Chapter 224: Inhuman (32) (1st + 2nd) [VIP]
Everyone was teleported into a dark space.
Xiao Fei felt like he was lying on the ground in the last second, his fingertips touched the rough texture of the rural dirt road, the air at the tip of his nose carried the smell of something burning and the smell of dust raised from the ground, and the next second, he was standing in a dry and cool space.
He subconsciously wanted to shout out, and just as the words were about to come out of his mouth, he suddenly realized that this was the dark room that the old man from the pawn shop had taken them into before they entered that weird environment.
They came out from inside.
It seems... as long as everyone escapes from that village, the ghost story can be considered completed.
The jade furnace in his hand, which he had always regarded as a life-saving talisman, also disappeared. Fortunately, Xiao Fei had realized that they had escaped from Zhoufu Village, and those jade furnaces they dug out from the ground were the triggers given to them by Shi Pang at the beginning, so there was no joke.
However, Xiao Fei did not shout out, but other people were frightened.
"Where is this!" the three brothers shouted loudly.
"Has he been caught? That Mr. Huang!"
"Where are the things in our hands?"
"What are you arguing about?" the old man from the pawn shop spoke.
Along with it, a strange voice rang out: "...so stupid."
The voice came right next to Xiaofei's ears, very light, like a breath, but containing strong impatience and sarcasm, which scared him.
It can’t be that big weird story!
Xiao Fei turned his head subconsciously.
The room was dark, and he couldn't see who the extra person standing next to him was. He could only hear the voice again saying, "That's stupid... leave."
Finally, the two words "left" barely changed from a breathy sound to a real sound. Xiao Fei was startled and recognized who the voice belonged to.
This is not the voice of the ghost story, this is Ersi's voice.
However, because the pronunciation and tone of these two sentences were not very similar to Ersi's, and the emotions contained in the tone were too obvious, he did not recognize it at first.
But isn’t this Er Ge...even more terrifying?
Why did he suddenly speak like this?
Before Xiao Fei had time to think, he heard the voice of the pawnshop master not far away: "What did you see just now that caused such a reaction?"
After hearing these two sentences, and seeing that the environment was completely different from the village, the three panicked brothers finally realized where they were.
"We...we just..." The three of them stuttered, not knowing whether they should tell others that they had entered the ghost story and become villagers of Zhoufu Village.
The three of them were standing very close to each other. It was pitch black in the room, so they couldn't communicate with each other through eye contact or facial expressions. After hesitating for a while, they could only ask angrily, "Do I have to say this? If I don't say it, I can't get those things?"
"Forget it, if you don't want to talk about it, then don't talk about it," the old man laughed strangely, "Anyway, I know what's going on even if you don't tell me."
In the darkness, there was a crisp sound of the jade furnace being placed on the table, and the old man immediately ordered them to leave: "Since you have already got what you want, then hurry up and leave. I'm closing here."
"Closed?" Shi Xiulan hurriedly checked her phone and exclaimed, "It's past five in the afternoon?"
She remembered that it was still morning when they came in.
That is to say, during the more than four days they were in Zhoufu Village, they actually stayed in this dark room for five or six hours?
"Old sir, the thing you mentioned that picked us..." Shi Xiulan glanced at the live broadcast room, didn't see the buff, and asked hurriedly.
"Pick your things?" The old man paused, his tone very subtle, "You will know when you go out."
His words made everyone breathe a sigh of relief after finally escaping.
Doesn't leaving that village count as completing the ghost story?
Before the crowd could continue asking questions, the pawnshop master seemed to be impatient and pushed the door open with a "click".
The light from outside the door suddenly shone in, causing the newcomers, who had finally gotten used to the darkness, to close their eyes for a moment out of stimulation.
After several seconds, they opened their eyes one after another.
In front of them, they were in a room surrounded by various display cabinets. The room was very deep and extended further away. The cabinets on both sides were filled with things and all were locked with glass doors.
With the help of this little light, one can vaguely see that there are quite a few people standing deep in the room.
"What is that!" Xiao Fei turned his head and saw a blurry face staring at him, and he screamed subconsciously.
"Mirror," a hand reached out from the right and pressed his shoulder, his tone steady, "that's you."
When everyone around heard this, they immediately looked carefully.
Sure enough, after wiping away the tears that subconsciously overflowed from the stimulation of the strong light, he could see clearly that the room was much smaller than he had seen before.
The room was indeed filled with display cabinets, but between the display cabinets, at either end of the wall, were two large mirrors.
The two mirrors reflected each other, giving everyone the impression that the room was very long, and the people standing in the back of the room were themselves.
