Chapter 33 Diary
After briefly recounting everything he had just seen in the environment, Lin Qiushi fell silent.
Ruan Nanzhu fell into deep thought as he listened to his words. After a moment, he said, "Let's go to the top of the tower and take a look."
After saying this, he stood up and headed towards the top of the tower. Lin Qiushi followed him in a daze. He always felt that the illusion just now was not that simple, and seemed to be hinting at something.
The top of the tower is empty, there is nothing.
There is a hollow skylight at the top. As long as you look up, you can see the sky outside and some special round sculptures on the top of the tower.
Ruan Nanzhu was lost in thought as he stared at the sculpture. Neither Cheng Qianli nor Lin Qiushi bothered him.
Lin Qiushi walked around the top of the tower and found nothing. But just as he was about to talk to Cheng Qianli, a slight sound came from the wall beside him.
The sound was like someone scratching the wall with their fingers, making it extremely uncomfortable. Lin Qiushi now vaguely realized that his hearing seemed a little too sharp, easily able to detect sounds that others could not hear. Looking at Cheng Qianli, who was in a daze, it was obvious that he had not heard the sound at all.
This time, Lin Qiushi didn't ask Cheng Qianli if he'd heard anything. He simply walked over to the wall and gently knocked on it. The scratching sound immediately ceased, and then Lin Qiushi made a new discovery: this was the only empty spot on the entire tower's top wall.
"There seems to be something inside." Lin Qiushi suddenly said.
"What is that?" Cheng Qianli asked, "Here?" He knocked on it as well, and sure enough, he heard a hollow sound coming from inside.
Ruan Nanzhu withdrew his gaze from the sky above his head and asked, "What's wrong?"
"This wall is hollow," Lin Qiushi said. "I want to see if I can pry it open."
Ruan Nanzhu walked over, stretched out his hand and felt around the edge of the wall, then pulled out a sharp object from his pocket and began to pry it slowly. His movements were very deft, as if he was very familiar with this kind of work. Soon, he actually pried a gap in the edge of the wall.
Lin Qiushi was stunned: "How can this be possible?"
Cheng Qianli: "This is just a normal operation. Brother Ruan is really good."
After the wall in front was pried open, a secret compartment was revealed. Inside the secret compartment was a small red box that was not locked.
Ruan Nanzhu reached out and took out the box.
The three of them focused their attention on the box. Ruan Nanzhu moved his hand slightly and opened the lid of the box, revealing something inside that looked a bit like a hardcover notebook.
"Is this a diary or something?" Cheng Qianli instantly became interested and picked up the book and began to flip through it. "Could there be any clues to the key in it?"
After opening the book, they saw its contents.
The same sentence was written all over the front of the notebook: She is gone.
She is gone, she is gone, she is gone, she is gone. Different notes, the same words, fill every page of paper, making people feel very uncomfortable.
Ruan Nanzhu quickly flipped to the end, and when he was almost done, he finally saw different words. On the last page of the notebook, the words "She's Missing" were replaced by another sentence: "I can't find her."
"What is this?" Cheng Qianli immediately remembered the clue they had obtained, "Is this written by my sister?"
Ruan Nanzhu lowered his head and carefully examined the book. After a moment, he pointed to one of the pages and said, "There's another page in the middle that's been torn away."
Lin Qiushi took a look and discovered that there was indeed a page missing. It was just torn so neatly that if you didn't look closely, you wouldn't be able to tell. It was thanks to Ruan Nanzhu's meticulous attention that he could even see it.
"How did you find out there was something wrong with the wall?" Ruan Nanzhu asked.
Lin Qiushi: "...I heard someone scratching the wall."
Cheng Qianli actually reached out and scratched the wall fiercely a few times: "Is that so?"
The creaking sound made Lin Qiushi's scalp explode instantly.
Ruan Nanzhu cursed, "If you try to be so mean again, I'll have your brother deal with you when you get back."
Cheng Qianli quickly retracted his claws and said aggrievedly that he was just demonstrating.
Ruan Nanzhu: "The grass on the last grave where I demonstrated this was already five meters tall."
Putting the notebook into the bag he was carrying, Ruan Nanzhu said, "I think we need to go back to the temple."
"What do you mean?" Lin Qiushi was a little confused.
Ruan Nanzhu said: "It's just a guess now. I'll tell you when it's confirmed."
While they were discussing, they heard shrill screams from the first floor, followed by the sound of people running frantically on the stairs.
"There's a ghost, there's a ghost!!" The owner of the voice kept calling for help.
Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu exchanged glances, seeing the same expression in each other's eyes. Lin Qiushi said, "Let's go."
Ruan Nanzhu nodded, and they all planned to go down and see what happened.
