Chapter 4: Death Again
Lin Qiushi carried Ruan Baijie on his back, while the rest of the people divided into three groups and carried the heavy wood on their backs.
The roads were slippery due to the snow, so everyone walked with extreme caution.
Xiong Qi led the way with an oil lamp in his hand, and asked everyone to take it slow.
Originally, the snow was just falling in spots, but on their way back, the snow suddenly became heavier, like goose feathers, floating and scattering all over the sky.
Ruan Baijie was not heavy, so it was quite easy for Lin Qiushi to carry her on his back. He lowered his head and looked carefully at the road under his feet, walking forward step by step.
The wind was getting louder and louder, even to the point of being a little harsh. The falling snow blocked most of Lin Qiushi's vision, and he began to have trouble seeing the person in front of him.
This feeling was awful. Lin Qiushi paused slightly, about to stop, when he heard Ruan Baijie's voice beside him. She said, "Don't stop, keep going."
Upon hearing this, Lin Qiushi had no choice but to continue forward.
However, the further he walked, the more he felt something was wrong. At first, Lin Qiushi thought it was because it was too cold and he was frozen and confused, but as the road got farther, he finally realized the source of the discomfort.
It was too light. The person behind him was too light, as if he had no weight at all. Lin Qiushi swallowed and tried to push the person on his back up.
It wasn't his illusion. The person crouching on his back was light, as if made of paper. Although their form was there, they felt weightless. A thin layer of sweat formed on Lin Qiushi's forehead. He called out, "Bai Jie."
No sound.
"Bai Jie." Lin Qiushi continued to call.
"What's wrong?" Ruan Baijie pressed her face against Lin Qiushi's neck. Her face was cold, and her skin was wet and soft, giving Lin Qiushi a bad feeling. She said, "What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing," Lin Qiushi said. "Just wondering if you're cold."
"I'm not cold." Ruan Baijie said, "Not at all."
Lin Qiushi didn't dare to stop. He had been walking with his head down. When he looked around, he found that he was far away from the person in front of him.
In the heavy snow, he could only vaguely see the blurry oil lamp in front of him and the backs of several people walking in the wind and snow. It seemed that the person he was carrying on his back was not Ruan Baijie, but something else.
Lin Qiushi gritted his teeth slightly.
"You're shivering." The thing on her back had the same voice as Ruan Baijie. She said softly, "Are you cold?"
"Not bad," Lin Qiushi said, "just a little cold."
"Do you want to go somewhere where it's not cold?" she asked. "A place where it's warm and where it doesn't snow or get dark."
Lin Qiushi wondered if he should ask where it was next, but he didn't want to ask that question at all, so he simply remained silent.
"Why aren't you talking?" she asked.
"Because I was thinking." Lin Qiushi answered dryly.
She asked, "What are you thinking about?"
Lin Qiushi paused for a moment and shouted, "I'm thinking about how to throw you down!" After he said this, he let go instantly, and without looking back, he ran forward.
Obviously his decision was correct, because after he let go, he didn't hear any sound of heavy objects falling to the ground - that thing was definitely not a person.
Lin Qiushi ran as fast as he could, taking a moment to glance behind him. That glance nearly gave him a heart attack. He saw the thing he'd thrown down, sprawled lifeless on the snow, its neck growing ever longer, extending in his direction. Its head, draped with black hair, rubbed against the snow as it tilted its head and demanded, "Why did you abandon me? Don't you love me the most?"
Lin Qiushi angrily said, "I fucking like you—"
The head is getting longer and longer: "..."
Lin Qiushi didn't dare to stop, simply hoping to catch up with his companions. But to his despair, no matter how fast he ran, the figures and lights ahead didn't get any closer. It was as if he was chasing a mirage in a dream.
But the thing behind him was getting closer and closer to him.
It was over. Just as the thing was about to catch up to him, Lin Qiushi felt a surge of despair. However, at that moment, his foot seemed to be tripped by something, and he fell heavily to the ground.
"Shit!" Lin Qiushi fell flat on his face and even took a big bite of snow. However, this action made him feel like something was being pulled out of his body, and then he felt someone lifting him directly from the snow.
