This situation was repeated for nearly a dozen rounds, and nothing happened.
Four people took turns coughing, but there was no one more person in the room.
It makes sense to continue this journey now.
Lu Yingjiu lit a piece of talisman paper, and the utility room was suddenly filled with warm light. He said, "Stop for a moment." He looked at Chen Yanyan, "Recall more details, and we will restore the scene as much as possible. The higher the degree of restoration, the greater the chance of finding the ghost."
Everyone came out from the corner, Jing Xian stood behind Lu Yingjiu leaning against the wall, and the other three sat on the ground.
Chen Yanyan twisted her legs.
was already feeling uneasy because of the game he just played, so he asked, "Any more details?"
"Let's start with the positions." Lu Yingjiu said, "At the beginning of the game, which corners will the four of you stand in?"
Chen Yanyan tried to recall and pointed to a corner: "Stand here."
She pointed to other corners and said, "Fan Xin is over there, her boyfriend Ke Yu is over there, and in the farthest corner is Fan Xin's boyfriend Lv Fanghong."
"Then what?"
Chen Yanyan said: "Then, after we played for more than ten rounds, someone suddenly coughed. Fan Xin looked back, and the lights came on."
Lu Yingjiu hesitated for a few seconds and said, "I have a question."
"What?" Chen Yanyan stared at him subconsciously.
Lu Yingjiu raised her eyes and asked: "Could anyone among you cheat?"
Chen Yanyan was stunned.
Lu Yingjiu added: "It's actually very easy to cheat in this game. For example, in the game we just played, at the beginning, I tapped Chen Yanyan, Chen Yanyan tapped Xiao Li, and Xiao Li tapped Jing Xian. Jing Xian walked forward and met the corner where I left, so Jing Xian coughed."
He continued, "But if, after taking the photo of Chen Yanyan, he secretly turned around and went back to where she was before. Then, Jing Xian would not have encountered an empty corner, but would have run into her directly."
"At this time, walk forward, and when you come across an empty corner, don't cough. Instead, jump over it and pat Chen Yanyan. Then use the same method to go to the previous corner, and then no one will cough again."
Lu Yingjiu looked at Chen Yanyan again: "I have always been confused. Even if there is something fishy about this slaughterhouse, a simple ghost game in an afternoon should not attract such a powerful evil spirit."
Chen Yanyan hesitated and said, "I... I don't know... If someone really cheated, it would be impossible to make all the lights turn on the moment Fan Xin turned her head, right? The light switch is outside the house, and no one can turn it on without leaving the house. If the door is opened and outside, everyone will hear the sound of the door opening."
"That's not necessarily true." Lu Yingjiu said, "There is another possibility: using talisman paper."
For an exorcist, turning on a few lights is not a difficult thing.
But among those four students, only Chen Yanyan had any contact with exorcism.
Chen Yanyan blinked her eyes: "Mr. Lu, are you doubting me?" She bit her lip, "I and Fan Xin are the biggest victims of this game. The ones who died are your relatives and your best friends. How could you lie about such a thing..."
"I'm just analyzing the possibilities." Lu Yingjiu smiled, "I think it must be you, right?"
Chen Yanyan stopped talking. After a moment, she sighed softly, "Let's continue. After the lights came on, we panicked and quickly left the room and ran towards the exit. As we ran, we got separated."
"Getting separated?" Lu Yingjiu paused.
He had heard this detail from anyone.
"Yes." Chen Yanyan said, "I was with Ke Yu, and Fan Xin was with Lv Fanghong. In the end, I and Ke Yu left first and stayed outside the slaughterhouse. About 5 minutes later, Lv Fanghong helped Fan Xin out. Fan Xin accidentally fell while running away, but luckily Lv Fanghong was there."
"After that, we calmed down a little bit and joked that it was a coincidence that the people who got separated were all separated in pairs. I also told Fan Xin that Lu Fanghong was really good to her and could be relied on at the critical moment, so she should just marry him." Her voice became smaller and smaller, "What other details do you want?"
