—or more precisely, five living people and two corpses.
The only door was shut, blocked by a table to keep whatever was outside from getting in. A large window let in dim light, casting eerie shadows across the space.
In the right corner of the room, two lifeless bodies lay on the ground.
One was covered in bite marks, his flesh torn apart. Whether he had died from the wounds or blood loss was unclear, but one thing was certain—his last moments had been filled with agony.
The other body was covered in bruises, its skull caved in at multiple places. Feng Fan didn't need to guess what had killed him; the culprits were right in front of him, gripping metal fireplace stirrers with trembling hands.
Two men stood at the front, clearly unaccustomed to killing, their knuckles white as they pointed their makeshift weapons at him. Behind them, two women clung to each other, their bodies shaking even more than the men's hands.
The last person in the room was different. A stunning woman—so beautiful that calling her beautiful felt inadequate, maybe even an insult.
The only flaw in her near-perfect appearance was a small dark ghost bride tattoo on her right cheek, which radiated an unsettling aura.
She was pale, her face drained of color from blood loss. One hand clutched a wound on her stomach, desperately trying to slow the bleeding. But unless she got medical attention soon, there was no doubt she'd be joining the other side.
None of this caught Feng Fan's attention, though.
He clenched and unclenched his left hand repeatedly, searching for something that should have been there.
But he didn't feel the familiar thin plastic wrapping or the smooth pages filled with colorful illustrations, the ones he loved to smell before eagerly reading them over and over.
No.
His fingers grasped nothing but air.
"Fuck! Where is my manga?!"
Feng Fan, who had been sitting on the ground, shot up in one motion. The sudden movement startled the men holding weapons, making them take a nervous step back.
"WHY?! JUST WHY COULDN'T YOU WAIT FOR ME TO READ THE LAST Chapter BEFORE SENDING ME HERE?!" he screamed in frustration, directing his anger at no one in particular.
He continued ranting, spouting words that made no sense to the others in the room.
"He's possessed. Kill him now!" the wounded woman ordered, her voice firm despite her weak condition.
His bizarre behavior convinced the men with the stirrers that she might be right.
Though hesitant, they exchanged a glance, gave a small nod, and then, in unison, swung their makeshift weapons toward Feng Fan's head.
Feng Fan noticed the danger and quickly ducked, rolling across the floor to escape his attackers.
'Newbies, I'm Feng Fan, an expert at soulslike games!' he thought with a smirk.
The two men, unwilling to let him go so easily, rushed after him.
"Wait, wait! I'm not possessed! Let me explain!" Feng Fan shouted, raising his hands in surrender.
No matter how talented Feng Fan thought he was, sometimes, one must bow to the circumstances.
The men hesitated, stopping in their tracks, but their eyes remained locked on him, their grips tight on their weapons, ready to strike at the slightest movement.
'Fuck, don't protagonists in novels get an explanation, a starter pack, or something? Why won't they at least give me time to breathe before throwing me into the wolf's den? Transmigration is a shit!' Feng Fan thought, frustrated with his situation.
Despite his internal complaints, he quickly searched his memories. He hadn't absorbed them all at once, but they were still intact, and when he tried to access them, he found he could do so with ease.
This wasn't Earth. He had transmigrated to a parallel version called Blue Planet. History was mostly the same, but one thing stood out—the absurd number of ghost stories.
Although it wasn't at the point where people would run screaming naked from the shower because a ghost popped up during their singing session, reports of disappearances and mysterious deaths were disturbingly common.
These supernatural incidents were quickly covered up by the governments to keep the public from panicking.
The person Feng Fan had possessed, who shared his name, had been completely unaware of this. It was only today, during his first encounter with a ghost, that he finally learned the truth.
The wounded woman was called Luo Li. She was part of the Supernatural Investigation Force, or SIF for short—a global organization formed by governments to handle ghost-related threats.
That said, she was also a high school student in the same class as Feng Fan. During a school excursion, a ghost attacked their group.
Luo Li and another classmate, Gao Shan, who was also with the SIF, had managed to fend off the ghost temporarily. But they were too weak to fully protect everyone.
Half their class was slaughtered.
Gao Shan escaped with a few students and a teacher, while Luo Li, who was hurt by the ghost, fled in another direction.
The situation was simple: Luo Li could create barriers that kept ghosts at bay. This was the only reason they were still alive. But her spiritual energy was running out, and even if it weren't, she would soon die from blood loss.
That was when realization hit Feng Fan—an avid fan of serial killers and ghost stories from Earth.
'This place... it's the fucking Winchester House!'