Thriller Zone: From the Mental Hospital to the Ghostly World

“Someone has been here recently, more than once,” Hua Yilan said.

They slowly walked down the stairs. Hua Yilan turned on her flashlight, and what came into view was a series of shoe prints covered in wet mud.

It's been raining for the past few days, so we can deduce that they came recently.

It was utterly chaotic.

Most of them are marks left by the soles of cloth shoes from ancient times.

However, there is also a pair of walking shoe prints among them, belonging to Wu Gong, and they are printed once on top and once on the bottom.

The footprints on the path... were probably not made by Wu Gong himself.

The two remained silent, and after a few steps, they arrived inside the cellar.

As the flashlight beam illuminated the room, Hua Yilan's brows furrowed instantly!

Unlike Chen Ji, she had never seen a gray goat in person, and at that moment, her stomach churned uncontrollably.

Instantly, images of those gory American movies I'd seen in real life flashed through my mind.

This place is like a hideout for a serial killer!

The ground was covered with dried blood, and the first thing that caught her eye was the half-dead gray sheep carcass with a human head on it!

The fat, grayish-white face was filled with terror. The sheep's body was mangled, with much of its flesh cut away, revealing its bare skeleton.

“He is the one I told you about, Abu.”

Chen Ji recognized the corpse.

He walked over to the sheep, gave it a gentle push with his finger, and Abu's head was about to fall off when Chen Ji caught it and put it aside.

The room was piled with countless plates, half of which were filled with pieces of scarlet mutton, while the other half were empty, leaving only foul-smelling blood.

"Master Zhou is keeping his life afloat thanks to this meat."

Chen Jidao.

He looked around and found that there was a small bed on the inside, but there was only a blanket on it and no one was on it.

In addition, there is a small altar.

A small portrait hangs on the altar; at first glance, it depicts six coffins.

Before Chen Ji could examine it carefully, he suddenly saw Hua Yilan on the other side with dazed eyes reaching out to touch the portrait!

Chen Ji was startled.

He was about to slap the other person's hand away, but at the same moment, his mind suddenly stopped for a second.

Once it's back in operation...

His fingers were out of control, and like Hua Yilan's, they touched the small coffin statue.

The world is spinning...

When Chen Ji opened his eyes again.

He found himself floating in the sky, no longer physically present, his perspective like watching an old movie...

......

I don't know how long ago.

Severe drought, famine, and sandstorms.

A group of people walked numbly on the dirt road, their faces sallow, carrying a roll of straw mats.

Glug! Glug!

In mid-air, several large vultures swooped down and tore open the straw mat, from which a deformed corpse rolled out.

His limbs were extremely thin, but his belly was swollen. It was unknown how long he had been dead. The flesh on his legs had long been cut off, and the wounds were rotting and smelling foul.

The vulture pecked at a few pieces of meat and flew away.

not far away.

Several children sat in the desolate graveyard, their cheeks sunken, their bodies emaciated, and their dull eyes revealing a hint of despair.

Suddenly, their gaze turned to the depths of the mass grave.

A little boy of six or seven years old walked over. Unlike everyone else here, he had very fair skin and a rosy complexion.

He stared at the vulture, whistled, and the meat fell from its beak. He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth.

The little boy squinted his eyes and chewed with relish.

"...Is it delicious?" the other children asked hesitantly.

The boy nodded and handed the meat to the oldest child among them.

The older child looked very much like the corpse wrapped in a straw mat.

After a moment's hesitation, the older child took it and took a small bite...

A moment later, he seemed to be starving and completely abandoned thinking, starting to wolf down his food!

The child beside him was also digging around on the ground, picking up the meat and eating it.

The little boy smiled.

After a long time, when the six children looked up again, the rosy-faced boy had already disappeared, leaving only a series of footprints facing south.

Only the original six children remained in the mass grave.

"Brother..."

"The meat we eat, is it...?" At this point, one of the children asked fearfully.

The older child replied, "Yes."

There was silence.

After a while, someone murmured, "Brother, your father's meat... smells so good."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and the atmosphere became lively again.

“He died looking terrifying,” a girl said. “His stomach was so swollen, it looked like it was full of water.”

"Who cares?" The oldest child was silent for a few seconds before saying, "Either he dies, or I get eaten."

He continued chewing the scraps of meat in his mouth, his eyes turning cold and sinister after he finished eating:

"I heard that many wealthy gentlemen have fled to the south. They left in a great hurry, without even taking their maids and children with them."

"I think we should..."

......

It seems like a long time has passed.

The six children from back then, who somehow survived, are now all approaching middle age.

They were sitting in a house, all dressed in brocade robes.

From a few fleeing beggars to their current status of wealth, yet each of them still wears a sorrowful expression.

Upon closer inspection, their faces were all bluish-purple, their veins were clearly visible, and their abdomens were swollen as if they were several months pregnant.

"Why....."

A man slumped weakly on the table: "This disease has been incurable for so many years!"

A few years after surviving the famine, all six of them contracted this disease, and as they grew older, their condition worsened.

"Every time a master comes, they all say he won't live more than two years!"

The oldest man slammed his fist on the table, his face contorted in pain, and said, "Quack doctors! They're all quacks! They deserve to be slaughtered and eaten by us!"

A faint smell of blood wafted from the side room behind them.

Wailing cries filled the air.

For these six people, "death" is the thing they fear most in their lives.

"Why? That child could eat human flesh back then, but we can't!" a woman cried out mournfully. "If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have had that thought, and we wouldn't have contracted this vile disease!"

This question has not been answered.

Only painful groans could be heard coming from the side room and around the dining table...

......

yard.

It's already late at night.

The eldest brother, terminally ill, lay in a chair, awaiting death.

He had dismissed most of his servants because his body was no different from that of his father, who had starved to death years ago.

Even more horrifying.

In the quiet night, a series of footsteps suddenly sounded.

Who... appeared at this time?

The eldest brother struggled to open his eyes. Even though he had very little life force left, he was still terrified by what he saw and almost went crazy!

A dark figure emerged from the shadows.

It was enormous, with jagged limbs and a hunched back, making its face completely obscured.

The key question is... how did this thing get into his house?

"Who...who are you?!"

With his last breath, the older brother cried out in terror.

The thing didn't make a sound.

It fumbled around and pulled out a scroll with a portrait on it.

The subject of the painting was actually the little boy who had appeared by chance many years ago!

A voice appeared in the elder brother's mind:

Have you seen it before?

The man dared not utter a sound, but the next second, he suddenly had a strange feeling, as if he was trying his best to escape from a dark sea, but the waves were still unable to resist gradually spreading across the beach and approaching his feet.

Instantly, his mind shattered, and he sensed the immense terror between life and death!

"I saw him...he headed south!"

He was terrified and screamed desperately.

The shadowy figure took the scroll.

The voice resurfaced in his mind, strange and grating, like the tone of a human just learning to speak:

"Thank you."

"In return, I will satisfy your desires."

A single word immediately surfaced in the man's mind...

The man was stunned.

He pondered the word repeatedly until the sun rose again and until night fell once more.

When the second dawn arrived.

A man's last burst of lucidity before death.

He summoned the other five men and said, "Go and buy six coffins."

"We will never, ever have to..."

"I was afraid of death."