Lu Yingjiu asked a bunch of questions, such as what they did before entering the utility room, what they were wearing that day, whether there were any strange things when they were escaping, etc., but none of them were very special.
Finally, he said: "Perhaps the most critical problem still lies with 'people'."
"People?" Xiao Li was puzzled. "What people?"
Lu Yingjiu said: "The four of us are very different from the four people back then, even one of them doesn't match up."
Xiao Li was stunned: "What should we do? Should we find a foreign girl?"
"It may not succeed." Lu Yingjiu said, "The most important thing is not who we are, but who the ghost thinks we are."
"Then put on some talisman paper to disguise it?"
He replied, "There is a better way." He looked at Chen Yanyan, "You were an art student before, can you draw the faces of the other three people on paper?"
2 hours later.
Mask processing room on the underground floor.
Xiao Li came over breathlessly, holding a pile of things and said, "Brother Lu, I've brought the things over from the door. Can you check if there's anything missing?"
He put the plastic bag on the ground, which contained several bottles of developer.
It is used to develop photos. This kind of thing is rarely sold now, but Lu Yingjiu called Chen Xiaoling and the developer was delivered in less than 2 hours.
Lu Yingjiu picked a workbench and took out a huge square iron box from a pile of dusty equipment. The box was shallow, so he cleaned it briefly with talisman paper and filled it with developer.
There were three portraits next to him.
The papers were cut slightly to the size of a human face.
It was drawn by Chen Yanyan, and it depicted the faces of Fan Xin, Ke Yu, and Lü Fanghong. After all, she was an art student, and the pictures she drew were of her familiar friends, making them look lifelike.
Lu Yingjiu first picked up Fan Xin's portrait and carefully placed it into the developer.
When the liquid had completely flowed through the paper, he then put the talisman paper he had prepared into the water.
Next, he followed the same method, immersed another painting in the liquid, turned on the camera and started timing.
Jing Xian was watching intently from the side.
Lu Yingjiu glanced at him and explained, "I learned about the Cloud Weaving Technique before because of my interest. The process of printing the faces of people in portraits on leather is very similar to developing photos, and both require the use of developers. But I don't know how to draw their runes, so I can only find something with a similar effect."
They just waited like that until the timer reached 5 minutes.
Lu Yingjiu picked up the first piece of paper with tweezers.
The paper used to have black lines on a white background, but now it has become white lines on a black background—black and white are reversed, just like those negatives after they have been developed.
He shook the tweezers gently to shake off the excess liquid, placed them gently on a piece of dry white paper, took an extremely fine fountain pen, and started from the forehead, slowly drawing complex lines.
Jingxian helped and spread the other painting on the white paper.
For the next half hour, Lu Yingjiu patiently drew lines on the three faces.
By this time, the paper was almost dry. He picked up a few fake masks and said, "We have to cover our faces with it."
"How do we do it?" Xiao Li asked.
Lu Yingjiu pointed to his forehead and said, "Use transparent glue to stick it on."
Finally, Lu Yingjiu had Fan Xin's portrait on his forehead, while Jing Xian dressed up as Ke Yu and Xiao Li dressed up as Lü Fanghong.
Xiao Li asked: "Can this really fool the ghost?" As he spoke, the air he exhaled from his mouth made the paper bulge.
The paper mask that Lu Yingjiu made on the spur of the moment was not at all realistic, even if one ignored its color. Even a person with severe myopia could tell something was wrong from a hundred meters away.
"That's the problem." Lu Yingjiu said with a smile.
They went to the utility room again and stood in the four corners corresponding to their identities.
Lu Yingjiu extinguished the fire.
The game started with him again. He walked clockwise and patted Chen Yanyan on the shoulder. Then Chen Yanyan walked forward and patted Jing Xian.
The one who is coughing this time is Xiao Li.
