Ah!" Huang Yu screamed and moved his hand away in fright, not daring to touch his cheek again.
However, he could still clearly feel the thing between his cheeks moving and struggling.
The thing kept pushing outwards, pulling at his flesh, as if it was trying to peel his flesh and bones apart.
Huang Yu saw with his own eyes that the expressions of the others became horrified.
He was shaking so much that he shuddered, "What is this?! My face, what's growing on my face?"
He suddenly turned around and grabbed Fu Lan, who was so scared that she screamed and hid backwards!
Huang Yu missed and stumbled towards the others, his eyes red as he said, "Help me, save me, save me!"
The thing under the skin of his cheek suddenly stretched out, and a sharp corner emerged straight out -
Huang Yu screamed in pain.
Jia Qing shuddered, "This, this shape—"
That is clearly the shape of a bat wing hand!
A bat was born in Huang Yu's body!
Huang Yu staggered to Song Yang, and Song Yang reached out and held his shoulders.
Huang Yu suddenly raised his head and looked at him for help, but the man just remained silent.
Gradually, Huang Yu calmed down.
His eyes were bloodshot and his expression became dazed.
He lowered his head, was stunned for a moment, and murmured: "Am I dead?"
No one answered him.
Everyone's expression was a little heavy.
Huang Yu started crying. He raised his hand to wipe his tears and said, "Then, could you please help me dig this thing out of my face?"
*
The group moved to the ground.
Song Yang asked the others to finish searching the remaining houses first, while he stayed to help Huang Yu deal with the thing on his face and asked him some questions.
Huang Yu's expression had become dazed.
He whispered, "If it was the bat in Brother Liu's body that attracted the ghost yesterday, then if I can take the bat out, I still have a chance tonight..."
Song Yang half-knelt in front of him, and Xia Jingyi bent down and supported his knees to look at his face.
Hearing this, the two paused.
"Giving birth to bats" is just a reference.
Breeding bats is equivalent to being possessed by a demon, so in their speculation, what attracts ghosts to actively find players is actually "the player being identified" or "the player being possessed by a demon."
The fact that a bat was born in Huang Yu's body meant that he was chosen by the devil.
Whether he takes out the bat or not, it is unlikely to change his situation.
There's no need to say this kind of thing so clearly to discourage others.
Huang Yu probably has an idea of this in his mind.
Sure enough, after not hearing any answer from the two, Huang Yu moved his lips, but ultimately remained silent.
Song Yang took out a knife. The knife was very small and certainly not as good as a scalpel in the real world, but it was enough for him to do some fine cutting.
He reminded Huang Yu: "There is no anesthetic here, you have to be mentally prepared."
Huang Yu nodded quickly, took a deep breath and held his breath.
However, when Song Yang stabbed him with the knife, his face instantly became distorted and his arms waved as if he wanted to struggle.
Fortunately, he still had his sanity, and Song Yang moved quickly - there was no need to use any tricks in the copy. He used the simplest and most brutal method to dig out a bat wing hidden between the flesh of Huang Yu's cheek and threw it on the ground.
After taking it out, Huang Yu lay aside, gasping for breath like a toad, and his whole body was shaking.
Song Yang took out the medical spray, and Xia Jing said, "Wait."
He walked up to Huang Yu, squatted down, and looked thoughtfully at the bloody wound on Huang Yu's face.
With an opening this small, the bones underneath cannot be seen yet.
Xia Jing narrowed his eyes.
Song Yang instantly realized what Xia Jing was trying to do and twitched his lips.
Fortunately, even when Xia Jing was out of touch, he knew what he could and could not do, so he gave up when he couldn't see Huang Yu's bones.
He just squatted there, tilting his head to look at Huang Yu for a while, and suddenly said: "So, what exactly do the three words 'not intending' on Liu Mingyang's bones mean?"
Huang Yu froze when he heard this question.
The young man Nian Piaopiao said, "You know the answer, right?"
At this point, you still refuse to say it?
