Chapter 56#

The Storyteller (Part 8)#

In the last game, two of the four people were preoccupied.

Su Wanluo took a deep breath and, as always, stood in the most dangerous place, her expression complex; while Tang Jiahao, after his girlfriend fainted, had an even paler complexion.

The game began.

The moment darkness descended, people’s hearing, smell, and touch became clearer. Large drops of cold sweat fell from Tang Jiahao’s face, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, his fingers clenched, and his body couldn’t help but tremble.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With his eyes closed, all he could hear was his own violently beating heart.

He stood in the third corner.

In the darkness, there were footsteps, breathing, and the sizzling sound of the candle burning.

But in addition to that, Tang Jiahao seemed to be hallucinating, and he heard the painful cries for help in the quiet woods that night.

[Next to the school is a small forest. My phone was dead at the time, and I didn’t have anything to light the way. It was pitch black, and halfway through, I heard crying, like a bird call and also like a human voice. I turned my head and looked, but I didn’t see anything wrong. I thought it was a hallucination, so I left.]

Was it really a hallucination?

Was a person’s cry for help really similar to a bird call?

No, not at all.

It was just that he had been drinking that night, his brain was slightly drunk, and his reaction was slow; it was just that he was walking alone at night, wary and unwilling to cause trouble.

But what had he done wrong? He was just passing by, he didn’t do anything, and he wasn’t the one who poisoned and killed her. If she really hated, she shouldn’t hate him, she should hate her roommates! She should hate the murderer!

Tang Jiahao’s breathing became more and more rapid, his teeth chattered, and closing his eyes seemed to take him back to that night.

The wall of Huaicheng Jiaotong University was very high, and he needed to use the trees next to it to climb up. Although he was in good shape, the bark was smooth, and it took him nearly half an hour to climb up.

And for those half an hours, she had been calling for help. That girl must have seen him passing by and thought she had a hope of survival. Even though her throat had been corroded by poison, she still didn’t want to die. She screamed hysterically, struggling with all her might to make noise—hoping he could hear her, hoping he could save her, hoping he could take her to the hospital.

But he didn’t dare to turn back, he pretended not to hear.

Three brutal murders had occurred in Huaicheng in a row, and who knew if the cries for help in this forest were a trap set by a murderer.

If he went over, he would be greeted by hell.

He didn’t want to cause trouble.

He was just an ordinary college student, not a hero or a savior.

When he jumped onto the wall, he heard the girl let out a cry of utter despair.

The desperate sound made Tang Jiahao’s brain clear instantly. But he didn’t turn back, pretending not to hear, and jumped back from the wall.

His roommate had left the door open for him. After he went in, he immediately wanted to call 110. But his phone was dead, and his desk was messy. He searched for a long time but couldn’t find the charger. Even because his movements were too hurried and loud, he woke up his roommate, who cursed his whole family from the upper bunk.

He was too flustered and searched all night in the dark but couldn’t find the charger.

It wasn’t until the next day that he found it had fallen to the bottom of the bedside cabinet.

…But it was no longer needed.

The next day he went to class, and the students in the entire classroom were talking about the girl who died in the forest. They said she had been poisoned, and the poisoning process was slow, giving her twelve hours to be rescued. It was so pitiful, it must have been so desperate to wait for death alone. If only someone had passed by there.

Tang Jiahao ran to the toilet and threw up. His girlfriend mentioned this incident when she went to the cafeteria with him for lunch.

She said the murderer had deliberately chosen a deserted forest to let the girl die slowly, which was really cruel.

Tang Jiahao couldn’t bear it anymore and told her to shut up. His girlfriend looked at him strangely and didn’t say anything else.

Tang Jiahao didn’t think he was wrong. Was it a crime to not save someone? Why should he be morally kidnapped? If you were walking alone at night and heard a girl crying for help in a quiet forest, especially when there was a fugitive murderer in the city, what would you do?

