Chapter 2 Iron Door and Key
After dawn, the terrifying atmosphere of last night dissipated a lot.
Lin Qiushi was about to descend the second-floor corridor when he heard a rustling noise coming from the third floor, as if many people were discussing something. He hadn't intended to investigate, but then he heard a woman's wailing, a wail of grief and grief, as if she had suffered something utterly tragic.
After a moment's hesitation, Lin Qiushi turned around and went to the stairs to the third floor to see what was going on upstairs.
The building here is made of wood. The wooden boards on the stairs are a bit old. They creak when you step on them, and some places even tremble, as if they can't bear the weight of a human body.
Lin Qiushi reached the third floor and saw several people standing in the corridor. But what caught his attention was the strong smell of blood in the air.
The smell of blood was so strong that it stung people's noses. Lin Qiushi felt something was wrong. He moved his feet and walked carefully behind the few people.
"I knew it." Xiong Qi, the tall man who had picked up Lin Qiushi and the others yesterday, was discussing something in a low voice. "Sure enough, something happened yesterday..."
Xiao Ke was also speaking. She said, "I think so too. I thought it was..." At this point, she turned and glanced at Lin Qiushi who had walked up behind her. "Forget it."
Lin Qiushi wondered, "Who did you think it was? Did you think it was me and Ruan Baijie?" He looked up and saw a door behind Xiao Ke.
The door was half-open, and blood was all over the floor. Because it was too cold, the blood had already solidified, but you could still see that there was a lot of blood.
"What happened?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"Someone's dead." Xiong Qi's tone was very flat.
Lin Qiushi: "...Someone's dead?" If it were yesterday, he would probably have found it incredible how these people could say such things in such a calm tone. But after experiencing what happened last night, he had clearly realized that the place he was in was no longer a world that could be explained by common sense.
"Yeah." Xiong Qi said.
Lin Qiushi shifted his perspective and glanced inside the door. This sight caused him to gasp. The room was covered in congealed blood. Two bodies lay haphazardly on the floor, their flesh and blood so mangled they were unrecognizable. They looked more like skinless lumps of flesh than human. Blood flowed all over the floor, from the floor to the walls. There was hardly a clean spot on the entire third floor.
Although Lin Qiushi had prepared himself mentally, he was still disgusted by the scene. He covered his mouth and turned away. Xiao Ke was very understanding and said, "There's a toilet in the next room."
Lin Qiushi quickly rushed into the toilet and vomited violently.
After waiting for him to finish vomiting, Xiao Ke said, "I thought you wouldn't vomit."
Lin Qiushi: "Ah?"
Xiao Ke said calmly, "You and Ruan Baijie are already new recruits with very good qualities. Generally, the condition of new recruits at the first door is very poor, and the survival rate is about 20%."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Xiao Ke said, "Let's go downstairs and have breakfast."
Lin Qiushi asked, "Then why don't we just ignore those two corpses?"
Xiao Ke's expression was very strange when he heard this: "How do you want to manage it?"
Lin Qiushi was speechless. He was following the group downstairs when something suddenly occurred to him. He asked in confusion, "Wait, when I was on the second floor, I heard a woman crying on the third floor..." He looked around and confirmed that Xiao Ke was the only girl among them. She looked calm and didn't look like someone who would burst into tears.
"Is the woman crying?" Xiao Ke said, "We didn't hear it. You must have heard it wrong."
Lin Qiushi: "...Okay."
Breakfast on the first floor was already prepared and placed on the table, steaming hot. The cooks were said to be villagers from the village, and they looked no different from normal people.
After Lin Qiushi had breakfast, he borrowed some thick clothes from them and inquired about the affairs of the village.
"There's nothing going on in our village," the villagers said, unable to offer any useful information. "Only a few tourists come every winter."
Lin Qiushi: "Oh...how do you usually manage your daily necessities?"
