The sudden scream shattered the deathly silence of the villa.
Everyone immediately looked towards the second floor.
"What happened?"
"I...I don't know!"
"Go and see!"
Everyone quickly rushed to the second floor and arrived at the source of the sound.
It was the room where the paralyzed elderly woman was.
Wang, who had been carrying the food earlier, was now slumped on the floor, leaning against the wall, hugging her knees and trembling!
The steaming food...was scattered all over the floor.
"What happened?"
Ning asked.
In front of everyone, Wang slowly stretched out a finger, pointing at the paralyzed old woman lying on the bed with a stiff expression, and said in a trembling voice:
"She...she...just now...she suddenly spoke!"
Following the direction of her finger, everyone looked at the old woman who was lying motionless on the bed, staring out the window in a daze.
Liu sneered:
"What's the big deal...didn't you hear the hostess say? Her mother is just paralyzed."
"Why can’t she speak?"
"I thought you were so brave?"
"A paralyzed old woman scared you like this?"
Liu had finally seized an opportunity, and his mouth was like a machine gun, chattering away.
But Wang, who was huddled in the corner, seemed to be terrified, and she stuttered and couldn’t even retort.
Ning glanced at the old woman on the bed, then signaled Liu to help clean up the floor, and he pulled Wang up from the floor.
“She spilled it herself, but she wants me to help clean it up. What the hell..."
Liu muttered under his breath, but he was surprisingly obedient and quickly went to the bathroom to get a towel to start wiping the floor.
This scene felt a bit incongruous.
It seemed like Liu, who was not easy to mess with, was so obedient to Ning.
But no one asked.
After cleaning up the room, Ning went to the old woman’s bedside, carefully looked at her kind face, helped her cover the blanket, and turned to leave the room with everyone else.
Back on the first floor, the sky had completely darkened outside.
The pale light illuminated the hall.
But for some reason, everyone felt like they were still in the dark.
The quiet atmosphere made them uneasy.
“Okay, Wang, you can tell us now...what did the old lady tell you upstairs just now?”
Ning sat down on the sofa opposite Wang and poured himself a cup of hot tea.
At the mention of what happened upstairs, Wang’s previously beautiful complexion turned pale again!
Her fingertips tightly clutched her clothes.
“Just now...just now wasn’t I feeding her? ”
“She took a bite of the beef and then...then she spit it out!”
Liu glared:
“Damn, she spit it out?”
“My cooking is that bad?”
Ning frowned.
“Liu, let her finish first.”
Liu smacked his lips, muttered a few words under his breath, and didn’t interrupt anymore.
Wang’s eyes were filled with fear, and her expression was resistant, as if she didn’t want to recall what had happened just now:
“...I thought it was too hot, so I tasted it myself. However, the food wasn’t hot, so I fed her a second bite, but she still spit it out…”
“And this time, after she spit it out, she, she turned her head and stared at me and said...said...”
For a long time, she couldn’t utter a complete sentence.
Xue’s eyebrows were so furrowed . He urged:
“What did she say, just say it!”
Under Xue’s urging, Wang finally mustered her courage and said through gritted teeth:
“Her voice was very low, I couldn’t hear it clearly. It sounded like she was saying...the meat has no...the meat has no taste!”
“Yes...she must have said the meat has no taste!”
As soon as these words were spoken, a terrifying lightning bolt flashed across the sky, followed by a deafening thunderclap!
Everyone was startled by the thunder!
"Damn, what a thunderbolt..."
Ning looked at the dark sky outside and suddenly went to the window and opened it.
The cold wind carrying raindrops blew against his face.
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“It’s raining...heavy rain, strong wind…”
He closed the window again, his face becoming more solemn.
“These have already started to come true..."
“That letter...it wasn’t a prank after all?”
Unlike the others, Ning had received a mysterious letter...before he got on the bus.
He had never told anyone about this.
