He’ll Invited Me to Fall in Love (Infinite) - Chapter 1

“Brother Yi!”

Shen Yi paused in his tracks and looked back.

Behind him was a narrow rural path he had seen six times now, running alongside a shimmering river. At the end of the path stood two hazy figures. Shen Yi couldn’t make out their faces only one tall and one short shadow, shimmering and indistinct.

The shorter figure was jumping up and down, laughing and calling his name while waving enthusiastically. The taller figure stood further back in the mist, hidden and silent.

Shen Yi turned around and parted his lips, about to say something, when “Shen Yi!” “Shen Yi, look out!” “Get out of the way, you idiot!!”

A sharper, clearer voice pierced through the dream, screaming in desperation.

Shen Yi snapped back to reality. Shaking off the sleep, he bolted upright and opened his eyes just in time to see a round, dark object flying straight at him.

Thwack!

The round object slammed directly into his face.

Shen Yi: “…”

A moment of dead silence followed. The object dropped from his face and rolled away.

Shen Yi let out a miserable, muffled wail. He curled his body over, clutching his face in agony. It felt as if his entire face had been caved in. Looking down through his pain, he realized the “round object” that had just assaulted him was a basketball.

His brain buzzed; the world spun. That single hit had been remarkably effective. Around him, several people gasped in shock. Shen Yi looked up and saw people across the school playground backing away, startled by the impact.

Dazed, he remembered he had come to the playground during lunch break to sit alone for a while. Something began to leak from his nose. When he pulled his hand away, his palm was covered in blood.

“I am so sorry! I’m so sorry!”

The sound of frantic footsteps approached. A guy wearing a basketball jersey and oversized shorts pushed through the crowd.

“Classmate, I am incredibly sorry!” he stammered, his tone frantic. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, my hand slipped and the ball just… I’m so sorry! Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

Shen Yi was grimacing too hard to speak. Just as he was about to force an answer, someone else cut in.

“Do you even need to ask? That ball practically glued itself to his face!”

Another set of footsteps hurried over. When Shen Yi raised his helpless eyes to see the newcomer, his heart eased slightly.

The man was wearing a Klein blue t-shirt and black jeans, adorned with silver chains that were almost blinding. He had an artistic mop of curly hair and a handsome face a textbook “cool guy.”

This was his roommate, Gong Cang.

“Shen Yi, let me see!” Gong Cang grabbed his arm and yanked his hand away from his face.

As soon as they saw the damage, both men’s expressions shifted instantly. They sucked in a sharp breath in unison. The guy in the basketball jersey went pale, cold sweat pouring down his neck likely imagining his future posted on the school’s disciplinary board. “Infirmary. Now!” Gong Cang dragged him away. The basketball player hurriedly offered to come along and followed closely behind them. Blood continued to seep from his nose. Shen Yi clutched his face, his footsteps feeling a bit lightheaded from the pain. “I called your name several times! Why didn’t you react?” Gong Cang asked, frustrated and worried as he hurried him along. “Look at you, getting smashed like this!” Shen Yi felt like he was dying. “I was asleep…”

“…You were sleeping on the playground?” “What, nobody said it was against the rules.” Shen Yi winced as the pain flared again, his balance becoming increasingly unstable. Thinking of the string of disasters that had plagued him lately, a dark premonition filled his mind. “Wait, Little Gong, slow down ah!”

Before he could finish asking his friend to slow down, Shen Yi’s left foot tripped over his right. He frantically pulled his hand out of Gong Cang’s grip, swinging his arms out to catch his balance. Instead, he stumbled sideways in a dizzying whirl. His heel caught the edge of the campus fountain. Shen Yi lost his balance completely and toppled backward. Splash! He fell heavily into the water, sending up a massive spray. Shen Yi was now officially “cooled off.”

Gong Cang and the basketball player stood there with their mouths hanging open, faces frozen in shock.

