Long hair in the sewer.
Doodles behind the wall.
The vanished sister.
Cult teachings under the banner of ‘rebirth’…
The scattered clues pieced together and pointed to one of the saddest endings. As early as when she saw the family portrait doodle behind the wallpaper, Shen Jie had felt like something was wrong.
She had children so she knew that most children didn’t seek complete reality when drawing. A child’s drawing was often their most ideal picture. Yet only the father and sister were in the drawing. There was no mother.
In the children’s room, Cube Boat had already stopped discussions and turned off the lights. They wanted Jiang Fang to complete the task tonight. Li Yinhang consciously fell asleep on the table. Nan Zhou was lying on the floor and looking at the slightly deformed doodles under the small night lights. He grew up painting and was an art teacher, so he knew children’s preferences.
Xiao Ming’s drawings had no traces of his mother or any longing for her. Perhaps his mother had died before he could remember her. In his small world, there was only his father and sister. He didn’t have the concept of a mother so he didn’t meet the requirement of a ‘filial child’ required by the doctrine.
Nan Zhou thought that this was probably the reason why the man didn’t choose his young son as a sacrifice. He wondered again if Xiao Ming’s sister, the young girl with long hair, had really senselessly given her life?
Xiao Ming’s diary said there was always no one at home. Xiao Ming blackened out all the words associated with ‘family’. This was a manifestation of avoidance and disgust. Xiao Ming cooked alone, played games, took a bath and slept alone. He had no one to share it with even after watching a good movie.
Where was Xiao Ming’s sister at this time? Xiao Ming’s sister had a mother. Was she forced to be sacrificed by her father or did she willingly give her life due to her unforgettable happy memories of her childhood and her mother?
Nan Zhou placed his hand on his forehead, closed his eyes and muttered to himself. He couldn’t tell which one was more pitiful.
Christ’s Divine Power Sect didn’t have the power to bring back the dead. There was no doubt about this. Therefore, even if people donated enough money to become an official, they wouldn’t really go out and kill a young girl.
He didn’t know if the man had reached an agreement with his daughter when he killed her. Still, he would’ve definitely been filled with warm hope at the time.
The death came silently. On the day they arrived, during the night of July 2nd and the early hours of July 3rd, neither they nor Xiao Ming heard the screams of slaughter. There was no struggle and no noise. It was all out of blind love.
The man watched his daughter die, either killing her himself or her swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills. He leaned against the bed, watching her as he waited for a miracle. Then as time went on, he became restless. His daughter in the bed didn’t become the light guiding back her mother’s soul. Rather, her life was gradually burned out.
He touched his daughter’s lips and found they were cold. He touched his daughter’s hands and they were stiff. There was no airflow from the nose, her chest didn’t rise and fall and her pulse no longer beat. It didn’t take a night for the man to realize he had been cheated.
His youngest son was still sleeping in the children’s room. Therefore, the man’s collapse could only be silent. His wife wouldn’t be born again, nor would his daughter. If… if he was found by his son…
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
At that time, what would the father of two children have chosen to do? As the father who condoned and acquiesced to his daughter’s death, he would be taken away by the police. Xiao Ming would lose all his loved ones overnight. In addition, the man was afraid to take responsibility. He couldn’t afford such a tragic result. He wanted to escape. He could only escape.
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Meanwhile, Shen Jie felt cold as she closed her eyes to try and get away from this tragedy. The thin monkey and fitness trainer were waiting for her thoughts.
Shen Jie blinked and got up to pat the thin monkey’s messy head of hair. The clue he found was worth 400 points. The instance had advanced to this point and the main plot line had probably come to an end. Shen Jie told him, “Sleep. In the morning, the door will probably appear on its own.”
The thin monkey moved his waist with difficulty and looked at the computer with a gaze still filled with fear. “Do you want to go to the living room to sleep?”
“You’re hurt. Don’t move.” Shen Jie saw his wretched appearance and pulled the computer chair to him. Her always shrewd gaze softened in a raw moment when she gazed at the thin monkey like she was looking at her sick child.