He had thought about calling the police, but his phone was dead. What could he do?

It would be good if he was a truly cold-blooded person. Truly cold-blooded people wouldn’t think about these things at all.

The bad thing was that he wasn’t a kind person, nor was he a vicious person.

This matter had been hidden in his heart, like a thorn. Unknowingly piercing through his heart, bleeding and festering, slowly rotting.

On the first night at Luohu Mansion, when he heard the host say to tell a bizarre story that happened around you, his first reaction was this incident.

Maybe his mind wasn’t clear, he didn’t know why he said it. Maybe he wanted to pull out the thorn, maybe he wanted to hypnotize himself.

…That night, I really didn’t hear it.

Slap.

Brother Hu patted his shoulder.

Tang Jiahao woke up from his memories and returned to the four-corner game in progress. He bit his teeth, endured the cold war, touched the wall and continued to move forward, walking behind Su Wanluo and patting her shoulder.

After receiving the instruction, Su Wanluo nodded and walked forward.

Tang Jiahao stood in her place, suddenly smiling a little desperately and bitterly. Well, if it was his turn and he really saw that girl, he would take it as a relief for himself.

The candle in the middle of the room burned little by little. Liang Qingqing stared at the flickering candlelight, her unease growing. She felt that Luoluo’s performance was very strange.

Everyone avoided this four-corner game, but Luoluo was unusually active, as if… she couldn’t wait to see a ghost.

Liang Qingqing suddenly woke up and thought of when she first joined the club in her freshman year. On the first day, everyone was talking about why they were interested in paranormal events. Liang Qingqing’s reason was that she wanted to exercise her courage because she was studying medicine but she was very timid; and Su Wanluo said that she wanted to see if there really were ghosts in this world.

“Actually, I don’t think ghosts are scary. Ghosts don’t harm people. Compared to ghosts, I think people are more scary.”

So—Luoluo wanted to see a ghost?!

Su Wanluo did have someone she wanted to see.

In addition to the little boy in her story, there was also someone who had passed away, her father.

Her father died when she was in the second grade of elementary school.

The little boy’s incident not only alarmed the Lianggang County government but also completely chilled her father’s heart. At the age of 7, she moved with her father to an underdeveloped town near Huaicheng. Their neighbor was a very kind old man who ran a bookstore with little business. When her father went to work, she was entrusted to the old man.

One day she was writing her homework at the table. After the bookstore grandpa hung up the phone, he suddenly told her with red eyes, Luoluo, your father is missing.

Missing. Missing. Did a living person just disappear out of thin air?

There were no surveillance cameras, no clues, not even a body.

The Huaicheng police searched for more than ten years but couldn’t find him.

Ha, missing, missing—who the hell believes that.

She didn’t believe it, she had been looking for her father.

One step, two steps, three steps, four steps.

Su Wanluo didn’t know which old friend from the story she would see, but she wasn’t afraid of anyone.

Everyone was terrified of seeing the ghosts in the stories. But Su Wanluo felt that people were sometimes more terrible than ghosts.

She didn’t have a mother. When she was a child, her father was afraid that she wouldn’t get enough love and education, so he would play with her and tell her stories whenever he had time. The stories were always about good people being rewarded and bad people being punished. Good always prevailed over evil, without exception.

…Good people are rewarded.

Su Wanluo’s eyes welled up with tears.

She walked to the corner, reached out, and this time touched something. Like fire, like iron.

Su Wanluo froze, opened her eyes, and saw a blank face in the darkness. It was the boy who performed magic for her behind the red brick wall!

Red hard hat, wrinkled work clothes. He maintained the appearance of his death, a thin body, dark skin, but his eyes were strangely bright. Unlike the resentful expression that tempted her to kill him at the beginning. This time the boy looked at her like the last glance in a dream. Calm, quiet, even with a bit of complexity.

According to the rules, she should clap three times when she saw the “fifth person” in the four-corner game.

