Suddenly the cafeteria quieted down, and the young mother's already ugly expression became more and more nervous.
Ruirui stuffed a big apple into her mother's hand: "don't be afraid, mother, you still have me, and I'm not alone."
The young mother finally smiled in relief, picked up the apple and bit it: "It's so sweet."
Lao Yu glanced at the black funeral dresses on the mother and daughter: "May I take the liberty to ask, before you enter the nightmare world, are you going to the funeral?"
He is a little concerned about why Ruirui is an experienced sleepwalker, but her mother is a newcomer. It stands to reason that the time for the two to enter the book should be different, but why are they wearing the same style of funeral dress
The young mother looked dazed for a moment and muttered to herself: "Yes... funeral... whose funeral is coming... whose..."
Hearing this, everyone's expressions became subtle, and they all looked at the dazed young mother.
"Mom, it's alright," Rui Rui rubbed her mother with her little cheek, "We can bring Dad home soon."
At this moment, the fog in the young mother's eyes dissipated, and it was replaced by sadness and loneliness: "...My husband passed away. Ruirui and I came here to change her father's life, and the three of us went home safely. "
"Sorry..." Lao Yu was a little embarrassed, "Sorry, my wish will come true."
Ruirui is much stronger than her mother, explaining: "My mother has been in a trance because of her father's death, but I will protect her."
"If you need any help, ask your brothers and sisters to tell them." Wu Ying likes little girls and said warmly.
Ruirui nodded optimistically: "Okay, thank you sister."
Chi Nan lowered his eyelids and didn't speak. The little girl's explanation didn't explain why they entered the copy one after the other, but they all wore the same funeral dress
But the matter turned over, and no one mentioned it again. After all, it was the closest person to the mother and daughter who passed away.
After eating, they went back to their rooms, and Bai Chuan was always brooding about the empty box, and couldn't let go.
Gu Xiao looked at him worriedly: "Are you all right? What's the matter?"
Bai Chuan said hesitantly: "I... always feel that something is wrong."
Gu Xiao was also worried, but the more frightening people are, the more willing they are to act like they don't care, so as to convince himself not to be afraid: "Don't think about it, we'll ask the female foreman about the empty box tomorrow."
"But why is it an empty box? What did the female foreman say when she handed me the box... The Candleman Festival can't be held without me, what do you mean? And those Candlemen in the exhibition hall...don't want us to go To be buried with you?"
It was okay not to say it originally, but after this opening, Shirakawa thought more and more in a terrifying place, and the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he became.
Gu Xiao used his impatience to cover up his fears: "Don't talk nonsense, pay attention to your sobriety. Too high sobriety is more terrifying than being buried with you."
Bai Chuan nodded, but after a while he looked at Gu Xiao with complaining eyes: "You have more experience than me, why didn't you remind me at that time?"
"Huh? Reminder of what?"
"The gun is the first bird, aren't we the first bird now? Are those old sleepwalkers deliberately fooling themselves when they make candles, and use us to try the rules?"
As a newcomer, Bai Chuan's sobriety score has risen to 84, and his tone has become irritable and unfriendly.
Gu Xiao glanced at his roommate who lost his temper and wondered who the fuck was rushing to do it at that time? Who is arrogant and rushing to finish my share? And who is eager to get the reward and can't pull it? Are you blaming others for something wrong now
But he finally held back the curse and said as calmly as possible: "Xingxingxing, blame me, but it's useless to blame me. We are grasshoppers on a rope. Let's spend tonight safely."
Baichuan suddenly raised his head nervously: "How about we go back to the workshop to see? Did the contents of the box fall there?"
Gu Xiao rolled his eyes in his heart, and persuaded patiently as much as possible: "Just listen to my advice and wait until dawn to ask. In the nightmare world, night often represents death."
With Gu Xiao's strong persuasion, Bai Chuan finally gave up all kinds of dangerous ideas temporarily.
After the two entered the house, they checked every corner of the house, and locked the doors and windows, not even the vents.
After a lot of work, Gu Xiao said: "There should be no problem, let's sleep first, sleep will also affect the wakefulness value."
Bai Chuan had no other choice but to nod his head: "I've always slept very deeply. I'll try to be more alert tonight."
But it turns out that he overestimated his ability to adapt. The white boat, who has always slept well, couldn't sleep this night.
The body was very sleepy, but the nerves seemed to be suspended by an invisible thin thread, collapsed very tightly, and was about to fall into sleep and be pulled back again.
Half-dreaming and half-awake, he also seemed to hear rustling voices, very soft, very soft. The voice seemed to spread up from the bottom of the bed along the wooden board, skipping the ears and directly into his brain from the flesh and bone marrow.
