Thriller Zone: From the Mental Hospital to the Ghostly World

Everyone was silent.

Despite the fact that Wan Chengzhong and Li Bi are both dead and that the diary has been obtained, the mission seems to have made no progress.

Every road leads to a dead end.

Of the ten-person team, only Chen Ji, Wan Xiaoshuang, and Tong Zi are still alive, along with Hong Tian, ​​who is half-dead.

Although the little monkey killed four ghosts, a new ghost in a black leather jacket appeared at the bottom of the river...

"Let's go to the old cedar tree first."

The boy said softly.

He was going to find Li Yinghe's body, just like he had taken Zhu Guang's ear.

Chen Ji nodded.

The group ventured deeper into the forest once more.

Strangely enough, they didn't see any ghosts this time.

The water on the ground had receded considerably, greatly reducing the probability of a middle school ghost appearing; however, Chen Ji calculated that there should still be one ghost in the forest.

At that time, the three ghosts chasing Li Yinghe were wearing yellow hoodies (who were already dead), baseball jerseys, and blue jackets.

One of the latter two ghosts replaced Li Yinghe and was killed by the little monkey, but what about the other one?

Chen Ji initially thought that the ghost should be lying in wait in the woods to the east, because if the entrant hadn't discovered that Li Yinghe had been replaced, it would normally head east.

But even after all that commotion, the ghost never appeared...

Soon after, he understood why.

The three stood under the old cedar tree.

Beneath the cedar tree lay an extremely bizarre corpse.

It is Li Yinghe.

Her head had been twisted off and hung limply on her shoulder. Her waist was arched in an exaggerated arc, and her limbs were twisted and crossed in front of her chest, like a tortoise shell tightly imprisoning the ghost in her arms.

A ghost wearing a blue coat.

The bodies of the human and the ghost were sewn together tightly with needle and thread, so that even if the ghost wanted to break free, it would be futile.

The boy stared at the corpse, remained silent for a few seconds, then bent down and picked up a scarlet knitting needle.

This is undoubtedly a strange object.

Li Yinghe probably knew she wouldn't survive, and in order to give others a better chance of survival, she used this strange object to restrain the blue-coated ghost in a very painful way.

After that, in this state, her head was twisted off by the baseball jersey ghost.

The boy, with his back to them, slowly walked towards Li Yinghe's body.

The ghost in the corpse's arms seemed to sense someone approaching, letting out a few chilling howls and beginning to writhe violently.

"Boy—"

Wan Xiaoshuang couldn't help but want to call out to the boy, but Chen Ji stopped her.

"Let him be."

Chen Ji said in a low voice.

Tong Zi realized from the beginning that the second "Li Yinghe" who appeared was a ghost.

But perhaps out of wishful thinking, or perhaps out of unwillingness to believe, he still consulted the oracle, until the hexagram shattered his illusions with a heavy blow.

Despite his immense grief, the boy pretended to be nonchalant in front of the ghost, all in an attempt to find out where his teammate's body was hidden.

Zhu Guang is dead.

What kept Tongzi going was this unwavering determination.

The boy stared at Li Yinghe's face, which was pale and distorted with pain.

After a long silence, he muttered to himself, "...Why use that needle?"

"You're so afraid of pain."

He knew that he would not get any response to this question.

The voice grew softer and softer until finally, only the boy himself could hear it.

"Whether it's Zhu Guang or you..."

"I promised to take you home."

The boy gently lifted Li Yinghe's hair and cut off a small section.

He tucked the hair into his pocket, completely ignoring the struggling ghost, and then reached out to remove the necklace from Li Yinghe's neck.

The hair and necklace were placed together with the ear that Zhu Guang had lost.

He would absolutely not let the two of them stay alone in the domain; at the very least... he would take some of them with him.

After doing all this, Tongzi gazed sadly at Li Yinghe for a few seconds before turning away.

Snapped!

Just then, something slipped out of Li Yinghe's pocket.

It was her phone, and there were bloody handprints on it.

Li Yinghe used a cell phone before she died... but there's no signal here, what was she doing with it?

The boy's gaze darkened slightly, and he picked up the phone.

He entered the password, swiped to unlock the phone, and saw the recording interface.

Before Li Yinghe died, she recorded an audio message... What did she discover?

When you open the recording, you hear Li Yinghe's rapid breathing.

The background noise was loud, with heavy rain and chaotic footsteps. This was the audio she recorded while fleeing in the woods.

"Boy, you pig-headed idiot, listen to me!"

"The ghosts of the tour group are here! They can disguise themselves as those who have entered the realm. Be careful!"

Her tone was tense, tinged with deep fear:

"I'm probably not going to make it this far. To make a long story short, I used the Paper-Faced Woman, and she told me Zhang Wenxuan's story!"

"The junior high school student ghost was Zhang Wenxuan's deskmate. He bumped into a ghost wearing a black leather jacket by the river, and was then haunted by the ghost. He learned that his death was coming, and later found a diary with a description of a substitute death method."

"The scapegoat he chose was Zhang Wenxuan!"

"They're both dead, so the substitution method won't work!"

In the recording, Li Yinghe was almost out of breath, speaking at a rapid pace:

"And, and, most importantly..."

"While I was hiding, I overheard the tour group's conversation..."

"They are not the natives of this domain, they are entrants! They are ghosts transformed from entrants!"

Chen Ji's expression changed slightly. Even though he had already guessed, he ultimately had no evidence. The content of Li Yinghe's recording completely confirmed his thoughts.

Li Yinghe's voice gradually became intermittent.

"Eleven people..."

"Two escaped, and eight remained in the reservoir downstream..."

"The last one is the most special. After the Domain River opened, it was killed by its own friend... It took the place of the core ghost of that domain, but its resentment was too great, making it far stronger than the previous ghost..."

"It has torn the instructions to shreds, you must be careful—"

Li Yinghe's voice suddenly stopped.

A moment later, the sound of clattering could be heard.

That was Li Yinghe's teeth chattering.

She let out a barely suppressed scream, like a dying hare:

"No, no, they're arresting—"

Tongzi slammed the phone shut, closed his eyes tightly, and when he opened them again, his eyes were dull and lifeless.

The recording was nearing its end, and he didn't want to listen to the remaining few seconds.

"There's no need to look anymore."

The boy's voice was eerily calm as he abruptly changed the subject: "The half of the guide we lost was probably stolen by Huang Ying, at the instigation of the black-clad ghost, when he took the red satchel."

In other words, it is still in the Jiagu River.

But the Jagu River is now in a desperate situation.

Chen Ji frowned and took out Huang Ying's diary again. He always felt that the girl's inconsistent attitude was very strange.

Moreover, the words in the diary do not match Huang Ying's personality.

Judging from her experience of encountering a ghost and then managing to escape from the river, Huang Ying is not only brave but also quite clever.

However, the wording and sentence structure of this diary entry are very stiff, and it's also rather rambling...

Chen Ji's gaze casually swept across the diary, when suddenly his eyes froze.

and many more.

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I checked my drafts and realized I miscalculated the timeline; it will take a few more days to finish.