Published at 12th of August 2023 6:29 pm

Chapter 89 Speculation

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

“The clues in this game are too disconnected, let me organize my thoughts.”

Ye Shangyu said this, and Bai Yan also felt that he needed to think this through well.

“Previously, about the grandfather and grandchild’s behavior towards the grandmother, if they weren’t joking, rather, if they were truly ghosts, then why didn’t the people who have been turned into ghosts not disappear? It doesn’t match with the comments.”

Bai Yan felt that there were some conflicting aspects to the ideas he had and wanted to share them, exchanging opinions with Ye Shangyu, “It’s mentioned in the forum that there were a lot of people that had disappeared in the village, this must be Xu Lanfang’s doing. However, regarding the grandfather’s and grandchild’s appearances just now, after they were killed, they could still pretend to be living people while also continuing to do harm to others. Could it be that the disappearances have some kind of condition, and that these conditions need to be met before someone goes missing?”

“…Wait a minute, I think I have a lead.”

Hearing Bai Yan say it like this, a ray of light flashed in Ye Shangyu’s eyes, recalling the nursery rhyme sung by the young boy who liked playing ball in the graveyard.

“Dong Zi’s Daddy throttled Dong Zi’s Mommy to death,

Dong Zi’s Mommy strangled Dong Zi’s Granny to death,

Dong Zi’s Granny drowned Dong Zi’s Grandpa to his death,

Dong Zi’s Grandpa threw Dong Zi’s Sister to her death…”

Once Ye Shangyu finished reciting the nursery rhyme, she said in a lowered voice, “Do you see it, they all kill people one by one. First, they die, then the recently deceased would go kill another person.”

“Could it be that the people-turned-ghosts made by Xu Lanfang, they could only harm one person at a time?” Bai Yan muttered, “In the video, the human skin ghost could also only deceive one person at a time, maybe this could be a restriction the app gave them?”

Ye Shangyu only spoke until here, but Bai Yan already got what she meant.

At the end of the nursery rhyme, there was a line, ‘Then, their family of six were together again.’

When he first heard this, Bai Yan initially assumed this meant that Dong Zi’s whole family had died, that’s why they had reunited on the ground.

But connecting it with the disappearances mentioned in the forum, this could also mean that the family of six had all gone missing. Perhaps the whole family had died, and all of them turned into ghosts, which was the real condition of the disappearance.

“Interesting, so it turns out that you were jealous of this matter.”

The boy carrying a ball popped up in Bai Yan’s mind. Besides him, all of his relatives have died.

Before he left, the boy used envious eyes to look at Gou Dan’s family, maybe because he was jealous of him, wanting to quickly go to hell to come face to face with his family.

Amid Bai Yan’s absent-mindedness, Ye Shangyu said, “If this happened, then it would explain what happened to Xu Lanfang’s grandmother. Xu Lanfang is already dead, and maybe her parents have also already been killed. If her granny is also dead, then this family of four, including ‘Xu Lanfang’ would also go missing. The ghost borrowed Xu Lanfang’s identity, so if Xu Lanfang also went missing, the ghost would go back to the video, waiting for the next person to watch it before being able to come out of the video again.”

Speculating until this point, a lot of things suddenly made sense.

However, everything was but their own presumption, there still wasn’t ample proof.

To verify their theory, they still had to wait till evening to ask about Xu Lanfang’s grandmother and till tomorrow to see if the old lady who prepared her family’s meal would go missing. If their whole family had disappeared, it would indicate that the whole family had died, which would bring about the aftermath of a disappearance.

Discussing until here, Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu already didn’t intend on paying a visit to the other villagers, rather, prepared to go back right away.

Based on their speculation, the ‘living people’ inside this village were most probably ghosts in disguise.

Without being able to tell who was a person or a ghost, boldly getting in touch with the villagers could lead to them encountering a ghost hiding as a person, which would make them become the next target.

It was different from coming back to Xu Lanfang’s house. The two had already known that Xu Lanfang was a ghost and were more vigilant towards their actions before the ghost would completely tear them apart. At least their deaths wouldn’t be unexplained.

On the way back.

From a distance, Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu saw two figures.

Under broad daylight, Bai Yan’s eyesight wasn’t that good, but through their silhouettes, he could still recognize that the two people were none other than Ozawa Hiroshi and Lu Ruichao.

As they approached them, the two people’s faces became clearer.

The two people’s expressions were steady and calm. Their faces looked like dark clouds had covered them up, even Ozawa Hiroshi’s gloomy face was flowing out black ink.

Just by looking at their miens, Bai Yan knew that something must have happened.

“Why is it just the two of you? What about the two anchors?”

“Fang Niu and Bai Cui… They both disappeared!” Ozawa Hiroshi miserably said, “Not long ago, Fang Niu wanted to explore an abandoned farmhouse. But before they entered, he suddenly told us that us following them was hindering their live broadcast, greatly affecting the popularity of their live broadcast, so he insulted us and told us to get lost.

Since he was so rude, we didn’t want to come into conflict with him, so we just stood outside the farmhouse waiting for them. Actually, we waited for a long time, but we didn’t see the two people come out.

Seeing that the two hadn’t come out for a while, we felt that they ought to have run into some sort of trouble, so we snuck in through the broken window. In the end, when we entered, we found that the two had gone missing!”

