Chapter 284: Inhuman (92) (1st update + 2nd update + 0.5 update of 8300 thunderbolts) [VIP]
"It can't be the nameless fog!" the yellow-haired man suddenly spoke.
"There's no fog here..." Xiao Tang was puzzled. "The last time we went into the Nameless Fog, we didn't see anyone disappear. Everyone in that fog was unconscious, but everyone disappeared here."
"Oh...oh, yes." The yellow-haired man shut up angrily.
"Whether it's the nameless fog or not..." Bai Jinshu took a few steps forward and looked around the teahouse. "The biggest question now is, where are all the people here?"
It seemed that the only people missing were those in the teahouse.
In front of the teahouse's door was a river that ran through the town. In addition to the teahouse, there were many shops and tea stalls on both sides of the river. Before they came in, there were many passers-by on the street outside.
If they accidentally triggered some strange ghost story, then why did the people in the teahouse disappear?
"How about we split up and look around?" Guan Hongyan thought for a moment, "See if there's anyone in the teahouse's private room or in the back?"
"No," Yuan Shanming quickly rejected. "Now the people in the teahouse are gone. If we split up, what if the people we split up also disappear?"
"That's right..." Guan Hongyan touched her chin and reached out to touch the teacup beside her. "The tea is still hot. If everyone in the teahouse really disappeared inexplicably, it must have happened a few minutes ago."
That's when they decided to go back to the teahouse.
"Let's take a look at the box upstairs first." Bai Jinshu walked upstairs.
The private rooms upstairs in the teahouse are divided into two categories. One category is located on the corridor near the lobby. These private rooms are similar to the lobby and are set up to entertain tea drinkers.
The second type is in the deep lobby. Sitting in this type of box, you can't hear the voice of the storyteller and the Pingtan in the lobby clearly. It is for people to talk or rest. Yuan Shanming and other guests who came early stayed here.
We went up to the second floor and checked all the boxes near the lobby.
No one.
The doors of all the boxes were open, and on the table were a number of half-eaten snacks and tea that was still warm to the touch.
It seemed that the people in these boxes disappeared in an instant.
"Brother Yuan, have you ever encountered such a situation before?" Bai Jinshu frowned, "Or have you ever heard of such a situation happening in a teahouse?"
"No," Yuan Shanming shook his head and answered firmly, "The ghost stories in the teahouse are very stable. There have been no changes here for more than ten years."
That's true.
Apart from anything else, the storytellers’ stories, which are the core of the teahouse ghost story, have not changed for at least a hundred years.
Yuan Shanming and the owner of the teahouse have been friends for more than ten years. If there were any changes in the teahouse, there was no way he would not know about it.
"Could it be that something new suddenly happened in the teahouse today?" Xiao Tang speculated as he walked.
"It's possible... but not very likely," Yuan Shanming shook his head. "The ghost stories in the teahouse are very stable. If Boss Sun doesn't want them to change, there won't be any changes."
And Boss Sun probably wouldn't imagine that everyone in the teahouse suddenly disappeared, right?
"Maybe Boss Sun saw something that led to this idea, which led to changes in the teahouse?" Guan Hongyan guessed.
"It's unlikely," Yuan Shanming continued to deny. "Although the teahouse was created by Boss Sun, if you want to transform it, it will take a long time to slowly form new content."
"It's like..." He thought for a moment and gave an example. "Suppose Boss Sun thinks that the storyteller's stories need to be updated every afternoon in the teahouse. The storyteller won't come up with a new story the moment he has this idea. He needs some time to collect new materials or write a new script. Only then will a new story appear."
Boss Sun's ideas were more likely to stimulate the storyteller's enthusiasm rather than directly generate new story content.
"Besides, Boss Sun hasn't renovated the teahouse for many years," Yuan Shanming pushed open another door and found that it was still blank inside, so he had to continue, "The storyteller has maintained the number of stories at fifty-eight for many years. Most of the old leaders in the City of the Dead have memorized them. If more stories are added, it is not guaranteed that all leaders will know the newly added stories. If the newcomers are not prepared in advance, a large number of people will die in the ghost stories."
"Compared to what happened last night, this Boss Sun is quite nice..." Xiao Tang muttered a few words.
In order to allow the newlyweds to be fully prepared, the stories in the teahouse have not been touched for many years.
From this perspective, he really doesn't seem like the kind of person who would suddenly change the content of a teahouse ghost story and make everyone in a teahouse disappear.
That's strange.
"Since there is no problem with the teahouse..." Huang Mao laughed dryly, "Then the problem is us, right?"