By the time they reached the fourth floor where the accident occurred, the commotion had subsided.
The woman who screamed was now trembling in the arms of the man she was traveling with. Her face was filled with fear as she pointed at the wall, trembling: "There, there is a ghost—"
Because of her scream, almost everyone gathered on the fourth floor. Lin Qiushi looked in the direction the woman pointed, but only saw a black wall.
"What ghost?" the man holding the woman asked, "What did you see?"
"It's just a ghost." The woman trembled, "I can't tell..."
"What a fuss!" Someone in the team murmured quietly, "It's like the first time you walk in. Screaming like that at the mere sight of a ghost. How shameless."
The woman seemed to have heard what the man said and suddenly became very angry. She said, "What's wrong with me shouting out something? It's better than dying like this."
"Alright, alright, as long as nothing happened," Meng Yu said, smoothing things over. "So many people shouldn't be gathered on the same floor. If something happens, we won't be able to escape..."
Seeing that nothing serious had happened, everyone planned to disperse.
The screaming woman was about to leave, but something seemed to catch her clothes. At first, she thought it was someone behind her, and tugged at her sleeves twice in displeasure: "What are you doing? Stop pulling my clothes."
"I told you, stop pulling my clothes!" She was pulled twice more and finally got angry. She glared at the person behind her angrily, but this glare made her blood freeze instantly.
There was nothing behind her, no one.
"Ah..." The woman felt a little cold and hurriedly took a step forward to leave. However, just as she took a step, a pair of bloody hands suddenly reached out and grabbed her feet.
"Ah...ah!" The woman wanted to scream, but her mouth was covered by another pair of hands. She turned her head with difficulty and saw that the smooth wall just now was now covered with countless scarlet arms, which wrapped around her body and dragged her into the wall.
Her mouth, which wanted to scream, was covered tightly and no sound came out.
The man traveling with her also noticed something was wrong, but when he turned around, the woman had been pulled into the wall... In just a few breaths, a living person who was originally alive disappeared.
A trace of confusion appeared on the man's face. He said, "Have you seen Xiaoyou?"
Xiaoyou is the woman's name.
"Xiaoyou? Wasn't she here just now..." The person walking in front was also a little confused. He looked behind him, but didn't see the woman. "Did she go upstairs?"
"I'll go check." The man quickly climbed to the top of the tower, but he didn't see the person he was looking for at all. When he returned to the crowd, his pale face was covered with cold sweat. "She...she's gone."
Gone? Everyone fell silent as these words were spoken. If someone suddenly disappeared in the outside world, they would surely be found if they looked carefully, but in the world inside the door, disappearance was practically equivalent to death.
"Didn't someone disappear in the temple hall yesterday?" Someone remembered something, "Could they all..."
"I don't think we need to look for her anymore." Meng Yu suddenly said, "She must be gone."
"Why do you say that!" The man seemed a little angry.
"Don't you remember what our tour guide told us when we first arrived here?" Meng Yu remained calm in the face of the man's hostility. "She said we shouldn't make loud noises in the pagoda complex. Didn't Xiaoyou scream just now?"
The man fell silent after hearing this.
"Some words still need to be listened to." Meng Yu said, "What did you see on the stairs just now?"
He asked Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu.
"I saw a drum," Ruan Nanzhu said softly, "but I didn't dare touch it, so I just came down."
Meng Yu: "Drum? I'll go take a look." As he said that, he and a few people around him turned around and went to the rooftop.
Ruan Nanzhu looked at his back and pursed her lips slightly.
They all tacitly kept the secret of the diary. Although they didn't know why, they always felt it was better not to tell it out in a hurry.
The disappeared Xiaoyou never appeared again.
The people hiding in the tower were trembling with fear. No one dared to wander around, for fear that the screams they made after seeing something would lead to death.
Lin Qiushi and the others stopped wandering around. Ruan Nanzhu leaned on Lin Qiushi's shoulder and closed his eyes to rest.
Cheng Qianli squatted at the window and looked outside, not knowing what he was looking at.
The sky gradually darkened, and the whistling wind became louder and louder, even taking on a hint of eerie sound.
Lin Qiushi had originally been leaning against the wall, but after a while, he felt uncomfortable and straightened up to sit up. Although this position was rather tiring, when he thought of what he had just seen in the illusion, he decided that a little fatigue didn't matter; it was better than leaning against human skin.
"How long will it take?" Cheng Qianli asked in a low voice.
Lin Qiushi glanced at his phone. There were still twenty minutes until the time they had agreed with the tour guide.
Cheng Qianli: "Twenty minutes, there's still so much time..." He leaned against the window listlessly, "I miss the oil tea my brother makes, the spicy kind."
Lin Qiushi reached out and touched his head.
