Chapter 66 Murder

At this moment, facing Jiang Yingrui's stunned eyes, Lin Qiushi finally grasped the thrill of Ruan Nanzhu's acting. Having initially struck out, he became an innocent kitten, shivering in Ruan Nanzhu's arms. A few soft sobs would have been ideal, but Lin Qiushi was relatively new to acting and his acting skills weren't yet fully developed, so crying wasn't something he came up with easily.

But even so, the previous performance is enough.

Feng Yongle angrily shouted at Jiang Yingrui: "You beast, what on earth did you do to Qiuqiu!"

Jiang Yingrui's back still ached slightly. He had just gotten up when he faced Feng Yongle's angry questioning. He gave a forced smile, "What can I do? She was the one who started it—"

"How could she possibly strike first?" Feng Yongle clearly didn't believe Jiang Yingrui's statement at all. He frowned and glared at Jiang Yingrui, treating him as a beast taking advantage of someone in distress. "Look at her. Does she look like someone who would strike first?!"

Jiang Yingrui glanced at Lin Qiushi, who looked like a little rabbit, and fell into a strange silence.

It certainly doesn't look like it, but that doesn't change the fact—he was indeed kicked hard by the girl in front of him.

Jiang Yingrui knew that he had no way of convincing them, so he glared at Lin Qiushi fiercely, turned around and left, looking very angry.

Lin Qiushi's body was still shaking slightly. Feng Yongle, watching from the side, thought she was afraid, but only Ruan Nanzhu, who was holding him, knew that Lin Qiushi was trying to hold back her laughter.

"Okay, it's okay." Feng Yongle said, "Qiuqiu, don't be afraid, that person is gone."

Lin Qiushi nodded, indicating that he understood.

Seeing his eyes redden, Feng Yongle said with pity, "Don't be afraid, we will protect you. Don't leave Qiuqiu alone next time. If we don't get here in time and something happens..."

Ruan Nanzhu thought to himself, yes, if he beat the man to death on the spot, the matter would be unresolved. But he still agreed with Feng Yongle's words, saying that he had not considered it carefully.

In the end, Jiang Yingrui suffered a loss. He probably wouldn't go back and say that Lin Qiushi kicked him. Even if he did, how many people would believe him?

However, after such a commotion, Lin Qiushi suddenly remembered something. He took out his cell phone and typed: The nurse before told us not to go out after 8 o'clock. Is this the rule of the entire sanatorium, or just our rule?

Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi now had a tacit understanding. With just a glance, he understood. "I'll go find a patient and ask."

They went to a nearby room and randomly found a patient who seemed to be in a relatively normal mental state to ask about the night curfew.

The patient, wearing a hospital gown and with no expression on his face, replied indifferently, "Of course I can't go out at night."

"But why can't we come out?" Feng Yongle asked, "How long has this rule been in place?"

"It's been a long time," the patient said. "As for why he can't come out, how would I know?" His tone was cold, and his fingers twisted together nervously. "Perhaps he's dealing with something that we can't see."

Lin Qiushi pondered his words.

"That..." Feng Yongle wanted to ask some other questions, but the patient roared angrily: "I don't know, don't ask me, I don't know anything, don't ask me!" He yelled and pounded the iron bed with his hands. He looked so ferocious that he seemed like he might pounce on them and fight at any time.

Seeing the man's appearance, they knew they couldn't get anything else out of him, so they just gave up.

"So, can we go out at night?" Feng Yongle was a little worried, feeling that this matter was still uncertain. Besides, they didn't dare to try it. After all, if going out at night was a condition of death, if something unexpected happened, it would be the end of it.

Ruan Nanzhu said, "You'll know after tonight."

"What do you mean?" Feng Yongle didn't understand.

Ruan Nanzhu pointed to the room where the bodies were stored and they had been guarding. "If we come back tomorrow and it's empty, or there are fewer bodies, it means they disposed of the bodies at night. In that case, we should be able to leave the room."