Huang Yu froze there, motionless.
He didn't dare look back at the two of them.
Or rather, he was too embarrassed to face the two of them.
He closed his eyes, clenched his hands, and prepared himself mentally several times before he timidly said, "Actually, I'm not really sure, but those three words are probably related to Song Yang..."
…
The timid trio of Jia Qing, Gao Sheng and Zheng Shu cautiously pushed open the door of a house.
This house is slightly larger than the surrounding houses and looks more "luxurious".
Before they pushed the door open, they were afraid that there might be some big boss inside. After they pushed the door open and went in, the three of them were stunned for a moment, and then Jia Qing said: "...This is the mayor's house!"
It's a huge house with a large living room as soon as you enter the door, and you feel a suffocating feeling.
The girl who followed the ghost mayor last night - probably Miss Elizabeth - was standing by the window, smiling and doing some repetitive movements. It looked like she was arranging flowers, but in front of her there was only an empty, shabby vase.
The girl who had a cold face last night was now talking and laughing.
Next to her was a desk. The bearded mayor sat behind the desk with a thick book open in front of him. He was holding a quill and talking to his daughter with a smile.
"Elizabeth," the gentle father taught his daughter, "you must always believe in your own thoughts and feelings, trust your intuition, and be an independent thinker. Your brain will not deceive you, so you should never be fooled by the words of others."
"Yes, father, I have always done so."
"Also, humans can achieve anything if they work hard enough."
The gentle father was writing something in a book while casually talking about this topic.
Elizabeth thought for a moment and said, "So, there is no God in this world. The only ones who can control our lives are ourselves."
The mayor said: "That's true, but——"
He paused, then smiled and said, "It's not that I completely don't believe in the existence of gods, but it's not so easy to get gods to bless humanity. If we want gods to hear our voices, we must be devout enough and make sufficient efforts."
Elizabeth listened and thought. She looked at the sky outside the window, as if she was curious about what gods would look like if they really existed in the world.
Unfortunately, the gods failed to protect them, and what finally greeted them were the devil and death.
The timid trio left the house and wrote "Mayor's House, Conversation between Father and Daughter" on the outer wall with a marker.
Zheng Shu said, "Come to think of it, the town's incident record book only states that Elizabeth is missing. What happened to her afterwards?"
Jia Qing sighed and said, "I'm afraid it's very likely she's in danger. I don't know where her body is."
…
On the other side, Feng Shi, Bian Ya and Fu Lan pushed open the door of a house.
As soon as they entered the room, they started coughing because of the smell of smoke.
The room was filled with thick black smoke, and Fu Lan couldn't open her eyes at all. She cried in shock and asked, "Is someone playing with fire in there?"
Are there any living NPCs in this dungeon?
"No," Feng Shi coughed twice and said, "I'm afraid these are all the work of ghosts."
Bian Ya took out two handkerchiefs from the space bag, wet them with water, and gave one to Feng Shi.
Fu Lan stayed outside the door. The two men covered their noses with wet handkerchiefs, waved the thick smoke in front of them, and walked in cautiously.
I walked through the living room and pushed open the door of the only inner room, and the smoke inside was even thicker.
Faintly, they saw two figures and heard the sound of laughter.
Feng Shi and Bian Ya looked at each other.
——This is the home of the Lal brothers!
At this moment, the twin ghosts were laughing wildly in the house, and they turned into two twisted black shadows in the smoke.
One of the shadows was stirring something in an iron bucket with a pair of pliers. Another shadow raised its head and pointed a vessel at its mouth.
These two brothers are drinking again!
They drank and laughed heartily, not knowing what was burning in the iron barrel that made them so excited.
Bian Ya and Feng Shi approached cautiously step by step.
Because of the thick smoke, tears came out of their eyes, they felt very uncomfortable, and their vision became blurred.
They narrowed their eyes, with a bad premonition and the sound of their heartbeats, and walked step by step to the edge of the iron barrel.
