TWBS c1~20

表里世界 ☆ 

The World Below Surface

[CAUTION: This novel contains some graphic descriptions of fictional violence, including depictions of blood, gore, and death. Reader discretion is advised. If you are sensitive to such content or easily disturbed, please be aware that this novel may not be suitable for you.] 

表里世界[无限流] The World Below Surface [Infinite Stream] Author：往生阙

RAW: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=4716194

The text of this article: Lu Yan lives in the most horrific and absurd world.

People here live in harmony and contentment and were oblivious of all paranormal occurrences.

People here were sacrificed to the living, and the children were eaten like lychees—first the skin was peeled off, then the soft flesh was nibbled into.

……

The world had gone mad.

The only individuals who were normal like him come from the outside world and call themselves players.

And in his struggle to live and learn the reality of this world, he can only rely on these people.

……

Player A: In the world I recently visited, I met an NPC. He was completely different from other psychotic NPCs in that he was so innocent and humble.

Player B: Yeah, yeah, me too. He helped me a lot. I feel like he’s more intelligent than the captain, but unfortunately, it’s an NPC.

Player C, who was screwed by the innocent and humble NPC, died and now came back as a living dead, cast a sympathetic glance: …… hehe. YOu mean Lu Yan, right? Good luck to you guys.

*Pseudo- infinite stream + horror spooky + trying to burn your brain + chaos unresolved

① Disorderly crazy creepy society; modern overhead; really confusing, don’t try to find logic.

② All villains use each other to backstab each other; male protagonist Lawful Evil, occasionally chaotic.

③ Sub-style horror, traditional flow, ghosts, and monsters are unresolved and invincible, no live room, no psychic powers, no upgrades, card draw, and other elements

④ Involves a trace of the fourth heavenly disaster; Cthulhu elements; SCP Monsters in Containment

ARC 1 (ch1 — ch20)

1 ☆ Woman on the billboard

Translator: InkyDragon

The air that the cool air conditioning circulated had a faint odour of disinfectant, blood, and another type of decayed protein cooked previously. All of this combined to provide a sweet, fishy fragrance.

Lu Yan (陆言) had long been familiar with the smell. After saying goodbye to his colleague, he saw his colleague turn his head and smile only with the right side of his face. His colleague watched him walk away while waving at him even after he was far from sight.

Putting on his hood and mask, Lu Yan stepped through the door of the subway carriage and, inside, ‘accidentally’ stepped on a palm that was a bit soft and rotten in texture. Without stopping, he kicked the object opposite towards the door, right into the rusty billboard outside.

The corners of the billboard’s softly smiling actress’ lips widened a little, slowly grinning down to the roots of her ears. Her smiling eyes began to move down to stare at the palm that had fallen below her nose.

The mouth opened wide, and a thin, bright red tongue stuck out. The palm twitched to get away, yet the tongue still wrapped around it, sticking out of the enormous lips and pulling in. Her pointed white teeth were hidden behind a closed mouth, and both cheeks puffed out.

The sound of chewing rang out.

Clearly, the hand was soft and boneless, but Lu Yan heard the creaking sound of bones breaking.

After a while, the woman on the billboard revealed an insatiable smile, her lips bright red.

Lu Yan did not meet those eyes. He knew that the woman on the billboard must be staring at him, so he kept his head down and played with his phone.

The doors closed, and the subway car shifted and started to move forward.

The feeling of being watched didn’t go away.

At some point, pretty actresses appeared in every subway poster, staring at Lu Yan and smiling.

Lu Yan was concentrating on his mobile phone, not listening to what was happening outside.

The subway lights were dim, tinged with an unsettling red. The phone screen reflected the corners of the starlet’s mouth rising higher and higher from the posters, as well as her long tongue slowly extending.

He could hear the hissing sound of a snake crawling, and although she was smiling, her eyes were cold.

The carriage went dark, and then the next moment, the lights came on.

The tip of his nose twitched.

The smell that had been permeating the carriage disappeared, becoming fresh and clean.

When he looked up again, all the rust and blood in the carriage was gone. The windows were clear, and the passengers, though few, were sitting or standing peacefully as the electronic female voice played the arrival station. The air conditioning dispersed the last of the summer night’s heat and even cooled it a little.

It was quiet and peaceful, just like the ordinary world Lu Yan would have remembered, and he didn’t have to be careful any more.

Yet, Lu Yan knew that this was the beginning of the vigilance he had to exercise.

When the bizarre world begins to masquerade as normal, it must be when it hides its fangs and then sows its malice…… everywhere.

At the next station, a group of people came up.

This group obviously knew each other but seemed to have nothing in common. Men and women, young and old, identity and age varied, got in the car while whispering in low voices. Lu Yan took one look and then withdrew his eyes to continue playing with his phone. At the same time, the other passengers also glanced curiously, so his behaviour was not at all unusual.

But the group was clearly not uninterested in him.

Lu Yan was looking down when a shadow suddenly appeared on his phone screen.

It was a woman from the group. She was probably in her early twenties and had a gentle, affable smile. She seemed a little embarrassed to talk to him: “Sir, do you have a moment? I have something that I would like to talk to you about.”

Individual passengers cast envious glances.

What was this? A beautiful woman starting up a conversation with an average guy?

The young woman’s face was still a little shy. Her head was lowered while she spoke in a soft and gentle tone. But her words were not as ambiguous as the other passersby might have thought.

Only then did the man shift his gaze from the phone screen to her, almost subconsciously taking a step back, his body language full of caution, “What do you mean?”

“Sir, there is no need to be afraid because we had the same experience.” The young woman wore a smile and said, “We met those… too.” She moved closer, and her voice lowered even more. Passersby couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the man reacted frantically, and his breathing instantly sharpened. The woman could almost hear the other man’s heartbeat speed up.

“I, how do I know if what you guys are saying is true or not?” Lu Yan’s voice tightened a little. He obviously realised this too and cleared his throat, “I mean, who am I to believe you guys?”

“After all, there’s no better option now, so why not try?” The woman smiled at him, “Are you willing to sit around and wait for death?”

Lu Yan subconsciously shook his head, and the woman’s smile widened, “Don’t be afraid. We’ll all help you.”

“Help me? You?” Lu Yan’s tone was hesitant.

Seeing that her most sociable teammate had managed to strike up a conversation with the NPC on the first try, a slightly chubby man in the crowd gave her a thumbs up and showed his teeth in a smile.

Everyone slowly padded over and gathered around Lu Yan.

“Are you the companions she was referring to?” Lu Yan said, frowning a little in chagrin as he said it, realising he still didn’t know the woman’s name.

The woman said, in due course, “Introducing myself; I am Li Fang Yu(黎芳菀).”

The others likewise said their names.

They claimed to be the same as Lu Yan, suffering from “otherworldly hauntings” (诡异) and living in constant fear. Hence, they formed a small group to try to find a way to save themselves and discover the world’s truth.

Lu Yan observed that the group intentionally or unintentionally listened to a young, tall, and thin man named He Lou (贺楼). He introduced himself as an ordinary office worker.

But looking at his cold air and how people were convinced by him, it was obvious that he was not just an office worker.

Lu Yan didn’t know if he believed them or not. Still, he had made a preliminary acquaintance and asked with some curiosity, “You guys have formed a group. Do you have any solutions for these… things?”

When he said the word “things,”  his expression was clearly scornful, and his voice was unconsciously lowered. You can tell that he must have been tortured by certain events.

The crowd exchanged glances, shook their heads and lowered their voices to speak.

“Ghosts, spirits, curses and other …… things are not humanly possible to eliminate, and we have, up to now, only been able to find escape routes in the face of these spirits, without any hard-core methods.”

“Trying to solve it ourselves is impossible. We can only keep running away. Of course, most events have hints. Survival is still elementary if we find a way to escape.”

“It’s no use asking God and worshipping Buddha, church or Buddhist temple. There’s no place where you can get away with it once and for all. You can only rely on yourself to find the pattern.”

“It’s risky, but as long as you find the pattern, you can survive.”

Hearing their words, the sorrow between Lu Yan’s brows deepened.

He was handsome, even with his hat and mask on, and when the somewhat cold eyes he revealed were tinged with sorrow, he could quickly draw the hearts of young girls to him.

“Then would I not ……” The words had just left his mouth when he swallowed them back as if realizing that something was wrong.

“Is it convenient for Mr Lu to tell us what difficult things he has encountered recently? Perhaps we can help you.” He Lou asked.

He Lou didn’t say much and gave off a cold-faced, warm-hearted feeling.

Lu Yan frowned more tightly, sighed, wanted to say something, opened his mouth, and held back. He was a little suspicious again, glanced at everyone, and slowly began speaking up.

“I recently …… how to say it, the apartment upstairs, someone bizarre moved in. Since he moved in, strange things are happening more and more ……”

Lu Yan was saying when He Lou suddenly raised his hand and interrupted his narrative: “Wait first.”

The latter gazed coldly at the carriage overhead light: “Have you noticed that the light has dimmed a bit?”

He did not use the word “seemed” but was confident that the lights had dimmed and that the change must have been caused by some unusual reason.

The group was immediately alerted.

He Lou’s words were soon confirmed as the light dimmed—not wholly, but to more dark red.

It was like a thin veil of blood was covered over them.

Immediately afterwards, they heard a toothsome sound that came from nowhere and was indescribable, thin, and overwhelming. Yet, it was so tiny that they would have thought it was just ringing in their ears if they hadn’t listened closely.

What was it exactly..?

“Everyone, be ready to flee.” He Lou glanced at Lu Yan and added, “Don’t leave the carriage; walk backwards.”

The subway station arrived just in time. After a ring, several passengers waiting on the side stood up and prepared to go out.

“Why?” Lu Yan asked.

Li Fang Yu whispered softly, “Look out the window.”

Lu Yan glanced out of the window, and his expression changed dramatically.

His face was covered by a mask, but the crowd could still detect the shock in his eyes.

It was no wonder that he was surprised. A layer of blood mist had drifted up outside the window at some point, and it was getting closer and closer, thicker and thicker. Still, in an instant, it had already gathered around the subway.

It looked like it was coming for them.

The lights that had just dimmed, also because of the blood mist, gradually gathered next to the lamps. The light and faint dark red in the air then became denser and denser, to the point where it was no longer visible to the naked eye.

“Ah! What’s going on?”

“What the hell is this?!”

The other passengers finally noticed the anomaly and shrieked, one after the other, individuals taking off their jackets, desperately trying to clear a field free of the blood mist the moment the iron doors opened, screaming and running out the door, pushing each other in panic and nearly causing a stampede.

The small group was no exception, “Run!” A voice came from the small group as they watched the bloody fog about to spread over them. They worked their way against the flow through the crowd and towards the back of the carriage.

The slightly chubby man who had previously given a thumbs up to Li Fang Yu’s eyes glanced at them and suddenly stared in shock, “Holy shit! This N…… Lu Yan, what the hell is he up to?”

Everyone was supposed to leave together, but Lu Yan returned to stop the passengers about to run outside: “Don’t run outside, calm down! It’s more dangerous outside!”

Before he could finish his sentence, the passenger he had dragged by the door half a step away suddenly stared wide-eyed and hissed in pain, struggling.

“Help ……”

The words of distress were not finished as the body he had stepped outside melted as quickly as if ice had met the sun. First, there was a layer of skin that faded to reveal the scarlet-white flesh, white bone and still-beating organs inside ……

The living man had only two layers of skin. Still, the blood mist had peeled off an unknown amount downwards, devouring layer after layer.

It all happened so fast, but in an instant, the man Lu Yan was tugging was left with only one intact hand, held in Lu Yan’s hand. Like the other passengers who hadn’t stepped out of the door, he stood stunned in his place, unable to react until now.

The broken hand snapped to the ground, and Lu Yan took a step back in horror, his eyes wide with fear.

“Ah…”

The broken hand landed at the feet of one of the young passengers. Because there was less blood and mist in the carriage, the hand was consumed much slower. Now the skin had only faded away, and the texture of the mechanism and the gradually visible skeleton could be seen. Apparently, one of the passengers couldn’t take the excitement and subconsciously kicked the severed hand out, which happened to land on an advertising wall.

A stunning actress was on the advertising wall, and they weren’t sure if it was an illusion. She was watching everyone with a weird and beautiful smile. The hand landed on her lips, and her lips twitched as her long tongue reached out, pulling the wrist into her mouth and hooking it, her fine white pointed teeth slowly chewing.

A pair of beautiful, flirtatious eyes, slowly beginning to focus, turned towards the passenger. Anyone could see the unmistakable mad malice in her eyes.

The group backed away in unison in horror.

The passenger, who knew he was dead even if he was stupid, looked around, and only Lu Yan, who had just helped someone, looked more reliable. He shivered and approached Lu Yan before grabbing his hand: “Help me …… help me, please help me… …”

“I ……” Lu Yan was clearly hesitating.

He Lou’s face sank: “Go! Bring him over.”

The group was too big a target, and another tall, thin, yellow-haired youth trotted back and got into the crowd. He looked at the two people still pulling and tugging. His eyes narrowed slightly before he kicked the man to the ground and dragged Lu Yan out of the crowd with one hand, running desperately and wildly backwards.

The other passengers also reacted and fled after them.

The yellow-haired young man was tempted to curse Lu Yan as a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary or something like that, but in the end, he held back, stifled his head, and charged forward. He was so strong that Lu Yan could not break free, so he ran after him back to the centre of this somewhat odd little group.

Of course, also following him were several other passengers, many of whom were office workers, whose sudden strenuous exercise had left them gasping for breath. They were about to talk when they were met with a cold glare from a highly tall, fierce-looking man in the crowd.

Lu Yan noticed that the same glare swept over him with slight dislike and that others were more or less unkind. Yet, he breathed a sigh of relief and swept his eyes unobtrusively over the few people who had followed him.

There were six.

‘Six options, so if something happens later, someone with less skill and less helpful will be chosen to be pushed out instead of me, right?’

Lu Yan was in a happy mood.

His eyes slid over the passengers. Suddenly his gaze stopped, and he immediately averted his eyes, pretending not to see.

That person…. why does that person keep tiptoeing?

——— Translators Notes ———

If you enjoy the Hell App, this is fairly similar; however, the MC is an NPC rather than a player.

2 ☆ She’s Staring At Me

Lu Yan maintained his expression and leaned further towards the small group, making an appearance of fear. He did not say what he had found but let the group observe for themselves.

The subway swayed, and with a long “creak, “the doors closed and departed slowly.

On the advertising wall, the resentful eyes of the actress had disappeared, never to be seen again.

The six passengers were slightly relieved, and a few were bold enough to ask the small group across what was going on. Still, they were invariably met with a few sharp stares.

However, Lu Yan did not put his mind at ease as he glanced up at the rear carriage and the faintly diffused blood mist.

The thing had not entered the subway, and the blood mist had likewise coalesced in the front portion of the carriage. Either the subway went backwards, where the so-called “sanctuary” was, or there was something even more terrifying than them back there.

He still looked frightened, and the group pulled him away from the other passengers, and then together, they lowered their voices to discuss.

“Now, do we just wait here until the station? I still have a bit of an uneasy feeling.” The person who said this was a short-haired girl with a delicate face. She had a short haircut like a man, red lips and studded eyebrows.

She was Lai Li Fang Zhi (黎芳芷), the twin sister of Li Fang Yu.

Li Fang Yu followed and said, “One of the passengers just now is likely to have carried a curse on him, so we should stay away from them.”

Everyone in the crowd, except He Lou, believed in Li Fang Yu. Yet when he heard her say this, He Lou nodded likewise and went further in.

The biggest group member clicked his fingers at the passengers who were about to follow with a fierce look on his face: “I’m warning you, don’t follow us.”

Lu Yan followed the fat middle-aged man and chatted with him. He glanced a little worriedly at the passengers behind him who wanted to follow but were afraid to do so, sighed quietly, and did not persuade.

‘I don’t know how many of them will “survive.” Will they be enough to save me from death?’

In the eyes of others, this was a sign that he had good intentions but did not dare to do anything.

Many people have some disdain for this.

Those who have survived horrific psychic events have long given up their so-called compassion and kindness. If it wasn’t for the mission requiring Lu Yan to provide clues, he would have been among those who were left.

The subway moved forward in silence. The windows were dark outside, and the heavy night air completely enveloped the subway. The atmosphere in the interior carriage grew colder and eerier.

It was as if something were coming out …

“AH!!!”

A scream broke the silence, and the few people who had just been whispering in hushed voices were abruptly startled.

“Something’s wrong!”

“Run!”

They ran towards the back of the carriage with extreme caution, intentionally or unintentionally pinning Lu Yan in the middle with the big fierce man padding behind. Lu Yan looked back as he ran.

Expecting to see nothing, Lu Yan still saw a passenger leaping high above the big man’s shoulder.

His face was blue. A large portion of his neck had been bitten off by something, revealing a bowl-sized, blackened wound, with a bit of flesh remaining wrapped around the skeleton. It made one worry that the head would fall off.

As the man behind him was too tall, Lu Yan could only see one head. He took a quick glance and immediately showed an expression of horror as he turned around and continued to run after him.

Over the chaotic footsteps, one could hear a mixed “thud, thud, thud” as something jumped up and down.

When the big man behind him saw Lu Yan’s reaction, he immediately understood there must be something behind him. Still, he didn’t dare to turn around and could only run as fast as he could.

Lu Yan pondered as he ran.

The interior of the subway was small, yet as they rushed all the way forward, they didn’t find anyone. He wondered where these people went.

Also, among passengers, the big guy was definitely the tallest in the group. Yet, he could see the monster’s head from behind the big guy. Once again, when you think about the regular thumping sound you heard, Lu Yan guessed that maybe it was something like a Chinese zombie, or else the other side only had one leg and had to jump.

Unfortunately, the six men had stalled for some time, but none were left.

Thinking of this, Lu Yan shouted as he ran, “Faster, everyone! There’s something following behind us!”

At the moment, he still had use to them, so the gang would try to protect him. When he had given out all the information, then, when running away like today, the one at the back would definitely be him.

But for now, everyone hadn’t torn their faces off yet. So he reminded them not to stop, earning goodwill points from the group. 

At those words, the escape brigade immediately increased its speed.

For some reason, the subway was particularly long, and they had been running for a long, long time, but it felt like they couldn’t reach the end.

There was only the messy sound of footsteps and ragged panting.

Moreover, they don’t know if it was an illusion, but the further they ran, the more outdated the carriages became.

Lu Yan dodged a few pieces of debris that had fallen from the roof of the dilapidated car and then looked around, which had somehow become an old Shanghai tram, and was sure of it.

When he looked back again, the thing he had been following was gone, and all the lights in the carriage behind them were dimmed, and it was pitch black. Only the carriage they were in and the area ahead of them that hadn’t run away were brightly lit.

“But … it’s okay … there’s nothing left.”

With the large man still following behind him, he had to call the man to a halt before slowly coming to a halt himself. He glanced at the crowd, slowly stopping because of his shout, and gradually calmed his breathing in front of them.

The mask had long since been half removed in his escape, covering only his chin. After running for so long, it would have been easy to arouse their suspicion if he hadn’t been out of breath. 

When they stopped, the subway also slowed down.

The carriage was so old that slowing down made it creak and squeak. But to everyone’s ears, the sound was less like an ageing vehicle and more like the popping of bones when someone stretched. 

It was as if the subway was some kind of living thing …

The subway was getting slower and slower, finally letting out an unbearably long sound. The next instant, the originally darkened windows suddenly lit up. All the doors automatically opened to the sides.

Lu Yan looked out the door, and his pupils shrank.

Even though they had run so far, the advertising wall not far outside the door still had a huge advertisement of that female celebrity posted on it. Although the makeup was more retro, the artist was still a brand of dazzling  acenaphthene  ration  huanzhu

“Where is this? Should we go out?”

“After running for so long, we’ve finally stopped now.”

“Xiao Zhi, did you have a tracker that counts how far you’ve run?”

Li Fang Zhi held up her phone, “The pedometer says I ran nearly four kilometres in 26 minutes.” She was dressed in a unisex style and looked quite remarkable, but she answered the question with a flourish.

He Lou nodded and asked, “How’s everyone’s stamina? Can we continue?”

The oldest in the crowd was the slightly chubby middle-aged man Yu Gao Yi (余高义). 

Sweating profusely, he was first to say, “I’ll need to take a break.”

Some were okay, while others were equally exhausted and sat bolt-upright in their seats, panting heavily to calm their breathing.

Lu Yan saw that they had yet to bring it up. He allowed himself to look immediately filled with a sense of dread before shivering and subconsciously taking a step backwards.

Li Fang Yu, who had been watching him, immediately asked softly, “What’s wrong with you?”

Lu Yan shook his head, his voice lowered to a whisper, “Didn’t you notice?” His lowered hand pointed covertly at the door.

The others looked towards the door, uncomprehending.

“What’s wrong?”

“Is there anything unusual?”

They’d encountered quite a few anomalies tonight. How could you distinguish them when there were so many of them.

“Have you … seen that woman?”

“Which one?” He Lou was immediately alerted, “Describe it.”

“I … the woman on the billboard …” Lu Yan’s forehead seeped with sweat, and he unconsciously swallowed, “The woman on the billboard before we left. The woman on the billboard, she’s still … staring at me.”

What?!

The others immediately turned their heads alertly but saw nothing.

Li Fang Yu said, “I don’t see anything; it is pitch black.”

The rest of them nodded.

This time Lu Yan’s face turned completely white.

Even though he was wearing a mask and hat, they could tell that the other man didn’t look quite right, and he muttered, “She’s still staring at me; she’s smiling …”

“In that case, shall we go out?” The yellow-haired young man asked.

He Lou said, “Wait a little longer.” He glanced at Lu Yan, “Say in time if anything changes.”

Before Lu Yan could agree, the woman in his vision changed again. Her face gradually turned blue, her smile slowly disappearing, her eyes fierce and resentful, full of morbid coldness.

“She …”

Lu Yan opened his mouth, “She, she disappeared …”

He was just about to open his mouth when everything outside the door had vanished into thin air, only pitch black like the giant mouth of an abyss.

“Clack.”

It sounded like a gramophone opening.

Immediately afterwards, the faint sound of singing came from all directions. It started softly, very low, and got louder and louder, almost as if a woman was standing next to you, softly and gently singing in your ear.

The lyrics were in a dialect from somewhere, but they couldn’t make out what was being sung. They just thought it was a good tune and got lost in it for a while, wanting to listen for a bit longer.

‘I want to listen to it all the time…’

‘What a beautiful song. It was so moving …’

The darkness outside the door slowly brightened as the song grew louder and louder. As the music grew louder and louder, the soft female voice became shrill, and the daylight outside the door disappeared. Yet the crowd remained absorbed in the song, mesmerised.

Gradually, blood poured out of their ears.

Their hands began to tremble unnaturally, and their heads tilted, catching each other on the neck of the one nearest to them. And so, with a happy smile, each man slowly reached out and strangled the other.

Even though the backs of their hands were pushed so hard, they burst into bruises. Their faces began to redden from lack of oxygen. Their tongues stuck out uncontrollably… They still wore happy and engrossed grins.

It was so wonderful …

Lu Yan had long since plugged his ears, yet he could not prevent the music from drilling into his brain. These people were hurting each other two by two, and he was the only one left alone. He pinched equally hard around the neck and clenched his tongue, trying to use the stinging pain to keep himself awake.

His eyes went straight to He Lou.

‘No … I can’t reveal myself yet.’

The eyes immediately withdrew. He stumbled over to him, and with an “inadvertent” fall, he used the momentum to slam into He Lou with force.

He Lou’s eyes sobered for a moment.

“Everyone, move! Hurry!!!”

He Lou really lived up to his expectations, shouting out loud, waking up the crowd, and looking at each other with some panic in their eyes.

After He Lou’s sentence, he took the lead and ran towards the door. Soon, everyone ran out after him. And as soon as they got out of the car, they were shocked by the scene outside the door.

“This, this is …”

“Wait a minute! There are still people who haven’t come down!” The yellow-haired young man’s jaw dropped, and he pointed at the carriage.

The two men, a middle-aged man who was slightly chubby and a man with glasses, were too tired from running all the way down. They sat down on the subway seats directly after the car stopped. Now the two of them were repeatedly tapping on the window and screaming at them as they couldn’t stand up. 

“Help me!!! Help me! I can’t get up!!! Help me!!!”

“Help! Brother Lou! Help me!”

“Please! Help!!!”

However, no matter how much they shouted, no one would go up to help. Everyone just stood there in silence, watching the situation unfold.

