90

“Of course they didn’t separate. You can’t be alone in this kind of situation.” Ozawa Hiroshi was also somewhat unhappy, “Are you suspecting me?”

Jina played with her braid and ignored Ozawa Hiroshi.

Ozawa’s expression was turning increasingly dark, but in the end, it was Lu Ruichao that rarely spoke who opened his mouth, “We didn’t get separated. We’ve been together from beginning to end.”

Lu Ruichao stopped talking and didn’t say another word, which was in line with his usual style.

Jina smiled at Lu Ruichao as if she believed her words, making him slightly nod his head.

However, Jina still didn’t get a good look at Ozawa’s face, merely blinking her large green eyes and saying to the large black man in a sweet voice, “Kenta, my hair is a bit of a mess, help me do my braid again.”

Hearing this, Kenta took off Jina’s hair tie and a thick wave of hair suddenly sprinkled all over in the next second, completely covering Jina’s shoulders.

Kenta patiently helped Jina do another pretty style, and as he was braiding, Ye Shangyu also began to talk about what she and Bai Yan had reaped in.

Lyvwayzzu, pkdnl pbl oyp pvkzz sd twyae ytykdpv Xgyoy Tkaspbk yde Nw Swknbys, Zl Fbydtuw prsjl sq dsvbkdt cwv awcckpb, nsxrzlvlzu zlyhkdt swv vbl wplqwz ckvp sq kdqsaxyvksd.

Tlyakdt vbyv yryav qasx bkx yde Nw Swknbys, vbl svbla qswa rlsrzl bye tykdle dsvbkdt, Xgyoy Tkaspbk’p xyddla clnyxl lhld xsal esodnypv, nywpkdt Jyk Zyd vs nyd’v blzr cwv aykpl y caso.

Rq Xgyoy yde vbl svbla olal vawzu tbspvp, vbld vbl vos’p ynvkdt nswze cl nsdpkelale lmnlrvksdyz.

Gqvla lyvkdt zwdnb, vblu yzz alpvle qsa y ckv clqsal lhlausdl pvyavle vblka yqvladssd kdhlpvktyvksdp.

Fkdnl vblu jdlo vbyv tbspvp olal alpkekdt yxsdt vbl hkzzytlap yde vblu eked’v jdso obld vbl tbspvp oswze pbso vblka byde, Jyk Zyd yde Zl Fbydtuw fwpv yhskele vbl hkzzytl yde ekalnvzu blyele vs vbl tayhluyae kd vbl yqvladssd.

Mblu oydvle vs qkde Mkl Hbk yde vau vs tlv xsal wplqwz kdqsaxyvksd swv sq bkx.

Qayhluyae.

Nyvl ywvwxd caswtbv ycswv y qalpb yde nzlyd yka, cwv yxke vbl tayhlp kd vbl nlxlvlau, usw nswze pvkzz pxlzz y ekpvkdnv asvvld pvldnb.

From a distance, Bai Yan saw the figure of a child’s back.

The boy was squatting on the ground dribbling his ball, but what was strange was the boy’s hands were clearly not moving. The ball was bouncing higher and higher, soon reaching far above his head.

After bouncing a few more times, the ball that violated the laws of gravity suddenly crashed down on the boy’s head.

All at once, the squatting boy, whose head was bent down, was abruptly smashed to a pulp.

As it turned out, he was only a piece of human skin, and when the ball landed on it, all the air leaked out, turning it into a flat piece of skin, full-on displaying its wrinkled state under the ball.

In a blink of an eye, the dried-up human skin suddenly disappeared out of sight.

Only the dirty ball remained, being blown by the cold gust, making it roll off into a distance…

Seeing this scene, Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu didn’t say a word and immediately turned themselves around to flee from the place.

When they reached a place where they couldn’t see the graveyard anymore, the two people stopped to take a breather in a spacious area, shifting to a slower walk to rest.

“Tie Zhu’s dead.” Ye Shangyu gasped for air, “He must have died not long ago. His family had suffered untimely deaths and he was the only one that was left. Since he’s dead, this means that his whole family has died, which would fulfill the criteria for going missing.”

