Chapter 22 Bloody Eggs
Since arriving here, they have already eaten several meals cooked by the triplets' mother.
But every meal has a characteristic, that is, the ingredients are almost all vegetarian, without any meat or fish. Basically, an egg is considered a snack - because of this, Xu Xiaocheng once complained dissatisfiedly.
But today's meal was different. Bright red meatballs floated in a light-colored broth. The meatballs were a beautiful, alluring crimson. The rich aroma filled everyone's nostrils. If they hadn't just witnessed such a gruesome crime scene, their appetites would have been whetted.
"Eat it," the woman said. "Why not? I made it especially for you." Her hair was a little messy, and she had an unpleasant smile on her face. She stood by and whispered, "It's delicious."
No one picked up their chopsticks.
Although the meatballs in front of us were so tempting, everyone obviously thought of something bad - what kind of meat were these meatballs made of?
"Why aren't you eating?" the woman continued to ask, puzzled. She brushed her hair away from her ear and was the first to pick up her chopsticks. She picked up a meatball and said, "It's delicious."
She put the meatball into her mouth, chewing the red meat with her snow-white teeth, which looked extremely sweet.
Xu Xiaocheng covered her mouth again, looking as if she was about to vomit from the scene. The others' expressions were also unhappy. But the woman seemed not to notice. She picked up the second meatball with her chopsticks and continued to stuff it into her mouth with a satisfied look, swallowing it in big gulps.
"Crunch, crunch." As the meatballs were eaten, the woman's mouth made a sound similar to chewing on crisp bones. Xu Xiaocheng finally couldn't bear it anymore and stood up and rushed to the toilet.
The others also left the table, wanting to stay away from this woman and the pot of steaming meatballs.
The woman saw their frightened expressions, but seemed not to understand why. She kept muttering, "Is the food I cook not delicious? They all like it."
No one spoke. At this moment, everyone missed the dry bread. At least that one would not cause any problems.
During the meal, the only two remaining triplets reappeared. They stood at the door hand in hand, silently watching their mother who was eating heartily.
Lin Qiushi was relatively close to them, so he observed them out of the corner of his eye for a moment and discovered that, just as Ruan Nanzhu had described, one of them had shimmering powder on her shoulders, and the other had it in her hair. Lin Qiushi remembered Ruan Nanzhu saying that the one on her shoulders was Xiao Shi, and the one in her hair was Xiao Tu. So, the girl who had been killed must have been their older sister, Xiao Yi.
The twins were still elusive. After standing at the door for a while, they disappeared.
This lunch made everyone very unhappy. They thought dinner would be better, but who knew that at dinner, the woman brought out another pot of steaming bone soup.
The bones and radishes were stewed together in the broth, and the rich aroma once again filled everyone's nostrils.
Everyone hadn't eaten all day, but when they saw this pot of bone soup, their faces became uglier than each other.
Zhang Xinghuo couldn't help but curse under his breath: "I wanted to eat meat every day a few days ago, but there was nothing. Why is there only meat today?"
"How dare you eat this meat?" Tang Yaoyao was also a little annoyed. "Who knows what it's made of."
Seeing that no one was still eating, the woman stopped trying to persuade them and instead picked up the soup spoon and started drinking. Although no one had tasted the soup, it was inexplicably delicious.
"It's really delicious." The woman exclaimed, "It's a shame you don't eat it."
So everyone didn't eat for a whole day and watched the woman eat a full pot of meat and drink a big bowl of soup.
After the woman finished eating, everyone gathered together and ate the tasteless dry bread in silence.
"That soup looks delicious." Zeng Ruguo was reluctant to part with the food on the table. "Is it really not drinkable?"
"Who knows what that soup is made of?" Tang Yaoyao said impatiently, "Is it so difficult to hold on for a few days? When you return to your original world, you can eat delicious food and drink spicy drinks if you want, and no one will stop you."
"Where's the little girl's body? Where did her mother take it?" Xu Xiaocheng asked softly. She twitched her nose and pretended to glance at the broth on the table casually. "If we find the body, we can drink this soup, right?"
Lin Qiushi looked helpless, thinking that this girl was quite ruthless. Even if she saw the corpse, she wouldn't want to taste the soup. No matter how delicious it smelled, no one could tell what the ingredients were.
"Let's look for them?" Tang Yaoyao said, "Before, I thought the problem was with the triplets, but now I feel that the problem is with their mother."
"Why don't we look for the body first?" Ruan Nanzhu suddenly suggested, "This room isn't that big anyway."
After the girl's body was cleaned up, no one knew where it was put. Fortunately, the house was not big, so it should be easy to find.