Phantom-like flames continued to rise from the iron barrel.
When they saw what was trapped in the flames, they froze.
…
On the main road.
Huang Yu didn't dare to look Song Yang in the eye, and hesitantly said: "Yesterday afternoon, when I was looking for clues, I secretly asked Brother Liu if he was planning to deal with you..."
After hearing this beginning, Xia Jing and Song Yang had no reaction.
Liu Mingyang did not hide his thoughts at all, and anyone could see what he was planning towards Song Yang.
With Smiley City removing the "killing players" restriction rule, things that used to require brainpower and strategy have become plans that can be achieved simply by suppressing with force.
Liu Mingyang is tall and strong. In terms of physique, he does have an overwhelming advantage over Song Yang.
However, that guy obviously didn't consider that any amount of fat would be futile when compared to muscles.
The amount of gaming experience a player has plays a decisive role in the accumulation of monster props.
If Liu Mingyang had any brains, he would have known that he was courting death by setting his sights on Song Yang.
Unfortunately, he really has no brains.
Huang Yu said with shame: "At that time, Brother Liu's answer to me was... 'I don't plan to'."
Song Yang and Xia Jing both raised their eyebrows.
The three words "not planning" actually appeared here?
"I think he was just putting on an act because he was smiling when he said it. I think he must be secretly looking for an opportunity to attack you!"
Huang Yu, who clearly wanted a piece of the action, hung his head and trembled as he said, "When I first saw those three words this morning, I remembered this conversation yesterday, but I didn't quite understand it."
"How could these three words bring him such a fatal disaster? I suspect I was misinterpreting the situation, so when you asked me, I just shook my head without even thinking."
Huang Yu sniffed and said, "I still don't understand this. Could it be that he summoned the demon because he had murderous intentions? I summoned the demon because I had thoughts about you, Boss Song, at that time."
He started crying again.
Song Yang handed him the medical spray and asked him to spray it himself, and then he and Xia Jing started thinking about it together.
"Text and answers," Xia Jing said slowly. "The twin brothers kept interrogating the player while they were torturing him, and they kept asking him to give answers. In this instance, the words spoken by the player might be very important."
Song Yang thought for a moment and said, "The reason why the player summoned the demon should have nothing to do with 'murderous intent'."
"Huang Yu and Liu Mingyang both wanted to attack me yesterday. If 'murderous intent' is truly the reason players are chosen by demons, then Huang Yu should have been possessed by the demon yesterday, just like Liu Mingyang. After all, judging by the town's incident records and interrogation records, demons can possess a group of people at once, without having to target them one by one."
"Players possessed by demons will be visited by ghosts."
But yesterday the ghosts didn't pay any attention to Huang Yu at all.
They only directed all their firepower at Liu Mingyang.
This is enough to prove that Huang Yu was not possessed by the devil at that time.
Therefore, the possibility that "murderous intent is the opportunity for the devil to come" can basically be ruled out.
In addition, the part of the body that Huang Yu gave birth to the bat was the cheek, which is a very obvious position. As long as the bat grows into a certain shape, others can observe it.
If Huang Yu started to conceive the bat last night, then judging by the time, the bat should have been formed long ago, and the abnormality on his cheek should have been noticed by them long ago.
But the fact is, the bat-wing hand under Huang Yu's cheek skin was not fully formed until they were about to leave the torture chamber.
Therefore, he should not have been pregnant with the bat for very long.
The start time will most likely be... this morning.
This morning, he probably did or said something that triggered the death mechanism.
It was then that the devil descended upon him, and bats began to grow within him.
But it's also very strange.
When they found Fu Lan and Huang Yu this morning, they were still asleep.
After they woke up, Huang Yu was still following them.
During the entire process, they could hear almost everything this guy said, but there was nothing special enough to attract their attention from beginning to end.
Xia Jing glanced at Huang Yu's cheek.
What kind of words will appear on this guy's cheekbone?
