Chapter 37 Xu Jin's Sister
If they were in the normal world, they would only experience a full moon once a month. But the world inside the gate was completely illogical. Based on their experiences over the past few days, they were simply repeating the same day over and over again. They ate the same food, went to the same places, and even spoke the same lines.
The next morning, the bloody handprints did not appear in the house, and Lin Qiushi's guess was confirmed - only on the night they went to the tower would Xu Jin quietly leave at night and tear off his skin.
And today, they are going to the tower again.
Ruan Nanzhu has decided to take the drum out of the tower today. Although this decision sounds risky, there seems to be no other clues at the moment, so he can only try his best.
After a long journey, they finally arrived at the towers.
The tower that had previously turned into a bone tower had indeed returned to its original appearance when it was first seen. The top of the tower soared into the clouds, and almost half of it was buried in the thick mountain mist.
Before Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi headed for the tower's summit, they handed Xu Jin over to Li Dongyuan. Their excuse, of course, was that the tower was dangerous, and if Xu Jin was afraid, it would be best to stay down below.
Xu Jin hesitated to speak, as if wanting to go up with them. However, Li Dongyuan smiled, reached out and pressed her shoulder, saying, "Don't worry, just wait with me down there. They'll be fine."
Xu Jin then nodded hesitantly.
After settling Xu Jin, Ruan Nanzhu, Lin Qiushi, and the others continued their climb. As they climbed, Ruan Nanzhu asked, "Didn't we see that mural before the incident yesterday?"
"Are you talking about the one in the room?" Lin Qiushi also remembered it.
"Yes," Ruan Nanzhu said, "I thought carefully about the contents of the mural last night, and now I almost understand it."
Lin Qiushi: "So what does it mean?"
As they were talking, they had already climbed to the top of the tower. However, when they turned the last corner, Cheng Qianli, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped. Although he didn't say anything, Lin Qiushi could see clear fear in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" Lin Qiushi was startled and asked in a low voice.
"There's...someone..." Cheng Qianli turned his head stiffly, "There's...someone sitting on the drum..."
Lin Qiushi took a step forward and saw what Cheng Qianli saw. He saw a woman sitting on the small red drum. Although her back was facing them, her attire clearly showed that she was Xu Jin, who had just been with Li Dongyuan downstairs.
Xu Jin half-knelt on the drum, her posture looking unusually hunched. She slowly raised her hand and was about to strike the drum when Ruan Nanzhu shouted, "Xu Jin, your sister is looking for you—"
Xu Jin paused.
Ruan Nanzhu said: "She asked you when you can return her skin to her."
Xu Jin slowly turned her head, and when she turned around, everyone's breathing stopped - that was not Xu Jin at all, but a human skin in the shape of a human.
The human skin still retained its freshly peeled shape, as if supported by a skeleton, standing upright on the drum surface. From the front, one could even see the body tissues inside the skin. Cheng Qianli almost screamed, but fortunately he covered his mouth tightly with his hands at the critical moment.
"Xu...Jin?" Lin Qiushi's breathing was a little disordered, but he began to be unsure whether the person in front of him was Xu Jin or Xu Jin's sister.
Ruan Nanzhu was still the calmest one among them. Facing the horrific scene before him, his voice didn't even change much. He took out the bone flute from his arms, put it to his lips and blew out a tune.
"Ahhhhhhh!!!" A sharp scream came from the mouth of the human skin in front of him. The gap in the skin was like a big mouth, emitting a shrill scream.
Lin Qiushi had sharp hearing to begin with, but the huge roar shocked him so much that his eyes went dark and he fainted. Before he fainted, he seemed to see the human skin rushing towards them.
Someone was arguing, and the noise was getting more and more intense, making Lin Qiushi feel pain.
He forced himself to open his eyes and saw Ruan Nanzhu and Li Dongyuan. The two seemed to be arguing about something and the atmosphere was very bad.
Li Dongyuan said: "Zhu Meng, I apologize. This matter has indeed exceeded my expectations."