Just as everyone was whispering and discussing the matter of the tasteless meat, Ning suddenly closed the window.
He closed it tightly, not letting a single bit of wind blow in.
“Okay, she doesn’t want to eat, forget it. It’s getting late, let’s go to bed early...”
“Get up early tomorrow morning and make some meat porridge for the old woman.”
“Have you chosen rooms?”
Everyone, who had been discussing, suddenly fell silent.
“Are...are we really going to sleep in separate rooms?”
At this time, Ya Mo, who seldom spoke, spoke up, her expression timid, as if she had been frightened by what had just happened.
Xue said:
“We took a brief look at the rooms earlier. They’re very big, with double beds, and the rooms are very clean. Two people can sleep in one room just right.”
Yan’s eyes were still a little swollen. Hearing that they had to share a room, she anxiously said:
“But...but there are three of us girls!”
Xue sighed:
“The rooms are not small, you girls are relatively small, you can sleep together.”
The three girls looked at each other, but didn’t speak.
No one likes to sleep in the same bed with a stranger.
But they already knew that this villa...was not safe.
Everyone felt as if something was lurking in the shadows, staring at them...
After turning off the lights, they went to the second floor together.
After a brief discussion, Ning and Liu entered the same room first.
The three girls were in the innermost room on the right side of the corridor on the second floor, farthest from the old woman they were taking care of.
The remaining two boys chose the room next to Ning’s.
For some reason, Ning seemed to have a magical power about him, and being close to him made everyone feel safer.
The last girl to go to her room was Wang.
While she was still lost in thought about what had happened during the day, everyone had already gone into their rooms.
For a moment, she was the only one left in the corridor.
The corridor’s light switch was at the top of the stairs, and it was a single switch.
However, the rooms they chose were at the very end, at least twenty meters away.
If she wanted to turn off the light, it meant she would have to walk through twenty meters of darkness.
Her gaze fell on the open louvered window at the end of the corridor.
The trees outside were growing like devils, twisted and grotesque, accompanied by the cold wind, as if they were about to enter and devour Wang at any moment!
She couldn’t help but shiver, she didn’t dare to turn off the light anymore, and quickly entered the innermost room, then locked the door tightly.
Bang!
…
Inside the room, Ning took off his shirt, revealing a set of sharp-edged, explosive muscles.
Liu, who was brushing his teeth, glanced at him in surprise.
Ning put on his clothes, but you couldn’t tell he was such a muscular hunk!
“Bro …I didn’t expect it, you’re hiding it pretty well!”
“ These abs, if you went to a nightclub…wouldn’t the rich ladies be vying for you?”
Liu chuckled and winked at Ning.
Ning rolled his eyes:
“So why are you following me all the time?”
Hearing this, Liu spat out the toothpaste foam, restrained the small expression on his face, and said seriously:
“...You’re pretty perceptive, bro, but I can’t tell you yet. After we survive the blood gate this time, I’ll tell you…”
Hearing Liu’s answer, Ning was stunned for a moment, then laughed:
“You’re so mysterious.”
Liu shook his head and changed the subject:
“By the way, bro, do you think…that old woman is suspicious?”
Ning was silent for a moment.
“It’s not just the old woman, the whole family, even the villa complex, is suspicious!”
Liu was stunned:
“What’s wrong with the villa complex?”
Ning said:
“The villa hostess said that only their family lives in this area, but actually, I passed by quite a few villas, and there are traces of people living in them, and they were left recently, within the past month or two. There were eight houses I saw, all of them were like this, not to mention the many I didn’t see…”
“This proves that...this area was inhabited not long ago.”
Listening to Ning’s words, cold sweat gradually seeped out from Liu’s back.
If Ning’s observations were correct, then...where did those people go?
Ning paced to the window, his expression solemn, his hands in his pockets, and continued:
“And, if only one person lives here, they wouldn’t usually buy such a large villa, so the people who live here generally have family or friends. Even if they go out to work, there won’t be absolutely no one at home…”
“But in fact, this villa complex seems to be left with...just us.”
