1TWITF[C Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Too strange.

The vengeful ghost originally hidden in his eyes was gone.

Lu Yanli had already prepared to face death. Whether it was the price of making a wish or the vengeful ghost in his eyes, either could lead to his demise without a burial place.

But now… where did that vengeful ghost go?

Thinking of a possibility, Lu Yanli was horrified.

Could it have gone to find his future self?

Crap!

Once that vengeful ghost finds him, his future self is doomed!

Lu Yanli put on his mask and rushed out.

He had to warn the other him; otherwise, if he were seen and the him from May 1st in the future died, it would mean that they wouldn’t survive past May 1st in the mission.

They had no way of contacting each other, so Lu Yanli could only rely on his own guesswork. However… by the time he found the other him, it was too late.

The him who had returned from May 1st had already been killed by the vengeful ghost, which had come from an unknown timeline.

He stood in the small wooden house, looking at the bloody corpse and a head, identical to his own, placed on the table, his hands and feet turning cold.

Would the future self who had been killed also become a vengeful ghost?

According to the original plan, he would make a wish to return to the past, and even if the vengeful ghost was hiding in his eyes, he could use the wish for rebirth to fight back. That was why he had accepted the future self’s scheme.

But now, for some unknown reason, the vengeful ghost hidden in his eyes had come out and killed his future self.

So, this time… could they survive past May 1st?

Lu Yanli thought a lot and ultimately made a choice.

He took off the headless corpse’s jacket to use as a bag for the head, then carried the headless corpse on his back and walked out.

That day, the police station received a very strange call.

“…Hello? Hello? Is there anything we can help you with?”

“Hello? Hello?” the operator continued to ask.

“Guess… who I am?”

“What? Please don’t make prank calls.”

“You… you are…” You’re the perpetrator of the bombing case?!

“Who exactly are you?” The operator was almost driven mad by the other person’s arrogant tone. He hurriedly notified his colleagues but was overheard by the other person.

“Hello? Hello?! Are you still there?”

“Drip, drip…” Only the sound of liquid dripping.

Lu Yanli had just finished speaking and was about to put the receiver back when he realized the touch in his hand was wrong, cold and slippery.

He flung the arm away and fled, leaving the door open, with only the corpse leaning against the inner wall, its pale hand still resting on the telephone.

Now, the weirdness had set its sights on him again.

In less than ten minutes, the police arrived at the scene.

They could already smell a bloody stench.

What was going on?

Seeing that there didn’t seem to be any danger and that the door wasn’t locked, the police cautiously pulled the door open with tools. Then, they gasped at the scene inside the phone booth.

The man who had been on the phone just now was leaning against the doorframe, his head placed on top of the payphone. The corpse hadn’t decomposed yet, and the dead man’s appearance could be clearly seen—it was exactly the same as on the wanted poster.

“Impossible, he was just on the phone, and now he’s… dead?”

And in such a bizarre way.

Who had killed such a terrifying criminal? They couldn’t dwell on that question.

The police officers exchanged glances and ultimately approached cautiously. After confirming that there was no danger, they put the body into a body bag.

They needed to confirm the other person’s identity again.

After comparing the autopsy results with the bloodstained gauze found at the scene that day, it was confirmed to be the same person. However, another point of suspicion emerged.

According to the autopsy results, the victim had been dead for at least four hours when the operator received the call, but the fingerprints on the telephone receiver did indeed belong to the deceased himself.

So… who made the phone call?

Who killed him?

In any case, after this incident, the bombings, which had been happening at least seven or eight times a day, suddenly stopped. To stabilize the people’s morale, the police announced that the bomber had been captured.

The murderer’s name: Lu Yanli.

*

“Lu Yanli? He’s Lu Yanli?” The first batch of mission takers found it hard to believe this result.

After their residence was bombed, they discussed living separately, but for some reason, the top few still chose to live together. Seeing this, the others, who were already uncertain, didn’t dare to leave.

Lin Chu was different; she was being controlled and couldn’t leave even if she wanted to.

“Now that Lu Yanli is under police control, do we need to complete the first mission now?” This meant that they needed to sneak into the police station.

Jiang Yu: “Not for now. We just need to know his identity. Killing him prematurely might trigger some kind of bizarre event. If he escapes, the police will announce it.”

“What’s more important now is finding the missing person.”

At the mention of the missing person, everyone felt a little discouraged.

No matter how they investigated these past few days, they had made no progress and had no direction. In particular, the small town’s population had sharply decreased due to the bombing, further increasing the difficulty of their investigation.

“We’ve searched all the police’s electronic files, and there haven’t been any missing person cases in recent years,” Ling Tong slammed the table hard. “Damn it, there’s not even a single clue. Who knows who’s missing?”