Floating on the surface, Shen Yi stared up at the chin of the Great Man’s statue in the center of the fountain. He watched the birds in the sky and the midsummer clouds, listening to the uncontrollable laughter of the onlookers. His expression went numb as he began to wonder what kind of karmic debt, he was paying off lately.

Shen Yi, twenty-one years old, was a junior at the Liangcheng University of Arts. Since he was supposed to be interning soon, he didn’t have many classes.

However, things had turned bizarre recently. His perfectly normal life had suddenly become a series of misfortunes.

It started six days ago. First, his computer blue-screened, wiping out a week’s worth of final assignments. Then, his usually reasonable professor suddenly failed him in a class where he had perfect attendance. Right after leaving the building, he tripped on flat ground, shattering a three-year-old glass cup and slicing his arm open.

Then, his phone’s motherboard fried, losing all his data. He had to buy a new one. While riding a shared bike, the frame snapped, sending him flying into a hedge. Later, he stepped on a cardboard box by the road, slipped, and after a desperate attempt to stay upright, slammed his face into a bus stop sign.

Since then, it had been an endless cycle of falling every day, in every way imaginable. Shen Yi’s body was now a map of bruises.

Moreover, he had started having a strange dream. It was the same dream, recurring every night for the past six days.

“I’m telling you, man.”

In the infirmary, Gong Cang stood across from Shen Yi, watching the school doctor dab iodine onto his battered face. “I’m telling you, Shen Yi,” he said with a look of weary sympathy, “you really need to go see a spiritual master or something.”

Shen Yi agreed; this life was becoming unbearable. He opened his mouth to speak, but the doctor pressed a cotton swab onto the worst bruise on his cheek. Shen Yi let out a pathetic howl, his face contorting in pain, losing any chance to talk.

The student who had hit him with the basketball winced in sympathy, nervously wringing his hands. “Senior, are you okay?”

Back in the hallway, the doctor had asked for Shen Yi’s year and ID, so the younger student now knew he was a grade below him. Shen Yi was in too much pain to reply; he just punched his own knee in frustration.

Gong Cang continued, “The last few days have been too weird. I haven’t seen this much bad luck in my entire life combined. And then there are the dreams.”

The younger student paused. “Dreams?”

“Yeah.” Gong Cang opened his mouth to explain, but Shen Yi reached out to stop him.

Gong Cang cut himself off. He looked over at Shen Yi, whose expression was grim as he waved his hand, signaling him not to share those details with a stranger.

“It’s nothing. I just haven’t been sleeping well, just some messy nightmares,” Shen Yi said, gritting his teeth against the sting. “Look, I’m just having a bad run. Mercury retrogrades or something. It’s not all your fault. You can head out; just leave your contact info. If it turns out to be serious, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay, Senior. I’ll write down my number. It’s the same for my WeChat add me whenever you want. If anything happens, just find me.” The junior was quite polite. After writing down his number and promising to pay for medical bills or accompany him to a hospital, he made a series of solemn vows before finally leaving.

Gong Cang remarked, “That kid’s not bad. He’s willing to take responsibility for you.”

“He is.” Shen Yi chose to ignore the subtext. He turned to the doctor. “Doctor, am I disfigured?”

“Hardly,” the doctor replied. “It looks bad, but it’s all superficial. Honestly, it’s a miracle. To be hit that hard in the nose by a basketball and only walk away with surface wounds not even a fracture.”

Liangcheng Arts was a top-tier university with excellent facilities; the infirmary took up an entire floor and even had a CT room.

Shen Yi felt a bit wronged. “But it hurts so much, Doctor. Are you sure nothing’s broken?”

“I thought it was strange too, which is why I took several scans. You’re fine,” the doctor reassured him. “Don’t worry. If you’re still concerned, you can go to a larger hospital for a check-up.”

Shen Yi grunted but said nothing more. Once the medicine was applied and the doctor handed over some supplies for the coming days, the two roommates left the infirmary.