The carriage door slammed shut, the lights went out, and the carriage was instantly dark as the pleas turned into angry curses, which soon turned into wails.

“Aaaaahhhh-“

The screams came to an abrupt halt.

From inside came the sound of … something being chewed.

3 ☆ The Law of the Blood Mist

It didn’t take long for the numbing voices to die and for one of them to speak out softly.

“Where are we going now?”

The place they were in was also a small stop station, but compared to the underground station they had just been in, it looked like a building from the 80s or 90s. The walls were a bit yellowed and dusted, and about the time of the return of the south, all the walls were a bit wet and stained, smelling musty and faintly fishy.

On the side was a kiosk where it felt like all the staff were chasing after a star. The walls where the menu should have been posted were covered everywhere with yellowed posters. They revealed a pretty woman with long curly hair and a fair complexion looking at everyone with a gentle face.

It was impossible to say that there was nothing unusual about the posters of the actress that appeared again and again. Everyone recalled the scenes they had seen on the underground station earlier and didn’t dare to look at the posters much. However, there were simply too many posters here. Unless they closed their eyes, wherever they went, they would be gazed at by those seemingly gentle but, in fact, steely eyes.

Li Fang Yu asked, “Mr Lu, do you know this star?” 

They weren’t from this world, so they didn’t understand the people in this world, and naturally, they didn’t know any stars or anything like that.

Lu Yan shook his head, “I don’t remember.”

He added, “I like to listen to old songs and watch movies and stuff, so if there are more famous movie stars and singers, even if they are older, I wouldn’t recognise them.” He paused and asked rhetorically, “What about you guys? Do you know her?”

He Lou heard what Lu Yan meant. This woman was either not famous or a figment of his imagination. He began by saying, “I don’t know either.”

“I don’t know either.”

“Never met.”

Li Fang Zhi said coldly, “Shall we wait here or go out first? It feels uncomfortable to be stared at.”

There were posters of women everywhere, even on the ceiling when they looked up. With so many identical faces staring at her, it was no wonder Li Fang Zhi, sensitive to this aspect, was uncomfortable.

But Li Fang Yu stopped her, saying, “Don’t do anything rash now. Just because we’re in the station now means it’s safe.”

The others followed suit, and the yellow-haired young man named Huang Mao (黄炜) couldn’t resist asking, “How long do we have to stay? I’m feeling a bit queasy too.” I don’t know if it was a psychological shadow, but he always felt that the paintings would suddenly stick out their tongues and pull him in.

Li Fang Yu, who looked gentle but had an authoritarian style, said, “We don’t know what’s out there yet, so maybe we need to look for clues in the station and find a way to break it. It’s not a good idea to be stuck here all the time.”

The mention of looking for clues made everyone bristle a little.

Who knows if you’ll find a clue or a curse?

Huang Mao looked bitter: “Alas, my luck is so bad. I remember the last time I found a bag, but just as I tried to pick it up, a hand came out of the bag and almost got me ……”

Before the word “death” could be uttered, Li Fang Zhi suddenly raised her voice: “Shut up, don’t talk nonsense, don’t you understand?”

Every mission gave back one life while taking nine deaths; every world was weird and scary to unimaginable existence. If they were careful with their every word and action, they might be able to come back from the dead and live to the end. Or perhaps, their unintentional words touched some trigger, which could kill them like the two men before them, who couldn’t get up because they had simply sat down after running.

The saddest thing was that they could not resist. There was no way for them to fight the terror. They can only keep running and keep running ……

Even at the cost of sacrificing their teammates, they absolutely had to survive!

The two people who had almost quarrelled were, at best, acquaintances and not a tightly-knit group. They were people who spoke respectfully and would never be soft when it was time to pull out. Now, it’s just because it’s not the last word.

There was a delicate balance between them, with the sisters He Lou, Li Fang Zhi and Li Fang Yu trying to find a way out of the situation. These people willingly acted as pawns for the time being.

He Lou suddenly turned his head and asked Lu Yan, “What did you see?”

“Sh, what?”

He explained, “Just now, you saw something that none of us saw. How about now?”

Lu Yan was silent for a moment: “In my eyes, it was just a …… very ordinary old station, a lot of posters of women ……”

He Lou pursued, “Exactly the same posters? Or not quite the same?”

“It’s all the same woman, exactly the same, only different sizes.” To answer, Lu Yan looked around more and quickly noticed the poster stuck to the ticket window. The smile on the woman’s mouth raised a little, and her eyes looked straight at him.

He immediately lowered his eyes, not daring to look more.

What could that …… be?

A pale mist of blood slowly floated in the air once again, little by little, filling the air.

“Let’s go first.” Seeing the blood fog gradually thicken, they had to leave and keep walking in the opposite direction along which the blood fog had come.

Lu Yan followed them, slowly falling to the very back. His eyes darted a glance at the toes of the crowd, his heart chilling.

Seeing that none of them noticed, they just walked along the road. Lu Yan didn’t say anything more but just fell behind and followed.

The next building they came to was an empty building next to an open road. There was still an identical station with the women’s posters plastered inside and out.

“Have you noticed that her smile has changed?” A man in the crowd spoke with trepidation the words no one dared to utter.

Everyone had noticed it a long time ago. On the poster, the woman’s smile went up a little, blood slowly flowing from the corners of her eyes as she looked at them with malice.

All around them, there seemed to be singing again, faintly, softly, like a sheepish hand trying to drag people into hell.

The song grew louder, the fog thicker, the woman’s smile bloomed, her eyes filled with icy malice, no longer the gentle image they had been when they first met.

“Everyone, move!!!”

The song could confuse people; the blood mist would devour human flesh and blood. As for posters, they had no idea if they would be able to eat people outright like what they had seen at the underground station earlier.

But just by looking at the woman’s fine white sharp teeth, the group didn’t doubt for a moment that the face was lethal.

Everyone had to run away again, doing their best to think as they did so.

“It’s not a good idea to keep running. How long are we going to run away anyway?”

“That is, can’t we break the game?”

They were a little anxious, and Li Fang Yu whispered as she ran, “Brother Lou, at this rate, I’m afraid we won’t last until the next mission.”

He Lou looked equally uncomfortable, “We’ve obviously only received one quest. Why is there an additional hidden quest?”

The mission they had initially received was to spend a week with Lu Yan at the flat they were in and then return to their own world a week later at ground zero. That was why they were desperate to protect Lu Yan, but if Lu Yan died, who would go in with them? Would they have to carry the body on their backs if they found the location?

Of course, once they had entered the flat, Lu Yan’s life was not so important. As long as he could “stay” in the apartment, what did it matter if he was dead or alive?

The dead would be more obedient.

He Lou was already prepared to let Lu Yan be “quieted” if he insisted on going out after entering the flat.

He had been through too many life-and-death situations and had survived with many lives in his hands. After all, every mission is a life-and-death experience, with some unlucky ones dying on the way.

Therefore, when they encountered the blood mist underground, they thought it was just a minor hurdle on the way. Who knew it would lead to them not even being able to enter Lu Yan’s flat now?

This was clearly a hidden mission! How could they have imagined that there would be two simultaneous missions?

If they didn’t enter Lu Yan’s flat at the required time …… the consequences would be unthinkable!

What is the way of life ……?

The blood fog, the carriage, the woman’s poster, the song ……

Who is this “woman”? Does the blood fog have anything to do with her? Is she the one who sang the song?

“Brother Lou, do something quickly!

“Yes! All our lives depend on you; you can’t just run away alone!”

“Have you thought of anything at all?”

He Lou was a little angry, “Have you guys said enough?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he was shocked to realise something was wrong.

He shouldn’t have been angry. Anger affects one’s sanity, so why would he be mad at a few prodding words?

And these people …… were also people who had returned from several missions, more or less capable of taking charge of their own. Even if they wanted to finish him off, they should have used him as a shield before terrorising him, so why would he be angry over this little thing?

Anger ……

The thought flashed through his mind when a steep pain shot through his back.

“Fuck you! Putting on a face every day and acting like a boss, I’m going to get you killed today!” It was a tall, thin man in a sweatshirt in the group. After he threw the stone, his eyes had turned completely red, and he pulled a dagger from his waist, aiming it at He Lou’s back and about to lunge.

The others looked at each other coldly, eyes full of malice and intense anger.

“Kill him! Kill him!!!”

“Kill him! We’ll be able to get out!”

Seeing that Li Fang Zhi’s eyes were also about to glow red, Li Fang Yu raised her hand and gave her sister a slap, “Calm down!”

The crowd slowly surrounded He Lou, who took a few deep breaths and similarly drew his folding knife from his sleeve.

Lu Yan hurriedly lunged over and stopped the tall, thin man, “Calm down!”

“Get lost! You let go! I’ll kill him!!!” The man he had pounced on struggled angrily. He was so strong that he tried several times to thrust the tip of the knife at Lu Yan, who had the same irritation welling up in him. He dodged the dagger and punched the tall thin man hard in the face, knocking him to the ground.

He could stop one, but not the second, and the others had long-standing grievances and resentment.

He Lou drew his folding knife but did not strike, but gasped and crossed it in front of him.

The song …… angry ……

They smiled after the first song ……

He yelled, “Everybody calm down! This song is not right!!!”

“The song causes our emotions to fluctuate. The first song was a joy; now it’s anger. Calm down!”

Joy, anger, mourning and disgust be next?

Don’t dare bet on it.

A loud bellow more or less woke everyone up for a moment. The others gasped and struggled to contain their impulses, except for the tall, thin man who had been knocked down by Lu Yan. He slowly rose from the ground.

His limbs were already stiff, his gaze grim, his face gradually turning blue and white, his cheeks deeply sunken, his mouth salivating unnaturally at the corners, and his breath coming in ragged gasps.

He didn’t look like a living person anymore.

Rather, he looked …… like a zombie.

He rose from the ground and slowly turned his head. A pair of black eyes deadly stare at Lu Yan.

“Old Wu (武)! Stop him!!!” Li Fang Yu screamed in defiance of her image.

Old Wu, the tallest man in the group, was the closest to the tall, thin man and slowly lifted his head at the sound of his voice, striding towards the two men. Lu Yan, however, did not feel saved at all. He did not hesitate to duck behind the pole beside him!

Old Wu, the one in the group whose pace he saw was not right, was walking on tiptoe!

Almost simultaneously, Old Wu turned a corner and accelerated straight at him. Lu Yan was hurrying to dodge, and the other man’s outstretched hands fell on a telephone pole.

On the pole, there was a poster of a woman.

Lu Yan gasped, his eyes fixed on Old Wu, and one of his hands touched the woman’s face.

The woman on the poster instantly changed her face.

Or rather, all the women on the posters from all sides began to turn pale, their faces grim and blue, their eyes focused on that one hand.

Not one of them?

Lu Yan guessed as he dodged the tall, thin man.

The next thing he knew, the woman’s bright red lips were grinning from her face to her ears, and the hand was reaching for the poster bit by bit.

And then the sound of chewing resumed.

The woman’s expression calmed down, and she stayed still on the poster.

The blood mist around her likewise dispersed considerably.

This did not reassure the group. For no reason other than that, the little friend who had been able to communicate and work together without any problems had turned into a monster of some unknown species in an instant. He, or more appropriately “it”, had stiffened his limbs, his hands were flat in the air, his knees were stiff, and he was jumping, jumping, jumping after the group.

Old Wu was dead, and the tall, thin man had become a monster. In a flash, two more members were lost.

Counting Lu Yan, only eleven of the initial fifteen remained!

If they couldn’t think of a way out, all eleven would likely break down here.

“Everyone, be careful! Don’t let it scratch you!” The yellow-haired young man shouted.

In the old Hong Kong movies, if one was scratched or bitten by a zombie, the injured one would likewise be infected as a zombie. Although this might differ from the zombies in Hong Kong movies, no one wanted to check whether it was true. Just look at the other person’s long nails that were green and dripping with an unknown liquid.

It was not long before the transformation, its movements were still a bit stiff and slow, and the big guy could still turn and dodge so that it could not pounce. The later the transformation, the more sensitive and athletic its movements became, the less able they were to avoid, and the more we brushed against the sharp nails from time to time.

Even more frightening was that it possessed a certain degree of intelligence. Everyone tried to repeat the same trick as Lu Yan had done before, but they did not fall for it.

He Lou, and the others thought about things as they dodged.

It seemed that the woman on the poster didn’t distinguish whether the prey was a human or anything else, and as long as it came across it, it ate it up. Every time it devoured, the blood mist would dissipate, and the song would subside. Judging by the pattern of power and timing, a new round must be even more horrific and bloody.

It was as if it could gain some sort of sustenance from that flesh and blood.

4 ☆ They Killed Him

Damn it, what the hell is this?

Why were there zombies?

Initially, everyone had fled outside because fewer posters of women were outside the station. Now that the threat of the posters had subsided for the time being, He Lou simply led the crowd into the station once again.

Was this the only way to escape?

The effects of the blood mist still seemed to be there, and He Lou’s thoughts were a little confused. Then he looked at the sisters, Li Fang Yu and Lai Li Fang Zhi, who was doing the same, thinking only of escaping and evading the zombies.

In fact, they both knew that there was another way.

Just tear off a random poster of a woman and stick it on the zombie.

But no one did anything about it.

The proposal was almost as childish and ridiculous as a group of rats discussing how to hide from a cat. The answer was something like tying a bell around the cat’s neck.

Who was going to do it? Who would be happy to sacrifice themselves for someone else?

Everyone knows that touching such spooky things rashly was a sure way to die. Even if they return to their original world, the curse from the evil spirits may cross the barrier between the two worlds and then kill you without notice …….

“Everyone now …… look for another clue and be careful not to run into the poster.”

“Anything could be a clue, don’t hesitate if this is the time to just think about relying on others ……” He Lou caught his breath, dodged the zombie that came at him with a dodge and went around to kick the other man hard in the back. The latter’s stiff arm fell straight into the wooden table in front of the ticket counter as if there was no obstruction.

The hard wooden table was as soft as tofu in front of its nails.

It is not difficult to imagine if the human body ……

“At this time, still thinking of slacking off and relying on others, this is the time to wait for death!” He Lou roared low.

Sister Li Fang Yu sniffed and said, “Let’s see if we can find some information anywhere.”

Lu Yan was similarly glancing around.

Clues …… What exactly are clues? Where is it?

He brought up his mask and hat. His ragged breathing separated the fabric, and perhaps for that reason, the zombies didn’t chase him much.

The yellow-haired young man suggested, “Didn’t they say zombies are afraid of fire? And glutinous rice and sunlight and all that.” He looked up at the sky, and although the sunlight was not blinding, it was indeed daytime here, and he asked aloud instead, “Does anyone have a lighter with them?”

“How can a little lighter alone be enough? Get something to burn!” Another man answered him.

The yellow-haired young man was worried: “There’s nothing to burn here, there’s no firewood, and there are posters everywhere. Can I burn this?”

“Then the movie even says you can hold your breath; you hold one?”

“Brother Lou, you try!”

At that, He Lou really did as they said and closed his breath hard, yet the zombie still chased after him. He quickly took a deep breath, gasped for air, and replied, “Ineffective!”

The others had to continue to help find the clues. They had now agreed that every five minutes, another person would attract the zombie’s attention so that they could look for clues.

Lu Yan wanted to take the initiative and take over the burden. Still, He Lou asked another person to take his place.

In the current situation, no one could afford to let anything happen to Lu Yan. If they couldn’t get to Lu Yan’s residence …… then everyone would die! No one could escape!

The one who took over from He Lou was Li Fang Zhi, who was running with the latter, dodging left and right. Her long hours of exercise had made her no less potent than the able-bodied men, and she was even more agile than He Lou.

As Li Fang Yu helped her, her eyes glanced around, and then her gaze flickered.

She noticed the poster stuck to the glass window of the ticket hall.

She had noticed it before, but it was a square poster, unlike other posters with other fancy backgrounds, and at first glance, she thought a real person was sitting there ……

The eyes of the person who was sitting there were suddenly cold.

What is this, what is …… this?!!!

“Sis! Get out of the way!!!”

Li Fang Zhi’s scream came from afar.

In the next second, she was pulled aside by a strong force – Lu Yan pulled her away. He found an iron bar from somewhere and hooked the claw. At that moment, the zombie smoothly lunged at her while then brought the latter down with force, making the last lunge to the ground.

The wall and table could be poked through, but what about the ground?

Its arms plunged straight into the ground, and its entire shrunken and stiff body clung to the ground, making it challenging to rise upright for a while.

Li Fang Zhi looked gratefully at Lu Yan and darted, pulling Li Fang Yu away.

“Get out of the way!!!”

A bucket of petrol was poured over the zombie, who kept struggling and jumping.

“Quick!!! Lighter!!!”

The tiny lighter lit up a flame and threw it over.

In the next second, flames leapt up and burned, and the zombie released a violent hissing sound.

The sound was strange, sharp, and hoarse as if two pieces of rusty iron were rubbing together.

In the crowd, a young man named Feng Chu Chu (封楚楚) looked thankful: “Luckily, we found the petrol. The petrol in the station has been sitting for a bit too long, but it’s good that it still works.”

The yellow-haired young man breathed a sigh of relief, “Well done!”

The guys looked at each other with a rare sigh of relief.

The flames burned and crackled, emitting a rotting stench and burning extremely disgusting protein. The flame-covered zombie kept struggling and hissing, but it still couldn’t escape its bonds. Gradually, its struggle subsided, and a foul-smelling blood mist emanated from its body.

It was as if a balloon had leaked, and wisps of blood mist drifted away.

“Is it almost finished?” Huang Mao walked over to sister Li Fang Yu and turned his head to comfort her, “What happened to you just now? Why didn’t you move all of a sudden?”

Li Fang Yu’s face was pale, and she didn’t say anything. Instead, Li Fang Zhi glared at him, “What’s it to you? Get lost!”

“I’m just concerned about the pretty girl.” The yellow-haired youth was not angry and moved away, humming a little tune.

The next moment his tune was no longer humming.

After the stench gradually dissipated, the stiff corpse on the ground shook and suddenly jumped up nimbly, the man screaming miserably as he ran, “What are you doing? Why are you killing me?”

“Help me!!! Put out the fire!!! Help!!!”

“Help me!!!”

His voice – he was the tall, thin man from before he turned into a zombie – stung from the heat. After he stumbled and escaped from the small area where the petrol had puddled out, he rolled on the ground as best he could. He issued a plea for help in a voice that was already hoarse from the fire.

“Help me. ……”

To his despair, the big guys were too far away for anyone to save him. When they saw him struggling to roll his body to tumble over, the yellow-haired youth snatched the iron bar from Lu Yan’s hand and stabbed the other man further away.

With his hands still sweating, he subconsciously turned his head and said, “Brother Lou, he he is soft.”

The touch coming from the end of the iron rod was different from the cold, rigid, metallic feel of the zombie before.

He had really …… become human again.

Should we save him?

Everyone subconsciously avoided the question.

“How can he become human again when we’ve obviously watched him turn into a zombie? There must still be some curse on him.”

“Yeah, that’s right. He’s already turned into a zombie, so who knows if something tricked us?”

“Besides, even if we were to save him now, it’s too late. There’s no fire extinguisher here. How can we save him?”

They untutoredly found an excellent reason to keep an eye on their surroundings while keeping a close eye on the whole process of the zombie being burned. This experience might come in handy later.

Lu Yan spoke up, “Or else ……”

The other man stopped him, “Or else what? Are you going to save him? Who knows if it’s a human or a zombie now?”

So Lu Yan had to shrink back. He inclined his head and covered his nose. Several other people thought he had never seen it before and didn’t pay attention to him or care.

Under the brim of his hat, a hint of mockery darted across his eyes.

“Save …… me …….”

The struggling humanoid kept screaming miserably but at last ran out of struggle, gradually shrinking into a dark, unidentified mass, bubbling with grease, dripping down drop by drop, splashing into the flames.

The air smelled like charred meat.

You won’t save me?

Why didn’t you save me?

Why?!!!

If you want to die, let’s all die together!!!

The tall, thin man tried to recall the scene’s layout he had seen earlier. His eyeballs had been scalded, and he could not see. With the last bit of strength he used, he got up and rushed towards the nearest pole beside him, hugging it with his body full of flames.

Soon he was motionless, but the corpse was still clinging to the pole with flames.

No one knew that the last expression on this corpse’s face before it died was a smile.

The others didn’t care if he died or not.

The only thing they cared about was that – on the pole – were two flyers of that woman.

“Fucking crazy! Why drag us into your own death?!”

They were really going mad.

The flyers were smeared with a black, oily, unknown substance. The edges burned by fire and began to yellow and curl inwards ……

Not just one, but almost all of the flyers began to show signs of curling before the fire.

It’s over ……

This was the thought of almost everyone present.

“Run!!!”

The crowd scattered and fled.

Running was useless as the woman’s expression grew twisted and grim as she glared at everyone sternly. In the next instant, she opened her mouth, and her long, bright red tongue protruded from two rows of thin, white, sharp teeth. It looked soft but was so fast that it pierced the chest of the young man who had thrown the lighter before and then pulled back!

The young man didn’t even have time to scream before he was dragged into the woman’s open mouth.

There wasn’t even a chewing sound this time, and a man had disappeared.

Worse still, the blood mist became incomparably thicker in an instant.

Through the thick layer of blood mist, Lu Yan saw that the woman’s expression was not happy that she had eaten one person. Instead, her cold and gloomy gaze darted over the others as if she was wondering which one she should eat next.

The only redeeming feature was that the woman did not need to devour the others through the blood mist now. It preferred to use its own tongue to get a good taste. For this reason, Lu Yan felt no more than breathless in the smoke as he struggled to dispel the sticky, bloody fog and went carefully to find what he wanted.

This …… doesn’t seem to be entirely up to snuff.

But let’s try it first.

Lu Yan stepped away and walked in a particular direction, picking up whatever was on the ground.

Instead of fleeing as far as the others, he advanced inside the station, dragging a black mass in his hand through the heavy blood fog and straight to the ticket window.

Behind him, a man raised his knife ……

Lu Yan suddenly turned around.

The blood fog was utterly unable to affect him. As the two were separated by a close distance, Lu Yan quickly spotted who it was.

“What do you want?!” He let out a terrified shout.

If the man had been able to see his expression through the blood mist, or at least see his eyes clearly hidden under his hat, he would at least not have chosen to offend him.

The next second, the noise returned to silence in the blood mist.

“Cackle cackle ……” the sound of chewing rang out.

……

At the other end, the blood fog grew thicker and thicker.

Everyone ran apart, with only the scarlet hue so thick in their eyes that they could not see clearly around them. Their nostrils were equally filled with the heavy smell of blood as if, instantly, the place had become a blood prison on earth.

Behind the figure, a long, slippery tongue slowly emerged.

The tongue slowly rose up and was about to wrap itself around the figure’s neck. The next moment, it stopped as if making a difficult decision and gradually disappeared into the same place.

The blood mist came and went quickly, and in no time, the space returned to the original scene as if the blood red in front of them was an illusion.

“What’s going on here? Are we saved?”

The yellow-haired young man was in a state of shock and disbelief. He had just run far, far away, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself back in his original position, standing in front of the station. Not far in front of him was an electric pole with an unknown black substance, still giving off a burnt smell.

All the women’s posters regained their composure with gentle looks on their faces.

Lu Yan came out of the station. He seemed a little frail, greeted the yellow-haired young man when he saw him and asked him in a sad tone, “Are you all okay now? How many of you are still there?”

The yellow-haired young man sighed, “I don’t know, just wait. They’ll be here later.”

And who broke the game? How on earth did he find his way to life?

Was it Brother Lou? Or the Lai sisters?

He didn’t count out the rotten and timid youth in front of him.

“That’s strange. Where’s that guy’s ……?” The yellow-haired youth was scrupulous and didn’t say the word corpse out loud. He raised his chin, indicating that the charred mass of the corpse under the pole was gone.

Lu Yan was equally surprised and shook his head, “I don’t know, I didn’t see it when I came over just now either. Could it have been ……” he made a slight allusion to the poster on the pole.

“Didn’t expect that, and with a barbecue.” Yellow hair muttered.

5 ☆ “Buying” tickets

Lu Yan’s eyes, exposed outside his mask, curved, “Luckily, the blood mist disappeared. Do you know what happened?”

Although Huang Mao didn’t like his personality, he was an important candidate for the mission. He gave the latter an equally kind smile, “I’d like to know too, but I guess it was something Lou did.”

