Death Notebook

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I found a notebook, got excited, and happily wrote my own name in it.

Then I realized it was a Death Notebook.

Anyone whose name was written inside would die.

Yeah, right. Like I was going to buy that.

So I added another name under mine: Sun Wukong.

It was a gorgeous notebook, honestly.

The cover was black with a metallic sheen, the kind that seemed to catch light even when you weren’t moving it. Right in the center was a gray-white skull. It looked like one of those trendy 3D designs—flat if you touched it, but raised enough to fool your eyes.

Like the thing might claw its way out of the cover any second.

I made my judgment in less than a second: this notebook had to be worth something.

At least ten yuan.

You know why the pens at banks are always tied down with a string?

Because some rules don’t need to be spoken out loud.

In China, if you find certain things, they basically become yours.

A pen. A lighter.

And definitely a blank notebook.

So, delighted with myself, I opened to the first page and wrote down my name. The feeling was about the same as finding ten yuan on the street.

Unfortunately, that happiness didn’t last long.

The moment I signed my name, something started feeling wrong.

My heart began pounding. My mouth went dry. My throat tightened.

It felt like heatstroke and motion sickness had teamed up to ruin my day.

I pinched the web between my thumb and forefinger twice, then shuffled over to Sophie Sterling, who was absorbed in a copy of The Ma Yi Art of Physiognomy.

“Sophie,” I said, “I don’t think I’m okay.”

Without even looking up, she shoved my face away with one hand.

“Go bother someone else.”

She kept reading with complete focus.

“When a person is close to death, the space between the brows darkens, the complexion turns ashen, the lips go purple, and the breath grows cold.

“And in their pupils, they can no longer see their own reflection.”

After reading that aloud, she finally turned her head, sounding genuinely intrigued.

“Huh. Interesting. Where am I supposed to find someone who’s about to die so I can test this?”

Then Sophie stopped talking.

Her pupils dilated sharply.

Those beautiful almond-shaped eyes locked onto me, unblinking, like she’d just seen a ghost.

I held the mirror and checked my reflection from every possible angle.

Left. Right. Up. Down.

The space between my brows had gone dark. My face was corpse-pale. Even my lips—usually a soft natural pink—had turned into a deep, bloodless shade that made me look years older.

Still not ready to give up, I grabbed Sophie Sterling’s arm and made one last desperate argument for my continued survival.

“People who are about to die violently start losing their yang vitality. Yin energy takes over. That means they can see stars in broad daylight.

“But I can’t see any, so I—”

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I tipped my head back, pressed my lips together, and felt, with absolute sincerity, that the world had finally gone insane.

Above me, the Big Dipper glimmered in the daytime sky, faint but impossible to miss.

I was going to die.

I had less than twelve hours left.

But how was that even possible?

I was still trying to make sense of it when my phone rang.

The voice on the other end was low, cold, and unmistakable.

Adrian Crowe.

“Lucy,” the vampire said, “did you receive the notebook?”

My grip tightened around the phone.

Adrian and I had a long, ugly history, and every single page of it was cursed.

Short version? That damned vampire had kidnapped Sophie’s cousin and used his life to blackmail us into joining the Moon Worship Society.

And the Moon Worship Society wasn’t just some back-alley cult.

It was an honest-to-God elite occult organization.

Its members were either rich, powerful, or both. I’d heard the annual membership fee alone started at ten million. And that was just the price of entry.

Inside the Society, the members were ranked.

Commoners. Nobles. Then titles layered on top of titles—barons, viscounts, counts, all that theatrical garbage.

The way you moved up was by completing assignments and earning points.

Every rank had its own quota of tasks each year.

Fail, and you paid a penalty.

Succeed, and you didn’t just rise in status—you were rewarded.

Not with money.

With things money couldn’t buy.

Youth.

Lifespan.

Luck.

Health.

Whatever you wanted, the Moon Worship Society could give it to you.

“Show business loves manufacturing stars, doesn’t it? The Moon Worship Society wants one too.

“The Death Notebook is one of the most powerful ritual implements in the entire Society.

“You already had a little fame before. When the time comes, you can livestream online and announce that you’re a representative of Death.

“Then all you have to do is predict the deaths of a few public figures.

“That’s it. Easy, right? I fought with the chairman for a long time to get you this assignment.”

Adrian Crowe laughed softly, absurdly pleased with himself for landing me such a flashy, low-effort job.

The second he heard that I’d written my own name in the notebook, the laughter on the other end cut off.

Just gone.

Like someone had grabbed a duck by the throat mid-quack.

“W-why would you write your name in the notebook?”

For once, Adrian sounded genuinely unable to understand human behavior.

I gripped the phone and rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. “There’s no talking sense into foreign ghosts like you people.”

His voice turned sharply serious.

“Lucy, don’t underestimate that notebook.

“The chairman paid an enormous price to make a deal with a death god for it.

“Anyone whose name is written in it will have their soul-spirit taken by that death god.

“No one is exempt.”

He went on to say that once a name was written down, death was certain.

There was only one way to save me.

I would have to willingly fall and become a vampire myself.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Vampires were basically like jiangshi, he explained—creatures that stood outside reincarnation, rejected by all three realms, and naturally beyond the reach of a death god.

Because in a sense, vampires weren’t truly living things to begin with.

By the time I hung up, I was so furious I nearly cracked my own teeth.

If Adrian hadn’t dumped that stupid notebook outside my front door, would I be stuck in this mess?

Sophie Sterling sat beside me, studying my face while taking serious notes in The Ma Yi Art of Physiognomy.

“Lucy,” she asked, “are we really joining this Moon Worship cult?”

I nodded and crushed a walnut off the coffee table with one hand.

“Join? Not only are we joining, we’re going to rise all the way to the top.

“We’ll become viscounts, then princes, then chairman.

“And once I’m chairman, I’m marching the entire Society straight into the Maoshan exorcist tradition. We confiscate all their assets.”

Sophie looked at me with open admiration and clapped.

Then, after the applause, she turned miserable again.

“So,” she said heavily, “what exactly are we supposed to do about this death god?”

Two pairs of wide eyes stared at the black notebook on the table hard enough to set it on fire by sheer will.

We stayed like that for a long time, until Sophie finally lost the battle and yawned.

Then inspiration struck.

I flipped open to the second page and, with all due solemnity, wrote down a name in big deliberate strokes:

Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

Please. Some bargain-bin death god didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the Monkey King.

The instant I finished the last stroke, green flames burst across the page.

A moment later, the fire vanished.

So did every word I’d written.

The second page looked untouched, smooth and clean as if nothing had ever been there.

“What the hell?!”

Was this death god seriously such a sore loser?

I refused to give up. I grabbed the pen again and started writing more names—Nezha, Yuanshi Tianzun, Guanyin, Zhong Kui…

Not a single one stayed on the page.

Sophie bared her teeth at the notebook like she wanted to bite it.

“What kind of death god bullies the weak and backs off from the strong?”

That killed our options.

Out of ideas, I had no choice but to call Morgan Vale.

She came from a line of feng shui geomancy specialists and knew all kinds of obscure occult methods. If anyone could think of something, it was her.

After hearing the whole story, Morgan laughed so hard she nearly cried.

“That’s what you get for being greedy over petty gains.”

I snapped, humiliated and annoyed, “Oh, shut up and help me think!”

Morgan, naturally, seized the chance to extort me.

“So,” she said sweetly, “how much do you think your life is worth?”

I didn’t answer.

I just hung up and immediately switched to a video call.