Are the words that appeared on the bones of Fu Lan and Huang Yu all the names of the people they identified?
Is this the rule?
Xia Jing half-knelt there, looking at the three bodies, and suddenly said, "There's something wrong with the clues on them."
He stood up and said thoughtfully, "We need to review what happened today."
night.
On the silent main road of the town, the ghost team swam back and forth like a school of fish as usual.
They glanced back and forth at the remaining six players in the "administrative center" with evil, expectant, and malicious eyes, as if expecting them to cause some more trouble so that they could continue their torture orgy.
Inside the house, six people worked together to place the three bodies of Huang Yu, Fu Lan and Gao Sheng side by side in the center of the venue.
The thick smell of blood makes people feel a little nauseous.
Zheng Shu was helped to sit down against the wall. His face was still pale and he was still a little weak. Jia Qing took care of him.
On the other side, the remaining four people stood in front of three corpses.
Xia Jing said, "First of all, we can confirm that the two names on Huang Yu and Fu Lan's bones are most likely the marks left by them when they identified each other just now."
Song Yang, Bian Ya and Feng Shi nodded.
All three of them had no objection to this.
In a day, each of them had many opportunities to call each other's names, but the only one special enough to be engraved on human bones was probably the one when these two people called out for identification during the interrogation.
"The fact that the ghost didn't catch Fu Lan in the first round of captures is enough to prove that she wasn't possessed by the devil at that time," Song Yang analyzed methodically. "The only things that happened to her after that were being pointed out, tortured, and pointed out."
During this short period of time, she quickly transformed from an "innocent person" to a "person possessed by a demon."
It is very easy to guess where the key turning point occurs.
"So at present we can at least be sure that the act of pointing fingers will definitely attract the devil," said Bian Ya.
Players naively believed that as long as they identified the evil ghost, it would let them go. But in fact, when they called out other people's names, bat bodies and words were already born in their bodies.
Death is their only ending.
Now that I think about it, pointing fingers at others is an extremely dangerous act.
The ghosts should also know this. They repeatedly prolong the torture process and interrogate the players again and again, just to deliberately mislead them.
It is difficult for these ghosts to completely break away from their mechanical action mode. They can only kill all players by "killing demons".
Zheng Shu, who was standing by the wall, wiped away the remaining tears on his face and took a deep breath.
Fortunately, he chose to trust these companions unwaveringly, otherwise he would have been a dead body by now.
Jia Qing, who was listening to everyone's analysis, interrupted and said, "But it's very strange. Liu Mingyang also pointed out Brother Yang yesterday, so why isn't the name on his body Brother Yang's name?"
Xia Jing said: "This is the strange thing."
Jia Qing was stunned.
The young man looked down at the three bodies and paced around them.
When he reached Huang Yu's body, he stopped and said, "The bat body and words appeared in Huang Yu's body just now because he pointed it out. But you should also remember that he was possessed by the devil during the day."
Xia Jing said slowly: "So, he should have been possessed twice today. Once this morning, and once just now. Both times, we dug out the bat body from his body, but why did we only find the text once?"
Feng Shi thought about it and proposed a possibility: "The bats grew in the same place both times. Could it be that the text also appeared in the same place twice, so the text that appeared later covered the text that appeared earlier?"
Song Yang shook his head and said, "No. Actually, I also felt strange just now - although Huang Yu's bats were bred in the cheeks both times, I just observed the area the ghosts dug out, and it was slightly different from the area I cut out this morning."
"I think the locations of his two texts shouldn't completely overlap."
Xia Jing continued Song Yang's words, "Liu Mingyang must have been possessed twice yesterday."
"He was already possessed before the ghosts arrived, so the ghosts sensed him and captured him."
"After that, he identified Song Yang, and he must have been possessed a second time. However, because the ghosts immediately beheaded him, his body didn't have time to give birth to a second bat and a second line of text. This is completely understandable."
