Chapter 87: Written to Death

By the time Fang You and Zhang Shengnan arrived at the scene, Zhou Shen and several auxiliary officers had already cordoned off the area.

When Zhou Shen saw Fang You, he forced a faint smile across his embarrassed face. "Sir, you have already read the newest novel, haven't you? This death looks just like an ordinary traffic accident, as though it were simply a drunk person being run over by a car. Yet it is exactly the same as the one written by that novelist named Fang Meiqi. I wonder what you make of it?"

Fang You was equally puzzled by the sight. The Book of Mystical Arts recorded countless techniques and endless formations, yet there were very few arts capable of foretelling another person's death. To predict so precisely both the manner and the sequence of a person's demise, unless it had been deliberately engineered, seemed impossible.

"Can't we at least meet that novelist named Fang Meiqi?" Zhang Shengnan asked, looking toward Zhou Shen. "We are police officers. Surely we have the right to investigate?"

"Ah... well..." Zhou Shen sighed helplessly. "I'm sorry, but I don't have that authority. If we want to detain someone for questioning, we must have sufficient evidence and a search warrant. Otherwise, barging into someone else's home and interfering with their normal life is illegal."

Zhang Shengnan sighed as well. "Sigh. Little Daoist, do you have any thoughts?"

Fang You thought for a moment. He did not have any particularly good solution at the moment, so he could only say, "We can only wait until next time this novelist publishes something, then rush to the scene immediately. Perhaps we'll be able to uncover the truth."

At that moment, Fang You and Zhang Shengnan met each other's gaze. In an instant they hurriedly looked away again, and a subtle change had already begun to bloom between them.

Meanwhile, in an editing office, a chief editor was reviewing the manuscripts sent in by the writers under her care.

Among them was a horror novel by a writer named Fang Meiqi, who always uploaded chapters at the very last moment, cutting things uncomfortably close and leaving everyone helpless.

Still, as the editor, she carefully opened the chapter and quickly checked it to avoid affecting the author's attendance bonus.

The chapter read:

A little girl was happily playing with her classmates when the school dismissal bell suddenly rang. The school gate was then opened, and mothers poured in to pick up their children.

Among them was one special case: a mother wearing a black veil had come to collect her child, and that mother was the little girl's own mother. The classmates began whispering:

"Look, that monster is here again!"

"Yes, it's so disgusting!"

"If I turned out like that, I'd rather just die!"

"Wouldn't the daughter born to a monster become a monster too?"

"Better not have a mother like that at all!"

A breeze lifted the woman's veil. Her face seemed to have been burned by fire, hideously distorted; the scars on it were ghastly to behold, and one of her eyes was nothing but a white orb, truly a terrifying sight.

The woman walked up to the little girl. "Liu Yue, school is over. Come home with Mom."

As she spoke, she reached out and took the little girl's hand.

The little girl, annoyed, shook off the woman's hand and walked straight ahead. The woman looked after her and said, "Liu Yue, my daughter..."

That night, after dinner, Liu Yue returned to her room. The woman knocked on Liu Yue's door. "My daughter, today is your birthday. Guess what present Mom prepared for you?"

Liu Yue said nothing.

The woman went on, "My daughter, won't you open the door? Come see the gift Mom prepared for you?"

Still Liu Yue did not answer.

The woman continued, "My daughter, the gift Mom prepared for you is your favorite teddy bear. Come out and take a look!"

Suddenly Liu Yue shouted, "I don't want the birthday present you prepared for me. If I could, I really wish I didn't have a mother like you. You only make others laugh at me."

In an instant, the room fell into a deathly silence.

Early the next morning, Liu Yue opened the door and found that her mother had hanged herself right in front of it. In her hand was a note: This is the best gift Mom can ever give you...

The editor could bear no more. She picked up her phone and called Fang Meiqi, but the call would not go through. Trembling, she left Fang Meiqi a message: Fang Meiqi, how do you know what happened to me when I was little? I never told anyone about this. How do you know about my mother?

Suddenly the lights flickered a few times, and a voice drifted near and far.

"Sweetheart, why won't you accept the teddy bear Mom prepared for you?"

"Who? Who is it?" the editor shouted in collapse, crying out in all directions.

"Sweetheart, why won't you answer Mom? Mom loves you very much!"

"Who is it? Ahhh! Who is it?" the editor screamed.

Then a veiled woman suddenly appeared before the editor.

The editor panicked and grabbed the stapler from the desk, pointing it at the woman. "Stop playing tricks! Who are you? Say it, say it now! Who are you? Tell me!" Fang Yue screamed wildly at the woman.

The woman slowly approached, still holding an adorable teddy bear in her hands. "My daughter, Mom has come to bring you your present!"

Then the woman lifted her veil, and a horrifying face, as though scorched by fire, appeared before the editor. Those eyes, with nothing left but white, were especially chilling.

"Ahhhhhh!"

The comic studio was filled with shrieks.

At dawn, in a cottage deep in the woods, the beautiful writer Fang Meiqi stretched languidly and looked at the novel she had just uploaded. At the end, a woman was lying on the cold ground clutching her teddy bear, the stapler pinning the bear and the woman's right hand together. Her face was full of terror and remorse. Around them, silence had fallen once more, and only the teddy bear wore its eerie smile.

At last, this big sister is going to become a great writer, a great and uncanny novelist of an era, hahaha!

Just as Fang Meiqi was laughing with delight, her phone suddenly rang. She answered it in confusion, and a voice came through: "Hello, this is the Sixth Team of the Special Cases Division of the Beishi Public Security Bureau. I am Zhou Shen, the head of the sixth team. Your editor died tragically in her office last night. If you have time, I hope we can arrange an interview."

Hearing this, Fang Meiqi froze. The phone in her hand slipped straight down.

"Editor Liu Yue, she...!" Fang Meiqi looked lost and dazed. "Didn't we agree that next month I'd get a front-page recommendation? No... how could the editor suddenly die in the office? Could it be...!"

Fang Meiqi stared at the protagonist who had died in her novel on the computer screen.

Could it be...?