He was still skeptical, but having narrowly escaped danger, Xuanyuan Ao Yu didn't dwell on the details. After drinking some water and feeling better, everyone belatedly turned their attention to the photo in Su'er's pocket.
No one except Zhang He knew the origin of the photo. Su Er briefly explained it, and Li Li looked envious: "Is this the prop mentioned in the brochure?"
Su Er: "It's not certain whether it will save your life or kill you."
Li Li reacted: "Uncontrollable?"
Soul nodded.
The envious gaze faded instantly. Who knows if the ghost that can create illusions will attack the owner. Li Li glanced at Xuanyuan Ao Yu: "In another quarter of an hour, it will be time for another story."
The topic suddenly became heavy.
Xuanyuan Ao Yu: "Can you try throwing it again?"
Soul: "It was a surprise before, but this morning he didn't hear the story and remained awake."
It's really risky to touch this little monster when he's awake.
This time it was Zhang He's turn to tell the story. He felt a pang of anxiety: "If it doesn't work, just give him some medicine and throw him out!"
Li Li: "Where does the 'medicine' come from? And how do I feed it?"
They are not even real human beings. I have never seen children drinking water or going to the toilet on a daily basis.
"I see some rat poison in the corner." Zhang He gritted his teeth and said, "Don't forget he eats raw meat. At worst, I can just cut off a piece of him."
It's worth it to cut flesh and save life.
Li Li didn't want to pour cold water on the issue, so after a moment's hesitation, he asked, "Does rat poison work?"
Zhang He's expression turned cold: "Ghosts usually don't have physical bodies, but he still has a body, so we can give it a try."
We can't just sit there and wait for death.
"Excuse me," Soul, who rarely spoke, pointed to the bed. "I think he can understand the discussion."
"…"
Everyone turned their heads stiffly. Judging by their age, the child was actually quite young. Furthermore, the bedtime story setting hadn't made them consider their intelligence. The child lay in a crib without guardrails, his head leaning against the edge, his neck twisted in an odd arc, as if hanging there, his dark eyes staring straight at them.
Zhang He said in a trembling voice: "It seems that I can really understand it!"
"When you say something bad, you should first check to see if the person behind it is there," Soul said seriously, "It's so embarrassing now."
Zhang He gasped: "I'm afraid I'm being hated."
Su Er asked in return: "Can you live without being hated?"
"…"That makes sense.
Soul: "Personally, I think we should be cautious but we can't treat ghosts as gods. Wouldn't it be suffocating to be timid?"
Zhang He was silent for a moment and accepted some of the views.
Indeed, the rules of death have been figured out. Now all we have to do is find the stories that children really want to hear. As for the attitudes they express, it will not affect life or death.
Soul: "How about we practice our courage? Since we have to tell a story anyway, why not tell 'Dad, Throw Me Away Again'?"
Zhang He immediately felt like a thorn in his back, as if the child had tortured him and Suer with his eyes a thousand times, so he waved his hand to reject the suicidal proposal.
Su Er disagreed. If one day he was really in a desperate situation, even if there was a huge gap in strength, he would fight to the death and pull out a hair from the murderer.
"We still have some time," he said. "Take me to see the incense burner first."
The attic had been sealed in dust for a long time, the windows locked tightly, and the smell of rotting wood wafted in. The last time Suer came here, he was focused on finding books and didn't notice the incense burner.
Xuanyuan Ao Yu pointed at the windowsill with lingering fear: "It's right there." Then he opened his eyes wide and said: "I remember that before I lost consciousness, I accidentally dropped the incense burner on the ground."
And at this moment it is standing there steadily.
Learning from his previous experience, Su Er avoided direct contact and took out the photo to ask the woman in it: "Who is hiding in the incense burner?"
Woman: "Further ahead, I can't see clearly."
Instead, Soul took a step back, pinched the corner of the photo tightly, and warned, "Don't play tricks."
Seeing that she couldn't deceive him, the woman had to endure it temporarily. At first, she was planning to collude with the ghost in the incense burner to harm Su Er, but after seeing the truth, she was surprised and asked, "How could it be her?"
"who?"
"My old classmate."
Before Sur could ask, the woman began to mutter to herself, "Impossible! She's the most pious of us. She should be chosen to serve the Nirvana God!"
"Cults do a lot of harm to people." Zhang He muttered behind his back.
"What do you know!" The woman was enraged. As their eyes met, Zhang He felt dizzy. It felt as if the place before him wasn't a dark attic, but a home that gave him a sense of security. A warm, comfortable bed was just a few feet away, and lying down on it would put an end to all the nightmares.
Just when I was about to enjoy the comfort, a shrill cry suddenly rang in my ears.
Zhang He's head was hurt by the shock, and the world before his eyes changed drastically: "What am I..."
Sur: "Bewitched."
Zhang He: "You saved my life."
It seems that not everyone has the ability to fight against ghosts.
"It's not me." Su Er shook his head and pointed to the opposite side: "It's him."
Zhang He was shocked when he suddenly saw the child's shriveled face.
Everyone gathered together just now, and it was inconvenient for Sul to use the electric shock device, so he had to find another way out.
"Calculating the time, the child should be crying," he said, "so we can work together to move you down."
Li Li beside him was also very grateful: "I didn't expect that crying can really help people break the illusion."
Soul: "It's a pity that we can't bring the communication equipment in, otherwise we could recycle it and record it for future use."
"..." Anyway, Li Li didn't dare to look at the child's expression at the moment.
Zhang He said in a hoarse voice: "Incense burner..."
"We'll talk about that later." Su Er: "The point is, he's crying."
