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Chapter 112 Heaven is about to bestow a great responsibility upon this person.

Brightly looked up.

A person fell onto a tree branch overhead.

That pale face was facing me, a strange smile spreading across its face.

Brightly trembled as she opened her mouth wide: "You...are..."

Then a scream echoed across the mountaintop, startling a few snowflakes from the branches.

He ultimately failed to escape.

"boom"

In the darkness, Gu Mian kicked the door open.

It seems the overhead lights aren't going to come back on after this power outage.

The fat man shone his flashlight outside and saw that the door was wide open, letting in a cold draft that made him shiver.

Gu Mian turned her head to look at the toilet next to her. She saw that the toilet door was also wide open, and she could see the cracked mirror directly opposite the door.

Apart from the two wide-open doors, Chu Changge and Mingliang were nowhere to be seen.

Zhao Lei first noticed the cracked mirror.

Then, as if recalling something, he gave a strange look: "What happened to that mirror... how did it break..."

Gu Mian wasn't concerned about the mirror.

Now two living people are missing, and one of them left behind at least a few screams, as if he had run away.

Chu Changge truly disappeared without a sound, without making a peep.

Who knows where he went?

The group quickly scanned the rooms on the first floor but did not find Chu Changge or Mingliang.

Just as the group arrived at the wide-open toilet door, Zhao Lei suddenly shouted and then squatted down to look under the sink.

Gu Mian also leaned over: "What's wrong?"

Zhao Lei pulled a soft, black thing from under the sink. In the darkness, the fat man didn't see it clearly and instinctively said, "Stockings?"

Zhao Lei, his eyes glazed over, said, "It's a belt..."

"A belt?" The fat man looked surprised. "This thing is a belt?"

The long, limp black strip in Zhao Lei's hand was clearly a wider black elastic band, not a belt.

“This is my dad’s… His belt broke, but he didn’t want to spend money to buy a new one. I remember that a scrap collector came by at that time, and he saw that the rope used to tie up scrap was sturdy, so he asked for a piece to tie around his waist…”

At this point, Zhao Lei's expression turned strange: "My dad only has two pairs of pants, both of which need to be tied at the waist. How could he have left the belt here?"

The fat man looked strange; perhaps he was already dead?

Moreover, it turned into a ghost, causing several people to mysteriously disappear.

Of course, the fat man didn't say these words out loud. He just looked at Gu Mian with a suspicious expression, as if waiting for him to make a decision.

Gu Mian said softly, "At this rate of disappearances, I'm afraid none of you will survive tonight."

The fat man's face twitched slightly: "Why did you specifically separate yourself from us?"

Ignoring the fat man's words, Gu Mian continued, "It seems we'll have to keep looking for clues tonight."

Even in the dead of night, even after a power outage and complete darkness, they still had to move from room to room searching for clues.

Otherwise, everyone might all die before dawn.

The mission is to escape from here.

It wasn't exactly an escape; Mingliang seemed to have encountered danger and rushed out, but it's unclear whether he completed his mission.

The safest option is to find clues about escaping from here; if we could find a "mountain villa escape guide," that would be even better.

Of course, this thing is unlikely to appear.

There must be a ghost in this house, but they don't know the source of the ghost yet. Right now, the most likely source is Zhao Lei's missing father, Zhao Guanhai.

Zhao Lei is also highly suspicious, but he was with them when Mingliang was in danger, so we can temporarily rule out the possibility that he is a ghost.

Of course, it's also possible that there's more than one ghost in this house.

Putting all that aside for now, Gu Mian looked at Zhao Lei: "There are six of us staying here, and three of us have already gone missing tonight. Is there something wrong with this house?" Zhao Lei, holding the belt in his hands, looked pale: "No..."

His expression was enigmatic, as if he were thinking about something, or perhaps he had only thought about it halfway through but couldn't recall it.

The fat man also asked, "Has no one really died in this house?"