Unable to think of any answer for a moment, the three of them waited for Huang Yu to treat his injuries, then stood up and joined the search team.
In the evening before the sun sets, the nine people get together and hide in the "Administrative Center".
This place is the largest building in the town. It is spacious and nine people can rest inside without feeling crowded.
They exchanged information with each other.
Among them, the discovery of seals and cliffs is particularly noteworthy.
They told about the Lal brothers burning something in their house, and what was burning in the iron barrel was—
"A baby?!" Upon hearing the answer, Jia Qing was so scared that the dry food fell from his hands.
Feng Shi and Bian Ya nodded solemnly.
"It's a baby, and it's been burned black." said Bian Ya.
That afternoon, he and Feng Shi approached the burning iron barrel, and the scene they saw was horrifying.
In the flames was a baby with a charred body, lying on the edge of the iron barrel, looking at them in pain with a pair of pure eyes.
A small one.
It was burned beyond recognition, like a little monster.
Everyone suddenly felt a chill running down their tailbone.
Where did this baby come from?
They actually played with fire and burned babies at home?
Even if they were drunk, they couldn't do such a inhumane thing. These two brothers are simply two complete criminals!
Xia Jing said slowly, "Yesterday, the first house that Song Yang, Zheng Shu, and I searched was where the woman's child was suspected to be missing."
"Unlike adults, babies haven't developed sound cognition yet. Normal ghosts would return to their homes at dawn, but babies might not know the way home. This might be why she's still trapped in the Lal brothers' iron barrel."
At this point, Xia Jing turned to look at the two of them and asked, "Have you noticed the baby's physical condition? Are her arms still there?"
Xia Jing's words awakened everyone, and they understood what Xia Jing meant.
Feng Shi thought about it carefully and shook his head, saying, "The baby's right arm was very short, with no forearm or hand at all."
In other words—
Zheng Shu opened his eyes wide and said, "The charred arm in the mayor's stomach is very likely the arm that this child lost!"
He murmured loudly: "Then Elizabeth is absolutely right. It was the Lal brothers who killed the mayor and tried to disguise the murder as the arrival of some demon..."
They burned the baby, killed the mayor, cut open the mayor's body, and stuffed the baby's severed arm into the wound.
This is simply a contrived, bloody, dark killing game!
Those two brothers are complete sociopaths!
——But the problem arises again.
If the mayor's death was man-made from beginning to end and had nothing to do with gods or demons, then what about the subsequent series of demonic events?
The phenomenon of mass bat breeding could never be a prank that humans could pull.
What is happening to them, the players, must be what the townspeople experienced back then.
Where does this metaphysical power come from?
Thinking of this, Song Yang turned his gaze to the others: "What about you? What else have you discovered?"
Jia Qing raised his hand and said, "We found the mayor's house. He and Elizabeth were chatting in the living room."
Zheng Shu suddenly thought of something and said, "Oh, right, we also found an old man who seems to be a prophet. He lives alone, and his house is full of crystal balls and other things. His identity is very mysterious. Could he be related to this incident?"
Song Yang asked: "Did you find any suspicious clues in his house?"
Jia Qing said sheepishly, "He sits at the doorstep, constantly telling passersby that if they write their wishes on a piece of paper and eat it, their wishes will come true. He also said he can use a crystal ball to see everyone's past and present lives, one gold coin at a time, honestly..."
Fu Lan was speechless: "Isn't this a liar?!"
Xia Jing and Song Yang listened to everyone talking and thought quietly.
Today they have basically explored all the houses in the town.
Song Yang said, "Xia Jing and I walked to the end of the main road today and took a look. The field outside should be the field that had a fire that Elizabeth mentioned during the court debate. Even now, part of the land in that field is still charred."
"There's a river outside the fields, and on the other side of the river are trees. I can vaguely see a few tombstones," Song Yang said. "I suspect that's the town's exclusive cemetery. There might be some remains of the townspeople there. We have to go take a look tomorrow."
