Chapter 112 (Overhaul)

[… I took some time to chat with the others. It turns out that I’m not being too suspicious. Today’s ghost stories have indeed changed again. Not obvious, but disturbing enough.

[This time, it’s the [rules] of the ghost stories that have changed.

[For a long time, we have always believed that [rules] and [exits] are both natural things that exist in ghost stories. As long as it is a ghost story, there must be rules inside and exits outside. [Rules] can constrain the existence of the ghost story, and at the same time give guidance to those who stray into it, guiding them to protect themselves and escape; [exits] often exist in a form that humans can understand, such as a door leading to the outside, a car leading to a distant place... but it will never be a closet door or a box. It is the channel connecting the legend and reality, and it also means the ultimate salvation.

[We have always taken these two existences for granted and have not paid much attention to them. It was not until the prop [root] that can affect the rules of the legend appeared that we began to think about the nature of the rules and more possibilities. Unfortunately, this realization seems to have come too late.

[The rules are being changed, this is a feeling shared by me and others.

[If the original rules of the legend can be regarded as a guide for those who stray in, then the current rules have obviously gradually deviated from this definition. Some abnormal existences hidden in the legend are gradually gaining the ability to establish and distort the original rules. Not only that, they seem to be consciously taking advantage of the human reliance on information, weaving words and sentences with brainwashing properties, trying to mentally influence or even pollute those who stray in, instead of just getting satisfaction through killing as in the past...

[Finding an escape route is also becoming increasingly difficult. They are intentionally hiding the rules related to escape, hiding them in places where humans cannot reach or even see them. I have to say that compared to other changes, this one is the most worrying.

[Fortunately, from the current cases, they do not seem to have developed the ability to directly modify the escape rules, and currently can only hide... But this is only [currently], and no one can predict what will happen in the future. What if one day they really develop to the point where they can modify the escape rules at will? The entrance is expanding, but the exit is hidden or even cancelled. When that day comes, will humanity still have room to fight? If you swallow it, you will only be digested. I think it should not be called a weird story, but a monster.

[Okay, let's get back to the topic. We have tried to analyze the current changes from several angles. Now it feels that the most reasonable hypothesis is that [rules] and [exits] are essentially another manifestation of the real order.

[Order separates all normal and abnormal, protecting all normal people and preventing them from having any contact with the abnormal; on the other hand, is it possible that outside the individual, this power is still exerting a protective power? Perhaps in a place we cannot see, it is acting as a protective layer for the entire world. When abnormal legends spread and take root in reality, this force will instinctively suppress and restrict the legends, and the so-called [rules] are actually the concrete manifestation of this suppression...

[But if this is the case, the changes we are noticing now are even worse.

[What I am more concerned about is what is behind these changes? Is it related to the world behind the door? Is there a possibility that all the legends, including the props we get from the legends, are themselves a way of invasion by that world? If this is the case, then it is very likely that Oda is right, and we should not collect and touch those things called [roots].

[Can we further infer that rules and exits are the two most stubborn existences in a strange story, so they can only be modified, not rejected. This may mean that we still have time to find out the truth before these two last supports fail.]

...

The above are all what Xu Ming read from his aunt's notes before entering this strange story.

At this moment, she was flipping through the pig faces hanging on the wall, and simply repeating the part she had read to the whale man in order to draw the final conclusion -

"So, you just tell her this."

Xu Ming frowned and hung the pig face in his hand back. He took the time to say to the whale man in his mind:

"Just tell Yufei not to panic, just follow the previous rhythm. To put it bluntly, this place is a weird story. A weird story must have rules and exits. The most urgent thing is to collect clues in this regard first..."

Whale man: "..."

"No, do you want to listen to what you are saying?" After a pause, it couldn't help but say, "What do you mean by 'to put it bluntly, it's just a weird story'?"

Can you give some proper respect to weird stories? Especially when you don't have any equipment on you? The most important thing is——

"You are so sure... Are you really sure?" The whale man asked sincerely.

Xu Ming: "..." To be honest, I'm not sure.

Although it is true that "there are rules and exits in ghost stories" was written in the aunt's notes, that is past information after all. At that time, she even had to emphasize the concept of "root" - and this ghost story is really too weird.

The unprecedented formation method and means of attracting people may involve doors and keys, as well as a bunch of mutant roots... Not to mention that when she came in, she didn't do anything before, and the rule book in her bag was lost first.

At present, it seems that some things with Qiu Yufei should have been exchanged... This kind of thing is also unprecedented. With such a shocking example, who knows if there will be any other weird changes in this strange story.

