"Anyone who dares to mess with my brother, pick a time and we'll teach him a lesson together," Yan Zhou barked into his phone, buying a few packs of instant noodles from a small shop before heading home.

"Boss, you were injured a few days ago. Maybe you should just stay home and rest. Leave this to us—we’ll make sure he regrets ever touching our brother."

"Fine. Do what you have to. Just don't kill anyone—I’ve no interest in rotting in prison."

The voice on the other end was just as furious and impatient. A few more curses were exchanged before the call abruptly ended.

Back home, Yan Zhou shrugged off his red-and-black plaid shirt, leaving only a black T-shirt clinging to his lean frame. As he dropped his purchases onto the coffee table with a clatter, he noticed, once again, something that didn't belong to him.

A small cake — and the torn diary he had thrown into the trash earlier that day.

Now, neatly glued back together, the diary sat innocently on the table. It was just an object, and yet its presence sent a chill down his spine.

Yan Zhou, no stranger to fistfights, wasn’t easily scared. But irritation prickled at him. Beside the diary was the cake, crowned with a single lit candle.

The flame burned slowly, almost as if waiting for him.

With a loud clatter, he dumped the instant noodles onto the table, snatched up the diary, and hurled it back into the trash can.

The cake suffered the same fate—he crushed the flame between his fingers without hesitation, then flung the once-delicate dessert into the bin.

With the cake gone, a card left on the table became starkly visible.

Annoyed but curious, Yan Zhou picked it up.

> Yesterday you threw away the gift your big brother prepared for you. That made me very sad. I glued it back together—this time you mustn’t throw it away, or big brother might have to do something... Also, happy eighteenth birthday, my little Zhou. —Brother

At the bottom, a childish doodle of a smiling face was sketched.

It was sickening.

"Playing 'big brother' now, huh? Can’t you get tired of these lame pranks?"

Yan Zhou growled, tearing the card to shreds before tossing it into the trash as well.

But the more he thought about it, the more unsettling it became.

The prank itself was stupid—but the methods were... nauseating.

Still, Yan Zhou was stubborn. He dismissed it as a childish joke and left it at that.

Elsewhere, in a dimly lit room—

A tablet screen live-streamed Yan Zhou’s every move.

The sound, too, was crystal clear.

Long, deathly pale fingers traced slowly across Yan Zhou’s face on the screen — slow, lingering, obsessed.

"My little Zhou... heehee... you threw it away again. My heart hurts so badly. I ought to come and take something from you... for compensation," a low, trembling voice whispered with fervent adoration.

Then the tone shifted—darker, more frenzied:

"Little Zhou is so adorable... I want to pin you down, bully you until you cry. You’d curse and struggle like a little wildcat—so cute, so deliciously wild..."

He hugged the tablet to his chest, breathless and shaking in the pitch-dark room.

Only the soft, obscene sounds of someone losing control could be heard.

If Yan Zhou had seen it, he would've smashed the lunatic's most precious part to bits without a second thought.

Unaware of the live surveillance, Yan Zhou simply felt an eerie sense of being watched.

Thinking it over, he blamed the diary, with its disturbingly lifelike illustrations of eyes, for putting such nonsense into his head.

Deciding he’d had enough, he grabbed the trash can, stormed downstairs, and personally threw the garbage into the disposal truck.

Only when he saw it being hauled away did he finally feel a sliver of relief.

"That should put an end to it," he muttered. "If they dare pull another stunt, I'll dig them out myself and make them wish they were dead."

Still, the feeling of unease gnawed at him.

The more he thought about it, the clearer it became:

Whoever had written that diary had been watching him — not just for a day or two, but for much, much longer.

And what chilled him to the bone was that everything in that diary matched his real experiences perfectly.

Pondering it all, Yan Zhou finally began to grasp the gravity of the situation.

Could it be... the police? Some kind of surveillance squad?

They even knew his real birthday — a detail only his late parents knew. His ID had a different birthdate; a clerical error when registering it had thrown it off by a few days.

Whoever had orchestrated this knew things that couldn’t be found anywhere public.

He wracked his brain, but no obvious suspects came to mind.

Finally, bitterly, he blamed her—that woman.

Thinking of her filled him with disgust.

But even she, as much as she hated him, wouldn’t orchestrate something this sick.

And that diary — filled with twisted, intimate details — felt too invasive, too deliberate.

Something wasn’t right.

Back in his apartment, Yan Zhou called to have the locks changed, and installed new security bars on the windows, feeling slightly more at ease.

Night fell quickly. Finding nothing worth watching on TV, he turned it off, showered, and crawled into bed.

Yet sleep evaded him.

In the darkness, it felt as though a thousand unseen eyes stared at him.

Frustrated, he clenched his eyes shut—out of sight, out of mind.

But in the dark, his imagination turned every creak and shadow into something monstrous.

"Shit!" he cursed, snapping his eyes open.

It helped, a little.

At least now he could see his room was still intact — empty, silent.

But that oppressive sense of being watched remained.

"Dammit... could it really be something supernatural?"

He raked his fingers back through his damp hair.

"No way. There's no such thing in this world. Some coward just wants revenge — that's all."

Considering how many people he had beaten senseless over the years, Yan Zhou figured he had no shortage of enemies.

"Forget it. Sleep first."

Money was running low.

Tomorrow he’d have to find a part-time job just to afford his next meal.

Forcing himself to relax, he drifted into a fitful sleep.

Somewhere between waking and dreaming, he felt the tug of his blanket, as if someone were trying to pull it away.

But too exhausted to care, he sank deeper into restless dreams.

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