1TWITF[C Chapter 40

Chapter 40

The two men locked eyes through the rearview mirror, neither giving way. It felt like a long time before Chu Xiu clicked his tongue, put away the gun, and with a flick of his wrist, hid it somewhere.

Only then did Lu Yanli’s expression gradually relax, but his speed didn’t decrease; he roared through the empty road like a whirlwind, past the green tree covered with black cat corpses, finally slamming on the brakes just before the intersection. Then, he violently turned the steering wheel, drifting at an extremely dangerous angle. Chu Xiu could even hear the sound of tires scraping against the road.

Only after the car turned through the intersection and headed towards Yinming Road Avenue did Chu Xiu sit up straight.

“Not bad driving skills,” he praised.

Not everyone could successfully make that turn in that situation.

Lu Yanli’s expression was even colder, not even turning his head, his voice icy. “Hold on tight.”

With that, in the next second, he floored the accelerator, and instantly the car’s engine roared through the woods.

Lu Yanli didn’t seem like the kind of person who would risk his life to threaten him, so what was making him speed away at the risk of his life?

That, that was…

Chu Xiu’s eyes widened.

At the intersection they were getting further and further away from, a very familiar figure walked out: brown leather jacket, tall and thin. That person… was himself!

That “person” also noticed them, standing at the intersection, staring straight in the direction they were leaving.

A chill ran from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head. Chu Xiu now wished he could snatch the steering wheel and drive himself, but seeing Lu Yanli also looked like he was facing a great enemy, he relaxed instead.

“You saw it?” Lu Yanli suddenly asked from the driver’s seat.

Chu Xiu hummed in affirmation.

“This ghostly place really…” Lu Yanli heavily exhaled. “What exactly are you trying to do? Are you determined to die?”

“Now you’re here too.” Realizing that a hardline approach might provoke a rebellious reaction, Chu Xiu took a step back, his tone softening. “What are you doing here?”

“You don’t need to know so much,” Lu Yanli retorted coldly, not appreciating the gesture.

The surrounding trees sped past, and the roaring wind could be felt even through the glass. Driving at this speed, they quickly saw the exit.

Both of them breathed a sigh of relief.

Lu Yanli was somewhat unwilling, but since he had encountered Chu Xiu, he couldn’t abandon this lead without figuring out whether the other man was real or fake.

“What about your three friends?” Lu Yanli asked.

Hearing this, Lu Yanli chuckled unkindly, then, seeing Chu Xiu’s expectant look, sneered. “I have no comment.”

“Alright,” Chu Xiu said nonchalantly as he got out of the car.

There were few people near Yinming Road, even fewer who would come here on a weekday. There were still some buildings around. Chu Xiu looked around, loaded his gun, and aimed it at the tires of the four-wheeled car not far away.

He pulled the trigger.

*

Inside the hotel, four people sat together, still digesting what Wen Zhengxin had said.

They were speaking so quietly that Wen Zhengxin couldn’t hear them clearly; he could only try to make out their lip movements and expressions, hoping to find a glimmer of hope on their faces.

Wen Zhengxin didn’t want to answer, but these four people didn’t seem like pushovers. His lips moved for a long time before he reluctantly said, “I- it’s gone…”

“Gone?!” The four of them said in unison, Nie Yunzhen being the most agitated. He was the first to ask, “When did it disappear?”

Wen Zhengxin’s voice was even lower. “This morning. I had wrapped it up and put it in my bag, but when I woke up this morning, it was gone.”

Put it in his bag?

Then why was the statue he saw after entering the room placed on the bedside table?

Who put it there?

Wen Zhengxin was saying this, but he was also feeling a little unsure. He was really afraid that these people would impulsively run to his room to check. If they did, his secret would be exposed.

Nie Yunzhen’s face was also turning pale.

He recalled the scene when he stole the statue.

There was no parchment, it was just placed on the bedside table. The front desk clerk fainted easily, as if deliberately creating an opportunity for him.

Also, who was the person seen in the surveillance footage entering the room?