But thinking about it, it is not right to say that it is certain. So Xu Ming calmed down, and in his consciousness, he spoke to the blubber man word by word, and his tone was only more determined than before:

"Yes, I'm sure."

Blubber man: "..."

Blubber man: "You know that I can actually hear some of your mental activities, right?"

"...Anyway, just do as you say." Xu Ming closed his eyes, stretched out his hand and tried to lift up a pig's face again, "No matter it's right or not, comfort the person first. At this time, you can't just sit and wait for death, you have to find the rules first, and then try to integrate..."

Yes, integrate. In Xu Ming's view, this is the focus now.

Since she and the Blubber Man were clearly not in the same place, but could still communicate with each other in their consciousness, it meant that the Blubber Man must be in the same strange story as herself, and the same was true for Qiu Yufei; but on the other hand, she had already heard the Blubber Man describe Yufei's current location, which was obviously not the same place as hers... There was not even a pig face in that place.

The only possibility was that they had entered the same strange story, but were scattered in different areas. Considering that he came in because of replying to a post, and the scene he is in now is highly similar to the content he replied to, the scene on Qiu Yufei's side is suspected to be the other floors in the post...

"So I guess, this weird talk should be divided into areas according to the content of the post." Xu Ming finally concluded, "We are in different 'contents'."

Or, to use a more forum-like way of saying it - on different "floors."

But no matter what, it is always within a ghost story. In this case, there is always a way to encounter it. But the premise of having a way is to protect yourself and collect enough information.

"Layer by layer?" The blubber man sounded thoughtfully, "That's good, if it's all of this level, then it's good for you, there's basically no difficulty."

Xu Ming: "?"

"This place is very similar to a ghost story, but it's different from a real ghost story." The blubber man supplemented, "This place is very'thin' and fake. It's not as solid as a real ghost story."

It's hard to describe the difference. To use TV as an analogy, real ghost stories give people the feeling of being put into real-life shooting, while this place is like a studio shooting without much effort. Although they are all TV programs, people familiar with this industry can see the difference at a glance.

Not only that, it can also be clearly felt that there should be no domain masters in this place - at least not in Qiu Yufei's place. To be more precise, there is no independent root of its own.

And Xu Ming happens to be an idiot. It's okay if she can see the monsters at the beginning. If she can't see them at the beginning, then those below the level of domain masters are no different from air to her.

"...Anyway." After a brief pause, the reluctant voice of the Blubber Man resounded in Xu Ming's mind, "I will try my best to take care of Yufei, child. You must remember to come and pick me up quickly."

Xu Ming: "..."

To be honest, these words sounded awkward. Especially coming from the Blubber Man's mouth, it was even more awkward.

But no matter what, it was much calmer than at the beginning - Xu Ming could still remember the scene when the Blubber Man just found out that he was taken away, and he made a series of strange noises, which made her head full of exclamations. When she closed her eyes, she seemed to see a group of wax-made screaming faces holding their faces and screaming.

In comparison, these words were much easier to accept.

So Xu Ming responded without hesitation. The blubber man's hypocritical sobs echoed in her mind again, and she finally calmed down completely.

Xu Ming was finally able to focus her attention on the wall in front of her, and carefully lifted up another hanging pig skin. Not long after, she shook her head and gently hung it back.

She was trying to find the key to open the door - since there was no outside help now, she could only find a way to open the door and leave by herself.

In addition to the dried blood stains on the door, there was also a very inconspicuous keyhole. Xu Ming had already turned over the two cutting boards that were also covered in blood, and did not see any suspected keys. She had no choice but to turn over the pig's head hanging on the wall.

To be more precise - it was a pig's face.

All the pig faces were skinny, with hollowed-out eye sockets, looking like a leather case. Only when you picked it up, you would feel that its surface was strangely slippery. What made Xu Ming even more uncomfortable was that all the pig heads still had teeth. They

were sharp and turned outward, giving the skin a strange outline. The surface of the teeth was stained with suspicious stains, looking dark and reminiscent of blood. To be on the safe side, Xu Ming even did a special experiment. An exposed tooth could easily poke the ear of another pig face.

It showed how sharp it was.

Still nothing. Xu Ming carefully stepped back a few steps, trying to observe these pig faces on the wall from a more macro perspective. The moment her eyes swept across the wall, her mind once again recalled some of the things she had seen before entering this strange story -

[You are now in a room that looks like a slaughterhouse. There is a chopping board in the room, and on the chopping board are old and smelly bloodstains; you look around, but you see countless hanging pig faces. They have no eyes, but you feel like you are being watched; the moment you hear the sound of a butcher's knife approaching, you suddenly realize that perhaps from the beginning to the end, you are just one of them.