Boss Sun in the teahouse will not make any changes to the teahouse, so if everyone in the teahouse suddenly disappears, it can only be their problem.
"The problem is... we didn't do anything?" Guan Hongyan scratched his head in confusion.
After a few words of discussion, everyone walked around the box outside and found that there was no one here. Everyone looked at each other and had to go inside.
The teahouse was surprisingly quiet without any sound. Only the footsteps of a few people echoed in the corridor. Guan Hongyan racked her brains to recall for a long time: "When we left here, everything was normal. If there was a problem, it must have happened between the time we left the teahouse and the time we returned to the teahouse."
The question is, during this period of time, they did nothing?
The teahouse was located on the bank of a river in a small town in the south of the Yangtze River. After they left the teahouse, they just walked along the river for a while. Seeing that the time was almost up, everyone turned back.
Is there anything wrong with this process?
"Strange..." Yuan Shanming was also puzzled. "Although this space is very large and there are many strange stories living in the teahouse, we didn't encounter anything during the whole process?"
Since Yuan Shanming said so, there will probably be no problem during this period of time.
"This is interesting," Bai Jinshu pushed open the last door. As expected, there was no one inside. "The teahouse wouldn't change suddenly, and we didn't encounter any suspicious ghost stories. So why did it become like this now?"
At the end of the teahouse corridor, everyone was lost in thought.
"Let's take a look at the kitchen first." Yuan Shanming turned around first.
Everyone followed him downstairs and walked towards the back of the teahouse.
All the boxes on the second floor have been checked, and everyone has a rough idea of the current situation.
Although psychologically speaking, everyone certainly hopes to meet the owner and waiters of the teahouse in the kitchen, but from a rational point of view, everyone knows that there is probably no one in the kitchen.
Sure enough, the kitchen was also empty.
Unlike the lobby, there are still a lot of foods being cooked in the pots and stoves in the kitchen.
The entire kitchen looked like it was preparing tea and snacks, except that the chef who was supposed to be moving around was missing.
This time there was really no chance of luck, as everyone in the teahouse suddenly disappeared.
"Is it possible that we were too chaotic last night and accidentally triggered a ghost story about the dead? However, this ghost story has a long incubation period, which is why the problem has only occurred now?" Xiao Tang leaned on the chopping board beside the stove, took a snack from the pot and took a bite, then let out a long sigh. "Otherwise, there is really no reason. Why would everyone in the teahouse disappear inexplicably?"
"If it is a strange story brought in from the outside world, then there should be a scope of protection," Guan Hongyan stood up and shook her head, "Isn't your teahouse a large-scale strange story? Then the scope of the teahouse is the same as the scope of the subway station. In the teahouse, this strange story should no longer have any effect."
"Unless..." Bai Jinshu seemed to be thinking, "Is this a strange story that can ignore range protection?"
In the entire space, the fewest people were exactly the people in the Ghost Story Teahouse. It was hard not to feel that this was a targeted provocation.
"It shouldn't be," Yuan Shanming said with a click of his tongue, looking in the direction of Huai Jiamu, "Don't forget, all of us died last night."
When a ghost story is going on, other undead cannot drag them into their own ghost stories, and it is impossible for them to bring a ghost story into the teahouse.
If it weren't for his strange stories, they might not have made it out alive.
Now, all the speculations were denied.
Everyone had the same look of confusion on their faces; even Yuan Shanming had no idea what was going on.
Xiao Tang opened the pot and ate a few pieces of tea cakes without hesitation and said, "How about we come in again and try again?"
"What do you mean by coming back in?" Yuan Shanming was confused.
"Just go out, then come back in and try again," Xiao Tang gestured, "Generally speaking, restarting a computer can solve 90% of computer problems. Maybe if we restart it, the teahouse will be back to normal!"
Her gestures were abstract, but they did provide everyone with a new idea.
"I think it's okay," Guan Hongyan was the first to support her. "Anyway, we can't find any clues here now, so why not come in and try again."
"Brother Yuan?" Xiao Tang looked at Yuan Shanming.
"Okay... give it a try." Yuan Shanming frowned and glanced at his watch. "Then go out and try it now, as quickly as possible."
Everyone walked out of the teahouse.
As soon as they stepped out of the door, Guan Hongyan, who was walking in front, stopped instantly and took a deep breath.
This abnormal behavior made everyone following her stop in their tracks.
"What's wrong?" Bai Jinshu suddenly realized that something might have happened outside. "Is there anything outside?"
"It would be nice if there was something..." Guan Hongyan exhaled slowly, her voice solemn, "The problem is, there are no more people outside now."