Zhang He was stunned. Surviving a desperate situation and then encountering a crisis—is there anything more exciting in life than this? His mouth seemed to be draining of saliva. Zhang He looked at the crying child and slowly opened his mouth, but no words came out.
He never wants to hear bedtime stories again in his life!
"Let me do it." Seeing people shrinking away, Suer suddenly said.
Zhang He's face was filled with astonishment.
Su Er walked forward. Because there was no guardrail, he felt unsafe. He stopped one meter away, thought for a moment, and spoke slowly:
"Long ago, there lived a couple. The woman was as beautiful as a flower. How beautiful was she... Legend has it that her skin was as white as cream, her beauty as beautiful as Xi Shi, and her shy gaze revealed a charming charm. The woman managed the household well, while the husband worked hard outside, and they barely managed to get by. Until one day, the husband discovered his wife's infidelity and caught her in bed. The adulterer beat him up. The woman was forced to care for her seriously ill husband... Later, on a gloomy day just like this, she said to her husband, longing for a better life, 'Da Lang, take some medicine.'"
"…"
Classic stories always bring people different feelings.
The child didn't know whether to cry or not. Someone had died in the story, so it could barely be called scary. Hesitant, he finally closed his eyes with reluctance.
Soul turned his head and said to his teammates, "Being killed by a beautiful woman's 'drug' and still having an intact body is still respectable."
Zhang He looked at him with a complicated expression. No wonder he used so many gorgeous words to describe the beauty of a woman.
Xuanyuan Ao Yu was more practical: "Should we throw the child out now?"
Suhr veiled his rebuke: "We can't just resort to violence."
"…"
Su Er coughed lightly and said, "I was lucky yesterday. I'm afraid it won't be so smooth if I throw it again now."
Li Li said worriedly, "What should we do? We can't just wait for the female ghost to come and poison you to death at night."
Sur stared at the dozing child and said in a deep voice, "I have some idea of what story he really wants to hear, but I need to confirm it."
Zhang He: "Thank you anyway."
The other party can just stand by and watch.
"Fortune and honor are sought in danger," said Su Er. "Successfully clearing a level will earn you points, and helping your teammates might even earn you extra points."
Even if not, he has the most scenes and should be given more attention.
"..." The emotion rose like the tide and receded like the tide.
Xuanyuan Ao Yu watched this scene and couldn't help shaking his head. He couldn't imagine that he was moved out of the illusion by such team camaraderie.
Li Li tried to smooth things over: "Let's think about how to leave first."
If you don't escape before midnight, you will face a new round of survival crisis.
Zhang He saw the extra incense burner on the table and had a hunch that Suer's guess was related to this thing.
"The spirit inside is an old classmate who converted this lady to Christianity," Soul said mockingly, "but it's very weak and is about to dissipate."
Zhang He almost clapped his hands in delight, but then he thought about the consequences of arguing with the ghosts and quickly suppressed his serious expression and said, "Aren't all ghosts very powerful?"
"It was partially devoured by that little monster, and it escaped by hiding in the incense burner."
Zhang He now completely gave up the idea of throwing the child away.
Suhr: "That day, a mass suicide occurred in this villa. The hostess and a cultist are still haunting the villa. What about the others?"
Zhang He reacted and suddenly had a bad idea. After a while, he looked at the child lying on the bed, swallowed his saliva and said, "Could it be that the whole body is attached to him?"
Su Er groaned, "The game lasts for seven days. If you exceed the time limit, you may die. However, there are many ways to die."
It's not like they just stand there and their heads explode like fireworks, and that's the end of the story.
"The most likely cause was that he was killed by this child," Soul said. "I guess there must be many ghosts in his body devouring each other, which is why he is so weak."
The practice of raising poisonous insects has been around since ancient times. When the strongest and most powerful ghost is left, that is when they die.
According to his observation, as time passed, the child fell asleep slower and slower, and the nails on his feet became sharper, darker and longer every day.
He heard a woman cursing from inside his pocket, accusing him of talking nonsense and firmly believing that his companions had already been chosen as divine servants.
Sur walked to the child's bed and pulled the blanket under the child, which made everyone tremble with fear, fearing that the child would be awakened. But then he thought again, since he was just pretending to be asleep, how could he be awakened?
Blood splattered everywhere, all left by the child when it had eaten itself. Su Er took out the photo. Zhang He had suffered at the hands of the female ghost before, so he took a step back reflexively.
Humans are afraid of blood and would subconsciously turn their heads away, but the woman in the photo saw at a glance the two twisted characters "Save" in the bloodstain.
Soul: "It's no accident that you survived." He pointed at the word 'Save': "Your husband's spirit also resides in this body, trying to send a message for help to outsiders."
Despite the distortion, you can still see that the outlines in the photo are distorting.
"Impossible!" The woman's voice was filled with panic as she desperately wrapped herself tightly around her last piece of fig leaf. "All of this is a lie!"
Soul sighed, "A ghost doesn't need food, let alone trying to eat his own body. He probably wants to destroy this vessel that has become his sin."
Unfortunately, no similar scene occurred this morning. The child struggled to move forward outside the door, and I am afraid that in the meantime, he had devoured the soul of the woman's husband.
The woman's spirit was clearly at a breaking point. Soul turned around and asked his teammates for their opinions: "If this continues, I'm worried she'll turn into a ghost first."
Zhang He tried to find out, "How about some appropriate sexual comfort?"
Su Er had no choice but to be patient and said in a gentle voice, "How about I take you to the flush toilet to sober up?" He paused and said, "Perhaps compared to the pain of flushing the toilet, you will feel that the suffering you are going through now is nothing."
Contrast can sometimes bring happiness.
"…"