Forbidden

After examining the corpse, the three of them withdrew from the bathroom. Faced with such a bizarre body, no one felt at ease.

"The time of death is roughly within three hours," the strong man said, looking up at his pocket watch with certainty. "That means it happened sometime between 2 and 5 in the morning."

"How can you be sure of the time?"

The strong man glanced at the girl who had asked the question, told her the schedule and order of their night watch, and handed her the pocket watch. The timer on it showed exactly seven hours had elapsed.

Jiang Cheng's next shift would have been the middle-aged man's, and the shift after that belonged to the fat man, who had been woken by a full bladder. When he went to relieve himself, he found the middle-aged man dead.

At that moment, the fat man scrambled to his feet, trembling, and asked why the middle-aged man had died. The strong man sighed, pulled the bathroom door shut, and the group returned to the sofa near the fireplace.

As the newcomer, Jiang Cheng had barely spoken. He had been listening and analyzing the whole time, and the opinions he offered mostly echoed those of the most experienced members—the strong man and the woman with a mole on her lip.

From the information revealed in their discussion, Jiang Cheng understood that in this world, people generally weren't killed for no reason. Those who died must have violated some taboo.

And that so-called taboo was likely the key clue to solving the mission.

"What did he do that none of us did?" the male clerk asked, huddling between Jiang Cheng and the girl. He was clearly terrified and didn't want to die as inexplicably as the middle-aged man.

The girl furrowed her pretty brows and spoke up. "Could it be because he went to the bathroom on the first floor? Maybe that's the hidden taboo in this mission—anyone who goes there dies?"

"That can't be," the fat man said, crouching in place with his hands on his knees. His voice was low. "I went to the bathroom too, yesterday while searching the living room."

Jiang Cheng turned to look at the fat man. After a long pause, he said, "Then you'd better be careful. Even if your neck is thick, with enough force, it should still snap."

Hearing this, the fat man nearly burst into tears.

The strong man seemed a bit displeased with Jiang Cheng's attitude but said nothing. He just shook his head and said it probably wasn't the case. Almost all of them had used the first-floor bathroom at some point. If that were the trigger, it shouldn't have been just the middle-aged man.

"Maybe it's a matter of order?" the woman with a mole on her lip said. "You should know that ghosts rarely kill multiple people in quick succession."

The strong man looked at her but, unusually, didn't argue.

"So those things really exist."

Jiang Cheng's long-held suspicion was confirmed. The door that appeared in his dream undoubtedly fell under the category of supernatural events, and it seemed reasonable that ghosts would appear in such scenarios.

"So what we're up against in this world isn't people—it's ghosts?!" The male clerk's face went pale with fear.

Given his earlier behavior, no one bothered to respond to him.

"Since someone died, it means this villa is our real destination. The so-called journey doesn't exist—the car was just to deliver us here," the girl said, looking around. "The problem is this villa."

"What problem could the villa have?"

The girl stared at the fat man who had asked the question. After a long pause, she said, "For example, something terrible might have happened here before."

The villa looked quite luxurious, with no signs of damage inside. The fact that it had been abandoned for no apparent reason was indeed suspicious. Jiang Cheng found the girl's reasoning fairly credible.

The strong man walked to the villa's front door, grabbed the handle, and pulled hard. The door didn't budge.

"It's locked," the strong man said, turning around. "Looks like this is the mission site for sure. We can't leave until we figure out what happened in this villa."

"Since the mission location is confirmed, let's split up and search for clues. It's daylight now, so it should be relatively safer."

That said, the middle-aged man's death had still sounded an alarm for everyone, especially the three newcomers: Jiang Cheng, the fat man, and the male clerk.

To speed things up, they formed groups on their own—one veteran paired with one newcomer.

The fat man went with the strong man, the male clerk with the woman with a mole on her lip, and Jiang Cheng was paired with the girl.

For safety, the search was temporarily limited to the first floor of the villa.

The strong man's group was responsible for the living room and the area near the door. The woman's group took the remote storeroom. Jiang Cheng and the girl headed to the kitchen and dining room.

Everyone stayed within direct line of sight of each other, so if anything happened, they could support one another.

This time, with the experience from before, they searched more thoroughly and carefully.

Half an hour later, they regrouped by the fireplace. It was now fully daylight.

"This is what we found in the storeroom," the woman with a mole on her lip said, holding out a thick rope—a hemp rope with dark red marks on one section.

The strong man took it, rubbed it vigorously between his fingers, then brought it to his nose. "It's blood," he said, looking up at the woman.

The woman nodded. "It was behind a stack of firewood. I also found this nearby."

She opened her right hand, revealing a light green brooch in the shape of a maple leaf.

Had a girl once been tied up and left there?

"Did you find anything?" the woman asked, turning to the strong man.

"Come take a look," the strong man said, walking toward the door. The group followed.

Standing by the door, the strong man felt along the wall and pressed a spot. Jiang Cheng's sharp eyes caught it—a pale blue button.

The button was embedded in a painting beside the door, blending into the sky-blue background. It was hard to spot without looking closely.

As the button was pressed, a crack appeared in the wall to the right of the door, and it slowly opened, revealing a well-hidden built-in shoe cabinet.

The cabinet had three shelves. Only the third shelf was still intact; the divider between the first and second shelves had broken, mixing all kinds of shoes together.

After sorting them, they had two pairs of men's dress shoes, one pair of women's red high heels, and three pairs of women's casual shoes.

The woman with a mole on her lip picked one pair from the three casual shoes and set it next to the red high heels. "These two pairs belong to the same person."

The remaining two pairs of casual shoes clearly belonged to a younger girl—both pairs were the same size.

On the third shelf was a pair of men's sneakers. Comparing them to the dress shoes, the sizes were quite different.

"From what we've seen so far, this villa once housed a family of four: a father, a mother, a daughter, and a son," the girl said, looking up. "That matches the layout of the bedrooms on the second floor—a master bedroom for the parents, a girl's room, and a boy's room."