The comment section exploded in an instant.

[?? I’m so confused. So Lin Huailu used to be the female lead’s daughter’s boyfriend? Or are these two characters supposed to be brothers?]

[Ah! I just realized why he felt so familiar! Lou Huailin, Lin Huailu—their names are phonetic reverses of each other!]

[If they’re the same person, wouldn’t their ages be way off? Oh god, I just got chills all over.]

Lang Tingyao stepped closer, and Ao Qingxue got a clear look at Lou Huailin’s student ID. He was a high school senior—seventeen or eighteen years old, which matched his appearance.

Lin Huailu’s records, on the other hand, were well-documented. He had only graduated from college a couple of years ago and was transferred to No. 2 High School a year ago. He wasn’t a local. Based on the timeline, he should be around twenty-five or twenty-six. Their ages shouldn’t match up.

But with less than a five-year gap, it wasn’t impossible to stretch the explanation. Ao Qingxue suppressed a shiver and studied the teenager in front of her more carefully.

The more she looked, the more she felt that the two were identical. Not just in facial features, but in their mannerisms, expressions, and even the smallest details in their movements—it was like they had been carved from the same mold.

Even their apparent age difference wasn’t that noticeable. If they changed their outfits and hairstyles, no one would be able to tell them apart.

Ao Qingxue had the sudden urge to run.

[Ahhh, what is the truth?! This fog of mystery is killing me! I feel like the final reveal might not even be as terrifying as what I’m imagining!]

[Best case scenario, maybe Director Shang was just lazy and reused the same character model…]

[Come on, Director Shang made even the background NPCs look ultra-realistic. Do you really think she’d cut corners on a named character? There’s definitely a connection.]

[If they’re the same person, then why was he getting close to the female lead? Is this some kind of stand-in situation??]

[Yeah, don’t forget—everyone keeps saying, “If a player romances Lin Huailu, they’ll die,” but the person who originally showed interest and made the first move was him!]

[As someone who’s died twice because of him, let me just say—it wasn’t my imagination! Every time I asked him out, he agreed! If this isn’t classic bait-and-switch behavior, what is?! QAQ]

[No matter how this face swap happened, it’s freaky as hell. What we do know is that Lin Huailu wants to harm the female lead, and every player who tries to romance him meets a uniquely gruesome death.]

[Exactly. And all those deaths seem like “accidents,” but what kind of person can control accidents? Lu Zibing literally got pulled into a supernatural dream world because of him.]

[A person can’t do that… unless Lin Huailu isn’t human at all!]

[He’s not human.] This comment shot across the screen in blood-red text, racking up hundreds of likes in seconds.

Meanwhile, in the flashback, Lang Tingyao was completely oblivious to anything strange. She was happily chatting with her boyfriend during their lunch break.

Lou Huailin listened to her with a gentle smile. The two looked just like any ordinary high school couple.

Slowly, through their conversation, Ao Qingxue and the viewers pieced together how they had met.

After her parents divorced, Lang Tingyao transferred to Baishui County No. 2 High School in her first year. She had a rough time adjusting and was bullied at first.

But she didn’t stay down for long. Through her own resilience, she overcame those challenges and eventually settled into her new school life.

Then, near the end of her second year, a new student transferred into a neighboring class—Lou Huailin.

She had stood up for him when he was bullied, and through that, they became friends. Both being transfer students, they naturally had a lot in common. Before long, they started dating.

[Lou Huailin showed up at just the right time, with just the right backstory… This is way too perfect to be a coincidence.]

[She transferred in. Lin Huailu was transferred in. Is that another coincidence?]

[Think about it—what’s the advantage of that kind of backstory? It means their past is harder to verify. It’s the easiest and yet the least suspicious way to blend into a school…]

“Xiaoyao, I heard about a campus legend recently.”

As a high school senior in his final semester, it was natural for conversations to drift toward the future and their aspirations.

Lou Huailin smiled, seemingly casual. “They say that if a couple makes a wish together on the rooftop of Building 18, they’ll end up at the same university after graduation. Want to try it?”

[WTF. He wants to take her to Building 18?!]