Noisy, noisier than any lively occasion he's been in.
Bai Chuan was horrified by the indescribable sound. He simply gave up sleeping and planned to get up and sleep with the light on, but the moment he opened his eyes, he was suddenly shaken by a strong beam of light, which hurt his eyes and caused Bai Chuan to struggle. It took a few moments to open his eyes.
He covered his eyes with his hands to concentrate, and found that the candlelight shining in from outside the window just dangled on his face.
Whether it was an illusion or not, he always felt that the brightness of the light was much stronger than when he was asleep.
"Can't you sleep either?" Gu Xiao, who was facing the bed, turned over and looked over with his eyes open.
Bai Chuan has gotten used to the light a little now, and nodded: "There are voices all the time, it's too noisy."
Hearing this, Gu Xiao, who had already persuaded himself not to be afraid, shivered all over, and his whole body was covered in white sweat: "Speech? I... didn't hear it... Isn't this room quiet... Where did the speech come from? "
He couldn't help but think that Rui Rui also said in the morning that there were strange speeches from under the bed in the room...
Gu Xiao unconsciously glanced at the bottom of the bed hidden in the shadows, then quickly moved his eyes away, his voice trembled and said, "Are you sleepy... Did you hear it wrong?"
He really wanted to hear an affirmative answer from the white boat.
However, Bai Chuan shook his head, his face was pale and his eyes were blue: "I don't know, that voice seems to come from my mind."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Gu Xiao was scared and confused.
Bai Chuan's eyes were sluggish for a moment: "It's just... It's different from ordinary noise... Usually, the sound is poured into our ears... But just now I always heard... The sound seems to be coming out of my body... Noisy and uncomfortable..."
The more Gu Xiao listened, the worse he could not help shivering: "Don't be scary."
Bai Chuan's lips moved, but he didn't say a word, he just sat on the bed next to the wall, slightly raised his head to look at the window diagonally above, and after a while: "Gu Xiao, do you think the light outside the window is special tonight? Bright?"
Gu Xiao followed his line of sight and glanced at the window: "It's true that you said that, but it seems that your side is much brighter than mine."
"Well, maybe this light is interfering with my sleep."
Gu Xiao's expression changed slightly: "Wait, the abnormality in the copy may be an important clue, come and see what happened."
As soon as he finished speaking, Bai Chuan stood on tiptoe on the bed and looked out, his face turned pale: "I... I lit a candle outside my window..."
The flickering candlelight reflected on his face through the brightly polished glass, illuminating the horror on his face.
After all, I saw a lit candle outside my window in the middle of the night, and the light of the flame was as faint as that of a grave. No one would feel comfortable...
Although Gu Xiao was afraid that his palms were all sweaty, he thought that he was a sleepwalker who had been through a dungeon anyway, so he gritted his teeth and came over to find out.
When he saw the lit candle on the window sill, his breath stopped, it was a fucking human-shaped candle! The wax is very strange, the reddish silk in the yellow looks like it is mixed with human blood...
"It's not right! It's definitely not right!" Gu Xiao's voice trembled and looked at Baichuan nervously, "Did you do something? Triggered the death mechanism or some other dangerous situation!"
Bai Chuan's nerves also stretched to the limit: "I don't have it! I've been with you all the time! I didn't do anything special..."
Having said this, he suddenly paused and widened his eyes: "The award for outstanding volunteers also...the empty box given by the female foreman..."
The two looked at each other in panic in the beating firelight, breathing heavily.
As a somewhat experienced Gu Xiao, he took a deep breath and convinced himself to calm down: "Don't panic, I'll find Lao Yu and them."
"I'll be with you!" Bai Chuan followed immediately, he didn't want to be alone in the gloomy candlelight.
But something even more terrifying happened. When the two jumped out of bed and wanted to walk to the door, they found that the door had disappeared...
The original position of the door has become a wall, which is airtight and encloses the entire dormitory into a closed space.
They looked up subconsciously, and found that even the windows had disappeared, and the strange human-shaped candle seemed to have long feet, and it was now stuck on the pillow of the white boat!
"This...how could this be..." Bai Chuan couldn't help but take a step back, his feet not too bent and hitting the edge of Gu Xiao's bed, he fell down on the bed in a conditioned reflex, facing the strange candlelight.
Gu Xiao's voice got stuck in his throat, goosebumps all over his body, and he said hoarsely after a while: "We two...may have been selected to be the first batch of... candle people..."
Candlemen...candlemen...so they're going to be like the ones in the exhibition hall...in a spooky cemetery-like house for the next group of volunteers to visit? !