Ozawa Hiroshi saw that the two others looked at him with skepticism, immediately turning his head and saying, “Lu Ruichao, tell them if this is the case!”

Lu Ruichao had a serious look on and nodded his head silently.

With the two’s sureness, Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu completely believed them.

Knowing that the two anchors had gone missing, the two agreed tacitly that they must be dead. In the app’s game, going missing was equivalent to dying.

The two anchors’ deaths undoubtedly brought about a bad sign for them. All the key NPCs were dead, so the next step would be the ghosts targeting the players!

Calculating the time, the game required them to survive for three days.

Right now, a day and a half had already passed, so half of the game was already finished.

In the game, especially considering the obstacles in the difficult levels, no player dying up until the mid-way point was no less of a miracle.

Thinking of this, Bai Yan suddenly became a little suspicious.

‘What one saw through the eyes wasn’t certainly true, and when they weren’t watching… was it really true that the genuine ones weren’t swapped out for fakes?’

He calmly observed the two, and the more he looked, the more the suspicion in his heart grew heavier.

On the surface, these two people put on airs and appeared as normal people.

‘However, the two anchors disappeared, and you both entered a house where people had just died, why did the two of you leave unscathed?’

Ye Shangyu secretly pinched Bai Yan, obviously sensing that there was something wrong with the two.

Admittedly, there wasn’t anything abnormal about the two people’s appearances, even their personalities were still the same, one being gloomy while the other being untalkative.

However, ghosts’ acting skills were second to none. Since the two didn’t thoroughly explain the outcome of them going into the haunted house earlier, Bai Yan already decided to regard them as ghosts.

“Let’s go back first and wait for everyone before telling us again.”

Because of the doubt in their hearts, Bai Yan and Ye Shnagyu fell back, letting the two walk in front of them, not exposing their open backs to the people they were unsure of.

Entering the house, they were just in time to eat lunch.

Xu Lanfang prepared a table filled with sumptuous food, and naturally, arranged in front of the old woman were still three bright yellow chicks.

Because of their previous experience, before the old lady had moved, everyone quickly picked up the food they wanted to eat and gobbled them down.

During their meal, Bai Yan was constantly observing Ozawa Hiroshi and Lu Ruichao.

The two ate normally and ate the food with relish. But, Xu Lanfang also ate the food they were eating. Even ghosts could eat, so basing it on their eating habits was evidently useless.

After lunch, Xu Lanfang silently tidied up the tableware.

The old lady narrowed her miserable green eyes, leaning against the bedding as if she wanted to sleep from being so full.

However, this time, after she had closed her eyes for a while, she abruptly said, “What happened to the two people who liked playing with their phones?”

Bai Yan paused, then realizing that the old lady must have been referring to the two anchors.

So, he tentatively replied, “You don’t know?”

“They went back?” The old lady said, “It’s good that they’ve gone back. They played with their phones all day. They don’t learn anything, and they’re here all the time, they will certainly bring my Lan Lan down. Lan Lan had just learned well, she can’t be brought down by them again and influence her to play with her phone.”

Kenta and Jina weren’t surprised by the old lady’s words, because when everybody wasn’t around, they had already asked this.

Seeing that Xu Lanfang was home, it wasn’t that good to ask too many questions about phones, so Bai Yan shifted the topic, continuing to ask, “They must be tired of the country life, that’s why they left. Oh right, grandmother, how could there be only the two of you here? What about uncle and aunty, they both aren’t home?”

“They’re both working in the city. They came back half a month ago, but they only stayed here for the first day and went back the second. The working life in the city is extremely busy. They can’t always take leaves, a day would already deduct a lot of money out of their pay!”

The old lady used her boney finger to pick at her teeth, directly digging out the pieces of meat stuck in between her teeth, not particularly giving them attention.

She looked dreadful, yet she was unexpectedly nice to converse with. She might have been considering the lodging fee, so that’s why she asked questions and provided some answers.

The old woman was extremely cooperative, but her answers left Bai Yan feeling quite depressed.

Xu Lanfang’s parents came back but they left as soon as they came.

When they came back, Xu Lanfang was no doubt a ghost by then, but since they and Xu Lanfang were a family, the ghost could have let them go.

Bai Yan had planned that if he could determine that the couple had become ghosts, he would immediately kill the old lady and send the human skin ghost directly back to the video.

But from the old lady’s description, he basically couldn’t determine if ‘Xu Lanfang’ had laid a hand on the two or not, so he could only drop it regrettably to avoid beating the grass and scaring the snake away.

After chatting for a while, the old woman grew tired and completely closed her eyes, her neck slopping to one side, leaning against the bed’s cushion to sleep.

Seeing that the old lady was asleep, everyone simultaneously left the living room, going to the East room together.

As soon as the East room’s door closed, Jina impatiently asked in a low voice, “What’s going on? How did the two anchors disappear?”

Ozawa Hiroshi repeated what he had told Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu earlier with a calm face and then added complementary details about the house.

“Fang Niu suddenly turned hostile and suspicious towards us. I heard that he went out last night, right?” Jina turned her head to check with Kenta, and after receiving an affirmative response, she said with certainty from her vast experience, “He was left alone. In the game, nothing good would come out of leaving an NPC alone. Without a doubt, he was switched with a ghost.”

Talking up until this point, Jina suddenly added, “Oh right, when you two entered the farmhouse, did you two get separated?”

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