The fat man really wanted to add, "Is your dad dead or not?", but he swallowed the words back.

Zhao Lei's face turned even paler. He suddenly clutched his belt and squatted down in the toilet: "No...no, right? I think..."

He looked somewhat pained.

The fat man hesitated for a few seconds, wanting to go forward and pull him up, but Zhao Lei pushed him away.

He buried his head in his knees, so no one could see his expression: "You guys go first... I need some time to calm down and think things through..."

It seems he's really on the verge of a breakdown.

Gu Mian didn't stand on ceremony with him and pulled the fat man next to him: "Let's look for other clues first."

The fat man nodded, picked up his flashlight, and left the toilet doorway.

Bright's girlfriend, Xiao Zhang, followed behind them with small steps.

Gu Mian still remembered that Mingliang said he came to bring a girl along, but ended up bringing himself away instead, leaving behind a girl who wasn't exactly beautiful.

The whole house was pitch black; it was a cloudy day, and there was no moon hanging high in the sky outside.

The stopwatch in the living room was still ticking away, and Gu Mian glanced at it; it was even moving backward.

In the pitch-black living room, the fat man glanced at Zhao Lei, who was squatting in front of the bathroom door, and then moved closer to Gu Mian: "Doctor, should we continue looking for Brother Chu?"

"Let's look for it first," Gu Mian replied.

Chu Changge accompanied Mingliang to the restroom.

But the two of them disappeared while using the restroom, which is really quite eerie.

To this day, Gu Mian has no idea whether the two of them are alive or dead.

The fat man then spoke up timidly, "Actually, Doctor, you don't need to worry too much. If we follow the typical plot of a web novel, Mingliang is probably really dead, but the little brother who has a good relationship with the protagonist should still be alive."

Gu Mian glanced at the fat man and said, "Qidian novels? I've never seen a protagonist as miserable as me on Qidian."

And if Chu Changge really didn't die, then where is he now?
In short, there wasn't a trace of him on the first floor.

The fat man was speechless for a moment, then began to argue illogically: "As the ancients said, 'When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a person, it will first test their will and break their bones...'"

It seems this guy recited it wrong, but Gu Mian didn't pay attention to it. He turned his head to look at Zhao Lei's room next door.

Zhao Lei's room was right next to the toilet, and his door was open, so people could see inside from the outside.

In this instance, Zhao Lei is a problematic character; according to Chu Changge, his memory seems to be flawed.

And he also has occasional breakdowns.

This NPC from the dungeon is now squatting by the toilet entrance, seemingly lost in thought. Seeing a figure squatting there in the middle of the night would probably scare a normal person half to death.

Ignoring Zhao Lei, who was still in a breakdown, Gu Mian walked directly to his room.

The fat man followed closely behind, flashlight in hand.

Zhao Lei's room was very dilapidated and empty.

A vermilion table was placed next to the door. The table was rather tall, reaching above waist level, and a pen holder was placed on it. There seemed to be something reflecting light next to the pen holder.

However, Gu Mian was paying attention to something else.

A knee-high wooden bed is attached to one side of the wall, and a wooden stool that looks like it was made by hand is placed at the head of the bed to serve as a bedside table.

There was an alarm clock on the wooden stool. Gu Mian picked it up and glanced at it; it had stopped spinning.

Like the clocks outside, there are no numbers on the dial, but it is clear that it is stopped at 9:02.

"9:02..."

"902?"

As Gu Mian pondered this, she pulled out her black phone from her pocket.

My phone and computer were both turned off and just got them charging. I haven't eaten yet, so I'm going to grab a bite and come back to writing later o(╥﹏╥)o
Thank you to the following readers for their generous donations: Kele2525, WeissP, Erdouxiaoya, book friend with the last four digits 3084, Yubing_, Kanshurenzhe, Meinigedatougui, Fangtianhuajited, Mightyqi, and Diwowuming. (づ￣3￣)づ╭～
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(End of this chapter)