...In the thick fog, a dilapidated bus was slowly making its way along an endless highway.
The bus had a total of seven passengers: three women and four men.
They sat inside, looking out at the fog through the windows, each with a different expression on their face.
Confusion, bewilderment, fear...
But beyond that, their faces were all the same shade of pale.
As if they had experienced something terrifying on the road.
The bus continued on its journey until it finally stopped outside an ancient and old villa, shrouded in fog, its entirety dark, mysterious, and eerie.
The door of the bus opened, as if to tell the passengers inside... it was time to get off.
The seven passengers slowly disembarked, looking back with a hint of indescribable fear in their eyes.
Because, at the driver's seat of the bus, where there should have been a driver... was utterly empty.
Yes, this bus... had no driver.
As the last passenger disembarked, the bus doors automatically closed, and then it started moving again, disappearing into the depths of the fog...
The seven people standing outside the black villa looked at each other, seeing the extremely unpleasant expressions on each other's faces.
"Let's go..."
"I think we don't have any other choice."
At a crucial moment, a thin man among the crowd spoke up. He wore deep brown, square, wooden glasses, and his delicate features showed a calmness that was different from the others.
"Do we... really have to go in?"
The beautiful woman with gold earrings trembled in her voice.
She was dressed lightly, so she was cold.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she rubbed them constantly.
"What if it's... unsafe inside?"
The others remained silent.
Initially, they thought this was some kind of prank, or that they were specially invited to participate in a show...
But when they found that there was no driver on the bus at all, they fell into deep fear!
Although they had all been staunch materialists, the events that had occurred earlier were too bizarre for words!
"So, are you going to walk into the fog?"
Ning Qiushui took a deep breath, trying to appear calm.
In reality, his heart was racing.
From the moment he received that mysterious letter to arriving at this place, it had been less than an hour.
But this hour had been a massive shock to his worldview!
"Do you forget the fat man who jumped out of the bus at the crossroads earlier?"
Mentioning the fat man immediately filled the beautiful woman's eyes with immense fear.
Her legs weakened, almost unable to stand!
Initially, there were eight people on the bus.
Everyone had appeared on the bus after falling asleep, suddenly finding themselves there.
Among them was a fat man who had been cursing throughout the journey, convinced they had been brought there for some unethical reality show by some producer.
He impatiently claimed their phones must have been swapped, the bus driver was actually driving from beneath their feet, and the foggy scene was artificially created with dry ice, among other things...
Finally, when the bus stopped at a crossroads, the fat man opened the window, jumped out, and walked into the fog alone...
Up to this point, everything still seemed normal.
However, when the group arrived at the next crossroads, they saw something hanging in the fog-shrouded traffic light...
As the bus slowly approached, they saw clearly that hanging from the traffic light was... the bloody skin of the fat man who had left earlier!
The skin was completely peeled off, and the passengers could even see the fat man's expression, extremely terrified and twisted as if he had seen something especially horrifying before his death!
And from the pole of the traffic light, large patches of bright red blood kept dripping!
This scene directly terrified everyone on the bus!
Someone, disbelieving, opened a window, and then that nauseating smell of blood wafted throughout the bus...
...
Bringing up the fat man made everyone's face look extremely bad, with some even starting to gag.
"...Since no one dares to approach that fog, we have no choice but to enter this black villa..."
Ning Qiushui took another deep breath.
He was scared too.
But for some reason, whether it was seeing the bloody skin hanging on the traffic light or smelling the blood, his reaction was not as intense as the others.
Moreover, he was very interested in the mysterious letter he had received earlier.
What exactly did the sender of the letter want to tell him?
Following Ning Qiushui's lead, the others also followed behind him, pushing open the iron gate of the black villa and entering the garden outside the villa.
The silence was deafening, a quiet so profound it was terrifying. The group had no choice but to stick closely together, with the woman wearing the gold earrings feeling someone taking advantage of the close quarters to grope her. Yet, she only frowned and didn't say much. In the context of their current predicament, being groped seemed trivial compared to the horror of being skinned alive.
Thus, they arrived at the door of the black villa, where Ning Qiushui knocked.
Knock, knock, knock—
Following his knocks, footsteps were heard from inside rather quickly, causing everyone behind him to instinctively step back, eyeing the door warily as if expecting some imminent threat.
Creak—
The door opened, but the horrifying scene they had anticipated did not materialize. Instead, a very delicate, beautiful young girl seemed to be standing in the doorway. She appeared to be around fifteen or sixteen.
"Have you arrived?"
"Come in."
As the girl spoke, they realized... she was actually a boy. A very beautiful boy, but with a voice that was indifferent, lacking any warmth or emotion.
The group watched as Ning Qiushui followed the boy inside, sharing uncertain glances, unsure whether to follow.
"You'd better come in quickly..."
Just as they hesitated, the young boy's voice echoed again from within the house.
