Published at 12th of August 2023 6:30 pm

Chapter 93 Gathering Darkness

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

“Grandma, it hurts! I won’t disobey you again, so please let me go!”

“Grandma, why are your hands so wrinkly? Grandma, don’t pull on my braid, I’ll walk with you, it hurts when you grab me ah!”

“Don’t scream, child. Your tongue looks good. Don’t talk too much. If that tongue of yours gets dirty, it’ll be no good when washing it later. Come home with grandma, grandma will give you stew to drink!”

Outside the room, a sudden spell of cruel and odd laughter mixed, letting anyone’s hair stand on end by just hearing it.

The farmhouse the four people were hiding in was remote, but on this rare night, the moon and stars were dark, and all kinds of ghosts and goblins seemed to go out of their houses, beginning their wanton-killing spree.

The people, who have long turned into human skin ghosts, still kept their human facades, putting on airs while wandering around the small paths. From time to time, the ghosts would walk by the side of the farmhouse, letting them all be only separated by a thin wall.

Outside the house had long been turned into hell on earth.

It was difficult for the remaining survivors in the village to escape tonight.

Even if they withdrew into the house, no one wanted to go outside from hearing the successive cries for help and blood-curdling screams from outside. Bai Yan could imagine what kind of setting was happening outside the house.

The grandparents were shoving their grandchildren into simmering pots of soup by coaxing the grandkids to return home then slaughtering them, or like the one they heard earlier with the young girl, her grandfather making her resemble a common swine, being tied up as she went back.

Soon, these remaining people would also transform into shriveled human pelts.

When everyone in a family has finally turned into ghosts, they’ll all sink in, changing into dried-up human skin, then shortly, the whole family would disappear without a trace, becoming a new supernatural story on the forum.

“…”

Time passed by in seconds and minutes.

Bai Yan listened as the noises outside continued, suddenly feeling that something was wrong.

He used his hand to block off the light and opened his phone to sneak a peek at the time, quickly closing it up. The time had already reached 10 PM, and the ghosts outside had caused a disturbance for more than two hours now. No matter how slow they were, they should have already killed every person that they saw.

Not to mention, their family members had trusted them from the start.

“When we went to the cemetery this morning, we conveniently passed by Gou Dan’s house, and the old lady, who liked eating sweet potatoes, as well as the other two people were already out of sight. This could mean that the whole family has died, which would meet the criteria for disappearing.” Bai Yan thought to himself as he said this, “It is reasonable to say that the ghosts outside should have already killed their entire families, so the families should also go missing, but why are there still a lot of ‘villagers’?”

Granted that they were hiding in a small run-down and desolate house, the four people could still hear the activity in the village through the wall.

The sky was dark, but the window at the very top of the wall reflected a burning orange light. The ‘villagers’ had lit their torches and were constantly walking around the village, clearly searching for people.

They were looking for the four players.

“Could it be that the survivors haven’t died yet, so the ghosts haven’t disappeared… Wait a minute, could ghosts hold back their urges to kill? Could ghosts also change their nature?”

This thought flashed across his head, but Bai Yan quickly dispelled the idea.

Ghosts turning benevolent and understanding human sympathy and compassion was just as impossible as him joining the World Red Swastika Society.

Bai Yan pondered for a moment, feeling that the problem was lying inside ‘Xu Lanfang’s’ body.

According to the source, every terrifying matter that was discovered in this village came from that supernatural video.

When Xu Lanfang had finished watching the scary video, the ghosts from the scary video crawled out of her phone, replacing Xu Lanfang. After this took place several months ago, all of the villagers that had died were all ‘Xu Lanfang’s’ doing. ‘Xu Lanfang’ turned all the deceased into human pelts, manufacturing more human skin ghosts that were inferior to it.

Like this family that was cleanly wiped out, these weren’t the same with the unlucky ghosts that have disappeared. Even if the human skin ghost had ‘died,’ it would still be reborn inside the supernatural video, patiently waiting for its next victim.

As a result, there’s a chance that the human skin ghost could control the other ghosts, ordering them to temporarily not kill their family members. Rather, these remaining survivors were contained, postponing the persecution of the large majority of ghosts’ family members. Instead, the ghosts would hunt down and apprehend these hidden people around the village.

“The human skin ghost wants to kill until the very last one!”

Thinking of this, Bai Yan thoroughly realized that this morning they told Ozawa Hiroshi that they would later come to find him and Lu Ruichao. But in reality, they ended up hiding, leaving those two chickens alone.

These two people had already turned into ghosts, which was equivalent to being the human skin ghost’s spies. Since the four of them didn’t go, the human skin ghost would naturally know the players knew that there was something wrong with Ozawa Hiroshi and Lu Ruichao, causing it to also change its approach. The ghost wouldn’t continue using Ozawa to put on airs and plan a sneak attack on them, rather, it launched the entire village to conduct a manhunt around the village.

These facts were proven, and Bai Yan’s conjecture wasn’t wrong.

As time passed, the ghosts outside uncovered their false tender-hearted faces, beginning to use sinister and terrifying voices to yell out——

“Where are you all hiding? Come out! Come out quickly!”

“You can’t run! I know you’re hiding here somewhere! Don’t hide, quickly come out of the house!”

“You won’t come out? Fine then! Just you wait, we’re going to go in!”

Several times now, the ghost was standing on the other side of the wall, shouting at them, startling the people inside into secreting out cold sweat all over their bodies. Thinking that they were spotted, they almost got up and rushed out of the house.

However, this was the ghost’s way of deceiving them, because, from a distance, they also heard other ghosts shouting these over at the neighboring farmhouse.

They couldn’t make a sound to survive the night and win.

This was the thought that had surfaced in everyone’s hearts, all having the same idea.

