Chapter 105
Chapter 105
“Every midnight, the villagers would hear a woman crying. Some people even ran into a faceless female ghost in the forest!
“Then, in the middle of the night, the doors of villagers’ homes would suddenly be knocked on. But when they asked who was outside, no one answered!
“That’s why every household in the village keeps its doors and windows tightly shut.
“And the village doctor said that before nightfall, they always sprinkle salt outside their doors and windows to keep those Eerie Entities out!
“As for the people raising black dogs, that’s because black dogs can ward off evil!”
Huang Xinze suddenly understood. “Oh, so the ring I picked up belonged to Li Shuhan, and that sealed-off guest room was where the couple stayed back then.”
“The Faceless Woman in the lyrics is most likely Li Shuhan, who was pushed off the cliff. After all, all the strange incidents started after her death,” Chen Lin said. Then she frowned in confusion. “But one thing is odd. Gao Lei was the one who killed her. Why doesn’t she go after Gao Lei? Why does she keep appearing in the village?”
“And where did Gao Lei end up? Why did he kill his own wife? From the photos Sister Sen sent in the group chat, the two of them seemed to have a pretty good relationship,” Lin Xiaoxue said.
He Xu’s eyes lit up. “Maybe Gao Lei killed Li Shuhan and then hid in one of the villagers’ homes! So Li Shuhan isn’t wandering the village looking for villagers. She’s looking for Gao Lei!”
Guo Lan nodded. “That makes sense. A life for a life. If Gao Lei left the village, the law would definitely punish him. In that case, the most dangerous place might actually be the safest…”
“Then do you think Li Shuhan could be the Skeleton Monster?!” Xia Susu looked at everyone.
“Judging by the Skeleton Monster’s bone structure, it should be male,” Huang Xinze said with complete sincerity.
“Li Shuhan is the Faceless Woman, and she is also the current innkeeper of Aurora Inn,” Wei Sen said calmly.
Everyone looked at her in confusion.
Xia Susu scoffed. “How is that possible? The innkeeper is called Lili, and she’s obviously the woman named Zhang Li that the village doctor mentioned! Besides, she’s missing both legs, not her face!”
“Then how do you explain the piece of face skin the Skeleton Monster gave her?” Lin Xiaoxue shot back, unconvinced.
Xia Susu shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? The Skeleton Monster is the Faceless Woman. It goes around collecting pieces of face skin, and once it has collected enough, giving some away isn’t that strange. The innkeeper is a ghost too. Isn’t it perfectly normal for ghosts to interact with each other?”
Wei Sen gave Xia Susu a bland glance, too lazy to refute her speculation. She stated her conclusion directly. “The real Zhang Li was already gone by the time the inn fired all its employees. Maybe she died, maybe she left Aurora Village.
“The current innkeeper is Li Shuhan. She was pushed off a cliff and fell to her death. Her face and legs were probably lost at that time.
“On the first night, when she entered each of our rooms, she was choosing face skin she liked. You should have heard her say things like ‘pretty’ and ‘not pretty.’
“Today, I found her room on the fourth floor. There was a mirror in her room.
“Meiya said the innkeeper hates mirrors and made her remove every mirror in the inn.
“But now, the innkeeper’s own room has the mirror she hates most. That means she has a reason she has no choice but to look in one.
“And I also found this in her room.
“If I’m not wrong, what’s inside should be… superglue.”
Wei Sen placed the bottle she had brought out of Lili’s room on the table. At first, she hadn’t known what was inside.
It was only after listening to Xu You relay the story told by the village doctor, then connecting it to the fact that the corpses had all lost the skin from their faces, the Skeleton Monster had given Lili a piece of face skin, and that unavoidable mirror existed, that she reached this conclusion.
Everyone stared at the unidentified liquid with deep wariness. For a long while, no one volunteered to verify it.
Zhong Lingkun swept his gaze across the group, his eyes as calm as a cold pool. Very casually, he picked up the bottle, opened it, and sniffed.
“Mm. Glue.”
Wei Sen looked at Huang Xinze and continued, “We encountered many rooms on the fourth floor that couldn’t be opened. Those rooms… are probably full of the human faces she collected. That’s why even in weather this cold, the corridor on the fourth floor still smelled of blood and rot.”
