When he heard that the footprints belonged to Tang Jiao, Liu Chengfeng's eyes widened.
"Holy shit... it was her!"
Bai Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes.
"Come on, big guy. Is it really that surprising?"
"Everyone went out to the attractions this afternoon to look for clues. She was the only one who went to the nearest one, the Binding-Evil Shrine... of course, she might not have gone at all. Hardly anything out of her mouth is true anyway."
Liu Chengfeng said angrily,
"I knew that bitch was no good! Earlier, she called us into that room for a 'meeting,' but all she did was order everyone around and trick us into doing her dirty work!"
"And now... she's actually trying to kill us!"
Ning Qiushui had been staring at the floor the whole time. Suddenly, he said,
"Xiaoxiao, give me the flashlight."
Bai Xiaoxiao nodded and handed Ning Qiushui the special flashlight that could reveal footprints on the floor.
Ning Qiushui switched it on and followed the footprints around the room, finally stopping in front of the enormous wardrobe.
He examined the wardrobe carefully, then felt all over it. At last, he pulled a wooden token from a narrow gap in the wood at an extremely well-hidden, broken corner.
A red cord was tied to the token, and a character all three of them knew very well was written on it-Ruan.
Bai Xiaoxiao's eyes flickered when she saw the wooden token.
Liu Chengfeng seemed to realize something too. He exclaimed,
"Was that burned ghost in your room last night looking for this token, buddy?"
Ning Qiushui nodded.
"Most likely."
"This token should be something only members of the Ruan Clan can possess. At the very least, outsiders like us couldn't just get our hands on one. For Tang Jiao to have obtained so many of their tokens, she must have already met Spirit Medium Ruan in the village..."
Bai Xiaoxiao raised her delicate brows slightly.
"...Spirit Medium Ruan told Tang Jiao to do all this?"
Ning Qiushui sighed.
"Yes, and that's the worst-case scenario."
"As visitors from outside, we definitely know far less than Spirit Medium Ruan about the ghosts roaming the village. If she wants to use them to kill us, we can hardly guard against every possible attack!"
Liu Chengfeng couldn't understand.
"But we've never done anything to Spirit Medium Ruan. Why would she do that?"
Ning Qiushui fell silent for a moment.
"My guess is that it has something to do with the ceremony at the Temple in six days!"
"Big guy, do you remember the diary from our first Instance?"
Liu Chengfeng nodded.
"Of course... the little girl's mother got a phone call. Her grandfather said her grandmother's health was deteriorating rapidly, that she was about to die, and that her mother needed to come home. But her mother refused outright."
"And later, when she learned that the grandmother had died, the little girl's mother was terrified, as though she was afraid something would come after her. She even went out of her way to get a piece of Blood Jade from who knows where to protect the little girl..."
At that point, Liu Chengfeng suddenly froze. He murmured,
"Buddy, are you saying... that little girl's grandmother was Spirit Medium Ruan from this village?"
Ning Qiushui said,
"Exactly."
"The little girl's mother was Spirit Medium Ruan's daughter, so she must have grown up in the village. She definitely knew something... and Spirit Medium Ruan's sudden decline probably wasn't caused by an illness, but by the ghosts in the village!"
"My guess is that in the timeline behind our first Blood Gate, this Rain-Praying Village... spiraled out of control!"
"Those ghosts, filled with overwhelming resentment, were all seeking revenge on the Ruan Clan!"
Just imagining that scene made Liu Chengfeng suck in a breath.
"Goddamn... what sort of unforgivable things did the Ruan Clan do to create such terrifying vengeful ghosts?"
Then he seemed to realize something else.
"The person that female human-skin ghost at Fangcun Pond wanted us to bring to her... could it have been Spirit Medium Ruan?!"
Looking rather pleased, Bai Xiaoxiao patted Liu Chengfeng on the shoulder.
"Not bad, big guy. You're finally using your brain!"
Liu Chengfeng was speechless.
"So what do we do next?"
"Go straight to Spirit Medium Ruan, tie her up, and take her to Fangcun Pond?"
Ning Qiushui shook his head.
"There are so many vengeful ghosts in this village who want to kill members of the Ruan Clan, yet they're still alive and well. They must have some powerful tricks up their sleeves. They won't be that easy to deal with."
"Let's first figure out what to do about the person who put this token in our room..."
Both of them knew he meant Tang Jiao.
"What else is there to do? Whatever she does to us, we do right back to her!"
"We'll hide all the tokens in her room later and let her find out what it's like to have ghosts coming after her at night!"
Liu Chengfeng hated evil with a passion. Just mentioning Tang Jiao filled him with anger.
"But there's still one thing I don't understand. What does she gain by helping an NPC screw us over?"
"The more of us die, the fewer people there are to help her find clues to survival. Wouldn't that put her in even more danger?"
In response to Liu Chengfeng's questions, Bai Xiaoxiao explained,
"Blood Gates have two very strange hidden rules. First, once more than ninety percent of the people who entered a Blood Gate have died, the difficulty of its mission drops dramatically, and the ghosts inside face more restrictions on attacking people. Take Fangcun Pond just now, for example. If Qiushui had been the only person left alive, that female human-skin ghost wouldn't have been able to attack him so easily. A prerequisite would have had to be triggered first, and it wouldn't have been easy to trigger."
"The second hidden rule is that inside a Blood Gate... blood must be spilled!"
"If someone capable finds a way to survive before anyone has died... then that escape route will randomly protect fewer people, and the ghosts in the Instance will randomly choose up to one-tenth of the group to kill!"
"Finally, there's the compensation mechanism. If only one person comes out of a Blood Gate alive... they're guaranteed to receive a Ghost Artifact from the Blood Gate!"
At those last words, both Ning Qiushui's and Liu Chengfeng's expressions changed instantly!
"When the rewards are big enough, someone will do it, no matter how insane it is."
Bai Xiaoxiao seemed unsurprised by any of this.
"That's why people who team up inside Instances are almost always in groups of two or three from the same Haunted Lodge. You rarely see people from different factions forming a team."
"As for putting these wooden tokens in Tang Jiao's room, that's certainly an option."
"But her door is locked. We'll need to find a way to open it."
At that, Liu Chengfeng chuckled.
"No need to make it so complicated. Just find me a piece of wire and leave the rest to me."
The other two looked at him in surprise.
"You can do that too?"
Liu Chengfeng seemed to notice the odd looks they were giving him. He cleared his throat.
"Let me make this clear first: my master taught me this skill years ago. I've never used it to do anything bad... besides, we live in a society governed by law now. With my abilities, I can make more than enough to live on. There's no need for me to take risks doing this sort of thing."
The two nodded. They soon found a piece of wire and handed it to Liu Chengfeng. He bent and twisted it into a strange shape, then the three of them went to Tang Jiao's door. Once they had made sure no one was around, Liu Chengfeng worked the wire deftly in and out of the lock, and they heard a faint sound from inside the keyhole.
The door... opened.
P.S. Two more updates later.
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