Facing Li Dongyuan's show of weakness, Ruan Nanzhu was very disdainful: "If apologies were useful, no one would have to die."
Li Dongyuan: "There will always be a way to remedy the situation."
Ruan Nanzhu was about to retort when he saw Lin Qiushi wake up. His eyes flashed, and he immediately became obsessed with the drama. He threw himself on Lin Qiushi, crying, "Old Yu, you're finally awake. I was bullied so badly when you were away. Others looked at us as orphans and widows and didn't give us any chance to survive..."
Lin Qiushi: "...Orphans and widows?" A widow is fine, but where did the orphans come from?
Ruan Nanzhu reached out and knocked Cheng Qianli, who was eating dry food next to him, on the head: "Silly son, your father is calling you."
Cheng Qianli put down his dry food and howled, "...Woo woo woo woo, Dad, our mom is being bullied."
Lin Qiushi: "..." Cheng Qianli, wake up and don't follow Ruan Nanzhu's script!
Li Dongyuan watched the two acting, trying very hard not to let his expression twist. He took a deep breath, as if suppressing some emotions, and said, "I must see you when we get out."
Ruan Nanzhu sneered and said nothing.
Lin Qiushi thought, forget it. I’m afraid that if I go out and see Ruan Nanzhu, you’ll be even more upset.
He got up from the ground and rubbed his ears hard, but they were still buzzing. "What happened just now?"
Ruan Nanzhu said: "It pounced towards us."
Lin Qiushi: "And then?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Then I talked to it for ten minutes."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Ruan Nanzhu: "It thought what I said was right, so it left."
Lin Qiushi: "...Are you so happy just by being naughty?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "I'm quite happy."
Lin Qiushi: “…Okay.” As long as you’re happy.
After the skin was finished, Ruan Nanzhu explained to Lin Qiushi what had just happened. It turned out that after the skin had knocked Lin Qiushi unconscious, Ruan Nanzhu had become furious. Taking advantage of the skin's pounce, Ruan Nanzhu rushed to the red drum, pulled out his bone flute, and aimed it at the drumhead, threatening to smash the drum if the creature misbehaved again. The skin seemed to possess intelligence and actually stopped moving, then merged into the wall and disappeared from their sight.
Then Ruan Nanzhu and Cheng Qianli dragged the stunned Lin Qiushi downstairs with great difficulty, only to see Li Dongyuan standing alone on the first floor.
Ruan Nanzhu asked him where Xu Jin was. Li Dongyuan pointed outside and said he had smoked a cigarette. But when he turned around, Xu Jin was gone, and no one knew where he had gone.
Ruan Nanzhu was furious when he heard this. "I gave you this person to look after, and this is how you look at him?" "Can't you, Bailu, be more reliable? How could a boss lose such a crucial clue?"
Li Dongyuan was also in the wrong and unable to refute. Fortunately, Lin Qiushi, who woke up last, diverted Ruan Nanzhu's attention, so Ruan Nanzhu didn't bother with him anymore.
Li Dongyuan smiled bitterly in his heart, and became more and more curious about Ruan Nanzhu's identity - in reality, such a girl is really rare.
After Lin Qiushi woke up, he also knew that Xu Jin was missing.
"Let's go over there tomorrow with the drum." With Xu Jin missing, there was no telling if he would show up again. Ruan Nanzhu's expression turned sour the moment he saw Li Dongyuan. He said coldly, "This is the only way we can try."
Li Dongyuan touched his nose and smiled bitterly.
Lin Qiushi patted his shoulder sympathetically.
Cheng Qianli continued to stuff food into his mouth. His appetite was surprisingly good. No matter how disgusting the scene was, he could continue to eat without any obstacles.
At the end of the day, Ruan Nanzhu's face was extremely dark. Just as he expected, Xu Jin did not come back until he left the tower group.
When the others saw that Lin Qiushi and his group were missing, they came to ask a few questions. Ruan Nanzhu directly said that she was missing and they didn't know where she went.
