Without getting the "Excellent Volunteer Award", Ruirui disappeared without warning.
This was beyond everyone's expectations.
"In the morning, I thought Rui Rui was lying in bed, and after calling for a long time, she didn't respond. Later, seeing that she was going to be late, I thought to lift her quilt... Then..." The young mother shuddered and grabbed the puppet in her hand, because she blamed herself He Shen's eyes turned red, "I found out that it's too late, it's not Ruirui in the quilt, it's something..."
"Rui Rui has always been very obedient and won't leave me silently. Something must have happened... What happened..."
Chi Nan stared at the weird and shabby puppet and asked, "Is that Ruirui's thing?"
The young mother looked dazed for a moment, and stared at the doll with strange and complicated eyes: "It seems... or not... Is it really..."
Hearing this, Lao Yu frowned, Chi Nan and Ye Chang exchanged glances.
"Is it true?" Lao Yu asked, he didn't believe there was something that a mother didn't know about her daughter.
The young mother nervously tugged at the puppet's hair: "I forgot..."
Lao Yu: "..." It seems that this woman is very insane.
Chi Nan: "Can I take a look at this doll?"
The young mother's expression flashed vigilantly, and then she reacted violently and hid the doll behind her, staring at Chi Nan: "No... You can't touch..."
Chi Nan: "…"
Ye Chang: "If it is the key clue, we can find Ruirui faster."
The young mother looked at them nervously: "I don't trust you."
Lao Yu gave them a wink: "Forget it, don't force her first."
There were more and more sleepwalkers in the corridor, and everyone didn't care about breakfast, so they began to help find Ruirui in the dormitory building and the yard.
But everyone searched for half an hour, almost rummaging through the yard the size of a basketball court, and couldn't find Ruirui's whereabouts at all.
"Does Ruirui have any special habits at night?" Xia Wei asked, "such as sleepwalking or something? Did she accidentally enter another forbidden room?"
"No! Ruirui has been very good-natured since she was a child. She seldom speaks in her sleep and can't sleepwalk." The young mother replied immediately.
"Except for the locked room, all rooms have been searched under the wardrobe and bed, but Ruirui has not been found."
"Kruirui is a little girl, can't pick the lock by herself?"
"And Rui Rui doesn't look like a child who would rush into the forbidden room..."
Seeing nothing, Lao Yu looked at the time anxiously: "It's almost nine o'clock."
"Why don't you go to the workshop first, there's no way to find it like this," Wu Ying suggested, looking worriedly at the young mother who was on the verge of collapse, "Don't scare yourself first, once the mental value exceeds 90, it will be very dangerous. already."
"How could I not scare myself... The two boys in the next room yesterday haven't been found until now... Will Ruirui just be like this..."
She trembled suddenly, whimpered suddenly, and then squatted down and cried uncontrollably.
She couldn't say the word "no" clearly.
Chi Nan explained: "It shouldn't be. Yesterday, Bai Chuan and Gu Xiao disappeared because of the "Excellent Volunteer" box awarded by the female foreman, but Ruirui did not get it yesterday. "
But this also brings up a new problem. Besides the title of "Excellent Volunteer" which can cause sleepwalkers to disappear, is there another set of disappearance rules? Did Ruirui accidentally trigger without them finding out
The young mother held the weird doll in her arms, and surrounded the yard, room after room, looking for her daughter repeatedly in a daze. Everyone saw only a sigh. At this moment, it was the most important thing to discourage and comfort. Powerless.
"But we speculated that the rule that "excellent volunteers" lead to disappearance must be correct? Can only the two samples of Bai Chuan and Gu Xiao not explain the problem? If it's true, why did Rui Rui disappear without triggering the condition? And you two..."
Dysonson glanced at Chi Nan and Ye Chang who were standing in the yard, hesitating to say anything.
Wu Ying next to her was more direct, looking at Chi Nan and the others with suspicious eyes: "How did you two escape the rules of death last night?"
So Ye Chang briefly told everyone what happened last night, and Wu Ying looked at him suspiciously: "Why is it such a coincidence? It happens that you can be right?"
Ye Chang glanced at her lightly, and smiled harmlessly as usual: "Good luck."
"It doesn't sound very convincing." The girl sneered back.
Ye Chang shrugged: "I can't even prove that I'm lucky."
Lao Yu saw that the atmosphere was not right, so he bit his cigarette and said cautiously: "Now is not the time to doubt each other, so it's not the way to waste it, it's almost nine o'clock, if the female foreman named her absence, there will be a corresponding punishment, we are still cautious. better."
Everyone was at a loss, so far the only thing is like what Lao Yu said, temporarily stop the useless search, and go to the workshop according to the dungeon rules.
And although he was very worried about the little girl, he couldn't make a whole army annihilated because of her.
Facts and choices are clearly in front of us.
"It's not a problem for you to keep looking for it like this. Come with us to the workshop. It's dangerous to miss the roll call time..." Wu Ying came over to persuade the dazed young mother, thinking that her sobriety value should not be able to survive. It's Candleman Day.