"Then let's look for it." Tang Yaoyao agreed with Ruan Nanzhu's suggestion. "It just so happens that we haven't searched this room before, so we can see if there are any new clues."
So the group began to check around the house.
The house wasn't big, just three bedrooms and two living rooms. The kitchen was the primary target of his inspection, and Lin Qiushi spotted some ingredients there. They were almost entirely vegetarian and looked stale. No wonder the food tasted so bad.
The bathroom is next to the kitchen. There is nothing special about the bathroom. The only eye-catching thing is the huge bathtub in the bathroom.
There were some black stains in the bathtub, and it looked like it had not been used for a long time. Lin Qiushi took a closer look and felt that the black stains looked a bit like blood, but he was not particularly sure.
They searched around, almost every corner of the house, but still couldn't find the bag of corpses.
"Where on earth did it go?" Tang Yaoyao asked, "Is there another room here?"
Ruan Nanzhu thought for a moment, then suddenly got up and went to the kitchen.
Tang Yaoyao said, "Why did you go to the kitchen? I've searched everywhere..."
Who knew that after Ruan Nanzhu entered the kitchen for a moment, everyone heard a sentence: "Found it."
Lin Qiushi hurried over and found Ruan Nanzhu standing at the refrigerator door. The door was wide open, revealing a black bag inside.
That bag was the body bag that the woman used to hold the little girl's body yesterday, and it now filled the entire refrigerator.
"She actually put it in the refrigerator." Tang Yaoyao felt a little disgusted. "I never want to eat anything she cooks again."
Ruan Nanzhu reached out and dragged the black bag out of the refrigerator.
Seeing this, Lin Qiushi asked, "What are you going to do?"
"Check it out." Ruan Nanzhu lowered his head. "Don't you want to eat meat?"
Zeng Ruguo, who had said that he wanted to eat meat, smiled awkwardly: "I don't really need to eat it..."
Ruan Nanzhu ignored him, untied the rope of the bag, and took out the contents. Inside was indeed the body of the little girl, chopped up so badly that some parts of the body could not even be identified.
Seeing the bloody body parts, Ruan Nanzhu's expression was very calm. He carefully examined the bag and then looked up: "No critical parts are missing - at least the bone soup was not made with her daughter."
Everyone: “…”
Tang Yaoyao looked at Ruan Nanzhu and laughed dryly: "Zhu Meng, you are too calm."
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Those who weren't calm are already dead." He pondered for a moment, "If it was really the mother who killed her daughter, the question is why she killed her daughter."
"Who knows? Maybe she's crazy?" Tang Yaoyao said irritably, "Let's stay away from her."
"Yeah." Ruan Nanzhu responded casually.
No one had eaten much that day, just a few bites of bread. By the evening, everyone was starving and listless. The worst thing was that the pot of broth was still sitting on the table, emitting a rich aroma.
Everyone felt a little overwhelmed when they thought of the woman drinking the soup so happily. They all said they were a little sleepy and wanted to go to bed first.
Lin Qiushi was also hungry. After gnawing on a piece of bread without any appetite, he went back to his room and lay down on the bed to prepare for sleep.
Ruan Nanzhu lay beside him and said, "Do you know why every family had so many children in the past?"
Lin Qiushi said, "I don't know..."
Ruan Nanzhu turned his head and put his mouth close to Lin Qiushi's ear: "Because there were no electronic products back then, they had nothing to do at night."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Ruan Nanzhu: "Look at us now..."
Lin Qiushi calmly took out his cell phone, indicating that he still had electronic products.
Ruan Nanzhu: "Is your phone still charged?"
Lin Qiushi: "I brought a charger..."
Ruan Nanzhu fell silent for a moment, then said aggrievedly, "You only know how to play with your phone and never talk to me."
Lin Qiushi was so confused by Ruan Nanzhu that he felt as if he really had a lovely girlfriend, and this lovely girlfriend was now acting coquettishly with him and complaining that he was not enthusiastic enough.
"Okay, what do you want to say?" Lin Qiushi put away his phone.
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Do you think someone will die tonight?"
Lin Qiushi was stunned. He didn't expect Ruan Nanzhu to say this suddenly.
"I think so." Ruan Nanzhu reached out and put his arm around Lin Qiushi's waist, whispering softly, "Because the egg is already stained with blood."
Lin Qiushi fell silent and began to ponder the meaning of Ruan Nanzhu's words.
Ruan Nanzhu did not explain in detail, but just said in a gentle voice: "Go to sleep, see you tomorrow." After that, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
Ruan Nanzhu fell asleep, but Lin Qiushi couldn't.
