What's the ghost's ability?
"You know?" Zhao Che exclaimed, then suddenly felt a chill in his heart. After looking around and realizing no one was listening, he hurriedly ran to Qi Huan and asked, "How do you know? Who the killer is."
"Just wait," Qi Huan suddenly showed a modest and polite smile. "The killer will continue to kill."
The two of them left the courtyard and walked until they were near the entrance of the village to the west. The dark green hills were close by, and in the areas without sunlight, it was eerily dark, instilling fear.
"Is it really okay for us to stand here?" Zhao Che followed closely behind Qi Huan. To be honest, he was somewhat scared. After a day of torment, his heart had become restless, and he was seeing shadows everywhere. He couldn't help but stick close to Qi Huan.
Qi Huan glanced at his watch. "There's still half an hour until the sun completely sets. We have enough time. Do you trust me?"
Trust?
The weight of that word in the mission was too heavy. Why would Qi Huan suddenly say that?
Zhao Che turned his head to examine the man's pale, cold skin, which was tinged with a pinkish hue under the setting sun. He swallowed hard, rubbed his chest, and asked anxiously, "Are you saying you know what happened and how to leave the mission?"
"I know," Qi Huan walked towards the mountains. "I know what happened."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Che's urgent questioning expression suddenly cooled down, and he stood still without taking another step.
Qi Huan looked puzzled. "What's wrong?"
The astonishment on Zhao Che's face turned into horror.
A chilling sensation spread throughout his body from the soles of his feet.
He was too familiar with this kind of smile, always concealing a conspiracy beneath it.
Oh no.
He was lying. He wasn't Qi Huan!
He didn't know what had happened at all. He just lured me out!
It's a ghost.
Qi Huan turned around, his hands hanging at his sides, and looked at Zhao Che with a terrifying gaze. His eyes widened rapidly, and his pupils shrank to the size of needles, like insects capturing prey. Blood flowed slowly down from the seam of Qi Huan's forehead, sliding down his cheek and being licked clean by his tongue.
The blood soaked through Qi Huan's white shirt, turning it red. From head to toe, it was all crimson.
Qi Huan's face began to twist and change, spores spreading and distorting his features. The flesh on his face gradually twisted and melted, turning into Zhao Che's appearance.
Run!
I must run!
Away from him!
Zhao Che immediately turned around, but there was no village in sight. There was only endless grass and trees. He was trapped in the forest, but he hadn't even reached the foot of the mountain. Why was he trapped in the mountains?
Qi Huan slowly approached Zhao Che, who was running frantically. No matter how fast he ran, he couldn't shake off the ghost behind him!
One man and one ghost, inseparable!
"Why are you running? Don't you like me?" "Don't run!" "Why are you leaving?"
The empty forest echoed with heart-wrenching laughter, while the ghost disguised as Qi Huan chuckled and looked at his prey with resentment.
Zhao Che was terrified. He was only thirty years old, with his whole life ahead of him. He had just bought a three-bedroom apartment and had just broken up with the woman who had deceived him! He couldn't die. He absolutely couldn't die here! The middle-aged man exerted all his strength to run forward. He wouldn't give up hope of survival until the very last moment. The shouts and laughter whizzed past his ears!
The sound of the ghost stepping on the bending wild grass was clearly audible.
He ran forward desperately, shouting, "Help! Help me! Someone help me!"
As the sun was about to set, with only a sliver of the crimson sunset remaining on the horizon, everything was about to return to dust and darkness. Zhao Che closed his eyes in despair, like a wild boar charging forward recklessly.
"He's here! Zhao Che is here!"
Suddenly, a clear and familiar female voice sounded—it was He Wanwan's voice!
Zhao Che looked towards the direction of the voice. He Wanwan was standing in the light, holding a flashlight, about a hundred meters away from him. When a person is at their wit's end, a companion appears! He ran frantically towards He Wanwan. The ghost disguised as Qi Huan continued to chase him relentlessly from behind.
"There's a ghost behind me! There's a ghost behind me!" Zhao Che yelled frantically, his throat filled with a bloody taste. "Kill him! Kill him!"
He Wanwan remained standing still, smiling without saying a word.
Zhao Che's breathing suddenly stopped, and he asked, "Are you here to save me? Is it?"
He Wanwan's face showed a look of concern as she replied urgently, "I came to find you. You're in danger. Let's go back quickly!"
Zhao Che stopped in his tracks.
Indeed!
He Wanwan was also lying!
As she spoke, a damp, rotting smell of blood swept over him. Zhao Che broke out in goosebumps all over his body. He sensed the aura of a ghost from He Wanwan.
By some stroke of luck, his intuition occasionally allowed him to discern whether someone was lying. Just now, "Qi Huan" didn't tell the truth, and now "He Wanwan" was also deceiving him!
A chill swept over his body.
"You're not He Wanwan! You're not!" Zhao Che ran off in another direction without hesitation!
Intuition saved his life. This wasn't a savior or a multiple-choice question. In normal circumstances, people would run towards He Wanwan, only to be killed by her! This was a multiple-choice question without a correct answer.
