This isn't normal.
Meng Lan returned to the room.
She had a strange feeling, as if she was being watched all along.
There were invisible eyes in the shadows, watching her.
It seemed like there were eyes everywhere in her room.
In the wardrobe, under the bed, between the tiles' cracks.
Her hand unconsciously stroked the wall, and she noticed the different shades on the wall. Although the room was filled with a faint smell of paint, it was evident that it wasn't a newly built house, just a repainted one. Her nails unintentionally scratched, and the rainbow-colored nail polish glittered in the light due to her hand movements.
The paint was applied thinly, and the wall dust filled Meng Lan's fingernail crevices.
A light brown mark appeared in front of her.
Meng Lan leaned closer to the wall and sniffed.
"Achoo!"
She sneezed from the dust! Her eyelashes fell onto the white dust she had just scratched off, causing her eyes to sting. She couldn't distinguish between blood and soy sauce, so she gave up.
Nothing else happened during the night, but Meng Lan couldn't sleep. She didn't bring her sleep aids, which made her a bit irritable. A glass of fake alcohol would make it easier for her to fall asleep now.
Turn off the lights, close your eyes.
The night was quiet, but her brain was spinning rapidly, adrenaline rushing.
At this moment, she was quickly digesting everything that had just happened.
A string of slogans appeared in her mind: Abandon illusions, face reality.
Is this the mission?
Li Xiaoqing and He Wanwan in the adjacent room were quiet.
But Zhao Che on the second floor couldn't sleep. This was his second mission, but for some reason, he was panicking, as if he knew why Zhang Jinlong had died.
Red.
"The murderer is wearing red." Zhao Che felt his hidden card, touching the delicate wood grain. Zhang Jinlong was red, the murderer was red, was there a connection? Was that why he died first? Then who would be next? It should be the woman named Meng Lan, she was wearing red.
If something happened to Meng Lan tomorrow, it would prove his speculation correct.
The next morning.
Meng Lan was a disciplined person who could wake up at 7:30 a.m. no matter how late she slept the night before. Especially since she didn't sleep at all last night!
The sunlight brought a sense of security, and she packed her clothes and went to the bathroom to freshen up.
Zhang Yizhi woke up blurry-eyed, scared as he was, sleeping with Zhao Che last night, although it was a bit gay, it felt safe. He cautiously walked to the third-floor toilet, as no one wanted to share a toilet with a corpse.
He saw Meng Lan had just finished washing her face and had nothing to wipe with. Feeling a bit anxious, he quickly turned back, and inappropriately greeted her, "Up so early!"
"Um." Meng Lan nodded.
The others gradually woke up. Except for He Wanwan, who cried until late at night, the elders quickly adapted to the harsh environment of the mission. Li Xiaoqing even carried special sleeping pills with her. When she couldn't sleep, she would take one. This was the experience she learned from the last mission.
In the last mission, people who couldn't sleep would turn into ghosts and hunt down other sleepless players. Only by killing their companions could they survive.
And Li Xiaoqing's sister was initially framed for helping others and turned into a ghost because she couldn't sleep due to taking medication. Her sister gradually turned into a ghost, the purple-red tattoo spread from her chest to her neck, cheeks, and scalp. In her last moments, she screamed, her hands choking her own neck, warm tears flowing from her eye sockets, begging Li Xiaoqing to end it all. In the end, she killed her own sister.
This scene was witnessed by Zhang Jinlong, who was also in the mission.
Zhang Jinlong was more ruthless; he directly killed his ghostified companion and left the mission safely.
Li Xiaoqing snapped out of her memories and woke up He Wanwan, who had taken sleeping pills. She regretted her impulsiveness last night; in the world of invisibility, no one can be easily trusted.
Although He Wanwan didn't look like her sister, her innocent and simple personality was exactly the same. This made her break the rules and let the girl stay by her side for the night.
He Wanwan groggily opened her eyes. "Ah... I actually fell asleep..."
"Get up, we need to find clues during the day." Li Xiaoqing's eyes revealed a hint of alienation.
"Thank you, thank you." He Wanwan said.
When everyone finally gathered in the living room, a steaming hot meal was already arranged on the table.
An elderly woman was busy in the kitchen, and the elderly man who had guided them last night handed them yellowed sheets of paper to fill out forms. He handed the paper and pen to Qi Huan, who was sitting on the sofa, and said, "You arrange it, fill in your identity information. Although we're not a formal hotel here, we still need to follow the policies. In case the police station investigates later, we need to have something to explain."
The form was similar to those provided by remote hotels without internet access in the last century.
[Name] [Gender] [ID number] [Signature]
Only four options.
Zhang Yizhi scratched his head and leaned over to Qi Huan, looking at the form. "How do we fill this out? Do we need to write our real information? Will we be found out if we fill in false information?"
"No." Qi Huan said.
"Which one?" Zhang Yizhi asked persistently.
Qi Huan didn't answer and wrote down the information himself before handing it to Zhang Yizhi, passing the message to the others, "Come and fill it out."
He Wanwan, afraid of her identity information being leaked, quietly asked Li Xiaoqing, "What if I don't fill it out?"
"I don't know." Li Xiaoqing really didn't know.
