Watching this scene, everyone was stunned.
What was going on?
Beef congee, she spat out—plain congee, she didn't?
After feeding the old woman the whole bowl, Ning Qiushui handed it to Liu Chengfeng and withdrew from the room.
"Bro, what... what's going on here?"
Liu Chengfeng asked quietly, curious.
Ning Qiushui shook his head.
"It's complicated. I'll explain later... Right—where's Ya Mo?"
Only when he asked did the group realize: Ya Mo, who had fled downstairs in terror... had disappeared at some point!
"Ya Mo!"
Liu Chengfeng bellowed her name.
But there was no answer in the villa—only an eerie, dead silence.
A bad premonition washed over everyone.
They went downstairs, searching everywhere for Ya Mo.
In the end, Ning Qiushui stood before the open front door, looking out at the curtain of rain, and told them:
"Stop looking."
"She's run out."
"Sh-she ran outside?"
Liu Chengfeng, standing closest, glanced at the hazy wind and rain beyond the door and couldn't suppress a shiver.
For some reason, on hearing the news, the first thing that came to everyone's mind... was the fat man who had jumped out of the bus window and ended up skinned by something unknown!
The task required them to care for the bedridden old woman in the villa for five days.
If they left the villa during that time... what would happen?
Ning Qiushui was about to return to the hall when his gaze fell on the shoe cabinet by the entrance.
Something stirred in him. He crouched down and rummaged through it.
"Bro, what're you looking for?"
Liu Chengfeng scampered over.
Ning Qiushui's eyes narrowed.
"There are no men's shoes."
Liu Chengfeng:
"Huh?"
Ning Qiushui's mind began to race.
Even he didn't realize why his own brain was suddenly working... this well.
"The villa's mistress mentioned to us that her husband was away for work."
"But in this house... there isn't a single pair of men's shoes!"
Liu Chengfeng stiffened.
"Bro, you're saying..."
A keen light flashed through Ning Qiushui's eyes:
"Two possibilities."
"One: her husband, for some reason... moved out of this place."
"Two: she never had a husband at all."
Liu Chengfeng frowned.
"No husband?"
"That can't be right! Then her daughter..."
Before he could finish, Ning Qiushui raised his head, met his eyes, and slowly asked a question that sent frost straight up through Liu Chengfeng's skull:
"What makes you think... that little girl is her daughter?"
"Just because... she was holding her hand?"
After a few seconds of eye contact with Ning Qiushui, cold sweat beaded on Liu Chengfeng's forehead.
He swallowed, realizing how serious this was.
Yes.
There was no evidence whatsoever that the child the woman had led by the hand... was her daughter!
"...Let's go back in."
Ning Qiushui was silent a moment. Gazing at the hazy rain beyond the door, he felt an inexplicable chill—as if somewhere deep within that rain, something dreadful was watching him!
He shut the front door at once, checked it over again and again, and only then returned to the hall with Liu Chengfeng.
No one's face looked good.
The villa was huge. With seven of them, there had at least been some spark of life in it.
Now Wang Yuning had died horribly and Ya Mo had fled into the rain; just like that, only five remained.
"Ning Qiushui—what did that old thing say just now?"
Xue Guize's face was pale.
So far, he had stayed comparatively calm.
But that was only because he had once been a mortuary cosmetician; he'd seen too many corpses that had died ugly deaths, so his tolerance ran higher than an ordinary person's.
Seeing everyone's eyes gathered on him, Ning Qiushui said it plainly:
"What she said was... the meat's not cooked."
Everyone blinked.
The meat's... not cooked?
"Rainbow-spiraling dog-fart bullshit she did!"
Liu Chengfeng wasn't having it, eyes bulging as he roared.
"Whether that meat was cooked or not—you think I wouldn't know?"
Seeing Liu Chengfeng's apoplectic fury, everyone's expressions eased a touch.
The bushy-beard's fierce bellowing carried plenty of yang energy—just the thing to drive some of the deathly gloom out of the villa.
Unlike the fear on everyone else's faces, Ning Qiushui was calm to an abnormal degree—as if... he had lived through scenes like this countless times before.
"Which means those three words... weren't 'the meat's not cooked' at all."
The buzz of discussion suddenly went quiet.
"What do you mean?"
Xue Guize frowned.
Ning Qiushui arched an eyebrow:
"The old woman upstairs... is very old. Her health is poor; her mind is unstable."
"Her speech is slurred."
"And we came in primed—led astray by Wang Yuning's death."
"So we simply assumed the first two words she said were 'the meat's not.'"
"But in reality... I don't think those three words are what the old woman upstairs is trying to say at all."
Bei Dao sneered:
"Who cares what that murdering monster says?"
"Didn't you all see the knife and fork sitting on her table this morning?"
"She's obviously the one who killed Wang Yuning last night!"
He paused, glanced fearfully toward the second floor to make sure no one was there, then dropped his voice:
"Maybe... all that flesh missing from Wang Yuning's body—she ate it!"
His tone was sinister. When he finished, Yan Youping was so frightened she grabbed hold of Liu Chengfeng beside her!
Which startled Liu Chengfeng in turn, and he cursed:
"Bei Dao, are you fucking telling ghost stories now?"
"Look how bad you've scared the poor girl!"
Bei Dao's face was ugly too. He twisted his fingers together, muttering neurotically:
"I don't want to die..."
"I really don't want to die like Wang Yuning..."
"You all saw it, didn't you... she was clearly eaten by something..."
"It's horrifying... it's simply too horrifying..."
Xue Guize, listening, grew agitated beyond bearing:
"Enough!"
"Quit your blabbering!"
"Who wants to die? Huh? Who wants to die?"
"Aren't we all trying to think of a way out right now?!"
Liu Chengfeng turned his attention back to Ning Qiushui, who was deep in thought.
It had to be said—that calm, unruffled bearing of his steadied all of them; quietly, he had become the pillar they leaned on.
"Bro, have you thought of something?"
Ning Qiushui raised his eyes and glanced at him.
"I have a hypothesis. Tonight I'll need someone with guts... to test it with me."
At the mention of doing it at night, everyone remembered the previous evening and fell silent at once.
After a long while, Liu Chengfeng gritted his teeth and asked:
"Bro, why does it have to be at night... can't we do it in the day?"
Ning Qiushui shook his head:
"No."
Liu Chengfeng froze.
He had meant to keep playing mute, but looking at the calm in Ning Qiushui's eyes, he found himself blurting out, as if possessed:
"Fine. I'll go with you!"
The instant the words left his mouth, Liu Chengfeng wanted to slap himself!
Fucking hell!
Why could he never control this mouth of his?!
"Good. Tonight, stay close to me."
At that very moment, a shrill scream of agony suddenly came from the second floor:
"No! Please, no!!"
"I'm begging you... I know... AAAAH!!!"
The scream raised goosebumps over every inch of them!
They looked at one another and saw the horror in each other's eyes—
They knew that voice all too well.
It belonged to none other than the girl who had fled the villa not long before... Ya Mo!