“…The two anchors disappeared, and they ought to be considered as one family.” Bai Yan also made his train of thought clear, “From the human skin ghost’s perspective, us players should also be considered as one family. Only if all six of us have died before we would all go missing.”

After spending an entire afternoon in the village, the two players still returned to Xu Lanfang’s house in the afternoon.

Although they were fully aware that Xu Lanfang was a ghost and also harbored evil intentions towards everyone, right now, she was still pretending to be a person, so for the time being, it was still peaceful. It was better for a ghost to play role-play with them than having a ghost directly chasing after them.

Moreover, with all the clues they’ve gathered so far, there were only two ways of handling the human skin ghost.

One way was to kill Xu Lanfang’s family, thereby making the human skin ghost borrowing Xu Lanfang’s identity ‘disappear,’ returning it to the video and making it wait for the next unfortunate soul.

Another way was to assign a person to wear Xu Lanfang’s pelt. From watching the video, so long as someone wore the human skin and ran away for an hour, the human skin ghost would lose the human skin and ‘die.’

Without a doubt, although the video showed the human skin ghost could be defeated by this, Bai Yan’s heart thoroughly understood that the ghost wouldn’t die this easily. This method, he reckoned, was also planted by the ghost in the video.

To be honest, not unless it was the last resort, Bai Yan really didn’t want to execute the first plan.

It wasn’t because he couldn’t lay a hand on the old lady but because he still was unsure if Xu Lanfang’s parents were dead or not. Other than the human skin ghost, no one else would know. Rashly killing the old woman would prematurely enrage the human skin ghost, leading it to directly set out to slaughter the players.

Additionally… Actually, Bai Yan was still a bit undecided. He secretly sized up the old woman’s warped body and miserable green eyes, always feeling that if he killed the old lady, she would immediately turn into a ghost and start coming after him. When that time came, he would be facing two ghosts instead of one, even a supernatural entity wouldn’t be able to hide from two ghosts trying to kill it.

So, the most reasonable plan was to wear and drag along the human pelt for a certain time, which would make the human skin ghost disappear on its own.

According to the short film’s plot, the human skin ghost would take off its human skin before killing someone, and living in Xu Lanfang’s house, they could catch the human skin ghost off guard and steal its pelt. Bai Yan was already prepared to sell out his teammates, waiting for the human skin ghost to undress.

At night, everyone wolfed down the dinner prepared and headed to their room at once, beginning to exchange their harvests for the afternoon. Naturally, just like this morning, everyone came out empty.

“I’m a bit tired. In any case, since we don’t have any important information, let’s turn in early.”

Chatting for a short while, Jina suddenly covered her mouth and let out a small yawn. Shen then loosened her hair, laying her head down on the pillow, “If you guys aren’t sleeping, I’ll turn in first. I can’t hold out any longer.”

After saying this, Jina laid down on the bed, closing her eyes and turning her face towards Ye Shangyu.

Seeing Jina sleep so soundly, the other players also realized that it was getting late. Tomorrow was the last day, and it was obvious that there was a harsh battle awaiting them, so they needed to rest.

Thus, the three men on night duty opened their phones and turned off the lights.

For a time, only the phones’ lights illuminated the room, and when they had all adjusted to the dark setting, they closed their phones to avoid attracting filthy objects of the night via the lights.

Fortunately, the moonlight was distinct enough that the three could still barely see the room.

Soon, Xu Lanfang and her grandmother had also slept in their large room, and the entire farmhouse immediately assumed an unparalleled silence, only the sounds of wind scraping by the window could be heard from time to time.

…

At 1 AM.

At this time, Kenta and Bai Yan were somewhat sleepy.

Their sleepiness was bubbling out, leaving the two’s energies not enough to allow them full concentration. However, the two didn’t dare sleep nor did they dare close their eyes and take a nap.

Because the two harbored distrust towards Ozawa Hiroshi, Bai Yan occasionally looked back from the small window he was watching, observing Ozawa Hiroshi and Lu Ruichao at the corner of his eye from time to time.

Ozawa Hiroshi was sitting beside Kenta, his expression ever so serious as alertness flashed through his small eyes. His vigilant manner was quite appropriate. His serious attitude even making Bai Yan doubt if he and Ye Shangyu were overthinking this.