“You guys are awesome.” Lu Yan let out a sincere sigh, “I usually have enough of a headache when I encounter individual psychic incidents. Do you guys encounter things like this often?” He seemed tired of running and coughed twice, his voice a little hoarse.

“Yeah, there’s no way around it. It’s our destiny.”

As he said this, the yellow-haired young man had a numb look.

He looked left and right to see no one there and said quietly, “What happened to that neighbour of yours that you didn’t finish on the underground earlier? Tell me first.”

“Tell you first?”

“Yes.” The yellow-haired young man nodded, “I’m an experienced person, so I might be able to help you analyse what’s going on. We’ll brainstorm together when they arrive.”

Lu Yan didn’t doubt it, “Okay, I’ll think about where to start.”

He spoke slowly, “It also starts with the day my neighbour moved ……”

“The upstairs of my house had been empty before. Originally an old couple lived there, then their son went abroad, so they moved with them, which was empty for a long time. Until last month, when a new neighbour moved in.”

“It’s strange to say that I’ve never seen that neighbour until now. All I know is that someone moved in, or maybe it was a family? Not sure. Anyway, the building manager says someone had moved in, and it feels like it’s getting popular. There’s usually some noisy renovation noises……” said Lu Yan, scratching his head, “It’s not their problem either. They all choose weekdays for renovations. I hear it purely because I  took the day off, which is why I found it annoying.”

“You know, people in the city don’t have good neighbourly relations nowadays, but I thought they were new neighbours after all. They may be new to the city, so I wanted to ask around and see if there was anything I could do. Afraid of disturbing them, I even picked a weekday afternoon to go over when most people should be at home ……”

“I made some roast meat and brought it over to them. But I knocked on the door for a long time that day, and no one opened the door inside. But I clearly heard the sound of the renovation inside. I don’t know if it was because the sound of their construction was so loud that they didn’t hear the knocking. Still, in any case, I didn’t see anyone that day, and the roast meat was brought to a young couple of neighbours downstairs to eat ……”

This is very much in line with the character Lu Yan has shown, soft-hearted and abrasive. The yellow-haired young man did not suspect that he was listening patiently but gradually became impatient. Lu Yan pulled many things together and could not get to the point. Still, he could not let him speak faster to avoid missing the details. Just when he could not resist saying, Li Fang Zhi arrived with Li Fang Yu on her back.

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing ……” The yellow-haired youth was just about to speak when he saw Lu Yan happily get up and walk over to him, “You’re finally here. Thankfully, you survived.”

Li Fang Zhi hmmed coldly and asked that question again, “What were you talking about?”

Lu Yan looked slightly defensive and said, “Talking about my neighbours.”

Li Fang Zhi’s eyes coldly swept over the yellow-haired young man, her heart clear. For the first time in her life, she gave Lu Yan a slightly softer expression: “Everyone wants to help you, so don’t you have to explain one by one when they come later? We might as well wait until everyone is here.”

She had always been cold-faced towards everyone and could not help but speak in a commanding manner regularly. Li Fang Zhi was not a fool. She knew she could usually maintain the status quo because she had her own sister. She only needed to protect her sister. She would naturally tell her all the information.

Now that Li Fang Yu was in a coma, it was her turn to gather information. Of course, she would not be foolish enough to ask questions in a tone that would easily arouse Lu Yan’s disgust.

Lu Yan was already displaying a soft-hearted character, and since Li Fang Zhi had said so, he nodded: “It’s fine.”

Secretly, Li Fang Zhi gazed at the yellow-haired youth with an icy look again.

The latter was very uneasy.

Sister Li Fang Yu had always been willing to partner with He Lou. Three intelligent people came together, even if they tacitly agreed to use the other team members as cannon fodder and stepping stones. But at least there was still hope of completing the mission by following them. They have a tacit agreement that unless only three of them were left, they would make it a prerequisite to saving each other in a pinch and never fight among themselves.

Looking at the way Li Fang Zhi looked, she would probably tell He Lou.

The yellow-haired young man was angry and scared, but he knew how powerful Li Fang Zhi was, and he …… couldn’t beat him. Even if the other party now had a person on his back, he couldn’t fight.

He could almost imagine the scene where he was godlessly killed by the ghosts and monsters as He Lou and the Li sisters were used as stepping stones.

Li Fang Zhi could not afford to hate, nor did she dare to, so it was only Lu Yan who was an excellent bully and did not belong to the same world as him, so he should just go to hell!

Are you a fool? Why did you tell her?

Lu Yan was still wearing his mask and hat. His expression had not changed. He was pure and innocent, as if he did not know that he had just offended the young man with yellow hair.

Huang Mao was indignant but did not dare to do anything to Lu Yan.

Shortly afterwards, a man came slowly from a distance, and that man was He Lou.

Li Fang Zhi said, “Lu Yan, can you please bring him here?”

Lu Yan didn’t say anything and went up. Li Fang Zhi was initially sitting on the ground, resting her sister on her lap. Seeing him leave, Li Fang Zhi stood up and held Li Fang Yu, lowering her voice to the yellow-haired youth and saying, “Just this once, it won’t happen again.”

Her eyes were beautiful and sharp: “If you dare to do such a thing again, you don’t have to wait for He Lou. I will dispose of you first.”

It was almost an instantaneous feeling of going from hell to heaven. The yellow-haired youth’s legs went weak: “You, you won’t tell them?”

Li Fang Zhi sneered, “I’ll let you off first.” Saying this, she carefully picked up Li Fang Yu and left with giant strides.

She didn’t seem worried about the yellow-haired youth attacking from behind. Behind her, Huang Mao’s eyes flickered. He gritted his teeth and followed, “Many thanks.”

He was outwardly respectful to He Lou, but if He Lou knew that he had a small mind, he was afraid that the next time He Lou had any news, he would not tell himself.

He Lou had brought back good news.

He had found four tickets.

“Tickets?”He Lou handed one of the tickets to Lu Yan: “Take a look.”

Lu Yan took the ticket and was shocked: “This is the ticket that leads to my home.”

“Are you sure?”

Lu Yan’s eyes, exposed outside his mask, curved, “I’m sure the address is correct.”

“Brother Lou, where did you find it?”

He Lou said, “Since it’s a bus station and there’s a ticket office, where is the car? I tried to go to the ticket window and found that I could buy a ticket.”

As for what he paid to “buy” the ticket ……

Just now, he was confused by the blood mist, and someone was trying to kill him. To protect himself, of course, he had to choose to fight back.

He used the man to “buy” four tickets at the ticket window.

He didn’t finish the rest of his sentence, but the others had already understood his meaning.

He Lou said, “What about Wang Wen Tao’s (王文涛) body? If you didn’t take it with you, you could exchange it for one more or less.”

Wang Wen Tao was the tall, thin man who had unfortunately turned into a zombie and was later burnt to death. At that, the yellow-haired young man wondered, “I don’t know, I didn’t see it when I first arrived.”

Lu Yan nodded after him, “Me too.”

“I don’t know if there are others. Let’s wait.” Huang Mao looked at the four tickets in He Lou’s hand, his eyes twinkling.

Needless to say, it must have been the four of them who split them.

Lu Yan …… this fool, what gives?!

But now, all three of them were present. Li Fang Zhi was already quietly standing beside Lu Yan with Li Fang Yu on her back, meaning very clearly.

With He Lou and Li Fang Zhi protecting him, it would be impossible for him to snatch Lu Yan’s ticket. What’s more, even if they grabbed the ticket, they would only be able to complete their mission with Lu Yan.

Damn it …… was there anyone else? Was there anyone left?

Five people were left: Lu Yan, He Lou, the Li sisters, and Huang Mao himself.

Where was he going to find a ticket?!!!

As if hearing the call in his heart, three more members came running in the distance, and as soon as they saw them, those three dropped their hearts and greeted from afar, “Finally, we found you.”

Yellow Hair greeted them happily, “You guys are finally here. Brother Lou has found a way to leave. Come on!”

Apart from the unconscious Li Fang Yu, the remaining three kept a subtle silence. Lu Yan seemed intolerant and turned away with his head bowed somewhat sadly.

Not long after, only a scream was heard, and in the next instant, the yellow-haired youth dragged a man by his feet and came towards them.

The other two were still outside the situation, not yet reacting. Seeing that He Lou did not stop them, they followed him with some alarm, separated by most of a metre so they could be ready to run away at any moment. Yellow Hair wiped the blood splattered on his face and asked cheerfully, “Brother Lou, how did you buy the tickets just now?”

He bit off the word “buy tickets”, and the two remaining men heard what was going on and followed behind Huang Mao in silence as a sign of obedience.

He Lou said indifferently, “Buy it directly, tell it you want to buy a ticket first, and then hand over the stuff.”

At that, Yellow Hair happily dragged the man’s foot towards the ticket hall. At the same time, the other survivor had long since followed. One dragged a foot, and the other, seeing that their “ticket” was about to wake up, squatted down, pulled the man’s head to the ground, and knocked it hard.

Two hands dragged across the ground, his head knocked out blood …… his chest heaving slightly.

The man was still alive.

A short while later, there was the sound of a woman cackling and chewing, and Yellow Hair, clutching four tickets in his hand, excitedly rejoined them.

A car’s horn sounded in the distance, followed by a car in disrepair, not knowing if it would fall apart next, slowly driving from afar.

“Get in.” He Lou smiled kindly at Lu Yan and handed him a ticket.

Li Fang Zhi took two.

The remaining two, Feng Chu Chu and the other Mo Yun (莫云), had talked their way out of it and finally managed to get one from the yellow hair.

The car slowly stopped past them, and in the driver’s seat was a figure whose face could not be seen. He Lou nodded at them as he checked the number plate against the car.

They pushed Feng Chu Chu out and were the first to get into the car. He gritted his teeth and stepped up, and the driver turned his head, his eyes hidden in the shadows, grim and cold, his voice hoarse as he asked, “Ticket?”

Feng Chu Chu trembled and handed over the ticket.

The driver seemed a little disappointed and waved his hand to let him go.

Seeing that Feng Chu Chu was fine, the crowd filed in. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Lu Yan was the first to get on the bus before Li Fang Zhi, and he stood not far from the driver, quietly looking at the Li sisters.

The driver also looked at Li Fang Zhi …… or, to be precise, at Li Fang Yu on her back. Somehow, Li Fang Zhi always felt that the shadow revealed a smile full of malice.

“Sit tight.”

This was the last thing the driver said.

At those words, Lu Yan obediently returned to his seat, his hands in his pockets, his head lowered as he wondered what he was thinking.

In his pockets, his hands were clutching a total of four tickets.

6 ☆ What did you just see?

Unfortunately, there was no trouble on the bus. The further the bus drove, the newer the furnishings became, and by the time it reached its destination. Everyone got off; the vehicle had been refurbished and looked no different from an ordinary bus in the outside world.

It was clearly late at night when they got on the underground, and now the sun still hadn’t risen, and outside the windows were the lights of a late urban night.

“Get off.” The driver said, his voice still hoarse.

The back door slowly opened.

Lu Yan stepped in the middle and got out, and it was only when his feet hit the ground that he had the solid feeling that he had escaped from that other dimension.

The others did the same, first thankful that they had survived, then seeing the few people left, they felt a bit sad that the rabbit had died.

Fourteen people had initially entered the world, and now there were only six left, yet their real mission had yet to begin…

He Lou took several deep breaths to calm himself down.

This time, the mission must be hazardous! He must survive.

He cast a stealthy glance at Lu Yan, who had always acted foolishly and with unrealistic and naive fantasies.

Was he really as harmless as he appeared to be? Had he survived because of luck, mission protection, or something else?

Without waiting for them to say anything, Lu Yan took a moment to get his bearings and volunteered, “Thank you all so much. You’ve been busy all night, if you don’t mind, would you like to come and rest at my house? I will definitely treat you all well.”

He added, “I have three rooms at home, so I can still sleep in a squeeze. After all, it’s not very convenient to go and stay in a hotel when everyone is like this ……”

Coming out of the blood mist, everyone had a thin layer of plasma stuck to their bodies. Going to a hotel like this might get them alerted by the attendant.

He Lou and the others were supposed to go to Lu Yan’s home, so how could they refuse? Without even a token excuse, they agreed to go.

It was late at night, and there were only faint lights in and around the square. The night was nearly autumnal, and the cold wind was chilly.

Lu Yan took the initiative to walk at the front, saying as he went, “I’ve been interrupted before, so now I’d better finish my neighbour’s story. My upstairs neighbour ……”

The crowd struggled to get to the point from Lu Yan’s long-winded ramblings full of nonsense.

He had a new neighbour upstairs that he had never met before, and when he knocked to get acquainted, the other party wouldn’t open the door. Every night he could smell the strong smell of blood and the sound of chopping meat, which made Lu Yan sleepless.

At first, he only thought that his neighbour loved meat and had bought raw meat to dispose of, but the more he thought about it, the more wrong it became. What kind of raw meat could bleed so much? Why had he never heard the sound it made if it was an animal?

After discussing the matter with a few other neighbours, he was frightened by his imagination and decided to call the police. However, bizarrely, the police came to the house and found nothing. The other person’s place was clean, except for a bit of meat filling for dumplings in the fridge. Nothing of the blood, corpse …… he had imagined. 

In front of the police, the neighbour said he just wanted to eat dumplings, needed to work during the day, and only at night to have time to chop the filling. He did not expect to cause a misunderstanding.

The police also did a bloodstain test, and the house proved clean.

It was a misunderstanding.

The neighbour was wearing a mask, and several other people could not see his face. When they saw his excellent attitude when he faced the police, they thought they had really misunderstood. When the police left, they took the initiative to apologise. They offered to buy him dinner, only for that neighbour to kick them out the door fiercely.

Lu Yan shook: “The man …… he was wearing a mask, and before he went out the door, he called out to me, and then ……”

Then he took off the mask, and underneath it was ……

“What is it?” Yellow Hair asked after him.

Lu Yan drifted off briefly and shook his head, “I can’t remember.”

As they spoke, they arrived at the block building where Lu Y lived. The crowd, whose attention had been drawn by Lu Yan’s conversation, did not notice that something was wrong with their shadows.

The street light was dull, and with it, their shadows were equally flat. Li Fang Yu clearly only had shoulder-length Hair, yet she was crouched on Li Fang Zhi’s back, and what appeared in her shadow was a woman with waist-length Hair.

When the wind blew, the shadow’s long hair fluttered and slowly melted into the shadow of this building.

“Here we are. I live here.”Stepping out of the lift, Lu Yan enthusiastically came to a door and pulled out his key to open it.

He Lou looked up at door number 304.

This meant his upstairs neighbour lived in 404.

In horror films, the number 4 is often used as a surrogate for horror, such as a car number, a mobile phone number, etc. He didn’t find it that unusual as he stood at the door and quickly looked at the house’s furnishings.

The house was large and relatively empty and looked like the premises of an ordinary single man’s residence. Li Fang Zhi looked at her wristwatch. It was now eleven fifty-two minutes.

They had finally arrived at the location before the time required by the mission.

And what would happen down there, none of them knew.

Lu Yankewise looked at the time and ah a sentence, “It’s so late; everyone is tired, right? I have two bathrooms at home, so why don’t we all discuss the order to take a shower? By the way, have you guys brought any clothes?”

The people looked at each other with blank faces.

Seeing this, Lu Yan said, “If you don’t mind, everyone wear mine? It’s just ……” His eyes glanced apologetically at the Li sisters.

Li Fang Zhi said, “Do you have clean pyjamas? I can go buy them tomorrow.”

Having already reached her destination, her tone reverted to her previous icy coldness.

Lu Yan’s previous performance had indeed made them lower their guard. Still, it had also made them look down on him involuntarily. The current Lu Yan was no more than an information provider in their eyes. The mission required them to stay for a whole week, and it was best for them to stay out of the flat to complete the mission rigorously, but there might be no loopholes to exploit.

Lu Yan good-naturedly moved towards the room, “I’ll look for it. There should be one.”

He still needed to remove his hat and mask. Under the shadow of his hat brim, his eyes were sad and joyless but inexplicably sarcastic.

Lu Yan rummaged through several sets of new, clean clothes and walked out.

Li Fang Zhi had already placed her sister on the sofa. She took the clothes and nodded in satisfaction, sweeping her gaze at everyone except He Lou: “We’ll go first.”

At that moment, the sound of chopping meat suddenly came from upstairs, extremely loud and evident in the silence of the night.

The man chopping the meat was so loud that one wondered if he was planning to chop up the board in one piece.

Everyone in the room looked up, trying to see what was going on upstairs through the ceiling. At the same time, the heavy, pungent smell of blood drifted in through the window.

Lu Yan reached out and pointed upstairs, the helplessness in his eyes unmistakable.

Yellow hair had no words to say: “So vigorous, it’s no wonder you suspected him before ……”

“No way, the police came and found nothing. But I still think something is wrong. These days, whenever I go to work or walk downstairs, I see a man standing at the window above my house.” Lu Yan sighed, “Although I couldn’t see his face, I could feel …… him glaring at me.”

He said so, and the others said smoothly, “It’s okay. We’re here.”

“There are so many people now. He wouldn’t dare do anything.”

It wasn’t until everyone had finished washing up that the sound of chopping meat died. The heavy smell of blood, which lingered in the nostrils, only gradually dissipated after the sun had risen.

Everyone hadn’t slept enough that night, and they weren’t in too good spirits when they got up.

Fortunately, Li Fang Yu was finally awake after a long slumber. For some reason, everyone didn’t suspect anything but was happy that she had awakened.

They sat down to breakfast together, He Lou and Li sisters lowering their voices to discuss things.

The time limit for completing the mission was one week. Although episodes of ghosts suddenly going mad and killing people maliciously could not be ruled out, the first day was usually not too dangerous.

As Lu Yan had said before, he and his neighbours had called the police and knocked on doors, and there was no danger. So He Lou was inclined to go upstairs and look during the first two days of protection.

“Who’s coming with me?” His eyes darted among the Leigh sisters and the three remaining men.

“It’s best if we can lure it away, and then we go in to investigate.”

Lu Yan seemed to remember something: “You guys said to lure him away, right? He seems to go out every third afternoon.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve been following him all along.” Lu Yan said.

After his bath last night, he had taken off his mask and was, unsurprisingly, a very handsome-looking man. Now he was smiling as he said this, sending chills down the crowd’s spines for no apparent reason.

“I’ve been watching him every day now, and that’s what I’ve come to after two weeks of observation. He’s not at home every third day from 2pm to 5pm and will drive to Ocean Park …… downtown,” Lu Yan said nonchalantly about his stalking observations.

He still looked harmless, obviously a bit cold-looking. Still, Lu Yan kept smiling as if he didn’t notice his abnormal behaviour.

Sure enough ……

He Lou even had a feeling in his heart that it had finally come.

Often faced with these bizarre events, how could Lu Yan have remained a cowardly rotten person? There was bound to be something abnormal about him, and that was normal.

“So, let’s go ahead and knock on the door and ask today.” He went down with determination, “Li Fang Yu, are you better now?”

Li Fang Yu had been a lot quieter since she woke up. What no one else noticed was that her hair had grown longer. She raised her eyes and said lightly, “Yes.”

No one else seemed to see the difference in her attitude.

“Huang Mao, you go too.”

Huang Mao was just about to make an excuse when Li Fang Zhi’s eyes glared at him sharply for a split second. Huang Mao swallowed and had to agree.

If Li Fang Zhi didn’t say anything, He Lou might still protect him, but if Li Fang Zhi did, He Lou would definitely watch him die.

With Li Fang Yu around, Huang Mao, who was under Li Fang Zhi’s control, could not escape He Lou’s grasp. Lu Yan thought to himself.

At around ten o’clock, the group went upstairs. Lu Yan raised his hand and knocked on the door.

“Sir, are you home? I’m the neighbour who lives downstairs from you.”

“Sir?”

For some reason, this door gave him an extraordinarily chilly feeling. Obviously, it was not yet the cold season, but he reached out and knocked on it only to feel a bone-chilling gloom.

The smell of blood seemed even more potent.

After knocking for half a day, no one answered, as if no one had ever lived in this room.

The opposite door creaked open, and a bald head came out of the doorway, grinning when he saw Lu Yan and opened the door: “Little Lu, you’ve come to settle scores with this guy again?”

Lu Yan smiled bitterly, “Yes, did you hear that last night? It was so noisy that I didn’t sleep.”

The bald man glared at the door before whispering, “Forget it; just put up with it. This guy is evil; something is not right.” He saw the people behind Lu Yan and asked, “By the way, who are these people?”

“They’re all my friends visiting.” Lu Yan said.

“Oh, oh, friends, okay.” The big man scratched his head, “I advise you not to expect to tell him to change his ways. Anyway, this old man is planning to move. Motherfucker, the noise every day is annoying as hell!”

“Move?” Lu Yan seemed to be inspired.

“Yeah, I’ve got my house all figured out. I’m moving out next week. I’ll move out next week”. The old man said, “If you want to move, move quickly, I hear there’s no one living across the street from my new house.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.” Lu Yan said.

The old man closed the door, and Lu Yan introduced him to the others, saying, “That man is called Guan Yun Long (关云龙). He has been taking care of me since he came here. If he really moves out, I really feel sorry for him. I’m thinking about moving out too.”

As he said that, he went back to the door and knocked again, but as expected, the door was still not open.

“Why don’t you try knocking on the door too?” Lu Yan knocked for a while and shook his hand off.

Yellow Hair said, “I’ll do it.”

He used the exact words as Lu Yan, and after knocking for a while, he somehow got up and pressed against the cat’s eye to see.

The image in the cat’s eye was white with some red threads, he didn’t know what it was, but he felt a palpitation for no reason, and He Lou yanked the other man back: “Don’t you want to die?”

Only then did Huang Mao shake his head off, seemingly surprised at his sudden stupidity.

When they returned to Lu Yan’s place, He Lou asked, “What did you see just now?”

“I didn’t see anything, just …… a white patch.” Yellow hair suddenly shivered.

“Forget it.” He Lou twisted his head and asked, “When will he go to Ocean Park again?”

Lu Yan calculated the time and said with certainty, “It’s today.”

7 ☆ The Cause of Lan Zhi Yu’s Death

“Let’s take a trip to the marine park.” He Lou said.

Huang Mao was surprised: “The mission isn’t ……” No sooner had the words left his mouth than he was nudged gently by Feng Chu Chu, glancing covertly at Lu Yan and not speaking.

It could not be revealed to Lu Yan that they were on a mission.

Li Fang Zhi understood what He Lou meant.

Judging from the fact that they could go out to the upstairs neighbour, perhaps the focus of this mission was on “being by Lu Yan’s side” rather than being limited to the flat. Of course, he couldn’t just go out and try it out. Before leaving the flat, Huang Mao called another group member and threatened him to step out first.

Lu Yan looked at the group of people standing at the door of the flat and repeatedly said, “Brother Lou, Brother Huang, you can’t do this ……”

“What’s wrong?” He asked them as he took the lead and walked out the door, standing in the sunlight confused.

Huang Mao kicked the man out.

The next second, the man raised his hand to his neck and screamed violently. His shadow twisted in the sunlight, and wisps of blood rose before finally returning calm.

And the man was already dead.

They hadn’t gone out in the morning to be on the safe side, and everyone’s clothes had been repurchased by asking Lu Yan. Now it seemed that what the mission requirements said about going to the flat where they were with Lu Yan referred to the entire apartment building. 

But not a step more. 

“This, this is …… what’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with you guys?” Lu Yan didn’t know what was happening and had a horrified look on his face, not daring to look at the corpse more than once.

The others were calm, and Yellow Hair said, “It’s okay. He’s just allergic to the sun. He faints in the sun, so please bring him back.”

Was it really all right?

The man on the ground had lost the rise and fall of his chest and was bleeding from his seven orifices. No one looked like he was fine. Lu Yan opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

“Really, he’s just unconscious.” Yellow hair said with a smile, “If you let him sunbathe again, he might die.”

At this, Lu Yan looked at the “man” on the ground with difficulty but finally bent down and intended to pick him up and walk him into the flat.

When he reached out and grabbed the man’s arm, his hand suddenly moved and tried to catch him, and it felt cold to the touch. Lu Yan didn’t care, dragging the corpse towards the flat, the ticket slightly warm in his coat pocket. The hand clutched his wrist in a death grip before gradually releasing it.

The group regrouped, and He Lou looked down and said something to Huang Mao before turning his head to look at Lu Yan.

“So it looks like we can’t go, so we’ll have to bother you.” He Lou’s tone was gentle, “By the way, do you have a camera at home?”