"The box...I'll go look at the box...!" His survival instinct made Baichuan jump up from the bed, and he looked like a madman to find the empty cardboard box that had been put in the bag. In a moment of stiffness, a small note appeared in the originally empty box.
The note reads: "You are the best volunteer on the first night. We will present the gift that best represents Candleman Town to express our gratitude. I believe you have already received the gift when you see this note. I sincerely hope that you, And your roommates have a bright and good night."
On a bright and beautiful night, the two of them invariably looked at the candle flickering by the bedside, their hairs standing upside down.
Can't sit still... do something... do something...
"Water! Quickly bring the kettle over!" Gu Xiao shouted in a trembling voice, not because he didn't want to move, but because his legs were so frightened that he couldn't even move to the table to get the kettle.
Although Bai Chuan is a pure newcomer, he may be overly afraid at this moment, but he is a little brave. He quickly picked up the kettle, which was just right, and there was still more than half of the boiling water in the kettle.
Fire is most afraid of water, if this strange person is extinguished, maybe...!
Bai Chuan quickly opened the lid of the pot and poured cold water on the human candle. Just when the two of them were about to breathe a sigh of relief, the candle that seemed to be extinguished started to burn again, and the flame jumped and even burned more and more. A growing trend...
The two of them were really frightened, and the candles that couldn't be quenched by water were beyond their common sense and cognition...
Bai Chuan swallowed hard: "How could it be possible... how could it be possible..."
Gu Xiao, whose nerves had been stretched to the limit, heard a strange sound from behind the white boat. He turned his head and stared wide-eyed under the beating candlelight, but his throat seemed to be choked by something, unable to make any sound—
At this moment, the shadow cast by the white boat on the wall is approaching them one by one, as if its existence has separated from the white boat itself and become an independent entity.
"What, what's wrong?!" Bai Chuan looked at Gu Xiao and stared behind him, his face was pale and blue, and he had a bad premonition.
But because he was too scared, he didn't dare to look back at this time to confirm...
"Shadow, shadow..." Gu Xiao almost exhausted all his mental power to say these three words. At that time, the shadow was getting closer and bigger, and it was spreading like a pool of black stagnant water on the floor...
"Gu Xiao! Behind you...!"
Bai Chuan also saw the exact same scene behind Gu Xiao!
But at the moment when he shouted, two shadows quickly covered up, wrapping the two young men whose legs were so frightened in the darkness, and using them to recover their free bodies, eroding and engulfing their masters little by little. body...
Spreading up from the fingertips, heels, limbs and torso, the two boys were completely unable to move, watching each other's bodies turn into translucent wax a little bit, and the wax mixed with red blood flowed through the heart, making them stunned and terrified. The expression is forever frozen.
In less than three seconds, the room was completely quiet, the door that had disappeared reappeared on the wall, and the windows diagonally above also reappeared. Behind the bright glass was a cluster of beating candle flames. A flash, burning alone in the silent night.
The next day, everyone gathered in the cafeteria for breakfast, and they didn't wait for Bai Chuan and Gu Xiao until almost 8:30.
"What's going on? Could it be that the two young children overslept?" The young mother glanced at the empty canteen door and said, "Would you like to call them? The female foreman will be called at nine o'clock, she said Can't be late."
Watching the time pass by, the two have not appeared, and the faces of the old sleepwalkers have already sank.
"Well, let's go and have a look at their house." Lao Yu drank the porridge in the bowl and put down the bowl and said.
At 8:30, the group returned from the cafeteria to the dormitory building and came to Room 107 where Gu Xiao and Bai Chuan lived.
The door of Room 107 was ajar, and a dead silence emerged from the cracked door.
Lao Yu first knocked on the door softly: "Gu Xiao, Bai Chuan, are you inside?"
Unexpectedly, no one responded.
Lao Yu knocked again: "If no one answers, we will come in."
As soon as he finished speaking, he pushed open the door rudely.
When a group of old sleepwalkers saw the situation in the house, they couldn't help but say "Huh".
There were no living people in the room, nor the expected bloody and horrific corpse scene. Everything was presented daily. The folds on the sheets were obviously traces of someone having slept in. The mobile phone was also plugged into the charger and placed at the head of the bed. The kettle seemed to have been accidentally kicked over and rolled to the ground.
But the people in the room disappeared for no reason, the clothes hanging on the drying racks were not packed, and the suitcases were not taken away, as if they had evaporated from the room out of thin air.
It's more creepy than seeing the bloody corpse scene.