They didn't go too far from the teahouse when they went out, and before they came back, there were still a few passers-by on the street outside.
But now…
A group of people stood at the door of the teahouse and looked outside.
This small town in the south of the Yangtze River still looks the same. The tea stalls and shops of all sizes on both sides of the street are all the same as usual, but what is creepy is that the passers-by who used to be near these stalls are also gone.
"Holy crap, is this thing contagious?" Xiao Tang was puzzled. "There were people outside when we came in?"
How come after staying in the teahouse for a while, the people outside disappeared?
"What's going on?" She stood at the door, the confusion on her face almost overflowing, "Is the computer virus spreading?"
If only the people in the teahouse had disappeared before, it could be said that there was a problem with the teahouse, but now there are no passers-by outside the teahouse either. This is not something the teahouse can do.
"Could it be that all the people in this town are gone?!" Xiao Tang was incredibly agile and had already run towards the shops on both sides. Everyone followed her, and the more they ran, the more frightened they became.
The situation outside was a replica of the situation inside the teahouse.
All the shops looked as if there were people there one second and gone the next. It was as if everyone in the entire town had disappeared in an instant. The silence was eerie.
It's like...
"It's like we accidentally entered a space where no one exists..." Bai Jinshu frowned, "Could it be that the problem is actually with this space, not the teahouse, and not with us?"
"That's a bigger problem," Yuan Shanming said dimly, "There's something wrong with the entire space. This effect can only be achieved by triggering an S-level ghost story. For example, after triggering a nightmare, all the citizens of the City of Violence fall into a deep sleep."
"Do you think we accidentally triggered an S-level ghost story, or accidentally became the fish that slipped through the net after the S-level ghost story was triggered?"
"I think it's better if there's something wrong with us..." Xiao Tang said weakly.
Compared to the previous two S-level unknown ghost stories that look troublesome at first glance and even Yuan Shanming doesn’t know what’s going on, it would be more reassuring to say that they have problems.
Everyone sighed at the same time. Huangmao wailed and held his head, unwilling to face reality: "Why do we always encounter this kind of thing!"
Will a normal Novice Village team encounter so many unexpected events?
Now everyone was sitting in the roadside stalls. After running back and forth, everyone was out of breath. However, physical tiredness was nothing at this time. The psychological doubts and fears were the most torturous.
Jinling's insect just crawled around in his hand and repeated the word "no one" several times, each time more rapid than the last, revealing her anxiety which was completely different from her apparent indifference.
After a while, the bug added a few more words: [Entire territory].
There is no one in the whole territory.
Considering what Guan Hongyan had said before about the fixed properties of the golden bell, when they were running around the town just now, the golden bell bugs had probably already searched the entire town before them.
There was indeed no one else here except them.
"First, the people in the teahouse disappeared inexplicably, then the people in the whole town disappeared inexplicably. What's going to disappear next? The people in the entire violent city?" Xiao Tang walked around in circles for a few times, and finally sat down on the stool in frustration, his mind full of confusion, "Isn't this too weird? We didn't do anything!"
"Could this be the strange thing that Captain Shi, the one you met before and asked the teahouse owner to pass on a message to him, be talking about?" Guan Hongyan spoke up, guessing that the whole thing had come back to Shi Pang.
"Then why can't he just say it directly?" Xiao Tang was puzzled. "He asked Boss Sun to tell us that if we find that everyone disappears one day, we should go to Port N to find him. Isn't that enough? Why do we have to say 'strange things' so ambiguous? There are so many strange things. If one day we suddenly can't trigger any strange stories, or if one day we pick up money as soon as we go out, or if one day it rains knives, wouldn't that be strange?"
What Xiao Tang said does make sense.
There are so many strange things, who knows what the strange thing Shi Pang is talking about is.
The situation they are facing now is indeed strange, but who can guarantee that this is what Shi Pang said is "strange"?
"Unless Shi Pang can't say it clearly?" Yuan Shanming narrowed his eyes.
"Either he couldn't tell Boss Sun what the specific strange incident was. If he did, or told anyone else, it would lead to serious consequences," Bai Jinshu analyzed, lowering his eyes. "Or, 'strange incidents' can take many forms, and he didn't know which form we would encounter, so he could only use this relatively general description to summarize it."
But whatever it was, they were definitely in trouble.
If you want to get the answer, you must go to Port N.
Yuan Shanming stood there and thought for a long time: "Suppose it is the first case, Shi Pang did encounter the same thing as us, and found that everyone in the teahouse disappeared. He got some information and suspected that we would encounter the same situation. For some reason, he could not mention the specific situation to the public, so he could only ask Lao Sun to pass on the ambiguous message. That at least explains one thing."