"But Huang Yu's situation is different."
The words formed by Huang Yu's second possession have already emerged, so where did his first words go?
Song Yang and Xia Jing stood in front of and behind Huang Yu's body.
The two thought for a moment and seemed to have an idea.
Song Yang narrowed his eyes and said, "Or maybe it's because when the second text appears, the first text will automatically disappear anyway - but this setting is no different from deliberately erasing clues. I don't think the copy will do this."
There is another possibility -
Xia Jing opened his mouth and said slowly, "The first time Huang Yu summoned the devil, it wasn't because of a certain word he said, but because of a certain action he took."
The others were stunned.
Xia Jing said calmly, "So far, the words found on the bones of Liu, Huang, Fu, and Gao all look like 'answer.' 'Answer' can be spoken, but it can also be expressed through actions."
——If it is a certain "action", then naturally no words can emerge!
After realizing this, everyone immediately began to recall the conversations they had with Huang Yu throughout the day.
What kind of conversations did they have?
What kind of response did Huang Yuzeng make?
After reminiscing for a while, Jia Qing said with a bitter face, "I feel like almost all of us are asking and answering questions all day long. I say something, and you nod your head, which counts as a response. There are simply countless such scenes. How can anyone judge it?"
Bian Ya pondered, "Anything that can attract demons must contain some specific factor. We need to find this factor to break the deadlock."
Song Yang turned around and asked Zheng Shu and Jia Qing, "You still can't remember anything after seeing these three words on Gao Sheng's body?"
Jia Qing and Zheng Shu's eyes immediately turned to Gao Sheng's body.
The companion who had been with them in the evening had now turned into a headless corpse. The corpse looked so miserable that they could not bear to look at it any longer.
The two tried hard to recall, but perhaps because their minds were too confused, or perhaps because of sadness and fatigue, they both ended up shaking their heads in confusion.
The three words "No" are so common, so common that they will forget them after hearing them once.
They couldn't remember at once when they had had such a conversation with Gao Sheng.
There is nothing we can do in this case.
Song Yang and the others didn't have much contact with Gao Sheng. Even before the ghost arrived, they were thinking about their own things and didn't pay much attention to each other.
Song Yang exhaled and said, "After tomorrow morning, let's hurry up and go to the forest on the other side of the river to have a look."
The clues there may help them find the final answer.
*
No one got a good rest that night.
The room was filled with the stench of blood, making it difficult to breathe. Later, Zheng Shu even ran to a corner to vomit, his face looking very ugly.
Jia Qing patted his back like he was coaxing a child, and finally managed to pat the guy to sleep.
He leaned against the wall for a while, then asked Song Yang in a low voice, "Brother Yang, do you think we can find Gao Sheng's parents smoothly after we get out?"
"Although I really hope that after all the four-star dungeons are destroyed, we can say goodbye to Smiley City once and for all," Jia Qing said with his head down, "but just like Lu Chenfei said, I always feel not so optimistic."
In fact, what Jia Qing was afraid of was that when all the players reached the end, they would find that what was waiting for them was not a way to survive, but a dead end.
Song Yang was silent for a while, then said, "Dead ends and life ends sometimes lie at the same intersection."
Jia Qingwei was stunned.
Song Yang said: "Don't think too much. No matter what we have to face after we get out, what we have to do is always the same."
In the darkness, everyone listened to him quietly.
"Explore the map, find clues, get answers, and defeat monsters."
Bian Ya laughed: "Just like when facing a dungeon?"
Feng Shi said: "Smiling Face City is equivalent to the largest dungeon that our players have to face."
Jia Qing sniffed and laughed: "Smiley City is the largest dungeon, and also the largest monster."
In the suddenly relaxed atmosphere, Song Yang held Xia Jing's hand tightly.
Xia Jing leaned on his shoulder and chuckled, "Doctor Song remembers this sentence so clearly?"