Seeing this scene, the newlywed mother asked innocently, "Did these two children forget to tell us where they went?"
"I'm not familiar with Bai Chuan, but Gu Xiao is definitely not such a rude person." Xia Wei said with a frown.
"What's the matter then?"
"It's so weird..."
As soon as Chi Nan entered the house, he smelled a "burning" smell. It was not exactly the smell of burning things. It was like burning a fire in the house, leaving behind the heat and unique smell of the burning objects.
"Did you smell it?" he asked. "There is a strange smell in the house."
Everyone shook their heads when they heard the words, only Ye Chang nodded: "It's like the smell left after a candle has been burned."
"You can smell this!?" Xia Wei looked at Ye Chang in surprise.
Ye Chang pushed his glasses and said, "If your eyes are bad, your sense of smell and hearing will be sharper."
Chi Nan glanced at him subconsciously and said softly, "Me too."
Everyone looked around the room again and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that Gu Xiao and Bai Chuan were not hidden in the cabinet or under the bed.
No body was found, indicating that there was still a ray of hope, although this hope was negligible in the nightmare world.
"There is nothing abnormal in the room, but the two children have disappeared." Lao Yu bit his cigarette irritably and shook his head.
Chi Nan's eyes swept from Bai Chuan's backpack to the table and then to the bed: "Did you see that cardboard box just now? The one that the female foreman rewarded him."
Lao Yu's expression froze: "I didn't see it."
Then he looked at everyone present, everyone shook their heads, and finally moved their eyes to the half-open backpack of the white boat.
Xia Wei: "It's this time, everyone, don't care about privacy. It's time to look for clues. I don't think Bai Chuan and Gu Xiao will blame us."
He bit his lip, "If they're still alive..."
Saying that, he took the lead in pulling Baichuan's bag and shook all the contents off the bed. The rest of the people also searched for personal belongings in the house, but after searching around, they still couldn't find any trace of the small white cardboard box. .
"It seems that the cardboard box also disappeared with the two of them out of thin air."
The young mother's face turned pale instantly, and she subconsciously hugged Ruirui: "then now... what should we do?"
"Let's go," Lao Yu glanced at his watch, "it's 8:55, go to the workshop first."
When the group arrived at the workshop, the foreman who taught them to make candles yesterday had already prepared wax blocks, mirrors, carving knives and other objects for them.
She seems to be in a particularly good mood today, with a strange light shining in her dark eyes: "Good morning."
Everyone: "..." Good girl.
"Everyone's faces don't look very good, did you not rest last night?" The female foreman glanced at everyone and went back and forth several times, "It seems that there have been volunteers who have made huge sacrifices for our Candlemas contributed."
As soon as Lao Yu heard this, he smelled an unusual clue: "What do you mean?"
The female foreman smiled stiffly: "Thank you for your thoughts."
Everyone: "… "
Chi Nan: "The two volunteers in Room 107 disappeared this morning. Do you know where they went?"
The female foreman shrugged: "In our Candleman Town, there are always volunteers who disappeared for no reason, but don't worry, they must be very happy and safe now where we can't see them."
Everyone scolded mother in their hearts, what the hell is this sensational bullshit? !
Ye Chang: "Does their disappearance have anything to do with the contribution you just said?"
The female foreman rolled her eyes, and finally looked back stiffly like a puppet: "Sorry, my memory is not very good, and I often forget what I said two minutes ago."
"..." This rough setting of pretending to be stupid must be the dream maker cutting corners, right
The female worker glanced at them again, and then the corners of her lips raised a stiff smile: "It took a lot of time, let's start today's work, or the same content as yesterday, using your own face as a prototype to make candle figurines, the more similar we are to us. The higher the rating given, the final judging is still on a group basis."
"The reward is the same as yesterday. The dormitory group where the outstanding volunteers are located will receive special gifts."
Yesterday everyone was excited and looking forward to this remark, but today this remark made them anxious. Obviously, the disappearance of the two boys in 107 is definitely related to the "excellent volunteers".
"What should we do now? Do we want to..." The young mother glanced at the mirror in front of her. She used to like looking in the mirror the most, but today she was horrified when she saw her face in the mirror.
You look at me, I look at you, if you don't do it, you will be punished for sabotage. I don't know what the specific punishment is, maybe it's more dangerous than disappearing...
But if they were brave enough to do it, they would have seen the fate of Bai Chuan and Gu Xiao...
Lao Yu frowned, revealing a never-before-seen entanglement, "What are we going to do...to avoid the next "excellent volunteer"? "
Everyone was nervously silent.