Feng Yongle suddenly realized: "So that's how it is!"

"If it's not missing, then we can only use other methods to find the tunnel." Ruan Nanzhu said, "But other methods are too inefficient." Seven days passed in a flash, and now the clues to the key are still unclear, so we can't waste too much time looking for the tunnel.

The three of them discussed these things and went to the cafeteria to have a simple lunch. In the afternoon, Feng Yongle continued to guard the room, while Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu went to other places to see if there were any other clues.

They walked around the sanatorium and confirmed that there was not a single doctor in the entire facility. They could only occasionally see some nurses in nursing uniforms.

In fact, the nurses looked even worse than the patients. Almost all of them had dull expressions. As soon as you tried to talk to them or ask them something, their faces turned panic-stricken.

"I don't know anything." This time was no exception. Before Ruan Nanzhu could even ask, the nurse turned and ran away. This time, her appearance and expression directly angered Ruan Nanzhu. He reached out and grabbed the nurse's arm to stop her from leaving. "We haven't asked anything yet, why are you running away?"

The nurse was caught by Ruan Nanzhu and her expression was extremely frightened.

"Or, do you already know what we are going to ask?" Ruan Nanzhu raised his eyebrows.

The nurse swallowed hard, her eyes a little vague.

Ruan Nanzhu increased the strength of his hands: "Hmm?"

The nurse's face showed pain. Just when Lin Qiushi thought she wouldn't say anything, she whispered, "She's looking for him."

Ruan Nanzhu asked, "What?"

Nurse: "She's looking for him... He killed her."

What she said was very vague and confusing.

Ruan Nanzhu seemed to understand: "Then where is he?"

"I don't know, no one knows..." said the nurse, "But he is in this nursing home." After saying this, she broke free from Ruan Nanzhu's hands and ran away in a hurry.

"The doctor is in the sanatorium, but the sanatorium is so big..." There was no one around, so Lin Qiushi didn't type and spoke to Ruan Nanzhu in a low voice.

Ruan Nanzhu shook his head and did not answer but fell into deep thought.

The day ended like this, and they hadn't found any more clues about the doctor. The word "doctor" seemed to be taboo in the nursing home. Whether it was the patients or the nurses, they would react greatly at the mere mention of it, either with expressions of terror or by turning and running.

Feng Yongle squatted at the place where the body was placed for almost a whole day. After the three of them met up, they exchanged clues with each other.

Feng Yongle said, "This place where the bodies are kept has been visited several times, and they are all carrying bodies in. I think the room is almost full... They have to clean it up."

They were sitting in the restaurant at the moment, eating and discussing.

Ruan Nanzhu told Feng Yongle their guess, and Feng Yongle sighed, "But where can we find a doctor?"

This is indeed a problem.

When he was about to finish eating, Ruan Nanzhu took a small amount of rice from the bowl, put it in a plastic bag and stuffed it into his pocket.

He did this action so quickly that Feng Yongle didn't notice it at all, but Lin Qiushi saw it, so he cast a puzzled look at Ruan Nanzhu.

Ruan Nanzhu did not explain, but smiled at Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi did not ask any further questions.

After finishing dinner, the three of them returned to their residence. Feng Yongle sighed and said that this door was really friendly. No one had died in three days...

"Yeah, I guess by the time the seven-day deadline is up, a lot of people will die," Ruan Nanzhu said lazily, "Only one person will be able to get out... Do you think you're the lucky one?"

Feng Yongle smiled bitterly: "I dare not say that."

The probability is one in fourteen, and if the bet fails, you will die. Who would dare to take such a gamble?

"You guys chat first. I have something to do, so I'm going out for a while." Ruan Nanzhu suddenly stood up, opened the door and went out.

Feng Yongle was stunned when he saw this and asked, "Where are you going?"

Ruan Nanzhu ignored him.

"Where is he going?" Feng Yongle looked at Lin Qiushi in confusion.