None of them noticed that outside the hotel, a girl in a blood-stained school uniform dress was climbing on the outer wall. Her limbs were twisted, and her face was an abnormal blue-purple. A long trail of blood was left on the ground she climbed over, then gradually disappeared.

But strangely, no one noticed this scene. Before the girl crawled all the way to the ground, her ghostly green eyes stared fixedly at a certain window, her eyes full of resentment and malice. She stared for a while, then slowly crawled into the elevator on the first floor.

“Now, let’s go look for it. If we can find it, we’ll have more leverage,” Nie Yunzhen suggested.

But even Chu Xiu agreed with this idea.

That they were able to get to this point safely without anyone dying was mostly because Chu Xiu was there. So Ye Shengke and Shi Yan also agreed, and the four of them accompanied Wen Zhengxin downstairs to find the hotel manager.

Business at the hotel was clearly not good today; there were few guests. Wen Zhengxin happened to know the hotel owner, so after making a phone call, the manager quickly brought all the security guards and service staff to search together.

“It’s such a hassle. I don’t know who stole it, making us search for so long.” Two service staff members used the excuse of going to the restroom to hide in the toilet and chat, complaining a lot in their words.

“He even asked if there had been any strange people entering the hotel recently? I think he’s a little strange himself. He doesn’t let anyone enter his room to search, and he hasn’t let anyone in to clean for several days. I don’t know what’s inside.”

“Hey, you think, could it be that he put it away himself?”

The two were chatting through the door when they suddenly heard light footsteps entering the restroom from outside and immediately fell silent.

If they were overheard talking bad about guests, they wouldn’t have a good time.

Oh, it was just to wash hands… The two couldn’t wait for the person to leave so they could continue gossiping.

However, they waited a long time but didn’t hear the sound of footsteps leaving. The faucet was still on, the sound of water rushing non-stop.

She lowered her head, then stood up, pulled her underwear up, and quickly put on her skirt. Then, she straightened up and adjusted her skirt, while turning around to press the flush button. Then, she turned around and looked up—

A face, rotten, pale and blue, appeared above the door panel. Seeing her look over, a strange smile appeared on that face.

A ghost… It’s a ghost!!

Before she could scream, a long, soft, pale arm clamped down on her mouth. Then, that hand pressed her into the toilet.

The sound of flushing rose, she struggled desperately, but it was no use. With the sound of bubbling, her whole body, as if stripped of its bones, limply squeezed into that small hole with the water flow, leaving only a little hair floating on the surface of the water.

The flush button was pressed again, and a large amount of blood gushed out, washing away for a while. The blood gradually disappeared without a trace.

The restroom was quiet and peaceful, as if no one had ever been there.

*

“Don’t worry,” Nie Yunzhen said, his eyes filled with suspicion as he looked at Wen Zhengxin. “You said you’ve searched all the rooms, so what about your own?”

“Since you haven’t, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look,” After Chu Xiu made a decision, he directly had the manager lead them to Wen Zhengxin’s room.

Soon, the door to his room was opened.

A very strange, somewhat rotten smell wafted out of the room.

Shi Yan looked at Wen Zhengxin suspiciously. The latter’s face was already as white as paper. After repeatedly muttering a few words, he simply shut his mouth.

This smell… was coming from the closet.

The manager gave a look, and one of the security guards who had followed them had to step forward. He prepared himself and pulled open the closet door—

There was nothing there. Besides a few sets of spare bedding placed by the hotel, the closet was empty.

The foul smell of what seemed like rotting protein completely disappeared the moment the door was opened.

“Looks like there really is nothing here.”

After searching his room carefully several times, they had to come to that conclusion.

Wen Zhengxin didn’t have the relief of having his suspicions cleared. On the contrary, his face was even worse. He walked to the door alone, looking horrified.

How could this be…

How could the closet be empty? Where did she… where did she go?

“What’s wrong? You look nervous,” Ye Shengke followed him to the door, offered him a cigarette, and smiled.

