Chapter 206: Scavenger (2) Torii
[Resurrection (What is the relationship between you and Inari?)]
The line of red words was so bright that it was hard to ignore. Gao Mengtang read it three times and recalled it three times, but he could not find any memory related to Inari.
According to Wei Wei, Inari died in 343 AD and Gao Mengtang was born in 343 AD, so they would not have had too much interaction.
At most, Inari held Gao Mengtang in his arms when he was a child.
The people at Yuefan were very surprised, but they didn't show it, and walked into the forest as if nothing had happened. The driver pressed the timer: "Three hours, if you come out one minute later, I will kill one of you, understand? Clean up the bodies, surveillance, and bloodstains."
System: "12 players will be divided into four groups to complete different tasks."
"Grouping in progress..."
"The grouping has ended. Please open your system panel and confirm your task."
Decomposition Task 1: Clean up the crime scene - Haunted House [Linyuan]
Disposal of corpses: 0/7
Destruction monitoring: Not completed
Cleaning up blood: Current progress 0%
This time, the system made a personnel decision, giving priority to the faction when grouping, and a group of people from the same faction. Gao Mengtang, He Lun, Bai Jie, and Wei Xiangchen were a group of four, responsible for destroying the surveillance.
Wei Wei, Lin Li, Tu Cheng and Wo Lanbei were responsible for cleaning up the bodies, and Hei Ou's four men were responsible for cleaning up the bloodstains.
The lights were on inside the haunted house, and the light was bright. The ghostly props didn't look scary at all. On the contrary, they looked pretty because of the exquisite decoration.
"That's a torii!" Gao Mengtang said excitedly.
The forest garden is built on a steep mountain in the amusement park. Hundreds of vermilion torii gates form a passage leading to the top of the mountain. The divine building seems to be separated from the outside world by a barrier, lonely and desolate. The grass spotlights illuminate the torii wood, and the vermilion passage is bathed in light, which is beautiful.
Only Gao Mengtang knew how to appreciate it, and it seemed like he was really here for tourism.
"Look at the shimenawa on the torii gate. It's hand-woven. I've woven this kind of rope before for activities in high school." Gao Mengtang raised his hand and touched the straw rope. "It takes a lot of time to weave it to this level."
The shimenawa represents the boundary of sacred things. In Japanese culture, the torii gate is the entrance to the sacred realm, distinguishing the sacred realm from the secular world.
There seems to be something wrong with such a sacred object appearing in a haunted house in an amusement park.
"Why did they build such a haunted house?" Gao Mengtang couldn't help but feel curious. "Combining the blessing of gods with horror... a very innovative idea..."
Wei Wei had already woven 12 black mud puppets and dug out a lot of cleaning potions to clean up the bloodstains. When he heard Gao Mengtang mumbling to himself, he raised his head and said, "Sir Blind, let me remind you that this is a Level 1 instance. We should not think too much about it. Let's put aside the secrets of the instance for now and just clear it."
"We shouldn't think like that," Gao Mengtang said seriously, "It's precisely because this is a Tier 1 instance that we have to have high expectations and high standards. If we take the best, we'll get the middle, and if we take the middle, we'll get the worst. If we set a minimum standard at the beginning, it's easy for something to go wrong."
Wei Wei was speechless after hearing this. He stood there blankly for a long while, holding the mop, before he said, "As expected of you. Be careful."
12 people, 4 groups, acted separately. Gao Mengtang and others went to find the monitoring room. They entered the center of the forest garden, a shrine-like building, and quickly found an iron door according to the map.
There is a sign on the iron door: [Control Center·Monitoring Room]
"The door is locked," said Heron.
Wei Xiangchen turned into a ghost and walked through the door, trying to open it from the inside. After fiddling with it for a while, he found that the door could not be opened directly from the inside.
There is only one empty card slot, and it seems that the door can only be opened by inserting an ID card.
"Let's go find the props to open the door first." Gao Mengtang said.
*
"Level 1 dungeon, that's it? Cleaning?" Tu Cheng took a cleaning cloth and wiped the blood off the skull. "This is unreasonable, or is it that the tasks that Thunder God assigns us will become more and more difficult?"