Opposite of Ozawa Hiroshi, Lu Ruichao was facing the wall, lying down in the innermost part and unmoving, his sleeping posture looked very sincere. Jina was in between Lu Ruichao and Ye Shangyu, facing the back of her head towards Lu Ruichao. Her mouth was slightly ajar as she slept soundly.

Ye Shangyu slept in the outermost part of the bed, leaving a fair distance between her, Ozawa, Lu Ruichao. Her chest faintly moved up and down, obviously fast asleep.

As Bai Yan was observing he discovered that Kenta was also repeatedly checking up on Jina. It appeared that Kenta didn’t feel at ease with Ozawa and Lu Ruichao either. Bai Yan wondered how Jina was communicating with Kenta behind the scenes.

Both Bai Yan and Kenta were very attentive, but exuberant people also had bouts of carelessness.

Once the time reached two o’clock, the number of times the two turned their heads had lessened.

When the two weren’t looking back, one was staring at the door while the other was watching the window, a subtle squirming sound came from ‘Lu Ruichao’s’ hair, who was laying on the innermost part. The sound was barely concealed by the gale outside the window, so it didn’t catch the two’s attention.

The bed inside the East room was huge, but it was a bit too tight for squeezing six people in.

As a result, Lu Ruichao and Jina were near to each other, and in their dusky environment, no one saw that two eyes quietly emerged from the back of Lu Ruichao’s head.

Under the hair’s concealment, these black eyes were not at all conspicuous. Even if Bai Yan and Kenta turned around, they still wouldn’t have caught these well-hidden eyes behind the hair…

The two eyes without eyelids didn’t blink. They gradually disappeared among the black hair, staring straight at Jina, occasionally looking left and right inside the hair, their expressions becoming more and more bitter and frightening.

The wind blowing outside the window was growing stronger.

With the gust’s power becoming turbulent, an unchecked ‘creak’ could be heard from the wooden door of the main room.

Not long after, the iron door in the yard opened with a loud whoosh, and soon after, a rustle of footsteps began to come through from the yard. These noises were crisp to the ear, and Bai Yan and Kenta heard them clearly.

If he judged the situation based on the sounds, Bai Yan would have assumed that the footsteps coming from the person would have come into the farmhouse.

Of course, since Bai Yan already knew that Xu Lanfang was the ghost, he didn’t need to go and see to know that this was a special performance enacted by the human skin ghost, its purpose was to deceive them into thinking that the ghost was coming into the farmhouse from the outside.

He had to say, compared to the previous levels, the acting skills of this level’s ghosts were a complete improvement.

About the grandfather and grandchild that tricked the sweet potato granny into going home to prepare their meal, if they hadn’t forgotten to boil the water, nothing unusual would have shown through in their performance.

“Bang, bang…”

The two could hear a ‘person’ opening the kitchen door.

The footsteps became clearer and clearer.

Soon, the footsteps stopped right outside the East room’s door.

That thing was standing outside their door, not moving.

“Boom, boom, boom.”

“Boom, boom, boom.”

A knocking sound emerged from outside the door.

With the atmosphere inside the room, the people inside didn’t dare go out and just stared at the door.

Roused by the door-knocking sounds, Ye Shangyu quietly sat up on the bed, also facing the door and not saying a word.

Beside her, Jina also sleepily rubbed her eyes, getting up in a dazed state.

While everyone’s attention was directed towards the door, ‘Lu Ruichao,’ whose head was facing the wall, also sat up. As he slowly turned his head, his two eyes suddenly withdrew, quickly returning to their rightful places. This let his sunken eye sockets immediately fill up, resuming their normal appearance.

Then, its hand silently stretched towards Jina, slowly inching towards her neck…

T/N: Hello!!! Super sorry for the short notice, but I need to take another hiatus. Work has been beating the cr*p out of me lately with forecast deadlines, upcoming reports, and regular 6 am meetings. :’) I’ll continue updating Patreon until Feb since I announced this in such short notice. I’m not sure when I’ll come back, but its definitely when I’m done restocking chapters. (Hopefully it’s soon!)