"Are you going to leave or not? Get out now. I'm closing the shop!" the old man's voice rang out. "If you want to stay here forever, you can."
As soon as these words were spoken, the newlyweds who had been hesitating whether to leave quickly walked towards the door.
"Let's leave here first." Xiao Tang left the room first, followed by Huangmao.
The old man had no ill will towards them, and his last words seemed to be a threat to them. But this was S City after all, and they didn't know if the old man was a human being, so who could guarantee that if they didn't listen to him, there would be no problems.
And the most important thing is that it is almost five o'clock and it is getting dark. We cannot stay in S City after dark.
Xiao Tang took the lead, and the newcomers behind him followed him forward.
The hand on Xiao Fei's right shoulder left as soon as it touched him, and soon left his shoulder and walked towards the door.
"Er...Er Ge." Xiao Fei stood there in a daze for a few seconds, but still mustered up the courage to look over.
"Brother Er, was it you who spoke just now?"
The person standing in front of him now should be Ersi. There is nothing wrong with his tone of voice and his expression.
But since this is Ersi, then who was the person who spoke in that tone just now?
"Just now?" Xiao Fei saw Er Si frowned slightly, "Who asked you to look in the mirror? Of course it was me."
Bai Jinshu lowered his eyes and said lightly, "I saw that you were all startled and didn't notice that the room was full of mirrors, so I reminded you."
He regained consciousness just a few minutes ago.
His memory stayed at the moment when Mr. Neihuang, the ghost story artist, reached out his hand to him, and he had no idea what happened after that.
During this period of time, a certain personality must have been triggered, but he lost the memory of this period and had no way of knowing how he came out.
But what is certain is that this personality that suddenly appeared and left was different from the one that appeared last time. This time, he aroused the suspicion of other team members.
Bai Jinshu sighed in his heart. If this situation happened in the foundation's space, he would just acknowledge the existence of the twenty-four personalities, but now it happened to be in the copy of the investment bank.
His purpose was to get a high score in the Novice Village in order to bring down the opposing organization. If it was revealed now that Ersi had schizophrenia, it was very likely that the investment bank would use the two key pieces of information, twenty-four + schizophrenia, to identify him as Cen Bingqi, a high-end member of the foundation.
It will be troublesome then.
He had to find a way to conceal the emergence of these personalities so that people would not suspect he had split personality.
Fortunately, this is a novice village full of strange stories, so if you want to find a reasonable reason, you can always find one.
The crowd walked forward one by one along the narrow corridor. His teammates were all around him. Xiao Fei summoned up a rare courage in the crowd: "No, there were voices talking before this."
He stumbled, "I heard you say Erge...you said it was stupid, you're leaving."
His voice became softer and softer, and finally he couldn't help but doubt himself.
Was that voice really Ersi?
The voice was so light, and although it sounded like Ersi's, was it really him who was speaking?
Although Ersi is much stronger than them, he has never expressed such sarcastic emotions before, and he doesn't seem like someone who would dislike his teammates. Could the person who was speaking be those... figures in the mirror?
The conversation between the two immediately attracted other people.
"What's that sound?" Xiao Tang turned his head carelessly, "Did you hear Ersi swearing? It's not easy, Ersi, you finally can't stand other people anymore?"
She never considered other people's feelings when she spoke, and this time she spoke with extraordinary confidence: "Xiao Fei, do you have any emotional intelligence? Er Si couldn't stand other people whispering about idiots behind his back, and you also asked about this. Aren't you embarrassing him?"
As soon as these words were spoken, the others, who had originally looked a little scared, instantly became embarrassed.
Yes...yes.
Xiao Fei has no emotional intelligence. He took Er Si's complaints behind his back as a ghost and said them out loud to scare himself. This is understandable.
But Xiao Tang, you...you could tell that they were complaining behind Ersi's back, and you even had to point it out. Who on earth made Ersi lose face?
The scene was extremely awkward for a moment, with only Xiao Tang's voice still echoing: "It's normal for people to have emotions. Xiao Fei, you have to accept that your brother Er is also a person who will call people idiots behind their backs. Don't think he is perfect."
"Uh... sorry, Erge." Xiao Fei was so embarrassed that he almost forgot that his hair stood on end a few minutes ago, and quickly apologized, "Yes, I'm sorry."
The atmosphere seemed even more awkward as he apologized.
"...Forget it," after a long while, everyone heard Er Si say helplessly, "Let's change the subject."
Everyone was pardoned.
"Is this weird story not over yet? Will we encounter something else after we walk out of this corridor?" Someone quickly changed the subject.
"Let me ask the audience in the live broadcast room..."