The mother opened the cabinet that was only half a meter high and probed in nervously: "I won't go, if Rui Rui comes back and doesn't see me, she will be afraid... I have to find her here and wait for her!"
Her eyes were red, and the sanity in her eyes gradually faded as the fear spread, "I can't lose Ruirui again, I can't do it again..."
"Again?" Wu Ying was puzzled, but she didn't expect the young mother to answer at this moment.
Knowing Lao Yu and Chi Nan, they did not speak. It seems that this mother still has a subconscious memory of her daughter's death.
Everyone was helpless. In this case, they all understood the behavior of the young mother very well, and they couldn't tie her up.
Ye Chang calmly said to the young mother: "There is a new missing person, and the pattern is different from the pattern we speculated before. As an important npc, the female foreman may give new hints, auntie, go to the workshop with us and say The answer may not be found.”
The young mother's nervous rummaging through boxes and cabinets paused for a while, and Ye Chang said again, "What if Ruirui has already gone to the workshop first?"
Reason flashed across her crazy face, and she fell into a dazed quagmire for a moment. She murmured with trembling lips: "Yes, Ruirui is the most disciplined, never late or absent from school without reason, maybe already We're going to the workshop... we're going to the workshop... here we go..."
Seeing that the mother was convinced, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but within half a minute she shook her head nervously: "What if Ruirui goes back to the dormitory and can't find me?!"
Ye Chang: "You can leave a note for her and tell her to go to the workshop to meet. I think Ruirui will be able to do it."
The young mother listened, and nodded while finding a post-it note and a ballpoint pen in the house, but because she couldn't control the trembling in her hand, she couldn't write normally.
"I'll help you." Ye Chang said, took a ballpoint pen and wrote a line on the post-it note smoothly—
"Rui Rui, mother is waiting for you in the workshop."
Chi Nan glanced at Ye Chang's handwriting, which was so powerful that it was so good-looking that one couldn't help but take a second glance and never forget it.
At that time, it was 8:56, and everyone accelerated their pace and rushed to the production workshop. The time was just right when they arrived, no more than one point.
The female foreman was waiting for them with a stiff smile on her face: "Dear volunteers, how did you rest last night?"
In the end, her sharp eyes fell on Ye Chang and Chi Nan, and the smile disappeared, "It seems that the two best volunteers didn't make the right choice yesterday. It's a pity."
Ye Chang pushed his glasses apologetically: "But a little girl among us is missing, do you know where she went?"
The female foreman rolled her eyes stiffly: "May I ask what the little girl's name is?"
The young mother replied immediately, "Rui Rui, she is my daughter."
Unexpectedly, the female foreman raised the corner of her lips in approval: "What a beautiful name."
Everyone: "… "
Female foreman: "There has always been a legend in our Candleman town that the night seven days before Candleman is the darkest moment, and children are the most sensitive to light and soul. At midnight these days, children are very May be awakened from sleep and run away from home in the dark to find light for the great celebrations to come."
The young mother couldn't understand the nonsense she was talking about, so she hurriedly asked, "Where is my daughter? Tell me if you know!"
The female foreman cracked a subtle smile: "Don't worry, when you find the light they need, the children will come back by themselves."
"What do you mean? You tell me clearly..."
But how could the young mother hold her and ask, the female foreman pursed her lips and stopped talking.
Chi Nan quickly grasped the information point in the female foreman's words: "Then may I ask, how long will it take them to find the light they want?"
The cloudy eyes of the female foreman rolled, and the strange smile on her face grew stronger: "Usually, on Candleman Day, the whole town is filled with light, and the missing children will come back."
As soon as she said these words, the expressions of the experienced sleepwalkers changed, that is to say, on Candleman Festival, the missing Ruirui would reappear, but it was hard to say whether she was still a lively little girl by then.
And this seems to be the second set of disappearance laws, children who run away at night in search of light... So the necessary condition is children
Lao Yu muttered to himself, "Because of this rule, is there a rare twelve-year-old girl in this sleepwalker team?"
Chi Nan asked again, "Where will the children go to find light?"
The female foreman glanced at everyone: "Who knows? Children's secrets will not be known to us adults."
Everyone: "… "
Female worker: "Everyone, the time is up, let's start today's volunteer work."
"It's an honor, because two volunteers selflessly sacrificed themselves to the God of Light the night before yesterday, so we were rewarded by the gods and got the most precious candle figurines." The female foreman looked at everyone with high spirits, " In addition to making your own candle figurines today, you also need to add another job, which is to purify the most precious candle figurines."
Saying that, she lifted the white cloth raised high on the table, revealing a large block of amber wax inside.
Chi Nan stared at the wax block, his brows wrinkled imperceptibly. The wax quality is exactly the same as the human candle that can alienate shadows last night... Ye Chang also noticed this, and nodded at him clearly.
Maybe a breakthrough can be found from these wax blocks...
"Purification? What do we need to do?" Lao Yu asked.
Female foreman: "You need to melt these wax blocks in water, so as to pick out these small stones, mud blocks and other impurities in the wax blocks. This work requires care and endurance. I hope you can take it seriously."
