Chapter 20: Grade 7

Qing Bai's heart moved slightly, and he looked up at Jiu Nian. He saw that although his brows were slightly frowned, he was not nervous, as if the situation before him was troublesome but not difficult to solve... or he had already realized it.

Qing Bai then spoke to confirm his previous intuition: "Deeper memories? So maybe the little girl and the old man aren't ghosts?"

"It's not human either..." Nine years of searching for words to explain the principle, but to no avail. In the end, he could only simply say, "...You can also think of it as an illusion, a re-creation of someone's memory that actually happened."

Qi Xiaopang smacked his lips. "Whose memory is this? The little princess? She was so miserable, seeing ghosts since she was little... ahem, being chased around and fed like this since she was little, I guess her stomach must be not so good."

Qi Xiaopang originally wanted to say that he had seen ghosts since he was a child. Although Jiunian said that the old man was not a ghost, judging from his appearance, the way he rummaged through drawers and cabinets looking for someone, that terrifying "turning back to kill", and the strength he had to pull out a large wooden box... he was no different from a ghost.

But then I thought, the little girl is not much worse than me. Judging from her good teeth, her stomach is probably not too bad either.

It's hard to say who's scarier.

"Nan.nan..." Qing Bai said thoughtfully, "Li Nannan?"

"Li Nannan? Is that the little princess's name?"

Qing Bai thought about it and shook his head: "The name engraved on the stele is Li Nannan..."

But he still felt that the name 'Nannan' was a bit hasty.

"Ah! He chased out!" Li Canglan suddenly screamed.

While they were talking, the old man finally put the wooden box back on the bench, and then walked towards the direction where the girl ran out with a "sha-da, sha-da" step, calling the girl's name as he walked.

"Should...should we follow?" Fat Qi secretly didn't want to follow. He hadn't recovered from the shock he had just received. Not only could he not blink without eyelids, but he couldn't even control his tears. Right now, his eye sockets were like springs, water kept oozing out. He was too embarrassed to say it.

But now he is just a pendant and has no say.

Sure enough, just after he asked this question, his brother Qing picked him up without thinking, and his skill was comparable to when he carried a bag to go to the library to study. As for Li Canglan... Li Canglan was obviously more self-reliant and had more dignity than him. After being picked up once, he tried hard to "rehabilitation" and strive to free one of his teacher Qing's hands. At this moment, he was lying on the doorstep, eager to try, and could turn over and become a human being at any time with his own strength.

"etc."

Qi Xiaopang looked at Jiu Nian with tears in his eyes, hoping that he would speak up to stop his brother Qing.

Then I heard Jiu Nian say in his gentle and pleasant voice, "I'll go ahead."

Qi Xiaopang: “…” It was a wrong decision after all.

Qing Bai did not argue, but took a step back obediently, and raised his hand to make a "please" gesture.

Jiu Nian: "..." I was clearly walking in front for the purpose of protection, but why do I feel like I'm being given way to others...

It was not until he returned to the main hall that Qi Xiaopang truly understood what Jiu Nian meant when he said, "From the moment we stepped through this door, the house is no longer the same house as before."

'This door' refers to the bedroom door.

According to the speed at which the thick fog outside was invading, the main hall should have been swallowed up by the fog soon. But now, not only has it not happened, but the main hall has changed drastically - three large round tables are squeezed into the small room, and seven dishes are placed on each table. I don’t know if it is because the host is willing to put in a lot of ingredients, but each bowl and plate of food is surprisingly large, like a washbasin, and seven dishes can hardly fit on the large round tables.

All three tables were packed with people, and from time to time people were toasting each other... Of course, these people toasting each other also continued the usual style of the illusion - they had no facial features.

The little girl who had just crawled out of the bedroom was sitting at the table in the middle... with her bloodstained white face.

"Is this... a holiday?" Fat Qi looked at the bustling scene in front of him in surprise and couldn't help but ask, "Happy New Year?"

"It's not New Year's Eve, it's a banquet." Qing Bai raised his chin towards the innermost end of the hall and said calmly, "A birthday banquet requires nine servings of food, a wedding banquet requires eight servings, and a funeral banquet requires seven servings..."

There are exactly seven dishes on each table here.

Following Qing Bai's light voice, several people looked up, their eyes passing the little girl sitting upright and looking into the main hall. Only then did they see that there was a small altar against the innermost wall, with white wax on both sides and a large black and white photo in the middle.

The photo was really big, so big that it seemed as if the little girl sitting in the front had just walked out of the photo - although she had no facial features, her facial contours, hair and clothing were exactly the same as the girl in the photo.

"Is this really just a memory?" Qi Xiaopang's voice trembled. "Who would have the memory of eating at their own table?"

Qing Bai also looked at Jiu Nian with a questioning look.

Jiu Nian, however, wasn't particularly surprised. He said as if he had expected it: "Since it's a personal memory illusion, it's inevitable that it will be a bit exaggerated and absurd due to emotional instability."

You call this a 'little' exaggerated and absurd? Qi Xiaopang was confused. The key point was that his brother Qing nodded in agreement with an expression that said, 'You make sense.'

"Why doesn't she eat?" Li Canglan asked.

In the noisy room filled with people eating and drinking, Li Canglan's voice was easily drowned out. If Qing Bai hadn't been close by, he would have almost missed it.

Qing Bai looked down at Li Canglan, who was staring at him in confusion. He was silent for a moment before saying, "Maybe he was too angry to eat."