Wolanbei dragged the pool of blood on the carpet unhappily: "I can't rule out this possibility, but I advise you to be serious. This is a level 1 copy."
With the strong cleaning agent provided by the Black Tower store and 12 black clay puppets, cleaning the bloodstains was not a difficult task. Soon, they wiped clean a corridor, returned the same way, and found the stairs to go up to the second floor.
"Who cleaned this?" Wei Wei tapped the carpet with his leather shoes. A bright red bloodstain as big as a fist was clearly visible on the carpet.
Tu Cheng: "It was me. But I remember I wiped it clean."
"Wipe it again." Wei Wei said to the puppet. Before the black clay puppet took out the cleaning sponge, a drop of slightly warm liquid dripped on Wei Wei's hair.
Liquid dripped down his forehead. Wei Wei raised his hand and felt it. What just fell on his hair was blood.
Looking up, I saw blood dripping from the vent on the corridor ceiling.
There is something on it.
The octopus tentacles tore off the aluminum alloy shutters of the vents, and a corpse fell down and hit Wei Wei with a plop. The subway was once again stained red with dirty blood.
A pale face flashed in the dim ventilation vent!
Wei Wei's eyes flashed and he jumped back. At the same time, He Luo's tentacles bounced into the vent. The ceiling rattled for a while, and then the tentacles retracted awkwardly.
The thing ran too fast and He Luo couldn't catch it.
"Who is it? The murderer?" Tu Cheng narrowed his eyes and looked into the vent.
The fact that the murderer is still hiding in Linyuan makes the players shudder.
Wei Wei: "Don't worry about him."
Their task is to clean up the bloodstains, not to hunt down the murderer. Whoever wants to deal with it can do so.
It took another 5 minutes to clean the soiled carpet, and then the body was thrown out through the window for Yin Mingwu and his team to deal with. Wei Wei and his team went to the second floor.
Just as I left, before I walked 10 meters away, I heard a "crash" sound behind me.
Looking back, I saw a bucket of blood spilled and an iron bucket fell out of the vent.
Wei Wei: “…”
"No matter what," Tu Cheng smiled bitterly, "We cleaned up the front and he's messing around in the back. We only have three hours. When can we finish this?"
They didn't know what was hidden in the vent, and since it was a high-difficulty copy, no one dared to act rashly.
Moreover, in Wei Wei's eyes, the hostile NPC was glowing with red light. Although he could not see its face, he could see that on the ceiling, a ball of red light was moving at an astonishing speed. In just half a minute, it was out of their sight.
The ventilation duct is narrow, and his movement speed is as fast as lightning. His strength should not be underestimated.
After thinking for a moment, Wei Wei said, "If you have any questions, ask your leader first." He called the driver and told him what they had encountered.
"What the hell? Someone is hiding in the ventilation duct?" The driver's irritable voice came, "Who is it? Did you see the face clearly?"
Wei Wei: “No. We need more information, otherwise it will be difficult to start our work.”
"Wait a moment, I'll go ask Lei Gong."
After hanging up the phone, the four people cleaned the carpet for the third time. Fortunately, no one messed up this time. After the blood was wiped clean, the driver called back.
"I asked Lei Gong, but he didn't know either," the driver said. "Now you have another mission. Capture that mysterious man alive."
System: "[101 Nine Thousand Years Old] has triggered the side quest [Who is playing tricks]"
"Please note that in this instance, if you fail a side quest, you may still face death penalty."
Side quest: [Who is playing tricks?]
Mission 1: Capture the mysterious man hiding in the dark.
Wei Wei's face was as cold as if he had been in the refrigerator all night. He didn't want to cause trouble, but he was the first to trigger the side quest. He irritably put the ventilation duct opening back, applied a thick layer of super glue, and completely sealed the duct, making it watertight.
*
"Haha, Avi is very obedient," Gao Mengtang said with a smile, "He corrected his attitude and took the initiative to find side quests to do."
Wei Xiangchen also exclaimed: "He is so active that he is like a completely different person. Leader Gao has taught him well."
The cell phone beeped, it was a message from Wei Wei.
: Sir Blind, there is a hostile NPC in the haunted house who moves very fast, so be careful.
Gao Mengtang: I know.
