The Horror Game invaded the world. Real players entered the game, and their every move would be broadcast live.

My adopted son shoved me—an eighty-eight-year-old woman—straight into a deadly dungeon to save his own skin.

One of the comments in the live stream predicted:

[What? They’re tossing in such an elderly woman? No way she’s gonna survive the first night!]

On the first night, a frost-bitten ghost exhaled icy breath in my face.

I shrugged off my thick floral coat, feeling sorry for her. “You poor thing! You must be freezing. Listen to me and bundle up quickly!”

The second night, a starving ghost lunged at me with blood dripping down his chin.

I sniffed the air, then found a jar of pickled cabbage. “Look at how skinny you are! Come on, let me get you something hot to eat.”

On the final day, the last surviving players tied me up, desperate to steal the one ticket to escape.

However, before they could touch me, every ghost in the dungeon came storming out, cleavers and rolling pins in hand.

“Touch her, and you’re dead meat!”

“Mom, you’re still as tough as nails. Take one for the team!”

My adopted son kicked me straight into the pitch black hellhole.

My lower back slammed against a jutting rock.

Pain shot through me.

It hurt so bad I drew in a cold, hissing breath.

This old spine of mine had rusted stiff years ago. A fall like that nearly shattered me into pieces.

I pushed myself off the ground, slow and steady, and brushed the dust off my worn cotton pants.

Before me stood a gloomy, abandoned apartment block. Its windows were dark and barren, with no hint of life inside.

Then, out of nowhere, a voice rang out from above.

[Welcome to the dungeon Whitmore Private Academy Dormitory. Your challenge is to survive for one week.]

The voice stuttered halfway through, carrying a strange and unnerving energy.

[The player count is now eight.]

[Good luck and have fun. Death may be an early release.]

I did not really understand what that was supposed to mean.

All I could see were a few blurred silhouettes drifting in the distance. The cold wind carried their muttering toward me.

“Ugh, just my luck! Why’d they throw in such an old hag?”

“Look at her age. No way she’s gonna survive till dawn.”

“Who cares? She’ll make a fine scapegoat for us…”

I let their buzzing wash past my ears and squinted through my failing eyes at the dormitory building ahead.

The windows on the first floor hung crooked, their glass shattered all over the floor. The icy wind howled straight inside, unbarred.

A half-broken sign dangled at the entrance: [4101.]

That should be the one!

I lifted my foot and headed right for the busted door.

The moment I got close, an icy chill seeped up from the ground, boring straight into my bones. I shivered all over.

The live chat is on fire.

[Holy crap! The old lady’s walking straight into 4101! That’s the frost wraith’s lair!]

[She's done for! That frost wraith was killed and shoved in a morgue freezer, so now she loves freezing people into ice statues. That’s the nastiest death ever!]

[Place your bets. How many minutes do you think she will last?]

I ignored the chatter, raised my hand, and knocked on the nearly splintered wooden door.

The hinges groaned with a long, creaking wail, and the door cracked open on its own.

In the gap of the door stood a figure that only barely resembled a person.

A faded, patched-up blue school uniform hung off her shriveled body.

Her hair glittered with shards of ice. Her face was drained of all color like a corpse, and her lips were frozen purple.

She stared at me. There was not a single wisp of warmth left in her.

“Cold… cold…”

The moment she spoke, a stream of deathly white frost spewed from her mouth straight into my face.

The cold made me tremble, but suddenly, it all made sense.

Without a word, I started unbuttoning my heavy, padded red cotton coat. I had kept this coat tucked away in a drawer for years.

It was the last gift from my husband, who had been gone for more than a decade now. He had it stuffed thick with cotton, and it was warm enough to block out the harshest winters.

“Sweetie!

“Just look at yourself. You’re frozen stiff! Your face is even turning blue and purple. Don’t just stand there in the wind!”

I shoved my heavy, warm floral coat into her rigid arms and nudged her icy body back toward the room.

“Come on, hurry up. Put it on! Bundle up! I can’t believe you’re out in this kind of cold with just those thin clothes. Your bones will snap like frozen twigs!”

The ghost girl clutched my glaring red coat, frozen in place.

Her stiff eyes slowly and painfully rolled down toward the bundle of fluffy warmth in her arms.

Her fingers twitched, curling ever so slightly as they gripped the coarse fabric.

Those who were watching the live broadcast were all shocked.

[Huh?]

[What the hell? Why isn’t the frost wraith attacking her?]

[Holy crap! Did she just put her coat on the ghost? That’s the wildest move I’ve ever seen!]

The room itself was colder than a freezer.

I rubbed my numb hands together, looked around, and shook my head.

“Sweetie, how do you live like this? What a miserable life!”

I plopped myself down on the icy dormitory bed like I owned the place, sitting cross-legged.

“You can call me Mrs. Wade. Forget that. Just call me Granny, sweetie. What's your name?”

The frost wraith stood in the middle of the room like a wooden post, clutching the coat.

After a long, long silence, she struggled to move her frozen lips. Finally, a faint, airy voice slipped out.

“Granny, my name is Chloe.”

“Chloe! What a lovely name!”

I slapped my thigh.

“What a sweet name for a sweet girl! Come on, get that coat on. Listen to me, and you can’t go wrong!”

At last, Chloe lifted her stiff eyes from the red coat and looked at me.

Her gaze held a mix of emotions. It was confused, wary—and deep inside, faintly wounded.

Slowly, she draped the red floral coat over her bony shoulders.