He pointed with his hand.
Following the direction of his finger, Liu clearly saw that the dozen or so houses in front of their window...were all pitch black!
Not a single light!
“This...”
“How come?!”
His face turned extremely ugly.
Ning said slowly:
“Something must have happened here.”
“Something...very terrible.”
He carefully checked the window to make sure it was locked tightly, not letting a single bit of wind blow in, and then pulled the curtains closed and returned to bed.
Without the wind, both of them lying on the bed could smell a...strange odor.
“What’s that smell?”
Liu asked.
The smell wasn’t strong, but it lingered, it seemed like...something was rotting and decaying.
The two recalled what Xue had said earlier, and after a search, they finally found the source of the smell.
—Above their heads.
The wooden ceiling there was sticky, as if some kind of liquid was seeping through.
The liquid was yellowish-brown and smelled terrible.
“Damn...”
Liu felt a bit nauseous and quickly moved the bed away a bit.
“What is that?”
Standing below, Ning squinted at the damp patch on the ceiling.
After a long silence, he said:
“Big Beard, do you trust me?”
Liu didn’t understand what Ning meant, but he nodded anyway.
“Yes.”
Ning said slowly:
“Tonight, don’t fall asleep, don’t turn on the lights, no matter what you hear...don’t pay attention.”
Liu’s body stiffened.
“Bro, do you mean...something is going to happen tonight?”
Ning was silent for a long time before finally nodding imperceptibly.
He turned off the light, and the room was instantly plunged into a silent and terrifying darkness...
Liu lay in bed, his mind in a mess.
Although he tried his best not to fall asleep, as time went by, sleepiness finally spread throughout his body...
He didn’t know how long it had been, but he was woken up by a strange sound.
The sound came from outside the door.
It was a sound...like two sharp metal objects rubbing against each other.
Screech—
Screech—
Hearing this sound that made his hair stand on end, the first thing Liu thought of...was knives and forks!
He often cooked, and he was all too familiar with the sound of kitchenware and tableware!
Liu sat up abruptly, wanting to turn on the light, but then he suddenly heard Ning’s warning and lowered his hand.
“Bro , are you there?”
Liu asked in a low voice, and immediately a ‘shh’ sound came from beside him.
“Don’t make a sound.”
Ning’s voice was also very low, and there was a hint of an imperceptible tremor.
Obviously, he was also nervous.
The door to their room wasn’t completely closed, there was a gap, and the light from the corridor outside shone in through the gap under the door.
As the terrifying sound brushed past their door, a ghostly black shadow also flashed by…
The terrifying scratching sound almost made Liu’s heart jump out of his throat!
The thing outside...had stopped at their door!
Liu clenched his fists, and his breath stopped!
What was that thing outside?
What would happen if it came in?
At that moment, his mind went blank, as if he had lost the ability to think.
It felt like minutes, but it also felt like just a moment.
The terrifying black shadow outside finally moved again, walking towards the depths of the corridor…
The piercing scratching sound rang out again—
Screech—
Screech—
It felt like an executioner was looking for a prisoner to be slowly tortured...
It went all the way in, stopped for a while at the second door, then went to the innermost door on the corridor.
It also stopped for a while outside the door before finally disappearing...
At this time, Ning suddenly sat up from the bed and crept to the door, pressing his ear against the crack in the door.
He listened for a long time.
No more sounds came from outside.
It was as if that black shadow had simply vanished.
After listening quietly for ten minutes, he confirmed that there was no more sound outside before returning to bed.
“Bro, what was that thing outside?”
Liu asked in a low voice.
Ning shook his head:
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely not human.”
“It didn’t make any sound when it walked.”
Hearing this, cold sweat immediately broke out on Liu’s forehead.
No way…
This villa…
Could there really be something unclean?