In the eyes of the nervous Wen Zhengxin, this smile was more terrifying than a direct threat.

“N-nothing, I’m just thinking about tonight…” Wen Zhengxin’s throat was dry. He took the cigarette but didn’t smoke it, instead putting it in his pocket, his hands trembling. His face, however, had regained its composure.

No, no… He can’t play this game. He has to find a way to escape.

His daughter is still waiting for him.

If something happens to him too, what will Qingqing do? Her grandmother is already… no one can bring her back to life.

Thinking of how he had finally come back from a business trip a few days ago and detoured to her grandmother’s house to see her, only to see his daughter lying in blood, he felt as if his heart was being twisted. He wished he was the one lying on the ground.

Fortunately… fortunately, Qingqing’s grandmother, although she was a bit eccentric, had that idol…

As long as he could kill all the creatures Qingqing loved most in her life within seven days, Qingqing could come back to life!

To this end, he first killed the black cat that brought misfortune. Then, with tears in his eyes, he sent Qingqing’s grandmother on her way.

The color of the idol was getting redder and redder. When it was red enough to drip a drop of blood, Qingqing would come back.

He knew that Wen Qing’s best friend at school was Yun Qian. So, he specially drove after her after school and kidnapped her back.

There were many eyes and ears in the old house. The old neighbors knew each other well. Several neighbors had already noticed that Qingqing hadn’t been around for two days. He had no choice but to first go back and bring the statue to the hotel, and then strangled Yun Qian in front of the statue.

He had planned to do the same today and put Yun Qian in a suitcase to take her out, but… why was she gone?!

Had Qingqing mutated before being revived?

Where exactly had the idol gone?

A guess suddenly flashed through Wen Zhengxin’s mind, and then his whole body trembled because of his guess, feeling cold all over.

Could it be… Yun Qian took it away?

He had watched her die with his own eyes. If it was really her… then what state would she be in now?

But he couldn’t say it. He had already committed a heinous crime, and there was no turning back. If things were exposed now, he would have no chance to retrieve the idol, and no chance to revive his daughter.

“What are you sad about?” Ye Shengke asked him.

Wen Zhengxin shook his head, carefully wiping away the slight moisture in the corner of his eyes. “Nothing.”

After all the fuss, including a meal in between, it was already getting dark.

Tonight, they would play the elevator game in this hotel.

Honestly, Ye Shengke and Shi Yan both wanted to change places, and even Nie Yunzhen had lost his confidence after the statue was lost. Only Chu Xiu insisted on trying it at this hotel, regardless of everything.

The others couldn’t argue with him and didn’t understand why he was so persistent, so they had no choice but to agree.

*

On the other side of the city, in a luxury hotel.

“Don’t worry, we’ll go back after we play this game today,” Chu Xiu said.

Chu Xiu had both hands in his pockets, but Lu Yanli knew very well what he was holding in his pocket.

“No need to say that, it’s not certain that anyone will die,” Chu Xiu’s finger was constantly on the trigger, but he still spoke with a nonchalant and relaxed tone.

He looked relaxed, but Lu Yanli knew that if he tried to leave, he would definitely shoot without hesitation.

However, a voice deep inside him told him that if he could survive this game safely, he would gain unexpected rewards.

Chu Xiu looked around the hotel lobby: two or three lazy security guards, two front desk clerks, and a few guests who came out of the elevator complaining.

He said, “I don’t want to cooperate with idiots.”

Lu Yanli raised his eyebrows slightly, thinking that he had discovered something. After thinking about it carefully, it didn’t seem like it, so he just grunted coldly.

The two sat for a while, casually registered and booked a room. Then, without knowing who suggested it first, they strangely sat in the room and played poker.

They played the simplest game of blackjack, and with both of them consciously letting the other win, the number of wins and losses was surprisingly close.

Soon, midnight arrived.

“Let’s go.”

Chu Xiu put both hands in his pockets again. He only used one hand to play poker the entire time, and the muzzle of the gun in his pocket had been pointed at Lu Yanli, and he hadn’t let go until now.