These twenty minutes could almost be described as lasting a long time, with not even the simplest conversation taking place within the team.
As the sky gradually darkened, the tour guide in red clothes finally appeared in front of everyone.
"Hello everyone! Did you have a good time today?" the tour guide smiled and waved the flag in his hand. "I believe everyone has really enjoyed the local customs and culture."
No one spoke, everyone's face was lifeless, as if they had survived a disaster.
"Then let's go back." The tour guide smiled and led everyone into the jungle.
It was not easy to go down the mountain when it was getting dark. Everyone supported each other and finally returned to their residence after an hour's journey.
After a simple dinner, everyone went back to their rooms to rest, looking tired.
Cheng Qianli followed Ruan Nanzhu and the others back to the room. He had originally been sleeping in a room with two other people, but with so many things happening today, he wanted to spend the night with Lin Qiushi.
"Do you really want to squeeze in with me?" Lin Qiushi said.
"Just squeeze in." Cheng Qianli looked at Lin Qiushi pitifully, trying to make him relent. "I'm just more familiar with you guys."
Lin Qiushi glanced at Ruan Nanzhu, and after Ruan Nanzhu nodded slightly, he said hello.
Lin Qiushi agreed, but some people were dissatisfied. Xu Jin hadn't dared to follow them to the top of the tower today, and had been sitting alone at the foot of the tower all day. When he heard that Cheng Qianli was going to stay here tonight, he whispered, "Don't you think he's fat?"
Cheng Qianli was baffled by this: "Fat? I'm not fat."
Lin Qiushi: "Yes, he's not fat."
Xu Jin: "..." Then what happened when you said I was fat yesterday? Can this person ever get better?
Lin Qiushi had obviously completely forgotten the excuse he used to reject Xu Jin yesterday, and he and Cheng Qianli began discussing who would sleep inside and who would sleep outside today.
Xu Jin sat on the edge of the bed, pouting and sulking. Ruan Nanzhu comforted her and said that she was not fat, it was Yu Linlin's aesthetic that was problematic, and that all men were pigs.
Xu Jin agreed reluctantly.
Lin Qiushi and Cheng Qianli were completely bewildered, completely confused about what the two were talking about. He was just worried about the intimacy between him and Xu Jin, so how could he be considered a big pig's hoof? And Xu Jin, the biggest pig's hoof here is sitting right next to you...
After walking on the mountain road all day today, everyone was a little tired. Almost everyone fell asleep as soon as they touched the pillow. Even Lin Qiushi, who was always a light sleeper, was no exception.
However, in the middle of the night, Lin Qiushi always felt someone walking around him. He thought it was Cheng Qianli and didn't pay much attention to it. Until he got up the next morning, Cheng Qianli complained to Lin Qiushi why he had been getting up all night.
"Woke up at night? I didn't." Lin Qiushi said, "I slept so soundly yesterday that I didn't even go to the bathroom once."
"You're lying." Cheng Qianli said, "You clearly got up..."
Lin Qiushi: "I really didn't get up, but I also felt someone moving around."
The two of them turned their eyes to the two remaining people in the room. Xu Jin shook his head in panic to indicate that he had not gotten up either. Ruan Nanzhu didn't need to be asked, as he usually had the best sleep quality and his kidney function was very strong. He basically slept until dawn every night and never got up at night.
"Who's walking then?" Cheng Qianli's face turned pale.
As the two were talking, Ruan Nanzhu suddenly stood up, walked in front of them, squatted down, and looked under their bed.
Lin Qiushi was startled by his action: "What's wrong?"
Ruan Nanzhu said nothing, but pointed: "Look for yourselves."
Lin Qiushi and Cheng Qianli bent down tremblingly and saw what Ruan Nanzhu had said. They saw that the wooden floor beneath their bed was covered with dense, bloody red handprints, which spread from the floor to the wall, looking extremely creepy.
"Fuck!!!" Cheng Qianli finally couldn't hold it in any longer and started screaming like a chicken again, which made Lin Qiushi's head hurt. He even felt that the scene was not so scary anymore.
"Can you please stop yelling like that?" Lin Qiushi said painfully.
"How scary!!" Cheng Qianli lay on the squatting Lin Qiushi, grabbing his hair and screaming miserably.
"Untie my hair! Untie it!" Lin Qiushi was also furious. "Untie it quickly!"
Cheng Qianli: "I'm so scared!!!"
Lin Qiushi: "Mu Yu—" Do you know what a designer cherishes most? It's his hair! It's his hairline! Cheng Qianli, that little bastard, is pulling at his hair like it's weeds. Who knows if that will affect the roots!
Cheng Qianli finally let go: "I'm sorry, I was too excited."
