Song Yuelin, male, 35 years old, is a food blogger on a live streaming website. He was invited by a friend to go on vacation at Quanzhuang Resort a week ago.
Quanzhuang Resort is located next to a primeval forest. On a whim, everyone decided to go into the forest and camp for two nights. Unexpectedly, they encountered something strange shortly after they entered.
"There are seven of us in total. We drove in. The car was full of our friends, both men and women. To be honest, we all make money online. We are all good in our respective fields, but we have almost no experience in survival in wild camping..." Song Yuelin said.
Since they had no experience in surviving in the wild, they just wanted to come here to have some fun, take some photos, and experience the relaxing feeling. They also valued their lives, so even though they came in rashly, they did not go straight in.
When we found that the road became smaller the further we went in, until the car could no longer drive, we stopped in time.
They set out in the morning, took photos and chatted on the way, and drove slowly until around five in the afternoon when they arrived at their current location.
"We were planning to camp for two nights. We would sleep next to the car on the first night, and move a little further in to find a wide area to set up our tents for the second night. We would leave early on the third day. But we didn't expect that the incident would happen before we even set up our tents."
It was already approaching evening, and the light in the densely lush forest was much dimmer than in the large resort. Even at noon, it was still a bit chilly.
When the sun sets, most of the forest is already dark before it completely goes down. Only a few unique angles are left where the fiery red sunset shines through the branches and leaves, creating strange red light and shadows.
Between the interweaving of black and red, a photographer walked forward curiously to check it out. He shuttled between darkness and light. When he reached a certain critical point, his steps suddenly stopped, and there was no movement anymore.
Song Yuelin said, his face seemed to be lost in memories: "There were seven people in the car, about four of them were packing their things, taking their personal belongings out of the car, and he and another makeup artist were preparing dinner for everyone.
"The man who got into trouble is named Lü Liang. If you are a professional who pays attention to related matters, you should know him. He is a very famous photographer.
"The interweaving of light and shadow in the forest aroused Lü Liang's interest. He walked forward with a camera, probably wanting to see what was going on and take a photo, but he never came back."
Ji Xia heard this and said, "He never came back. What do you miss?"
"His throat was cut while he was standing. His body was soaked in his own blood. He was holding the camera and died with his eyes open." Song Yuelin lowered his voice and said eerily.
Suddenly, he looked at the ground and said, "See this red grass? It was dyed red by the blood that flowed from his body."
Ji Xia was listening as he walked. When he heard Song Yuelin's words, he looked down and found that he almost stepped on the grass.
Ji Xia was startled for a moment, stepped back a little, and jumped to the side of Yu Ning.
Yu Ning naturally stretched out his hand and supported Ji Xia.
Ji Xia leaned against Yu Ning, stuck his head out, bent down, and looked at the grass.
After so many days, the blood on the grass had long disappeared, but if you look closely, you can indeed find that the soil in this area is much darker than the soil next to it.
The soil that absorbed the blood took on a deep brown-red color, which made the weeds growing on the soil look even greener and more vibrant.
"When Lu Liang got into trouble, there were no signs. The temperature did not change, no ghosts appeared around, and not even a suspicious sound was made. He died silently. By the time we found that he was not strong enough, his body was almost cold." Song Yuelin said.
They were all ordinary people living in a peaceful era, and had never seen a dead person with their own eyes. Almost everyone present was terrified. Song Yuelin was one of the calmer ones. His first reaction was to take out his cell phone to call the police.
It was only then that he realized that his cell phone had no signal.
Not only him, but everyone else's cell phones seemed to be disconnected from the Internet, and they were completely unable to contact the outside world.
Someone was killed and the cell phone had no signal. Everyone panicked and their first reaction was to escape from this strange area.
Without bothering to pack their luggage and food, the remaining six people scrambled to get into the car and wanted to drive away.
A strange thing happened.There is only one way back. If you go straight along the road, you will definitely return to the vicinity of Quanzhuang Resort.
But they drove around for nearly three hours, regardless of whether they went straight or weaving through the woods, trying to find a way around, but they always ended up back where they started, near Lv Liang.
The dead Lv Liang stood there silently, like a gloomy road sign or a dead ghost, watching them collapse and cry with cold eyes.
In desperation, Song Yuelin and others had to return to the starting point again.
"We had been thinking about calling the police when we got out and waiting for the police to come and deal with Lv Liang's body, but we didn't expect that we would be trapped in here and unable to leave. Lv Liang had been standing there the whole time, and it didn't matter. After some discussion, we decided to bury Lv Liang and let him rest in peace. We also hoped that he could protect us and keep us safe..." said Song Yuelin.
Lu Liang's death was so strange that the girls didn't even dare to look at him, let alone touch his body. In the end, Song Yuelin mobilized two other men to bury Lu Liang together.
"Although we are all internet celebrities, we are only good at our own professional fields. When we encountered this murder case, we were all very scared and couldn't calm down at all. My mind was also very confused at the time. The only thing I remember was that I helped Lu Liang sort out the remains. As a result, I bumped into his camera. I don't know which switch I pressed, but the camera screen turned on. I happened to see the last photo Lu Liang took before his death..."
When Song Yuelin said this, he took out his mobile phone from his pocket, opened a photo, and handed it to Ji Xia.
Ji Xia took it immediately and started reading it with Yu Ning.