[I wonder what the world will be like when seen from their eyes? Will it be more real? ]

Xu Ming: "..."

Slightly hesitant, she stepped forward and took down another pig.

Don’t be like this, it’d better not be like this - she prayed helplessly in her heart, please don’t do some weird setting that only allows you to see clues by wearing a pig head mask, please don’t!

Wearing this thing is disgusting, the more important thing is that she is an idiot...

The hand holding the head trembled slightly. Xu Ming lowered his eyes and looked at the sticky pig head in his hand again. Finally, he helplessly raised it slowly, ready to put it on and try it out no matter what; at this moment, there was a sudden knock on the door, and almost at the same time, a strong white light came in from under the door gap, illuminating half of the floor.

Xu Ming: "......?"

The movement stopped instantly. Her eyes turned slightly, and she put down the pig face in her hand lightly and approached carefully.

Just as he approached the door, the knocking sound outside suddenly stopped. Xu Ming frowned suspiciously, and the next moment, he heard another voice coming through the door panel, the volume was not loud, but it was very clear.

He asked, "Excuse me, do you want to turn on the light?

" "?" Xu Ming's doubts became even stronger. Turn on the light...do you mean the light in "lighting the haunted house"?

After a slight hesitation, he did not answer.

The person outside raised the volume slightly: "Excuse me, do you want to turn on the light?"

"..." Xu Ming pursed his lips and still did not speak, so the person outside asked the same question three times again, each time louder than the last. On the third time, Xu Ming finally decided to try to answer, but he didn't expect that just when he opened his mouth, the door panel was suddenly hit hard!

Immediately afterwards, there was another bang, bang, bang, bang, a series of strong hammering!

Xu Ming was frightened and dodged back. The voice of the person outside the door followed closely -

"Do you want to turn on the light? Do you want to turn on the light?"

"Do you want to turn on the light! Do you want to turn on the light!"

"Turn on the light, turn on the light! Light, light - turn on the light quickly!!! Turn it on! Turn it on -"

The volume became higher and higher, and the voice became higher and higher. Until the end, the pronunciation was completely blurred, and it turned into a pure scream. At the same time, the light shining in from the gap in the door became brighter and more dazzling!

Until the end, it was almost to the point where people could not open their eyes!

"......!"

Xu Ming's eardrums were being pierced by the scream, and she instinctively distanced herself from the door. Noticing this, she tried to hide as quickly as possible. Unexpectedly, the edge of the light spot began to twist and wriggle like a living thing, and swam towards her quickly like a jellyfish -

at the same time, the pig faces hanging in all directions opened their eyes at the same time.

"Do you want a light?" They opened their stiff mouths and uttered words in unison. The overlapping sounds were like mosquitoes and flies circling around, and reminded people of a large net.

"Do you want a light?"

"Do you want a light..."

Xu Ming: “…”

It was agreed that there was no domain master in this place, so it would not be difficult for her!

Xu Ming cursed in her heart, and seeing that the ball of light was almost reaching the edge of her shoes, she simply turned around and climbed directly onto the table. Unexpectedly, when she was halfway up, her ankle suddenly tightened, and a piercing coldness spread across her skin.

She turned her head subconsciously, and the light spot below spread out like puddles. A bony hand made purely of light stretched out from the "puddles" and grabbed her ankle tightly.

...I will die.

Inexplicable thoughts suddenly surged up, and Xu Ming froze in place as if frozen. She felt that something was being pulled and extracted from her body...

her heart was chilled. What was even more strange was that she actually felt that this feeling was somewhat familiar.

——At this moment, she suddenly heard a dog barking. A

distant, vague dog barking. As if it came from deep underground——Following that, Xu Ming's ankle felt pain and looseness again. When he reacted, the hand that was holding his ankle had disappeared.

At the same time, a spot of light disappeared. It left more abruptly than it came, as if everything just now was just an illusion.

The dazzling light suddenly receded, and the room suddenly became darker. Xu Ming panted and quickly climbed onto the table, only to find that his back and forehead were already covered with sweat.

...So what was that just now? What about that dog barking?

Was it Lando?

Xu Ming responded to the dog's barking naturally, but she was still confused about the light and the person who was talking. She huddled carefully on the table, and her fingers subconsciously stroked the ankle that had just been scratched. Only then did she realize that there seemed to be some dents on it.

Xu Ming: "..."