“Sounds pretty scary,” Lu Yanli commented indifferently.

Before getting on the elevator, Nie Yunzhen told Wen Zhengxin the rules in detail again, hoping that he wouldn’t hold them back. The latter agreed with a pale face.

“Let’s start,” Chu Xiu stepped into the elevator, and Lu Yanli followed.

The hotel that Lu Yanli and Chu Xiu were in had a total of eighteen floors. They first pressed the top floor, eighteen, and the elevator slowly rose.

“Maybe.”

To their disappointment, the elevator steadily rose to the eighteenth floor without any malfunction. When the elevator doors opened, they saw a corridor with warm yellow lighting.

“Next, is the second floor.”

Lu Yanli pressed two, and the elevator slowly descended, gradually reaching the second floor.

“Then, the seventeenth floor.”

The elevator rose.

Unconsciously, the two had formed a habit. When the elevator reached its destination and opened, they didn’t walk out. Instead, they pressed the button for the next target floor. They both stared intently at the buttons on the elevator, not allowing themselves to press the wrong one.

Gradually, a cold air gradually invaded the elevator, and bit by bit, the coldness surged up, filling the entire elevator car, making it feel like an ice cave.

“Do you feel… a little cold?” Chu Xiu turned his head and asked.

Lu Yanli nodded.

It could be felt without saying anything. The coldness was not just brought by the weather, but more from the bottom of their hearts, a chilling coldness.

They didn’t know how many times they pressed the buttons, how many times the elevator stopped, but finally, they gradually pressed towards the central floors.

Both of them had already closed their mouths. The coldness was becoming more and more obvious, almost sticking to their entire bodies, freezing them into ice people.

The elevator doors opened again, this time stopping on the eighth floor.

And what shocked them was that when the elevator doors opened, it was no longer the familiar warm yellow-lit hallway of the hotel. All they saw was a pitch-black darkness, and in the darkness came the smell of rotten and decaying dust, as if this hallway outside the door had not been repaired for a long time.

The elevator lights flickered.

The moment they realized that there was someone outside the door, they immediately lowered their heads. Neither of them looked at her, allowing the woman to walk between them.

They couldn’t look, couldn’t listen, and couldn’t talk to her.

For a moment, the only sounds in the elevator were the two men’s shallow breaths.

After the woman came in, she randomly pressed a number on the elevator, and then she stood still in the center.

The elevator slowly descended, not knowing where it was going.

“Hello!”

The woman spoke.

Her voice was strange: hoarse, cold, slow, as if she had been soaked in a freezer for a long time, her speech awkward.

The two of them pretended not to hear and kept their heads down.

The elevator doors had mirrors, and maybe seeing the mirror image was also a violation, so they kept staring at their shoes.

“Speak… quickly!”

They couldn’t answer her!

Otherwise, they would be taken to another world.

And no one wanted to experience what the other world was like.

*

In another hotel, five people were riding the elevator at the same time.

Coincidentally, the elevator they were in also had eighteen floors. After the five of them repeatedly pressed the buttons, the same thing happened: on the ninth floor, a woman walked into the elevator.

The result of the game was actually real…

The five of them uniformly lowered or raised their heads, in short, shifting their gazes away from her, not even paying attention to the mirror image, allowing the other party to press some number on the elevator.

“Hello… Where do you… want to go?”

The woman’s hoarse, cold voice sounded.

Wen Zhengxin was standing closest to her, and the others couldn’t help but worry about him, fearing that he would suddenly strike up a conversation.

Fortunately, although Wen Zhengxin was shaking non-stop, he held on and didn’t violate the rules, remaining silent no matter how the woman asked.

Despite this, the game didn’t seem to make things easy for them.

The elevator slowly descended, continuously descending, seeming to have no end. No one knew where it would descend to.

And where they couldn’t see, a blood-soaked girl in a school uniform was lying on the roof of the elevator car, her blue face full of hideous resentment, staring at the people inside through the layer of steel.