Not a sound came out of the four’s throats. No matter what the ghost outside shouted at them, they all steadied their minds, not even moving a single finger.

Roughly an hour later, the ghost’s screams became louder and louder, its voice becoming deafening as though there were tens of thousands of ghosts leaning forward on the other side of the wall, simultaneously screaming at the house.

Sometimes, these ear-splitting screams would take a rest, whispering a weak curse that reached their ears as though the ghosts were quietly slipping into the house and were muttering this into their ears…

In the dark of the night, with miserable and bitter sounds congesting their ears, everyone’s hearts were inevitably thrown in disarray.

The house was especially dark, and Bai Yan couldn’t see what the others were doing. In any case, he was tempted to cover his ears.

First, all types of ghostly wails and howls were so unpleasant that he wanted to cry, feeling that his ears were about to explode. Second, in this eerie dark house, he couldn’t see where the others were. There were times when inexplicably felt that apart from him, perhaps the others had long turned into ghosts.

Under the ghosts’ hypnotism from outside, Bai Yan felt a little tired, so to wake himself up, he started to imagine scenarios to scare himself.

Thinking that the people beside him had turned into ghosts and were switched with fakes one by one, he felt a bit excited.

In any case, since the house was so dark that no one could see and no one said anything, amid his sleepy state, he directed himself and arranged for each person to die in his head.

Regarding this fantasy, he actually believed it a little, that three human pelts were surrounding him with an ominous feeling, causing his entire being to feel energized in a flash.

“Boom——Boom——”

As Bai Yan indulged in his flights of fancy, his phone suddenly began to vibrate.

“Who?”

“Who’d call me at this time?”

Bai Yan hurriedly fished out his phone and took a look, and displayed on the screen, it was Ozawa Hiroshi who was giving him a call!

Ozawa was already dead, so in other words, it was the ghost who was calling him on the phone right now!

Bai Yan stared at his phone, his psyche shattering a little. He clearly remembered that since the remaining four of them had decided to stick together, there was no need to contact each other through their phones, so he had already turned his phone silent early on. In this situation, how could his phone suddenly produce vibrations?

One didn’t need to think to know that this was surely the ghost’s doing.

The phone incessantly rumbled inside the house, and despite merely vibrating, the sound it produced inside the dead quiet room seemed to be loud enough.

A call from a ghost was naturally a call of death, so he didn’t answer. Thus, Bai Yan quickly rejected the call and pressed mute without delay. Even if he knew that the ghost had arranged this, he still had to struggle a bit.

Before he closed his phone, Bai Yan borrowed the phone’s fluorescent light to sweep a look around his surroundings. Amid the darkness, the other three appeared to be drizzled in a black mist, and in the dim light, horror seemed to seep into everyone’s countenance.

While the fluorescent light was still there, Bai Yan saw that the three people were looking at him by chance. His lips moved, not caring if the two foreigners could read and understand his lips, directly mouthing out the word ‘Ozawa.’

However, Bai Yan quickly discovered that this was unnecessary.

Because, once he turned off his screen, Jina’s phone also started to vibrate at once.

Immediately after, Ye Shangyu and Kenta’s phones also began to vibrate nonstop, seeming to particularly echo inside the originally quiet house.

“Who?”

With so many calls coming in at once, Bai Yan realized that the situation was anything but reassuring. Not caring if the ghosts outside could hear or not, he straightforwardly said in a hushed voice, “Is it Ozawa?”

“Mine’s Lu Ruichao.” Ye Shangyu closed her phone, her expression turning unsightly as she said, “The ghosts’ ears are sensitive. With this many phones vibrating together, I’m afraid that they’ll soon find out where we are. We should quickly leave.”

“I’m afraid that it’s too late.”

Bai Yan aimed his eyes at the window on top of the wall, and through the window’s transparent glass, there was a person’s face firmly stuck to the window, directly fixing its stalking gaze onto everyone, the corners of its mouth evoking a strange arc.

Everyone else turned their heads around to take a look, also finding a ghost’s face pasted against the window.

Upon seeing this, everyone immediately fled the house, rushing into the courtyard.

However, once they had reached the courtyard, the large gate there opened with a loud rumble, causing several sickle and ax-wielding ghosts to enter, evil grins plastered on their faces as they drew nearer.

“Climb over the wall! Now still isn’t the time to use our abilities!”

Ye Shangyu said at rapid speed. Noticing the sacks filled with timber, she stepped on these and climbed over the wall, hastily crawling to the roof then jumping down from the roof to outside the courtyard.

Bai Yan followed closely behind, almost simultaneously landing on the ground with Ye Shangyu.

Behind them, Kenta, with Jina at his back, also climbed, and before they could stand firm, they sprinted to the distance, wanting to shake off the ghosts after them.

For a long time, the four ran away, passing through more than half of the village’s area before losing the tail behind them, taking a short rest in a small passageway between two farmhouses.

“What time is it?”

“12:05, it’s still four more hours until it’s 4.” Bai Yan took a glance at his phone and immediately closed it afterward.

Taking a breather in the passageway for a while, about half a minute or so, Jina’s head suddenly began to float up, causing Jina to clench her teeth and pull on her hair tie.

“Ghosts are coming! Be careful!”

She pulled her hair apart, exposing the malevolent-looking ghostly face at the back of her head.

The ghostly face, just like her hair, moved on its own without the wind’s help. Her scalp rocked and swayed, every expression it showed was distinctly warped.

The ghostly face became more twisted, while Jina’s face became more ashen.

Bai Yan looked at the opening of the passageway and saw two thin figures staggering as they approached them.

They had their cellphones at hand, and they were the already dead Ozawa and Lu Ruichao.

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