An hour after watching the video the previous night, Que Tang finally realized, with a delayed sense of dread, that she had just viewed the legendary cursed film. She paced back and forth in her living room, her mind a frantic void regarding how to break the curse.
In the end, she spent the entire night scouring the internet for information. It wasn't until dawn that she hurriedly took a shower, changed into her sailor uniform, and headed out.
"I’ve only just noticed that there doesn't seem to be a single sunny day in this world," Que Tang remarked, looking up at the gloomy sky. The overcast light only made her pale, haggard complexion look worse. Exhausted, she reached school and collapsed onto her desk, wanting nothing more than to disappear.
Just as she was about to drift off, her deskmate, Mai, gave her a gentle nudge and whispered, "Tang, did you hear? They say Hikaru-kun died last night."
Que Tang bolted upright, her face gaunt. "Really? How did he die?"
"Apparently, he died while playing video games..." Mai recalled the gossip she’d heard from the other girls earlier.
"I see..." Que Tang leaned her head to the side, her temple throbbing.
"By the way, weren't you asking me about that videotape yesterday? You didn't actually go looking for Hikaru-kun, did you?" Mai asked anxiously.
Que Tang gave a forced laugh. "Don't worry. I watched the tape yesterday; it was just a very ordinary animation. It must have been a misunderstanding."
"Really?" Mai frowned.
"Yes, really," Que Tang nodded. "Ugh, I spent all night doing housework and I'm exhausted. I'm going to sleep for a bit. Wake me up if Togashi-sensei comes to class—though he’s usually out 'gathering materials' and leaves us to self-study anyway..." She yawned and slumped back onto the desk.
Though she appeared calm in front of her classmates, the moment her head hit the desk, she mentally summoned Little Shiitake.
"Little Shiitake here, meow."
"Hey, you must have a way to break the curse, right?"
"Meow... Does Host really want to know?" Little Shiitake asked hesitantly.
"You *do* have a way... Of course I want to know! Tell me already! Being scared once was enough; I don't want to have to S/L and start over."
"Um... meow... well..." Little Shiitake stammered nonsensically.
"What are you hesitating for? If you don't tell me, no dried fish for you when we get back," Que Tang threatened impatiently.
"Meow! You said it, Host! Hmph! The only way to break the curse is to be pushed down!" Little Shiitake replied, its fur metaphorically standing on end.
"Heh heh," Que Tang sent back two dry syllables. "Sadako isn't the female lead. If I have to be pushed down to break the curse, will I even survive the process?"
"Host was the one who wanted to know. Whatever, just remember my dried fish tonight. Meow!"
After that, no matter how much Que Tang called out, the cat refused to answer.
Ignoring Little Shiitake's absurd suggestion and still clueless about how to break the curse, Que Tang trudged home dejectedly after school. While she was at the supermarket picking out dinner, the phone in her backpack began to ring.
Her hand, reaching for a bento, froze. After a moment of hesitation, she withdrew her hand with a tremble and opened her bag. Just as she was about to pick up the phone, the ringing stopped.
Que Tang breathed a sigh of relief and turned on the screen. "Ah... it was just Mai." Just as she was wondering what Mai wanted, the phone started ringing again.
Thinking it was Mai calling back, Que Tang looked at the screen with a smile, but the expression froze instantly.
The caller ID displayed: *Que Tang*.
This time, the phone showed no sign of hanging up. It vibrated incessantly in her hand, as if determined not to stop until she answered.
Gritting her teeth, Que Tang pressed 'accept' and held it to her ear.
"Ah... no... stop! Faster... ah..." A series of "harmonious" sounds drifted from the speaker.
Que Tang hung up immediately, her expression bizarre. "This kind of prank call... who leaked my number to an AV star?" The original sense of panic was completely replaced by speechlessness. Instead of fear, she felt only a profound sense of being at a loss for words.
She quickly grabbed a few bags of dried fish and a new flavor of bento, then hurried home.
"Whatever. At worst, I'll just use the S/L method to try again. Even if tomorrow is the end of the world, I'm finishing my new anime episodes tonight." Abandoning all hope, Que Tang opened her bento, sat on her bed, and opened her laptop to resume the series she hadn't finished the night before.
She was completely absorbed, enthralled by the BAU team tracking a serial killer. Just as they were about to catch the culprit, the screen flickered.
"Dammit!" Que Tang couldn't help but curse. "Why now? They were one step away!" She thought agonizingly about how close they were to catching the killer.
She could only watch as the screen replayed the video from the previous night. A woman sat before a mirror, brushing her hair. After a long time, the scene cut to a Japanese sliding door. Unlike the night before, the door was now open.
Behind the door was a cluttered storage room. In a small corner, a futon was laid out, looking as though someone had just woken up, opened the door, and left. Then, the scene shifted to the ancient well.
Que Tang couldn't help but swallow hard. She was about to call for Little Shiitake to keep her company when she realized the cat wasn't there today.
"Little Shiitake... Little Shiitake!" Que Tang looked around in a panic but found no sign of the cat. When she finally gave up and turned back to the screen, she saw a pale, ghastly hand gripping the edge of the well.