Although those people only said that they were from outside the town, he had a feeling that something was wrong.

Di Ying: “They must be mission takers, but…” After a moment of deliberation, she voiced everyone’s question: “Why would a mission require people to enter in batches?”

“Also, those people are now refusing to admit their identities and won’t say what the mission is,” Tan Xu added.

“Then there’s only one possibility: their mission requires secrecy. And it’s very likely that it’s different from ours.”

Thinking about the possible implications behind this, everyone fell silent.

Jiang Yu: “I found a clinic.” In reality, he was a doctor, so helping out at a small clinic was no problem at all.

Xi Menyuan: “There’s also a library on the south side of town. I’ve decided to go there.”

Lin Chu trembled. “I heard that an opera troupe is looking for people. I can sing, so I plan to go there.”

“Yes.” Lin Chu had a shy look, still seemingly fond of Jiang Bai.

Then, they arranged for Qiu Zhi to go along to monitor Lin Chu.

*

Jiang Bai nodded, agreeing.

The two walked through the school.

Jin Fugui was still very afraid, but he couldn’t dissuade Jiang Bai. Now, Jiang Bai was the only one who could save him, and the desire to see his children one last time and collect their bodies had taken over, so he came along as well.

Slowly, they arrived next to the playground.

Strange… the light spots, are they gone?

As soon as they entered, Jin Fugui was startled.

On the trees opposite the playground, a dozen corpses were neatly hung. They were all wearing school uniforms, and it looked like they were all students. The wind gently blew, and the corpses swayed gently in the wind.

“Do we still need to go over there?” Jin Fugui asked almost silently.

Even though it was still morning, the sky was even darker, and the wind blew even more violently. As a result, the frequency of the corpses shaking was even more intense.

It looked like… they would soon fall from the trees.

“Leave quickly,” Jiang Bai said softly.

They ran out as fast as they could.

Another gust of wind blew through, and the rope tied to one of the corpses seemed to be unable to bear the weight. It swayed twice and finally snapped.

The corpse fell to the ground.

Slowly, the corpse, its face purple and its eyes bulging, began to move. Its limbs twisted constantly, and its long hair dragged on the ground, growing longer and longer. It crawled forward little by little.

Behind it, another corpse fell.

Probably because it wasn’t dark yet, the two successfully ran out of the school gate, walking on the quiet, desolate school road.

“When do you think I’ll be able to go back in? I still need to collect the bodies of my two little brats,” Jin Fugui wiped away tears. “Those two little guys hated going to school the most. I have to… bring them back.”

“Don’t go for now. Let’s move to another place,” even though the town wasn’t safe now either.

Just as he finished speaking, Lu Yanli noticed something following him. He secretly glanced back and made eye contact with the person behind him.

Then, Jin Fugui was knocked unconscious.

“Things went wrong. Anyway, the other us who came back from May 1st in the future is dead.” The Lu Yanli with a scar on his face and an axe on his back pointed to his eyes. “Killed by the thing hidden inside. Now, it’s gone, we don’t know where.”

Lu Yanli was surprised. “Didn’t the police report that it was you?”

“Listening to music.” Lu Yanli explained what had happened.

For a moment, both of them were silent.

“So, that means I have to end everything before May 1st.” Otherwise, if this timeline continues, he will die on May 1st and then go back to the past to experience a new round of altered history and be killed again. He will never be able to break through this vicious cycle.

With that, he turned and left.

He couldn’t give the past self too many hints; he just needed the past self to successfully survive the death node.

*

At the school gate, a dozen corpses wearing school uniforms crawled out. They slowly dispersed, heading to unknown destinations.

Inside a shopping mall, a mission taker was busy calculating accounts. Behind her, cracks gradually appeared on the face of a plastic mannequin.

In the hospital, a strange bouncing sound came from the underground morgue.

Throughout the entire small town, the weirdness began to revive once again!

The author has something to say: Four Lu brothers

One in this timeline, alias Jiang Bai, entered the town on March 1st.

The second Lu Yanli, who will be near death at the cultural festival in the future, returned to the past by making a wish, at the cost of all the lives of the townspeople, thus creating the bombing case.

The third Lu Yanli, who experienced the second timeline until May 1st, returned to the past from May 1st to stop the second timeline’s self, because he knew that killing the townspeople would instead lead to greater disasters, and he would die on May 1st.

The fourth is a vengeful ghost. Before dying on May 1st, the third Lu Yanli copied through the jade pendant, resulting in summoning the future self who had already died. After wishing to rewind time again, he brought the vengeful ghost back as well.