She tried to shove her arms through the sleeves awkwardly.

Her stiff movements made my heart ache.

I could not stand it. I leaned over to help.

My hand brushed against her arm. It was as cold as an icicle and sent a numb sting through my fingertips. However, I did not pull away and just muttered as I worked.

“Easy now, easy! There, that’s right! Make sure you button up here. The wind always gets you in the neck!”

The red coat wrapped her up completely.

Its blazing color, so absurdly bright in the deathly gloom, seemed almost comical. However, it strangely warmed the whole room.

[Congratulations, player. You have gained the frost wraith’s recognition. From now on, you will no longer suffer from the cold.]

Warmth spread through my entire body.

That night, Chloe and I—one frozen young ghost, one living old lady—squeezed into the icy bed in Dorm 4101.

We drifted into a hazy but peaceful sleep.

The next morning.

I was jolted awake by a hunger that gnawed straight through to the bone.

It was not my own belly crying, but the room itself. The air was thick with a starving hunger, and it threatened to suck the very life out of me.

Chloe was huddled in the corner, still wrapped in my floral coat, staring blankly at me.

Her gray-blue face seemed a little less stiff, but the confusion and wounded look in her eyes still weighed heavily.

[System prompt: Hunger is spreading. Proceed to Dorm 4404 to obtain food.]

[Warning: 4404’s resident is extremely dangerous! Severely starved!]

The live chat was going wild with messages.

[4404? Oh no, that’s the Hungry Dead! Granny just escaped the freezer, and now, she’s walking straight into famine!]

[That ghost is so hungry it even gnaws on itself! With Granny’s old bones, she’s done for!]

I rubbed my empty stomach and steadied my aching back as I climbed off the bed.

“Chloe, I’m going out to get us something to eat. Be good and wait here till I’m back home.”

I hauled my aching back up to the fourth floor.

The busted wooden door of Dorm 4404 creaked open, and a foul stench hit me.

It had me gagging and hacking for breath.

A sickly yellow glow leaked out through the crack, along with a sound that made my teeth ache. It sounded like bones being gnawed and chewed to splinters.

I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Lord have mercy! The place was a landfill come to life.

There were broken bowls, moldy bread rolls, rotting cabbage leaves, and piles of filth everywhere. The floor was coated in a black, sticky grease that sucked at my shoes.

Inside, a scrawny little boy, thin as a stick, was hunched over in the corner. He was straining over some dark, shapeless heap I could barely see.

He whipped his head around when he heard the noise of me stepping in.

His face nearly stopped my heart. His cheekbones were sharp enough to cut, his eye sockets were sunken deep like black holes, and his lips were split and peeling back to show yellow teeth.

Thick, dark red saliva hung and dripped from the corners of his mouth.

It was his eyes that froze me solid.

His eyes glowed sickly green, like a wolf that had been starved all winter. They locked on me as though he could leap at any second and tear me apart.

“Hungry! So hungry… Meat…”

…

The voice came out ragged, like his throat was full of gravel. He hunched lower, shuffling toward me step by step.

The reek of rot and blood pressed heavier on me with every move.

Everyone who was watching the live broadcast was frightened.

[The Hungry Dead’s about to lose it! Granny, run! He’ll eat you alive!]

[Oh, hell nah! That’s a sight I did not need burned into my brain…]

My stomach lurched, bile stinging my throat.

However, when I saw him—skin stretched over bones, stumbling like he could barely stand—the fire in my chest flared up.

Instead of running, I reached out and grabbed his twig-thin arm.

“Would you look at yourself, child? You’ve been starved nearly to death!

“Don’t your parents feed you? What kind of mom or dad doesn’t put a hot meal in front of their boy? Busy or not, a kid needs supper on the table!”

The little boy froze at my outburst, like he did not know whether to lunge or listen.

Even the wolfish gleam in his green eyes faded for a moment.

I seized my chance, sweeping the room with a quick glance.

There—in the corner!

Half-buried in trash lay a big old clay jar, its lid weighed down with a slab of rock and a sheet of filthy plastic.

From underneath drifted a faint tang. It was sharp, sour, and unmistakable!

Pickled cabbage! Oh, sweet heavens, pickled cabbage!

I heaved the rock off and tore the cover back.

A rich, tangy scent burst out, chasing away the stink of rot.

Inside, golden cabbage gleamed, crisp and slick, practically begging to be eaten.

The boy blinked in confusion, sniffing instinctively. For a moment, he forgot the dark, sticky drool sliding from the corner of his mouth.

“Hold on, honey. I'm going to make you a meal!”

I spoke decisively and dove into the trash heap.

By some miracle, I dug out a chipped clay pot, a beat-up little stove, a knife, two sprouting potatoes, and some dry kindling.

I got the little stove set up in no time, stacked the firewood, and pulled out the box of matches I stuffed in my pocket earlier.

Scratch! A flame leaped up immediately.

I set the cracked clay pot on top, fished a big head of pickled cabbage out of the jar, and gave it a few good chops into rough strips. Then, I grabbed a couple of spuds, frozen solid but not yet rotten, peeled them, hacked them into chunks, and tossed the whole pile straight into the pot.

Blub-blub-blub…

Soon enough, water bubbled and hissed, steam rising with a mouthwatering sour-salty smell.

The boy did not move a muscle.

Bent over like a crooked stick, he lingered only a few paces from the fire. His green-glinting eyes fixed hungrily on the cracked clay pot, where the steam curled upward.