“Yes.” Lu Yan still needed to figure out the situation.

“For the sake of our common goal, please bring your camera with you and record the entire process?”

Lu Yan opened his mouth, but his gaze was hesitant. The others saw a chance, and immediately you spoke up with one word.

“That is, we have no choice. We really can’t go, so please go for a while.”

“Isn’t everyone’s goal to survive? We’ll all die here if we don’t figure out his secret.”

They spoke in a low voice to avoid other people hearing them. Lu Yan did not know how to retort, so he had to agree to come down.

The group re-entered the lift with the corpse, and it was good that everyone was now on their lunch break as Feng Chu Chu dragged the body with him. When they reached the third floor, he and Huang Mao did not follow the others out of the lift but continued upwards.

To prevent a fraudulent corpse, He Lou told them to leave the corpse at the 404 entrance.

Even if the body hadn’t changed and the occupants wanted to call the police, they would only suspect the already strange 404 occupants, not them. They didn’t want to experience being forcibly taken away by the police.

I wonder if it was an illusion. Still, the lift was extraordinarily cold after Lu Yan, and the others went out.

Not the cold air of the air conditioner, but the sticky, cold air from all sides, almost to the bone.

It’s only the first day. It won’t be …… dangerous.

Huang Mao’s legs were shaking, and he tried to cheer himself up, trying not to let the horrific images he had seen come to mind, but he still couldn’t help thinking about it more.

The short distance of one floor high also seemed extraordinarily long.

With a ding, the lift stopped, and the car doors opened.

“Come on, be careful.”

The two men, one resting on their shoulders and the other lifting their feet, dragged the man to the door of room 404, where they dared not look much further. They immediately retook the lift and ran back after spreading the body flat on the room door.

So they didn’t see that the corpse suddenly moved spontaneously towards one of the room doors, and soon it was sucked in like a thin sheet of paper.

“Well?” He Lou asked.

Yellow hair showed an OK.

He Lou nodded his head.

Lu Yan was already running with the camera to the Oceanarium. He always seemed to be like that, silly and not knowing how to say no.

Right now, He Lou was using his computer to surf the internet.

He reminisced about the station’s era and then searched carefully for actresses of recent years.

For some reason, the shadows still haunted him. He did not believe escaping from the station would free him from the curse.

The only way to get rid of the curse was to find the source of the haunting or the formation of the curse.

Finally …… after a long, extended search, he finally saw a familiar face.

Just because it was extraordinarily familiar, he shuddered a little when he saw the face, constantly feeling that the next moment she would turn into a dead and unconscious image, staring at herself with a grim face.

“Everyone, come and look.” He Lou said.

He moved his mouse and clicked on the actress’ introduction.

“Lan Zhi Yu, born in 1964, died in 1985 ……”

He searched the introduction, which he didn’t know to be accurate. When he checked the other lacy news, there were conflicting stories about her death. Some said it was due to domestic violence, martyrdom due to the death of her boyfriend, and that she died due to the repercussions of raising a demons. But Lu Yan didn’t seem to be lying to them. Lan Zhi Yu wasn’t too well known, and the most popular online story about her was

He Lou’s gaze lingered on the option of “raising demons” for a moment longer.

Could it be because of raising demons?

On the other end, Lu Yan had already sent a small video.

“I’m here now. The Oceanarium is empty today as there are fewer people.” He was standing in front of the Oceanarium gates, and his phone recorded the name of the Oceanarium.

That name …… was clearly the Lan Zhi Yu Oceanarium.

He Lou’s heart jumped up violently for a moment.

Lan Zhiyu was definitely not a common name, so why would this Oceanarium be called Lan Zhiyu? What did it have to do with the real actress Lan Zhi Yu?

Lan Zhi Yu, what was the reason for her death?

Lu Yan had a bag slung over his shoulder with some devices to hold the camera in place. He checked it one last time and walked into the Oceanarium.

In the other room, He Lou and the others couldn’t get out, so they had to look for clues on the internet for the time being.

He was a master hacker, and the networks were similar in both worlds. After pondering for a while, he quickly broke into some secret websites and started looking for clues to Lan Zhiyu.

It was so old that some of the paper archives were long gone, so one could only hope that the case officer at the time had taken some video or photos.

“Have you found it?” Li Fang Yu asked quietly.

Around the time she was injured in the blood mist, until now, Li Fang Yu’s face was pale, and she had become less talkative. But everyone did not notice her abnormality and only thought she was in a somewhat lousy spirit, subconsciously tolerating her and being considerate of her.

At that, He Lou said gently, “Found it.”

“The cause of death was ……”

He saw some photos, and his pupils shrank.

This was definitely not a usual way to die. At least, not by being drained all the blood out of her body like this. The originally beautiful woman was only a layer of skin and bones, and her death was hideous and gruesome.

“Kind of like being drained by a vampire.” Huang Mao came up and commented after seeing the photos.

Of course, they didn’t dare to look at the photos much, they were taken by who knows who, and although they were a bit blurry, looking at …… they always seemed like they were staring into those eyes.

“I’ll look for other incidents of hers and see if I can find any clues.” He Lou’s hands flew over the keyboard.

He felt that he had to get to the bottom of this, or there was a good chance he wouldn’t be able to escape the flat.

“There, found it.” He Lou created a new document and began consolidating that information, comparing it and then deleting the obviously fictitious gossip, finally piecing together some clues.

It turned out that Lan Zhi Yu was a lesser-known singer in the circle; although she was pretty, she could not act and only sing. However, in terms of singing, her voice was not the most outstanding, and the most famous news about her at that time would have been that she had dated several boyfriends.

After all, not everyone can afford to have every boyfriend go missing. In each case, it had nothing to do with her; she was either working in public or heading out of town for a busy day, and when she returned, her boyfriend was gone.

No one was seen alive, and no one was seen dead.

But he had vaguely noticed some patterns. Every time her boyfriend disappeared, she got excellent resources, such as singing for a big film or event.

No wonder some people suspected her of raising demons or even that she was using her boyfriend to summon them.

The information also shows that Lan Zhi Yu likes to talk about scriptures and often goes to some famous Taoist mountains to find Taoist priests. This provides even more evidence to support the claim that she was raising a demon.

Raising demons?

He Lou couldn’t help but be a little suspicious.

He posted some posts in several anonymous internet areas and then continued to search for information.

After about two hours, the tantalizing aroma of rice came from every house, and the door of room 304 clicked open.

Lu Yan stood at the door with the dishes and changed his shoes, smiling at them: “I’m back from the Oceanarium. By the way, where is Brother Lou? I’ll give him the video.”

“Brother Lou is in his room. You go and cook. I’ll take it to him.” Huang Mao said naturally.

Lu Yan froze, true to his word, and carried the dishes to the kitchen to prepare for cooking.

He had also repurchased many household items, which relieved them.

There was a soft, bang-bang-bang sound of chopping vegetables from the kitchen.

Take your time to watch the video!

You’ll find some surprises inside.

8 ☆ Where Did He Go?

People like them have no sympathy for people from the same world as themselves, let alone NPCs from another world. It was only fitting that he sat inside the living room and watched Lu Yan go about his business.

Huang Mao hooked up the footage to the TV, and everyone sat ready to watch.

The picture started a little shaky. They watched Lu Yan pass through the checkpoint, enter the door and round a few corners. Into view was a tall glass wall, behind which were bubbling deep blue waters and countless colourful ocean fish.

“This is the largest viewing area of the Oceanarium.” The voice of Lu Yan’s introduction came over the screen.

As the screen moved, Lu Yan could be seen walking along the glass wall, and he seemed to be admiring this beautiful sea view. Immediately afterwards, he stepped back, presumably to allow the camera to capture the panoramic view.

“In the past, when I followed, I topped out to the door for fear of him finding out, so I didn’t know where he had gone to visit, so I had to film the entire view from the Oceanarium. Please judge.”

Lu Yan crumbled as he stepped back, and he seemed to adjust the satchel strap so that the camera was aimed at the glass wall.

There seemed to be only uncountable fish and various underwater creatures.

A sea turtle that had been alive for who knows how long slowly swam by.

They have to say Lu Yan’s photo-taking skills are still good. Suppose they don’t consider the pressing circumstances right now. In that case, they could still appreciate some of the beauty of the ocean he had captured.

But now …… who wants to see the view?

To make sure to get all the key information, they also had to sit down and look carefully for fear of missing some clues.

After about five or six minutes, the sound of frying in a pan came from the kitchen, and the TV screen was finally planning to change to a different screen.

“Now, I’m going to the next slightly smaller viewing area, and I’ll see if …… has any staff I can ask.”

The camera screen pans as the owner walks, but unfortunately, the Oceanarium was empty and cold. It’s still a weekday, so he only runs into a few people.

At some point, several people in front of the television began to stare at the picture with rapt attention. Their heart rose and fell closely with the movement of the camera.

It was as if …… it was as if something was going to happen the next moment.

A song was playing in the Oceanarium.

Soft, soft female voices, with unknown dialects, sang never heard before the song…… make for a fascinating listen.

Lu Yan seemed oblivious and was still looking around. Still, the faint sound of the song he recorded had wrapped itself around everyone’s heart and soul in a silky way.

It’s sad ……

That pain, sadness, the resignation of being betrayed ……

Why do you do this to me? Why? What have I done wrong?

Why do I have to put up with this? Why can’t I have a peaceful life?

The song eventually became increasingly shrill and harsh, and the water in several tanks in the Oceanarium seemed to splash up.

The few people in front of the TV had become wholly absorbed in the woman’s painfully sad song.

At the end of the song, at last, the lyrics appeared that they could understand.

It was the three words that appeared over and over again :

Go to hell, go to hell, go to hell, go to hell, go to hell ……

In the kitchen, chopping vegetables gradually overlapped with the song, forming a strange beat.

Lu Yan seemed not to hear the singing outside, his eyes were tearing up, but his clothes were deceased mound lamp coins  (4) taken.

Another ticket has been invalidated. ……

Lu Yan was busy stir-frying. A plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes was ready. He pushed open the kitchen door and set the plate carefully on the table while blowing on his burned-red hands.

The living room had been completely transformed, except for Li Fang Yu, who was still sitting, and the others were all crying and wailing.

One of their limbs had already stiffened a little.

Lu Yan dodged the group of demons about to bash their heads on the floor and went to the television.

The camera, which had only been filming scenes from various scenic spots, was suddenly raised. Immediately afterwards, the camera aimed at Lu Yan’s own face.

The familiar face showed a smile on the screen, “Did you hear that?”

“Snap.”

Lu Yan turned off the television, copied a vase from the side with his hand, and smashed it against it.

In an instant, the glass shattered.

The song came to a screeching halt, and a loud bang caused the bodies of the few people crying in pain to stiffen and slowly calm down.

He Lou shook his head, he was the earliest one to come to his senses, and after recalling what had just happened, his pupils shrank: “The song just came back?”

“Right. Joy, anger, sorrow, the next song will most likely be ……” Lu Yan did not say it explicitly.

“I was frying in the kitchen and didn’t hear the song, then it got louder and louder, so I rushed out and had to turn the TV off.” Lu Yan’s face was a little pale; the ends of his eyes were red with tear stains, so he was obviously affected by it.

“Is everyone okay?”

Several other people came to their senses one after another, as for the one with stiff limbs …… He Lou asked, “Do you have any glutinous rice at home? Quickly bring some.”

According to the information he searched, Lan Zhiyu wasn’t raising brats. What she was growing was simply zombies!

After He Lou posted some posts on certain specific websites. A user who called himself a Wu Wei Taoist replied to him with the answer. To prevent a person from becoming a zombie, all one had to do was bring him into the sunlight when he was unformed, sprinkle glutinous rice and chicken blood, and have a copper coin to suppress it. If there was a wound, it should also be washed with glutinous rice. After the blackness has dissipated, he should be allowed to straddle a fire bowl, sunbathe, or eliminate the yin energy from his body.

This reminds He Lou of the zombie series he saw as a child.

The man whose limbs were gradually stiffening and whose face was turning blue was Huang Mao. He Lou, Li Fang Zhi and Feng Chu Chu held him down, controlling him in the sunlight as he struggled with ragged breaths.

The nails on his outstretched hands were gradually darkening and sharpening ……

“I’ll find it right away! Wait for me!” Lu Yan immediately ran to the kitchen and rummaged around. At the same time, He Lou held the man down while yelling, “Is there any chicken blood? You can use chicken blood!”

Lu Yan responded equally loudly, “No!”

“Hurry up!”

“Right away! It’ll be ready soon.”

Saying that Lu Yan had already found a bag of glutinous rice, “Glutinous rice found! How do I use it?”

“Just sprinkle it! Align it!”

Lu Yan hurriedly ran with a big bag of glutinous rice in his arms, grabbed a handful and sprinkled it on Huang Mao’s head.

It was like a few drops of water poured on hot oil, and the sound of stinging and stabbing rang out continuously.

Seeing it was working, Lu Yan hurriedly sprinkled more, from head to tail. When the white glutinous rice was spotted on the stiff body, white smoke suddenly rose up. The sound of nuisance did not stop; when it landed on the ground, it turned into a black, unknown object.

“Go on! Quickly!”

The struggling Huang Mao finally quieted as the bag of glutinous rice was about to be scattered. The dark blue that had flushed his skin gradually faded away, the skin tone belonging to a human slowly revealed itself, and his breathing slowed down.

He Lou breathed a sigh of relief.

Ever since the tall, thin man had been burned at that unknown station and turned back from a zombie to a human instead, he had suspected that the transformation of a human into a zombie could be reversed for a while and that burning with fire was too extreme. He was unwilling to use such a method until it was indispensable.

Therefore, he used the clue from Lan Zhiyu as bait and posted the message on several unique websites, which garnered a large number of responses in a short time.

Now the method provided by that person was correct.

Huang Mao’s soul was going to fly when he was pinned underneath three men, his head full of black and white glutinous rice grains that fell down when he moved. Huang Mao said with a bitter face, “Brother Lou, can you let go of me now? I feel like I’m recovering.”

Only when he heard him speak did He Lou really let go, and a few people stood up to pat the dust and look at Huang Mao, lying on the floor gasping for air.

“I’m much better now. I just still don’t feel too well. I’ll stay here in the sun for a while longer.” Huang Mao said, drained of energy.

Lu Yan brought him a chair and took a broom to sweep up the glutinous rice scattered on the floor.

Frankly speaking, Huang Mao’s conscience was a little uneasy at this point as an NPC.

“So what? Can you please bring the rice over for me later? I’ll eat here.” Huang Mao tried.

“Sure. Do you eat spicy food? Is there anything you should avoid? I’m afraid my cooking is not to your taste.” Lu Yan smiled warmly and gently.

He was always patient when dealing with people who were about to die.

“Just feel free.” Huang Mao could already smell the food’s aroma and thought it should be alright.

What’s more, how could it be worse than mouldy bread full of maggots?

He wasn’t sure if it was the after-effects, but Huang Mao felt that the sunlight was particularly blinding. Still, he was afraid of the sun when he thought of zombies, so he forced himself to sit in the sunlight, turning around every now and then to ensure that his body got plenty of the sun.

The group settled, cleaned up and sat at the lunch table.

The video was definitely not to be watched again, and He Lou had to ask himself.

Lu Yan was also confused and said, “But …… I didn’t hear the song when I was at the Oceanarium.”

Then …… where did this singing come from?

Lu Yan’s answer made several people’s hearts chill a little. Especially Huang Mao, who was almost turned into a zombie, and now his body had no strength. If he heard singing again without notice, the first one to mutate would definitely be him!

“Didn’t you encounter anything unusual in the Oceanarium?”

Lu Yan shook his head: “No, there were very few people at the Oceanarium today, so I didn’t meet anyone. Before coming back, I went around all the places, even the gents.”

He looked at the time, lowered his voice and pointed upstairs, “He should be passing soon too.”

The group fell silent.

After a tasteless meal, the hour hand slowly turned to two o’clock.

According to the pattern Lu Yan had discovered, the neighbour should be going out.

He …… wasn’t right, it, would it see the body at the door?

The soundproofing of this flat was quite good. If the sound was not loud, like the kind of meat chopping in the middle of the night every day, the everyday sounds couldn’t be heard.

He was unsure of the species of his upstairs neighbours, so he did not dare to open the door to confirm, so he asked everyone to listen with their ears on the wall.

The sound of the door slamming shut reached his ears with an unmistakable thud.

Was he the one who had gone out?

The door to Lu Yan’s room faced the lift, and He Lou called Feng Chu Chu to stare out through the cat’s eye.

A short while later, Feng Chu Chu shivered and came down the door. Lu Yan was standing by the window next to Huang Mao, sitting lazily in the sun. After a moment, Lu Yan said, “He’s gone.”

He saw the man’s figure striding away, still carrying an oddly large bag.

At that, He Lou and the others immediately gathered at the window. They watched together as the tightly wrapped black figure left.

Somehow, He Lou always felt that this figure was a bit familiar.

“Gone? Is he really gone?”Feng Chu Chu glanced up at the cat’s eye again, a glance that caused him to instantly fall into an ice cave and fall heavily back onto the floor.

“Then why? Why is it still red when you look through the cat’s eye?”

“Red? Where’s red?” Lu Yan walked over in surprise and darted a glance towards the cat’s eye, “No, are you looking at it wrong?”

He helped Feng Chu Chu, who was shivering with cold, up, “Could it be that you didn’t sleep well last night or were too stressed out and misread it?”

Lu Yan looked straight into Feng Chu Chu’s eyes as he spoke, his voice carrying a slightly strange taste.

“Impossible, I clearly saw it just now …… I saw ……” Yeah, what did I see? Feng Chu Chu shook her head, “Maybe I was stressed out, and I was the one who saw it wrong.”

Lu Yan said peacefully, “Then do you want to return to your room and rest? I’ll call you when it’s time to eat.”

“Okay.”

Feng Chu Chu couldn’t help but feel a little grateful to Lu Yan.

He was a bit stupid, but he was really too kind.

Feng Chu Chu couldn’t help but ask, “Won’t anyone usually bully you in life like this?”

Lu Yan seemed a bit confused: “Bullying me? Why? Everyone is very nice to me.” He waved his hand repeatedly, “Just like you guys have been to me, you’ve been so kind to me and saved my life. Of course, I have to repay.”

He spoke so earnestly that Feng Chu Chu did not know whether his words were sincere or sarcastic. Seeing that there was nothing else to do for the time being, he turned around and went back to his room to sleep.

Lu Yan’s past observations were correct. At 5pm, the figure appeared in the small area on time, but the difference was that the large parcel he was carrying was gone.

On the third floor, several people crouched behind the curtains and saw the figure walking towards the flat.

This time Feng Chu Chu said nothing to look into the cat’s eye. Everyone listened against the wall and heard another thud, the sound of a door closing.

Night came quietly.

Huang Mao had spent the afternoon in the sun and felt like he was practically tanning. However, he was still a little uneasy and intended to continue basking in the moonlight by the living room balcony.

Moonlight was also a refraction of sunlight, so it should be helpful……, right?

Early the following day, Feng Chu Chu woke up and found that Huang Mao’s comforter, who lived in the same room, was empty.

“Brother Huang? Brother Huang?”

He was first to get up and call out, but he searched every room and couldn’t find him.

He felt panic for no reason and shook Lu Yan, who was sleeping on the sofa, awake.

“Have you seen Huang Mao?”

“Huang …… Huang Mao is missing?” Lu Yan was confused for a split second and then suddenly stared wide-eyed.

“Yes, he’s gone.”

“Could it be that he went out? There’s no rush. You call him on the phone.” Lu Yan immediately sat up.

At that, Feng Chu Chu immediately dialled Huang Mao’s phone number.

“Die to love ……”

A ringing sound, through a layer of the ceiling, came from upstairs.

9 ☆ What Have They Overlooked?

The phone rang extra loudly. It was coming from the spot above their heads.

Feng Chu Chu’s face changed dramatically.

Why was Huang Mao’s mobile phone ringing …… coming from upstairs?

The neighbour upstairs never showed his face. What did he want to do?

Most importantly, how did Huang Mao he get up there? Is he still alive?

He was a man of little courage. From the time he entered the first world to do his first mission, he had been hugging other people to survive. Because he was sensible, obedient and did not go soft when it was time to do something.

He wanted to live, but even Huang Mao, who had brought him all the way to this point, had died, so could he really live?

He Lou and the Li sisters might give him a hand for the sake of the few remaining team members, but would they really save themselves? Perhaps …… they could survive?

Feng Chu Chu stood frozen, not hanging up the phone in time.

After the phone rang four times, there was a beep, and it was answered.”Hello? Who is it?”

Feng Chu Chu trembled, her face as pale as paper for an instant.

This voice, this voice, was Huang Mao’s.

If he still had a slight illusion about Huang Mao’s survival before, those few remaining illusions disappeared without a trace. Almost as soon as he heard the call, he hung up.

“You said no talking, huh? Who are you? Who are you looking for?”

“Speak up!”

Huang Mao’s questioning voice still came from the other end.

Why didn’t he hang up?

Feng Chu Chu didn’t dare to speak. He fumbled and tried desperately to hang up the phone and kept turning it off, but to no avail. The phone screen was still lit up, and the voice was still coming from the other side.

Please, hang up quickly.

Hang up!

Feng Chu Chu had already picked off the battery. He slammed the phone onto the ground, jumped on it and stomped on it desperately, but to no avail. Huang Mao’s voice was still coming from inside, getting louder and sharper and sharper.

What to do? What to do?

“Speak up? Who are you? Hurry up and speak! Or I’m coming for you!”

“Who are you? I’m coming for you!”

Feng Chu Chu rushed into the toilet, threw the phone straight into the bathroom, put the lid on and flushed.

Now it won’t be able to find me, will it? It must not be able to find it.

“Who are you …… I’m coming to find you ……”

“I, I, I’m going to come to find you, you……”

To Feng Chu Chu’s despair, a voice resembling a machine rusting and jamming rang in her ears in a guttural way.

Why? Why is it still a shadowy spirit?! Why is it me?

I just made a phone call. Why not Lu Yan?

Yes, why not Lu Yan?

He was there, too.

A daring thought suddenly came to his mind, and Feng Chu Chu suddenly calmed down, wiped the tears that had appeared on his face at some point, pulled open the toilet door and walked out.

Lu Yan was still standing in the living room, and when he saw him come out, his eyes were tinged with concern. But his expression was not the least bit warm in the eyes of Feng Chu Chu, who was about to die after learning that she was being targeted by a ghost. Before Lu Yan could say anything, he had already rushed up and grabbed the other man by the collar.

“Tell him who you are.” Feng Chu Chu did not dare to speak but could only silently hint with her mouth while raising the knife in her hand.”Hurry up, or I’ll get you killed.”

Lu Yan’s eyes widened in shock as he kept struggling.

Feng Chu Chu had already fallen into a complete frenzy. He had one hand on his opponent’s neck, leaving a gap so that he could make a sound. In contrast, the other hand held the knife, the tip dangling above Lu Yan’s eyes. It still trembling a little from the excitement, making it doubtful that he would accidentally stab him.

But he didn’t care about that any more. It would have been better if Lu Yan had been blind. The NPCs were just that. They just needed to be used.

He could live as long as Lu Yan couldn’t help but make a little noise.

What clues, what remaining use value? He is going to die soon. Is it wrong to want to live?

The general sound of a hypnotic soul continued, getting louder and sharper and sharper. Feng Chu Chu took a deep breath, “Hurry up!” He urged soundlessly.

It was clear that they were making such a loud noise, but He Lou and the Li sisters were hard-pressed not to wake up. Only the two of them were in the empty living room, and the place under their feet was exactly where Lu Yan had sprinkled glutinous rice to revive Huang Mao on his way to becoming a zombie yesterday. There were still some black marks on the floor as if they had been burnt.

The fear on Lu Yan’s face slowly disappeared. The stupid expression he had kept faded, replaced by an expression alien to Feng Chu Chu. As befits his face – cold and superior, like a god watching a few tiny ants fight.

“You ……” Feng Chu Chu dared not utter a word, her eyes full of horror.

The malicious smile at the corner of Lu Yan’s mouth grew bigger and bigger, yanking the wrist of the incredulous Feng Chu Chu wrist down and pushing him backwards with force. His strength was so great that Feng Chu Chu was powerless to resist and was pushed hard to the ground.

After that, Lu Yan approached him step by step.

At this moment, where were Lu Yan’s good manners? It would not be too much to say that he was a madman!