This narrow room is as cramped as a coffin. Anyone with claustrophobia would feel suffocated inside.
Fortunately, Lin Qiushi didn't have this problem, but he still felt a strong sense of discomfort. It was already dark, and the fog was growing thicker, making it impossible to see the surrounding scenery through the thick fog. The buildings that usually stood on the ground now stood alone, isolated from the world.
The night is quiet, but this silence brings people a sense of security. Lin Qiushi hopes that this silence can last until dawn.
However, Ruan Nanzhu's words seemed to have become a prophecy.
Around three in the morning, Lin Qiushi woke from his dream. A very unpleasant sound entered his ears.
The sound was like a sharp weapon chiseling the wall, dull but harsh, once, twice, and the sound was so close that Lin Qiushi seemed to be separated from the source of the sound by only a wall.
He opened his eyes and took a moment to realize that he was not dreaming.
Ruan Nanzhu was still sleeping, and Lin Qiushi hesitated whether to wake him up, but just as he was hesitating, the frequency of the sound began to increase, as if the person outside had lost patience and sped up.
"Dong," "Dong," "Dong," one sound after another. Lin Qiushi reached out his hand and gently nudged Ruan Nanzhu, saying, "Nanzhu, wake up."
Ruan Nanzhu opened his eyes, his eyes were clear, as if the person who was sleeping just now was not him at all: "What's wrong?"
"There's a noise outside," Lin Qiushi said. "It sounds like someone is chiseling at the wall."
Ruan Nanzhu looked at the wall next to them. Because it was an old building, the walls were not thick, so sound could easily travel. He reached out and gently placed his palm against the wall. Then his expression changed slightly, and he said, "Step back a little, away from that wall."
Lin Qiushi nodded. "What's wrong?"
"There's something outside." Ruan Nanzhu said, "I don't know what it is."
The two turned on the lights and looked at the wall that continued to make the knocking sounds in the residual light in the room.
If it was just a knocking sound, it would be fine. Soon, Lin Qiushi understood why Ruan Nanzhu asked him to stay away from the wall.
I saw a small hole gradually being chiseled out of the thin wall, and a sharp awl slowly emerged from behind the hole...
Because the room was so small, Lin Qiushi's bed was right next to the wall. The awl was long and sharp, and it poked right at the spot where his head was after he lay down. Lin Qiushi's face changed slightly when he saw this. If he had still been sleeping in bed just now, he would have died.
After the awl was inserted, it retreated again, as if because it did not see any blood, it stabbed several more times. After seeing no blood, it finally gave up and retracted the sharp awl.
The voices quieted down, and Lin Qiushi asked, "Gone?"
Ruan Nanzhu frowned: "Wait a little longer."
"Let me see." Lin Qiushi suddenly thought of something. He bent down and took a look at the hole that had been dug out. This look almost scared him to death. He saw a black eye blocking the hole. The eye was full of red bloodshot and had a sense of madness.
That eye also saw Lin Qiushi, and after knowing that it could not kill him, it disappeared outside the next moment.
Lin Qiushi was so frightened by this scene that he broke out in a cold sweat and cursed under his breath, "Fuck! Is that a human or a ghost out there?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "I don't know. Don't go out yet. Let's talk about it in the morning."
Lin Qiushi raised his hand to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead: "Hmm..." This situation was exactly like something in a horror movie. He never expected to see an eye there. They even stared at each other for a moment.
"How come you woke up so easily?" Ruan Nanzhu asked, "The sound wasn't that loud."
"My hearing is very good," said Lin Qiushi.
"It seems so." Ruan Nanzhu said, "You are always the first one to wake up."
Lin Qiushi sighed and looked at the hole again, "It's a good thing I woke up." Otherwise, his head would probably have been ripped open by now.
However, just as he breathed a sigh of relief, he heard the dong dong dong sound again, but the location was a little farther away than before, as if it was going to chisel at other people's walls.
"Fuck! He hasn't given up yet." Lin Qiushi cursed. "What should we do? Should we go and notify them?"
Ruan Nanzhu glanced at Lin Qiushi and said, "Wait for me inside. I'll go see what that thing is."
Lin Qiushi said, "Let's go together. We'll have someone to look after us if anything happens."
Ruan Nanzhu smiled faintly: "Aren't you afraid?"
Lin Qiushi: "Aren't you here?"
Ruan Nanzhu's smile deepened upon hearing this. He said, "Do you know that it's very tempting to see you trusting others wholeheartedly like this?"
Lin Qiushi was stunned: "What?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Forget it, it's okay."
