The Otherworldly God I Serve Is Actually a Demon - Chapter 1

Ruan Jiao had been feeling uneasy lately.

She always felt like someone was peeping at her, whether she was sleeping, using the bathroom, or taking a shower.

That gaze would pop up from time to time, startling her.

There was an unsettling chill and a sense of being watched in that gaze, and Ruan Jiao would wake up immediately even in her sleep.

But she hadn’t yet found where the thing peeping at her was hiding. Every time she sensed the gaze and looked around, it would vanish.

After mentioning this to her parents, they took her to the hospital for a check-up. The doctor said it was hallucinations caused by excessive stress and prescribed some medication.

Ruan Jiao took the medicine and felt much better. At least she no longer felt like someone was peeping at her.

Maybe she really had been under too much pressure lately, even though she didn’t feel it herself. The intense coursework and group assignments in her freshman year might have genuinely caused some mental strain.

She heard that a girl from the neighboring class also experienced hallucinations due to stress, telling everyone there was someone under her bed when, in reality, there was nothing there.

The next day, that girl was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where she repeatedly attempted suicide.

Thinking of the news stories about students who jumped from buildings due to excessive stress, Ruan Jiao couldn’t help but take two more pills. Her life had just begun, and she didn’t want to die.

She had survived the grueling final year of high school, gotten into a public university so close to home, and was even a day student. Where did all this pressure come from?

Ruan Jiao was puzzled but didn’t dwell on it too much. She just followed the doctor’s orders and took her medication on time every day. For a while, things were peaceful.

That Saturday, the counselor had to leave unexpectedly, so there was no one to supervise the evening self-study session.

Everyone was thrilled. Even though they were already university students, they still hadn’t escaped the misery of studying. Their schedules were packed from morning till night, even more intense than in high school.

With morning readings and evening self-study sessions, it was pure hell.

So, during this rare free period, most people were chatting, playing on their phones, and laughing.

“Jiaojiao, do you know what day it is today?” A fluffy head leaned in mischievously.

She was Ruan Jiao’s classmate, Xiang You, a cute girl who loved reading supernatural novels. The two had been high school classmates and shared three years of camaraderie. Not only did they get into the same university, but they were also placed in the same class.

Both were day students, and with such coincidences, it was only natural they became close friends.

Ruan Jiao was puzzled. “Is it your birthday today? But I remember your birthday is on the 5th of next month.”

“Ah, not that! Today is the Ghost Festival,” Xiang You said mysteriously. “Don’t you know? The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival. It’s easy to encounter ghosts today!”

Ruan Jiao immediately lost interest. She was very timid and felt uneasy about such topics.

“Xiang You, don’t scare me with these things. I don’t want to hear it.”

Xiang You pouted and reluctantly leaned back. Just then, a girl in the front row turned around to join the conversation.

“Speaking of ghosts, Xiang You, have you seen that trending post about the supernatural resurgence lately?”

“I know, I know, it’s that post by the forum big shot who calls himself the number one person in the era of supernatural resurgence, right?” Seeing someone actively wanting to talk about supernatural topics, Xiang You instantly perked up again.

“That’s the one.”

The girl in the front row simply turned around to chat more conveniently with Xiang You.

“I think the things he wrote seem pretty real, especially the addresses of the supernatural events mentioned in the post, they all have real-world counterparts.”

Xiang You nodded. She usually enjoyed digging into supernatural-related materials and had naturally scoured the internet for this post as well.

“I heard the person who posted it is actually from our city, Jiangcheng. Because it was written so realistically, he was invited for a ‘chat’ by official authorities, and the post got taken down.”

At this point, a hint of pride suddenly appeared on Xiang You’s face. “But I already took screenshots of the key content of that post with my phone.”

She pulled out her phone and opened the photo album, which contained dozens of screenshots. The girl in the front row couldn’t help but give her a thumbs-up.

Although Ruan Jiao was afraid of such things, she couldn’t help but curiously glance at Xiang You’s phone.

The first screenshot only contained three lines of large text, but just these three lines made Ruan Jiao break out in a cold sweat.

[This is an era of supernatural resurgence,

Some among us are already experiencing supernatural events,

Anyone who sees this post will be drawn into it.]

Ruan Jiao immediately looked away, not daring to read further.

Recently, there had been many similar posts on the forum: if you see this post and don’t forward it to 10 people, you’ll be haunted by misfortune or vengeful spirits.

Every time Ruan Jiao accidentally clicked on such posts, even though she despised the poster’s attention-seeking behavior, her body would still obediently forward it to 10 people.

Because she was truly timid, even falling for such clumsy tricks, just in case one of them turned out to be real.

Beside her, Xiang You and the girl in the front row were still closely discussing the content of the post. Ruan Jiao scrolled through the character app on her phone, her ears passively absorbing their conversation.

“Which supernatural event in the post do you think is the scariest?”

“The one about the delivery guy, it’s absolutely terrifying when you think about it. After reading it, I feel like my late-night takeout tastes like human flesh.”