: Congratulations on triggering the side quest. That's what you should do. Explore more dungeons and don't be afraid of unexpected things! You are awesome. Keep it up [Bunny Dance]
Wei Wei: ...You are so kind.
This was definitely an accident.
: My mission is to capture the hostile NPC alive. If you encounter him, try not to kill him if you can.
After briefly communicating the clues, Gao Mengtang continued to look for the ID card. The four of them walked around and finally entered an underground interrogation room.
A railing divides the room into two parts, the right side is the visitor route and the left side is the prop area.
In the prop area, the fake dolls were broken and lying on the ground, and a man was nailed to the torture chair in the middle. The nails had penetrated his skull, his palms were nailed to the armrests, and dark brown blood soaked his clothes.
The one who was nailed to death was not a prop doll, but a real person.
"How miserable." Gao Mengtang sighed, stepped over the railing, entered the prop area, and helped him close his eyes.
I stepped on something soft, and when I looked down, I found it was a tongue. There was no tongue in the dead man's mouth.
"Brother, I found this!" He Lun held up a camera, "It can still be used, let's take a look together."
Press the play button, the broken screen starts playing.
"It's so dark!" said the boy behind the camera. "Today we came to the Linyuan Haunted House in the Paperman Amusement Park. This is the pinnacle of challenge for haunted house enthusiasts..."
The person who recorded the video should be a self-media blogger, and the introduction was very detailed. Faced with the sudden monsters and the startling sound effects, he was not panicked at all, and even turned the tables and teased the haunted house NPC.
The atmosphere was very cheerful, and the blogger's two teammates kept grinning at the camera.
When the haunted house is in operation, the light is dim, but the camera has night vision function, so you can get a general idea.
"There was a handsome guy over there just now!" the blogger exclaimed, "Wow, so handsome! Let me show you...Ah, too bad, he walked away."
"Come in, come in," Bai Jie urged, "see what happened after he entered the interrogation room."
The scene jumps to the interrogation room. The blogger holds a camera and shoots the prop area on the left side of the railing. Two staff members dressed in ancient executioner costumes drag a boy over, press him on a chair, and tie him up tightly.
This boy is the one who was nailed to death.
"Oh shit, it's started! Execution of the blasphemer!" the blogger said excitedly, "Don't be afraid, this is fake, these are all props..."
The blogger's teammate said: "But this looks so real. The person tied to the torture chair must look real, right?"
"Otherwise, how can we call him Lin Yuan? It should be realistic!" The blogger pointed the camera at the torture chair. The boy on the chair was smiling. It was obvious that he was a little nervous, but very excited.
The executioner used a large pair of pliers to poke into the boy's mouth and knocked out two of his teeth.
The boy was originally very calm, but when his teeth were knocked out by the pliers, he suddenly began to struggle hard and scream.
If I'm not mistaken, this boy thought he was just cooperating with the haunted house staff to perform a popular horror show, but he didn't expect the staff to be serious about it, so he started to struggle.
Then, there was a roar of extreme pain, and his tongue was pulled out completely.
"Awesome!" the blogger exclaimed. "Wow, this is too real. Even movies can't make it this real!"
There were screams all around, and the timid ones quickly ran away. The blogger also pointed the camera at the torture chair.
The boy whose tongue was pulled out looked at the blogger's camera and shook his head desperately. His eyes were heartbreaking. The camera shook, and the blogger began to waver: "What's going on? A puppet? A puppet can't be so lifelike. Is it a holographic projection?"
Two staff members used a 20-centimeter-long nail to pierce the boy's palm. The boy spat out blood from his mouth and cried breathlessly.
Finally, the nail was driven through his head. The boy's head was firmly fixed, with the nail hanging between his eyebrows.
bite--
The first blow made the boy twitch violently. The second blow made his eyes roll upwards and he died.
At this time, the blogger behind the camera also fell silent. The screams and cheers around him gradually became quieter until it was completely silent.
In the interrogation room, only the staff were hammering the iron nails one after another, making a dinging sound.
"Why do I feel like this is real?" said the blogger's friend. "It looks creepy. Let's leave quickly."
The blogger suddenly woke up: "Ah? Oh, okay. Let's go."