He made the right bet.
When he ran in a different direction, he saw the familiar village ahead. Zhao Che made several turns and ran back to the small building. The door was unlocked, just like when he left.
But when he returned, it was already pitch black outside.
He immediately locked the door and returned to the bedroom, panting heavily. Just as he sat on the bed for two seconds, Zhang Yizhi finished washing up and came out from the third floor. He and He Wanwan were chatting and laughing, a scene Zhao Che happened to witness.
Zhang Yizhi noticed Zhao Che's pale face and asked, "What's wrong with you?"
Without saying a word, Zhao Che saw clearly that there were a few broken pieces of wild grass stuck to her canvas shoes!
It was her!
It was definitely her just now!
She was a ghost, hidden among the players!
He Wanwan also noticed that Zhao Che was different from before and asked in confusion, "Zhao Ge, what's wrong with you?"
Facing He Wanwan's face with lingering fear, Zhao Che tried hard to pretend that nothing was wrong and said, "I just went out for a walk and got tired."
He pulled Zhang Yizhi over, closed the door, and blocked it with a chair.
"What's wrong?" Zhang Yizhi asked, "You weren't very gentlemanly just now. You should have escorted the girl back to her room! What if something happened? Would you leave her outside alone?"
"Shut up."
Zhao Che, who had just survived a calamity, shouted angrily. The two of them slept on opposite sides of the double bed and didn't speak again. Zhao Che lay on the bed, trembling as he recalled everything that had just happened. Could there be two ghosts?
No.
If there were two ghosts, he would have been killed by the ghost disguised as Qi Huan long ago. Why would it be He Wanwan's turn? So, could only one of these two ghosts kill?
No, no.
The "Qi Huan" just now was an illusion created by the ghost.
So, was He Wanwan the murderer?
What did this have to do with the color red?
He understood. He found inspiration from the "Qi Huan" transformed by the ghost.
He pondered quietly for a long time and suddenly realized. His deductions from yesterday were all wrong. Meng Lan was not a ghost, and she had nothing to do with the color red!
He knew what the ghost's ability was. It could create illusions and catch people off guard to kill them! Zhao Che traced the texture on the hidden badge hanging on his chest with his fingertips. It seemed clearer than yesterday.
When Zhang Jinlong died, He Wanwan was the first to find him, claiming she was taking a shower.
Before the villagers died in the warehouse, she claimed to have left for a while to look for something.
When the village chief was speaking just now, He Wanwan clearly felt cold!
This was all abnormal!
She was present every time someone died, and because she was a companion, people didn't guard against her. He Wanwan might be the killer hidden among them, or she might have been possessed by the ghost and became the killer!
Quiet.
Deep.
Dark clouds.
Meng Lan was still lying alone on the bed. She hadn't turned on the lights in her room, but instead opened the curtains to let the moonlight illuminate the room. She picked off a large piece of dried blood from the old wall and played with it in her hand. Her deep gaze looked out the window, stroking her neck, remembering the cries for help she heard from the ghost earlier today.
"It hurts so much... I'm in so much pain..."
There's a reason for every injustice, and debts must be repaid.
What happened a month ago? She inclined to believe that the villagers killed the wrong person, causing the curse, but why did they commit suicide instead of the common method of being haunted by vengeful spirits?
Of course, Meng Lan wasn't a spirit medium. Her so-called common methods of death were all from horror movies—being scared to death or sudden cardiac arrest.
Now she needed to know, was the murderer human or a ghost? Was the ghost responsible for the murders, or were they originally present?
Were the two interconnected, or were they cause and effect?
The moonlight was hazy, casting silver light on the quiet village.
Suddenly.
A small figure appeared not far away, walking along the winding path to the front of the small building. It looked like a 15- or 16-year-old girl who was still developing, walking with a hunched body, her feet splayed outwards. She swayed her upper body and stood in the middle of the small building, pointing at the windows of the building.
She wasn't counting the houses.
She was counting the people.
Meng Lan sneered.
—Choosing a consort?
Immediately after, the girl let out a heart-wrenching, hysterical laughter, sharp and piercing through the quiet night sky. She seemed as if she had swallowed a forbidden drug, dancing wildly in front of the small building, like an excited jumping monkey.
This was the girl who had been tracking them this morning.
During the day, they had thought she was a mischievous boy, but Meng Lan realized they were wrong.
Meng Lan hid in the darkness, observing. With the faint moonlight, she could vaguely see a little dark red blood flowing between the girl's legs. Accompanied by her frenzied dance, the blood dyed her khaki shorts red, dripping onto the ground, forming eerie patterns.
Was this her menstrual period? Normally, girls would be very concerned about blood staining their pants, right? Could it be that there was no sex education in this village, or was it a local custom?
The girl showed no sign of shame, grabbing herself between her legs, her bloody palm smearing on the yellow soil.
Meng Lan couldn't help but touch her own abdomen.
—Is this village full of lunatics?
But even thinking like this, even though the person in front of her was a child, made Meng Lan feel like prey. They were like prisoners in a cage, and this village was a colossal lie.