Huang Xinze swallowed, unable to imagine what it would feel like to push open a door and see an entire room hung with pieces of human face skin…
“The Faceless Woman kills Order Keepers who break the rules and peels off their faces, while Meiya cleans up the traces after the murders for her. The Skeleton Monster in the forest also hunts Order Keepers, and its target is their faces too. The only difference is that it peels them off to give them to Lili.
“So that explains why all the dead lost their faces, yet the skinning methods were completely different, and the bodies showed up in entirely different places.”
Guo Lan lowered her eyes in thought for a moment, then suddenly looked at Wei Sen. “Then the Skeleton Monster in the forest… could it be Gao Lei?”
Wei Sen nodded. “At least, that’s what I think. But we don’t have any proof yet.”
Xia Susu frowned. “That’s impossible! Gao Lei killed Li Shuhan, so why would he turn into an Eerie Entity and still give her roses and presents? How does that make any sense?!”
“Can we trust everything the village doctor said?” Wei Sen’s single question left Xia Susu speechless.
Xu You said, “And I still don’t understand what the village doctor wants the Snow Lotus for. I asked her, but she refused to say.”
Huang Xinze scratched his hair. “This is so complicated. I feel like my brain is about to grow again…”
Everyone fell into thought.
Wei Sen stared blankly at the tea in front of her.
At present, things had become somewhat clearer. At the very least, they had confirmed the innkeeper’s identity and learned about what had happened back then.
But there were still countless unresolved doubts.
Why had Gao Lei killed his wife back then?
Could they fully trust the village doctor’s words?
The villagers were clearly afraid of Eerie Entities, which was why they took every possible precaution against them.
Then what purpose did the Faceless Woman have in replacing the innkeeper and staying in the village?
What kind of grudge existed between the village and the three people from Ether Group?
What role did Meiya play in all of this? And what did she know?
If the Skeleton Monster was Gao Lei, then why had he turned into a monster like that?
“Right! There’s one more extremely important thing!” Guo Lan said, sending another photo she had taken in the cave to the group chat. “The condition for Perfect Clearance!”
Wei Sen tapped open the image. The blood-red words on the stone wall were shocking to behold.
[Perfect Clearance-Obtain the Divine Gift!]
“God… Gift?” Lin Xiaoxue blinked. “What’s the Divine Gift?”
Chen Lin suddenly remembered. “I remember the village chief mentioning it! He said the Aurora is the Divine Gift!”
Xu You said, “Exactly!”
“The Divine Gift is the Aurora, so we need to obtain the Aurora?” Lin Xiaoxue stared blankly at the others.
“Wouldn’t we obtain it if we just take a picture when the Aurora appears?” Xia Susu raised an eyebrow.
“It won’t be that simple,” Zhou Jie said coldly.
Zhong Lingkun stood and looked out the glass window. “Once we figure out why the Aurora appears in this village, we’ll know what obtaining the Divine Gift actually means.”
“Oh, come on!” Huang Xinze laughed. “You want us to investigate something even experts couldn’t figure out? I say we just keep our heads down and wait out the six days.”
Zhong Lingkun glanced at his Watch. It was almost mealtime. Without another word, he left the table first and headed toward the cafeteria.
“That kid really has no manners,” Huang Xinze said.
Wei Sen glanced at Zhong Lingkun’s back, then silently withdrew her gaze.
Zhong Lingkun was still hiding many clues he had yet to share. But in any case, he couldn’t go anywhere tonight. They would have the long night ahead of them to talk it all through properly…
For now, there was still one more thing to do-something that could earn Wei Sen another wave of Merit Points!
With that thought, Wei Sen looked at the others and said, “Everyone, tonight will be exceptionally dangerous. We went up to the fourth floor and were discovered by Lili, so she will definitely retaliate tonight. Huang Xinze and I will bear the brunt of it, but that doesn’t mean the rest of you are absolutely safe.”
The reason they had been discovered by Lili on the fourth floor, Wei Sen guessed, was because Huang Xinze had taken that ring.
The ring was a token between Li Shuhan and Gao Lei, something of great significance to Li Shuhan. Since Huang Xinze had taken her most important possession, she would naturally have sensed it.
Xia Susu planted her hands on her hips and glared at Wei Sen resentfully. “This is all your fault! You just had to act clever and go to the fourth floor! Now you’ve dragged all of us into danger!”
Guo Lan thought for a moment and said, “This really is troublesome. If the Faceless Woman comes to kill tonight, all we can do is use Defense-Type Anomalous Artifacts to save ourselves. But… do all of you have one?”