Translator: Cinder Translations
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"This isn't a vacation."
The Fatty suddenly looked pale as if he remembered something and said, "So you mean that 'sister Nuan' from just now is a ghost?"
"I'm afraid so," Jiang Cheng nodded.
"Then the real sister Nuan and that girl in the room named Chen Xiaomeng... wouldn't that mean..."
"Alright," Jiang Cheng interrupted him, then said after a few seconds, "Let's go to the living room."
To avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, Jiang Cheng didn't try to tread lightly as he went down the stairs. But when he and the Fatty reached the bottom, all that remained was the crackling fire in the fireplace.
Fan Li, who should have been by the fireplace, was nowhere to be seen.
The Fatty felt a bit scared and asked, "Could something have happened to him too?"
Jiang Cheng glanced around, then said, "Come out, we are human, not ghosts."
As soon as he finished speaking, a figure as strong as a bear stood up from behind the sofa. Fan Li, looking wary, stared at them with a sharp knife in his hand reflecting a cold light.
"What are you doing down here?" He quickly glanced at the stairs before focusing on Jiang Cheng's face. "Where are the other two?"
"They're in trouble."
Fan Li scrutinized them suspiciously. According to previous assumptions, the women should be safe on this mission; how could something like this happen?
The Fatty quickly recounted their earlier encounter to Fan Li.
Fan Li's expression shifted slightly, then he sighed, "If what you say is true, they're in grave danger."
Not just in grave danger, the Fatty thought; he just hoped they wouldn't die as gruesomely as Xie Yu.
Since a ghost had already appeared tonight, Jiang Cheng and the others should be relatively safe. But after what had just happened, even the Fatty couldn't sleep.
"Let's rest for a bit," Jiang Cheng said. "I won't sleep; I'll wake you up in two hours."
Fan Li had probably experienced such situations often and was used to it. He lay down, not on the sofa but in front of the fireplace.
No one knew if he was really asleep, but the sharp knife he had found in the kitchen was hidden somewhere on him.
With the warm fire, the Fatty's nerves began to fray. It had been a long time since he had a good, uninterrupted sleep; only his lingering consciousness held on.
He sat on the sofa, and the scene in front of him gradually became blurry.
When he opened his eyes again, dawn was breaking. Jiang Cheng and Fan Li were huddled together, whispering about something. Jiang Cheng looked about the same as usual, but Fan Li appeared a bit agitated from time to time.
As the Fatty moved, the sofa creaked slightly.
Jiang Cheng turned to look at him and asked, "Awake?"
"Yeah." The Fatty rubbed his face awkwardly. "It's bright; shouldn't we go upstairs to check?"
"Not in a hurry. Let's wait until it's fully light."
So they waited for about half an hour. During that time, the three of them had some small bread-like snacks to barely fill their stomachs.
Sure! Here's the translation:
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The sky was fully bright, and Jiang Cheng stood up, saying it was about time. The three of them picked up their belongings and began to head upstairs along the staircase.
Fan Li was still holding the sharp knife from last night, while Jiang Cheng had picked up a rolling pin. The fat guy glanced around the kitchen and, seeing nothing useful, took the cutting board, holding it against his chest like a shield.
The three slowly approached the second-floor corridor, inching closer to the master bedroom.
At this point, they were almost certain that Sister Nuan and the others had encountered trouble.
The door to the master bedroom was open about a third of the way, and there was no sound coming from inside.
Jiang Cheng reached out and pushed the door open.
The fat guy immediately raised the cutting board.
They had mentally prepared themselves to see two corpses, or even to have a ghost attack them, but when the door opened, there was nothing inside.
No bodies, no ghosts, no blood.
Not even a trace of a struggle.
The bedding in the room was neatly folded, the items on the tables and chairs were orderly, and a silk robe was draped over the sofa, as if the hostess had just stepped out.
"Where are they?" the fat guy asked, his eyes wide.
Jiang Cheng checked under the bed, while Fan Li grimly looked in the wardrobe, then the bathroom, and behind the sofa. They even searched several nearby rooms, including the one where they had found Xie Yu's body.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Sister Nuan and Chen Xiaomeng had seemingly vanished into thin air.
After a moment of thought, Jiang Cheng suddenly said to Fan Li, "Is it possible that they're not dead and have successfully left this place?"
"Are you saying they've completed their mission?" Fan Li's expression was dark and uncertain, but after a moment, he replied, "The possibility is very small, but I won't rule it out."
The fat guy interjected, "If that's the case, then how do we explain the ghost we encountered last night?"
Jiang Cheng knew what the fat guy meant. Since the ghost had taken on Sister Nuan's appearance and appeared in the master bedroom where she and Chen Xiaomeng were, they must have encountered it.
Last night, before encountering the ghost, Jiang Cheng had been on the second floor and hadn't heard anyone moving in the corridor, which meant Sister Nuan and the others hadn't left the room.
The villa's windows couldn't be opened, so there was no possibility of leaving through them.
Thus, either Sister Nuan and Chen Xiaomeng had been killed by the ghost, and their bodies were hidden, or they had completed their mission and left this place to return to the real world before the ghost appeared.
Regarding ways to leave the mission, Fan Li shared his experience, stating that usually after gathering all the clues, a door would appear.
Through that door, one could return to the real world.
But he emphasized that the door could appear anywhere, generally not in too obscure a location, and mostly related to important clues within the mission.
"Just like the iron door we pushed open in the dream?" Jiang Cheng asked.
Fan Li nodded. "Yes, you can think of it as a passage connecting the dream world and the real world."
Back in the living room on the first floor, Jiang Cheng sat on the thick carpet, while Fan Li and the fat guy sat down opposite him.
The situation they faced was somewhat complex.
"Alright," Jiang Cheng said, looking up. "Let's assume that Sister Nuan and the others have successfully left here, and think about how they did it."
The fat guy shrank his neck and hesitantly said, "But I can't shake the feeling that they were killed by the ghost."
Jiang Cheng looked at him coldly and replied, "That question is meaningless. If you insist that they were killed by the ghost, then we might as well wait for death ourselves."
The fat guy was startled by Jiang Cheng's attitude and didn't dare speak further.
Fan Li quickly nodded and said, "You're right. Sister Nuan and the others must have found a way to leave!"
"So, it's our turn now." Jiang Cheng clapped his legs and stood up.
(End of this chapter)
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