"Ahhh——!" A scream came from beside the blogger, because at this moment, the staff dressed in executioner costumes, holding hammers and nails, looked at the tourists.
The tourists were so frightened that they pushed and shoved each other as they ran out. The blogger's camera was squeezed away and he was kicked several times.
"My camera! My camera!"
After that, the screen was completely dark. It was probably because the haunted house was too dark and the blogger couldn't find the camera.
After watching the video, the four of them couldn't help sighing. A living person had his tongue pulled out and his skull pierced by a hammer, but everyone thought it was a drama.
"Let's go and find the ID card." Gao Mengtang sighed, took a photo of the body, and sent it to Yin Mingwu, asking them to deal with it.
As the players searched for their ID cards, they were much quieter. Although they knew what happened in the haunted house in advance, seeing the scenes with their own eyes was still very shocking.
"Why do they kill people in this way?" Gao Mengtang broke the silence. "Psychopaths? Do they also seek artistic effects when killing people?"
Wei Xiangchen shrugged: "I have been dead for a long time, and I have seen all kinds of monsters, but this is the first time I have seen such a perverted one...Did the deceased offend someone?"
After thinking for a moment, Gao Mengtang shook his head: "I think the deceased is innocent."
He recounted the reasons why he came to this conclusion.
First of all, there is a high probability that the boy came to the haunted house alone. If he had a companion, when the boy's tongue was pulled out, the boy's companion would have noticed something was wrong and would not have watched him being nailed to death.
If a boy has a blood feud with someone and his life is in danger, how can he have the leisure to come to a haunted house alone? He won't have time to escape. This amusement park requires real-name registration when buying tickets. The boy is probably just an adventurous haunted house enthusiast.
Secondly, when the boy was first tied to the chair, he did not panic at all and was smiling, which showed that he was just an ordinary tourist and did not expect the staff to be serious.
"These bastards randomly selected single tourists and killed them in a brutal way," Gao Mengtang was filled with righteous indignation. "They were not targeting tourists at all. It seemed more like..."
Heron: "Like what?"
Gao Mengtang hesitated for a moment: "...I can't explain it, I just feel it's weird. Maybe the mastermind behind this is a pervert."
After leaving the interrogation room, they searched two more rooms, leaving no corner untouched. In such a huge haunted house, finding an ID card the size of a palm is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
In the locker room, Gao Mengtang and three others were rummaging through the staff's clothes.
2 hours remaining.
"Found it! Found it!" Bai Jie shouted excitedly, "The access card to the monitoring room!"
He held up the ID card, and the other three laughed in relief.
——Suddenly, a black shadow flashed by and snatched the ID card from Bai Jie’s hand!
"Catch it!" Gao Mengtang shouted, pressing the ring on his left hand and injecting soul-calming poison.
The black quagmire instantly filled the entire room, entangling the fleeing object. He Lun pounced over and pinned it down with his shield. Ignoring the man's scratches, he snatched the ID card and threw it to Gao Mengtang.
"Who are you? What do you want to do?" Heron pressed the edge of his shield against the creature's neck. "Speak! Otherwise I will kill you now!"
Bai Jie grabbed the man's hair and forced him to raise his face. He was wearing a white rabbit mask, and Bai Jie reached out to take it off.
As soon as his fingertips touched the mask, the man let out an extremely shrill scream. Bai Jie subconsciously retracted his hand. In this extremely brief moment, the man burst out with incredible strength, shook He Lun away, broke free from the shackles of the black quagmire, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The four people who remained in the dressing room were all stunned and looked at Gao Mengtang in disbelief.
That's a ghost with a lantern! The corrupt supreme order, no one who is entangled by it can break free, what is the origin of that monster? ?
He Lun was knocked away and hit the wall, holding his chest and coughing. Gao Mengtang patted his back to calm him down.
"My Monster Book has been updated," Bai Jie said, sharing the newly acquired information.
Monster name: Rabbit-faced Craftsman.
[■■■■■■■■ life, he has a low self-esteem, always wears a mask, and doesn't want others to see his face.]