"Don't ask, we're almost out..." Xiao Tang said in a long tone, "You guys better be prepared. Once this door is pushed open, if there's no buff, all our efforts will be in vain."
The door of the pawn shop was flung open.
In an instant, everyone seemed to be pulled out of their bodies, the perspective gradually rose, and Zhoufu Village reappeared in front of everyone.
Only this time, their perspective was higher, as if they were hanging in the sky.
From this perspective, everyone discovered that there really was a transparent cover on top of Zhoufu Village, which included the entire village, the land, and the path down the mountain. The air in the village was getting hotter not because all eight houses had been set on fire, but because when Dahai's parents set fire to that house, they intentionally used gasoline to guide the flames to the locations of other houses, igniting the other small houses.
The fire spread along the gasoline, and from this angle, more than half of the village was already engulfed in flames.
The bright red flames almost merged with the bloody sky. In the remaining villages that had not been burned, the villagers walked through them with kitchen knives in their hands, completely unaware that Mr. Huang, whom they worshipped as a god, had died a few seconds ago.
"What...is going on?" Xiao Fei stuttered and subconsciously wanted to look at Ersi, but found that he couldn't speak at all.
Or maybe it’s not that she can’t speak, but that she doesn’t have any vocal organs in her current state.
She seemed like a soul that had been pulled out of her body. She could only passively watch everything happening below, unable to communicate with the outside world or make any other reactions.
Fortunately, everyone can communicate through sign language or lip sync.
Bai Jinshu was stunned for a moment, but soon realized that the live broadcast room could still be seen.
The bullet screen in the live broadcast room refreshed very quickly:
[Does this count as a happy ending where everyone survives? ]
【I guess so.】
【Did you talk about it the day after tomorrow?】
[I don’t think I’ve seen this scene before.]
[The host didn’t know what was going on. ]
【Just keep reading and you will know. 】
…
"Is this the wildfire site?" At this moment, Bai Jinshu heard the voices of two men talking, "It's here, the fire is out."
The scene in front of me gradually became blurred. The still raging flames slowly overlapped with a ruin that had turned into scorched earth. Several people who looked like firefighters and cadres were standing at the entrance of the village, seemingly communicating something.
"This fire started strangely. At about midnight, we received a call from the fire department saying that there was a mountain fire in Zhoushan. But when we hung up the phone to confirm the fire, we did not find any signs of fire on the mountain."
The speaker was a tall man. "In order to ensure that the alarm information was correct, our team went up to confirm it. It turned out that the red mountain fire mentioned by the caller was actually an optical illusion caused by the neon lights in the village. Only then did we feel relieved and went down the mountain."
"And then?" someone asked, "You came up to check, but you didn't find any fire here! This could cause a wildfire!"
"I...we don't know what happened either," the tall man said with a trace of embarrassment on his face. "This...everyone in the team saw it, leader! There was indeed no fire last night, and we don't know why there was a fire here at dawn!"
"Don't try to play tricks on me! Do you know that these are human lives..."
The man was halfway through getting angry when he was stopped by a middle-aged man next to him, "Lao Li, come here for a moment. You were transferred from outside and you don't know... I'll tell you."
The angry leader was dragged away. The captain dressed as a firefighter looked confused: "This... the whole team really saw it yesterday. There was obviously no fire, but how could it be..."
A low voice came from the distance: "Look carefully, this place is a deserted village, no one lives there. The area below Zhoufu Village, Touzhou Village caught fire in the middle of the night and no one noticed. By the time everyone found out, everyone in the village was dead. Since then, this area of the mountain has been identified as a potential wildfire hazard, and all residents have moved away. These burned ruins are just empty houses left behind by the villagers who moved away that year."
"What the police saw last night..."
“Shh—” the middle-aged man glanced around and lowered his voice. “Local people know not to worry about it. Zhoushan is not clean. All the villagers in Touzhou Village died in the fire. Twenty years ago, when the fire had just started, people saw fire on the mountain every now and then, but when they reported the fire, nothing happened. After so many times, everyone knew that the fire was probably not real, and that the villagers who died in the fire could not rest in peace.”
"Then this village..." There was a hint of hesitation on the man's face.
"It was so bad back then that we invited a Mr. Huang to come and take a look," the middle-aged man whispered. "Mr. Huang said that the villagers in Touzhou Village are still resentful. If things continue like this, something bad will happen sooner or later. It would be better to transform the village after the villagers on the mountain moved away into the appearance of Touzhou Village before, and then set up a formation to draw the souls of those villagers up, and select a few special characters to suppress the village, so that they will think they are not dead and forget that they are villagers of Touzhou Village. This way, we can solve the fires that occur from time to time."