The characters in the mission had their own logic of action, and some of their words were credible, while others were not. Whether or not they could judge depended entirely on luck. But since everyone else had written, it reduced the chance of a terrorist incident happening to themselves. If she didn't write, she would most likely be the next to die.
"Write it." Li Xiaoqing said.
She glanced at the ID number Qi Huan had written, starting with 110115, and concluded that it was a false ID number because there was no such district code for Beijing. Qi Huan had successfully escaped from two missions; this person's intelligence and ability to act should be quite high, and his approach should be correct.
"Don't write the real one." Li Xiaoqing whispered.
He Wanwan hesitated for a moment as she was about to pick up the pen, nodded repeatedly, and casually wrote down a string of numbers.
[He Wanwan, Female, 110109200004170234]
She handed it to Meng Lan and repeated quietly, "Don't write the real one; they've all written fake ones." She had a good impression of Meng Lan. Although she seemed indifferent, He Wanwan still remembered the scene where they held hands and went to Changshou Village yesterday. That warm hand gave her a lot of strength.
"Yeah, thanks." Meng Lan left a bit of a trick. She didn't write the real one or the fake one; instead, she altered the number 3 in the ID number, writing it very sloppily, making it impossible for people to tell if it was a 3 or a 2.
She felt very ashamed of her opportunistic behavior of exploiting this ID bug, and a blush gradually appeared on her face.
After everyone filled out the forms, the old man looked at them and suddenly asked, "There are supposed to be seven of you, but I see only six sets of information. Where's the young man with the red hair?"
Everyone looked at each other.
Qi Huan spoke up and explained straightforwardly, "This is a bit troublesome for you. He fell in the bathroom last night, probably had a sudden heart attack. When we found him, he had already passed away."
The old man was stunned for a moment and asked, "Dead?"
Qi Huan replied, "Yes, he was unresponsive when we found him."
The old man didn't show much surprise on his face anymore, sighed twice, and said, "I'll have someone move the body out later."
Meng Lan observed the subtle expressions on the old man's face, as if he had already anticipated it.
Did the village chief know which of them would die, or did people often die in this village?
Meng Lan asked, "You don't seem surprised."
The old man's expression was numb, and he said ambiguously, "This is not a good time."
"What do you mean?" Meng Lan pressed.
The old man pondered for a long time before asking, "Did he really just faint?"
"It should be." Meng Lan replied.
The old man looked at Meng Lan and sighed, "It's easier if it's suicide. It's easier if it's not suicide. Something's not right in this village lately."
Meng Lan's expression changed.
He finished speaking and then left.
Hearing that, He Weiwei's face turned pale. "What do you mean by 'not too peaceful'? Does that mean we can't leave?"
"When he talked about death, he showed no fear, his expression was numb," Meng Lan leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front of her.
Zhang Yizhi frowned and asked, "I guess he knows something. Why don't we tie him up and ask? Maybe we can figure out this task and go home."
"You probably haven't watched horror movies. These types are either NPCs or big bosses! We'll all be wiped out then!" He Weiwei said.
"I just went to look at the body again. There were no signs of trauma to the head. It looks more like Zhang Jinlong forced himself to stand under the hot water. I guess he might have slipped after he died, which matches Miss He's story from yesterday," Qi Huan said.
Suicide?
Meng Lan repeated.
Although she knew Zhang Jinlong's character definitely wouldn't force himself to stand under scalding hot water for so long, it did look like death from playing too much into masochism.
Suicide probably held some significance in Changshou Village.
At this moment.
The old woman bustling in the kitchen came out with a large basin of cornmeal porridge. "Eat up. There are no restaurants nearby, so the village chief asked me to cook for you. I'll take care of your three meals a day. If it doesn't suit your taste, you can cook for yourselves." There were steamed buns, tofu with sauce, two plates of pickles, and seven tea eggs on the table.
That old man was the village chief of Changshou Village.
The steaming breakfast didn't alleviate any unease. After finishing their meal, everyone resolved to explore the village.
The sun was shining brightly, the village surrounded by mountains, with rolling green hills in all directions.
Li Xiaoqing took a deep breath of the fresh air and sighed, "This village looks pretty nice, I mean, it's visually appealing, like a vacation spot. But vacation spots don't have dead people. What a waste."
"I don't think it's beautiful. I feel like I'm about to crack open," Zhang Yizhi scratched his head. "But there shouldn't be any ghosts where there's sunlight."
At the village entrance.
Joss paper fluttered down from the sky, scattered onto Meng Lan's shoulders.
A funeral procession moved from the east to the west of the village entrance. Four people with dark faces carried a deep brown bush, while the widow held a memorial photo and walked slowly forward. The mournful and piercing sound of the suona came from behind the procession, piercing Meng Lan's eardrums. She frowned and took a few quick steps, following the funeral procession towards the village entrance.
Red clothes bloomed like roses among the white.
"Aren't we going to take a look?" Meng Lan threw out a sentence.
He Weiwei followed, holding onto Meng Lan's arm. "I'll stick with you, I'm scared."
Zhao Che also quickened his pace to catch up with the two.
Suddenly.
Qi Huan grabbed Zhao Che's clothes and shook his head, whispering, "Don't get too close to her, she's dangerous."
Zhao Che's heart skipped a beat, and he stopped in his tracks.