Li Dongyuan didn't dare approach Ruan Nanzhu until he arrived at his residence, fearing he would anger him again. After dinner, he subtly tried to appease Lin Qiushi, asking him to go back and persuade Ruan Nanzhu to stop being angry with him.
Lin Qiushi was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. There must be a reason why Ruan Nanzhu was so angry. He didn't dare to persuade him. Besides, whether Li Dongyuan was a friend or an enemy was still debatable. He didn't want to appear too familiar with him.
Tonight, because of Xu Jin's disappearance, they could finally each have their own bed and sleep in the open air.
Ruan Nanzhu brought the drum back. It wasn't too big, about the size of two adult palms. The drum body was solid wood painted red, and the drumhead was made of delicate human skin. When struck, the sound was beautiful. Ruan Nanzhu sat on the edge of the bed, stroking the drumhead and saying, "I'll bring this over tomorrow. It should confirm my suspicions."
"By the way, what exactly did you want to say at that time?" Lin Qiushi recalled what Ruan Nanzhu wanted to say when he climbed to the top of the tower. He only said half of what he wanted to say before being interrupted by other things.
"Sisters are sisters, but how deep their bond is is another matter," Ruan Nanzhu said. "If she and her sister were so close, why wouldn't she be willing to go up and take a look?"
He reached out and stroked the drum, and at first glance, his expression seemed somewhat gentle.
After dinner, everyone went to bed early.
Today we are going to a group of pagodas, and I don’t know if Xu Jin will appear again.
Lin Qiushi felt a little uneasy before falling asleep and tossed and turned in bed.
Ruan Nanzhu was beside him and asked him softly if he couldn't sleep.
Lin Qiushi said, "Hmm..."
Ruan Nanzhu stood up, lay down beside him, and put his arm around his waist. He was already very adept at this action, and Lin Qiushi's body inexplicably relaxed. He mumbled, "Why do I always sleep so soundly when you hold me in your arms?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Maybe I'm a sleeping pill addict?"
Lin Qiushi: “…” Of course.
Although he didn't know why he slept so comfortably when Ruan Nanzhu was beside him, Lin Qiushi fell asleep quickly anyway.
He thought he'd sleep through the night, but he woke up in the middle of the night. Upon waking, he felt a chilly gaze. Lin Qiushi slowly opened his eyes and saw Ruan Nanzhu's sleeping face. He slowly sat up and looked around the room, but didn't see anything unusual. Just as Lin Qiushi thought the gaze was an illusion, he felt a sudden chill on his forehead, and a drop of water slid down his forehead to his chin.
Lin Qiushi's body froze instantly. He slowly raised his head and saw a bloody figure squatting on the ceiling, tilting its head and giving him a weird smile.
Lin Qiushi: “Oh shit!” Even though he was mentally prepared, he was still frightened. Lin Qiushi trembled violently and forced himself to steady himself.
The thing stared at Lin Qiushi for a moment, then stretched out its long fingers towards Lin Qiushi. Its target was clear: Lin Qiushi's scalp.
Lin Qiushi ducked his head to avoid her attack, his entire body breaking out in a cold sweat. The monster's nails had transformed into razor-sharp blades; anyone who was touched by them would surely lose a layer of skin.
"Pi... Pi..." The monster kept muttering, her dark eyes greedily staring at Lin Qiushi's young and fair skin, her expression could almost be described as drooling.
Lin Qiushi tumbled down from the bed, while Ruan Nanzhu remained in a deep sleep, seemingly unaffected. Fortunately, the monster seemed uninterested in the others and pounced directly at Lin Qiushi's location.
Lin Qiushi turned around and tried to run, but when he reached the door, he found that he couldn't open it no matter what.
"Skin...skin..." Facing the thing in the bag, the monster grinned with satisfaction. She made a gurgling sound and squeezed out a sound from her throat, "Skin...I want your skin..."
Lin Qiushi's forehead was covered in cold sweat. He looked around and saw the bag that Ruan Nanzhu had placed next to his pillow. The bag was bulging with the drum that he had taken from the tower.
Suddenly, an inspiration struck Lin Qiushi. He turned around and ran towards the bag. Then he quickly took the drum out of the bag and struck it hard twice.