The villager said, "We can go outside the mountains to buy them. Even though the mountain roads are difficult to travel on, we have to find a way. But once it snows, we can't go out. The mountain roads are blocked, and we can only stay here for the whole winter."
Lin Qiushi thought for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Are all the wells in your village dug in the center of the courtyard?"
It was not known if it was Lin Qiushi’s illusion, but when he mentioned the word “well”, the villagers’ expressions seemed to become much more nervous, but they did not give any special information. They just nodded, said “yes”, and turned away.
Lin Qiushi thought about it for a while but couldn't figure out anything, so he decided to give the clothes to Ruan Baijie first and then think about other things.
When he entered the room, Ruan Baijie was lying on the bed playing with her phone. Seeing him come in, she hummed softly, "You're so slow."
Lin Qiushi handed the borrowed clothes to the bed: "Get up, there's breakfast on the first floor."
Ruan Baijie nodded.
Lin Qiushi said, "I'll go out and wait for you."
"Wait." Ruan Baijie suddenly shouted, "What's that above your head?"
"What?" Lin Qiushi was puzzled.
Ruan Baijie waved at him, and Lin Qiushi approached her.
"It's all red..." Ruan Baijie reached out and touched Lin Qiushi's head, then turned her palm over. "What is this?"
Lin Qiushi felt something was wrong as soon as he saw what was in Ruan Baijie's hand, because it looked like frozen blood.
"I'll go check it out." Lin Qiushi hurried into the bathroom. Just as Ruan Baijie had predicted, he noticed his hair was covered in tiny bits of ice. These bits were dark red, completely invisible in his hair. He had no idea when they'd gotten there.
"Fuck." Lin Qiushi cursed softly and wiped his head with a towel. It would have been fine if he hadn't wiped it, but the more he wiped, the more shocking it became. The hot towel was almost stained red, and his hair was still not wiped clean.
Ruan Baijie, who had changed into thicker clothes, came over and said rudely, "Fortunately, this thing isn't green."
Lin Qiushi: "...Have you ever seen green blood?"
Ruan Baijie asked, "Is this blood?"
Lin Qiushi sighed and briefly recounted what happened on the third floor. When he mentioned the death, Ruan Baijie began to cry softly again and said, "Brother Lin, I'm so scared. Will we be the next to die?"
After all, she is a beautiful girl, and it is heartbreaking to see her crying so miserably.
Lin Qiushi stepped forward to comfort her. Just as Ruan Baijie was about to rest her head on his shoulder, she suddenly said, "Brother Lin, how tall are you?"
Lin Qiushi: “…1.8 meters.”
"Oh." Ruan Baijie said, "It's shorter than me."
Lin Qiushi: “…” I’m sorry for wronging you.
Lin Qiushi turned around and cleaned his hair, wondering where the blood had come from. Finally, he had a terrifying thought... Could it be dripping from the third-floor ceiling...?
"I want to go to the third floor to take a look," Lin Qiushi said. "You can go to the first floor to eat first."
"Are you going alone?" Ruan Baijie said, "Let's go together."
"Aren't you afraid?" Lin Qiushi asked suspiciously. Ruan Baijie was crying just now.
"Aren't you here with me?" Ruan Baijie lifted the black hair by her ear and smiled gently, "With you here, what should I be afraid of?"
Lin Qiushi thought, that’s right. After all, from what I saw last night, you run faster than me.
So the two of them went along the corridor to the third floor.
The floor was still covered in blood, and the remains of the uncollected corpse remained. However, this time, Lin Qiushi's attention was focused on the ceiling. He looked up and, as expected, saw traces of blood on the ceiling. However, the traces were quite unsettling, as if something had clung to the ceiling and was slowly crawling across. Perhaps due to the passage of time, the blood on the ceiling had also frozen, but faint traces of blood could still be seen dripping onto the floor.
Lin Qiushi's scalp tingled as he watched. He really didn't want to think about what was hanging on the ceiling when he first appeared on the third floor... and they hadn't noticed it from beginning to end.