"I'm afraid that if this village catches fire again, it will be impossible to suppress it. I have to ask the old master to take a look. Since there were no casualties and it didn't turn into a forest fire, let it go."
Old Li looked hesitant, but still nodded: "Then...what about this gentleman?"
"I'll look for it," the middle-aged man patted his shoulder, "When this incident happened, I personally watched Mr. Huang rebuild this village."
The abandoned village where all the villagers had been moved away was rebuilt and redesigned, creating a complex of buildings constructed by formations.
Wait, so there is no hatred between Touzhou Village and Zhoufu Village, and the people in Zhoufu Village are the dead villagers of Touzhou Village?
This amount of information almost overturned all their previous speculations, and Bai Jinshu subconsciously shifted all his attention over there.
That Mr. Huang...
As the two narrated, in the overlapping scenes, Dahai's parents were holding gasoline barrels and muttering, "I remember it, I remember it!"
"Everyone died more than 20 years ago. The sea is my son. The sea is my son!"
The couple cried and laughed, pouring gasoline and shouting: "Dahai is my son! Dajiang is your son too! Xiaochuan is your son too! You attacked your own children! You forgot everything! You can't get out at all!"
In the village, the fire was raging, and the whole village was engulfed in flames.
The villagers, however, seemed to be completely unaware of the sea of fire around them. They walked across the unburned ground with knives in hand, with murderous gleams in their eyes, as if they were still looking for a human sacrifice to allow the ritual to continue.
No wonder it’s always so hot in Zhoufu Village…
It turned out that although they had forgotten that they were dead, their remaining memories still made them subconsciously live in a sea of fire every moment.
"Captain..." A team member walked up to the tall man, "I found something."
He was holding a kitchen knife in his hand. The blade had been sharpened to the point where it could break even a hair. It looked so new that it didn't seem like something that would be found in a fire scene.
Now it is covered with black ash, and it looks like it was picked up from a fire scene.
"A kitchen knife?" The captain frowned. "Put it in an evidence bag and take it back."
"Hey, young man..." The middle-aged man who was just talking to Lao Li waved his hand, "Don't touch the things in the fire scene, and don't bring them back to the detachment. Someone will come to deal with them when the time comes."
"Director Li..." The captain looked at Old Li helplessly.
"Let them handle it." Old Li nodded.
Although he did not believe in ghosts and gods, no dead bodies were found here and the village was burned empty. Although the kitchen knife looked like an arsonist's item, it was hard to imagine how this thing could be linked to arson after no body was found and murder and arson were ruled out.
The people who came to investigate the fire scene quickly left here, and on the other side of the overlapping illusion, the villagers who had forgotten their way back and forth were holding knives, forgetting time, and walking forever in this burning village.
In their hearts, the fire never seemed to stop.
The perspective rose higher and higher, and the other triggerers left one by one. At this moment, Bai Jinshu heard a very soft voice: "Thank you."
In the overlapping perspectives, Xiaochuan and You Gaohan are standing outside the village.
Although they were still wearing the faces of the triggerers, they were no longer wearing the same clothes as when the triggerers left. Xiaochuan's body was covered with knife marks and he was dying, while You Gaohan's face was covered in blood and he was holding a sharp kitchen knife in his hand.
"Among the many times we have taken endless revenge on them," You Gaohan said, "you are the first one who did not let Xiaochuan and You Gaohan kill each other."
Bai Jinshu finally opened his eyes slightly.
The name [Revenge] is so deceptive, it is not the revenge of Zhoufu Village against Toushou Village, but the revenge of Xiaochuan and You Gaohan against the villagers.
You Gaohan had a face full of Huai Jiamu, but Bai Jinshu saw a feeling that was completely different from his, yet very similar to his: "Xiaochuan and I have fulfilled our wish, and we are leaving this village."
At the last second when the view went black, Bai Jinshu heard Xiaochuan say, "By the way, I have something to give you before you leave."
His body suddenly felt heavy and he fell to the ground.
The newcomers cheered all around: "Buff is out!"
"I can't take it anymore. I need to take a rest. I'm so sleepy."
"Me too, I can't stand it anymore."
Bai Jinshu slowly looked at his right hand.
A kitchen knife appeared in his hand at some point.
A sharp kitchen knife.
This thing was flashing with a cold light, and it looked like the same knife that the captain found in the ruins at the last scene of the fire.
But when you open the live broadcast room, there is no trace of this thing.
Xiaochuan's last words echoed in his ears: "Take it, choose an object, and try to chop it from the air."
The author has something to say:
Obtain the necessary tool for the dirty trick - Ogawa's kitchen knife
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