But Su Wanluo stood silently, without moving.

The boy stared at her silently and suddenly waved at her.

Su Wanluo was stunned. She didn’t know if ghosts had the ability to read minds, but at this moment, a great joy and tension surged in her heart. It was as if the answer she had been searching for for more than ten years was about to come to light.

She walked over.

The boy raised his hand and gently wrote two words in her palm.

“Old Art…”

But halfway through writing, his figure suddenly began to twist, his expression painful. Little by little, he turned into smoke, as if the power that maintained his existence began to dissipate. The boy’s body turned into a black, bloody mist, rushing towards the window.

“No!” Su Wanluo suddenly screamed. She chased after him regardless, opened the window, and only saw the mist shadow drifting into the distance.

This was the third floor, she couldn’t jump down.

Su Wanluo gritted her teeth, her eyes bloodshot, and then she turned around and ran out the door like crazy.

“Luoluo?!” The first to hear her voice was Liang Qingqing. Liang Qingqing thought she was in danger, quickly blew out the candle, and then got up to turn on the lights. But at this time, Su Wanluo had already lost her mind and pushed open the door to run outside.

“Luoluo!” Liang Qingqing shouted and rushed out after her.

Qi Lan stood up after her, her expression terrified: “What’s wrong with her?”

The second to react was Brother Hu.

“I’ll go out and see!”

The third was Tang Jiahao.

Tang Jiahao said to Qi Lan: “You stay here, it’s enough for the three of us to find her.” When he said this, his hands trembled with fear, but he still forced a smile.

…Let’s just take it as atonement.

But in this damn life, what had he done wrong to atone for?

During the time it took to blow out the candle and turn on the lights, Su Wanluo’s figure had completely disappeared into the long corridor. It was unknown which way she had run.

“You go to the left, I’ll go to the right,” Brother Hu said.

Tang Jiahao nodded: “Okay.”

Tang Jiahao took a deep breath to cheer himself up. So this was what it felt like to be a hero, it was okay, not that scary.

He walked to the end of the corridor. He didn’t know if it was his illusion, but he felt that the floor under his feet was a bit wet, and it felt strange to step on it, like it had been infiltrated with water. But it had been sunny in Huaicheng these days, so it wouldn’t be damp.

Tang Jiahao was stunned, and cold sweat had already broken out on his back.

The corridor was not lit. When he passed the corner, he saw a painting. The painting was a simple ink landscape, used for decoration by the two cultured owners of the haunted house.

A line of moonlight shone on the painting, and he saw a very tall person standing in front of the painting.

The lines of the ink painting were constantly surging, as if something black was constantly seeping out. They would also giggle and make strange laughter, like one shadow child after another.

And the tall person in that corner, Tang Jiahao couldn’t see his appearance clearly, only saw a head of light golden curly hair. Her arms were as white as lilies, and she held a very long, very thin thread in her hand.

Tang Jiahao was already so scared that his legs were weak. He frantically wanted to run back, but his legs were hugged, and the ghost children dragged him to the ground with a smile, sending him little by little towards the golden-haired woman with the black water surging.

“No… Help, help!”

The woman’s face was a cloud of black mist, without facial features. She lowered her head, her voice blurred and crazy, like a supreme judgment: “Tang Jiahao, that night, did you really not hear her cry for help?”

Tang Jiahao’s eyes turned red all of a sudden.

“No. You could have saved her, but you turned a deaf ear.”

“How desperately she shouted, and you actually said it was a bird call.”

“Who can you deceive? Heaven is watching what people do. You—are also the murderer who killed her.”

She picked up the thread in her hand, her tone calm and cruel, and pointed the tip of the thread at his ear hole.

“People who like to pretend to be deaf shouldn’t have ears, just like people who like to spread rumors should have their tongues cut off.”

He already knew what she wanted to do.

…She was going to use this hard steel wire to pierce his eardrum and break open his entire head.