Ruan Baijie looked up at the ceiling for a long time.
Lin Qiushi asked her what she saw.
"I saw the ceiling," Ruan Baijie said. "What else could I see? The starry sky and my dreams?"
Lin Qiushi: “…”
She was really brave. After looking at the ceiling, she also went to look at the two bloody corpses. She did not show any discomfort at all and even looked a little excited.
It was not until Lin Qiushi looked at her suspiciously and asked, "Aren't you afraid?" that she seemed to remember something and started to sob cooperatively.
Lin Qiushi: "...Stop whining. Are you going to have breakfast?"
"Eat, eat, eat." Ruan Baijie, "I'm hungry too."
The two of them then went downstairs and saw that everyone had finished breakfast and seemed to be waiting for them.
"Where have you two been?" Xiong Qi asked, "I've been waiting for you."
Facing everyone's gaze, Ruan Baijie was not nervous at all. She sat down at the table lightly, picked up the bowl and started to eat breakfast.
Lin Qiushi was not as shameless as Ruan Baijie. He mentioned the bloodstains on his hair and also said that he saw some strange marks on the ceiling on the third floor.
Everyone looked unhappy after hearing this, and some even looked up at the ceiling reflexively.
They were discussing the deaths last night and the strange traces when a middle-aged man in his forties walked in. He was wearing a thick army green cotton-padded jacket, holding an oil lamp, and walked slowly into the hall.
"Hello," the man said, "I'm the village chief. You're the people I've asked to help, right?"
As soon as he spoke, everyone in the room fell silent.
"It's getting cold, and our village wants to make a coffin to prepare for the coming year," the man said in a hoarse voice, "so I'd like you to help the carpenter."
No one answered the village chief, and the village chief didn't seem to be prepared to get any answers from them.
After he finished speaking, he coughed a few times, then picked up the shaky kerosene lamp and walked out. Although the snow had stopped outside, the wind continued to blow. The howling sound of the wind hitting the door and the treetops sounded like a human wailing.
"It's started." Xiong Qi said softly.
As soon as he finished speaking, a strong wind blew outside the house, blowing the half-open door heavily against the wall. With a click, the wooden door that seemed quite sturdy was smashed into several pieces.
Everyone in the room was silent. Finally, Xiong Qi spoke first: "It should be making a coffin."
"How could this happen? How could this happen?!" A wailing sound rang out from the room. Lin Qiushi turned around and saw a man from the team having a breakdown. "This is such a difficult world—how can we possibly survive? Who can build a coffin? We're going to die. We're going to die here—"
Xiong Qi seemed to be accustomed to such scenes, and his expression showed no emotion at all.
The man, overcome with emotion, roared and smashed everything on the table to the ground, his face covered in tears and snot. "There were thirteen people coming in, and two died on the first day... I've never encountered this kind of difficulty before!!"
"Alright!" Xiong Qi said impatiently, "You don't have to die if you cry. Why are you throwing a tantrum? You think you're a newcomer, but look at the quality of the newcomers!"
This remark caused Lin Qiushi to be inexplicably glared at fiercely by the man. He thought to himself that it was his fault that he had such a good mental state.
However, it is not surprising that the man's mental breakdown. In this different dimension from the normal world, with all kinds of terrifying omens, it is difficult for people to remain calm.
"Let's discuss what to do first," Xiong Qi said. "The village chief said he wanted to build a coffin, so this must be the key."
Lin Qiushi asked, "Excuse me, what is a key?"
Xiong Qi glanced at him and said, "It's used to open the door. After we come in, we need to find the key to get out based on the clues provided by the people inside. Then we can find an iron door and leave here."
Lin Qiushi asked, "Is there a time limit?"
Xiong Qi sneered: "Of course, before everyone dies."
So that's how it was. Lin Qiushi felt a little relieved. At least there was a way out. What he feared most was the unsolvable terror. Unable to escape or shake off, no matter what he did, it would be futile.