Feng Chu Chu had already regained his senses, terrified and shivering as he stepped back. He still had the knife in his hand, but he didn’t have the guts to fight with the other party. The former crouched down pleasurably. Every time Feng Chu Chu struggled to move back a little, he patiently moved forward, pressing step by step, forcing the man into a corner. The shadows were cast on the other’s face.

Lu Yan carefully straightened Feng Chu Chu’s collar and, in the end, smiled gently at Feng Chu Chu, saying wordlessly with a mouthpiece.”Go, die, go-“

In the next instant, Feng Chu Chu’s hand holding the knife was yanked up by Lu Yan, who stabbed him fiercely on his own thigh.

“Ah…”

Feng Chu Chu screamed in agony, immediately realising something was wrong.

“I’ve found you.”

A hoarse and grim voice came from upstairs.

……

He Lou struggled to wake up from his dream, dazedly touching his mobile phone to see the time. The few remaining tiredness immediately disappeared without a trace.

What was going on? How could he have slept for so long?

He Lou hurriedly got up, put on his clothes and went out to see that Lu Yan was asleep on the sofa. When he opened the doors of the two rooms, Li Fang Zhi and Li Fang Yu were still sleeping, while the other room, ……, was empty.

What happened? Where were the others?

He turned around and left the room, pushing Lu Yan, who was sleeping on the sofa, awake.

Lu Yan opened his eyes in a daze, his voice still raspy with a thirst for sleep: “What’s wrong?”

“Wake up! Have you seen Huang Mao and Feng Chu Chu?”

Lu Yan’s eyes also snapped open this time, and he immediately sat up, “What’s wrong? Have they disappeared?”

“Yes, they’ve disappeared.” He Lou said, “And, it’s already twelve noon.” Even if the sounds from upstairs had made them sleep later last night, there was no way they would have woken up until now.

“How, how could this be?” Lu Yan’s throat was dry, and he didn’t know what had occurred to him, his face as pale as paper, “He, where could they have gone?”

“Just in time, I wanted to ask you. You were sleeping in the living room, didn’t you hear?”

Lu Yan shook his head blankly.

“Would they, would they ……” He dared not utter that word.

He Lou was silent, closing his eyes hard and not answering.

It was only the second day of the mission, fourteen people, and only three were left by now. In the past, no matter how cruel, the first two days would be more or less protected, and more than half of the team could always remain.

What was wrong?

What had gone wrong?

“So, what about the two girls?” Lu Yan asked hastily.

“They’re still sleeping in their rooms.”

Lu Yan sighed with relief as if he had found his backbone, “I’ll go and get them up.”

Looking at his back, He Lou’s eyes took on a probing look.

Did it have anything to do with him or not?

……

The lunch today was even more silent than the previous two days.

He Lou was not a man of many words. Li Fang Zhi spoke little, and initially, Li Fang Yu would regulate the atmosphere at any time, yet she also had inexplicably become indifferent. Lu Yan was the only one at the table trying to ease the atmosphere. After dryly saying a bunch of things without anyone responding, his voice grew lower and lower, and he slowly shut up.

After lunch, Lu Yan cleaned up his dishes while He Lou leaned against the kitchen door and looked at him carefully.

Soft-hearted, cowardly, stupid …… and lucky to have survived until now?

Lu Yan was a little uncomfortable with his look. After hurriedly washing the dishes, turned his head to ask him, “Brother Lou, is there something wrong?”

He Lou casually said, “Not for now, but don’t you need to go to work?”

“Huh?” Lu Yan scratched his head, “I asked for leave from the company because you guys are here.”

“Well then, let’s look around the building after we finish eating. By the way, how many residents are there in this building?”

Lu Yan didn’t object to the first half of the question, but the second half put him off: “This, I’m not sure.”

He Lou said, “Then we’ll ask for clues one by one later, door by door. Remember, be keen and find out what’s unusual about them.”

Lu Yan nodded his head and agreed.

He Lou couldn’t help but be suspicious when he saw him look a bit silly, but there was no way around it.

There were only three of them left now. He Lou had to find a way to rope in some NPCs for his own use. Although these people looked just like them, they could cry and laugh and have feelings and a life of their own.

However, they were not from the same world, so why sympathise with them? At most, they could only manage not to kill indiscriminately, as the dead ones might also turn into evil spirits. Still, it was impossible to ask them to think about the lives of NPCs and even to protect them.

“Before you set off, tell us what you know.”

The building had nine floors, with four houses on the ground floor. Li Fang Zhi and Li Fang Yu checked from the upper floors and were responsible for floors nine to five. He Lou, with Lu Yan, was in charge of the first to fourth floors.

This was a precarious approach; their task was to stay in the flat for an entire week, which meant that there was bound to be something wrong with it. But there was nothing else they could do, their numbers had plummeted, and if they couldn’t find the cause, they were bound to face total annihilation.

At around 2pm, He Lou and Lu Yan took the lift down one floor and stood in room 101, ready to knock on the door.

When the lift went down, Li Fang Zhi waited for it to come up, holding Li Fang Yu before taking it to the roof.

When the lift went up to the top floor, Li Fang Zhi stepped out of the ride and felt something was wrong.

They had both overlooked a fundamental issue, and this issue, most likely, was the key!

10 ☆ An Extra Layer

What Li Fang Zhi didn’t see was that behind her, Li Fang Yu was quietly watching her. The lift doors closed, illuminating Li Fang Yu’s back, her dark curly hair reaching her waist. She had clearly turned into another woman!

However, Li Fang Zhi did not care, as if she was oblivious to her sister’s strange back. She turned around and pulled her sister away, sending a message to He Lou with her other hand.

[Brother Lou, we’ve all overlooked a problem.]

[This building was not just the ninth floor, but the tenth floor!

He Lou and Lu Yan were knocking on the ground floor door when they heard the message beep and picked up the phone to take a look, their hearts shaking.

Ten floors?

The extra floor, where was it?

No wonder they didn’t know. They were confined to the flat and couldn’t go outside, so naturally, they couldn’t count how high the building was and could only get the answer from Lu Yan’s mouth.

He steadied his mind, the door was already open over there, and after a quick reply, he put the phone back in his pocket and started to talk to the occupants.

The floor of 101 was occupied by a family of three, and the couple was home on weekends. He pretended he was visiting friends and saw that the building was good and wanted to buy it, so he took this opportunity to ask some questions.

The young couple was enthusiastic and talked to him a lot, quietly telling him that if he wanted to live here, he should forget about it or buy an at a discount. There was a man who chopped meat every night, making a lot of noise, and it was useless to call the police.

“I stayed at a friend’s house last night and heard it. It was really noisy.” He Lou expressed his understanding, and after a few words of small talk, he naturally asked, “You have ten floors in this building, I heard, don’t you? Why is the lift only on the ninth floor?”

“Ten floors?” The couple living on the ground floor expressed their confusion. Lu Yan was also slightly surprised. After the young couple closed the door, Lu Yan asked, “Brother Lou, what’s with the ten floors? How do you know there are ten floors?”

He Lou shook his head, not saying how he knew, but only asking Lu Yan to count the floors outside.

Only now did he realize the flawed nature of this mission.

They were restricted from leaving the flat, and only nine floors were in the lift. If Li Fang Zhi hadn’t been so keen on numbers and hadn’t noticed that the time it took for the lift to go up one floor and the time it took to reach the top of the building weren’t quite right, they might not have noticed that there was an extra floor.

Lu Yan dutifully went out to count it. He even took a picture of it, came in and counted it carefully with a gloomy face, “There really is an extra floor ……”

This extra layer, how many layers was it?

Strangely, this photo has some magic power. No matter how they counted, they couldn’t measure it clearly.

He Lou had an unpleasant guess in his mind. For some reason, he always felt that the extra layer might be near the third floor.

And this suspicion sent chills all over his body in the early autumn, when summer heat had not yet subsided.

“Brother Lou, what’s wrong?” Lu Yan was puzzled and reached out to shake his hand in front of him. He still looked a little foolishly naive and concerned.

He Lou suddenly asked, “Do you really not know?”

Would he really ignore this anomaly in his flat, given the weirdness he had been dealing with?

If he was really this stupid, how had he survived in the past?

Lu Yan blinked, “Huh?”

Only three people left, so even if He Lou was stupid, he should have understood that something was wrong with him.

But Lu Yan didn’t care. The group’s mission was still a few days away, and if He Lou knew what he was doing, he wouldn’t have flipped out on him.

He Lou paused, really not showing any difference, and sighed, “It’s still too careless of us to notice such a big blind spot.”

The fact that he had to be in the flat for a week and they were not allowed to go out implied, apart from the fact that there was something unusual about the flat, it also suggested that there were clues that had to be obtained outside the flat.

Seemingly unconcerned, but each with their own agenda, the two men moved on to the next house to ask for information.

102 was an elderly couple who had lived here for a long time.

103 was a single woman who, for some reason, looked familiar to He Lou.

104 was unoccupied. They wondered if anyone was living there.

Next were 201 and 202 ……

Neither of them noticed that they had overlooked an even bigger mistake.

After each house had been questioned one by one, Li Fang Zhi brought Li Fang Yu down from upstairs, and several people met up at Lu Yan’s home.

“Did you get any information?” Li Fang Zhi asked.

He Lou shook his head.

Everyone looked like regular residents living in an ordinary flat, nothing out of the ordinary, and a simple question about the surrounding buildings corresponded to the map He Lou had specially checked.

“When you went downstairs, did you notice which floor was the extra floor?”

“Yes.” Li Fang Zhi looked grave and reached out to point at the ceiling.

Surprisingly, it was right above them?

He Lou didn’t even know whether to say this was expected or unexpected. Seeing Li Fang Zhi’s answer, he was relieved in his heart instead.

Anomalies …… This flat is an anomaly, right?

Lu Yan looked stunned, swallowed his saliva and pointed at the ceiling, not daring to speak too loudly: “You said this extra floor is ……?”

Li Fang Zhi nodded.

“Then …… that sound we heard?” Lu Yan said, ” No wonder my upstairs neighbour said he was just chopping dumpling filling, and the police didn’t find out anything ……”

“Then every night, the one making the sound ……” Lu Yan didn’t dare to say more.

“You can’t draw conclusions so quickly yet.” He Lou said, his gaze turning to Lu Yan, “To determine the source of the sound, we’ll wait on the fourth floor this evening.”

“No way! The fourth floor is too ……” Lu Yan lowered his voice, “What if it really is the fourth floor? Wouldn’t that be too dangerous? Let’s go to the fifth floor. There’s no other floor more or less clear to hear.”

He Lou vaguely sensed that something was wrong, but Li Fang Zhi felt that Lu Yan had a point and agreed with him.

“Indeed, we can’t take any more chances now that the fifth floor can also be heard clearly. Or perhaps, Lu Yan, do you have more recording equipment at home?”

The camera from the last trip to the Oceanarium was recorded into something that shouldn’t have been recorded and couldn’t be used any more. Lu Yan had thrown it out long ago.

Lu Yan subconsciously shook his head and suddenly remembered something and said, “There is still a camera that I bought a long time ago.”

“Then let’s wait on the fifth floor tonight and put the camera on the fourth floor. Will it still work now?”

“It should work, you wait, and I’ll look for it.”

Seeing Lu Yan rummaging through the boxes and starting to look for them, He Lou and Li Fang Zhi exchanged a look. He Lou then walked, seemingly unintentionally, to the living room television. He quickly replaced the batteries in a miniature VCR in the corner with new ones and replaced the memory card.

Although ghosts could often affect electronic devices, features such as audio and video recording could instead make the ghosts appear and help them keep track of the NPCs’ whereabouts. On the first day they moved in, the trio had installed surveillance Lang II pouches in every room.

He Lou was also curious to know what Lu Yan had done. Whether he was really as innocent as he appeared to be.

In the other room, Lu Yan had already found an old camera and ran out with gusto: “I found it, it still works, I’ll charge it up.”

“Good, we’ll rely on it tonight.”

Night falls.

The four of them got into the lift, and to compare the time it took to get upstairs, they went down to the ground floor first, then took the lift to the fifth floor. He Lou made a point of using a stopwatch to keep track.

Sure enough, reaching the fourth floor after the third floor was about half as slow as the other floors.

[TN: IF you liked it, like and comment, and I’ll post more of these lightly edited chapters. If no, I’ll go back to sleeep.]

11 ☆ Are the Dumplings Good?

“It seems that it is indeed true.” He Lou’s heart was racing with excitement.

They had lost so many people, and they were only now making headway. He Lou felt conflicted for a moment and took a deep breath to calm himself down.

‘Four more days, relax….. four more days.’

This was just the start.

He Lou’s heart was clouded with anxiety following the excitement.

Could they really make it?

Usually, the first stage of the mission was easier. At the very least, the ghosts were restrained. They could not kill at will, so players could sleep soundly. The ghosts’ restraints will gradually be relaxed as time passed, especially once they have made some progress. They might see ghosts even while eating and drinking by then, as in horror movies. Every move could result in death.

When the lift arrived at the fourth floor, Lu Yan volunteered to adjust the camera and exited the building. He placed the camera in an inconspicuous location, and the group returned upstairs.

Little by little, time passed, and the fifth floor became quiet and shrouded in darkness.

The sound-controlled lights did not turn on, and the short corridor was empty and silent, with only the soft breathing of a few people audible.

It was peculiar. During the day, many residents were clearly still present in the building. What was the cause of the late-night silence? There was no noise coming from any of the houses. Had they all gone to bed so early?

A thin layer of sweat seeped out on He Lou’s forehead.

This dark space seemed to become airtight, with a cold aura surrounding everyone. That aura grew thicker and thicker, leaving people almost breathless.

What was it?

The sound of “bang, bang, bang” suddenly rang out, and He Lou shivered violently. Still, it was because of the sudden sound that the sound-controlled lights came on, and the whole building instantly brightened up.

After a moment of recognition, the sound did seem to be coming from a different floor.

So it really was on the fourth floor – that extra fourth floor?

They didn’t dare to go down immediately. According to the pattern of the previous days, the one on the fourth floor was ready to start at zero o’clock every day. The fact that they heard the sound now meant that it was already past zero o’clock.

Another day had passed.

There was another layer of less restraint on the ghosts.

……

Ground floor.

“I can’t stand it any more, it’s noisy every day, every day, and the kids have to go to school.”

“Ugh, stop it. The police can’t even do anything about him. What can we do?”

“No! Are you still a man?” The young wife pushed her husband awake, “I don’t care so much, carry a knife over there. Anyway, this guy is chopping meat again. I really want to chop him up too. What kind of psycho chopping dumpling filling at night ……”

The young woman got angry and got out of bed, put on her slippers and ran to the kitchen and drew a kitchen knife, standing in front of the room with an angry face: “Are you going?”

“Fine, fine, I’ll go, can’t I?”

“That’s more like it.” The young woman muttered.

The two entered the lift in their pyjamas and pressed the lift button before the car door closed.

She didn’t know if it was the lighting, but the young woman always felt that the lift door was not the right image of the two; their faces were pale, and they looked very bad, like dead people.

“This air conditioning is too high, isn’t it, husband? Do you feel a bit cold?”

“A little. It’ll be fine when we get out later.”

“Why is it so slow? Does it take so long on the fourth floor? Is it broken?”

“I’ll go and talk to the property tomorrow.”

“Honey, do you ever feel …… like someone is watching us.”

“……”

“Honey? Hubby?”

The woman nudged her husband, and the other man’s bleak, lifeless face turned to look down at her.

“You, who are you? Husband? Husband?!”

“Help-“

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

A scream was followed by the numbing sound of tearing.

On the fourth floor, here it was.

A pool of blood slowly flowed out of the lift doorway, and soon, as if alive, the pool of blood all gushed towards a specific door and was sucked cleanly, leaving no trace on the floor.

The lift door then opened immediately. A large mass of fresh raw meat froth was quietly placed in the lift’s centre. It’s red and white, like a raw meat dumpling filling from a vegetable market. Unexpectedly, it was gradually pressed into a flattened shape by some invisible pressure the next moment, like a piece of paper being lightly sucked into the crack of some door.

The sound of chopping meat paused and then became more and more ferocious.

……

Ground floor, 101.

The young man yawned and opened the door to his home. He entered the room and looked at his wife and children. Seeing them both asleep, a smile lifts the man’s weary face, followed by the tantalising smell from the kitchen.

His wife must have known he was working late and had left it for him.

The young man’s heart swells with warmth, and he gingerly enters the kitchen and switches on the light.

Even the sound of chopping meat upstairs was less annoying with the late-night food.

He ate the dumplings with satisfaction.

I’ll move out when I make more money to avoid this disgusting neighbourhood and chopping dumpling filling? Who are you kidding?

405 That damn bald guy!

He bit into the dumplings angrily, as if he were biting into the flesh of that other man. After finishing his meal and drinking, the man washed up and went into his room to lie down on the bed, carefully reaching out to wrap his arms around his wife so as not to wake her up.

“Was it good?” The young woman’s voice rang out in the darkened room.

The wife’s voice seemed a little grim. No, her voice and whole being breathed an icy coldness that seeped throughout her body along the stiff skin his hands touched.

“You ……” The man froze in place.

……

On the fifth floor, a few people waited for the bang, bang, bang sound to completely disappear before they were ready to go downstairs.

‘I don’t know why, but today the sound was longer than usual, as if …… it had new ingredients.’

He Lou made a note of this anomaly. In the darkness, he glanced once again in the direction of Lu Yan. The other side seemed to sense his gaze and smiled sideways at him with some reassurance.

He didn’t feel any comfort at all, but there was a big stone weighing heavily on his heart.

What was the way of life, what was the way of life?

The strange station. The actress who keeps zombies. The extra fourth floor. The weird neighbours and the sound of chopping meat in the middle of the night. The marine park was named after the actress whom the neighbours often visit ……

Everything seemed unrelated, but He Lou always felt as if he had overlooked something, and what he had overlooked was the clue that would tie everything together.

Also, what role does Lu Yan play in all of this? Why was he safe and sound until now?

Even though Lu Yan was acting as cowardly and stupid as ever, he no longer dared to underestimate him.

Fortunately, they made it back to Lu Yan’s house without a word to each other, washed up and went to their rooms to sleep.

With Huang Mao and Feng Chu Chu dead, the room was naturally empty. They had occupied Lu Yan’s room, but now the original owner could finally return to his own room to rest.

He Lou watched Lu Yan enter his room, his eyes flickering. Only after seeing the light dim in the doorway of the other party’s room did he return to his room.

Instead of resting, he turned on his computer and surfed anonymous websites.

Here, he initially found out about Lan Zhi Yu raising zombies and the method of their elimination. Because he had posted some of Lan Zhi Yu’s hidden news, he had several more people following him. Some private messages asked him if he had any other news about zombies.

Seeming to see that he didn’t know much about zombies, some others were kind enough to tell him something about them.

In the darkness, He Lou reviewed them one by one at a rapid pace, and his gaze suddenly froze.

Immediately afterwards, he started searching for messages like a madman.

“…… If a zombie has been sleeping for many years, it needs fresh flesh and blood to wake up ……”

Sleeping for many years …… Yeah, his search these days showed that he hadn’t seen any news of zombies running amok. It wasn’t that the relevant authorities had stepped in to squash it—he’d browsed several top-secret documents. He had yet to find similar information in recent years.

Why had zombies popped up in the underground as soon as they arrived? Was it because of their mission?

The computer screen released the surveillance footage, which was clearly the underground station where they had arrived that night. He Lou worked his hands on the keyboard, immediately tuning into the corresponding station, zooming in, and focusing.

He adjusted the speed, and the picture changed rapidly …… Immediately afterwards, he found the figure of Lu Yan. Before entering the station, he first pulled something white out of his bag and dropped it on the ground, then, with a kick, kicked it onto the billboard opposite.

Oddly enough, just because there weren’t many people late at night didn’t mean there wasn’t a single passenger. The object that should have been ejected by the reaction force did not fall out even after he kicked it onto the billboard as if it had been sucked in by the billboard.

He Lou, on the contrary, calmed down at this moment, intercepted the screen and zoomed in to look carefully.

The surveillance was one-way, and he could not see clearly what the opposite billboard looked like. But He Lou could already imagine that on the billboard opposite, it was bound to be Lan Zhi Yu!

A cold chill rushed to his heart and then spread throughout his body. Perhaps He Lou didn’t even realise it himself, but now he was trembling, not knowing whether it was anger or fear or perhaps both.

He Lou had never imagined that it was Lu Yan who had awakened it.

Why? Why had he done this?

Did he know something?

How could he still put on such an innocent face and make peace with them?!

Even if their mission this time might have something to do with the zombies, what could he gain by involving himself in it?

A hint of blood bubbled up in his mouth. He Lou returned to his senses, only to realise that he had unknowingly pushed himself so hard that he had bitten his lip. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself down, so he wouldn’t rush next door and kill the other side with a single blow.

Since Lu Yan had awakened the zombie, what else had he done?

The zombie …… right, the day Huang Mao almost turned into a zombie, the next day at noon up to find that they had disappeared. Lu Yan was clearly just in the living room sleeping. He really did not know anything?

12 ☆ Found Out!

He Lou took a deep breath, took a memory card from his pocket, swapped it for a USB stick, and inserted it into his computer.

This was the simple surveillance system he had earlier installed in the living room. He hadn’t had the opportunity to watch it a few days ago. He needed to find out what Lu Yan had done today.

He saw the scene from that day on the computer screen, multiplied by the speed of the images.

Huang Mao became a zombie that day as a result of the song emanating from the television set. He and Feng Chu Chu rushed up to the man and held him under the sun to prevent him from biting. Lu Yan found glutinous rice and sprinkled it on Huang Mao, allowing him to gradually transform back into a human. They both saw the upstairs neighbours depart again, and Feng Chu Chu was shocked by the image in the cat’s eye.

What happened after that?

A little bit of time passed, and a few tiny figures walked around on the screen.

After lunch, Huang Mao sat in his rocking chair in the sun.

Lu Yan was busy doing his chores, talking to Huang Mao every now and then.

Even under such circumstances, Lu Yan did not show the slightest sign of difference. After sweeping the floor and tidying up the living room, he went back to tidy up the room. When the afternoon came, Lu Yan again went to the kitchen to make dinner.

The time soon came in the evening, and after the group had eaten, they each went to their rooms to rest.

At that time, he was in his room gathering information.

Lan Zhi Yu Oceanarium …… Since there was an oceanarium, would there be other buildings similarly named after her? As soon as he thought of this, He Lou immediately searched, and sure enough, he found quite a few, such as the Lan Zhi Yu Zoo, Lan Zhi Yu Pet Hospital, and so on.

He wondered why they were all zoos and hospitals. It was either an oceanarium or a vegetable market. When he made the connection that Lan Zhi Yu was raising zombies, he felt no wonder.

Maybe someone continued to raise zombies in her name and therefore needed fresh flesh and blood.

After compiling this info, he specifically added the anomaly of the flat. Then he made it public on that mystery website, hoping that someone would notice something amiss. He had been in his room and had not noticed any movement outside.

Nor did he notice that Huang Mao was discussing with Lu Yan about changing rooms.

Lu Yan’s original room was not particularly well-positioned. Living room, however, allowed for some daylight and ventilation, so when Huang Mao desired more sunlight, he assumed that moonlight was similar.

So, that night, it was Huang Mao who slept in the living room! Lu Yan went into the room to be with Feng Chu Chu!

Seeing this, He Lou could no longer deceive himself that their disappearance had nothing to do with Lu Yan.

Why did he see Lu Yan sleeping on the sofa when he awoke in the living room if he hadn’t done anything? He even claimed to know nothing about it.

He Lou’s chest rose and fell violently as he suppressed his rage and continued to observe.

Huang Mao absorbed more and more moonlight as time passed. His eyes became dull and white, his face turned blue, his nails lengthened, and drool oozed from the corners of his mouth.

As the place where He Lou placed the miniature camera was next to the television set, the camera had a night vision function. The camera recorded the process of Huang Mao’s transformation without missing a second.

Anyone with a discerning eye could see that he was about to turn into a zombie.

Just then, a human figure appeared in front of him.

The figure pulled out an iron bar from behind him, dropped it high and smashed it hard on Huang Mao’s head with such force that a shallow “click” sound could be heard from his neck.

Huang Mao, still struggling, fainted and was tied up by the man’s hands and feet, grabbed by the ankles, and slowly dragged out.

Just as he had done to his companion for a ticket, the person being dragged out by the arms and legs was himself.

Where would Lu Yan take the body?

