No One Had Ever Fooled Me

"His chin was missing too," Luo Yi said.

His expression was strange, as though he were puzzling over something.

After a moment, he continued, "Just like the woman who died before."

The Qipao Woman.

They hadn't found her missing chin at the scene, either.

Zhou Taifu seemed to have thought of several very unpleasant things. He shuddered violently and said through trembling lips, "It's a ghost. A ghost took their chins!"

It was obvious.

But saying it aloud made the already eerie atmosphere even more oppressive.

Jiang Cheng was standing beside the corpse, his brows furrowed as though deep in thought.

Yu Wen, who had finished examining the scene and walked over, noticed him and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

Jiang Cheng's shoulders twitched, as if he had just come back from some kind of daze.

He stared at the corpse and, after a moment, said, "Look carefully at his eyes."

Long Tao's eyeballs were almost bulging out of their sockets.

His pupils were dilated, the corners of his eyes were taut, and fine red veins spread across them, filled with terror.

His gaze was fixed upward at an exaggerated angle.

There was no doubt that his death had been terrifying, but this time, someone noticed something else.

Almost instantly, Yu Wen and Zhen Jianren seemed to realize something. They suddenly tilted their heads back and looked up at the ceiling.

"Whoosh—"

The ceiling was bare.

Where the light should have been, there were only tangled, disordered wires.

And pale yellow stains of unknown origin.

Yu Wen's pupils gradually narrowed. She steadied her breathing and slowly lowered her gaze.

The scene was familiar.

That was right. It was just like the first woman who had died!

In their final moments, both of them had been looking up.

As though there was something above them—some bizarre presence they couldn't understand or resist.

They hadn't even been in this world for 24 hours, and only seven of the nine people remained.

Two people had died in ways none of them could comprehend.

The worst part was that they still had no clue what was going on.

Those strange hoofprints, similar to the ones a goat might leave, could hardly be called evidence.

The walk back was unbearably oppressive.

The Fatty tried several times to say something, but Jiang Cheng stopped him with a look each time.

As soon as they returned to their room, the Fatty shut the door and rushed to Jiang Cheng's side. Still shaken, he said, "I can't believe the ghost can kill people in broad daylight. It's terrifying!"

Jiang Cheng sat on the bed and nodded. "It seems the ghosts in this task are different from the ones in the last one. They have different rules, too."

The Fatty licked his lips and instinctively glanced at the ceiling. Only after seeing nothing unusual did he continue, "Do you think that ghost came out of the ceiling?"

Jiang Cheng stared toward the door, as though he could see through it. "I don't know, but the two people who died have already sounded the alarm for us."

"The danger may well be coming from above."

A few seconds later, the Fatty wrapped his clothes tightly around himself. Forcing down his fear, he asked, "What do we do next?"

"Wait."

The Fatty froze. "Wait for what?"

Jiang Cheng turned to look at him, his eyes concealing something the Fatty couldn't understand.

After a long pause, he moved his lips. "Wait for the next person to die."

"What?!"

Jiang Cheng ignored him and lay down on the bedding he had spread out on the floor.

He pulled the blanket up to his chin, then closed his eyes. "I'm tired. Don't disturb me before five."

Room 406.

Long Tao was dead, and Zhang Yinyin had taken his place.

The girl was determined not to return to Room 407.

She didn't even ask to sleep in a bed. She only wanted somewhere to sit.

She curled up on a chair in the corner, her body shaking constantly, whether from fear or cold.

The chair legs knocked against the floor, making a "thud, thud, thud" sound.

Zhou Taifu had claimed an entire bed for himself. His gaze kept darting around the room.

He seemed especially nervous about the door and the ceiling.

"Big sister..." Zhang Yinyin sounded so frightened that her voice even took on a strange lilt. She watched Yu Wen cautiously and asked, "Aren't you scared?"

Yu Wen was holding her camera and reviewing the footage she had taken that day.

At the question, she looked up and replied calmly, "I am."

"Big sister, you looked so calm. I thought you weren't afraid of those things." Perhaps Yu Wen's composure had affected her; Zhang Yinyin gradually settled down and, little by little, stopped trembling.

There was a light in her eyes, like hope after being given a second chance at life.

Yu Wen looked into Zhang Yinyin's eyes and suddenly smiled. "Little girl, ghosts aren't actually as scary as you think. They may embody pure evil, but they leave clues. They're not like..."

Zhang Yinyin raised her head, puzzled. "Not like what?"

"Not like some people. They're skilled at putting on a disguise and killing without a trace."

As she said this, something shifted in Yu Wen's gaze. It was as if she had plunged straight from a mild spring day into a bitterly cold midwinter.

She stared at Zhang Yinyin's face. Only after a long pause did she continue, "That's why I'm more afraid of people than ghosts."

Room 405.

The man who called himself Luo Yi tossed the Hat Man's cap onto the bed and paced back and forth around the room, looking restless.

"Stop pacing," Zhen Jianren said, seated in a chair with his legs propped up on the bed. He rubbed his temples. "You're making my head spin."

His words seemed to hit a sore spot. Luo Yi stopped, his expression agitated. "Haven't you noticed? This task is becoming more and more abnormal. It's only the second day, and the ghost can already show itself and kill people in broad daylight!"

"True," Zhen Jianren said with a nod. "It's a problem we can't avoid. It's harsh, but it's reality."

"That's not what I want to hear!"

Zhen Jianren sighed. "Fine, I know what you want. Once this task is over, I'll take care of everything I promised you."

"You can..." He smiled. "Go back to living in the sunlight."

At that, Luo Yi's expression eased somewhat. He stopped pacing and sat opposite Zhen Jianren, catching his breath. "Go on. You're a clever man. You must have figured something out."

Zhen Jianren held up two fingers and slowly massaged the back of his neck, his eyes half-closed.

Compared with Luo Yi across from him, he looked as if he were on vacation.

"The thing is with Yu Wen."

"Yu Wen?" That was more or less what Luo Yi had expected.

After thinking it over, he still asked, "But how can you be sure it wasn't those two in Room 404? They seemed pretty suspicious to me, too."

Zhen Jianren took a sip of water and shook his head. "It couldn't be them. That guy named Hao Shuai is far too high-profile. Anyone carrying the thing wouldn't be stupid enough to act like that."