Chapter 101
Chapter 101
Wei Sen stepped closer to take a look. Photographs covered all four walls of the room.
Starting from the left side of the doorway, the wall was filled with photos of tourists with all kinds of faces.
There were couples taking pictures together at the inn entrance, senior tour groups holding red flags in the snow, and lonely silhouettes beneath the Aurora.
All of these were proof left behind by tourists who had once stayed at this inn.
Then what about these people?
Had they finished their trips and left, or had they died?
The farther Wei Sen walked inside, the older the photos on the wall became. Judging by how badly the photos in the deepest part of the room had faded, they looked to be at least ten years old.
And unlike the other photos, the ones posted deepest inside all featured the same group of people. In every single photo, one man’s face had been gouged out.
Judging by his build, the man with the missing face should be the same person each time, around thirty years old.
Wei Sen found a group photo of these people. It had been taken in front of the entrance to Aurora Village.
The group was holding a banner that read: Ether Group Aurora Village Project Team.
In the photo, there were thirty-two people in total, both men and women, all appearing to be between twenty and forty years old.
The shrine housing the Black Buddha was also in the picture, positioned in front of the group. Perhaps it was just the shooting angle, but Wei Sen kept feeling as though the Black Buddha’s eyes were looking straight at the camera.
Or rather… the Black Buddha’s eyes were staring at her through the photograph!
Wei Sen blocked the Black Buddha with her finger and continued examining the photo. There was far more information inside it than that.
At the center of the frame stood a woman in a white lab coat. She also looked to be around thirty years old. Her eyes were sharp and intelligent, and an open, confident smile curved her lips.
Standing right beside her was the man whose face had been gouged out.
It was obvious that when this photo was taken, all thirty-two of them had been very happy.
There was also a timestamp in the lower right corner of the photo: 202912.
That was exactly when Ether Group had funded the construction of Aurora Village.
These people were from Ether Group, and among them were the second batch of experts the village chief had mentioned.
Judging by how everyone was dressed, the woman in the lab coat should have been one of those experts.
Wei Sen continued looking through the photos from that period.
There were many photos of just the female researcher and the man with the gouged-out face. The two behaved intimately, so they were probably husband and wife, or lovers.
Wei Sen had no time to think further. She quickly photographed all the photos in the room, then entered the next room.
The moment she pushed open the door, a foul, fishy stench hit her in the face.
This was a bedroom. Its layout was the same as the guest rooms, except there was only one large bed.
Aside from the bed, the room contained only a dark brown dressing table and a wooden chair.
Wait!
Wei Sen walked up to the dressing table. A mirror!
There were no mirrors in the inn’s guest rooms or lobby, yet a mirror had appeared in this room on the fourth floor.
And there was no dust on the dressing table, which meant someone had been using it all along.
Could it be Lili?
This was most likely her room!
Wei Sen tried looking into the mirror. In the Eerie World, this was a dangerous thing to do, but right now she had no choice.
Fortunately, the mirror was just an ordinary mirror, and no strange phenomenon occurred.
Wei Sen had once asked Meiya why the inn had no mirrors. Meiya’s answer had been that Lili hated looking in mirrors, so she had made Meiya put them all away.
But if this was Lili’s room, then why did she have a mirror in her own room, one she clearly used often?
Wei Sen continued searching. She opened the dressing table drawer, and inside were identical transparent plastic bottles. Each bottle contained a very viscous liquid.
Poison?
Or something else?
Wei Sen did not dare open one rashly, so she slipped a bottle into her pocket.
With so many bottles of liquid here, one missing bottle would not be easy to notice.
After finding nothing else of use in the room, Wei Sen went out onto the balcony.
From the height of the fourth floor, she could see straight to the village entrance. She could even see the shrine. It was just too far away; the shrine, originally more than half a meter tall, looked only the size of a black dot from the balcony.
Wei Sen continued on to the next room. This time, however, the door was locked and required a key to open.
She tried several rooms in a row, but none of them would open.
If she forced the doors open, Lili would definitely notice. Then getting up to the fourth floor again next time would probably be difficult.
Wei Sen thought for a moment, then tried lying down to look through the crack under the door. Unexpectedly, the floor inside was completely empty.
But through the gap beneath the door, she could smell an extremely heavy stench of blood, along with a faint odor of rot.
Why?
Why would an empty room be filled with such a foul smell…?
As she was thinking, Huang Xinze came over from the other side.
“Sister Sen, what are you doing?”