"Lin Qiushi, Lin Qiushi, can you do it? Am I that heavy?" It was Ruan Baijie's voice.
Lin Qiushi struggled to get up from the ground, turned his head, and saw the girl squatting next to him and poking his cheek with her finger.
Xiong Qi was the one who lifted Lin Qiushi from the snow. He asked, "Are you okay?"
Lin Qiushi let out a long breath: "I thought I was fucking dead."
Ruan Baijie tilted her head: "Why?"
Lin Qiushi briefly recounted what had just happened, saying that it was a good thing he tripped at the last moment, otherwise he would have been dead.
"Oh." Ruan Baijie said, "I was wondering why you fell. I thought I was too heavy."
Lin Qiushi: "It's okay, not particularly heavy."
Ruan Baijie curled up the corners of her mouth.
Xiong Qi said, "Hurry up and get up. They are all going down the hill. It's getting dark. We have to hurry."
Lin Qiushi nodded. He felt a slight pain in his knee as he climbed to his feet, probably from the fall. But he didn't mention it. Instead, he continued walking with Xiong Qi and the others. He had originally wanted to carry Ruan Baijie on his back, but Ruan Baijie refused, saying that Lin Qiushi was too thin and it would hurt her chest.
After hearing this, Lin Qiushi asked in a low voice, "Do you have breasts..." When he was carrying Ruan Baijie on his back just now, he felt that Ruan Baijie's chest was flat, without any softness at all.
Ruan Baijie became furious when she heard Lin Qiushi's words and said angrily, "Okay, okay, you have big breasts, so you tell me first!"
Lin Qiushi: “…”
The three of them quickened their pace, trying to catch up with the person in front, but at this moment, Lin Qiushi heard a shrill scream.
"Did you hear that?" Lin Qiushi asked. He was worried that this was also his hallucination.
"I heard it." Xiong Qi's face darkened. "Hurry up, something happened."
The three of them started running, but when they reached the front, they saw a horrifying scene.
Two of the three people who were carrying the wood died. Their bodies were directly smashed in half by the wood. The most terrifying thing was that although their bodies were broken, they were still conscious, with blood coming out of their mouths, and they kept screaming and calling for help.
The remaining one collapsed on the ground, his crotch wet, crying out in despair: "Help! Help! Help! Help!"
"What's going on! What exactly happened?" Xiong Qi asked.
Xiao Ke said, "They were walking on the road, but suddenly they let go of the wood, and it slid down and hit the waists of the two people in front."
Before Xiong Qi could say anything, the remaining survivor got up from the ground and started running all the way, crying, "There's a ghost, help, there's a ghost——"
Before everyone could react, they watched him run wildly and disappear into the snow.
The two remaining people on the ground were dying and were about to die.
“What should we do…” The women in the team burst into tears, their wails continuing incessantly. “Are we all going to die here?”
Xiong Qi's beard was covered with snowflakes. He sighed, his expression calm. He said, "Let's go and carry the wood back first."
This piece of wood killed someone, so who would dare to carry it? No one was willing to move. In the end, Lin Qiushi took the initiative to come forward and carry the blood-stained wood together with Xiong Qi.
Everyone was silent on the way back, fortunately no further accidents happened.
The two men first delivered the wood to the carpenter. The old carpenter was not surprised at the blood on the wood. He didn't even ask a question. He just reminded them in a hoarse voice: "We still need two more."
Xiong Qi and Lin Qiushi didn't say anything and turned back to their residence.
The falling wood was truly bizarre; something must be at work. Lin Qiushi felt he had dodged another disaster. He stared at the fire in front of him, lost in thought, his entire being in a state of bewilderment.
Ruan Baijie sat next to him and suddenly said, "I want to eat noodles."
"Yeah." Lin Qiushi said, "I'll rest for a while."
Ruan Baijie said: "What's wrong with you? Are you tired?"
"No, I was just thinking about the true meaning of my existence in this world," Lin Qiushi said. "I was living a good life where I was, but one day I walked out of my house and found twelve iron doors in the corridor. I opened one of them..."