[Oh my god, what if Lang Tingyao was actually killed by him?!]

[Monster! Stay away from my girl! .jpg]

Ao Qingxue’s alarm bells went off. She wanted to scream at Lang Tingyao: No! Don’t go!

But despite being a rational person, Lang Tingyao still had a soft spot for indulging her boyfriend’s little superstitions.

“You’re so childish!” she said with a laugh. “Fine.”

“Saturday night, then.”

“Alright!”

Ao Qingxue was practically tearing her hair out. But the moment Lang Tingyao agreed, the scene blurred, like it was being swallowed by fog. She was being pulled away from the memory.

Ding-dong—

A bell chimed in the dream. A door appeared in the distance, and Ao Qingxue saw a familiar girl from her countless dreams.

Every time before, whenever the girl turned around, her face had been a gruesome mess of blood and flesh. But this time, when she turned, it was Lang Tingyao’s face.

The environment around her started to take shape, solidifying beneath Lang Tingyao’s feet. It was an old, shabby house. Lang Zhu stood in the living room, staring at her daughter in shock.

Lang Tingyao didn’t move. She just looked at Lang Zhu, her eyes filled with resentment—or, more accurately, a defiant, angry gaze.

“You like controlling me so much? Well, I’m going to Dad’s. You’ll never control me again!”

“Xiaoyao… Xiaoyao!”

Lang Zhu’s voice trembled as she reached out, her tone cracking with desperation. But Lang Tingyao just glanced at her, turned around, and slammed the door shut.

“XIAOYAO!!”

The scene shattered. The fog swallowed everything. And with that heart-wrenching cry, the female lead was jolted awake—back in reality.

Lang Zhu woke up with tears streaming down her face. Ao Qingxue’s eyes were damp too. The emotional immersion in this full-dive game was just too intense.

[That dream… That was the last time they saw each other, wasn’t it? They were fighting then.]

[And after that, they never met again…]

[Just imagining it hurts. That kind of regret would haunt you forever.]

[Considering the Diary Fragment #1, we can guess what happened. Lang Zhu and her ex-husband divorced. Their daughter lived with her at first, but after their argument, she went back to her father and transferred to No. 2 High School.]

[Lang Zhu’s character profile says she’s “strict” and career-focused. Their fight was probably over that. She thought they just needed time to cool off, but by the time she was ready… she only got the news of her daughter’s death.]

[And on Lang Tingyao’s birthday, the diary’s “I hate (or love) you” was clearly meant for her mother…]

“…After Xiaoyao was buried, I spent a whole year doing nothing but investigating why she jumped. But every lead pointed to suicide. After that, I left Baishui County. I refused to hear anything about this place, only coming back once a year on Qingming Festival—as if that could trick me into believing she was still somewhere far away.”

“Then, last year on Qingming, I overheard something about Building 18 at No. 2 High School. Was my daughter’s soul restless? Or was she trying to tell me something? That’s why I came back. To find the truth.”

In the silence, Lang Zhu’s inner monologue echoed. The darkness deepened, and blood-red words appeared before Ao Qingxue’s eyes:

[ACT THREE: EXAM COMPLETE.]

Story-driven games usually follow a three-act structure, and judging by the title “Complete,” it was clear she had reached the final act. The chat erupted with excitement.

Ao Qingxue felt a jolt of anticipation herself, but it was already too late to keep playing. She still had her eye on Shang Jingyan’s new mini-game. Before logging off, she left her audience with a promise: “Next time, I’m clearing ‘Building 18’ in one go!”

–

Shortly after Ao Qingxue’s stream ended, a new hot post appeared in the ‘Building 18’ forum section. The title was blunt: [Lin Huailu, That Bastard, Is Scary as Hell—Beware!]

The OP wasn’t anonymous; her username was well-known in the community. She was a skilled player, keeping pace with Ao Qingxue and Lu Zibing. Her playstyle was a mix of both—sometimes reckless, sometimes pulling off unexpected genius moves.

Basically, she played like most people: going with the flow.

[In my route, after I picked up the first diary fragment, Lin Huailu started leading me astray, making me believe my daughter died because of school bullying.]

[Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal—most people assumed the same—but the real horror came later because of that wrong conclusion.]

[If I thought my daughter jumped because of bullying, then obviously, I’d believe the supernatural occurrences at No. 2 High were caused by her vengeful spirit. So what would I do in Act 3? Try to resolve her grievance, right?]

[I genuinely thought Lin Huailu was a good guy (cries in regret—I should’ve trusted the forum’s suspicions). But in my route, he acted way too convincingly. Maybe it was because my character had moments of intelligence, so he had to keep up the charade… Only after I died and checked the forums did I realize that if you play as dumb as Lu Zibing, you gain high favorability, and he just straight-up slaps a talisman on you.]

[Anyway, since I thought he was trustworthy (and had some supernatural abilities), I told him everything.]

[He told me not to worry—he had a way to solve it. Then he gave me a ritual artifact to ‘help my daughter pass on.’]

[I’ll get into the details of the artifact later, but long story short, I used it. The game even popped up a message: ‘Over the next month, No. 2 High gradually returned to peace.’ Everything felt like a perfect ending. I was overjoyed, thinking I was the first player to get the true Happy Ending!]

[Not long after, the ending screen appeared… But let me show you what it was.]

The OP posted a screenshot from the game:

[Bad Ending 10: Endless End.]

[After exorcising your daughter’s spirit, there’s no reason for you to stay. No. 2 High School returns to peace, and after ten years, Building 18 is finally unsealed.]

[‘It’s all over now,’ you think, feeling both sorrow and relief. You decide to leave this place of pain.]

[But six months later, you start to feel unwell. Strange illnesses plague you, your body wasting away.]

[‘Is my daughter coming to take me with her?’ You have no will to fight it—until one day, on your deathbed, you receive shocking news: Lin Xiaomei jumped from Building 18.]

[‘How could this happen?!’ You are devastated. She was perfectly fine when you left. But as you dig deeper, you uncover something even more chilling: since your departure, a student has jumped from Building 18 every single month.]

[The shock accelerates your decline. The ending you believed in was never the true ending. Not long after, you died.]

The ending came with an animation—just a quiet shot of Building 18’s entrance. Off-screen, a loud thud echoed. No direct depiction of death, yet it sent a chill down every player’s spine.

The OP continued:

[You guys get why my hair stood on end, right?! That bastard, Lin Huailu, tricked me into killing my own daughter AGAIN! And she wasn’t even the real cause of the hauntings at No. 2 High School!]

[In fact, maybe my daughter was the reason the school stayed ‘peaceful’ for ten years—just eerie but without deaths. After I destroyed her soul, the deaths started happening monthly!]

[Lin Huailu is hands down the scariest boss I’ve ever encountered. The horror isn’t in jumpscares—it’s in the slow realization of his hidden malice. Absolutely terrifying. 🤧]

The OP said she needed time to recover from the trauma. Now, even looking at Lin Huailu’s handsome face gave her PTSD.

The replies were full of players who felt the same:

[The scariest thing isn’t ghosts—it’s people. No wait, in this case, it’s a monster’s heart. Psychological horror hits way harder than visual jumpscares.]

[Forget Lin Huailu—I think I have PTSD from romance itself now!]

[I’m convinced the devs made this game just to cure us of romantic delusions. The level of mind games… diabolical.]

The only romance in the game was the doomed relationship between Lou Huailin and Lang Tingyao—nothing but tragedy and deceit.

Shang Jingyan had said in an interview that story always took priority over romance. True to her word, the game had zero romantic routes.

While most games offered multiple love endings, ‘Building 18’ had already racked up over twenty different death endings—the highest number in Second Galactic Era’s history.

Players even came up with a dark joke to promote it: Think your games aren’t thrilling enough? How about dying for a change? ‘Building 18’—where every route is a creative way to perish!

Of course, this was just banter. Virtual gaming laws ensured players couldn’t actually feel pain.

In the middle of all this, someone brought up a new topic:

[Speaking of which, isn’t the Dreamweaver entrance exam starting soon? The exam locations have been announced—Director Shang should already be on her way, right?]

–

The players were right—Shang Jingyan was already aboard a spaceship.