Lin Qiushi spread his hands, indicating that he didn't know either.

Fortunately, Ruan Nanzhu went out quickly and came back quickly, and he was back from outside in less than three minutes.

Feng Yongle originally wanted to ask him what he was doing, but seeing Ruan Nanzhu's expression that said "don't ask anything", he had to give up.

Lin Qiushi was also quite curious. Ruan Nanzhu leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Don't worry. You'll know tomorrow."

Lin Qiushi: “…” So what were you doing?

As night fell, the three of them lay down on their beds and prepared to sleep.

The clatter of high heels echoed through the hallway again. Lin Qiushi had grown accustomed to it and simply pretended not to hear it. Based on the pattern of the past two days, it seemed likely that the suicidal nurse would jump from the building again. Lin Qiushi hoped her descent would be quieter, so as not to wake him up.

Thinking of this, Lin Qiushi fell asleep in a daze.

Although he had prepared himself for being woken, Lin Qiushi was still startled when the shrill screams woke him. He opened his eyes and saw Feng Yongle, also awake in the bed next to him, staring at him with a horrified expression.

"Help—help—" This time there was no sound of someone jumping off a building, but instead a miserable cry for help from a human. Someone was running in panic in the corridor, as if being chased by something.

Lin Qiushi suddenly woke up because the cry for help was very familiar - it was from Xue Zhiyun who was trying to trip them up.

"Help!!!" Xue Zhiyun's scream was extremely shrill, as if he was being chased by something extremely terrifying.

"Ahhh, ahhhh——" Along with the miserable screams, there was also the sound of a sharp weapon piercing into a person's body. The sound seemed to be coming from outside their door and sounded extremely creepy.

There was another hurried running sound, and then Xue Zhiyun seemed to be caught by the thing, and his screams began to become weaker.

Lin Qiushi and Feng Yongle both sat up from the bed.

Xue Zhiyun's voice finally stopped. Lin Qiushi heard the sound of something heavy being dragged outside the door, followed by a loud bang - Xue Zhiyun seemed to be thrown directly downstairs.

This is the fifth floor. Even if Xue Zhiyun is still alive, he will definitely die if he is thrown down.

Lin Qiushi slowly stood up and walked to the window. Through the window, he saw Xue Zhiyun's body.

Her body lay face down, its bones twisted into a twisted state, making it impossible for her to be alive. Right next to her stood a blood-soaked ghost. It was the nurse who had jumped from the building every night. She had a strange, yet satisfied, smile on her face, clutching a long, sharp knife in her hand, the blade still stained with blood.

Lin Qiushi slowly retreated back into the house.

There was a burst of cursing outside the house, followed by miserable cries for help and running. The night that should have been quiet became a little noisy because of these sounds.

Lin Qiushi and Feng Yongle couldn't sleep, but Ruan Nanzhu was as carefree as ever. Except for seeming to be awake for a while at the beginning, he lay in bed motionless and looked like he was really asleep.

Lin Qiushi sat on the bed all night, and only breathed a sigh of relief when the morning light began to appear outside.

Feng Yongle and Lin Qiushi were in the same boat. After dawn, they quickly got up and opened the door to see what was happening outside.

As soon as they opened the door, they were shocked by the scene in the corridor.

I saw that almost every inch of the entire corridor was soaked in blood, even the ceiling was covered with blood.

Lin Qiushi glanced around the corridor and soon discovered that the room where the incident occurred was the one where Jiang Yingrui and the others were.

Lin Qiushi suddenly thought of something. He walked to the door of the room and wanted to check the room number. The room number here was a little unusual: it was a printed cardboard inserted in a small transparent frame. Because of this, the room number could easily be changed.

But what puzzled Lin Qiushi was that the room number in front of him wasn't 502, but still the ordinary fourth-floor room number. It made sense, considering Jiang Yingrui had tried to change the room number before, so he must have been extremely careful.

Wait, Lin Qiushi suddenly noticed something...