"Boom, boom, boom." The clear and pleasant sound of drums was heard, and the monster's expression froze immediately. Then, as if afraid of something, it looked around and then flipped out of the window in panic.
Lin Qiushi watched her run away and finally breathed a sigh of relief. However, when he lowered his head, his expression froze again.
He saw that on the soft drum surface, perhaps because he hit it too hard, he actually made a big hole, and inside the hole, there was something that made him stunned.
It was a beautiful bronze key. It looked ordinary at first glance, but Lin Qiushi was very familiar with it because he had used the exact same key to open the heavy iron door inside.
"What the hell!" Lin Qiushi instantly understood what was going on and couldn't help but curse Li Dongyuan in his heart. He never expected that Li Dongyuan would actually give them an identical fake key!
"But what about the drum?" After Lin Qiushi took out the key, he began to have a headache looking at the broken human skin drum in front of him, "Can it be repaired..." He dug it twice with his hands and decided to give up. He would ask Ruan Nanzhu tomorrow if he could fix it.
Thinking of this, Lin Qiushi fell asleep in a daze.
The next morning, Lin Qiushi was awakened by Ruan Nanzhu's voice.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Ruan Nanzhu scolding Cheng Qianli, saying, Cheng Qianli, did you secretly play drums last night?
Cheng Qianli: "No, I don't have one. This is a human skin drum. What's so fun about it?"
Ruan Nanzhu asked suspiciously, "You really don't have it?"
Cheng Qianli: "Why don't you believe me..."
Ruan Nanzhu: "I do want to believe you, but don't you think about who broke the crucial clue Rubik's Cube when you opened the last door?"
Cheng Qianli: "Isn't that because I'm bored..."
Ruan Nanzhu: "Aren't you bored now?"
Cheng Qianli almost cried out loud, because of his criminal record, his words had no credibility at all. How could he explain to Ruan Nanzhu that he was not the one who broke the thing?
Just as Cheng Qianli was sadly pondering this question, Lin Qiushi, who was sitting on the bed, weakly raised his hand and said, "It's me..."
Ruan Nanzhu turned around: "Oh, it's you."
Cheng Qianli straightened his back and was about to listen to his boss scold Lin Qiushi, but the boss's next words were: "It's okay, just be more careful next time."
Cheng Qianli: “???” God damn, be careful next time. Was he born to a stepmother or was he picked up while topping up the phone bill?
Lin Qiushi felt a little embarrassed and quickly recounted what had happened last night. Ruan Nanzhu asked if he was injured. Lin Qiushi shook his head, pulled the key from his pocket, and said, "I found a key in the drum..."
Ruan Nanzhu was silent for three seconds when he saw the key, then he cursed a very dirty word.
Clearly, Li Dongyuan wasn't as harmless as he appeared. He hadn't seen anything inside the Bone Tower, and he'd actually pulled out a fake key to fill the void. It was a good thing Lin Qiushi had managed to retrieve the key last night while being chased by a monster and using the drum to save his life, otherwise they'd still be in the dark.
"I told him he'd give up the key so easily. Didn't he need a hint about the next door?" Ruan Nanzhu sneered as he held the key. "And then he pulled this trick."
Lin Qiushi also admired these people for being able to come up with such a thing as preparing fake keys.
Ruan Nanzhu put the key in his pocket and said, "Xu Jin is very afraid of this drum. Now that the drum is gone, we don't have much time left. If we meet her again next time, it will be difficult to escape."
Lin Qiushi nodded, agreeing with Ruan Nanzhu's statement. He didn't know why, but Xu Jin had a special fondness for him. While everyone else slept soundly, he had to wake up every night.
"I'll take the drum to the temple today," Ruan Nanzhu mused, "This world should be coming to an end soon."
It would be best if this world could end sooner rather than later. Lin Qiushi no longer wanted to meet Xu Jin at night.