She had officially added another mode of transportation to her list since arriving in this world. Nearly everyone on board was an exam candidate, just like her.

Without this exam, Shang Jingyan wouldn’t have realized just how many Dreamweavers existed in the exile star systems.

That gathering she attended had only been a small circle of known names, but the number of applicants far exceeded that.

The Dreamweaver entrance exam was open to all—anyone who had published a work could apply. Even submitting just ten words and a cover qualified someone as a ‘novice Dreamweaver.’

X71 dutifully prompted: [Yan Yan, we just passed V066. Can you name the signature dish of its southern hemisphere?]

Shang Jingyan grimaced. “Spare me. Is it fried Little Simi?”

For an earth-born transplant like her, all the exam’s general knowledge questions had to be brute-memorized. She still couldn’t match the names of dishes to their images.

X71: [Incorrect. It’s Big Simi. 🤭 Here, have some reference images.]

After a moment of contemplation, Shang finally asked what had been on her mind: “X71, if I have you, doesn’t that mean I can technically cheat?”

The system was basically a super search engine, better than the net itself—and it lived inside her mind, undetectable by others.

She wasn’t seriously considering it, just curious.

[Actually, no,] X71 replied. [All systems have built-in ethical constraints aligned with local laws. I can’t help you cheat on a Federation public exam.]

It added solemnly: [Yan Yan, cheating on exams can get you arrested.]

Shang Jingyan deadpanned. “I KNOW that.”

The entire Exile Star System had a dull, grayish hue, and the test site looked like a field of scattered, sluggish sheep. Groups of candidates milled about in front of the venue, lazily queuing up for identity verification.

It was the dead of winter here, and the sky was only just beginning to lighten. The moment Shang Jingyan stepped out of the vehicle, she was met with a faceful of snow. She exhaled into her hands for warmth, still struggling with jet lag, feeling groggy.

Just then, a voice called out from nearby: “Is that Director Shang?”

She turned, blinking in surprise.

It was the two fans she’d bumped into outside the barbecue place, now accompanied by three others.

“Hehe, we’re here representing the ‘Jing Popcorn’ fan club to wish Director Shang good luck on her exam!”

The two girls’ cheeks were flushed red from the cold as they took turns explaining.

“Director Shang, do you know about ‘Jing Popcorn’? That’s the name we picked for your fanbase.”

“We actually decided on it just yesterday, haha. We’d been debating between names like ‘Salt Grains’ and others.”

“Then I suddenly thought—whenever you scare us, don’t we all jump around like popping popcorn? So we went with this! Everyone loved it…”

Shang Jingyan chuckled. “That’s an adorable name. I love it.”

They hadn’t brought any flashy support gear—no light boards, no banners. Those only looked impressive in large crowds; otherwise, waving them around with just a few people would be kind of embarrassing. So instead, they each offered a few words of encouragement and waved goodbye without even asking for an autograph—

“Director Shang, focus on your exam! We’re not here for signatures.”

A warm feeling spread through Shang Jingyan’s chest. Back in her previous life, she had been famous too, but this was a first. Fans seeing her off for an exam? It sounded ridiculous, but also… touching.

Around her, some of the other candidates cast envious glances. A few even recognized her.

Dreamweavers held a status comparable to, if not surpassing, the celebrities of her past life. As mental healers, they were often called “healers of the mind” or even “guardians of the subconscious.”

It wasn’t unusual for Dreamweavers to have fans, but that usually came after fame. To have supporters show up in person like this? It meant she was already seen as a strong contender for the membership exam.

Stepping through the scanning gate, an electronic voice announced the details from her ID card:

[Candidate Name: Shang Jingyan; Gender: Female; Age: 18… Registered Mental Power Score: 79…]

Shang Jingyan paid particular attention to that last part. So the original host’s score was 79. She wondered how much hers actually was.

Inside, the hall was brightly lit and warm. Candidates huddled together, while reporters and photographers stood scattered along the way, cameras ready at any time. The atmosphere suddenly felt much more serious.

X71: [Yan Yan, I’m getting nervous!]