The answer to that question was clear!

In the beginning, when they had someone try to see if they could leave the flat, didn’t they also have the corpse carried to that place?

It was some time before Lu Yan returned. He cleaned up any possible traces of the living room as if nothing had happened and threw the iron bar away somewhere. Still, as long as he left it outside the flat, He Lou and the others couldn’t find it. After Lu Yan finished packing his things, he returned to lie on the sofa.

No, that’s not right…… so much noise. How could they not hear it?

He Lou suddenly raised his hand to cover his face, and a little bit of silent, bitter laughing air tone leaked out of his fingers.

These days, they have been living in Lu Yan’s house, and he wants to move a little. It couldn’t be simpler. He didn’t even need to be sneaky. He Lou can easily list many ways to put people to death let alone make them unconscious by adding something to the food.

He Lou gathered his emotions and was about to continue watching the video from where he had left off. But at this moment, Lu Yan, lying on the sofa on the screen, turned sideways. Then, without any warning, his eyes snapped open. His eyes looked straight into the camera, directly into the eyes of He Lou outside the screen!

He Lou fiercely stiffened, and a chill ran down his spine.

It was him …… he knew about the camera’s existence all along!

The corners of Lu Yan’s lips hooked up in a grim, mocking smile as he stared straight into the camera. His lips moved soundlessly. And then, his head turned back, his eyes closed in a sleeping pose, and he was asleep before long.

What he said was, “You finally found out?”

He Lou could only feel his face burning with pain.

This was his eighth mission, his eighth visit to other realm. Senior questers were plenty here, but so were those who couldn’t even break through for the fifth time.

He Lou didn’t know how many missions he had to complete before being released, but he couldn’t give up as long as he kept living.

Keep on living.

No matter which world he was in, he only had to race against the ghosts and fight against the other missionaries. The native people of the other world would always be associated with a “shield” and “scapegoat” in their eyes. They could easily give up their lives for themselves with a few words. They can easily get them to give their lives in exchange for clues. As long as they are not the ones who die, what does it matter who they are?

It’s just that the value of their use is different.

Who knew that he would run into such a …… He Lou was no longer willing to use NPC to describe Lu Yan. He stared fiercely at the man sleeping peacefully on the screen, his expression grim and terrifying.

A large part of the team had been killed by Lu Yan, either directly or indirectly! What He Lou didn’t want to admit despite his resentment was that deep down, he was extraordinarily scornful.

There was a new reply to his posting on several anonymous forums.

He Lou settled down and clicked on the new message to check it.

As he watched, his eyes widened.

In the other room, Lu Yan was lying on the bed, holding his mobile phone in both hands, seemingly playing with it.

On the phone screen, He Lou’s changing face was playing.

He admired it for a while before turning it off and going pleasantly into dreamland.

Speaking of which, when he was on the fifth floor today, he vaguely heard a bit of a scream as if it was a woman.

Which one of the occupants of this building was a woman?

……

The next day, the only four people left woke up as usual. He Lou looked as usual and, after talking to Li Fang Zhi, sat at the dining table waiting for Lu Yan to make breakfast.

Since he wanted to pretend, let him pretend. If Lu Yan wanted to poison, he should have done it long ago, and since he had purposely left the three on his side until now, perhaps they were useful to him.

Then they could talk.

Today Lu Yan seemed to be in extraordinarily high spirits, humming and cooking meat porridge and bringing it up for them to eat. He Lou had been a little sceptical, but when he saw Lu Yan eating it himself, he followed suit.

“Did you find anything new today?” Li Fang Zhi asked.

For some reason, her face was also a little pale. At the same time, Li Fang Yu, sitting quietly drinking her porridge, was even stranger, her face as white as the wall behind her, expressionless. Still, the other three didn’t feel that something was wrong.

Everyone uncharacteristically ignored Li Fang Yu’s abnormality.

Li Fang Zhi was a little anxious.

Another day had passed, another day short of the one-week time limit, which meant there was a little less restraint on the ghosts.

He Lou nodded, “There is.”

He shared out the information he had received.

He had found all the buildings in the country named after Lan Zhi Yu and posted them in that forum. And then someone contacted him and told him about the locations of these buildings. If they were connected in a line, it was said to constitute a certain long-lost spell formation of the Daoists.

It was unclear for the moment what the spell formation was, but it had something to do with suppression approximately.

“The centre of this spell formation is the Lan Zhi Yu Oceanarium.” He Lou said slowly.

Only four people were present, so he had no qualms about glancing at Lu Yan now and then to get a good look at his opponent’s expression.

To his dismay, Lu Yan showed no difference.

Li Fang Zhi asked with some trepidation, “Then… the one upstairs, who often goes to the Oceanarium, could it be that he wants to destroy something?”

“Not sure.” He Lou shook his head and whirled. He made a bold decision.

“Tomorrow is Tuesday. Let’s go to 404 together while he’s not at home.”

Because it was just upstairs, He Lou spoke in a whisper, yet they could not doubt the firmness in his words.

Instead of sitting back and letting the ghosts kill themselves for no apparent reason, it was better to take the initiative and perhaps find some tools in 404 that would allow them to escape.

He gazed at Lu Yan, his eyes narrowing slightly, and asked, “Why don’t you come along too?”

Lu Yan froze and nodded his head in agreement, “Yes.”

13 ☆ Don’t Open the Door!

Li Fang Zhi was a little worried: “Do we have to go over there?”

He Lou nodded affirmatively.

“What if ……” Li Fang Zhi wanted to say something.

“There is no eventuality, and even if there is, we must still go and look.” He Lou said with certainty, raising a smile, “Besides, I’ve invited some helpers, and they’ll probably arrive soon.”

Helpers?

Now Lu Yan’s gaze also turned, and his eyebrows raised slightly.

What kind of helpers had He Lou found?

I don’t know if it was because he had discovered everything and intended to break the ice. Still, He Lou had regained his calmness when he first met him. He told them where those helpers came from.

It turned out that He Lou had contacted a group of Taoist priests who claimed to be monks on that mysterious website. Their ancestor had set up the great sealing formation in the first place, said to be surnamed Lin, and they no longer knew his Daoist name. The only thing known was that they needed to fulfill their ancestor’s legacy and destroy Lan Zhi Yu, who might turn into a Jumping Undead (飞僵).

Only now did He Lou realise that this mission of his, which said that he had to stay in the flat for an entire week, was a week before the deadline, right? If they didn’t find the secret hidden inside the flat and help seal the “zombie”, then within a week, they would all become the flesh and blood sacrifices needed to awaken the undead!

When Lu Yan heard about the helpers, he felt no fear as He Lou thought he should. Still, He Lou looked at him with confusion and thought, ‘This man is really strong mentally. He can’t escape even after the zombies are awakened, so why did he do this?’

Is there such a person in the world who would harm others and himself?

Lu Yan was in his element, completely ignoring the tentative look in He Lou’s gaze, as he had been the other day. A little cowardly and foolish in his amiability: “Help? That’s great. I’ll have to buy some more food to serve them.”

No one was interested in what he bought, so he did as he pleased and returned from a supermarket trip in the afternoon.

Early the following day, four figures lined up in a neat line, walking on the road to the community.

“Brother Lin, do we have to go?” The person who asked was the woman walking at the end, with fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and her face was not young. The man at the head of the group, whom she called Brother Lin, looked only sixteen or seventeen, just like a handsome teenager, with only a pair of eyes that revealed an old sullenness.

“There’s no other way.” The teenager at the head of the group said softly, “Senior sister Li, the ancestor, set up a seal back then to ensure that it could consume the power of that zombie. It would turn into dust after a hundred years, but recently I don’t know what kind of person is awakening it ……”

Of the four people, only the two talked. The middle two were wrapped from head to toe in wide black robes. If someone looked closely, they would undoubtedly be surprised to find that the two black figures did not walk as normally but gently and in small jumps and hopped forward. Their bodies were stiff and unlike living people.

The distance between the four men was as precise as if someone had measured them with a ruler, forever maintaining a fixed, not too far, not too close length.

“Senior Brother Lin, are you sure what that man said is true?” Senior Sister Li asked again.

“As long as I can seal it up, what matters if it’s true?” The teenager she called Senior Brother Lin sighed.

“Senior Brother, are you sure?”

This time, the teenager at the head of the group was silent for a long time.

“No.” He said indifferently. “Perhaps, we will all die here.”

At this moment, they reached the district entrance just in time, and the teenager tilted his head to look at a few tall buildings, his gaze sullen.

In these words, Li’s sister was also silent, and after a while, she forced herself to say, “This is our destiny.”

*

“They are  already in the neighbourhood.” He Lou smiled and looked at Lu Yan, “Can I trouble you to pick them up for a moment?”

Lu Yan smiled softly and looked straight at He Lou with both eyes, “Sure.”

Now He Lou needed to figure out what he wanted to do.

Saying that he wanted to live, he could do what he did to wake Lan Zhi Yu at the underground station. He said he wanted to take everyone to die, doing whatever he was told to do these days without the slightest complaint. Now that the Daoist priest he had invited had arrived, the other party also looked happy.

Lu Yan’s smile, which was very different from his usual one, made the sweat on Li Fang Zhi’s body explode. She looked at Lu Yan warily. However, the latter looked at them with an innocent look and a smile, “What’s wrong?”

After saying that, he tapped his fingertips on the table, saying, “I won’t disturb you to discuss things. Now, I’ll go down to greet them.”

After he had left, Li Fang Zhi immediately turned her head, her eyes silently questioning.

He Lou’s face was grave: “It was an oversight on my part. We all underestimated him.” After saying this, he told Li Fang Zhi all the information he had found.

Li Fang Zhi sat on the side, her expression changing.

Although she had vaguely sensed something was wrong with Lu Yan, she had been equally concealed by the little bit of wrongness he had deliberately displayed.

How could she not have imagined that from the very beginning, it was Lu Yan who had awakened the zombie?

“So …… it was him all along.” Li Fang Zhi murmured, and she was abruptly shocked, “Then the camera he put there in the past?”

“Since he’s willing to install it, let him go and get it back. When the Daoist priests arrive, let them check it out.” He Lou’s tone was cold.

Speaking of cameras, the thought of something flashed through his mind before he pounded his fist on the tabletop fiercely.

Initially, he asked Lu Yan if there were any cameras at home, but the other party denied it too quickly. While he should not have had a sudden change in attitude, now that he thought about it …… this was obviously not normal.

Li Fang Zhi saw He Lou suddenly stand up and walk towards the room with a sweeping gaze, then moved a stool to step on it and took out something from the trademark of the air conditioner.

It was a miniature camera, still flashing red before removing it, obviously working.

The fist holding the camera slowly clenched, almost crushing its small parts. He Lou took a deep breath and jumped off the stool, showing the camera in his hand to Li Fang Zhi.

“You’d better check if the room you’re staying in has one too.”

Li Fang Zhi disappeared quickly. A short while later, she emerged from her room with an equally ugly face, spreading her palm with the same miniature camera in her palm.

*

“Knock, knock, knock.”

There were three knocks on the door, followed by a click as it opened.

Lu Yan walked in with four figures and asked the two sitting on the sofa curiously, “Have you discussed it yet?”

He Lou smiled, “Yes, we have.”

“That’s good. I was worried about disturbing you guys. Now I’ll introduce you.” Lu Yan was always polite when dealing with strangers.

“This is He Lou, and this is Li Fang Zhi.” Lu Yan introduced them one by one, “These two are Taoist masters!”

The young man at the head of the group, dressed in a modern outfit but with his long hair tied back, carried a peach wood sword. His gaze old and sullen like a late man, he nodded slightly, “I dare not call myself a master, but I will do my best.”

“As for these two …… figures,” faced with the two figures in black robes, Lu Yan was in a quandary.

Grandmaster Lin said, “These are the two I have invited out of the ancestor’s lineage. I only hope they can be of help.”

With that, Master Li lifted his hand. He lifted the two black robes, revealing two green and white faces affixed with yellow-backed, red-printed Taoist talismans.

Even more striking was the costume of the two zombies, with their red pointed round hats, indigo waistcoat robes and a long braid at the back of their heads. They were dressed as Qing Dynasty officials!

He Lou’s eyelids jumped.

This kind of thing that he had only seen in movies in the past appeared in front of his eyes and was a bit frightening.

“This, this is ……” Lu Yan was so surprised that he was a little speechless.

“Not bad. It is none other than the two Jumping Undeads left behind by the ancestor.” Speaking of ancestors, Master Lin’s eyes were filled with pride. “It may be barely enough to deal with Lan Zhi Yu. but against that …… one upstairs,” he reached out and pointed, “one is sufficient.”

But He Lou said, “Be careful.” His heart was dripping blood as he said this.

“Master Lin, we put cameras up there yesterday. It’s better to know more about it.” Saying that, he turned his head to look at Lu Yan, “Now, can I trouble you to go to the fourth floor and take the camera down?”

Lu Yan was a bit embarrassed and politely declined the question for the first time, “It’s noon. Several masters have come a long way. Why don’t you sit down and eat first? I’ll go back after we’ve eaten.”

It was hard for He Lou to trust him. He always felt he would take advantage of the opportunity to do something again. However, he was eating and living with Lu Yan in front of the “masters” and forced the hosts to go up without eating. It was unjustifiable, so he agreed to go down.

Lu Yan consciously went to the kitchen to cook. Li Fang Zhi received He Lou’s look and followed him to guard the kitchen door in case the other party wanted to add some kind of drugs to the food. She stood by the door and listened to the conversation coming from the living room.

What they did not know was the scene outside the door.

The doors of almost all the occupants were knocked on at that exact moment.

“Knock, knock, knock ……”

“Who is it?” Someone from each house complained before getting up to check the cat’s eye.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. The cat’s eye looks red through.”

“Then don’t open it.”

Yet the knocking continued, and the noise grew louder and louder, to the point where it was almost as if a hammer was being used to smash the door so hard it could have broken it open.

“Bang, bang, bang! Bang, bang, bang!”

“Get out of here! Stop knocking! Or I’ll call the police!”

“Go away! I’m calling the police!”

“The door, the door was knocked open ……”

“What is it? Help! ……”

“Ahhhhhhhhh-“

The noise did not reach 304 in any way. At that moment, inside 304, a few people were happily talking and sitting, waiting for dinner to start.

What they didn’t know was that the whole flat had become a purgatory on earth.

There was some kind of monster that was eating them.

14 ☆ I Want To Survive

After lunch, Lu Yan washed the dishes.

He was always such a hard worker these days and so easy to bully. It was no wonder that the others were easily confused.

Li Fang Zhi stood at the kitchen door, staring at his busy back, her eyes inquisitive.

The seconds ticked down to noon.

Suddenly, everyone felt an unexplained palpitation.

What was it?

What was going on?

At this moment, if they went out to check, they would inevitably be dumbfounded. Except for the door to room 304, almost all the doors to the housing were neatly opened at that moment. A pale, broken limb rubbed on the floor with a smooth creak as it moved neatly towards a particular door.

The door opened with a bang when the last limbs had fallen into the gap.

A terrifying aura spread.

If anyone could have observed it and looked down from above, they would have seen it rapidly extending towards the Orchid Jade Oceanarium in the city centre. All the people passing by felt a palpitation along the way.

Master Lin sank and walked over to the window to look up, his face suddenly becoming even more gloomy.

“Shit, they’ve moved the plan up.”

A little bewildered, Lu Yan asked, “What plan has been brought forward?”

Li Fang Zhi couldn’t stand the man’s pretentious face any longer, so she stepped forward and punched him. She had practised kung fu, and an ordinary man couldn’t dodge her punches and kicks. But Lu Yan stepped back with ease and smoothly came behind He Lou and put his hand on his neck as if he were brothers. 

Of course, he wasn’t that friendly.

Lu Yan gave up his original, somewhat stupid expression. He moved his facial muscles and raised a smile with naked malice. A nakedly malicious smile and then a sidelong glance at Li Fang Zhi: “I advise you to calm down. Let’s all sit down together and think of a solution.”

The force in his hand was powerful. With the sudden attack, the unprepared He Lou was caught unawares and could not break free for a moment but could only feel in vain that his opponent’s fingertips were almost poking through the flesh of his neck.

He was not strangling He Lou’s neck, so he could not breathe, but his fingertips were so hard that they almost sank into his skin. If the force was a little more potent and the nails a little sharper, Li Fang Zhi suspected that he could have poked several bloody holes in He Lou’s neck.

“Let’s all work together to find a way?” Even though He Lou’s life was under control, he still did not change his face, “Where is everyone? Didn’t you kill them all? Now you’re finally not willing to go on in disguise?”

“Disguise?” Lu Yan repeated the word playfully and laughed a little, “Hahahahahahaha …… I can certainly maintain the status quo if you guys are willing.” He seemed to find it uninteresting and let go of his hand, putting the person down on the ground. He Lou straightened up, coughing half-heartedly, before looking straight at the crazy man in front of him.

“It’s just a shame – why did you guys have to break it up in advance?” A genuine regret was revealed in his eyes.

Li Fang Zhi couldn’t help but say, “You crazy, man!”

Even if they would kill to survive, they wouldn’t be so unprincipled as to get an NPC killed on sight. Compared to Lu Yan, Li Fang Zhi suddenly felt that people like herself could simply be described as kind.

“Call me crazy. Are you guys normal people?” Lu Yan was a little surprised, “Don’t forget that the first time you saw me, you were calculating how to take advantage of it and how to get rid of me if I didn’t do as you were told. “What? I’ve been obedient enough these past few days, haven’t I? I’ve fed you well, fed you well, and obeyed you, but you still want to get rid of me, don’t you?”

Li Fang Zhi still wanted to argue a few words but was stopped by He Lou’s eyes. He was not agitated or angry but said calmly, “I apologize for how we behaved before. Now can you tell us why you wanted to kill them and why you are suddenly willing to cooperate?”

When he got serious, Lu Yan lost his bad taste in intimidating others. Raised his eyes to glance upstairs with an indifferent expression, “Because I want to live too, do you understand?”

When he saw Lan Zhi Yu, he understood that the people who came this time would also bring the zombies. Without understanding when those things would be awakened, he preferred to take the initiative into his own hands.

Afterwards, the men joined him. When he knew they couldn’t leave the flat, he decided to eliminate a group of “idiots” in advance. Otherwise, how would he cope if they turned into zombies in the flat?

“So, since we all have the same goal, maybe we can work together for a while?” He Lou coughed a few more times, barely easing away the discomfort coming from his throat.

Hearing He Lou’s words, Li Fang Zhi also quickly calmed down, “Indeed, I hope we can work together happily.”

Now the situation was stronger than the people. Even if she and He Lou joined forces, they might be unable to finish each other off. The two masters invited had no intention of intervening. Besides, Lu Yan looked like someone who was mad and didn’t want to die, their enemy was a ghost, a zombie, and there was no need to fight Lu Yan to death here.

Moreover, if Lu Yan wanted to kill them, he could have poisoned the meal long before. Leaving the three of them behind meant he could cooperate adequately.

Lu Yan: “All right.”

The sky was a little darker, with dark clouds and a cold, wet wind rustling through.

“It doesn’t look like we can wait until tomorrow.” Senior Brother Lin said indifferently, “Just for now, let’s go up and look.”

He took a brass bell out of his sleeve and gently shook it.

There was no sound, but the few people present seemed to hear a long, long bell.

Another bell rang, and they leapt forward in a neat step.

“Let’s go.” Saying this, the teenage old and sullen Master Lin took the lead and opened the door to his home.

The rest of the few people followed, yet they all couldn’t help but be shocked for a moment once they saw the scene inside the building.

In the other three rooms, the doors were wide open, and a trail of blood trailed out from inside the doors, stretching from the stairway to the deep, almost invisible upper floors. There was no need to think about it. These homes must be in a bad way.

Perhaps the entire building’s occupants had ……

The thought of this possibility made He Lou’s heart skip a beat, and when he looked at Lu Yan again, he was calm and unruffled on the other side, as if nothing was on his mind.

Even if these are neighbours who have lived together for so long.

He Lou suddenly had a bit of cold teeth. What about these neighbours if Lu Yan had killed them because he sensed their malice?

When they went together to ask questions, they could perceive that the neighbourhood of this building was quite good. They must have usually treated Lu Yan very well.

Was he that cold-blooded?

The group stopped on the fourth floor.

The remaining three doors were open at the moment, except for one forbidden door.

He Lou looked at the forbidden 404 door and said in a deep voice, “Master, this is the place.”

Master Lin looked at the 404 room door and knitted his brows, “Are you sure this was the place?”

Lu Yan suddenly revealed a cynical smile and shook his head, “No, no, no, you all guessed wrong.”

“This building, 404, has always been unoccupied. The person who chops the meat every night is Guan Yunlong of 405 ah ……”

Saying that, he reached out and took hold of the handle of room 404’s door, pressed it downwards and pulled it open backwards.

Behind that door, there was a snow-white wall!

It was an aged wall with some cracks.

“The 404 harmonic has a very bad meaning. Initially, the developer never intended for the 404 to be inhabited. This room is all filled up.” Lu Yan laughed heartily.

He Lou’s mind suddenly recalled a phrase that Huang Mao and Feng Chu Chu had each said.

“There is nothing to see, just …… a white patch.”

“…… Why is it still red when you look through the cat’s eye?”

What I saw before in 404 was just the wall.

Whenever Lu Yan described it, he said, “he lives upstairs.” He never mentioned the door number because he took it for granted that there was something wrong with 404, so he ignored Guan Yunlong, who looked normal at 405.

It turned out that there was an oversight a long time ago.

He could have spotted it. 

With another glance at Lu Yan, smiling extraordinarily happily, He Lou didn’t even feel angry any more. 

A chill rose up his spine.

“What exactly do you want to do?” He couldn’t help but ask out loud.

“What do I want to do?” Lu Yan repeated the words with a bit of surprise and then said with a smile, “Didn’t I tell you a long time ago? I’m going to live.”

When the outsiders came, the zombies were bound to be awakened, and he didn’t want to die at the hands of the ghosts, let alone the outsiders. Those things would be awakened anyway, so he chose to sacrifice the outsiders who were stupid and would get in the way of his plans first.

When the zombies were fed, they wouldn’t be on him.

He could live a little longer and hold on until the end.

15 ☆ Where to Hide?

He Lou vaguely understood Lu Yan’s meaning beyond his words and had mixed feelings.

To put it mildly, it seemed like they had brought this on themselves; if Lu Yan hadn’t sensed their killing intent, he wouldn’t have done it?

But at least He Lou and the Li sisters had survived until now, which meant that Lu Yan did not want to kill them for the time being, or perhaps because they were still of use to Lu Yan.

He Lou had mixed feelings. The prey and the hunter had switched.

The few hints of madness that had leaked out from Lu Yan’s eyes were all curbed. He glanced at the three before turning to ask Master Lin, “Do you see where the source is?”

Master Lin was silent, not bothered by the personal feud that had erupted in front of him, and when he heard Lu Yan’s question, he only slowly raised his hand and shook the brass bell in his palm.

“Jingle-“

There was another long, ethereal ringing sound. One of the two zombies immediately turned, stiffened its body, and leapt up and landed. The yellow paper on its forehead was rustled by the wind, causing people to worry that it would be blown away in the next moment.

The fear was superfluous as it steadily made its way towards 405-room.

Meanwhile, the teenage Master Lin slowly closed his eyes and used them to scan the interior.

“It is no longer here.”

The room was empty except for the bloodstains.

He Lou pursued the question, “Then why is there an extra floor in this building?”

Still, with his eyes closed, the teenager squatted down and pressed his palm to the ground, sensing it carefully.

The next second, he jerked his hand back as if he had been burned, and his always flat face wavered a little more.

“This is …… inside,” he said with an uncontainable shock in his tone.

*.

Downtown, Lan Zhi Yu Oceanarium.

The staff was already small on weekdays, and it was even colder today. A tall figure slowly stepped through the doors, standing in front of the vast dark blue glass wall and reaching up to pull down his hood and mask.

It was Guan Yunlong, a resident of 405.

He kept moving, removing the hood and then unzipping it, pulling off his jacket, followed by short sleeves, trousers and underwear. Soon, his entire body was stripped naked.

Meanwhile, inside the wall, the calm waters suddenly fluctuated violently.

I don’t know which one started first. Perhaps it was one of the small fish. It suddenly swam forward with all its might, straight outwards with great speed, and slammed its head hard against the clear glass with such force that it was hard to believe that it was only a tiny fish the size of a finger.