What Song Yang said just now was exactly what Xia Jing said to him in the "Death Ringing" copy.
Song Yang also smiled: "Because someone invited me to explore him like exploring a dungeon, this sentence left a deep impression on me."
He turned his head and asked in a low voice, "By the way, do I consider myself to have successfully passed the level now?"
Xia Jing's tone was somewhat playful: "Reward Dr. Song with 150 points."
150 points?
Song Yang quickly remembered that the maximum score set by Smiley Face City for clearing the mysterious five-star copy was 150 points.
Song Yang suddenly laughed out loud.
So he successfully captured a super monster?
He hugged the young man, rubbed his chin against his forehead, and sighed with contentment.
This is the most precious little monster he has ever obtained.
…
The next morning, the ghosts on the street returned to their homes.
Bathed in the morning light, six people went out and quickly ran to the end of the town.
The farmland at the end of the town has not been tended for a long time and is almost completely covered with weeds.
Outside the farmland is a river that flows around the town, its rippling waves reflecting the leisurely morning light.
After a closer look, they found that there were a few scattered bodies stuck on the river bank in the distance, which would not be visible at all if there was not enough light.
The group decided to stop for a while and work together to examine the bodies.
The first corpse that Xia Jing and Song Yang pulled up had no words on it, nor were there any bat bones mixed in it.
Bat bones might be washed away by water, but the text - they had verified this using the three bodies from yesterday - was deeply embedded in the bones and would not disappear completely unless the damage was extremely severe.
Xia Jing quickly made a judgment: "This person should not have been possessed by a demon in his lifetime."
Song Yang nodded, looked at something not far away, and said, "But there are obviously words on the top of the bones over there."
On the other side, Feng Shi and Bian Ya worked together.
During the process, Bian Ya almost fell into the river. Feng Shi pulled him back, breathed a sigh of relief, and said, "Be careful."
Bian Ya turned around and smiled: "Thank you."
Feng Shi looked at him inquiringly and suddenly said, "You've been a little absent-minded from time to time since entering this dungeon... Do you think the punishment in this dungeon suits your taste?"
He still remembered the man's special attributes.
When Bian Ya heard this, he raised his eyebrows and said, "I didn't."
Feng Shi reminded him, "Take it easy. This kind of torture is different from... a love game after all."
Bian Ya paused and asked, "Who told you that masochists enjoy 'erotic games'?"
Feng Shi was stunned.
Bian Ya opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.
But in the end, he smiled, swallowed his words, and changed the subject: "Forget it, it's okay, I will pay attention to it. I didn't expect you to pay so much attention to me."
Bian Ya's words were purely sarcastic, and Feng Shi froze for a moment before immediately denying, "I didn't."
Seeing his reaction, Bian Ya's eyes became amused, and Feng Shi began to feel a little uncomfortable.
He avoided her gaze and said, "Let's not talk about it anymore. Let's hurry up and check this body."
After six people worked together to check, they concluded that -
Among these skeletons on the river bank, half of them were possessed by demons during their lifetime and had mottled black marks on their bodies.
Several others were completely normal human skeletons.
"According to what Elizabeth said during that court debate, long ago, whenever this town encountered disaster, the residents would seek out the 'devil' and blame all the calamities on it. They believed that if they could kill the devil, the disaster would go away."
Song Yang stood up and said, "These ordinary skeletons are most likely those who were identified as 'demons' earlier."
The corpses they saw so far were all washed up on the river bank.
They had no idea how many other wronged souls had sunk to the bottom of the river or been carried farther away by the river.
The townspeople killed them so unreasonably and abandoned them here.
"They've done so many terrible things," Zheng Shu frowned. "While this may sound a bit victim-blaming, I think the townspeople's subsequent experiences in this instance were retribution. The so-called demonic possession seems more like a curse to me."
curse?
Everyone thought deeply.
That may be true.
