Thriller Zone: From the Mental Hospital to the Ghostly World

Chen Ji also lowered his body slightly, maintaining the same height as the sheep, and looked the other person in the eye.

The black goat's ears drooped down beside its face like two little braids; looking at it this way, the black goat's upright pupils were no longer frightening, but full of life and very lively.

In a daze, Chen Ji seemed to glimpse what Li Fengxiu looked like before.

Looking back now, she was only seventeen or eighteen years old before she turned into a sheep.

In modern terms, that would mean being in high school.

The goat's attitude changed quickly, perhaps partly due to the madman's earlier howl.

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Chen Ji asked, "Where did you go?"

The black goat stretched its neck in a certain direction, pointed at itself with its hoof, and then made a sniffing motion.

Hua Yilan translated, "She smelled the scent of her kind in that direction."

At the foot of the mountain?

Does it refer to the sheepfold or to Master Zhou's new target?

Sheep pawed at Chen Ji's arm, scraping off a layer of sheep dung mud from his clothes.

So that's the sheepfold.

Hua Yilan said, "She wants you to take her there."

Chen Ji nodded; he had the same idea, but it wasn't dark yet.

"I'll go out for a bit first, and then I'll take you away when it gets dark."

He later confirmed that the black ewes took a route into the village every night from behind the forest, which meant they went in a big circle and didn't pass by the sheepfold.

Soon, he followed Hua Yilan into the forest. After two days of exploration, she was already familiar with the paths in the forest.

“Ghosts generally don’t come here,” Hua Yilan said. “If you go a little further east, you’ll reach the boundary of this domain, where I saw the mist.”

Chen Ji could vaguely see that the sky over there was gray and gloomy.

He didn't know if it was because of the "Night Walk" technique, but he felt like an assassin as he walked, his footsteps were silent and his body was extremely light.

Hua Yilan hesitated several times, wondering if Chen Ji had some side business in real life, but she didn't dare to ask.

Soon the two secretly slipped away to the vicinity of the village.

Even Hua Yilan clearly sensed something was amiss, and hesitated, asking, "Is no one living in this village...?"

It should be close to noon by now, but not a wisp of smoke rises from the village, and they see no one along the path leading into the village or in the fields.

"They've all been turned into sheep by ghosts." Chen Ji paused for a few seconds before saying, "Grey goats. They're their tonic."

This makes Sanhuai Village look like a ghost village today.

The silence was eerily quiet.

The sky was overcast.

The village in front of him seemed to be coated with a black and white filter; however, even from a great distance, Chen Ji could still see circles of red halos at the foot of the distant mountains.

"All the lanterns in the village... were hung on the stage."

It's obvious that it's all for the sake of "putting on a big show".

Chen Ji felt a growing anxiety, wondering how far the stage built by Du Tingfeng and the other two had progressed.

With "Chang Hao" overseeing things, there's probably no way to slack off.

They walked along a small path and soon arrived at the entrance of the Zhou residence. Just like when they left in the morning, the vermilion gate was tightly closed.

Chen Ji instinctively leaped lightly and nimbly vaulted over the wall.

They confirmed that the courtyard was empty.

【Night Walk】......

Chen Ji was leaning against the wall, about to pull Hua Yilan up, when he suddenly realized something.

He put the [Night Walk] in the pen pocket.

But the pen didn't react at all, seemingly accepting everything calmly.

He quickly took out his pen, and before he could ask, the pen wrote:

【How】

"...You're not asleep?" Chen Ji whispered to it.

No.

That's very strange.

Chen Ji took out the [Terracotta Figurine - Night Walk] again and saw that the little figure was actually in the same pose as him, lying on his palm.

He said meaningfully, "This is not my ghost."

I hastily drew an S-shaped arc with my pen, then crossed it out, finally reducing it to a simple letter: 【o】.

So the pen is actually indifferent to this object.

Chen Ji narrowed his eyes.

He put the pen away first, then quickly pulled Hua Yilan up from below, who was jumping around trying to climb over the wall.

"Sorry," Chen Ji said in a low voice, "the house is empty."

It is known that Ah Jian, Ah Chui, and Ah Bu are already dead, and there is no reason for the other ghosts to come here.

Relatively safe.

Chen Ji first went to the room where Chang Hao was originally, found the mahogany box that Du Tingfeng had hidden, and examined it briefly.

Xiao Yan and A Jian, one sheep and one human, both had clean and flawless faces.

It appears to have been wiped clean.

A faint smile played on Ah Jian's face, as if she were having a beautiful dream. The severed neck was carefully wrapped with a red handkerchief.

This was undoubtedly the work of Du Tingfeng.

The two left the side room, but instead of going directly to the main room, they looked around.

In the kitchen at the end of the alley behind, Chen Ji confirmed his guess.

Wu Gong.....

It has been replaced!

I was replaced inexplicably and without any warning!

A black goat carcass lay on the kitchen floor.

His eyes were also gouged out.

"I really don't understand," Hua Yilan frowned. "You said he was clearly the first one chosen, but through various means, he managed to escape his inevitable death—"

"How could he possibly die like this now?"

This is far too hasty!

Chen Ji also felt a sense of unreality.

Logically speaking, Wu Gong shouldn't be that kind of person.

However, the pendant in the black goat's mouth has already proven that it is Wu Gong.

It's also a terracotta figurine!

However, it was more refined and larger than Yin Ziqin's, its eyes blindfolded; yet, like Yin Ziqin, it offered no guidance, only two words floating in its mind:

【prophet】

Terracotta figurine - the prophet.

This is a set!

Chen Ji suddenly understood and began to speculate about some of Yin Ziqin's actions.

Are there any other terracotta figurines?

Thinking it over, Chen Ji tried to stuff the prophet into the pen pocket, but his pocket was only so big that he couldn't put everything in it.

Just as he was about to throw it at the snake, he saw the pen sneakily float out.

"Is this your strange object?" Hua Yilan's expression was somewhat complicated.

The pen body is inlaid with gold, making it extremely luxurious. It is engraved with countless intricate openwork patterns and is also inlaid with a diamond (a scrap).

But Hua Yilan didn't want to know what the small brown beans embedded in the openwork pattern of the fountain pen were.

All she knew was that Chen Ji had recently rolled around in a pile of sheep dung.

Chen Ji nodded, turned slightly to the side, and let the pen write:

Just a heads-up, don't put them with the monkeys.

They're not the same kind of people; they'll cause trouble.

The implication is: I am the same kind of person as the terracotta figurines.

Chen Ji had never intended to put the terracotta figurine and the monkey together. After the Bashe incident, the little monkey had been placed separately close to him.

However... Chen Ji seemed to be deep in thought; the pen's words gave him a different idea.

He casually tossed the prophet into the serpent's sack, and like a drop of water falling into the sea, there was no reaction.

Just then, Chen Ji suddenly paused.

A voice entered his mind:

The path to survival is here.

The pocket gradually bulged up, and the terracotta figurine raised its arm, pointing in a direction.

It is being constantly and subtly adjusted.

Soon, following the terracotta figurine's directions, they arrived at the so-called "path to survival".

...Parting the bushes on the side of the path revealed a small door.

The Zhou family's secret cellar.