“Xiao Shen and I will stay here with you.”
***
As it turned out, Shen Jie was too optimistic. The surprise of finding the clue last night came to naught after dawn. They woke up and the door didn’t appear. The house once again shrank by a lot. Moreover, there was a strange deformation.
Jagged brick crevices, a wavy ceiling and door handles that were jagged like human molars. The entire house was like a failed product that melted in a high temperature kiln or a paper box randomly crumpled by a naughty child that was floating awkwardly in the air.
To make matters worse, it wasn’t only the house that was deformed. Now the intensification of the shrinkage led to all the furnishings shrinking! Even the doodles on the walls had changed. The lips of the people were flat and pulled outward, turning from ordinary doodles to a horror comic drawing that was hard to look at directly.
The computer, summer homework books and diary had all shrunk. The summer homework books became palm sized and were a miniature version.
The players were like adults who broke into a toy town or little country by mistake. It was entirely foreseeable that if the situation continued until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, they would become a rotten pile of meat in a can being constantly compressed.
The flow of time also accelerated again and it was visible to the naked eye. Time might have accelerated yesterday but it still took around 20 hours to cover the original 24 hours. Now the second hand made no secret of its deadly rhythm.
Tick, tick, tick.
It was like the sound of a ghost demanding death. Yu Tuisi had taken sleeping pills last night and slept soundly, so he wasn’t awakened by the noise. Chen Sufeng did hear it but didn’t go out in order to protect Yu Tuisi. Once Yu Tuisi woke up, he listened to Shen Jie’s overview of what happened last night and frowned while deep in thought.
The fitness trainer was so anxious that he turned around like a fly. “What’s going on? What else are we missing? How do we open it?”
Shen Jie shushed him. She knew that the situation was already beyond her ability. She asked Yu Tuisi, “What are you thinking about?”
“It is the question raised by Nan Zhou.”
Yu Tuisi continued. “Last night, it wasn’t Mr Hou doing the task. Why did the ghost go after Mr Hou?”
To the side, Nan Zhou nodded earnestly while holding the diary in his hand. He said, “There is no logic.”
Shen Jie listened to Nan Zhou’s endless words and felt like she was going bald. Where was the logic?! The countdown to life was in front of them. It was visible to the naked eye and they didn’t have much time to play dumb riddles.
The evidence was that Chen Sufeng wasn’t sitting in front of the narrow desk for a long time before Nan Zhou had to enter the kitchen to prepare. He was setting up the pots and thinking about what dishes to make when there was a soft knock on the door behind him.
It was Li Yinhang. He had been accompanied by Jiang Fang for two days so Nan Zhou naturally asked, “Where is Brother Fang?”
Li Yinhang opened her mouth. “He is still in the children’s room…”
Nan Zhou cut straight to the point. “Do you have something to say?”
“I’ve had an idea since yesterday. I want to verify it.”
Li Yinhang didn’t have a coy personality. Nan Zhou wanted her to speak so she did so.
Nan Zhou wondered, “What do you need me to do?”
“I’ll do it. It’s just that since it is an idea, I’m not sure if it is useful or not. I’ll talk to you when I’m sure. You and Jiang Fang do whatever you think about and I’ll do mine. Don’t delay on either side.”
Nan Zhou didn’t ask in detail. “Okay, I’ll make a dish to reward you.”
Li Yinhang, “……” This wasn’t necessary. She quickly declined, “No need. I just want to borrow Nanji Star and I’ll be good.”
Li Yinhang held Nanji Star in her hand and headed to the second bedroom to turn on the computer. The original computer screen was now only the size of an iPad. It was a miniature version. She took a breath, took out a pen and paper and set it up in front of the computer. She operated it skillfully.
The thin monkey went to the toilet and when he limped out, he was startled to see Li Yinhang sitting in front of the computer and staring at the screen. “Hey!”
He was relieved to see Li Yinhang turn her head. He thought Li Yinhang had been haunted as well. The thin monkey asked, “What are you doing?”
Li Yinhang pointed to the webpage in front of her. “I’m looking at this website again.”