After she finished speaking, she distributed the wax blocks, looked at the time, and said, "The production of candle figurines will take place after 12 noon, and the whole time this morning can be used for purification."
The newly added tasks are likely to dig up hidden clues, and everyone began to bury their heads and do as they were told. The young mother fell on the chair in the workshop and began to sob uncontrollably.
Wu Ying sighed and said in a low voice, "It's also a good thing to be able to cry, it's better than holding back.
Chi Nan looked at the young mother's intense mood swings, a trace of puzzlement flashed in his green eyes, and Ye Chang keenly caught it: "What's wrong?"
Chi Nan shook his head: "she's not the same as a mother I knew before."
Ye Chang: "How do you say?"
"That mother... used her son as a bargaining chip with the devil." Chi Nan lowered his eyes.
Ye Chang's hand that melted the wax block paused: "Are you talking about You Yu?"
Chi Nan jumped in his heart and quickly looked at Ye Chang: "How do you..."
Ye Chang smiled: "Brother Cha has recited your past experience more than once, and I can memorize it."
Chi Nan thought of the lively black tea, and wondered how he was doing now.
Ye Chang added: "But maybe... in Ruirui's situation, a family of three would not hesitate to come to the nightmare world of nine-death to do the task in order to exchange for each other. Is this a normal family?"
As he spoke, Ye Chang's voice was lowered, barely audible.
Chi Nan didn't know much about human families either. He shook his head: "I don't know very well either..."
After a pause, he asked again, "What's your home like?"
It was the only time he was interested in someone else's family.
Ye Chang's eyes are hidden behind the lenses, and the curvature of the corners of his lips seems to be smiling: "I...my mother she..."
"Ah!" Halfway through his words, he was interrupted by Xia Wei's unexpected scream, and everyone who was also startled looked back.
"What's wrong?" Lao Yu asked his roommate who was pale.
"Wax...in the wax block..." Xia Wei fell from the chair in a panic, his facial features twisted in fear, "there is...there is..."
Lao Yu frowned, and before he could answer, he picked up the wax block that had fallen to the ground, his face suddenly changed.
Chi Nan rarely saw Lao Yu's face so nervous and ugly.
"There is... a blue skull tattoo..." Xia Wei swallowed hard, and finally said the creepy discovery.
The two girls were puzzled for a while, and said in confusion: "Blue skull tattoo? What does it mean."
Lao Yu pointed the wax block to the light in order to show it more clearly in front of everyone: "Did you see it? The blue pattern in the wax block is a skull tattoo, right? Do you remember that this pattern is..."
"Gu Xiao's neck... has the exact same tattoo!" Wu Ying suddenly covered her lips, and the blood on her face faded from fear.
Because the blue skull tattoo on Gu Xiao's neck is too unique, Rao Shi Nan, who doesn't pay attention to his teammates, has an impression, not to mention the sleepwalkers who are keen to look at their companions.
Lao Yu nodded heavily, and the atmosphere in the workshop froze for a while.
The tattoo on Gu Xiao's neck was found in the so-called "precious wax block", which means...
"After being irradiated by candlelight, not only the shadow will become alienated, but the body will also become a wax block." Chi Nan told the truth that everyone gradually guessed, but did not have the courage to say it.
Xia Wei put his hands on the ground and almost cried when he saw his friend's tattoo solidified in the yellow wax: "But...but how can a person become wax..."
After speaking, he added in a low voice, "How can it become wax..."
As a non-newcomer, he naturally knows that all absurdities are possible in the nightmare world, and it is not impossible for flesh and blood to become wax.
Chi Nan looked at Ye Chang, then raised his hand to look carefully at the light: "But we were also lit by candles last night. Except for the temporary alienation of the shadow, there was no waxing phenomenon."
Ye Chang thought for a while: "But last night we stopped the shadow's attack in time, so we couldn't test what effect the shadow would have on the main body, and...the motive of the shadow attacking the main body."
Chi Nan's eyelids jumped, and he suddenly understood: "So after being attacked by shadows, the body will become waxed?"
Ye Chang nodded: "I think so, and thinking about it like this, the shadow's motive for attacking the body is also there."
Turn the body into a wax block suitable for making candles, so that the shadow can continuously obtain light, and light and shadow coexist, and the special wax block is the energy they rely on to survive.
"So, the clues we have now are that shadows will be alienated after being irradiated by candlelight, and the alienated shadow will act on us, that is, the body, and the body attacked by the shadow will gradually wax, so as to provide the shadows with which to rely on. The source of survival."
Lao Yu summed it up again, and after he finished speaking, he rubbed his temples with a headache, and looked at his shadow on the ground and scolded his mother: "I never thought that I would turn against my shadow one day."
He expressed the thoughts of everyone present... They all said that they were like a shadow, but no one thought that one day this accompanying "shadow" would want to kill him.
Just when everyone was overwhelmed by the strange truth, Wu Ying suddenly let out a low 'ah', then quickly pulled Dysonson aside and stepped back, looking at Ye Chang with vigilance and horror.
She asked coldly, "Why don't you have a shadow?!"