The mention of the mist, reminding them of the gruesomely deceased overweight man, spurred the group into the villa, shuddering with fear and scrambling to get inside.
The villa's hall was spacious and decorated in a classical style. On the left, there was a neatly arranged bookshelf, to the right, a wooden staircase leading upstairs, and in the center, three large sofas around a burning fire pit.
In the room, four individuals were silently gathered around the fire pit, staring into the flames, lost in thought and silent.
In this quiet, the atmosphere grew colder.
Finally, after a moment of reflection, Ning Qiushui broke the silence with three questions regarding their location, the reason for their presence, and the situation with the fog and the bus outside.
However, his inquiries were met with silence; not even the four people warming themselves by the fire deigned to give him a glance.
Impatient, Liu Chengfeng, the man with a goatee behind Ning Qiushui, couldn't contain himself anymore:
"Talking to you!"
"What, are you all mute?"
His voice boomed loudly in the room, painfully resonant.
At last, a man in a suit sitting across Ning Qiushui by the fireplace spoke up:
"I know you have many questions…"
"If you can return alive from the first blood gate, I will provide the answers you seek."
"Blood gate? What's that?" Ning Qiushui's curiosity was piqued, recalling the mysterious woman's call.
Without even lifting his head, the man in the suit pointed to the third floor of the villa.
"You don't have much time left. In less than 5 minutes, the blood gate will open. Then, you'll enter a horrifying world through the blood gate to complete the tasks assigned," he explained.
"After completing the tasks, a bus will come to pick you up."
Upon hearing this, a petite woman with twin ponytails, Yan Youping, weakly asked, "What if... we don't complete the tasks?"
The man in the suit slowly raised his head, meeting Yan Youping's gaze with calm yet cold eyes, sending shivers down her spine.
"You'll die," he said coldly, "and it will be a very miserable death."
The news left everyone feeling weak in the knees. They wanted to believe it was all just a joke, but the seriousness in the man's demeanor crushed any lingering hope.
"Can... can we choose not to go?" Another young man with golden hair swallowed nervously, asking tentatively.
The man in the suit glanced at him. "You can," he replied, "but... you better not sleep again."
"Why?" the golden-haired man asked, puzzled.
"Because if you don't go into the blood gate to complete the task, then... something will come out from behind the blood gate to find you," the man in the suit said with a smirk.
"No matter where you hide, they will find you."
"And then..." He didn't finish, but everyone already knew the outcome.
Ning Qiushui glanced at the third floor, then turned to the man in the suit. "Before we go in, do you have any other advice?" he asked.
The man in the suit was slightly taken aback, then shifted his gaze to Ning Qiushui. Seeing Ning Qiushui's calm demeanor, he flashed a barely perceptible admiration in his eyes.
"Advice... yes," he said.
"The story behind the blood gate is extremely dangerous, but there's more than one way out. As long as you find the way out, completing the task and surviving... isn't difficult."
Ning Qiushui nodded.
"Thank you," he said before surprisingly taking the first step towards the stairs.
Seeing Ning Qiushui's decisiveness, Liu Chengfeng, with a fierce internal struggle evident in his eyes, gritted his teeth and followed suit.
"Damn, buddy... you've got some real guts!" Liu Chengfeng muttered under his breath as they walked.
Along the way, he had actually already noticed Ning Qiushui.
It was hard not to notice.
Whether it was upon discovering the fat man's skin or smelling that strong scent of blood, Ning Qiushui hardly reacted.
"Gutsy?" Ning Qiushui chuckled self-deprecatingly.
"Do you think we have a choice?"
Liu Chengfeng, towering over Ning Qiushui despite being only slightly taller due to his stature, continued, "You didn't even blink when you saw the fat man's skin. Were you... one of them?"
"One of whom?" Ning Qiushui inquired.
"You've read too many novels. Where do you think there are so many assassins in reality?"
"Um... well..."
"I'm a doctor."
"Oh, I see. A forensic pathologist?"
"Close enough, a veterinarian."
Liu Chengfeng: "..."
As they conversed, they reached the third floor of the villa.
Upon arrival, their conversation ceased.
A strong smell of blood accompanied by the scent of decaying wood permeated the air.
On the third floor of the villa, there was nothing but a wooden door soaked in blood.
Written in crimson on the wooden door was a line of text:
[Take care of the bedridden elderly for five days]
"Taking care of the elderly... that's our task this time," Ning Qiushui's eyes flickered.
Others gradually arrived, seeing the blood-written text on the wooden door, they were all stunned.
"Is it really that simple?" Wang Yuning, the woman with golden earrings, couldn't believe it.
As they whispered among themselves, they suddenly stopped, sensing something, and all looked towards the wooden door.
Creak...
From inside the wooden door, it sounded like something was pushing against it.
Soon, the wooden door was slowly pushed open by a pair of pale hands!
As the blood-stained wooden door slowly opened, everyone's vision suddenly blackened, and they lost consciousness...