“Could it be? Is this really that storage ring?” Brian Carter could feel his heart beating noticeably harder, and even his hands were trembling a little. Rationally, he knew this couldn’t possibly be real, but deep down he still harbored that fantasy, hoping it was true after all. With that sense of anticipation and nervousness, Brian Carter slowly slipped the ring onto the ring finger of his left hand.

The size of the ring seemed to be designed exactly for his finger—it slid on easily, but once in place, it fit his skin perfectly.

Wearing the ring, he felt a gentle warmth, very comfortable, and Brian Carter immediately took a liking to it. Even if it wasn’t a storage ring, it would make a nice accessory.

“But is this thing really real? If it’s a storage ring, shouldn’t it be able to store things inside, just like in the novels?” With this question in mind, Brian Carter gently stroked the ring, trying to find something special about it.

But aside from the intricate patterns on its surface, he couldn’t see anything unusual about the ring, which left Brian Carter a bit frustrated. He shook his head and happened to glance at the monitor in front of him, his mind suddenly filled with some strange idea.

And just then, the monitor in front of him suddenly vanished. “Clang!” A loud noise came from behind the computer desk, and at the same time, the girl who had been sitting to Brian Carter’s left let out a scream, pointing at Brian Carter’s desk, so shocked she couldn’t even speak.

At this moment, Brian Carter was already dumbfounded, staring in disbelief, because the seventeen-inch LCD monitor that had been right in front of him—such a conspicuous object—had just disappeared into thin air, without even a trace of the process, leaving only a round stain from the monitor’s base on the desktop...

Chapter Two: Haunted

The sudden noise and scream startled the two people on either side of Brian Carter and the two across from him, making them all jump up. As they searched for the source of the sound, they quickly noticed that the monitor was missing from Brian Carter’s desk.

The two guys across from him couldn’t help but secretly admire him: “This guy’s got guts, smashing a monitor right here in the internet café.” They thought Brian Carter’s monitor was gone, and with that loud noise, assumed he’d smashed it.

“What happened?” The internet café attendant, a young man in his twenties, rushed over when he heard the commotion.

“It... it just went beep... and the monitor was gone.” The girl who had screamed earlier pointed at the now-empty desk in front of Brian Carter, stammering, her face full of terror as she gestured wildly.

The attendant also saw the empty desk in front of Brian Carter, his small eyes going wide. He circled around behind Brian Carter, then crouched down to look under the desk, finally raising his head and stammering to the girl, “Are you sure... it just went beep... and the monitor was gone?”

The girl nodded repeatedly, pointing at the space in front of Brian Carter as she explained, “Really! He was just refreshing the webpage, and I glanced over out of curiosity. I looked again just now, and the monitor was still there, but then it just went beep... and suddenly disappeared. Oh, and...” she shouted, “there was a loud noise from behind, too!”

By now, everyone in the café was looking over. It was just too bizarre for a monitor to go missing in an internet café, especially at this busy hour. For someone to steal a seventeen-inch monitor was almost like stealing a national treasure from the Forbidden City.

A few curious onlookers joined the attendant in checking around the desk, even pulling out Brian Carter’s computer desk, but there was no sign of the monitor. The computer tower was still there, though it had been pulled out a bit, as if something had yanked it.

Seeing Brian Carter sitting there in a daze, the attendant glared at him and asked, “Hey, where’s the monitor?”

“Ah!” Brian Carter exclaimed, finally snapping out of it. He hadn’t heard a word the girl or the attendant had said. The shock of the monitor’s sudden disappearance was far greater for him than for the girl, because he already suspected it had something to do with his mysterious ring.

“I’m talking to you! Where’s the monitor?” The attendant was getting angry now and gave Brian Carter a shove.

“I don’t know either!” Brian Carter’s mind raced, and he quickly put on an innocent face. “I was just surfing the web here, and suddenly the monitor vanished. It scared me to death! How can such a big monitor just disappear? What kind of place are you running here?”

The attendant’s eyes bulged as he said, “A monitor that big can’t just disappear like that! What are you playing at? Hand over the monitor, now!”