The impact left a blood stain and a white substance on the glass wall, quickly disappearing as the water rippled.

The carcass slowly rose to the surface and was swallowed by several fish, who then swam off into the distance. When they were about the same distance away, they rushed straight at the glass wall and crashed into it with a “thud”.

One, two, three …… countless …… all the fish like crazy to send dead in unison, one after another. The fresh carcass was fought over and devoured. The always docile swimming fish rushed each other, tearing the clean water surface with blood muddy, countless large and small. The clean water was muddied a little by the blood, numerous fish bodies of all sizes floated up, and new ones arrived in the distance. By the time the man stood naked in front of the glass wall, it had become a lake of blood.

The man did not stop moving, reaching his hands over to the back of his head and feeling careful. A small piece of bone protruded from the neck below the back of his head, and the tips of his left and right fingers stabbed down hard. “With a poof, a column of eight holes opened up, blood splashed, gurgling down his elbows and splattering the ground.

As the blood flowed out, he stood still like a deflated balloon. His skin drying out rapidly. In the end, the figure standing in front of the glass wall was no different from a dry corpse, with bones protruding and only a thin layer of skin covering it.

But the dry body’s abdomen bulged out a little.

*

“Now the source is no longer here, it’s moving towards ……” the teenage-looking Master Lin closed his eyes and perceived it, “it’s moving towards the Oceanarium downtown.

“We have to make a trip there!”

He opened his eyes, and the zombie that had entered the room to check on him had returned to its place at some point, standing quietly behind him, arms stiff and flat, tiptoeing, emitting the stench of cold silence and decay.

Li’s face was calm, as if she had already accepted the fate of death.

“Go on, then.” Lu Yan took off the camera he had placed on the floor and handed it to He Lou, “We’ll wait here for you to return.”

He looked around the room, constantly feeling that something was wrong.

What was it exactly?

He Lou took it and turned his head to ask Master Lin, “Can I look at it?”

The sullen old teenager gazed at the camera he held in his hand for a moment and nodded.

That was no problem.

He Lou asked Lu Yan again, “Aren’t you going with them?”

Lu Yan’s lips curled, “I told you I want to live.”

What was he doing going to the Oceanarium?

To die?

As long as these people left, he would be safe.

He Lou didn’t want to stay with Lu Yan, but he couldn’t leave the flat. Right now, only Lu Yan’s house could remain in the whole apartment. The other rooms looked like a hurricane had swept through them from the outside, and they were all in a mess, bloodstained.

Lu Yan took them to the bottom of the flat and watched them leave before turning around and going upstairs.

“Come on, let’s watch the video together.”

He Lou also felt something was wrong when he followed into the room. He hesitated for a moment or asked the other two, “Do you feel …… anything wrong?”

Lu Yan frowned, “That question, I was just about to ask as well.”

Li Fang Zhi likewise frowned.

There was always a feeling that they had overlooked something.

What had they overlooked?

Li Fang Zhi shook her head, “Forget it. I can’t think of anything right now. Let’s watch the video first, the three of us.” Wait, three people?

Li Fang Zhi’s heart skipped a beat. She looked left and right. There were only three people in the room.

Me, where’s my sister?

“Wait!”

In a flash of lightning, all three thought of something.

The one they had been ignoring and forgetting – Li Fang Yu.

“Where’s Li Fang Yu?”

“Where’s your sister?”

“Where’s my sister?”

The three looked at each other, their faces all a little ugly.

It was unreasonable for them to ignore someone together.

What exactly had happened to Li Fang Yu? Since when have they started ignoring her? And when had she disappeared?

Li Fang Zhi took a deep breath, her nostrils filled with the stench of blood and rotting flesh. She calmed down and turned her head to ask, “Lu Yan, how long have you been installing surveillance in our room?”

In the heat of the moment, Lu Yan didn’t bother with his choice of words: “On the first day you stayed here.”

“Well then, to save time, let’s watch several videos simultaneously, and we’ll sit and watch them together.” Li Fang Zhi knew that He Lou had also installed video equipment in the living room in his way.

**

The weather was bad today and rained.. The dark clouds were low and horribly gloomy.

A beautiful long-haired woman walked along the road. Her pace was fast and somewhat peculiar, as if she were walking and dancing simultaneously. As she advanced, she sang softly and softly.

It was a song that had never been heard before. A piece of wonderfully beautiful music that could awaken the most beautiful yearnings in one’s heart. Made one feel like one was in bliss, penetrated all barriers and reached one’s ears.

No matter what you are doing, you cannot escape the call of this song.

The song is heard more and more in small street shops, high-rise office blocks, residential buildings and parks …….

It’s wonderful ……

People’s faces flushed, and their smiles widened.

It was so wonderful. Even if they died in the next second of the song, it was worth it.

The blood mist filled the air, and the whole city dropped what they were doing and poured in that direction. Their faces smiled with fascination. Their eyes lost their lustre and grew dull as they took to the streets, stumbling to keep up with the figure.

Some of those in the tallest buildings opened their windows and leapt down to the ground, where blood mist filled the bottom. A puddle of flesh and blood rose tremulously to follow the mass of people.

*

As soon as the song started, the three people sitting on the sofa watching the video reacted quickly. They were closing the windows, pulling the curtains, and turning the lights. Completing the whole house thoroughly. Putting earplugs in their ears, turning on their computers and stereos, and playing all kinds of music to block out the pervasive theme and the blood mist.

But it was of little use.

There were still wisps of blood mist coming in from the corners, and as soon as the computer was turned on, the figure of Li Fang Yu, who had transformed entirely into Lan Zhi Yu, popped up. Li Fang Zhi’s heart ached, but she had to be ruthless and shut the computer down, smashing it hard.

“What to do?”

They stood at the window and saw the steady stream of people below them, and a chill ran through their hearts.

*

The question came not only between the three, but equally between the two Taoist priests.

Master Lin was in a bit of a mess, and he added three more talismans to each of the zombies’ foreheads, which calmed the two restless ones.

But he ignored his senior sister’s question. After a moment of silence, he said, “I left a few talismans for each of them so that they might be able to resist for a little longer.”

Sister Li sighed, “What time is it that you still care about others? If this matter is not handled properly, the whole city will ……”

She glanced at the sky, and a steady stream of blood-coloured mist gathered within an invisible space to ordinary people.

“We’ve already destroyed one of the formations in that flat just now. Now go to the next one. Let’s delay it for a while.” The old adult teenager sighed in the same way.

Grandmaster, you’ve left a big hidden danger behind ……

Li Fang Yu, or now Lan Zhi Yu, had entered the Oceanarium.

The dry corpse standing in front of the Oceanarium slowly turned around, revealing a bulging abdomen. His hand was still on his back, and with one push, the human skin was pulled away like gauze. Little by little, like a zip, he ripped the skin off his back, revealing a long opening.

Strangely, it was not bone and flesh inside.

The dryad reached into the large hole in his back, felt around and pulled out a pale hand, followed by the arm and a whole body, which was ripped out and dropped to the ground. He moved quickly, one body after another, and the body was like a bottomless pit that could not be emptied. Before long, the glass wall was filled with bodies, swollen, pale and strewn in a mountain of bodies.

Time was of the essence; these were the ones she hadn’t been able to finish digesting and could only be stored on the extra floor between the third and fourth floors for now.

The floor Master Lin had sensed just now was where it was used to store the reserve food!

At this moment, Lu Yan was sitting on the sofa, trying his best to focus. His eyes were deadly fixed on the video, his handsome face a little red and swollen as if someone had beaten him.

He Lou and Li Fang Zhi did the same, covering their ears and watching the video while keeping an eye on the other two with their afterimages. As soon as they spotted anyone with a tendency to mutate, they would use their way to bring the other to his senses.

For some reason, the other two were ruthless in the face of Lu Yan’s occasional outbursts. Of course, Lu Yan was not far behind, and all three were left hanging.

There was a rustling sound from upstairs, as if something was dragging on the floor. At first, the sound was minimal, but gradually it became louder and louder. Even though the three were struggling to resist, they heard it but couldn’t think about what the hell it was again, just trying to keep themselves awake.

“Do you think …… they will …… win?”

Li Fang Zhi spat out a sentence with difficulty. She felt like laughing along again, pinching the needle in her hand and stabbing it hard into her thigh, her eyes regaining clarity.

He Lou did not answer. Instead, it was Lu Yan who laughed. Li Fang Zhi’s eyes lit up; she thought she could retake personal revenge; who knew that Lu Yan struggled to sit a little further away: “It’s okay if you can’t win ……”

“Let’s all die together.” He glanced at He Lou and Li Fang Zhi, thinking it was better to die together with these two than be with those fools from before. “By the way, you guys, when …… will you be able to leave?”

He Lou was not surprised that he knew he had a time limit this time; he took a deep breath, “Zero hours of the seventh day.”

“…… Then, two more days.”

If they couldn’t leave, they would probably end up in the same place as Guan Yunlong upstairs, right?

Lu Yan was a little out of it.

For now, Lan Zhi Yu’s sacrifice should be enough; the three were unimportant people, so Lan Zhi Yu wouldn’t have to eat them.

They would be fine if they could escape for two days.

Hiding for two days ……

Where could they hide?

16 ☆ The Stairs that Never End

It took a long time for the rustling upstairs to die down, and then it was utterly silent.

Lu Yan looked up at the ceiling.

“What are, what are you thinking about?” He Lou was afraid of him, and worried that the bastard would make another mess.

“I was thinking, what was …… upstairs just now?” Lu Yan breathed deeply, suppressing the urge to laugh.

“I also want to ask you, an extra layer, you …… really, do not know?”

“Don’t know, really don’t know ……” Lu Yan muttered, “not before he moved here.”So, why did he need such a space? And surprisingly, they never found it either.

What was this place used for?

No, this space had never been discovered, even from the outside, and one could not help but overlook it. Master Lin had said before that there were no ghosts there.

Was there a better place to hide than that?

Suddenly thinking of this possibility, Lu Yan’s heart shook.

Coincidentally, this question also occurred to Li Fang Zhi at that moment.

He Lou suddenly blossomed into a smile, and the two of them looked at each other and immediately rushed over to pinch and scratch the man so that he could quickly come to his senses.

“We, have to go upstairs and have a look.”

“No, not upstairs, it’s that …… extra floor.”

“How do we …… er, how do we get in?”

Master Lin had said that the thing upstairs was gone, meaning they wouldn’t be facing the ghosts directly even if they went over there now. It wasn’t confident there would be any other dangers yet, but they couldn’t care less about that.

“Whatever, let’s go up there and check it out.” Lu Yan gave a brutal twist to his thigh that showed no mercy at all, and the pain caused his eyes to clear over, “Let’s go to ……405 first. Maybe we can find a clue.”

Better…… better than going outside.

Lu Yan cast his gaze out the window.

Outside the window was a thick fog of blood. People laughed obsessively and wildly in the blood fog, twisting and turning their bodies to move downtown. Even if they were knocked out of control and crushed into mush by the wheels, they still got up and squirmed, and their bloody faces could still be seen laughing obsessively.

He definitely, did not want to look like this!

At the moment, he was glad he had taken out the others first. Otherwise, with their minds, they could easily have turned into zombies, and they wouldn’t have been able to leave the flat, and it would only have been his own bad luck.

There were only two of them, and even if they suddenly mutated, he was still sure of himself.

He Lou was already standing at the door, took a deep breath, wrapped his head and face, and then opened the door with one hand!

The blood mist, so thick that it could almost drown a person, slowly poured in, and the large amount of fishy-sweet aroma mixed with the smell of blood made people want to vomit.

The moment the door was opened, He Lou had already crouched down. The other two did the same, wrapping themselves up tightly and avoiding the area where the blood mist was thick as much as possible.

The talisman paper in their pockets glowed faintly, and their dizziness improved as they stumbled and helped each other towards the stairs, each covering his mouth and nose to death. He Lou pounced on the lift and pressed the button desperately. Amid blood, the numbers on the lift display moved up a little, and the door opened with a ding.

But they stopped in their tracks in unison.

There was a small child in the lift with an uncharacteristically dopey smile on his young face.

Lu Yan knew him.

It was the child of the young couple on the ground floor.

He Lou immediately pressed the button on the ground floor to send them away.

The lift was out of the question, so they had to take the stairs. They turned to the stairwell.

The stairs were used as a fire escape, and hardly anyone came. The stairwell doors were typically closed. Plus, after the man moved in, everyone ignored the unreasonable floor level even more. He Lou banged hard a few times and finally got the door open, and then froze.

On the floor, a trail of blood had been dragged upwards. When he looked downstairs again, he saw that all the bloodstains were also on the fourth floor.

He Lou suddenly wanted to laugh, it turned out that the clue was there all along, but they just didn’t find it.

The fourth floor, no, that extra floor was where it used to store the food, right? Just now, they heard the rustling sound of those corpses stuffed in the mezzanine moving around!

Only, the bodies had moved to who knows where, to the centre of the city, he thought?

The blood mist had thickened, so they could barely see anything around them. Even opening their eyes, they could feel them seemingly trying to get into their eyes.

They all closed their eyes and groped a little along the railing, heading upstairs.

In fact, it was useless to open their eyes. It was already completely dark, and all the lights in the building had been destroyed. Even with their eyes open, they couldn’t see anything.

And the usually ordinary hallway seemed extraordinarily long today; no matter how they walked, they never felt their way around the corner.

*

At the other end, the old adult boy and his sister arrived at one of the corners of the city.

This was the “Orchid Jade Pet Hospital”.

“Let’s go, the third one.” Master Lin couldn’t confront the soon-to-be-revived Lan Zhi Yu head-on, so he had to find a way to start from somewhere else, such as – destroying a part of its formation.

Now that Lan Zhi Yu had presumably reacted, the nearby residents had changed direction and were coming steadily towards where they were. The smiles they wore on their faces gradually stiffened, their faces turning a little green and white, their skin drying out a little.

And as their skin dried, the blood mist surrounding them grew even thicker.

Luckily, they had two zombies, which had been refined for many years. Their killing power was naturally not comparable to that of the inhabitants of the first mutation. Protected by the two zombies, the two entered the Orchid Jade Pet Hospital.

The pet hospital was no better, all the animals had been drained of their flesh and blood, and only white skeletons remained in the cages.

“Brother, I …… I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time.” Senior Sister Li suddenly asked, “Is it true that what you gave them was a charm to make them resist?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do I mean? Senior Brother, you should know very well.” Senior Sister Li said, “Are you really destroying the formations? Why do these formations look so familiar to me? Why did you not allow the other uncles to go out of the mountain when they obviously said they could? Saying that you can solve it yourself, yet you only brought me and two jumping undead?” Senior Sister Li did not evade and looked straight at Senior Brother Lin, “You chose me because you think I am still the same senior sister who is not good at formations, right? Thirty years ago, you suddenly returned to the village with a broken heart, then cultivated your body and concentrated on cultivation. Your uncles and aunts all thought you had changed your nature, but who were you changing your nature for? What have you been studying all these years? Although I’m not good at some of the arts, I can see that you’re not destroying the great formation, you’re clearly releasing it!”

With every word, the old mature teenager’s face became more gloomy. At this moment, where was the pitiful demeanour he had when he first arrived? The lights inside the pet hospital were dim, illuminating his face in obscurity.

Master Li said bitterly, “You’re going against the ancestral teachings! The Ancestor will not forgive you!”

“As long as she can live. We can live with the heavens, why do I need anyone’s forgiveness?” Master Lin had regained his composure, “I wanted to keep you until the end and let you go in peace, but now it seems that …… cannot keep you.”

At this moment, the three, still feeling their way up the stairs, had been walking for a long, long time. How could they not feel their way to the corner of the railing?

They all couldn’t help but wonder: were they …… really going up the stairs?

17 ☆ Someone at the Door

Lu Yan felt the talisman he kept close to him, which the Taoist priest had just given him.

Three people, one for each.

Not caring so much, he held the talisman up nearly a foot from his forehead to dispel some of the blood mist in front of him. With his other hand, he fumbled for his mobile phone, which he painstakingly lowered to bring up his torch so that he could at least open his eyes to see what was around him.

After walking so long, so long that his legs were sore, it was surprising that they stayed where they were.

When they looked up, the bright red “4” was still in the distance, even through the thick fog of blood. It still appeared starkly on the snowy white wall.

They knew there was a problem, but out of ostrich mentality, no one had dared to raise it.

As long as they took their time, preferably until two days later, they would be relieved for the time being.

Lu Yan slowed his breathing as he took his bearings, swatted away the almost threadbare mist of blood trying to get into his eyes, and stumbled up the railing.

Wouldn’t the talisman dispel the evil spirits? Why …… did he feel fainter in his head?

He glanced at the time displayed on his phone.

It was after two o’clock, and the hallway was dark and scarlet except for a bit of light from the phone.

Where were the other two people?

His mind became even dizzier.

What was the way to survive?

Lu Yan grabbed himself by the neck and gave himself a hard blow, and in a few moments, the choking sensation brought him to his senses. He shook his head, took the last remaining ticket out of his pocket, put it in front of his eyes and waved it twice.

Better for the two together than one alone, right?

The ticket was frighteningly hot the next instant, and the talisman burst into flames in his hand. The fire seemed to have some other function, instantly dispelling much of the blood mist and clearing a pitch-black void without it in front of him.

With this momentary brightness, he finally saw the other two people.

Li Fang Zhi was standing quietly in the corner. The talisman presented by the Taoist priest had somehow been affixed to her forehead, her body was stiff, and her skin was sunken. The moment the light came on, the head slowly turned, and the pair of eyes blocking the talisman looked over through a thin blood mist.

She had mutated. 

He Lou was better, crouched on the ground, constantly trembling as if he was trying his best to contain something. Lu Yan stumbled back and tapped him on the shoulder.

He Lou paused and looked back.

A vaguely green face was smiling dementedly.

Good, there was still help.

Lu Yan unceremoniously gave him a violent beating, snatched the talisman from his hand, and tore it up as soon as possible, which brought him to his senses.

This was why he had to exclude some of them first. Since they were going to be transformed into zombies and had taken the initiative to come to him, it meant that the mission was related to him. If those fools remained, they couldn’t possibly turn into helpers but would only become a liability!

“There’s something wrong with that Taoist priest.” Lu Yan slowed his breath and pointed at Li Fang Zhi, who had completely turned into a zombie in the corner. He Lou understood at first glance, and a chill rose from his heart.

Almost …… close, he was going to put this talisman on his forehead.

Without the talisman on his body, he didn’t know if it was an illusion, but the concentration of the blood fog around him dropped a bit. They could notice that the mist was all drifting towards the area where Li Fang Zhi was. It slowly disappeared into the talisman in front of her forehead.

Lu Yan reached out his hand and carefully touched Li Fang Zhi.

The latter’s body was stiff and metallic to the touch, and the smell of decay had begun to emanate from her body. Lu Yan yelled at He Lou, “Why don’t you come and help quickly?”

The two men carefully carried Li Fang Zhi to the lift room, figuring that the brat should have gone, and pressed the switch.

A moment later, however, the lift creaked up, and the child inside was surprisingly still there, looking up, grinning at the two men and jumping up and down to jump out.

He was the child of the young couple on the ground floor and, for some reason, had not followed them out.

As soon as Lu Yan pushed Li Fang Zhi in, he pushed down on top of the child and quickly pressed the button.

Before the lift doors closed, he could still see the child’s resentful and hideous eyes for a moment.

“Get out of here.” Lu Yan gave He Lou a tug.

This time, the two proceeded much more normally up the stairs and arrived at the 405 entrance without incident. Lu Yan took a step back and used his backhand to push He Lou through the door.

He Lou’s entire body was frozen by the sudden coldness that overcame him before he could curse.

“How do you feel?” Lu Yan asked loudly.

He Lou took a few moments to catch his breath. He couldn’t care less about being angry. 

“The floor…… isn’t quite right……,” he shivered after a moment of recognition.

“Are you cold?”

He Lou nodded and hmphed.

After waiting for a while, seeing no other difference in He Lou, Lu Yan followed and stepped into 405.

The first reaction was cold, so cold that he shivered.

It was as if the whole person had been locked into a refrigerator. At this moment, Lu Yan still had the leisure to think wildly: could this be the zombie’s refrigerator?

“Find …… find it.”

It was only cold, Lu Yan felt he could still endure it, and after taking his bearings in the darkness, he wrapped his clothes tighter and walked towards the house.

It was pitch black and difficult to see. He Lou shivered and took out his mobile phone and turned on his torch.

Both of them instantly froze in place when the light came on.

The walls, the ceiling, the table, the chairs, the fridge and the coffee table were all densely covered with posters of a woman!

On each woman’s poster’s forehead was a yellow background with red-striped talismans, silky red threads glued between the talismans, and brass bells hanging from all four corners.

“We, we can’t mess with it ……”

If the red threads of the talisman or whatever were accidentally touched off, or if they accidentally touched this woman’s face, then the consequences would never be what they wanted to see.

So the Taoist priest lied to them when he said there was no danger in the building, right?

Where is the path to…… life?

How do they locate the mezzanine?

Lan Zhi Yu Oceanarium.

Master Li escaped and ran all the way in this direction. Before she left, her uncle gave her another brass bell; now, both Jumping Undeads were hers. She lay on one of the Jumping Undeads and drove them to take her there in time.

She already knew that her elder brother had put a puppet in that flat, and this puppet was the one he used to take charge of collecting blood and flesh for supplying to Lan Zhi Yu.

The puppet was Guan Yunlong 405.

If she could just get the puppet under her control, she might be able to wait for her uncle and the others to arrive!

She took off quickly, and the teenager who had completely transformed into his green-faced fanged form pursued her. When he finally caught up, she could almost smell the strong fishy odour coming from the other side. There was a sea of confused, insane smiles beyond that.

Inside room 405 of the flat, He Lou and Lu Yan cautiously retreated towards the door.

The room and the living room …… were all plastered with posters and talismans; if they weren’t careful, they would tug on some thread. They decided to retreat to the door first to figure out what to do. But just the moment they stepped out the door, all their blood seemed to freeze.

The building was pitch black, and the phone torch shone on a pair of shoes.

The shoes looked familiar.

The light shone upwards until it reached the figure’s face. Li Fang Zhi it was. Her cheeks were completely sunken, her face was blue, and her arms were straight and rigid. And the talisman that was supposed to restrain her had vanished from her forehead!

18 ☆ What is …… Under The Bed?

Almost as soon as they had a clear view, the two reacted, with one heading upstairs and the other darting downstairs to flee.

Lu Yan, who was running downstairs, was regretful. He’d just stepped onto the third-floor stairwell when he noticed a child jumping downwards in the darkness.

He came to a dead standstill and even took a small step back.

Running upwards, He Lou was also regretting it. Outside the window, a small light flickered, and he heard the “thump, thump, thump” of a jump, clearly approaching him.

He was quicker on his feet.

He had walked for a long time during the ghostly fight and thought his strength had disappeared. Still, in the face of the zombies chasing him, his body’s potential exploded in a life-and-death situation. He increased his speed again, just enough to avoid the sharp claws almost poking his back.

What to do? What to do?

He couldn’t run upward for long. He would always get to the top of the building, and when he did, where else could he go?

Once he reached the ground floor, it would be certain death if he stepped out of the flat before time was up.

Wait a minute?

Certain death?

A thought suddenly came to his mind.

Li Fang Zhi, who had turned into a zombie, also needed to follow the mission’s rules, right?

But he was in no state to do so. With the bright white moonlight streaming in from another staircase opening, he rounded the corner, dashed into one of the flats, and slammed the door shut!

He didn’t think the door could withstand the zombies, so he entered with a ragged breath, not knowing if it was due to the blood mist, but the lights in the room wouldn’t turn on. After a brief moment of confusion, he broke into one of the rooms. He crawled beneath the bed, his heart pounding like a drum.

At least …… delayed for a while to regain his strength a little. Otherwise, he might not have been able to finish the job.

The zombie’s body was too stiff to adjust when it first mutated. He Lou silently recalled what Master Lin had said and only hoped that he would not lie to himself about this matter at least.

He heard the increasingly violent banging of the door outside, one after another, thunderous and with such force that the whole flat seemed to collapse.

Finally, the door was smashed.

One after another, the sound of footsteps came a little towards the room door.

He Lou almost held his breath.

Somehow, the sound suddenly stopped again.

What was going on?

It was dark in the middle of the night, not to mention that he was under the bed, with the sheets hanging down to the floor. He couldn’t see what was happening outside and had to rely on sound to identify it.

What was happening?

Should he take a look?

