Meng Le shook her head, her face full of worry. "I don't know. I only realized when that guide called me just now... Shiwen was gone."
Xia Lan's heart sank.
She murmured, "That shouldn't be possible. Shiwen still had five 'Save and Retry' chances left. How could she-"
Just then, Zhang Yun suddenly clapped her hands again and said with a false smile, "All right, it's time for the second round of forest hide-and-seek! Once this round is over, we'll have our barbecue feast!"
A chill ran through Ju Lei and the others. Xia Lan and Meng Le were even more worried about Sang Shiwen.
Meng Le clenched her fists and asked, "How many ghosts are there this round?"
"Good question," Zhang Yun said with a smile. "There are two now."
Alarm bells instantly went off in everyone's heads.
Then two "human" figures emerged from behind a large tree-or perhaps one human and one ghost would have been more accurate.
Gong Yan could no longer even be called humanoid.
His whole body was warped, like swollen cream, pale and greasy, as though it had melted into a single mass. Only his head remained, perched on top like a rotten chestnut garnishing garbage-flavored ice cream.
He looked... utterly disgusting.
Had Ke Jiaxi turned into a monster like this last night?
And Gong Yan had stuffed mouthful after mouthful of that meat of unknown origin into his stomach this morning. Had it been carved off one of these monsters?
The thought made all three of them feel sick.
By contrast, Sang Shiwen still looked much as she had before beside the monster, though she had undergone a few subtle changes.
Her once-fair face was now stiff and ashen blue. Her large, lively eyes had turned a cloudy gray-white, their dark irises gone.