Chapter 126

Chapter 126

Wei Sen held nothing back as she shared everything she had learned today from Meiya’s home, the village doctor, and the cave with the others. However, she did not reveal anything Lin Ze had told her.

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Xu You and Chen Lin also shared the information they had gathered that day.

Based on Wei Sen and Huang Xinze’s experience going up to the fourth floor the day before, they had taken advantage of Lili leaving the inn that afternoon to explore the fourth floor again.

Chen Lin kept watch while Xu You went upstairs. Using a piece of wire, she unlocked the tightly shut doors and wisely chose not to take anything from any of the rooms.

Precisely because she did not take anything, Lili did not sense anything wrong on the fourth floor and did not rush back. The two of them had enough time to explore.

Xu You discovered that the locked rooms were all hung with bloody human skins, just as everyone had guessed yesterday.

Some had already dried out, while others were very fresh. Some were even familiar faces.

In one of the rooms, there was a well-preserved corpse. Judging from the clothing and the state of the body, this person was the real innkeeper, Lili, who had been dead for about twenty years.

The scenes in those rooms were too gruesome, so Xu You did not post the photos in the group.

One of the locked rooms was rather special. There were four bunk beds inside, so it should have once been a staff dormitory, but it had long been abandoned and showed no sign of anyone living there.

Xu You found a dust-covered letter inside.

[The village chief said that for the thing you want, you have to use any means necessary, so I did it.

But why?

He would rather risk his life to go down the cliff and save her. As long as he was willing, I could have stayed by his side just like she did.

As long as… he was willing.

I told him that anything she could do for him, I could do too.

But he said there was only one of her in this world. If she died, he would not go on living either.

Then I lied to him. I said she went to the edge of the cliff to take photos and accidentally fell. He believed me.

It was snowing heavily that night, but he was determined to go beneath the cliff no matter what.

His hands were red from the cold as he desperately dug through the rubble, and blood stained the snow crimson.

I cried and told him to stop searching. He shook off my hand and kept moving down the precipice.

After an entire night, he actually found her in the forest below the cliff.

What I never expected was that she was still alive…

Her legs had been gnawed by the Wolf pack in the forest, and her face was a bloody mess from hitting the rocks.

She was barely breathing in his arms.

I was terrified that she would expose my hypocrisy in front of him, but I also knew very well that she couldn’t possibly know I had done it.

Because I had used his name to ask her to meet at West Slope. At the moment I pushed her, she never saw what I looked like.

So even if she survived, she wouldn’t hate me.

I originally thought I was clever enough, but in that moment, I regretted it. I truly regretted it.

I remembered that she was the one who told me how beautiful the outside world was.

She was the one who told me that girls had to study, that studying was the only way a girl like me could change her fate and leave the mountains.

She even said that after they went back, they would take me to the city to live with them and send me to school.

But the village chief told me I didn’t need to study. It was enough to marry a good man.

And he was the man I had to marry by any means necessary.

Between the village chief and her, I chose to believe the village chief, because he had always treated me very well.

But this time, I think I really made a mistake. I…

When I saw her on the verge of death, I felt so sad.

He carried the dying her back to the village, but because the heavy snow had sealed off the mountain, cars couldn’t leave the village at all.

There was only one narrow path out, and the people in the village knew how to take it.

He carried her from house to house, kneeling and begging them to lead him out of the village. He wanted to take her to the hospital.

I thought, if only I had walked that path before, if only everyone hadn’t refused him, then she might still have had a chance to live.

I thought I was the one who killed her, but it turned out everyone was an accomplice!

I don’t know why they did it, but I know they definitely didn’t do it for me.

She died. She died in his arms.

He held her body and cried in the snow for a long time. In the end, he ran toward Uncle’s house like he had gone mad.

I don’t know what they said. I was so frightened that I came down with a high fever, then stumbled home in a daze.
When I woke up again, I couldn’t find him anywhere. Father said he had already gone back to the city.