Chi Nan suddenly asked earnestly like a good student: "If we go on strike collectively, what will be the punishment? How will the "excellent volunteers" be evaluated? "
Instead of making wild guesses, it is better to ask the NPC who issued the rules as clearly as possible, and whether she will answer is another matter.
The female foreman seemed to have never encountered such a direct volunteer, and it took a moment of downtime to react: "Then, we will randomly select one lucky person to become an "excellent volunteer", and the rest will be punished collectively. "
Everyone: "..." It's over, this is what it means to collectively send people's heads.
The female foreman went on to say something ambiguous and creepy: "We in Candleman are always hospitable and don't let volunteers spend long nights in disappointment and darkness."
"Then what to do now, the road to a collective strike will not work."
"It's not a fucking thing to do, it's not to do it, there's no solution..."
"I don't know how the two boys are doing now..."
Seeing the passage of time, everyone's anxiety and fear are multiplying and superimposing. The female foreman is smiling and admiring everyone's fear, and seems to be enjoying it very much.
At this time, no one dares to stand up and say something. After all, even if you don't think about your own life or death, you have to think about your roommate. This time, the death is in the dormitory unit...
When Chi Nan heard the rules given by the female foreman, the first thing that came to his mind was that Ye Chang was forcibly increased by the system by 90% of the mortality rate.
If it was really random, Ye Chang would definitely be the first to sacrifice, almost certain death.
But if it is a dormitory as a unit, what should I do to avoid risks for Ye Chang
When Chi Nan was thinking, Ye Chang looked at him silently, his eyes hidden behind the lenses were full of anticipation, as if waiting for some upcoming surprise.
In the end, Chi Nan, who had thought about it clearly, said to the crowd, "I'm here to get the "excellent volunteers". "
Hearing this, everyone looked over in surprise, except Ye Chang and Lao Yu, who was accustomed to Chi Nan's behavior.
The young mother couldn't help but say in surprise, "But... in this way, the two of you will..."
She turned her head to look at Chi Nan's roommate Ye Chang.
Ye Chang smiled gently as before: "I'm fine."
Chi Nan looked at him and said, "No, you can stay at 107 at night. Anyway, 107 is empty now."
Ye Chang raised his eyebrows imperceptibly.
Wu Ying questioned: "But according to the rules, you can't change roommates, you are breaking the rules..."
Chi Nan tilted his head: "I'm still staying in the original dormitory, and I haven't set up a new roommate. It's just that I live separately from Ye Chang temporarily. How can it be considered illegal to change roommates?"
Although the female foreman emphasized several times that the grades were based on groups, in reality there was only one box, and the dormitory that got the box would encounter unexpected events.
Therefore, the death rule is most likely to be carried out in dormitory units. If it is based on people, it should be given a box separately, and the material does not look expensive.
According to this logic, if two people live separately, one of them stays in the original dormitory with the box, and the other leaves to go to another empty dormitory, maybe the risk can be avoided.
It's not 100% sure, but it's definitely more likely than random to keep the leaves alive.
Lao Yu was the first to react: "Yes, this can only be regarded as a roommate leaving the dormitory temporarily, not a roommate change."
Just when everyone thought it made sense, Ye Chang suddenly joked unhurriedly: "Do you want to separate temporarily? I don't agree."
Chi Nan: "...?"
Xia Wei on the side hissed, the two are definitely not right...
"Don't want to play together? Like in the "special room" of Twilight. "
Chi Nan has never met anyone who would invite each other so gently and seriously and ask them to take him to death.
Chi Nan looked at him fixedly, but it seemed that he couldn't see his expression: "Have you forgotten that you are African, stop playing."
Ye Chang smiled and picked up the carving knife and continued the template that was not completed yesterday: "I promised you in the exhibition hall yesterday that I have the opportunity to give you a candle puppet?"
Chi Nan was suddenly a little irritable, and he didn't even notice it himself. His brows wrinkled unconsciously: "So, are you going to do it for me now?"
"Well, I think," Ye Chang pushed his glasses and said calmly, "In fact, with you here, no matter what the rules of death are, I seem to be able to find a way to deal with it."
Chi Nan: "Huh?"
Ye Chang: "As long as you... trust me." He swallowed the phrase "a little tear".
Chi Nan confirmed again: "Have you really thought of a way?"
Ye Chang shrugged: "It's not 100% sure, but it's worth a try. Maybe you can find key clues. I don't want to miss such an opportunity, and we have to do it together."
He looked over through the lens and invited Chi Nan: "Brother Nan, let me be together, I really don't want to be separated."
Chi Nan: "..." He was a little shaken.
"Even if it's temporary, I don't want to." Ye Chang said firmly.