"They met Boss Sun again?!" Xiao Tang reacted immediately and jumped up from the stool, "That means this situation can indeed be solved!"
"Right..." Yuan Shanming thought for a moment, "Let's try restarting it first."
Shi Pang did not say how he solved the "strange thing", and now they can only rely on themselves to figure it out.
"Will this work?" Huangmao asked worriedly.
"I hope it works... Even if it doesn't, we have to leave here first," Yuan Shanming was unsure. "The worst case scenario is that restarting won't work, so we'll go directly to Port N to find Shi Pang."
Instead of looking for the cause like a headless fly, at least they can now go to Shi Pang to solve the problem.
With a try-it attitude, everyone walked back to the entrance point a little further in front of the teahouse and left the teahouse one by one.
Bai Jinshu was in the back, and Guan Hongyan deliberately walked to the back of the crowd, delaying for a while. Bai Jinshu saw Jin Ling, under her cover, picked up a few insects from the ground as if picking up something, and he understood.
She was the last one to leave, probably to retrieve the Gu King that she had just dispersed throughout the space.
The three of them wasted a little time, and by the time they left here, the others had already arrived under the locust tree in the City of the Dead.
Yuan Shanming's face looked uglier than ever before.
Seeing them coming out, he took a deep breath and said, "We may have really encountered something strange."
Following his gaze, Bai Jinshu looked towards the locust tree.
The City of the Dead was eerily quiet.
There was only the sound of the wind in my ears, and everywhere I looked was dead silence.
"The people in the City of Violence are also missing..." he began slowly.
If this is a ghost story, then its scope can only be an S-level ghost story covering the entire area.
If this is their problem, then people will disappear wherever they go.
*
"I now think you're right," Yuan Shanming frowned as he walked on the streets of the City of the Dead, "It's very likely that we have mistakenly entered a space where there is no one except us."
The whole city was eerily quiet.
It was different from the silence when the City of Violence triggered the nightmare. The silence in the City of Violence at that time was a kind of dead silence. There was no human presence at all. The whole world was bleak with only a few of them.
The silence in the City of the Dead is even more terrifying. Everything here looks like there are people living here. There are half-finished drinks on the tables in street cafes, food still heating on the stoves in the kitchen, and cigarette butts with red sparks burning on the edge of the road. Everything shows that there were people here not long ago.
But all these people are gone now.
This is more terrifying than the dead silence and desolation in the city of violence. This feeling of there being no one when there should be people makes everyone feel extremely disconnected and terrified.
Where have all the people gone?
Not only humans but even the undead disappeared completely in the entire city. The Golden Bell insects crawled towards the entire city again, and the news they brought was still [No one in the entire city].
[Neither do the Undead.] The bug added.
The further we walked, the more solemn the expressions on everyone's faces became.
The subway station, as the only prohibited triggering area in every city that is unlikely to be affected by any ghost stories, was not spared. After Yuan Shanming went down, he found that the ticket seller at the ticket office was gone, and the subway was actually out of service.
However, if the subway was not suspended, I'm afraid they wouldn't dare to go up at this moment.
Who knows if we will find that Port N is also empty when we get there.
"No, we can't go on like this," Yuan Shanming was the first to speak, "There's no one anywhere we go now."
"We must get out of this state first, at least to see other people. Otherwise, according to the development, even if we send people to Port N at a rapid speed, we may not be able to see Shi Pang and the others."
And they can't afford the gamble.
There is a twelve-hour cooldown for "A Thousand Miles a Day". If there are really two spaces, then the team members sent to Port N in advance will be in the two Ports N with them.
In this special area where S-level ghost stories are everywhere, Yuan Shanming can't afford to gamble, nor can he send anyone to gamble.
"How do we get out?" Xiao Tang took a deep breath, "There was no sign when we entered the teahouse, and we couldn't find any pattern at all."
This is also the biggest problem at present.
"The person who tied the bell must be the one who can untie it..." Bai Jinshu repeated in a low voice, "The problem should still be in the teahouse, otherwise why did we discover the problem only after entering the teahouse? Maybe we can find the answer to the problem by returning to the teahouse."
The situation they encountered was probably extremely rare in the entire Novice Village.
Yuan Shanming, who is always experienced, rarely asked for help from the barrage of comments in the live broadcast room, asking them if they had seen similar situations.
But I don’t know if the current situation where they can’t see anyone anywhere has also affected the live broadcast room. There are unusually few barrages today. There are a few barrages scattered around, which are some very simple greetings and words. No one answered their questions at all.