They have now roughly confirmed that the mayor was framed and the demon's arrival was not at all what the townspeople imagined.
If they want to continue digging for the truth, perhaps they can only start with the "text".
What kind of words will be left on the bones of those townspeople who were once possessed by demons?
Those words may tell them the real answer.
After listening to Song Yang's explanation, no one had any objection.
But, this is already tomorrow's matter.
Whether they can get through tonight smoothly remains a question.
Everyone looked at Huang Yu at the same time.
His face was still swollen and covered with a thick layer of gauze.
He leaned against the wall with a pale face, looking very uneasy.
Unlike yesterday, they didn't know what was about to happen to them yesterday, but today Huang Yu was basically waiting to die.
This feeling is unbearable even for bystanders.
Outside, night fell little by little.
Everyone leaned against the wall silently, and in the silence, their heartbeats gradually quickened.
Song Yang covered Xia Jing's hand and held it tightly.
Feng Shi and Bian Ya sat shoulder to shoulder, neither of them speaking.
Gao Sheng, Zheng Shu and Jia Qing huddled together. Although it was not winter in the dungeon, they felt their hands and feet were cold.
Fu Lan bit her fingernails anxiously.
Huang Yu's breathing was fluctuating greatly, and cold sweat kept flowing down his cheeks.
Anxiety and fear spread in the air.
Zheng Shu is a newcomer. It is his first time entering a dungeon, and it is also his first time facing all the problems that players encounter when facing monsters.
He was silent for a while, and tears began to flow.
He raised his arm, wiped his eyes, and whispered, "I heard from Brother Jia that if a player dies in a dungeon, will they die again if they go outside?"
Jia Qing said in confusion: "Don't think about this kind of thing now."
"I'm so scared," Zheng Shu muttered. "We still don't know what attracted the demon. Who knows if I've been affected."
After a pause, he continued, "If a player dies in real life... will it be a tragic death? My parents can't handle it well, and if my death is too tragic, they'll be upset."
Loudly comforting: "No, don't think too much."
In fact, in real life, whether the player is arranged to die suddenly of illness, car accident or suicide, the death will not be pretty.
But at this time, there is no point in deepening Zheng Shu's fear for no reason.
He patted Zheng Shu's back loudly and said, "I heard from Brother Jia that Brother Song and Brother Xia are both very powerful. Let's follow them. If we all work together, we will definitely be able to pass the level smoothly."
Zheng Shu sniffed and nodded.
At this moment, Fu Lan whispered: "The ghosts have started patrolling!"
Everyone fell silent.
After Fu Lan finished looking through the window, she sat down and leaned against the wall again.
She took a deep breath and said, "They're coming from the street. It'll probably take them two or three minutes to get here."
Huang Yu's breathing became more and more rapid.
He kept swallowing, and cold sweat almost soaked his clothes.
Zheng Shu kept muttering "Amitabha" and "Amen" in his mouth, praying to all the gods and Buddhas he knew, his body trembling slightly.
At a certain moment, the door of the building was suddenly slammed open with a bang, and the feeling of suffocation quickly rushed towards the nine people!
Everyone tensed up immediately.
Huang Yu couldn't stand it anymore!
He jumped up and ran, trying to reach the second floor!
A neck catcher immediately flew out and wrapped around his neck. He screamed and fell to the ground. The spikes on the iron ring of the neck catcher immediately pierced into his neck!
No one could bear to watch any longer.
And the next second, amid the terrified screams of Fu Lan and Jia Qing, the second neck catcher flew towards them!
The person caught by this neck trap is actually——
loudly!
Gao Sheng was stunned for a moment, and the next second, he was pulled out by a brute force, fell out from the crowd, and was dragged to the center of the venue!
Xia Jing and Song Yang quickly stood up and watched the scene intently.
"Why?!" Zheng Shu was stunned. He jumped up with red eyes. He never expected that Gao Sheng, who had just been comforting him, would become the target of the ghosts at this moment!
"Why is it Brother Gao?!"