"Angry?" Li Canglan raised his head and looked at Qing Bai with his dark eyes, not understanding what he was saying.

Qing Bai couldn't help but rub Li Canglan's fluffy head, then withdrew his hand before she could react and said seriously: "Yes, she was very angry, very furious, so angry that she wanted to overturn the table and then press the heads of these people who were eating and drinking into the dish basin one by one..."

Unexpectedly, Li Canglan shook his head after hearing this and refuted seriously, "She is not even as tall as the dining table. She can't lift it."

He paused, probably assessing the little girl's height and the length of her arms, and added, "You can't press anyone's head either."

"And even if she's tall enough and strong enough, she wouldn't be able to flip the table and then press someone's head into the dish because of the order of operations." Qi Xiaopang also joined in the fun. "It's more like pressing the head first and then flipping the table."

Qing Bai didn't get angry after being criticized. He shrugged his shoulders and looked nonchalant: "Since it's just a child's fantasy, it's inevitable that there will be some unrealistic and illogical parts."

After hearing what Qing Bai said, Qi Xiaopang was a little speechless, but the fear in his heart also subsided a lot. He couldn't help but secretly sigh that his brother Qing was indeed cold on the outside but warm on the inside. In such a scary scene, he didn't forget to tell jokes to ease the atmosphere... Although it was a bit forced to call it a joke.

Jiu Nian's eyes paused. Unlike Qi Xiaopang, he knew Qing Bai was serious about what he said before, but for the last sentence, he couldn't tell if it was just a casual remark or a pretext for ridicule...

"Crash--" Just when everyone was thinking about their own things, an accident suddenly happened in the dining area.

The little girl actually overturned the table.

Li Canglan slowly widened his palm-sized eyes.

The main room instantly became quiet. The guests who had been toasting each other just now stopped what they were doing. Their featureless faces turned slowly and in unison like poisoned sunflowers towards the expressionless little girl sitting in the main seat.

Several people thought that a conflict was about to break out, but the atmosphere fell into a strange stalemate, as if they had not reacted to the fact that the table had been overturned. Some people even used chopsticks to pick up air and blow it into the cracks on their faces as usual.

Until suddenly a horrified voice rang out from the table: "The photo is exposed! The photo is exposed!"

Everyone woke up as if from a dream, and there was a noise even louder than when the table was overturned just now.

"Where's the cloth? Where's the cloth? Where's the cloth?"

"Who tore it open? Who tore it open?"

"We can't let her show herself, we can't show her! She's looking at me! She's looking at me! She's coming back for us! Ah!"

“…”

The wailing of ghosts and the howling of wolves are nothing more than this.

This inexplicable chaos ended when someone pulled a piece of cloth to cover the photo on the altar tightly. Everyone then returned to silence and sat back at the table. Compared to the photos, they didn't care at all about the overturned table and the greasy and messy seats with splattered soup.

Qing Bai's eyes were fixed on the little girl. In the chaos just now, she was the only one who had been sitting quietly in her seat as if nothing had happened. However, Qing Bai clearly saw a piece of white linen exposed under her seat. If nothing unexpected happened, that should be the cloth that originally covered the photo on the spiritual platform.

Not only Qing Bai, but also the diners without facial features finally noticed the strangeness of the little girl, but the details were slightly different.

"Nan.Nan, your clothes are so clean."

"Yeah, it's so clean..."

"So clean, so clean, the King of Destruction's clothes are so clean..."

One person spoke, and everyone echoed.

Qi Xiaopang was so shocked by the shouts of "So clean" that sounded like they came from the underworld that he broke out in a cold sweat.

"No... What's wrong with these people? They compliment people on their clean clothes, so they compliment them. If you don't know better, you might think they're watching meat being washed and peeled and ready to be cooked..."

Perhaps it was because he had just experienced immersive hide-and-seek from the little girl's perspective in the bedroom. Although they were both faceless, Fat Qi was clearly more fond of the little girl. In this situation, it was really hard not to complain: "The little girl just overturned your table of food. You don't want to put her in the pot, right? Are you really here to eat for nothing?"

As soon as the words were spoken, troubles arose again.

"These aren't Nannan's clothes! They aren't Nannan's clothes! Nannan's clothes can't be this clean! They're hers! They're hers!"

"It has to be burned. Only by burning it can it be clean. Only by burning it can it be clean!"

"Burn it, burn it!"

The faceless people muttered "burn it" while reaching out their hands towards the little girl. The little girl, who was not even as tall as the dining table, was instantly submerged by the large blue-white hands coming from all directions.

"Fuck! It's really cannibalistic!"

Qing Bai raised his finger and pointed at the small altar at the innermost end of the hall: "The person is over there."

The little girl had already escaped from the encirclement and took the photos with her while running away.

"There's a small door behind the Lingtai!" Fatty Qi finally caught on and quickly stuffed the backpack strap into his brother's hand, urging him, "Let's catch up, hurry up!"

Qing Bai raised his eyebrows: "Are you not afraid now?"

Qi Xiaopang pretended to be profound: "I have a feeling that little girl is the key figure. As long as we follow her, we won't be afraid of missing any clues to the plot!"

There are no plot clues. Is this an escape room or a script-killing game?

But the point about the key person is true... Qing Bai said no more, carrying the person around the wreckage and the crazy faceless man to chase after him... Jiu Nian was already waiting at the door, holding Li Canglan in one hand.

Qing Bai smiled inexplicably.

Quite self-conscious.