“Of course they didn’t separate. You can’t be alone in this kind of situation.” Ozawa Hiroshi was also somewhat unhappy, “Are you suspecting me?”

Jina played with her braid and ignored Ozawa Hiroshi.

Ozawa’s expression was turning increasingly dark, but in the end, it was Lu Ruichao that rarely spoke who opened his mouth, “We didn’t get separated. We’ve been together from beginning to end.”

Lu Ruichao stopped talking and didn’t say another word, which was in line with his usual style.

Jina smiled at Lu Ruichao as if she believed her words, making him slightly nod his head.

However, Jina still didn’t get a good look at Ozawa’s face, merely blinking her large green eyes and saying to the large black man in a sweet voice, “Kenta, my hair is a bit of a mess, help me do my braid again.”

Hearing this, Kenta took off Jina’s hair tie and a thick wave of hair suddenly sprinkled all over in the next second, completely covering Jina’s shoulders.

Kenta patiently helped Jina do another pretty style, and as he was braiding, Ye Shangyu also began to talk about what she and Bai Yan had reaped in.

Lyvwayzzu, pkdnl pbl oyp pvkzz sd twyae ytykdpv Xgyoy Tkaspbk yde Nw Swknbys, Zl Fbydtuw prsjl sq dsvbkdt cwv awcckpb, nsxrzlvlzu zlyhkdt swv vbl wplqwz ckvp sq kdqsaxyvksd.

Tlyakdt vbyv yryav qasx bkx yde Nw Swknbys, vbl svbla qswa rlsrzl bye tykdle dsvbkdt, Xgyoy Tkaspbk’p xyddla clnyxl lhld xsal esodnypv, nywpkdt Jyk Zyd vs nyd’v blzr cwv aykpl y caso.

Rq Xgyoy yde vbl svbla olal vawzu tbspvp, vbld vbl vos’p ynvkdt nswze cl nsdpkelale lmnlrvksdyz.

Gqvla lyvkdt zwdnb, vblu yzz alpvle qsa y ckv clqsal lhlausdl pvyavle vblka yqvladssd kdhlpvktyvksdp.

Fkdnl vblu jdlo vbyv tbspvp olal alpkekdt yxsdt vbl hkzzytlap yde vblu eked’v jdso obld vbl tbspvp oswze pbso vblka byde, Jyk Zyd yde Zl Fbydtuw fwpv yhskele vbl hkzzytl yde ekalnvzu blyele vs vbl tayhluyae kd vbl yqvladssd.

Mblu oydvle vs qkde Mkl Hbk yde vau vs tlv xsal wplqwz kdqsaxyvksd swv sq bkx.

Qayhluyae.

Nyvl ywvwxd caswtbv ycswv y qalpb yde nzlyd yka, cwv yxke vbl tayhlp kd vbl nlxlvlau, usw nswze pvkzz pxlzz y ekpvkdnv asvvld pvldnb.

From a distance, Bai Yan saw the figure of a child’s back.

The boy was squatting on the ground dribbling his ball, but what was strange was the boy’s hands were clearly not moving. The ball was bouncing higher and higher, soon reaching far above his head.

After bouncing a few more times, the ball that violated the laws of gravity suddenly crashed down on the boy’s head.

All at once, the squatting boy, whose head was bent down, was abruptly smashed to a pulp.

As it turned out, he was only a piece of human skin, and when the ball landed on it, all the air leaked out, turning it into a flat piece of skin, full-on displaying its wrinkled state under the ball.

In a blink of an eye, the dried-up human skin suddenly disappeared out of sight.

Only the dirty ball remained, being blown by the cold gust, making it roll off into a distance…

Seeing this scene, Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu didn’t say a word and immediately turned themselves around to flee from the place.

When they reached a place where they couldn’t see the graveyard anymore, the two people stopped to take a breather in a spacious area, shifting to a slower walk to rest.

“Tie Zhu’s dead.” Ye Shangyu gasped for air, “He must have died not long ago. His family had suffered untimely deaths and he was the only one that was left. Since he’s dead, this means that his whole family has died, which would fulfill the criteria for going missing.”