Ruan Baijie listened quietly.
"Then it appeared here." Lin Qiushi asked, "Does the iron gate only represent fear and torture?"
Ruan Baijie laughed when she heard this. She said, "I think it's pointless to think about this now, but perhaps this experience isn't torture."
Lin Qiushi: "What is that?"
"Perhaps." Ruan Baijie's expression was gentle, "It means a new life."
Lin Qiushi frowned.
They were the only two left in the living room; everyone else had gone back to their rooms to rest. Everyone was exhausted after what had happened today, so Xiong Qi decided to rest for an hour before discussing what to do next. Speaking of which, they all knew they had to leave quickly and go chop down the trees, even if something even more terrifying might happen the next time they did.
"Go ahead." Ruan Baijie, "I'm hungry."
Lin Qiushi stood up and went to the kitchen.
Ruan Baijie looked at his back and gave him an ambiguous smile.
The noodles tasted good, and after the two of them finished eating, everyone had rested for a while, so they gathered in the living room again and started discussing the next steps.
"They must have been possessed while descending the mountain," said Zhang Zishuang, a member of the group who was calmer than the others. "I saw the two people in front of us pause for a moment."
"There are so many strange ways to die here. We don't even need to worry about how they died." Xiong Qi said bluntly, "The problem now is the conditions of death."
Whether it is chopping trees, carrying wood, or traveling on snowy days, these may be conditions for ghosts to kill people.
"Let's use the process of elimination," Xiao Ke said. "Everyone chopped down trees, but only the three of them carried the wood."
"Then why are Xiong Qi and I fine when carrying wood?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"There are two possibilities. One is carrying the tree, and the second is other conditions." Xiong Qi said, "Because the number of people the ghosts kill each day is limited, it is impossible for them to kill us all in one go." This is why he had the courage to carry the wood and Lin Qiushi back together.
"But how to verify it?" Xiao Ke asked.
"Why do we need to verify it?" Ruan Baijie said unceremoniously, playing with her hair. "Just avoid these conditions. None of us can afford the cost of a failed verification."
"Oh." Xiao Ke responded indifferently. She had always been unkind to Ruan Baijie, usually ignoring her. And rightly so, a pretty girl like Ruan Baijie, who occasionally liked to act up, was sometimes not very popular with her peers.
"Then we won't have anyone carry the trees tomorrow," Xiong Qi said. "Let's get some tools and drag the wood down the mountain."
Others agreed.
"What about the guy who ran away?" someone else asked, worried about the teammate who had a breakdown. "Just leave him alone?"
"How can we manage it?" Teammate Zhang Zishuang said, "Look at the sky outside. It's going to get dark soon. There's no telling what will happen after dark. Are you going to risk your life looking for it?"
Everyone fell silent, agreeing with him.
In such a world, no one's life is guaranteed. Being able to survive is already a luxury, let alone saving other people's lives.
"Let's go and have some rest early. We still have to continue tomorrow." Xiong Qi said and stood up to go back to his room.
Ruan Baijie glanced at the weather outside and said, "I don't know if the snow will stop tomorrow."
The result turned out to be a prophecy.
The snow had been falling all night and showed no sign of stopping in the morning.
Maybe because someone died yesterday, nothing terrible happened last night and everyone successfully survived the night.
The snow was so heavy that it was difficult to even go out, let alone cut down trees and transport them back in such a snowstorm. However, compared to the bad weather, the ghosts in the dark were obviously more frightening, so even though the weather was bad, no one suggested delaying the trip for a day.
It was a silent morning, and we set off in silence. It seemed as if everyone had lost the ability to communicate because of what happened yesterday.
The only one who maintained her state of mind was Ruan Baijie. She walked in the snow, humming a song, as if this trip was just an insignificant tour.
The author has something to say: Lin Qiushi: Why do you like noodles so much?
Ruan Baijie: No, I just like to eat you down there.
Lin Qiushi: Hmm?
Ruan Baijie: Oh, it’s the noodles.
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