"The clue is the coffin." Xiong Qi looked at the weather outside and said, "Let's go find the carpenter in the village and ask him about the situation."
"Okay." Xiao Ke said, "I'll go with you."
Lin Qiushi raised his hand: "I want to go, too."
Xiong Qi nodded nonchalantly, "Okay." Unconsciously, he had become the leader of the entire team. He ordered, "Check the building and see if there are any useful clues."
At this time, Ruan Baijie walked forward, gently pulled Lin Qiushi's sleeve, and whispered, "I'm scared. I want to be with you."
Although the girl was indeed quite tall and didn't look like a petite lady at all, she was pretty, which ultimately made people feel a little pity for her. Lin Qiushi nodded, "Okay, but I can't guarantee that I can protect your safety."
Ruan Baijie smiled: "It's okay." She lifted the hair from her ear and said, "I feel at ease being with you."
Lin Qiushi thought to himself, girl, you are quite good at flirting.
So the four of them hurried out while it was still early.
On the way, Lin Qiushi asked Xiong Qi some more details about this world. He learned that the ghosts here generally didn't kill people indiscriminately. However, there were exceptions. In difficult worlds, the ghosts would have no taboos and would strike whenever they pleased. In such a situation, there was no chance of survival.
"What is the meaning of this world's existence?" Lin Qiushi asked the question he was most curious about.
When Xiong Qi heard this question, he looked at him deeply and said, "When you return alive, you will know."
Lin Qiushi: “…Oh.”
They learned the address of the village carpenter from the villagers. The road was too difficult to walk on in the snow, and it took them more than an hour to get there.
Lin Qiushi took the opportunity to observe the situation in the village.
The village wasn't large, surrounded by dense jungle. Normally, it was fine, but the snow had essentially cut off any escape routes. There weren't many people in the village, and occasionally, you'd see two or three walking along the road. Normally, encountering outsiders in such a place was quite unusual, but judging by the villagers' expressions, they didn't seem at all curious about Lin Qiushi and his companions' arrival.
The carpenter's house was at the east end of the village. When he went outside, he could see the faint light of an oil lamp coming from inside.
Xiong Qi went forward and knocked on the door. A moment later, a short old man appeared from behind the door. He was about sixty or seventy years old, with sparse hair and wearing a tattered gray cotton jacket. His face was wrinkled and his eyes were cloudy. He said, "What can I do for you?"
"It's too cold outside. Can we go in and talk?" Xiong Qi asked.
The old man didn't say anything, but turned and made way for the door.
The four people outside the door came in one after another.
The room was not big and was very messy everywhere. Lin Qiushi observed the surroundings and noticed that there was a hole in the window. A wooden board was roughly nailed to the window frame to simply block the wind.
"Old man, we were invited by the village chief to make coffins," Xiong Qi said, "but we don't know much about this. I heard you're a famous carpenter in the village. Could you give me some advice?"
The old man gave Xiong Qi a cold look and said, "To make a coffin, you first have to chop down a tree. After you chop down the tree, send the wood to me. Then you can go to the temple and worship, and then you can start making it."
Xiong Qi grasped the key words: "Go to the temple to worship?"
The old man nodded and said: "There is an ancient temple next to the village. Here, making a coffin is considered a bad deed. We must go and pay our respects first."
He repeated the word "bai bai" many times, which made people feel inexplicably uncomfortable.
"What happens after the worship?" Xiong Qi said.
The old man fell silent.
Xiong Qi asked, "Old man?"
The old man still didn't speak.
Under Xiong Qi's repeated questioning, the old man smiled, and the smile looked extremely ferocious against the backdrop of the firelight. He lowered his voice and said, "When you are still alive, come and ask me."
Xiong Qi's face turned ashen.
Ruan Baijie said without hesitation, "Don't worry, old man. It's so cold out there. What if you die before we finish?"
The old man sneered: "The old man has a tough life."