Shang Jingyan yawned. [What’s there to be nervous about? It might look intimidating, but at its core, it’s just a newbie tutorial exam.]

As she closed her mouth, she felt someone glaring at her from not far away—a girl.

Shang Jingyan judged her as “a little girl,” though she was probably around the same age as this body. She had long, bubblegum-pink twin tails, decorated with shiny hair clips, a floral sticker on her nose, and wore outrageously colorful streetwear.

The hostility was obvious. Shang Jingyan glanced at the badge on the boy beside her and immediately understood—

Oh. So her boyfriend was Guan Gaoyang.

Shang Jingyan’s only impression of him was that he was someone she had “snatched first place from before.” She didn’t even know what he looked like, let alone remember what project he had submitted in that themed event.

On the other side, Guan Gaoyang looked calm on the surface but was internally on the verge of panic.

Ever since Shang Jingyan had announced in an interview that she’d be taking the membership exam, he had been in this state.

Why was she here again?!

Guan Gaoyang felt indignant. His Oren editor had delayed his application for a year, believing he was finally skilled enough to rank among the top candidates in the exam. But Shang Jingyan—this total newcomer—was starting on the same playing field as him.

He had already lost once, reduced to being a mere footstep to her victory. He hadn’t even managed to recruit her. The past month had been a nightmare; he’d dreamed over and over of Shang Jingyan crushing him in this exam too.

Of course, Guan Gaoyang conveniently ignored one fact: Shang Jingyan’s fame had long since left him in the dust. In the Exile Star System, if you asked ten random people, none would know who Guan Gaoyang was—but at least a few would have heard of Shang Jingyan and her haunted house.

The candidates continued filing in. The written exam would take only half a day and was conducted in full isolation.

The next part, the live Dreamweaving test, was different. After drawing a topic, candidates had ten days to complete their Dreamscape, with no option to submit early.

For the final review, judges would assess the work, but there would also be randomly selected audience members participating in the scoring process, and everything would be broadcast live.

Any citizen of the Alliance could apply to be a public judge in advance.

Essentially, this was a full-blown Dreamweaving competition, one that the entire galaxy could stream live.

Reporters and cameramen in the Exile Star System were already itching for juicy headlines from the membership exam.

Shang Jingyan finished her written test, answering about 70% with confidence and guessing on the rest. She followed the crowd into the topic-drawing room.

Looking up, she saw the cameras blinking in the corners. From this moment on, all candidates were officially part of a live broadcast.

Shang Jingyan pressed the button. Once all candidates confirmed, a glowing screen on the wall displayed the Dreamweaving exam topic—

A poetic yet bizarre theme:

“Fateful Encounters, Cycles of Destiny.”

Topic Description:

Do you ever feel like some things are meant to be? Yet, people have never lacked the courage to defy fate. Those destined to meet are worth risking everything for, again and again. Regardless of success or failure, their story deserves to be sung…

Format unrestricted—film, short drama, game, etc. Final presentation (or playable demo) must not exceed three hours.

The room buzzed with murmurs. There was no way to cheat during the topic draw—unless you wanted to hand your ideas to your competitors—so talking wasn’t forbidden.

Candidate A muttered, “The hell is ‘Do you ever feel’? What if I don’t feel that way?”

Candidate B groaned, “I have zero courage to break free! Honestly, my life already feels like an endless exam cycle.”

Candidate C grumbled, “Can they just speak normally? Damn those Central Star System examiners—always so pretentious!”

Shang Jingyan: “…”

Yep, candidates complain the same way everywhere.

If she thought like a typical interstellar citizen, the most common interpretation of this topic would be:

Two protagonists, fated to love, always missing each other. But for love, they find the courage to defy destiny—success or failure, their love remains moving.

This “again and again” could also be “lifetime after lifetime,” making way for a classic reincarnation romance.

Keywords: past lives, missed chances, star-crossed lovers.

But the moment Shang Jingyan read the description, her mind jumped to something else entirely—a classic subgenre of horror and suspense:

Time loops.

The Butterfly Effect, Terror Loop, and so on.

Because what better embodies “courage,” “fate,” and “cycles” than a time loop thriller?