In the second round, the one who coughed was Jing Xian.
Round 3…
This time, Lu Yingjiu was patted on the shoulder again, and he kept hearing coughing.
For the next three minutes, no coughing was heard.
There was one more person in the room.
This time, they finally succeeded.
Lu Yingjiu flipped his right arm slightly, and in the pitch-black darkness, a talisman was tightly held in his arm.
But the next second, a strong feeling of weightlessness came over me!
Everyone's feet were empty, falling into the endless darkness. Lu Yingjiu reacted very quickly, adjusting his body in mid-air, and just as he was about to land in a perfect, single-legged posture, he suddenly fell into something soft that did not belong to the ground.
Lu Yingjiu: “…”
He muttered in Jing Xian's arms: "I feel like we've been hugging each other since we met."
Jing Xian smiled, his chest vibrating, and loosened his hold on Lu Yingjiu.
Lu Yingjiu took off the portrait of a human face stuck on his forehead and tore off a piece of talisman paper and lit it.
When the light came on, he saw a corridor so deep that he could not see the end.
They should be somewhere in the slaughterhouse.
Back then, after Chen Yanyan and the others finished playing the game, they anxiously dispersed and split into groups. Now it is the same situation:
They put on paper masks and recreated the scene.
The summoned ghosts tried to restore the scene and separated them into teams.
Lu Yingjiu had seen similar things many times and didn't find it strange.
but…
Lu Yingjiu said, "Jingxian, when Chen Yanyan said that they fled in a hurry, it should be that Xi and Ke Yu were together, and Fan Xin and Lu Fanghong were together."
"Yes." Jing Xian nodded, "They are each with their own boyfriends."
Lu Yingjiu said, "But, you are playing Fan Xin, you are Ke Yu, and Xiao Li is Lu Fanghong. According to Taoism, you should be with Xiao Li now, and you should be with Chen Yanyan. Why is this combination wrong?"
He thought: "Since the ghosts from that year have come, this kind of deviation shouldn't occur..."
Lu Yingjiu paused for a few seconds, lowered his head, and sent a few messages to Chen Xiaoling.
After sending the message, he heard Jing Xian say, "There is a mirror here."
Lu Yingjiu walked past. The mirror was gray, with several hideous cracks spreading like spider webs. Their faces were in it, broken and unfamiliar.
One tall and one short.
A man and a woman.
Lu Yingjiu looked like Chen Yanyan in the mirror, while Jing Xian was a young man with a crew cut and a scar on his forehead.
Before Lu Yingjiu went to the party, he asked Chen Xiaoling to check Ke Yu, Lu Fanghong and others to prevent them from suffering the same fate as Chen Yanyan. Therefore, he had seen the photos of those people and recognized that the person in the mirror was indeed Ke Yu.
He frowned.
If he was mistaken for "Chen Yanyan" by the ghost, then who did Chen Yanyan become, Fan Xin
Before Lu Yingjiu could come to his senses, the person in the mirror suddenly smiled.
The smile was shattered by the cracks.
“Crash—”
The mirror shattered, and only a pale hand suddenly stretched out from the inside of the glass!
At this moment, Lu Yingjiu was actually able to react.
He had already made a gesture on his face, and if he wanted, he could shock the ghost into submission. But in the end, he let go of his hand and let the ghost pull him into the mirror.
Just before being pulled in, he clearly saw the ghost hand reaching out to Jing Xian shrank.
It was like a child that he was afraid to catch.
Then Jing Xian remained calm, stretched out his hand, grabbed the ghost that was trying to escape, and forced them to squeeze into the mirror together.
Lu Yingjiu: “…?”
Ghost: “…!”
Everything in front of him was dark. When his vision returned, Lu Yingjiu saw a man and a woman running in the dim corridor.
It was none other than Chen Yanyan and Ke Yu.
The man looked extremely terrified.
The scene before us was the people running away after the four-corner game ended.
