The Journey Home

"So you're saying Sister Nuan's body was still in the bedroom when I arrived yesterday."

"Yes, right behind the door," Chen Xiaomeng paused, staring at Jiang Cheng with a cold laugh. "If you had taken a few more steps inside yesterday, that ghost would have dragged your corpse here too."

Jiang Cheng ignored her and continued, "Where is Sister Nuan's body now?"

Chen Xiaomeng stood up and walked towards the door. Jiang Cheng immediately followed, keeping less than a meter between them.

"The door isn't open yet, I can't run," Chen Xiaomeng sneered.

Jiang Cheng shook his head as he followed closely. "Don't misunderstand, I just feel safer when you're close."

Chen Xiaomeng was speechless and decided to ignore him. She reached the wall and fumbled for a button, pressing it. Suddenly, the room became clear.

The lights overhead flickered on.

Almost simultaneously, Fatty's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He saw the room had been set up like a church.

A large crucifix hung on the wall, and Sister Nuan was tied to it, head down. Her face was contorted, clearly dead.

Upon closer inspection, the entire crucifix, like Sister Nuan, was inverted.

Various torture instruments were arranged around the room. They were ancient and bloody, with a medieval feel, most bearing gruesome bloodstains.

This was a torture chamber.

"The cross represents God, an inverted cross is a symbol of the devil," Jiang Cheng stared expressionlessly at the instruments. "It seems this family are devil worshippers."

Fatty was shocked by the scene, but Chen Xiaomeng looked at Jiang Cheng with interest. "You seemed to have guessed this from the start."

The setup couldn't have been done in a short time, so the instruments belonged to the villa's owners, not the two unfortunate outsiders.

Fatty recovered and immediately looked at Jiang Cheng. "So the real killer is a family in the villa, and those two men..."

Jiang Cheng nodded. "Didn't you just see them?"

Like a lightning strike in his mind, Fatty seemed to suddenly realize something and stammered, "The bus that picked us up! The male driver, the mother with the child, the female ticket seller dressed as a man, and the girl from the couple. They are the family! They are the owners of this villa!"

"That's right," Chen Xiaomeng shrugged. "And the man from the couple, the older boy from the mother and son pair, were victims imprisoned and abused by this family."

Fatty recalled the strange behavior of the mother and son and the couple on the way there. For instance, the man from the couple always wore an eye patch and remained motionless, while the older boy, brought out by his mother, looked terrified and remained silent the entire time. So that's how it was.

Hell is empty, and the devil is in the human world.

The ghost who killed wasn't seeking revenge; she was just perpetuating the evil she lived by. Those ingrained habits couldn't be changed.

"When did you figure out the truth?" Jiang Cheng asked Chen Xiaomeng.

"After that ghost killed Sister Nuan, the photo we found on the wall suddenly became clear," she said, taking out a photo. The wooden frame was gone, likely removed for convenience.

Jiang Cheng took the photo. It was a group picture of the villa's family of four. Every face matched the ones in Jiang Cheng's memory. The background was this torture chamber.

Slightly to the side in the photo were two men, one lying down, one reclining. Both were chained, and their faces couldn't be seen clearly because they were looking down. However, the clothes they wore were identical to the two men on the bus.

"So... this time's taboo was disguise," Jiang Cheng looked at Chen Xiaomeng's face. "Because the ghost lured victims into the villa through disguise when she was alive, she continued this trait even after death."

"Fan Li and the others were killed because they didn't see through the ghost's disguise," Jiang Cheng continued.

Chen Xiaomeng shrugged. "Exactly."

The door began to emit a faint, ethereal glow, and the entire space started to tremble.

The door was opening.

Chen Xiaomeng was clearly accustomed to the tremors that followed the door opening. While Fatty was still holding onto the wall to keep from falling, she had already run to the iron gate.

The iron gate opened completely, revealing a gray mist beyond.

Jiang Cheng reached out to grab her, but it was too late. Chen Xiaomeng had already stepped through the iron gate, disappearing into the mist.

Jiang Cheng glanced back at Fatty behind him and then stepped into the mist.

After a strange wave of dizziness, Jiang Cheng's body stopped, as if he had stepped onto hard, flat ground.

He looked down and, by the faint light, saw the wooden floor beneath his feet.

Everything around him felt familiar.

He took a deep breath. He had actually returned to his psychology studio.

Outside, it was still night, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering in. Everything was exactly as it was when he left.

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. It felt slightly rough. In the dim moonlight, he could see it was a piece of paper folded many times.

He was slowly unfolding the paper when suddenly his body froze. A hand silently rested on his right shoulder.

The person had ambushed him from behind, as if they had known he would return this way.

Jiang Cheng slowly raised his hands. "There's twenty thousand in the hidden compartment in the third drawer on the left of the desk. The drawer is locked, and the key is in the second-to-last coffee cup in the kitchen."

There was no sound from behind him. He paused and continued, "That's all the money I have. If you want to rob someone else, I suggest going upstairs, but there's no bed, only a mattress, so you'll have to make do."

After a long pause, the hand on his shoulder trembled, and a strong, resonant voice rang out, "Brother, nice place you've got here!"

As soon as Jiang Cheng heard the voice, he grabbed the hand on his shoulder, twisted it as he turned, and slammed a chubby body against the wall.

"Brother! Brother!"

Fatty grimaced in pain, patting the wall.

Jiang Cheng recognized the Fatty, who was barely clinging to life in the dream realm, and asked coldly, "What are you doing here?"

He quickly glanced at the spot where the door should have been behind him, now just an ordinary wall.

According to Fan Li, if one could survive the mission, the survivors would return to their starting point in the real world, meaning everyone would go home.

But this was clearly not Fatty's home.

Fatty's right arm made a creaking sound, as if about to be twisted off. He hurriedly explained, "I was just thinking before entering that door that it would be great if I could be assigned with you, brother. As soon as I came out, I saw you standing in front of me with your back turned. Maybe we're fated to be together."

But before Fatty could finish speaking, Jiang Cheng interrupted him, saying, "Cut the crap. You're just afraid of dying."