She stared fixedly at the screen, instinctively wanting to back away, but she was already pressed against the wall. She could only watch as the single hand became a pair. Then, a woman in white, her face obscured by long hair, slowly crawled out of the well in a bizarre, distorted fashion. She stood before the well, facing Que Tang's direction, as if staring directly at her through the screen.
Que Tang’s mouth hung open in an 'O' shape. Just as she was wondering if this was as far as it would go today—meaning she still had five days to live—Sadako suddenly moved.
Step by step, Sadako walked toward the front of the screen. Just as her hair-covered face filled the entire display, a hand suddenly reached out from inside the monitor and grabbed the frame.
"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!" Que Tang cursed instinctively, startled to find she could move again. Watching Sadako attempt to crawl out of the screen, she scrambled for a way to stop her.
"Ah! Can I just pull the plug?" Que Tang remembered an old internet joke and immediately ran to yank the power cord. But it was useless; Sadako continued to move outward.
Que Tang stood there dazed, clutching the plug, for two seconds before remembering she was using a laptop... it had a battery.
There was no time to think. She tossed the plug aside, ran to a drawer, and pulled out a roll of packing tape. Gritting her teeth, she ripped it open and, with a mix of desperation and heartache for her hardware, tried to tape the screen shut. "If I bind the screen, you won't be able to crawl out!"
To her surprise, as she approached, Sadako abruptly lifted her head. The tape in Que Tang's hand—and her heart—instantly shattered into pieces.
Que Tang could no longer move.
"How is a 50-kilogram woman supposed to crawl out of a 17-inch screen?" In her state of extreme terror, Que Tang found herself pondering this completely irrelevant question.
She watched helplessly as Sadako slowly emerged from the laptop, her movements stiff as she walked up to her.
Ghost and human stared at each other in silence through the veil of hair.
"I only weigh 42 kilograms," Sadako said slowly.
"How are you so thin... dammit." Que Tang glared jealously at the white dress that hid the ghost's figure.
After another silence, Sadako suddenly reached out, picked up the paralyzed Que Tang in a bridal carry, and tossed her onto the bed.
"W-what are you doing!" Que Tang looked at her in horror.
Ignoring her, Sadako walked over to a nearby cabinet and pulled out a box labeled "S&M Starter Kit."
"When did that get there!" Que Tang stared at the box in shock. That was the unreliable gift Little Shiitake had forced on her after her last "Ravishment Value" reached a hundred. She was sure she had thrown it away!
Still ignoring her, Sadako opened the box, took out four lengths of rope, and returned to the bed to tie Que Tang’s limbs to the bedposts. Then, she deliberately shed the long white dress, revealing a black lace, hollowed-out erotic bodysuit underneath.
"Sadako is wearing a black lace hollowed-out erotic bodysuit. How am I supposed to react? Urgent, waiting for answers online!" Que Tang couldn't help but snark internally.
"Tangtang, don't you want to help me break the curse?" Sadako brushed back her hair, revealing familiar features to Que Tang.
Que Tang didn't know how to respond.
"Let's start with which positions we should do on the first day." Sadako took a pair of scissors from a nearby drawer, quickly made short work of Que Tang's clothes, and then covered her body without further hesitation.
Before long, Que Tang’s cries could be heard: "Ah... no... stop! Faster... ah..."
"Do you want me to stop, or do you want me to go faster?" Sadako asked in a sexy, enchanting voice.
"..."
"It's okay, you can take your time to think about it. Not counting today, we still have six days left."
"..." Que Tang, whose memories had now returned, gritted her teeth and thought about making Mu Yao sleep on a motherboard when they got back.
Seven days and seven nights later, because Que Tang hadn't shown up for school and couldn't be reached by phone, a worried Mai sought out Togashi-sensei to go to Que Tang's house. After ringing the bell for a long time with no answer, they decided to call the police.
The police broke down the door, and the group searched the dim apartment nervously.
"Ah—Te-Teacher..." Mai screamed in terror from the doorway of Que Tang's bedroom. The group rushed to the room, only to see Que Tang lying on the bed, her eyes open and unmoving.
The police immediately cordoned off the apartment and called for a forensic pathologist to perform an autopsy.
"No external injuries, no signs of struggle. Preliminary estimate for the cause of death is... total sexual exhaustion," the pathologist wrote solemnly in the report.
***
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
贞子 | Sadako | The iconic ghost from the horror franchise 'The Ring' (Zhenzi in Chinese).
小香菇 | Little Shiitake | The protagonist's system companion, a cat.
麻衣 | Mai | Que Tang's classmate.
光君 | Hikaru-kun | A student who died from the curse.
富坚老师 | Togashi-sensei | A reference to manga artist Yoshihiro Togashi, known for frequent hiatuses.
S/L大法 | S/L Method | Save/Load method; a gaming term for reloading a save point to try again.
推倒 | Pushed down | A common slang term in ACG/web novel culture for initiating sex/ravishing someone.
精尽人亡 | Death by sexual exhaustion | Literally "essence exhausted, person dies"; a hyperbolic comedic trope for dying from too much sex.
穆遥 | Mu Yao | The female lead of the novel, who appears as Sadako in this dream/extra.