The road towards the locust tree was surprisingly quiet. Even the most lively Xiao Tang didn't have any jokes to say. Instead, he frowned and looked around all the way.
But the miracle did not happen. Even after they walked under the locust tree and entered the teahouse, they still didn't see anyone.
The anxiety on Yuan Shanming's face almost overflowed.
"I have led the team for more than ten years, and I have never encountered such a situation..." He stood at the door of the teahouse, looking at the empty lobby, his tone full of anxiety, "If Shi Pang really encountered a similar situation, couldn't he have left a solution!"
Isn't it better than letting them run around like headless flies?
"I should have let you guys go into the teahouse's ghost story earlier," he bit his lower lip, twisted his fingers anxiously, and his eyes couldn't help but drift towards Huai Jiamu, "Is this a ghost story?"
Yuan Shanming really had no other ideas, so he actually asked Huai Jiamu.
"No." Huai Jiamu shook his head, with a hint of doubt on his face.
It's so weird.
The golden bell bug lay quietly on the wrist, and there was no information to be conveyed at the moment.
"If it doesn't work..." Xiao Tang squatted on the ground and rubbed his head, "Why don't we go in first?"
"Just now we suddenly realized that there was no one around," she stood up and jumped, "maybe if we go in again, it will click and everything will be back to normal!"
This can only serve as psychological comfort.
But everyone has been walking back and forth for a long time and really needs to take a break.
Bai Jinshu sighed, feeling that Huangmao's complaints were indeed reasonable. Why did they always encounter strange things?
At first, everyone suspected that this thing was the nameless fog, but now after walking for such a long time, they didn’t even see the shadow of the fog. Moreover, not only the fog had no shadow, but even the humans and undead other than them had no shadow. This was also different.
Besides, the nameless fog has a range and you can walk out of it.
But now... all they can say is that they have not found a way to leave here, and this phenomenon of human disappearance seems to spread with their movement, from just the people in the teahouse disappearing, to the entire space of the teahouse, and then to the entire City of the Dead.
There was no doubt in their minds that if they took the ground route to other areas, they would also find that there was no one in this area.
If this is what Shi Pang meant by the strange thing, then it is indeed worthy of the word strange.
Why didn't they trigger any strange stories or do anything out of line? They were just walking on the road as usual, but accidentally entered such a strange space.
Was it the location of the teahouse where everyone was found to be missing that had a problem, or was it because of them that had a problem...
Bai Jinshu stood at the door of the teahouse with everyone else, and subconsciously stepped over the threshold thoughtfully.
Just as he stepped over the threshold, he seemed to hear a very familiar "Snap!"
The sound was extremely loud and had a reverberation-like echo that shook his entire body.
This is the sound of a gavel.
Along with the sound of the gavel, more sounds suddenly came into his ears.
"It is said that the scholar followed Brother Li, whom he had just met, up the mountain and discovered that there was another mountain behind this mountain. Guests who came to attend the wedding banquet were in groups, and the mountain road was very lively..."
This is the voice of the storyteller.
What he told this afternoon happened to be the story of the fox's wedding.
Bai Jinshu looked up suddenly and found himself in the lobby of the teahouse. There were a few tea drinkers sitting in the lobby. They were not surprised by his entry at all. Instead, they applauded the storyteller's wonderful stories.
They returned to the normal world.
Bai Jinshu was surprised and confused, and subconsciously turned his head to look.
Behind him, the other teammates looked just as confused as he was.
Everyone stood at the door, feeling as if they were in another world and something was wrong.
"Hey, you're back?" Boss Sun, who was sitting in a rocking chair at the door, raised his pipe to greet.
"Old...Old Sun," Yuan Shanming stuttered and pulled Boss Sun, who was smoking a pipe at the door, "Did you see us go out just now? Why didn't I see you?"
As soon as he said this, he suddenly felt that he had said nonsense.
Of course Boss Sun saw them go out.
In order to avoid becoming a ghost story, they left in front of everyone.
In Boss Sun's opinion, they probably went out to avoid the ghost story and didn't come back until a long time later, right?
"I didn't see it. Don't you know whether you saw me or not?" Boss Sun gave him a strange look and suddenly said something inexplicable. "My buddy said you just came back and walked around before leaving. It's only been over an hour. I was wondering why you came back so early. Didn't you say you were going to Area W?"
As soon as these words came out, everyone froze.
"Come back...once?" Yuan Shanming's face suddenly stiffened. "Did your buddy see us coming back?!"
How did he see it?
Could it be that just now, the world that seemed empty to them was actually just because they couldn't see everyone?
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