It shouldn’t matter if he lifted the curtain to have a look, right? Just a glance.

No, no, no, no.

He Lou shrank a little further into the bed in case he got too close to the edge, and something went wrong.

And it was with this retreat that his arm seemed to touch something. A stiff, cold touch that immediately made his sweat stand on end.

He slowly turned his head and came face to face with a pale, blue face.

That face, it was Feng Chu Chu’s.

He smiled.

Flee!!!

He Lou dashed out almost immediately. Surprisingly, there was no Li Fang Zhi figure outside the room. He hurried downstairs, hoping to catch up with Lu Yan.

Lu Yan couldn’t be so heartless as to take him out with him now that he was the only one left. He was still useful.

It was sad to say, but He Lou never thought that one day his position with the NPCs would be completely reversed, and how long he would live would depend on his own use. But he had to admit that even if Lu Yan was scary, as long as he could see through his intentions, it was better to be with him than to face the ghosts directly.

Just as he ran outside, he bumped into a figure. Lu Yan gently shouted at him, “Why are you running so fast?”

He had already sent Li Fang Zhi and that little kid away. Why did he still look like he had seen a ghost?

The first time he hit a human body, He Lou stiffened for a moment. Still, the body carried the body heat. He immediately put his mind at ease and lowered his voice to quickly finish the story: “I just hid from Li Fang Zhi and went under the bed. Li Fang Zhi was gone, but I saw Feng Chu Chu under the bed.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the sound of thump, thump, thump reappeared.

A miserable white head bounced out a little with a demented smile. It was so white that the expression on its face could be seen vaguely in the darkness of the night by the moonlight.

If you didn’t see that it was just a head, the jumping look would be no different from that of a ball.

As Feng Chu Chu’s head leapt closer, it opened its mouth, filled with a few white, sharp teeth. It quickly bit at the two of them…

Too late, Lu Yan stabbed a stick into its mouth, but in an instant, he had thrown the head, along with the iron rod, out of the window.

Fortunately, the place where they were standing was in the hallway, and the windows of each hallway were wide open.

The rule of not leaving the flat for a week had to be observed, even to the point of death. The moment Feng Chuchu’s head was thrown outside the flat, it suddenly let out a miserable scream, and the next second, a mist of blood emerged from it, as if it had been corrupted, and quickly disappeared.

“Where’s Li Fang Zhi and the other one?”

Seeing that Feng Chu Chu’s threat was gone, He Lou felt a lot more at ease and asked about the whereabouts of Li Fang Zhi. Although he hadn’t seen the imp chasing Lu Yan, he thought about it and knew why Li Fang Zhi’s charm was gone.

It was probably the talisman that the thing in the lift had torn off for her.

Lu Yan breathed softly and pointed to the window, “Just now I found the talisman that the little ghost had torn off for her from the elevator, and I put it back on her.”

This was why He Lou suddenly heard the beating stop, and after Lu Yan had passed the talisman, he carried the corpse and threw it out the window.

“I threw it outside as well.”

The word also caused He Lou to fall silent.

Although his strategy was to find a way to get Li Fang Zhi out of the flat, Lu Yan really did it. Remembering the days they had worked together, He Lou still couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness.

Just like that, no more ……

He shook his head, throwing out the excess emotion.

There was very little blood mist in the air any more. Looking out the window, there were still quite a few citizens dementedly and epileptically hurrying towards the city centre.

Instead, He Lou grew uneasy.

Master Lin was obviously restless. Did this mean that they hadn’t succeeded in sealing it?

As a Heavenly Master, zombies should be of great use, right? Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had to act like he valued those two zombies so much. Could he have had no intention of going after Lan Zhi Yu?

Looking at the situation, it was close to success.

Will he still be able to hold out until it’s time for the mission to be completed?

As soon as the time is up, he will automatically return to the world he is in and be able to gain a short period of safety. As for what will happen to Lu Yan …… who cares?

The worlds they do their missions will sometimes be the same. If Lu Yan doesn’t die, there’s a good chance they’ll meet up again.

It’s tragic to even think about it.

There was no telling how much interest could be exchanged for the news of such an NPC anomaly.

But it would all need to wait for the return before it could be cashed in, and it was still unknown whether he would survive.

He Lou shot a veiled glance at Lu Yan, took a deep breath and asked, “Where should we go now?”

Lu Yan said with certainty, “The mezzanine in the middle of the third or fourth floor!”

He Lou’s heart was clear. The more the Daoist priest didn’t let them go, the more it meant something was wrong. He nodded his head and agreed.

Unbeknownst to him, Lu Yan was also unsure in his heart.

But it didn’t matter. Just let He Lou go in first and try.

It was almost dawn.

19 ☆ Footsteps Overhead

The sky was white with the belly of a fish, and the mist of blood that had been floating around gradually dissipated.

The whole city was silent, almost empty.

The blood mist dissipated, and the songs ceased. He Lou reckoned that Lan Zhi Yu was probably too busy devouring other citizens to care about the two fish that had slipped through the net. He glanced at the bell tower in the distance, always an uneasy little inside.

Even if he did not regard the inhabitants of the other world as human beings like himself, the demise of the whole city gave him the chills.

Especially when he saw Lu Yan’s bland expression reflected in the glass window, his scalp tingled.

He just really …… didn’t care at all?

“How do we get into the mezzanine now?” He Lou asked again.

What he was very reluctant to admit was that he now had to rely on Lu Yan.

As long as Lu Yan’s goal was also to survive, they could work together.

Lu Yan, for his part, gazed downstairs, wondering what he was thinking. He Lou followed him over to look and found that what he was staring at was the corpse of Li Fang Zhi downstairs.

After turning into a zombie, all flesh and blood of her body had been eliminated, leaving only a layer of skin and bones. She had fallen to the ground after being thrown from a height. He didn’t know if it was because of the talisman or some other reason, but it stayed in place and didn’t move.

“Is this what you will become when you leave the flat?” Lu Yan asked coldly.

He Lou looked down at Li Fang Zhi’s miserable state, not understanding why the other party was asking this, but still nodded.

Lu Yan said, “I have a guess, let’s watch the video first while it can’t care about us now.” He unzipped his shirt pocket and took out a small memory card.

“Where is this footage from?”

“The other day, at my place.” Lu Yan didn’t say much.

They found a random home, rummaged through the rubble that littered the place, pulled out the new computer and inserted the memory card to check it.

“Crank it up a bit and look specifically at the contents of Li Fang Yu.”

He Lou quickly operated it and soon cut out several images of Li Fang Yu.

Halfway through, Lu Yan suddenly said, “Stop! This is it!” He Lou clicked his finger, and the image stopped at the bathroom door before Li Fang Yu exited.

“Zoom in here.”

In the video, her face was pale, and her hair was waist-length, but the figure reflected in the glass …… face was Lan Zhi Yu!

It turned out that Li Fang Yu had long been possessed by Lan Zhi Yu, and they hadn’t even noticed it at all. They had just lived with Lan Zhi Yu for several days without this knowledge.

At the thought of this conclusion, He Lou only felt the blood in his body freeze for a moment.

“I could detect from a few songs that she could confuse people’s minds. Isn’t this kind of trope common in horror movies? After a ghost kills or possesses someone, it disguises itself as that person and goes on with its life, undetectable to others.”

And now, she was possessed by Li Fang Yu, which was instead to their advantage.

While He Lou was still dwelling on the aftermath, a thought occurred to Lu Yan –

Noticing that the other party hadn’t spoken for half a day, He Lou took the initiative and said, “Forget about that now, let’s find the mezzanine first.”

405 That room was nowhere to be found.

Lu Yan gave him a look and agreed: “Each find the tools, 405 can’t be broken through, then we’ll go in through 404.”

After saying that, he lifted his feet and headed upstairs, “Hurry up while you can, find the tools that can cut through the floor.”

He was afraid of him. He always felt as if the other man was planning something again, but he couldn’t argue with him for a moment. He went after him and found that the other man was looking for tools, so he had to follow him next door.

It was a challenging task. They found their way upstairs to downstairs before they managed to retrieve a few sapper shovels from Lu Yan’s own home that no ordinary person would have.

“I suddenly remembered that I used to have a collection of them.” Facing He Lou’s surprised gaze, Lu Yan said frankly.

Even if He Lou knew what he must have done while the two were apart, he couldn’t count that much, and the two carried the shovels up the stairs and into a room ready for work.

*

Lan Zhi Yu Oceanarium.

Sister Li was at the end of her tether but didn’t look the least bit scared.

The teenager, who had taken on the appearance of a green-faced fang, slowly stepped into the Oceanarium. Beside him, the beautiful woman stood quietly. Her skin was so white and gorgeous that no one would realise from her appearance alone that she was actually the legendary and terrifying zombie.

“I don’t actually want to kill you.” Master Lin glanced at Lan Zhi Yu, his eyes showing infatuation, and when he turned his head to face Senior Sister Li, there was regret in his eyes.

“If you were a little dumber or smarter, I wouldn’t have killed you.” A little dumber, and she would not have found out; a little wiser, and she would have known what to say and what not to say.

Sister Li ambled quietly to the ground, her eyes fixed on them with a deadly stare, wondering what she was thinking.

“You’re still thinking about the others?” The young man gradually reverted to his usual handsome appearance and slowly walked over to her, bowing his head and stepping on her hand, “Die, the whole city is here now and they will witness her return.”

Outside the Oceanarium, a steady stream of blood and flesh poured in. Behind the beautiful woman, several scarlet and soft bands of tubing were attached.

The old, mature teenager spoke with a frenzied tone, and soon, his words changed to look at his sister on the ground, who was no longer in her glory.

“But, at least we have had decades of fellowship, I will put you last.”

With that promise, Senior Sister Li pulled that hand out from under his feet with force and looked up into the midair with a listless look, “That’s what you said.”

Her reaction wasn’t quite right, and the teenager frowned but couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

All that remained in the air for a moment was a similarly quiet, baby-sucking-like sound.

The woman’s face grew more and more beautiful as the nutrients continued to be infused and replenished.

After an unknown time, Master Lin slowly walked towards his senior sister on the floor.

Senior Sister Li opened her eyes, “Is it my turn?”

She looked over sideways, her eyes were already a little blurred, yet she could still make out that none of the bodies survived in the distance. All turned to white bones and piled up outside the door again as night fell again.

A whole day …… of people from an entire city.

She reconfirmed, “The whole city is gone?”

Master Lin sensed something was wrong: “What do you mean?” After saying that, sensing that his talismans were all destroyed, he frowned, “You still expect those two people in the flat to take revenge for you?”

Only then did Senior Sister Li burst out laughing, and at Senior Brother Lin’s scornful look, she raised her hand to shake the brass bell that Fang had hidden somewhere.

The two Jumping Undeads quickly came to her side. Just as the teenager looked on defensively, she gave one last command that the teenager could not understand.

“Go! Kill Lu Yan and He Lou!”

Consciousness conveyed the command, and the two Jumping Undeads flashed out of sight.

“You, you are ……” Senior Brother Lin was a little disturbed in his heart, and when he pinched his fingers, it was a great omen of evil. He was so shocked and angry that he couldn’t care less and raised his sword to point at his senior sister lying on the ground and asked in a stern voice, “What the hell are you up to?”

Senior Sister Li lay comfortably on the ground. She counted the time in her mind, estimating that with the speed of the Jumping Undead, those two people should be dead by now. Only then did she speak leisurely, “Senior Brother is very scared? After going through all the trouble to find a body for Lan Zhi Yu, she took it upon herself to take someone else’s body. Senior Brother Lin, I wonder if you’ve noticed anything wrong with this body?”

The young man’s face was instantly horrifying, and one hand was as fast as lightning as he strangled Senior Sister Li’s neck, his face livid, “What did you say?!”

“I said, there’s something wrong with that body! She can’t get out of that flat.” Master Li smiled in response to him, “It’s not just her, none of that group can leave the flat. Any step out and they will all be killed by the curse. If you don’t believe me, go and see Li Fang Zhi.”

Ah …… I’ve finally won you over for once. She sighed in her heart.

No sooner had the words been said that she cut her own heart and veins than the whole person died of breath.

The teenager was left strangling her neck, eyes wide open.

No, it can’t be ……

How could there be such a curse? It must have been a trick on him!

The teenager, shocked and angry, looked at the beautiful woman and the empty street outside the door, gritted his teeth, took Lan Zhi Yu and flew away.

Inwardly, however, he was told that what Senior Sister Li had said was most likely genuine. She had deliberately delayed telling him the truth before the formation was finally completed.

The curse would be hard to break for a while, and if she hadn’t said it when Lan Zhi Yu fused with this body, she would only be wiped out by the curse immediately!

She had deliberately cut herself off and let the Jumping Undead go and kill Lu Yan and He Lou, just so that he wouldn’t be able to find the next carrier at the right time! If he missed this chance, he would only have to wait another sixty years for the next one.

How could he wait another sixty years?

No, there was still a chance!

If none of that lot could get out of the flat, she did not need to purposely have the Jumping Undead go and kill the man. One of those two must be the last chance!

* *

The flat is on one of the floors.

He Lou was almost dizzy from the overwhelming stench of blood and decay. It took him a long time to adjust before he could barely react. His body was soaked in blood, almost as if he had just been fished out of the plasma, with a bit of unidentified body tissue still on him.

Lu Yan was no better but looked calm and didn’t say a word.

Seeing that Lu Yan had no intention of not letting him speak, He Lou asked in a low voice: “Can we really get away with this?”

Lu Yan’s voice was even lower: “Take a gamble.” He did all he could.

They were close to the ground, and there was a thump, thump jumping sound from the floor. There was no need to even guess. One could tell it was the sound of a zombie jumping. The two men looked at each other and immediately shut up, even as their breathing slowed.

The jumping continued, one after another, and gradually, the sound came above their heads.

One, and then another, getting heavier and heavier.

20 ☆ Time is Up

[TN: Leave a like if you want more :P]

[What’s that?] He Lou asked wordlessly with his mouth.

Lu Yan was silent and shook his head.

From the sound of it, it sounded like a zombie, but he couldn’t be sure for now.

He had deliberately sent the message about Li Fang Zhi and the curse to that senior sister Li. If she was in cahoots with that Master Lin, they would have come over as soon as they received the message. And if she was going against the grain with Master Lin, it was reasonable to say that Senior Sister Li would have delayed a little longer.

Now, there was only the sound of the zombies jumping around, but their conversation could not be heard. Could it be that …… something had happened to her?

The beating above his head continued. He looked at the time on his wrist, didn’t know what to count, and wordlessly said to He Lou: [First you, then me]

[What?] He Lou was a bit confused.

Lu Yan didn’t intend to explain much and repeated the gesture: [First you, then me. You run down, I go up]

In the darkness of scarlet, he stared into He Lou’s eyes, eyes that He Lou could easily associate with the look of a wolf staring deadly at its prey.

But he could be sure that Lu Yan’s prey was not him at this moment.

Then who could it be?

Just as the words left his mouth, the beating sound on the roof of the building changed.

The familiar brass bell rang out, but it was different from the one they had heard. Harsh, sharp and urgent, and with it, the jumping sound was hurried.

Objects falling, brass bells ringing, hissing, the toothsome clash of metal …… The two ambled silently, unmoving.

The 405 was inaccessible. They returned to the bottom of the bed where He Lou had previously hidden but found Feng Chu Chu’s head. They dug a hole there to reach the sealed-up 404 downstairs. Then drilled a hole through the floor of the 404 to get to the mezzanine, where countless bodies had once been piled.

Upon entering, the overwhelming stench of rotting blood overwhelmed the two men. Still, they had to endure it to survive. After taking their bearings, they crawled a little to the bottom of room 405 and waited for time to pass without moving.

The noise died down.

The young man carried his sword and looked around.

He had placed Ran no Yu in the room, and almost everywhere was plastered with her pretty face, looking at him with a smile. He gazed at the smiling face, tried to calm his breathing, reached up and brushed his hand over his own face, hiding the grimace of his green-faced face under the clean-cut look of a teenager, and reared his smile.

“Lu Yan! He Lou?”

“Are you still alive?”

“I’ve sorted things out, you can come out now.”

Lu Yan and He Lou crouched in the mezzanine. Even their breathing slowed to a languorous pace, not taking a breath in the face of Master Lin’s anxious search for fear of being discovered.

He Lou was still a little uncertain, but Lu Yan knew she had believed the message he had secretly sent to that senior sister Li earlier.

Master Lin should have believed it, too. After all, Li Fang Zhi’s corpse downstairs was not a fake.

No woman’s voice was heard, and Senior Sister Li was not there? So who was he fighting with just now? Anyway, he did not believe that the other party wanted to remove Lan Zhi Yu.

No matter which floor the teenager went to and how he asked, all he got was silence. Time passed, with nearly an hour to go.

This time, perhaps, was Lan Zhi Yu’s deadline, and the teenager’s voice was no longer warm and fierce, one more intense than the next.

“Come out now!!!”

“I know you are still alive, come out quickly!”

He forced himself to hold back his anger and found his way from upstairs to downstairs but found nothing.

Where could they have gone?

Unable to calculate where they were, the teenager found his way from upstairs to downstairs, his eyes angry to the point of filling with blood.

He could see from the corpse of Li Fang Zhi downstairs that the curse was real and bizarre, and he could not break it. He could only pin his hopes on finding a suitable carrier again. If he couldn’t find it again, Lan Zhi Yu would have to stay in this body and never set foot outside the flat again.

How could he possibly endure that?

But now, the whole city was gone, but his substitute’s Jumping Undead had also been destroyed. It would be difficult to get out of the city within the time limit.

“Where are you? Come out!!!” The roar from outside became even more desperate, almost hissing. It was easy to imagine what the other side was going through.

Fifty minutes to go.

“Come out!!!” He slashed his sword at the other room, panting slightly, his chest heaving violently.

He had a feeling that those two must still be inside this flat.

To find them …… they had to be found!

Yes …… if they were in this flat, how could he not find them?

They must be hiding there! The floor that he had set up by the hand of the puppet was able to keep everyone out of sight …… he wondered how they got in? He was even concealed.

After calming down, the teenager sank and returned to the fourth floor, plunging his sword into the ground.

He Lou was still tense, waiting for the countdown when suddenly, a little crumb fell from his ear. A sword grazed straight across his cheek the next second before retracting upwards.

The floor poked open, and the teenager’s face appeared in the hole.

“Found you guys.” He grinned a little.

……

The room was dimly lit, and the smell of blood was thick and sickening. The yellow paper was rustling from the chilly breeze blowing from the flat earth. The bright red runes seemed to be dripping blood.

The beautiful faces of the women all over the walls and houses gradually smiled at the sound of the brass bells, and their dark eyes focused a little on the man in the formation.

A gathering, and a thousand other blood threads condensed from their own blood, connected to the eyes of each beautiful painting.

That was He Lou.

In the past could still calmly analyze the great mind a faint, nothing can think. Only the body’s blood gradually cooled, even limbs a little stiff, wet, and cold.

How much longer ……?

After they were discovered, the teenager, who was already covered in bruises, had no time to make false accusations about them. After Lu Yan gave a low bellow, He Lou was suddenly blessed to react to what Lu Yan had said. He drew his legs to flee downstairs.

Unsurprisingly, the teenager caught them back, but he was trapped in the middle of the spell. Lu Yan was placed to one side and looked at what was happening in front of him with a face full of horror.

A cold and icy aura gradually attached itself to him, and everything in front of him began to look unclear. The delicate face of the woman sitting face to face with him faded a little, and her long hair slowly became shorter. Her face was so beautiful that it did not look like a living person gradually regained life.

In contrast, the shadow behind He Lou slowly grew long hair, her figure gradually became slender, and her facial lines softened a little.

The young man’s face showed joy.

He Lou was so dazed that it was hard to think about anything else. As he struggled to open his eyes, he saw Li Fang Yu, sitting opposite him, suddenly let out a scream of pain and raised her hand to a death grip around her neck with such force that her tongue spat out in a moment. But then she uncontrollably closed her teeth in a deadly grip and bit down on her tongue.

Within moments, the bloody half of her tongue fell out, and her whole body fell to the ground. The expression on Ivana’s face was horror, and she did not understand what had happened until she died.

The residents were not allowed to leave the flat during the mission, Lan Zhi Yu could go, but Li Fang Yu had broken the rules.

Seeing this scene, the teenager was even more confident of the curse’s existence.

Luckily, it was fortunate that he had discovered this in time and was still able to remedy the situation.

He gazed at He Lou, who was gradually changing in the field, with a look of madness and joy.

Fifteen minutes to go.

The nails slowly grew longer, the chest gradually bulged, and the skin grew whiter ……

“Ahhhhhh-“

As if suddenly stimulated, Lu Yan, tied up and put aside as reserve food, leapt up and fled towards the door. Despite his frightened face, he was still careful not to touch anything he shouldn’t.

The young man was in a tight spot and had no time for him, so he let him go and returned to his business. A short time later, he glanced out the window and saw the other man flying away from the flat, almost out of sight!

So he was the one who wasn’t controlled by the curse!

The teenager’s mind exploded into a blank, and his eyes were wide with anger. He raised his hand to stop the formation and leapt gently from the high building to chase after him.

He recalled that after he and He Lou had agreed on the forum, He Lou claimed that someone would pick him up at the block’s entrance. Only for Lu Yan to simply wait at the bottom of the apartment building, saying he didn’t want to be in the sun. It was because of this that he didn’t suspect too much.

However, no matter how clever Lu Yan was, he would not have anticipated this step. He was just in the habit of acting like everyone else in front of some key people. Even in the past few days, he had entrusted the enthusiastic young couple on the ground floor to go out and buy clothes.

It wasn’t until today that Lu Yan decided to take advantage of this and take a gamble.

He won the bet.

Lu Yan tried his best to dodge, but he was quickly caught up by the teenager and brought back.

He Lou, in the centre of the formation, returned to normal little by little, not knowing whether it was because of the cold or something else. His pale paper-like face was tinged with the colour of a living person. He slowly opened his eyes.

Sitting opposite him was Lu Yan, tied up with five flowers.

He said a word wordlessly, which He Lou read through his muzzle.

[Five more minutes].

The chilly aura gradually transferred to Lu Yan, and the teenager was unwilling to give up faster and faster. His eyes flushed red.

Hold on a little longer ……

The teenager again increased his speed, and the blood threads wrapped around the man’s body became denser and denser.

[Two minutes to go]

“Ahhhhhhh – why?!” The more anxious he was, the more likely he was to make a mistake. The teenager had inadvertently hooked a blood thread in the wrong place, and it was clearly just a silk thread. Yet the breakage of that thread seemed like a harbinger of the collapse of his decades of effort that had been reduced to nothing.

In a fit of rage, he ripped the thread out.

How could he accept it? He had waited for decades for this day to come, so how could he accept it?

A fragile thread of blood drawn from his body was broken off, but Lu Yan could not help but let out a stifled grunt. Followed by the capillaries all over his body seeming to rupture at the exact moment, turning his entire body into a bloody man.

[One minute to go]

Despite this, he continued calmly counting the seconds in his mind to calculate.

“Death to all of you…… she can’t come back, death to all of you!!!” The teenager had fallen into a frenzy, not even looking at Lu Yan, who had dropped to the ground holding his breath and pretending to be dead. He raised his sword and went after He Lou.

Twenty seconds…

He Lou was thrown to the ground.

Ten seconds –

A sword pierced his waist, and He Lou felt a lightness in his body, and when he looked down, his body was severed and split open.

Blood flowed into a river.

In the next second, He Lou disappeared.

Time was up.

The whole world seemed to change. The city that was dead suddenly had more sound. All the wounds on Lu Yan’s body quickly healed as if he had never been hurt. Even the flat room, smashed and pitted beneath their feet, was instantly restored to a clean state, with the charms, blood threads, and posters …… all gone.

It was late at night, and Lu Yan stood frozen in the empty room of the flat, pulled open the door and headed for the lift.

Two memories played in his mind. One told him he was just an ordinary resident who had come to the building at the request of a friend looking for a place to live to help see how the empty room was. The other memory, however, told him that everything was a lie.

The lift doors opened, and the twin sisters stood inside, their mouths curving in identical lines as they smiled quietly at Lu Yan. The lift lights flickered as if inviting him in.

Lu Yan didn’t bother and took a step backwards.

The sisters waited for a moment. They jumped out of the lift on their own. Their bodies were linked together by their long hair, their hands clasped together so tightly that they could not be separated. With that position, they jumped, one after the other, into the 405.

[TN: Leave a like if you want more :P】

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