[If you touch the Rabbit Mask Craftsman's mask, he will be very angry! In a short period of time, he will gain amazing fighting power, and will kill gods and Buddhas! For your own safety, stay away from the Rabbit Mask Craftsman's mask!]
[However, please rest assured that if you do not touch the Rabbit-faced Artisan's mask, he will not be strengthened and will not have extremely strong combat power, but will move very fast.]
[Note: Rabbit mask craftsmen cannot be saved]
"This must be the hostile NPC that Wei Wei encountered." Gao Mengtang said, sharing the information with Wei Wei and the others.
He Lun finally recovered from the severe pain and stuffed a string of bracelets and rings into Gao Mengtang's hand: "Brother, I saw the rabbit-faced craftsman wearing a bead necklace with a unique style. It may reveal his identity. I took it off his hand when I pressed him down just now. It may be useful."
"You still have such a thought?" Bai Jie said, "I look at you with new eyes!"
He Lun spat out a mouthful of blood and wiped the corner of his mouth: "Can I always be so stupid?"
It was a string of glass incense ash beads, the whole thing was black and white, and the top bead was a silver paper crane. Gao Mengtang put the bracelet into the bubble, supported He Lun, and returned to the monitoring room.
Gao Mengtang used his ID card to open the door of the monitoring room and immediately frowned: "What a bad smell."
The pungent smell of perfume mixed with a faint smell of blood and a nauseating stench of decay. Gao Mengtang wanted to pinch his nose, but this action was not very elegant, so he forced himself to hold it back.
"I envy you now, Wei Xiangchen," Bai Jie turned on the computer and searched for surveillance files, "You are dead and have no sense of smell. You don't have to smell this disgusting smell."
Wei Xiangchen: "Little kid, please be more respectful when speaking to the elderly!"
"The computer has a password." Bai Jie said, "What should we do? Where's Gao Geng? He didn't enter the dungeon..."
They were unlucky this time, as Duan Song and Xiao Canglan, who were supposed to handle the bodies, didn't come in, and neither did Gao Geng, the technical support. The four of them stared at the computer in a daze.
"How about we destroy the monitoring room?" He Lun said, "Physical deletion also counts as deletion, right?"
Wei Xiangchen: "Based on my experience of having played 100 dungeons, I'm afraid it won't work. If you smash the monitoring room and the police come to investigate, won't you be exposed?"
Silence again.
"The dungeon won't be deadlocked. There are a few players who know computer programs. The Black Tower won't use technology to block us," Gao Mengtang said. "We'll look around and maybe we can find the password."
The four of them rummaged around in the monitoring room again. This was a very difficult task because the smell here was so bad that Bai Jie and He Lun dry heaved several times.
Time remaining: 1h30min
Gao Mengtang took out a bunch of cabinet keys from the drawer, tried them one by one, and opened a locked cabinet that was full of notebooks and A4 papers.
I'm sorry, I don't want to pry into your privacy, but we also have to find clues, otherwise we can't survive. Gao Mengtang repeated it in his mind, took out the diary from the file cabinet, and flipped through it from the back to the front.
December 30, 342, S.E., two days before the incident in the haunted house.
：It was Brother Liu's turn to be on duty today, but he didn't come and didn't ask for leave. My boss asked me to work overtime. It's annoying.
December 31, 342 SGD
: Today's weather is really bad, with thunderstorms and it's as scary as the end of the world. Brother Liu didn't come yesterday, and Brother Li didn't come today either, and Brother Li didn't ask for leave. Two of the three employees in the control center left inexplicably, and the leaders couldn't contact them. It's really strange. Did anyone spray perfume in the monitoring room? The fragrance is so strong that it makes me dizzy.
: But Brother Liu and Brother Li didn’t come, and the leader actually scolded me? ? ? The leader must be sick!!
Gao Mengtang's intuition told him that Brother Liu and Brother Li had an accident.
He put the diary back and used the key to open the doors of other cabinets. After trying for more than 10 minutes, he finally opened one of the doors. A bulging snakeskin bag fell into Gao Mengtang's arms, and the stench immediately clung to his body.
Gao Mengtang's face turned pale. He slowly and resolutely untied the rope that tied the snakeskin bag and looked inside.
Inside the snakeskin bag was a pile of smashed and rotten corpses!
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