But from that day on, I started hearing strange noises coming from the basement late at night, when everything was quiet. Father said it was just rats and told me to ignore it.

Several more days passed. I bought some rat poison and went down to the basement-only to see him there again!

My mind was a mess, but I knew one thing for certain: I had to save him.

There was nowhere in the village for us to hide, so I could only take him into a cave in the mountains.

His face was sallow, his lips pale, and his entire body wouldn’t stop trembling.

I said, “Don’t be scared. You’re safe now. I’m right here with you. I always will be…”

That night, the snow fell heavily. The cave was freezing, but I didn’t dare light a fire. I was afraid Father would find us and drag him back again.

I held him tightly, wishing I could give him every bit of warmth I had.

But his body still grew colder and colder. No matter what I did, he only became weaker.

Just before dawn, I saw him smile for the first time in so long. He said, “Shuhan, slow down. I can’t catch up to you.”

This time, I was the one holding his corpse… just as he once had. So this was what heartbreak felt like.

Father found me in the end. His body was thrown off the cliff to feed the jackals and Wolf.

I thought that would be the end of it.

Aside from the village chief and Father, no one knew what had truly happened.

But… they came back!!!

They looked so normal, talking and laughing as they went to the cliff together… until she pushed him down!

I went back to the village and told the village chief and Father, but no one believed me!

But they really did come back. They came back as vengeful ghosts…

The villagers still had no idea. The entire village had already fallen into a nightmare.

Every sin has its cause and its consequence…

I am both the cause and the consequence.

Everyone in this village is both the cause and the consequence…

Perhaps this nightmare will never end, and I will be trapped in it forever.]

Based on the clues they had, everyone guessed that this letter had most likely been written by Meiya. The “she” in it was Li Shuhan, and the “he” was Gao Lei.

At the very beginning of it all, Meiya had killed Li Shuhan! Right at the cliff known as West Slope.

Lin Xiaoxue quickly shared what she and Guo Lan had discovered while following Lili today.

Just as Lin Ze had seen yesterday, Lili left the inn and headed straight west into the forest, arriving beside the cliff at West Slope.

This was the very place where she had fallen to her death back then.

She stood at West Slope, staring down below as though searching for something. After looking for a long while, she sat down.

She sat quietly at the edge of the cliff, saying nothing and doing nothing. Even when the wind and snow settled on her shoulders, she seemed not to feel it at all.

After sitting there for more than an hour, she finally got up and returned to the inn.

Immediately after that, Huang Xinze also recounted what had happened today.

He and Lao Wang had stayed at the inn the entire day. Lao Wang had been investigating the killer who murdered the twin sisters.

During the investigation, they discovered that Xia Susu and Meng Zhenzhen had become roommates. They also found that the prime suspect was Xia Susu. However, because they could not find the murder weapon or direct evidence, they could not determine Xia Susu’s guilt.

During this time, they had also investigated Meiya. Meiya had arrived at the inn at around 6:25 in the morning.

That made Wei Sen understand that the person she had bumped into when she went downstairs that morning had not been Meiya at all, but the Fetal Ghost summoned by Xia Susu in disguise.

So the reason the Ceramic Doll had appeared on Wei Sen was that the Fetal Ghost had slipped it onto her without anyone noticing at that time.

After everyone synchronized all their clues, they gained an entirely new understanding of the story behind this Instance.

Guo Lan’s worldview was once again refreshed by this group of people.

They clearly weren’t rookies going through an Instance for the first time, and they had even encountered teammates like Xia Susu who stabbed them in the back. Yet this group still chose to trust one another, sharing these important clues directly related to Perfect Clearance without holding anything back.

She truly didn’t know whether to say they underestimated human nature or were simply too naive.

But…

She actually envied them a little.

In the Eerie World, it was far too rare to see a team like this.

She just didn’t know how long their team could survive in the Eerie World, or how long these people could preserve this innocence.

Guo Lan took a deep breath and said, “Come on. Let’s properly sort through all the clues we have so far. The truth is right within reach!”