“I think the peeping one is the scariest. The female protagonist is a freshman like us. She gets inexplicably haunted by a ghost, always feeling like someone is watching her, and that person is getting closer and closer…”

Thud!

The sound of a phone dropping on the desk startled the two who were deep in conversation.

It was Ruan Jiao’s phone that had fallen on the desk. Her hands were trembling uncontrollably, and she looked somewhat dazed.

“Jiaojiao, what’s wrong?” Xiang You asked with concern.

“I… I’m fine,” Ruan Jiao said, her heart tightening. She turned to look at the screenshots on Xiang You’s phone and spoke with difficulty, “Xiang You, could you send me these screenshots too? Especially the supernatural event about peeping that you just mentioned.”

“Aren’t you scared? Are you really going to look? Don’t blame me if it frightens you,” Xiang You said as she sent the screenshots to Ruan Jiao.

“Thank you.”

Ruan Jiao picked up her phone again, opened the screenshots Xiang You had sent, and kept scrolling through them, but she couldn’t find any mention of the word “peeping.”

Xiang You patted her head, as if suddenly remembering something. “Look at my memory, I forgot. That supernatural story ‘Peeping’ was so scary that I didn’t even take a screenshot to save it.”

“Then do you still remember the detailed plot?” Ruan Jiao pressed eagerly.

It was rare for Ruan Jiao to show interest in supernatural topics, so Xiang You didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm. Propping her chin in her hand, she racked her brain, trying to recall every word she had read.

“Hiss, that’s strange. I was just talking about it, but now I can’t quite remember the specific details.” Xiang You scratched her head, looking puzzled.

“Could it be that this supernatural story has subtly affected my memory, not allowing me to recount it?”

At this point, Xiang You’s face suddenly lit up with excitement, as if she had discovered something new.

A cool, dismissive voice poured cold water on her enthusiasm. “You just have a bad memory, that’s all. I still remember what it was about.”

It was the girl sitting in front of them, they had almost forgotten she had also read the post.

Ruan Jiao turned her inquisitive gaze toward the girl in front, who didn’t keep them in suspense and immediately began recounting the supernatural story called “Peeping.”

【Peeping】

【A freshman girl recently kept feeling like someone was watching her, whether she was eating, showering, or sleeping, she could sense that gaze.

She told her parents about it, but they thought she was under too much stress and took her to see a doctor, who prescribed some medication.

Even after taking the medicine, she still felt someone watching her. Under the oppressive weight of that gaze, she grew restless and began searching everywhere for the person spying on her.

She turned her entire room upside down but couldn’t find the source of the gaze. Instead, she felt it getting closer and closer, as if it had become attached to her.

The girl broke down, screaming and shouting hysterically. Her parents had no choice but to admit her to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

The doctors strapped her to a hospital bed, gave her a sedative, and locked her in a room by herself.

At night, that peeping gaze returned.

The girl couldn’t move a muscle. All she could feel was the gaze drawing nearer and nearer, until she sensed something moving on her back.

Unable to turn her head, she could only shift her eyes to the side. There, she saw a paper-thin “person” crawling out from behind her.

It turned out that the one who had been peeping at her had been on her back all along.】

After the story ended, all three of them broke out in goosebumps. It had to be said that the original poster, who called themselves “The First Person of the Supernatural Revival Era,” was quite skilled at writing ghost stories.

After hearing the story, Ruan Jiao let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. The moment she heard it, she had immediately thought of herself, which was why her expression had changed so drastically.

But in the story, the girl still felt watched even after taking medication, whereas Ruan Jiao hadn’t felt that way in a long time since starting her own medication.

So, in the end, the story was just fiction, she had been scaring herself.

“Even though it’s terrifying, these kinds of stories are all made up,” the girl in front shrugged and turned back around.

This time, their conversation came to an end. Xiang You didn’t try to keep Ruan Jiao talking about supernatural topics anymore and instead opened a horror novel on her phone, occasionally chuckling as she read.

Ruan Jiao looked around the classroom at her classmates, each engrossed in their own activities, noisy yet brimming with youthful energy, and finally allowed herself to relax.

Perhaps it was just accidentally glimpsing those three opening lines of the paranormal story post that made her momentarily immerse herself in it, causing the fright.

The original poster of that thread must be a novelist, using a different approach to promote their own horror fiction. Many authors do this nowadays, using the most captivating methods to quickly draw readers into the story, achieving the goal of keeping them reading. If readers get scared, it means the author’s story has succeeded.

Ruan Jiao shook her head, pushing the matter aside, and started scrolling through the character app.

Following the big eater Liangzi, another food streamer had recently gained popularity, trending daily. They streamed eating every day, rarely spoke, just kept eating. The person was very thin, but reportedly could devour 20 steamers of buns within an hour.

Curious, Ruan Jiao clicked on the trending topic and entered a live stream. A streamer named “Starving Ghost” caught her eye.