Li Dongyuan was clearly unaware that his evil deeds had been exposed, and he still had the audacity to approach and greet Ruan Nanzhu. It had to be said that his appearance was quite deceptive. Even though Lin Qiushi already knew he was a bad guy, he hesitated for a moment when he saw his gentle smile.
Ruan Nanzhu's attitude towards him was not very good usually, and today he did not give him any face at all. He responded with a few cold words and drove him away.
"Haha." Looking at Li Dongyuan's departing figure, Ruan Nanzhu sneered rudely, "I want to see how Li Dongyuan will be held responsible if this job falls into Bai Lu's hands."
After breakfast, everyone headed towards the temple.
There was still no sign of Xu Jin, but since she appeared in Lin Qiushi's house last night, it meant that she must have returned with the tour guide and should be hiding in the dense jungle around her.
After seeing the temple again, Lin Qiushi felt calm. He and Ruan Nanzhu found the platform they had climbed to the roof before and planned to go up again.
This time he went up to give the drum in his hand to the monster on the roof.
Delivering the drum was a very dangerous undertaking. Although Lin Qiushi reiterated this repeatedly, Ruan Nanzhu still insisted on going with him, leaving Cheng Qianli staring at the ladder with eager eyes.
The two men, one in front and one behind, climbed cautiously up the platform. Lin Qiushi reached the wooden platform first. When he got there, he found some fresh flesh and blood on the platform. It looked like it was left by the two people who had been skinned alive the day before.
Ruan Nanzhu followed him up. It was his first time on the roof. After observing the surroundings, he looked into the nearby jungle a few times.
"What's wrong?" Lin Qiushi noticed that his expression was not right.
"It seems like something is following us." Ruan Nanzhu said, "It has been following us since we came out."
Lin Qiushi: "Could it be Xu Jin?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "It's possible. Let's give the drum to her first."
Lin Qiushi nodded.
The two men walked along the edge and slowly towards the center of the temple. Their feet stepped on the human skin drums, beating out the rhythm of the drums.
The temple was very quiet, and there was no fog like Lin Qiushi had seen before. Everything was so calm that it seemed a little abnormal.
Ruan Nanzhu didn't go too far in. He chose a suitable spot and placed the drum on the roof. Then he said, "Your sister refused to come, so we brought her a drum."
As soon as he said this, the whole world seemed to fall into a strange silence, even the breeze stopped.
The sound of drums boomed violently, and thick fog rushed out from the air and began to invade where they were.
"Boom, boom, boom." Deep in the thick fog, something was beating the drum frantically. The angry rhythm seemed to be venting the unsuppressible anger in the heart.
"Where is she?" The girl's voice sounded again, "Where is she, it hurts so much—it hurts so much—"
Lin Qiushi saw the girl crawling out of the mist. She saw the drum that Ruan Nanzhu brought, so she crawled to the side of the drum with both hands and placed her hands on the broken drum surface.
"It's not mine, it's not mine—" the girl screamed frantically, "Bring her here, bring her here!!"
She grabbed the drum head with all her strength and began to tear it apart.
Lin Qiushi didn't know if it was an illusion, but when the girl was tearing the drumhead, he vaguely heard another scream.
The girl seemed to have noticed the cry, and her already bloody mouth instantly opened into an arc of ecstasy: "You are - you are -" She slapped the drum under her feet hard, and the monster dragging the sharp knife suddenly jumped out of the temple and ran towards the jungle not far away.
Lin Qiushi was almost stunned by this scene, but Ruan Nanzhu breathed a sigh of relief. He laughed at himself and said, "It's not some kind of sisterly love." He raised his eyes and looked towards the dense forest in the distance.
Lin Qiushi asked, "Is everything coming to an end?"
Ruan Nanzhu lowered his eyes: "Maybe."
Who doesn't want this hellish world to end soon?
The author has something to say: Ruan Nanzhu is like a bear parent. When Lin Qiushi does something bad, he says: Qiushi is so cute, make another one, love you, oh my. When Cheng Qianli does something bad, he says: If I can't kill you today, I lose.
Cheng Qianli: Wow wow——that’s too much wow wow——
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(Source of this book: Longfeng Internet)
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