"I smell something delicious. I'm starving—it's already one o'clock!" Er Wa walked at the front. Seemingly having caught a scent, he immediately ran ahead.
"Why are you all still standing there? I found a feast!" Er Wa poked his head out and called to the others.
Zhang Chen had just swallowed such a huge thing. Though it had been a ghost, it was still quite filling. Wearing slippers, he slowly trailed behind the group.
A small painting hanging on the wall caught Zhang Chen's attention. Walking over for a closer look, he saw a Black man in the painting, holding an iron shovel and diligently planting trees in the woods.
It was not the scene itself that drew Zhang Chen in, but the Black man. Whether it was the shovel in his hands, the motion of digging, or his dark skin, all of it reminded Zhang Chen of the black monster he had eaten.
"Fichtek Salo." Zhang Chen barely managed to sound out the name before him using English phonetics.
"Zhang Chen, let's go upstairs and take a shower, then change clothes. I looked around the first floor, and there's nowhere for us to sleep or rest." Jia Xin's voice interrupted Zhang Chen's scrutiny.
"What do you think of this painting?" Seeing Jia Xin approach alone, Zhang Chen asked.
"This painting? Hmm, it's probably bullshit."
Zhang Chen smiled, then went upstairs with Jia Xin, each carrying their luggage.
There were quite a few rooms on the second floor. The two of them casually opened a room each, and sure enough, they were all bedrooms. Their size was nearly comparable to Zhang Chen's home.
The room Zhang Chen entered was at the back of the villa. It contained a two-and-a-half-meter bed, a brown wooden wardrobe, a white dressing table, and a private bathroom. Through the enormous window, he had a perfect view of the vast, clear lake.
If there weren't anything bad here, this trip would probably be quite comfortable.
Zhang Chen took off his clothes, which were stained with the monster's black blood, and entered the bathroom. Cool water poured over him, instantly washing away the fatigue from the long ride.
Just as he finished changing and stepped outside, Jia Xin came out as well. He wore a fitted white shirt and gray shorts. Zhang Chen truly could not imagine that this pale, delicate-looking guy was actually a Daoist heir.
I wonder how hard these seven days will be. Good thing I found this helper, or I'd really be in for it. Zhang Chen smiled. The two headed toward the dining room where everyone else had gone.
"Jia Xin, what do you think of this house?" Zhang Chen asked as they walked down the stairs.
"Mm, it's much more troublesome than that thing in the woods."
"Are you confident you can handle it?"
"Hard to say. We'll take it one step at a time."
The two smiled and said nothing more.
Pushing open the door, Zhang Chen found himself facing an enormous white dining room. A table more than seven meters long stood inside, covered with European-style food: steak, red wine, bacon, roast pig... everything one could want. Two serving carts stood beside the table, one piled with cut fruit and the other filled with Western desserts.
At that moment, no one was dining as politely and properly as people did in movies, seated neatly around the table. Instead, they were like a pack of lunatics, rushing here to grab a chicken leg, then there to snatch a slice of pizza. The scene was unbelievably chaotic.
Jia Xin seemed hungry as well and immediately walked over to the group from No. 1 High School and began eating.
Zhang Chen had it easy. He was not hungry to begin with, so he casually took a melon pastry, sat down, and pulled out the map to study the layout of the house.
The map was divided into two parts: one for the first floor and one for the second.
The first floor had a central hall immediately past the entrance. To the right of the hall was a corridor. Just inside that corridor, on the right, was the dining room where everyone was eating. To the right of the dining room was another room marked as the kitchen.
On the left side of the corridor was a dance studio. It should have been very large, taking up as much space on the map as the dining room and kitchen combined.
The corridor on the left side of the hall led to three other rooms corresponding to those on the right. Across from the dining room was an oil painting studio, across from the dance studio was an indoor swimming pool, but the final room—across from the kitchen—had no label at all on the map, only a fork symbol.
Zhang Chen did not dwell on it and took out the map for the second floor instead. The second floor was much simpler. After going up the spiral staircase from the first floor, one arrived at the center of the second floor.
The entire second floor was basically divided into left and right sides. The left corridor had three rooms facing three rooms on the opposite side, and the right side was the same. The central hall was a bar, while near the lake there was a large balcony. Even if everyone had a huge bedroom to themselves, there would still be one room left over.
After looking it over, Zhang Chen had a general grasp of the house. Overall, the first floor was for daily life and entertainment, while the second floor was for sleeping and resting.
"Wait, why does it feel like something is missing from the map?" Zhang Chen recalled what he had seen when they emerged from the woods and spotted the villa.
"The first floor, the second floor... Wait, that's right. When I was outside earlier, I vaguely saw a third floor. It was much shorter than the first and second floors, but it was definitely there. But when we came up just now, I didn't notice any stairs leading to it."
When Zhang Chen had first come out of the woods and looked at the villa as a whole, everyone had assumed it had only two floors. But Zhang Chen had noticed a small level above the second floor, only about two meters high. He had initially thought it was part of the roof design, but there were two small windows. Zhang Chen was now almost certain that there was a third floor. Whether there really was one or not, they would find out when they went upstairs later.