There is a wooden bridge in the middle of the river. I don't know how many years it has been built, but it is now in ruins.
The six people carefully crossed the bridge and entered the forest on the other side.
After walking a few steps, they found graves and tombstones in the lush woods.
These tombstones of various shapes stand crookedly, in twos and threes, scattered here and there, very randomly.
Apparently, the forest was used as a cemetery by the town's residents, but was not strictly managed.
As they continued to go deeper, skeletons gradually began to appear on the roadside.
Each of these white bones was mixed with tiny bat bones, and black text appeared on the surface of the bones, with the text appearing in different positions.
More and more bones were lying scattered on the roadside, and gradually, these bones began to appear in piles...
This amount...
Jia Qing murmured, "Could it be that all the townspeople died here in the end?"
At this moment, Song Yang and Xia Jing, who were walking in front, stopped.
Everyone followed their gaze.
A low gasp of air was heard.
In front of us, there is a solemn tombstone.
The word "Is" can be clearly seen on the tombstone, indicating the identity of the person buried underneath.
There were dense and overlapping bloody handprints on the tombstone, and the bones were piled up like a mountain in front, behind, and on both sides of the tombstone.
All of these corpses maintained the posture of reaching out towards the tombstone at the moment of death. At first glance, it looked like they were on a collective pilgrimage, or as if they were begging. The scene was so spectacular that it made one's scalp tingle.
This also makes people imagine a scene.
At the end of this town, the townspeople rushed here together.
At that time, perhaps evil things had already been bred in their bodies.
On the way to here, many people were torn into pieces by bats and died on the way.
And all the rest of them successfully arrived at the tomb of Mayor Is.
Did they want to dig up his body out of anger, or did they want to beg for his forgiveness?
unknown.
But it is conceivable that at that moment, these townspeople may have understood the real reason why the devil came to this town.
A group of people walked quietly among the corpses.
Song Yang and Xia Jing were the first to squat down and check the words on the corpses.
Feng Shi, Bian Ya, Jia Qing, and Zheng Shu also stopped one after another and began to try to find clues from these bones.
Most of the skeletons in this cemetery have more than one line of text on them.
"Melissa is a demon!"
"Raul is the devil!"
"I didn't steal Kara's chicken!"
"It's not me!"
"He's lying!"
"Joshua!"
"I once saw the mayor's eyes turn blood red!"
"Mayor Is is the devil!"
"My son never played with fire in the fields!"
"Rand and I are not having an affair!"
"Sasha is the devil!"
…
Jia Qing swallowed and said in a trembling voice, "What are these? Why do I feel like I've seen some of these words somewhere before?"
Feng Shi concentrated and said, "Some of these words have appeared in the interrogation records and the town incident records."
Xia Jing stood up and walked to the tombstone of Mayor Yis.
He took a quick look and quickly identified his target, wanting to take out the two corpses in the innermost part.
A pair of arms stretched out from behind him - Song Yang completed the task for him.
After carrying out the two corpses and placing them on the open ground, the six people surrounded them again.
There was more than one line of text on the two corpses, but two sentences caught everyone's attention at the first moment.
The same two sentences appeared on the foreheads of the two corpses—
——The mayor's death has nothing to do with us!
——We don't know where Aya's child went!
Zheng Shu quickly realized what was happening and said, "'Aya's child'? This 'child' refers to the missing baby, right? These two bodies are... the Lal brothers?!"
Jia Qing was puzzled: "Is the common denominator of these words 'denial'?"
Song Yang and Xia Jing were silent. They had already sorted out the truth from these confusing words.
Xia Jing stood up and said, "It's a lie."
Jia Qing and the others all looked at him.
"Among the words found on these corpses, there's the word 'answer,' but not all of them are 'answers.' Some also say 'accusation,'" Xia Jing said. "So my previous speculation was inaccurate. 'Answer' isn't the real bait to attract the demon."
Xia Jing said slowly: "It's a lie."!