"What's wrong?" Feng Yongle asked Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi shook his head and pointed inside the house.

Feng Yongle said, "Do you want to go in and take a look? Wow, it's full of blood..." He turned and went into the house.

When Feng Yongle entered the room, Lin Qiushi reached out and took the room number. As soon as he touched it, he felt something was wrong; it was too thick. Lin Qiushi turned the room number over and saw another number on the back: 502.

In an instant, Lin Qiushi understood what Ruan Nanzhu had done - he used rice grains to stick the room number 502 behind the original room number of Jiang Yingrui and his roommates.

Lin Qiushi lowered his eyes, tore off 502, wiped off the traces of rice grains with his fingers, put Jiang Yingrui's room number back, and threw the number 502 into his pocket as if nothing had happened.

Feng Yongle didn't notice Lin Qiushi's actions. He was still observing the blood-soaked room. Apparently, he hadn't found any clues inside. He shook his head and sighed as he left the room. "I guess they're all dead."

"I don't know," Lin Qiushi said, "but I only saw Xue Zhiyun's body."

Jiang Yingrui's team consisted of three people: Xue Zhiyun and another adult male who had little presence. Xue Zhiyun couldn't have been the only person killed last night, so the whereabouts of the remaining two bodies were a question.

"Is it downstairs?" Feng Yongle muttered.

Lin Qiushi: "It's possible..."

The other members of the team gradually gathered around. Three people were gone that night, so everyone was naturally a little uneasy.

And most importantly, why did something suddenly happen in this room?

"Where did they go yesterday? Did all three of them trigger the conditions for death?" The crowd was discussing. "I think I saw them go into the room where the bodies were kept."

"But I went in too." Someone exclaimed in horror, "Why am I still alive..."

"Perhaps the death toll has been met?" The person who spoke was a mild-mannered middle-aged man named Cheng Dao. He said, "After all, even if everyone meets the death criteria, not all of them will die in one night."

As soon as he said this, the expressions of everyone who had entered the room where the bodies were kept yesterday changed.

But it is true that there is a limit on the number of people the ghosts inside the door can kill, otherwise it is easy for all of them to die in one night.

"Did you see their bodies?" Cheng Dao asked, "I only saw the girl's."

"We have one here," someone answered, "the man who was with them." This man, like Xue Zhiyun, was thrown directly from the fifth floor by the nurse, but because it was in a different direction, Lin Qiushi and the others did not see the body.

Lin Qiushi originally thought that the man was Jiang Yingrui, but after seeing the corpse, he was sure that this man was not Jiang Yingrui.

"What about the other body?" Everyone felt a little uneasy.

In that situation last night, it would have been difficult to escape, unless Jiang Yingrui had some special method. Lin Qiushi inexplicably thought of the note that once contained the detailed clues. Could it be that Jiang Yingrui also... He frowned slightly.

Just as everyone was discussing, Jiang Yingrui appeared outside the door. Naturally, he attracted everyone's attention.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Jiang Yingrui asked gently with a smile that looked a little fake on his face.

When Lin Qiushi saw him, his eyes widened slightly - he didn't expect Jiang Yingrui to appear so suddenly!

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Jiang Yingrui said calmly.

"You...you haven't already..." The others couldn't believe it. Jiang Yingrui should have been dead, so why was he standing here intact?

"Oh." Jiang Yingrui said, "It's like this. I had a conflict with them last night, so I changed rooms to sleep in. Is that okay?"

Everyone was silent.

This explanation is of course fine, but everyone feels that something is not right.

The same was true for Lin Qiushi. He looked at Jiang Yingrui's calm demeanor, but inexplicably felt that he was lying.

Jiang Yingrui didn't intend to continue explaining. He glanced at the crowd and said, "Where's Ruan Baijie?"

"Why ask him?" Feng Yongle was annoyed with Jiang Yingrui.

Jiang Yingrui said, "Of course I have something to ask him." He smiled, "Because I suspect that Xue Zhiyun and the others were killed by Ruan Baijie."