Once everyone had nearly finished eating, Zhang Chen told them what he had learned from the map, and they reached a consensus. They would first wash their plates, then go upstairs to assign rooms and organize their luggage. At three in the afternoon, they would gather in the hall to discuss how to proceed and how to distribute the food.
After settling on that, everyone began taking the leftover plates into the kitchen. Since there was still plenty of food on the table, it would basically be enough to take care of dinner and the next day's meals.
"Ah, we're screwed!" Tan Fei's voice came from the kitchen.
Everyone went over and saw Tan Fei holding a huge roast pig in both hands.
"There's no refrigerator here. In weather this hot, forget tomorrow—even by tonight, a lot of this food will be inedible." Tan Fei looked reluctantly at the roast pig in his hands.
"And without a refrigerator, the kitchen is stocked entirely with vegetables. Seven days... Do I really have to eat nothing but vegetables?" It was not just Tan Fei; several people from No. 1 High School looked unhappy as well.
"Alright, alright. There's a lake behind the house. Later, we can look for fishing rods and catch a couple of fish. Besides, this lunch was only prepared because the tour group saw that we arrived late. From now on, we'll have to rely on ourselves. Put anything that might spoil into plastic bags and carry it outside the villa so it doesn't stink up the place later."
What Zhang Chen said made sense, so Tan Fei could not argue. He could only throw away the roast pig. The girls began washing dishes, while the boys packed up the leftovers and carried them out of the villa.
"Damn, I'm exhausted. I've never washed dishes or taken out the trash at home before. Man, it's hot," Tan Fei said.
"No wonder you've got so much meat on you. Stop talking nonsense and carry your luggage upstairs. Maybe the rooms on the second floor have air conditioning," Zhang Chen said.
Everyone wiped the sweat from their foreheads, picked up their luggage, and went upstairs. Naturally, Zhang Chen helped Wang Yizhi carry her things up.
Once everyone reached the second floor and saw the huge bedrooms, they were all delighted. But next came the matter of assigning rooms.
"I think it'd be better if our two schools stayed separately," said a curly-haired girl from No. 1 High School.
"I have no objections," Tan Fei was the first to speak, because Jia Xin looked like the sort who hated evil with a vengeance.
"Then let's do that. We from Yufang will stay on the left, and you from No. 1 High School can stay on the right. How you divide the rooms among yourselves is up to you." Zhang Chen thought it was a good idea. Staying with his own classmates would be livelier, and they could look out for one another.
So everyone split into two groups. However, Zhang Chen first went into the room on the right to retrieve his luggage.
Since Tan Fei and the others were relying on Zhang Chen and Wang Yizhi, they decided to let the two choose first.
After some discussion, the two girls still felt that the rooms were too large and would be a little frightening at night, so they decided to share one room.
At Zhang Chen's suggestion, although the rooms by the lake had better views, there was another door by the window leading to the outside balcony, which was not very safe for girls. Thus, the two girls were assigned the second room in the front part of the villa. Besides, the view outside was an endless forest, which had its own charm.
Zhang Chen took the room directly across from them, the middle room by the lake.
Er Wa naturally chose the outermost room by the lake, which had the best view. For some reason, however, Tan Fei chose the outermost room by the woods.
After putting his things away in his room, Zhang Chen wandered around the second-floor corridors. He found no stairs leading to the third floor at all, yet judging from the height here on the second floor, the third floor definitely existed.
"This house seems to have quite a few strange things about it."
Zhang Chen did not dwell on it for now. He walked to Wang Yizhi's room and knocked on the door, pretending to check how their room was, though he had actually come to make preparations.
Zhang Chen smiled and entered. The room was arranged the same way as his, and there was no dangerous aura either. Still, he was uneasy. After all, the house itself was dangerous.
While Wang Yizhi and Dai Xu were not paying attention, a red Blood Beetle crawled out from Zhang Chen's left palm. At Zhang Chen's mental command, it flew into their wardrobe. If anything dangerous happened, Zhang Chen would know immediately.
Before long, Wang Yizhi and Dai Xu finished organizing their things and were about to shower, so Zhang Chen had no choice but to leave. After meeting up with Er Wa and Tan Fei, the three went to the balcony, each found a lounge chair, and flopped down.
"This place has everything going for it, except it's missing one thing. Don't you think so, Tan Fei?" Er Wa said from his lounge chair.
"Second Brother, you want to play WoW again?"
"Can you two stop thinking about computer games?" Zhang Chen was speechless at these two. They were surrounded by mountains and water, yet they were still thinking about games.
"By the way, why do you think those guys from No. 1 High School suddenly became a lot more polite to us? They're still annoying, though."
"They must've been scared by my high-end gear." Er Wa suddenly pulled a Swiss Army knife from his beach shorts again.
"You really carry that around everywhere," Zhang Chen said.
"Of course. This house is so strange. If something suddenly jumps out, I can chop it up with one slash."
"What's strange about it?" Zhang Chen suddenly became serious.
"The rooms are kind of big, and the beds are way too big. Sleeping alone in them feels so empty."
"Uh..." Zhang Chen was truly speechless.
The three lay on the balcony laughing. Perhaps even Zhang Chen himself did not know what terrifying thing he was about to face.
Before you continue