The thin monkey made an ‘oh’ sound and left. She had a lot of courage.
In fact, Li Yinhang didn’t have courage at all. She stared at the screen, biting her thumb. The slightest breeze would send a jolt through her. Somehow, Nanji Star was listless after leaving Nan Zhou. He curled up in Li Yinhang’s hand and dozed off. He occasionally woke up and held Li Yinhang’s thumb like a baby holding a bottle. He also nibbled not so gently a few times. Still, his presence meant Li Yinhang wasn’t very afraid.
She put all her effort into it and even her handicraft task was done for her by Nan Zhou. After all, her poor handicrafts skill means she couldn’t handle the hair-thin matches. She even helped the fitness trainer do his game playing task.
Seeing Li Yinhang’s obsession with computers, the thin monkey realized that his major had been challenged. He came to see her several times and emphasized that he had looked at everything. He advised Li Yinhang not to waste time on it.
Li Yinhang had a very good temper and was stubborn. “Yes, you have a point. I’ll just take another look.”
It was a standard customer service tone.
It wasn’t until it was dark and it was almost time for Shen Jie to take a shower that Li Yinhang finally sighed with relief. She took the notebook, read the recorded contents silently and hurried out of the second bedroom with Nanji Star.
The one who narrowly escaped death today was Yu Tuisi. At noon, Yu Tuisi dreamed about distant singing. It was beautiful and very far away. The moment he entered the dream, there was a pair of pale and flowing arms formed by fog, guiding him to move forward.
In the dream, Yu Tuisi still had feeling in his legs. He entered a large, church-like hall. There was singing on the stage in front of the hall and he saw the faces of children. They were like a whiteboard and had no facial features. The place where the mouth should be was empty. There was only a slight wriggling under the skin. It was unknown how they made any noises.
The conductor who had his back to Yu Tuisi and was dressed in loose black priest robes turned back. Yu Tuisi found that it was his deceased lover. He felt like his mind was sucked into a vortex as a voice repeatedly told him to sink and sink.
Thanks to his strong spirit, he pinched his thigh and forced himself to wake up. He watched the false, warm smile while slowly walking backward out of the hall. The moment he stepped out of the hall, he snapped awake covered in sweat.
Now he was in the living room discussing what to do next with Shen Jie. Shen Jie saw Li Yinhang passing by the living room and asked, “Did you find anything?”
Li Yinhang shook her head. “No, if I found anything then there would be the system notification.”
Shen Jie felt this was right so she turned away and continued to think about it. Li Yinhang’s tense spirit relaxed a bit. Unexpectedly, she shifted her gaze and found Yu Tuisi staring calmly at her. His eyes were casual but he seemed to see directly inside Li Yinhang’s dirty heart. Her face turned white.
However, Yu Tuisi retreated without embarrassing her. He shifted his gaze and waved his hand, gesturing for her to go find her teammates. Li Yinhang escaped to the children’s room and quickly closed the door. She leaned back against the door panel and finally dared to breathe out.
Jiang Fang and Nan Zhou looked at her at the same time. Jiang Fang raised an eyebrow and mouthed at her, ‘Did you find something?’
Li Yinhang nodded silently. This was a cooperation but it was also a competition. At present, Cube Boat, Shunfeng and Nanshan were indeed short-term partners who needed to support each other and exchange information. Still, it was a competitive game after all. In the end, the three teams were competing.
Therefore, Li Yinhang carefully calculated it and chose to tell her own people first. She held her notebook and sat in front of the two people while trying to keep her voice at a minimum. “I seem to understand… the reason why the ghost here doesn’t have any logic.”
Proofreader: Purichan
Thank you for the chapter
LH originally smart girl, I’m glad she’s not weak-willed or useless character
Thank you for new chapter!
ooh! Li Yihang is smart in keeping the information to her team first.
thanks for the chapter <3
I like this girl. Go, go, prove that BL novels also have smart women!
thanks for the chapter~
Yeah, from the start she had her own way of thinking that was different from Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang.
She’s really amazing! （＞ｗ＜ ）
Thank you for the chapter 💜