“Had the dream again?” Gong Cang whispered after they had walked a few paces.

Shen Yi scratched at the edge of a bandage and nodded.

“What was it this time?”

“The same old thing,” Shen Yi answered listlessly. “The countryside, an old village, a family farm. I have a mother, a younger brother, and a sister. And there’s this little mute kid I play with. We’re all just living a quiet life in the village.”

“That sounds pretty peaceful,” Gong Cang said. “But having the exact same dream every night is still creepy.”

Shen Yi didn’t respond. He slowly came to a halt. Gong Cang didn’t notice at first, taking another two or three steps before pausing. He turned back to see Shen Yi looking down, his brow furrowed deeply.

“What is it?”

After a few seconds of silence, Shen Yi looked up with a solemn face. “Niangniang Miao Village, Zuojiawu Town, Weirui County, Wangshan City, Lichuan Province.”

“Huh?”

“In the dream I just had,” Shen Yi said, “someone told me. That’s the location of the village.”

Gong Cang shuddered.

Shen Yi pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a few times. “I just searched it. That place actually exists.”

“Wait a second.” Gong Cang grabbed Shen Yi’s hand, his voice thick with disbelief. “You aren’t actually thinking of going there, are you!?”

Shen Yi blinked. “Yeah.”

“Yeah? Are you crazy? Don’t you know you never go to a place from a dream that you’ve never heard of before!” Gong Cang shoved his hand down, his voice rising in anger. “Do you want to die? Go online and look it up there are dozens of terrifying stories about this! People who go either disappear or turn up dead in horrible ways! Don’t you spend any time on the internet?”

Gong Cang’s rant was practically spraying saliva.

Shen Yi wiped his face and said, annoyed, “Don’t get so worked up. I’m just mentioning it. It’s just a dream. Whether I go or not, the place exists. I just wanted to take a look…”

“No!”

“Fine, fine. No. I won’t go,” Shen Yi grumbled, sounding a bit hurt. “I said I won’t go, so stop shouting.”

Gong Cang’s mouth twitched, and he let go. “Good. Just don’t. Look, you should probably find a medium or a fortune teller.”

“Maybe another day,” Shen Yi said. “My face hurts. I don’t want to go out. I feel like I’m a magnet for ghosts lately.”

He certainly looked the part. Gong Cang wanted to laugh, but he held it back.

“Want to go out tomorrow? It’s the weekend,” Gong Cang suggested. “There’s a new haunted house nearby. I heard it’s really intense.”

Shen Yi: “…Did you even hear a word I just said!?”

“I heard you, I heard you! But the haunted house is in a mall; it’s all just people in costumes. What’s there to be afraid of?” Gong Cang argued. “Besides, think of it as ‘fighting fire with fire.’ Maybe if you see those NPCs in the haunted house, it’ll scare away whatever bad luck is clinging to you.”

What kind of twisted logic is that?

One second the guy was screaming at him not to go to a dream location, and the next he was dragging him to a haunted house! He was out of his mind.

Just as Shen Yi was about to curse Gong Cang out, a flyer was shoved into his hand.

“This is the flyer for that haunted house,” Gong Cang said. “Take a look. It looks interesting. Let’s go have some fun.”

Shen Yi’s eyelid twitched. He took a deep breath to tell his friend to get lost, but when he looked down at the flyer, he went silent.

The flyer was black with blood-red text, designed in a classic horror style. It was a common “mountain wilderness” theme, with a brief introduction of the attraction. There was nothing particularly unusual about it, except for a line of tiny, blood-red text at the very bottom.

“Please head to Hell.”

The words were at the very edge, so small they were almost invisible. Aside from that, there was nothing special about the flyer.

Yet, Shen Yi couldn’t look away. It was as if the words possessed a strange magic, pulling him into a swirling vortex. He stared blankly at those four blood-red words, while the sound of the wind from his dream began to whistle in his ears once again.