The two men walked to the door and opened it. The creaking sound was particularly piercing, and the sound of chiseling in the wall outside immediately stopped. Ruan Nanzhu went out first, followed by Lin Qiushi. The corridor was unlit, completely dark. To illuminate the area, Lin Qiushi turned on the flashlight on his phone and shone it forward. Fortunately, the corridor was not long; standing at the end, one could see the entire corridor at a glance. Lin Qiushi remembered that the sound came from the right, so he took two steps to the right.
"Wait." Ruan Nanzhu suddenly grabbed Lin Qiushi, "There's someone over there."
Lin Qiushi looked in the direction Ruan Nanzhu pointed and indeed spotted a figure crouching in the corner. He took a closer look and was stunned: "Isn't this the triplets?"
"That's true." Ruan Nanzhu said, "Little girl, what are you doing there?"
The figure huddled in the corner slowly stood up. She was wearing a cute little skirt and pigtails, and walked towards Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu with an expressionless face.
"I can't sleep." The little girl's voice was childish. She walked in front of Lin Qiushi and looked up at him. "I can't sleep."
"Let's go back quickly," Lin Qiushi said. "It's too late. It's not safe outside."
When the little girl heard this, she looked at the location of her home door, and finally said nothing, turned around and walked towards home.
Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu watched her disappear into the darkness again.
"Is it her?" Lin Qiushi asked doubtfully, "Why would she do this..."
Ruan Nanzhu pursed her lips and said, "There's no powder on her body or head." The implication was that she was neither Xiao Shi nor Xiao Tu, but the dead Xiao Yi who was chopped into several pieces.
Lin Qiushi: "...Maybe they took a shower and changed their clothes?"
Ruan Nanzhu smiled sarcastically: "I hope so."
Because of this incident, Lin Qiushi didn't sleep much in the second half of the night.
Ruan Nanzhu was as carefree as ever, sleeping sweetly with Lin Qiushi in his arms, and even stayed in bed for a while when he got up in the morning.
"I fell down and need Qiushi's kiss to get up." Ruan Nanzhu lay on the bed.
Lin Qiushi was distressed by Ruan Nanzhu's coquettish behavior and said, "Brother, can you please stop acting like a coquettish person with this face?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Why? Don't you like Mengmeng anymore?" His expression was pitiful, and tears began to fill his big eyes - he really had the professional qualities of a dramatic actor.
Lin Qiushi said, "Mengmeng, stand up."
Ruan Nanzhu: “…”
After tossing and turning in bed for quite a while, the two finally went to wash up. While washing up, Ruan Nanzhu still hadn't finished his acting and leaned on Lin Qiushi and said, "Brother Lin, you were amazing last night."
Before Lin Qiushi could say anything, Zeng Ruguo, who was brushing his teeth nearby, overheard his words. His eyes suddenly became ambiguous, and he said, "Young people are really in good health."
Lin Qiushi gritted his teeth and said, "How am I so powerful?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "How annoying! Do you really have to make it so clear?"
Lin Qiushi almost bit the toothbrush in his mouth.
When we woke up this morning, breakfast was tasteless dry bread again. But after yesterday's trouble, everyone felt that the dry bread was still quite delicious... at least the ingredients were not weird.
"I have to tell you something." Tang Yaoyao whispered while eating, "I checked the refrigerator before dinner, and the body was gone."
"Gone?" Xu Xiaocheng's eyes widened. "What do you mean by gone?... Is there going to be meat for our lunch again?"
When it comes to meat, everyone's stomach starts to churn again.
"Maybe it's a misunderstanding." Tang Yaoyao said, "Didn't we check the body yesterday? Wasn't there any missing weight?"
"Who knows?" Ruan Nanzhu said, "How could you possibly notice if one or two pieces of meat were missing?"
While everyone was chatting, the twins just came out of the bedroom.
Lin Qiushi remembered something. He stood up and pretended to get the TV remote control. He passed by the twins and took the opportunity to take a look at their bodies.
Then something incredible happened. Two girls, one with glitter on her shoulders, the other with glitter in her hair—who was the one Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu saw yesterday? And the person who chiseled the wall, could it be the deceased Xiaoyi?
Thinking of the pile of body parts in the refrigerator, Lin Qiushi's throat moved up and down.
Ruan Nanzhu cast a questioning look at Lin Qiushi. Lin Qiushi shook his head slightly and told Ruan Nanzhu the answer. Ruan Nanzhu wasn't surprised by this. He just smiled calmly and said, "Today's dry bread is quite delicious."
"Doesn't dry bread taste the same every day?" Tang Yaoyao said unhappily.
"Of course it's different," Ruan Nanzhu said. "The last meal before death is always much more delicious than ordinary food."
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