NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: The Skin That Whispers
"It wears your face before it takes your voice."
There was no light.Not at first.Only moisture and sound.
Jié landed hard.
His knees hit something soft, wet, warm — and alive.
The floor beneath him flexed. It didn't groan like wood. It shivered like skin.
He froze.
Didn't move.Didn't breathe too deep.
He waited — crouched low — eyes wide open.
Let his heartbeat slow.
Let the fear hit.
Let the floor know nothing.
His hands pressed into the ground.He felt pores.He felt heat.He felt a pulse.
This was no corridor.
It was a body stretched into a hallway.
And he was inside it.
[SYSTEM: FLOOR 1 — THE SKIN THAT WHISPERS]
Time Remaining: 3:59:59Objective: Survive 4 HoursRule: Touch Nothing That BleedsRisk: Sensory Collapse / Identity Shedding / Floor Absorption
Note: You are being watched.
The system faded.
Jié crouched deeper into the shadows, barely shifting his weight as his eyes adjusted.
The walls throbbed. They weren't walls. They were membranes, stitched together with thick, black sinew. Red veins pulsed beneath the surface, glowing dimly with each invisible heartbeat.
He reached out — not to touch — but to feel the warmth in the air.
Too warm.
The kind of warmth you only felt in hospitals and butcher shops.
He was in a corridor of flesh.
And something was moving deeper inside it.
Don't move until you know the rhythm.
That's what Yanyue once told him.
Back before she left.
Before the world cracked in half.
"Every place has a rhythm. Streets. Rooms. People. If you walk out of step, something will notice."
Jié listened.
The corridor breathed.
Once every six seconds.
A full inhale.A hold.A release.
So he waited.
Moved only between exhales.
His feet padded forward on the flesh floor.It gave beneath him like a mouth refusing to bite.
He passed a doorway — not carved, but torn. Ripped open like someone had tried to escape.
Inside?
People.
Dozens.
Some were whispering to themselves.
Some were silent.
One man sat in the corner, hands covering his face — lips moving — but no sound came out.
Jié scanned the crowd from the shadows outside the tear.
A few were still sane.
Most weren't.
At least fifty. All types. A woman in a tattered nurse's outfit. A man in full samurai armor. A teenager with a satchel full of stones. A girl scribbling something onto the floor with blood from her finger.
None of them looked at him.
He didn't enter.
This was a trap room.
The kind that asks you to join the crowd.
The kind that makes your silence feel lonely.
And then kills you for breaking it.
He kept moving.
Deeper.
The corridor forked.
Left was darker.Right pulsed with light.
He chose left.
Light was for the desperate.
Dark was for the careful.
He passed a mirror.
Not hanging. Not framed.
Grown out of the wall.
Silver. Smooth.Too perfect.
He didn't stop.
But it whispered to him anyway.
"You're not here to climb. You're here to bleed."
[SYSTEM EVENT DETECTED: Mirror Fragment / Echo Reflection Trigger]Optional Quest: "Face Theft Prevention"
Reward: Echo Skill FragmentRisk: Identity Corrosion
Would you like to enter?
[Y/N]
Jié kept walking.
He had 4 hours.No weapons.No allies.
And the walls were smiling.
Around the next corner, he found a group.
Five people.
Armed.
A tall man with a shaved head and military armor was giving orders.
Three others — one girl with bandages down her arms, another in a bloodstained school uniform, and a heavyset guy with eyes too calm — surrounded a sixth figure on the ground.
Someone bleeding.
"That's a breach," the leader said.
"They touched something."
"We can't let them bleed. Not here."
The girl flinched.
"But he didn't mean to—"
"It doesn't matter."
The man raised a blade. A jagged piece of metal with sinew still wrapped around the hilt.
Jié stepped into view.
"Wait."
The group turned fast. Eyes wide. Hands ready.
Weapons up.
Jié raised his hands. Palms open.
"You kill him here, you'll contaminate the floor."
Silence.
Then the heavyset guy blinked.
"What the fuck do you know?"
Jié kept his voice calm. Cold.
"Nothing bleeds unless the floor allows it."
"You cut him, you feed it."
The air twitched.
The walls shivered.
The floor laughed.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: Floor Acknowledges Jié Dè]
Floor Reaction Level: +1Passive Trait: "Whispers Listen" has awakened.
The blade dropped an inch.
The leader stared.
"Who are you?"
Jié didn't answer.
Just walked past them.
Eyes forward.
Weight balanced.
Arms loose at his sides.
Walk like someone who knows where they're going.
Walk like Sunny did before he got a blade.
Walk like a manhua protagonist before the sects begged for his blood.
The group didn't follow.
But the floor did.
He could feel it now.
Eyes opening in the walls.
Not watching.
Reading.
He turned another corner.
Stopped.
Ahead of him, the corridor ended in a door.
Not a tear.
A real door.
Carved wood.
Or what looked like it.
There was something nailed into it.
Skin.
Not old.
Fresh.
And carved into that skin?
"IF YOU ENTER, YOU FORGET."
He reached for the handle.
Paused.
Let his fingers hover.
Breathed in.
And stepped through.
Next: Chapter 3 — The Room of Forgotten Names
"If you forget who you are, the floor will name you instead."