Lin Qiushi looked at him calmly.

"What nonsense are you talking about!" Feng Yongle was very unhappy. "It's you who wanted to kill us. If we hadn't been discovered, we would have been dead long ago-"

Jiang Yingrui didn't say anything, turned around and walked to the door, then picked up the room number.

"How is it?" Feng Yongle sneered.

Jiang Yingrui observed the house number in his hand and said nothing in the end.

Lin Qiushi put his hands in his pockets and slowly stroked the room number 502.

Just as they were talking, Ruan Nanzhu also appeared at the door. He crossed his arms, looked at Jiang Yingrui with a half-smile, and said, "Hey, what are you talking about?"

Jiang Yingrui raised his eyes and met Ruan Nanzhu's gaze. Their gazes met, and sparks seemed to fly.

"Nothing." Jiang Yingrui smiled, said nothing, and turned away.

Ruan Nanzhu looked at his back indifferently.

Lin Qiushi walked over to Ruan Nanzhu and tugged at his sleeve. Ruan Nanzhu patted his head and said, "Be good."

Lin Qiushi glanced at him sideways, wanting to say, "Don't touch my head—or, to be more precise, my hair."

"Let's go and have breakfast." Ruan Nanzhu stretched.

The three of them headed towards the cafeteria.

Lin Qiushi found a random opportunity to slip the room number into Ruan Nanzhu's hand. Ruan Nanzhu wasn't surprised by the number and put it in his pocket naturally.

"You've become more powerful." Ruan Nanzhu said with a smile.

Lin Qiushi smiled but said nothing.

"Our Qiuqiu will be even more powerful in the future—" Ruan Nanzhu stretched out his voice, with a hint of laughter in his tone, "Maybe Qiuqiu will be the one protecting me in the future."

Lin Qiushi wanted Ruan Nanzhu to stop acting, but it wasn't convenient. He now strongly suspected that Ruan Nanzhu had told him to be quiet so she could take advantage of him.

Feng Yongle, however, was moved by their relationship and said, "You two have a really good relationship. Is it like this in real life too?"

"Yes." Ruan Nanzhu said with a smile, "Qiuqiu and I sleep in the same bed every day."

Feng Yongle thought about the scene, coughed dryly, and for some reason his expression became a little subtle.

Lin Qiushi didn't realize what Feng Yongle was thinking. He was thinking about Jiang Yingrui again. His intuition told him that Jiang Yingrui had definitely been in their original room last night. But he didn't know how he had escaped that horrific scene.

But for a moment, Lin Qiushi couldn't find any specific clues.

"Okay, don't think about it." Ruan Nanzhu understood the problem that Lin Qiushi was worried about. He said, "Fill your stomach first, then think about other things."

Lin Qiushi nodded, picked up a steamed bun and stuffed it into his mouth.

Ruan Nanzhu looked at him with a smile.

Lin Qiushi felt a little uneasy when he looked at him, and typed: What are you looking at me for?

Ruan Nanzhu: "Nothing." He said slowly, "I just think you are particularly cute today."

Lin Qiushi shuddered, strongly suspecting that Ruan Nanzhu had taken the wrong medicine.

"Okay, I was just kidding." Ruan Nanzhu propped up his chin and yawned. "What do you think about that doctor?"

Lin Qiushi and Feng Yongle both shook their heads, indicating that they had no ideas.

"I do have a guess," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Why can't that nurse find the doctor she's looking for?"

Feng Yongle asked blankly, "Why?"

Ruan Nanzhu said, "Have you ever considered that perhaps the doctor isn't from the sanatorium at all?"

Lin Qiushi was stunned when he heard this.

The author has something to say: Ruan Nanzhu: The child has finally grown up...

Lin Qiushi: Right? I can finally help you clean up the mess?

Ruan Nanzhu: I can finally wash and eat...

Lin Qiushi: ???