Translator: Cinder Translations
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Jiang Cheng made no sound as he quietly got up and slipped into the bathroom. When the fat guy woke up, he saw a figure "sleeping" on the floor by the bed, but it wasn't Jiang Cheng; it was the shadow that had just crawled out.
In other words, it was a ghost.
The real Jiang Cheng was hiding behind the bathroom door, and while the fat guy stood dazed in front of the bathroom, Jiang Cheng pulled him inside.
Chen Xiaomeng fumbled to turn on the light in the bedroom.
When the light turned on, everyone saw the bed in disarray, with a puddle of water on the floor.
The water stains extended from the bed all the way to the door.
A few of them walked to the door to look outside and discovered there were also water stains in the hallway.
The stains continued to the end of the hallway, stopping in front of a locked door.
Xie Yu had been taken away wrapped in a blanket by the ghost, and just thinking about it sent chills down their spines.
No one hoped he was still alive.
Fan Li suppressed the chill in his heart and turned to Jiang Cheng, "What did the ghost look like? Did you see it clearly?"
The fat guy shook his head vigorously, saying the room was too dark at the time, and he was—
The others knew he wanted to say he was too scared.
After all, he was a newcomer, which was understandable.
Just as Sister Nuan opened her mouth to say something, Jiang Cheng suddenly spoke up, "It was that girl."
"What?"
"The ghost was the girl from the family of four!"
Fan Li asked in surprise, "How do you know?"
Since arriving here, no one had seen a photo of this family, so there was no way to know what they looked like.
Of course, this excluded the middle-aged man and Xie Yu.
Jiang Cheng looked up, staring at the locked door at the end of the hallway, and after a moment said, "The ghost was wearing a pair of women's casual shoes; I saw them in the shoe cabinet."
Chen Xiaomeng, pale-faced, said, "It seems our previous reasoning wasn't wrong. The other family members in the villa abused the girl and eventually killed her, and now… she's back for revenge."
"Her death has nothing to do with us. What does she want with us?" The fat guy recalled what had just happened and couldn't help but feel frightened.
Sister Nuan scoffed, "Are you trying to reason with a ghost?"
"Alright," Fan Li interjected, "let's keep the chatter down! I'm going to check it out; who's coming with me?"
He was naturally referring to the locked room at the end of the hallway, where the ghost had dragged Xie Yu and disappeared.
This was an important clue.
In the end, everyone decided to go together, as splitting up would only be more dangerous.
Moreover, according to Fan Li and Sister Nuan, ghosts rarely kill people in quick succession.
This time was different; when Fan Li lightly pushed, the door opened.
The lock… had been undone.
Behind the door was a small room, with no windows, so they could only see a little bit by the light reflecting from the hallway.
The area was about two-thirds the size of the boy's bedroom.
Inside was quite dark, and no one dared to enter just yet.
Until Jiang Cheng took a few steps forward, reached out a hand to feel around on the wall near the door, and with a click of a switch, the light in the room turned on.
Although they were already prepared, when they saw the room, everyone couldn't help but gasp.
In the center of the room lay a rolled-up quilt, with a pair of shoes sticking out, limply hanging on the floor.
After a few seconds of calm, Sister Nuan stepped forward and slowly lifted the quilt.
"Ah!" Chen Xiaomeng couldn't help but cover her mouth.
Xie Yu was curled up in the quilt, his eyes bulging, pupils dilated, face pale, and the muscles in his face and neck twisted; it was obvious he was already dead.
His arms were stiff, claw-like, protecting his chest, as if defending against something, with blue veins standing out on the back of his hands.
Jiang Cheng stepped forward and pulled back the corner of Xie Yu's shirt.
His body was covered in blood marks, as if he had been whipped with something, and there were several wounds from sharp objects. His hands were tightly cuffed together with handcuffs.
Sister Nuan held a backpack she had found nearby, which contained a whip, a dagger, some rope, handcuffs, and several candles of varying thickness.
After comparison, the rope in the backpack was the same as the one found in the storage room earlier.
The fat guy stared at the bloody tools, his voice trembling, "Did a ghost torture Xie Yu to death?"
"No," Jiang Cheng stood up, "the wounds on his body are very regular, with no signs of struggle, which means he was unconscious while being abused."
"I think he was scared to death first, then dragged here and beaten by a ghost."
"Whipping a corpse?"
Jiang Cheng nodded, "I think so."
"Bro, can you be a little less calm?" the fat guy said with a mournful face. "If I weren't with you, just based on your reaction, I'd suspect you did this!"
Jiang Cheng looked serious, "Don't talk nonsense. While we do have things like this in the nightlife, they are consensual and usually not this extreme."
Just as the topic was about to be derailed by Jiang Cheng, Fan Li hurriedly stepped in to stop it, suggesting they find clues first before chatting.
Unexpectedly, Jiang Cheng pointed to the shoes on Xie Yu's corpse and said, "These shoes are wrong; they're not the ones he was wearing before."
At Jiang Cheng's reminder, everyone shifted their gaze from his face to the shoes.
They were a pair of ordinary, somewhat worn sports shoes, which indeed didn't match Xie Yu's otherwise refined office attire, and the shoes looked very bulky.
Fan Li took the dagger from the backpack Sister Nuan found, crouched down, and used the blade to cut the tightly tied shoelaces, removing the shoes.
What happened next surprised everyone.
Inside the sports shoes was another pair of shoes!
They were a pair of misshapen leather shoes, with Xie Yu's foot contorted inside, as if all the bones had been crushed and stuffed in.
Clearly, these were Xie Yu's own shoes.
"These are the shoes of a boy in a four-person family?" Chen Xiaomeng looked down at the sports shoes, puzzled. "But we found a pair of sports shoes in the shoe cabinet in the living room."
Jiang Cheng understood her confusion. Although the two pairs of sports shoes looked similar, their sizes were quite different, suggesting they didn't belong to the same person.
"Could the shoes in the shoe cabinet be those worn by the boy during his growth? And this pair belongs to him now that he's grown up?"
After thinking for a moment, Jiang Cheng replied, "It's possible, but I think the likelihood is low. We've searched the entire villa; has anyone seen shoes of a similar size?"
Everyone fell silent. After a while, Sister Nuan, looking somewhat strange, said, "So you mean there are three men in this villa: a male host and his two sons."
(End of this chapter)
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