Xu Jin looked at the two people in front of him with a numb expression, then turned to Ruan Nanzhu and said, "Zhu Meng, let's go eat."
Ruan Nanzhu: "Okay."
Then the two of them went out hand in hand to have breakfast happily, leaving the two pigs staring blankly at the bloody handprints on the ground.
"Let's go," Lin Qiushi said. "Since we're still alive, it means it doesn't want to kill us."
Cheng Qianli sighed: "This door is too dangerous." Fortunately, he didn't get up yesterday to see what was going on. If he had, God knows what he would see crawling on the ground.
After finishing breakfast listlessly, the tour guide showed up on time again.
She was like a doll, always wearing that formatted smile on her face, and even the amplitude of the flag she waved seemed to be consistent.
She said, "Today we are going to show you a temple. It is the most beautiful building here. I believe everyone will be captivated by its beauty after seeing it. Let's set off now without further delay!"
Lin Qiushi frowned: "Why does this sound so familiar?"
"Of course it sounds familiar." Meng Yu happened to be next to him and said indifferently, "She said the same thing on the first day."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Sure enough, after everyone set off, the tour guide began to introduce the local customs and habits. However, everyone had heard these words on the first day, and there was almost no difference in the order of speaking or the tone.
This strange situation made everyone look uncomfortable.
"We're not going to repeat this over and over again, are we?" Xu Jin whispered, "Do we have to go to that tower again?"
"It's hard to say." Lin Qiushi shook his head. "I guess we'll have to wait for another two days."
Xu Jin fell silent. How many people would die in one place? There were only a dozen of them. Did they have to die in this world until only one person was left to escape?
Apparently, Xu Jin wasn't the only one who had this idea, and everyone had an unpredictable look on their faces.
When they arrived at the temple for the second time, the four of them did not rush in.
This was Ruan Nanzhu's suggestion. He said that since they had been observing the inside before, they should observe the outside this time. So he led the three of them to explore the area around the temple.
The temple was surrounded by dense trees, and the sunlight filtered through, leaving only dim spots of light on the ground.
The stone pavement was covered with tiny vines and ferns, which rustled when stepped on. The temple was so high that they could hardly see the top from their angle, but the music continued uninterrupted, as if the musicians would never stop.
"The architectural style of this temple is so strange." After observing it, designer Lin Qiushi felt something was wrong. "The entire temple is round?"
"Round?" It would have been fine if she hadn't said it, but once she did, Cheng Qianli noticed it, "Yes, the whole temple is round."
There are not many round temples, and they can even be said to be rare.
"What do you think of when you see the circle?" Ruan Nanzhu asked.
After a moment of silence, Lin Qiushi and Cheng Qianli gave the same answer: "Drum."
Ruan Nanzhu: "I think..."
Lin Qiushi: "Hmm?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "We have to go to the top of the temple to take a look."
Cheng Qianli's eyes widened when he heard this: "Are you really going? On the top of the temple... But the person who disappeared the day before yesterday was because he looked at the ceiling, right?"
"Yes." Ruan Nanzhu, "But the clues should also be up there." He reached out and pressed his bag, "Remember what we saw on the top of the tower yesterday?"
Of course, it was impossible to forget. Lin Qiushi still remembered the feeling of his hand on the human-skin drum. However, Ruan Nanzhu was probably not referring to the drum, but to the diary they found in the wall.
"We may not have much time left," Ruan Nanzhu said. "We have to think of a solution."
At first glance, Ruan Nanzhu's claim of running out of time didn't seem to have any basis, but Lin Qiushi then recalled the bloody handprints under his bed. He wasn't sure if they were an accident or a warning, but in short, they clearly weren't a good omen.
The temple is very high and there are no stairs to reach the top floor.
But there are always more solutions than problems. As long as you want to get there, you will always find a way.
After walking around the temple, Ruan Nanzhu came up with an idea. The other three were stunned by his idea. Lin Qiushi's tone was also filled with astonishment: "You mean using that wooden platform from the other day...?"
Ruan Nanzhu: “Yeah.”
Lin Qiushi: "But isn't that wooden platform a sky burial platform?"
Ruan Nanzhu nodded.
Lin Qiushi said worriedly, "Besides, there are those things up there. Going up there rashly..."
Ruan Nanzhu glanced at him and said, "If you want to survive, you have to take some risks."
That's right. Lin Qiushi sighed inwardly and shook off the hesitation in his heart: "You're too weak. Let me do it."
The author has something to say: Ruan Nanzhu: All men are pigs’ trotters, and I like to eat pigs’ trotters.
Lin Qiushi: ...
When Lin Qiushi screamed yesterday, he was actually in a fantasy world. However, to avoid misunderstanding, I modified the adjective and deleted the word "loudly".
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