“None of the doors from here onward can be opened.” Wei Sen slowly rose to her feet.
“Same on my side.”
Suddenly, Wei Sen’s Watch vibrated.
“Zhong Lingkun?” Wei Sen opened the message in confusion.
[Zhong Lingkun: She’s back!]
“Zhong Lingkun? That Lone Wolf? Why is he messaging you?” Huang Xinze asked, baffled.
“Not good!” Wei Sen sucked in a sharp breath. “Run!”
She and Zhong Lingkun weren’t close, yet he had sent her a message like this.
That meant Zhong Lingkun knew they had gone up to the fourth floor, and he also knew where Lili was!
There was only one possibility…
Zhong Lingkun had been hiding near the inn the entire time. Not only had he seen them go up to the fourth floor, he had also waited until Lili left the inn, then followed her out.
That was why he knew Lili’s movements so clearly now!
If Lili were just coming back normally, Zhong Lingkun knew they had someone keeping watch and wouldn’t have gone out of his way to warn her.
So Lili must have done something abnormal!
She was a vengeful ghost, and one without legs at that. The speed at which she could return might be faster than they could possibly imagine!
It was precisely because Wei Sen realized this that she hurriedly warned Huang Xinze to run.
But just as the two of them were about to head for the stairs, it was already too late!
By the window on the first floor of the inn.
Lin Xiaoxue stared unblinkingly through the glass.
This was the task Sister Sen and Brother Ze had entrusted to her. She had to do it well. She had to stay absolutely focused and could not relax for even a second!
As she was thinking, Lin Xiaoxue saw a brownish-black blur flash through the forest, heading toward the inn at incredible speed.
“What the heck is that?!” Lin Xiaoxue shot to her feet in shock. For a moment, she couldn’t tell with the naked eye what it was at all.
Wait! When the innkeeper left just now, wasn’t she wearing clothes that color?
!
Could that blur be-!!!
Startled, Lin Xiaoxue immediately rushed toward the door.
Whatever it was, she had to close the inn’s door first and stop that thing!
But that thing moved far faster than she had imagined. Even though she had sprinted toward the front door at full speed, the figure appeared right in front of her the moment she reached it.
Lin Xiaoxue froze all over, staring at Lili, who had suddenly appeared at the entrance without even the slightest hint of breathlessness.
“Innkeeper, you… you’re back so soon!” Lin Xiaoxue forced herself to shout at the top of her lungs.
She could no longer use her Watch to send a message, so she could only make her voice as loud as possible-loud enough for the two people on the fourth floor to hear.
She was glad she had reacted quickly. Although she hadn’t managed to close the door, she had at least blocked the innkeeper’s path and stopped it from sweeping upstairs like a gust of wind!
But…
So this was the power of an Eerie Entity? Terrifying!!!
Lin Xiaoxue struggled to suppress her wildly pounding heart and looked at Lili before her with a smile uglier than crying.
“Move,” Lili said coldly, looking upstairs.
“Innkeeper, I just happen to need you for something. Come on, let’s sit down for a bit.” Lin Xiaoxue swallowed, then, as if ready to die, grabbed Lili’s arm.
The instant she touched her, that icy body temperature sent goosebumps crawling all over Lin Xiaoxue.
This strength, this temperature, this feeling…
So this was what it felt like to touch a ghost!
Cold sweat poured down Lin Xiaoxue’s back, but she didn’t dare let go at all.
Lili’s dark, eerie gaze turned to Lin Xiaoxue. “Are you trying to stop me?”
Lin Xiaoxue was caught between a rock and a hard place. All she could do was stall for time. “No, but I really do have a problem I need your help with right now!”
“Not now…” Lili’s body inched forward bit by bit.
Seeing this, Lin Xiaoxue grabbed her arm with both hands and pulled back with all her strength. “Please help me! Please, just help me!”
Suddenly, Lili stopped moving and slowly turned her head back toward Lin Xiaoxue. “All right… At midnight, I’ll come to your room…”
Lin Xiaoxue felt a chill shoot straight to the top of her skull. Her entire body was bound by some unspeakable force, leaving her unable to move. She couldn’t even open her mouth to speak.
Lili pulled her arm free, leaned forward, and pressed her whole body close to the ground in a diving posture. Like a spirit snake, she swiftly slithered toward the fourth floor.
Lin Xiaoxue’s pupils shook violently. Her face went deathly pale, but with her body controlled by that Eerie Entity power, she could only watch helplessly as Lili’s figure vanished from sight in two seconds.