[SYSTEM RECORD: FILE #009]Subject: Localized Safe Zone (Code Overwritten)Location: Dacun Township Vineyard, Tool ShedTime: 02:12 AM

  [Investigator's Record]

  "A-p? can wait." The wet, raspy voice from the other side of the wooden door sent a chill down my spine. She wasn't just a mindless beast; she was a predator willing to lay siege. She knew the safe zone expired at 05:30 AM. She just had to wait me out.

  I stood before the desecrated altar, the muffled tactical flashlight in my left hand casting a thin, pale beam over the yellow joss paper. The glowing crimson ink on my metal pen nib was heavy, dripping slowly back into the porcelain bowl.

  I needed to be precise. The system didn't allow wholesale rewriting; I couldn't just write "The entity dies." The "Future Sight" had taught me that every action requires an equal or greater cost. My brain was already fried; I only had enough mental and physical stamina to change a single word.

  I focused the beam of light on Rule 2.

  Rule 2: The entities outside cannot enter unless invited, or unless you answer their questions.

  The loophole stared back at me.

  The system's rules were absolute, binding both humans and anomalies. Rule 2 protected me from invasion, but it granted the entity the right to loiter, to terrorize, to wait.

  If I couldn't kill her with my current power level, I had to use the system's own absolute authority to banish her.

  I raised my right hand. My thumb throbbed with a dull agony where I had punctured it, but my grip on the metal nib was rock solid.

  I pressed the bloody nib against the yellow paper, right over the word enter.

  The moment the ink touched the paper, an intense, searing pain shot up my arm and directly into my frontal lobe. It felt like I had shoved a metal fork into an electrical socket. The system was resisting the edit. It didn't want its code altered.

  I ground my teeth together, tasting fresh copper, and forced my hand to move.

  A single horizontal line. I struck through the word ~~enter~~.

  The ink sizzled, sinking deep into the porous yellow paper like acid. I didn't stop. I moved the nib to the narrow empty space just above the crossed-out word, my vision blurring from the pain.

  I wrote four letters.S - T - A - Y

  Rule 2: The entities outside cannot ~~enter~~ stay unless invited, or unless you answer their questions.

  The instant I dotted the final stroke, the crimson ink flashed with a blinding, golden-red light. The yellow talisman paper vibrated, emitting a low, resonant hum that shook the very dust in the air.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I stumbled backward, dropping the pen nib. The headache hit me like a sledgehammer, dropping me to my knees. I gasped for air, clutching my head, waiting for the system to process the new code.

  Outside the door, the entity was still talking."Young man... A-p? has lots of sweet things for you to—"

  She stopped abruptly.

  The air pressure inside the shed dropped drastically, popping my ears. A terrifying, unnatural force surged outward from the altar, sweeping through the wooden walls of the shed like a shockwave.

  It was the system enforcing its absolute law.The entity had not been invited. I had not answered her questions. Therefore, under the new, ironclad Rule 2... she could not stay.

  "NO—!"

  The shriek that tore through the vineyard was not the sound of an old woman, nor a monster preparing to attack. It was the sound of an anomaly experiencing genuine, system-inflicted terror.

  I heard the frantic squelch, squelch, squelch of rubber boots scrambling against the mud, completely losing their slow, deliberate rhythm. Then came a violent, rushing sound—like an invisible hurricane was forcibly dragging her away from the perimeter of the shed.

  Her fingernails scraped frantically against the outside of the wooden door, trying to hold on, leaving deep, splintering gouges. But the system's eviction was absolute.

  "AIEEEEE—"

  The screech faded rapidly into the distance, moving deeper and deeper into the endless rows of grapevines until it was completely swallowed by the night.

  Then... absolute silence.

  I lay on the cold concrete floor, my chest heaving, staring at the ceiling. The red altar lamps in the corner glowed steadily, casting long shadows.

  The pacing was gone. The smell of copper and rot had vanished, replaced only by the toxic scent of fertilizer inside the shed.

  I had done it. I had used a four-letter word to turn the system's defense mechanism into an offensive weapon.

  I looked at my watch. It was 02:25 AM.I had secured the safe zone. I crawled forward, retrieved the metal nib from the dusty concrete, and carefully slipped it back into my jacket alongside Pan's notebook. I clicked off the flashlight, plunging the shed back into the red gloom, and finally let my eyes close, letting exhaustion drag me down.

  I didn't know how long I slept on that cold floor.

  I woke up with a violent start.My heart was pounding. The shed was still dark, but the two red altar lamps were flickering violently.

  Flicker. Flicker.

  I scrambled to my hands and knees, my mind racing back to the rules on the yellow paper.

  Rule 1: The twin red altar lamps must remain on. If the bulbs flicker and die, close your eyes and do not open them until you hear the rooster crow.

  Pop. Pop.

  Both red bulbs exploded simultaneously, raining tiny shards of glass onto the altar.The shed was plunged into pitch-black darkness.

  I slammed my eyes shut and covered my face with my hands.

  The air temperature in the shed plummeted to freezing. And then, from the wooden stool in the corner, the battery-less radio clicked on again.

  This time, there was no static. And it wasn't Pan's voice.It was the high-pitched, eerie sound of traditional string instruments, followed by the mournful wail of a Taiwanese Opera singer.

  Rule 3: ...If it starts broadcasting a Taiwanese Opera (歌仔戲), hide under the fertilizer sacks immediately and cover your ears.

  In the pitch black, with my eyes clamped shut, I had to find a way to burrow deep into the narrow gap behind the twelve heavy sacks of chemical fertilizer, pressing myself flat against the cold wall to conceal my presence.

  But my overclocked brain instantly caught the fatal contradiction. Dragging myself blindly behind fifty-kilogram plastic sacks would make noise. Worse... if I covered my ears to survive Rule 3, how would I ever hear the rooster crow for Rule 1?

  It was a paradox. A death trap.And the opera singing was getting louder. I had to move. Now.