“…The two anchors disappeared, and they ought to be considered as one family.” Bai Yan also made his train of thought clear, “From the human skin ghost’s perspective, us players should also be considered as one family. Only if all six of us have died before we would all go missing.”

After spending an entire afternoon in the village, the two players still returned to Xu Lanfang’s house in the afternoon.

Although they were fully aware that Xu Lanfang was a ghost and also harbored evil intentions towards everyone, right now, she was still pretending to be a person, so for the time being, it was still peaceful. It was better for a ghost to play role-play with them than having a ghost directly chasing after them.

Moreover, with all the clues they’ve gathered so far, there were only two ways of handling the human skin ghost.

One way was to kill Xu Lanfang’s family, thereby making the human skin ghost borrowing Xu Lanfang’s identity ‘disappear,’ returning it to the video and making it wait for the next unfortunate soul.

Another way was to assign a person to wear Xu Lanfang’s pelt. From watching the video, so long as someone wore the human skin and ran away for an hour, the human skin ghost would lose the human skin and ‘die.’

Without a doubt, although the video showed the human skin ghost could be defeated by this, Bai Yan’s heart thoroughly understood that the ghost wouldn’t die this easily. This method, he reckoned, was also planted by the ghost in the video.

To be honest, not unless it was the last resort, Bai Yan really didn’t want to execute the first plan.

It wasn’t because he couldn’t lay a hand on the old lady but because he still was unsure if Xu Lanfang’s parents were dead or not. Other than the human skin ghost, no one else would know. Rashly killing the old woman would prematurely enrage the human skin ghost, leading it to directly set out to slaughter the players.

Additionally… Actually, Bai Yan was still a bit undecided. He secretly sized up the old woman’s warped body and miserable green eyes, always feeling that if he killed the old lady, she would immediately turn into a ghost and start coming after him. When that time came, he would be facing two ghosts instead of one, even a supernatural entity wouldn’t be able to hide from two ghosts trying to kill it.

So, the most reasonable plan was to wear and drag along the human pelt for a certain time, which would make the human skin ghost disappear on its own.

According to the short film’s plot, the human skin ghost would take off its human skin before killing someone, and living in Xu Lanfang’s house, they could catch the human skin ghost off guard and steal its pelt. Bai Yan was already prepared to sell out his teammates, waiting for the human skin ghost to undress.

At night, everyone wolfed down the dinner prepared and headed to their room at once, beginning to exchange their harvests for the afternoon. Naturally, just like this morning, everyone came out empty.

“I’m a bit tired. In any case, since we don’t have any important information, let’s turn in early.”

Chatting for a short while, Jina suddenly covered her mouth and let out a small yawn. Shen then loosened her hair, laying her head down on the pillow, “If you guys aren’t sleeping, I’ll turn in first. I can’t hold out any longer.”

After saying this, Jina laid down on the bed, closing her eyes and turning her face towards Ye Shangyu.

Seeing Jina sleep so soundly, the other players also realized that it was getting late. Tomorrow was the last day, and it was obvious that there was a harsh battle awaiting them, so they needed to rest.

Thus, the three men on night duty opened their phones and turned off the lights.

For a time, only the phones’ lights illuminated the room, and when they had all adjusted to the dark setting, they closed their phones to avoid attracting filthy objects of the night via the lights.

Fortunately, the moonlight was distinct enough that the three could still barely see the room.

Soon, Xu Lanfang and her grandmother had also slept in their large room, and the entire farmhouse immediately assumed an unparalleled silence, only the sounds of wind scraping by the window could be heard from time to time.

…

At 1 AM.

At this time, Kenta and Bai Yan were somewhat sleepy.

Their sleepiness was bubbling out, leaving the two’s energies not enough to allow them full concentration. However, the two didn’t dare sleep nor did they dare close their eyes and take a nap.

Because the two harbored distrust towards Ozawa Hiroshi, Bai Yan occasionally looked back from the small window he was watching, observing Ozawa Hiroshi and Lu Ruichao at the corner of his eye from time to time.

Ozawa Hiroshi was sitting beside Kenta, his expression ever so serious as alertness flashed through his small eyes. His vigilant manner was quite appropriate. His serious attitude even making Bai Yan doubt if he and Ye Shangyu were overthinking this.