At this moment, her eyes had adapted to the surrounding light again, and what she saw became much clearer. Xu Ming mustered up her courage and looked down again, only to see that there was another piece of paper where the light spot had just been.

With a slight movement in her throat, she carefully climbed down and picked up the paper. There were a few simple lines of handwriting on it, which looked very sloppy, as if written in a hurry:

[Run, you have been found!

[Don't turn on the lights, don't stay in the same room for more than half an hour, don't stay on the same floor for more than two hours, the floors are not difficult, quickly find the door to go out, keep moving, don't let it catch up with you

! [Don't let the mark close, that's its hand grabbing you!

[The more obedient you are, the happier it is, and the more disobedient you are, the angrier it gets. Try not to make it happy!

[Don't let it know you saw this, don't let it know you are on guard against it.

[Get out of here as soon as possible! ]

"......?"

Xu Ming frowned and looked at the note. After a moment of silence, he seemed to realize something and looked down at his ankle again.

This time she finally saw it clearly. There was a handprint on her ankle.

The purple-black handprint was wrapped around her ankle like an open circle. There are only about three centimeters left, and the whole circle will be completely closed.

Xu Ming: ...

So, what exactly is this...

Before she could figure out anything, there was another sound outside the door. Xu Ming took a breath and turned her head alertly. After a moment, her expression relaxed a little.

Maybe she was too happy too early...but she had a vague feeling that the thing outside the door at this moment was different from the previous one.

The previous one was a clear knock on the door, but this time it was a muffled collision sound, like some kind of software suddenly hit the door - most importantly, the feeling she gave her was also different.

There was no strong sense of oppression like before. Even so, Xu Ming felt it necessary to remain vigilant. So

he lowered his body slightly, quickly and quietly touched the door, and listened to the door panel for a while, but did not hear any more sounds.

"..." As if she realized something, she lowered her eyes and looked down again. After a moment of silence, she carefully bent down.

Through the crack in the door, she saw a pair of feet. On the feet were a pair of high-end sports shoes.

The next second, the shoes were blocked -

a pig face, hanging from above, looked over quietly through the crack in the door.

*

At the same time.

On the other side.

Qiu Yufei was timidly walking forward cautiously.

Even though she had deliberately slowed down her pace, the sound of her footsteps still echoed in the overly empty space, which made her heart skip a beat.

In fact, she still didn't understand how she got in. In her memory, she had just followed Xu Ming upstairs and pressed the phone she gave her - but when she looked up again, everything had changed.

The stairs were gone, and Xu Ming was gone too. She was alone, standing in a parking lot-like place. There was no one in the huge space, only the monotonous colors that kept extending outward. Looking around, apart from the neatly parked cars, there were pillars marked with letters.

Even the things in her bag had changed. A small bag of spare items disappeared, replaced by Xu Ming's notebook, and something stuck to the notebook, which was now clinging to the edge of the bag and talking to her.

"I think you're a little too nervous." The whale man remembered Xu Ming's words clearly. Seeing Qiu Yufei panicked and her face turned pale, he tried to comfort her, "Don't be too nervous. This is just a weird story..."

Qiu Yufei: ? ? Do you want to listen to what you are talking about?

"Is it a weird story? The key is that I took away all the things that Mingming kept at the bottom of the box, okay?" Qiu Yufei couldn't help but whispered, "Such an important book... How did it end up in my hands?"

She couldn't use it!

"Calm down, calm down, don't put too much pressure on yourself. That guy wasn't born with a rule book, but he still managed to live like this..." The fat man tried to comfort her halfheartedly, and suddenly he said, "Come to think of it, didn't you say before that something of yours was also transferred to her?"

Qiu Yufei: "...Yeah."

"What was it?" The fat man suddenly became interested, and even poked his head out, "I asked the child, and she just said there were a lot of things..."

and complained that it was a bit heavy. It made it even more curious.

"It's nothing." Qiu Yufei glanced at it, but she didn't mean to hide it, and said directly, "It's just two lipsticks."

The fat man: "Oh, that's indeed..."

Qiu Yufei: "The kind that can bounce a knife."

Fat Whale: ...Huh?

"And my newly bought folding knife, multi-function self-defense flashlight, small bottle of self-defense spray, cartoon brass knuckles, hidden weapon ring..." Qiu Yufei followed closely.

Fat Whale: ...Huh?

"They were all packed and put away. They are all gone." Qiu Yufei sighed, "I don't know if they have all been transferred to Mingming... They are very heavy."

Fat Whale: "..."

That's possible, it is indeed very heavy.