Ruan Baijie: "I think you are the only one who can be strong."
Old man: “…”
Others: “…”
Lin Qiushi thought to himself, why are you so skilled? Is it really okay to confront NPCs? Most people would be a little scared when encountering someone with such a terrifying aura, but seeing Ruan Baijie rolling her eyes, she didn't think there was anything wrong at all.
"Alright, alright," Lin Qiushi said, "If he doesn't want to talk, then don't force him..."
Ruan Baijie said, "How can this not be forced? We'll just accept it if it dies first, but what if he dies first?" The girl rolled up her sleeves and looked around the room, finally stopping on a wooden stick as thick as an arm.
Lin Qiushi cursed in his heart, thinking that they really had to use violence. This was a fucking horror world. Was it really okay to use violence against NPCs?
Who knew that before Ruan Baijie even picked up the stick, the old man got scared and said angrily: "After you finish worshipping, go fill a well and the coffin will be ready!"
Ruan Baijie: "Oh, Qiushi, he's glaring at me~"
Lin Qiushi: “…” The look in your eyes just now was much more terrifying than his.
Xiong Qi hadn't expected this to work either, and he and Xiao Ke were both stunned for a moment. They'd been polite to everyone in this world, fearing they might offend. Ruan Baijie hadn't played by the rules at all. And she'd gotten the final answer so easily—though that answer wasn't necessarily correct.
When everyone came out of the carpenter's house, Xiong Qi asked Ruan Baijie's name with mixed feelings.
Ruan Baijie looked pitiful and said, "My surname is Ruan, and my name is Ruan Baijie. Brother, you can just call me Jiejie."
Xiong Qi called her Jie Jie, but he always felt something was wrong, so he ended up calling her Bai Jie along with Lin Qiushi.
It has been almost a day since he came here, but Xiong Qi still just learned Ruan Baijie's name. He saw Ruan Baijie crying yesterday, and probably thought that Ruan Baijie would not live long in this world, so he didn't even ask her name.
However, after Ruan Baijie's wonderful performance just now, Xiong Qi also felt that this girl was not as weak as she appeared.
"Weren't you afraid just now?" Xiong Qi asked her.
Ruan Baijie's answer was convincing. She said, "Afraid? Why should I be afraid? Being afraid of ghosts is fine, but being afraid of people is a bit too pathetic. Besides, this kind of person is obviously a key NPC. If he really dies, our information will be cut off. How can we survive to the end then?"
The three of them were speechless, and they all felt that what she said made sense.
At least they got the key information from the carpenter, and everyone felt much more at ease, so they decided to go back and tell everyone about this matter.
Although it was daytime, the sky was covered with a thick layer of dark clouds. No snow was falling, and a sharp wind was blowing. Ruan Baijie, wearing her long skirt and two thick cotton jackets, followed Lin Qiushi, looking fragile and frail, as if she could be blown away at any moment.
Lin Qiushi couldn't bear it, so he reached out and held her, letting her walk in front of him, and shielded her from the wind behind.
Ruan Baijie was quite touched. She blinked her beautiful eyes and asked Lin Qiushi, "You are so kind."
Lin Qiushi said, "You're welcome."
Ruan Baijie said, "Are you so nice to everyone?"
Lin Qiushi: "...Did you see how I treated Xiong Qi?" He joked, "It's because you're pretty."
Xiong Qi, who was walking in front, said: "I heard it."
Ruan Baijie looked thoughtful when she heard this: "As long as it looks good, that's all?"
Lin Qiushi thought she was joking and said casually, "Of course she has to be tall."
Ruan Baijie: "Oh..."
The author has something to say:
Ruan Baijie: Oh, oh, oh
Lin Qiushi: Stop crying. It always reminds me of a word.
Ruan Baijie: What?
Lin Qiushi: Old Ying Catches Chicks
Ruan Baijie: So you are a chick?
Lin Qiushi: ...
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(This book comes from: Longfeng Internet)
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