Opposite of Ozawa Hiroshi, Lu Ruichao was facing the wall, lying down in the innermost part and unmoving, his sleeping posture looked very sincere. Jina was in between Lu Ruichao and Ye Shangyu, facing the back of her head towards Lu Ruichao. Her mouth was slightly ajar as she slept soundly.

Ye Shangyu slept in the outermost part of the bed, leaving a fair distance between her, Ozawa, Lu Ruichao. Her chest faintly moved up and down, obviously fast asleep.

As Bai Yan was observing he discovered that Kenta was also repeatedly checking up on Jina. It appeared that Kenta didn’t feel at ease with Ozawa and Lu Ruichao either. Bai Yan wondered how Jina was communicating with Kenta behind the scenes.

Both Bai Yan and Kenta were very attentive, but exuberant people also had bouts of carelessness.

Once the time reached two o’clock, the number of times the two turned their heads had lessened.

When the two weren’t looking back, one was staring at the door while the other was watching the window, a subtle squirming sound came from ‘Lu Ruichao’s’ hair, who was laying on the innermost part. The sound was barely concealed by the gale outside the window, so it didn’t catch the two’s attention.

The bed inside the East room was huge, but it was a bit too tight for squeezing six people in.

As a result, Lu Ruichao and Jina were near to each other, and in their dusky environment, no one saw that two eyes quietly emerged from the back of Lu Ruichao’s head.

Under the hair’s concealment, these black eyes were not at all conspicuous. Even if Bai Yan and Kenta turned around, they still wouldn’t have caught these well-hidden eyes behind the hair…

The two eyes without eyelids didn’t blink. They gradually disappeared among the black hair, staring straight at Jina, occasionally looking left and right inside the hair, their expressions becoming more and more bitter and frightening.

The wind blowing outside the window was growing stronger.

With the gust’s power becoming turbulent, an unchecked ‘creak’ could be heard from the wooden door of the main room.

Not long after, the iron door in the yard opened with a loud whoosh, and soon after, a rustle of footsteps began to come through from the yard. These noises were crisp to the ear, and Bai Yan and Kenta heard them clearly.

If he judged the situation based on the sounds, Bai Yan would have assumed that the footsteps coming from the person would have come into the farmhouse.

Of course, since Bai Yan already knew that Xu Lanfang was the ghost, he didn’t need to go and see to know that this was a special performance enacted by the human skin ghost, its purpose was to deceive them into thinking that the ghost was coming into the farmhouse from the outside.

He had to say, compared to the previous levels, the acting skills of this level’s ghosts were a complete improvement.

About the grandfather and grandchild that tricked the sweet potato granny into going home to prepare their meal, if they hadn’t forgotten to boil the water, nothing unusual would have shown through in their performance.

“Bang, bang…”

The two could hear a ‘person’ opening the kitchen door.

The footsteps became clearer and clearer.

Soon, the footsteps stopped right outside the East room’s door.

That thing was standing outside their door, not moving.

“Boom, boom, boom.”

“Boom, boom, boom.”

A knocking sound emerged from outside the door.

With the atmosphere inside the room, the people inside didn’t dare go out and just stared at the door.

Roused by the door-knocking sounds, Ye Shangyu quietly sat up on the bed, also facing the door and not saying a word.

Beside her, Jina also sleepily rubbed her eyes, getting up in a dazed state.

While everyone’s attention was directed towards the door, ‘Lu Ruichao,’ whose head was facing the wall, also sat up. As he slowly turned his head, his two eyes suddenly withdrew, quickly returning to their rightful places. This let his sunken eye sockets immediately fill up, resuming their normal appearance.

Then, its hand silently stretched towards Jina, slowly inching towards her neck…

T/N: Hello!!! Super sorry for the short notice, but I need to take another hiatus. Work has been beating the cr*p out of me lately with forecast deadlines, upcoming reports, and regular 6 am meetings. :’) I’ll continue updating Patreon until Feb since I announced this in such short notice. I’m not sure when I’ll come back, but its definitely when I’m done restocking chapters. (Hopefully it’s soon!)