Chen Yanyan was wearing red lace-up sandals, and one of her shoes fell off halfway as she ran faster, so she could only run with one bare foot. Ke Yu held her hand tightly, panting, "Hurry up! The exit is just ahead!"
Chen Yanyan replied with a tearful voice: "I can hardly run anymore!"
Ke Yu was very strong and dragged him forward. The figure of the man disappeared at the end of the corridor.
Lu Yingjiu tried to reach out to them, but an invisible barrier stopped him.
He lowered his head and looked at Jing Xian.
They were like being alone in a small space, watching past images.
Lu Yingjiu couldn't help but ask, "Why did you squeeze in?"
Jing Xian looked innocent: "Yes, of course." Then he was poked by Lu Yingjiu lightly.
They were closer, just like when they were in the car, and Lu Yingjiu smelled a cold fragrance.
The taste is really special.
Lu Yingjiu was silent for a while, then said, "Jingxian, after this matter is resolved, I have something to tell you."
"Hmm?" Jing Xian looked at him, his low voice tickling his ears, "What's the matter? Can't you talk about it here?"
Lu Yingjiu smiled lightly: "Now is not the time."
The view in front of them turned again, and Chen and Ke stopped at a corner.
Chen Yanyan gasped for breath, supporting her knees with her hands, while Ke Yu looked nervous and kept looking behind her.
Chen Yanyan said: "We must have gone the wrong way! At the last corner, we should have turned right!"
"Then where is this place?" Ke Yu asked.
"I don't know." Chen Yanyan shook her head. "But, remember there is a road here."
"What should we do?" Ke Yu hesitated, "How about we turn on the TV and take a look."
Chen Yanyan nodded.
For this test of courage, they brought various small instruments with them, such as amulets, talisman papers, flashlights, red and white candles, and compasses.
They fled all the way, and because they were afraid of being exposed by the light, they ran in the dark. Everyone was bumped pretty badly, and they must have been covered with bruises after they died.
Ke Yu carefully took out the phone and turned it on.
The electric light flickered a few times, finally illuminating the corridor—
"Ah!" Chen Yanyan exclaimed, and her feet became even colder.
Wherever the beam of light passed, there were human faces!
Not only was that person frightened, but Lu Yingjiu, who was watching, also frowned.
In front of them, masks were stuck to the wall, neatly arranged one after another. Lu Yingjiu saw at least thirty or forty masks as far as he could see. Not to mention the long corridor, there might be hundreds or even thousands of masks.
There was a subtle fishy smell in the air.
The smell of rotten fish and shrimp.
In places where the firelight could not reach, several mutant cockroaches that were enough to make Xiao Li scream were waving their antennae and crawling on the mask.
"Hey, what the hell is going on?!" Ke Yu's flashlight almost flew out of his hand, "Why are your masks hanging here?"
Chen Yanyan was shocked and confused.
His nerves were tense, and he vaguely felt that there was something wrong with these masks, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He just said blankly: "Where's the exit? Where is the exit!"
They wanted to run to the back, but the corridor seemed to have no end and they couldn't find the corner.
Everyone was sweating and exhausted, so they finally stopped.
Ke Yu said, "Ghost wall, we must have encountered a ghost wall." The light of the flashlight flashed across the wall, illuminating the masks with a ghostly look, "Can you see the problem with these masks..."
Chen Yanyan forced herself to concentrate.
He had no interest in the art of exorcism. He had never learned much since he was a child and only knew the basics. For example, he only knew the general idea of cloud weaving.
But even so, I grew up in Chenzhou and have seen many masks.
He looked around and thought carefully, and something just crossed his mind: something was wrong.
Under the illumination of the beam, each mask was condensed with a rich shadow. They were lifelike and extremely delicate, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with them...
etc!
exquisite!
Chen Yanyan slightly opened her eyes, walked quickly to a mask, and observed it carefully in the light.