This photo was obviously taken by Song Yuelin aiming at the camera screen. Although the pixels are not high, the picture is clear.
In the dark forest, an extremely dark shadow appeared between the interweaving of light and shadow.
This shadow retains the shape of a human, but both its head and limbs are longer than those of an ordinary human.
It stood not far away, with its knees slightly bent. Its hands and feet were slender and pointed. It looked like a human, but also a bit like a humanoid insect.
The moment Ji Xia saw this photo, she felt a chill on her back and an uncomfortable feeling rising in her heart.
Because of this shadow, his feeling was very similar to Lin Siyun's ghost.
As expected, the ghost images created by Xijie are so consistent in style...
Song Yuelin handed over the photo and carefully observed Ji Xia and Yu Ning's reactions.
Yu Ning still had no expression on his face, and Ji Xia looked a little frightened.
After spending such a short time together, Song Yuelin has roughly seen through Ji Xia and Yu Ning's personalities. As for Yu Ning, Song Yuelin is not interested, and Ji Xia just needs to be a normal person.
Seeing Ji Xia staring at the photo, Song Yuelin said to him, "We have always suspected that Lu Liang died at the hands of someone. After all, there were so many people present, and he died silently. Ordinary people can't do it. With the help of this photo, we are sure that we must have encountered a ghost."
Unable to escape or contact the outside world, the remaining six people had no choice but to gather together and guard against each other, alerting everyone immediately if there was any unusual movement.
Everyone has heard a lot of ghost legends since childhood. Most of them appear in the dead of night, so the six of them are all prepared for a tough battle at night.
That night, the six of them hardly slept well. Everyone was prepared to encounter ghosts again, and no one dared to relax and fall asleep.
Strangely enough, the first night passed without any incident.
Except for Lu Liang who got into trouble at the beginning, the rest of the people were intact and no one was injured.
As soon as the next day dawned, the six of them immediately looked for a way out, but just like the first day, they found nothing.
An entire day passed like this, and night was about to come. At this time, Song Yuelin and others had not had a good sleep for 24 hours, and almost everyone was very sleepy.
Everyone took turns on duty while waiting for the arrival of night. Unexpectedly, at this moment, the accident happened again.
"We were so sleepy at the time, so for each other's safety, we decided to divide into groups of six to take turns, with two people in each group, and change shifts every two hours. I remember that it was around 5:00 p.m., and I and Zhou Li took turns for two hours. We were so tired that we finally waited for Shi Wei and Meng Xinyi to change shifts.
"As a result, I had just returned to the car and lay down, without even closing my eyes, when I heard Meng Xinyi's scream coming from outside..."
Upon hearing this, Ji Xia asked appropriately, "Is Shi Wei dead?"
Song Yuelin turned to look at Ji Xia and Yu Ning: "That's right. Shi Wei and Meng Xinyi both saw the ghost, but Shi Wei died and Meng Xinyi escaped because when the ghost appeared, Shi Wei was standing outside the car and Meng Xinyi was hiding under a tree trunk to change clothes.
"The ghost appeared, walked around the car, found Shi Wei, and cut his throat on the spot. Meng Xinyi was so scared that she didn't dare to scream until the ghost disappeared."
Ji Xia's brain quickly sorted out the information provided by Song Yuelin, organized his words, and said: "The ghost appeared and went straight to find someone, killing one person and then leaving? For two consecutive days, it came out around five in the evening, but it was calm and safe at night. In other words, the ghost appeared at a fixed time every day and only killed one person a day?"
Song Yuelin was planning to slowly explain Ji Xia's doubts to him, but he didn't expect that after listening to him, Ji Xia quickly summarized the key information.
He looked at Ji Xia in surprise and said, "I didn't expect you to be so smart. We only figured out this rule on the third day..."
Hearing this, Ji Xia couldn't help but think inwardly: This is just a summary. Have you ever seen Yu Ning's reasoning, his ability to draw inferences from one example, and his reverse thinking? Tong Jing, who was so strong, died at the hands of Yu Ning. It was all thanks to the smart brain of this top student.
However, Ji Xia did not trust Song Yuelin, so he would naturally not reveal their cards.
In order to avoid any flaws, he didn't even look at Yu Ning or exchange information with him during the whole process.
Hearing Song Yuelin's praise, Ji Xia smiled and said, "I just heard your retelling. The personal information has been condensed and refined, so it can be summarized quickly. You, the parties involved, have suffered a great psychological shock and cannot calm down for a while. This is very normal."
Song Yuelin nodded, agreeing with Ji Xia's words: "Everyone thinks that ghosts only appear at night, but... I wonder if you have heard of the Devil's Hour?"
This is not a strange piece of knowledge. Ji Xia had glanced at it when reading novels and remembered it immediately. Listening to Song Yuelin's words, Ji Xia said, "At dusk, it is the time when day and night intersect. Some people believe that dusk is the time when people and ghosts coexist, and when ghosts come out. Is it the most dangerous time?"
Unexpectedly, Ji Xia knew quite a lot. Song Yuelin paused to explain and said, "That's right. Starting from the third day, we saw through the ghost's routine and began to hide in a targeted manner. Soon we found that this method was effective.
"The ghost will come out to kill people at a specific time. As long as we are not found by him, we can escape. Since we are trapped in a specific area and our cell phones have no signal, we are quite isolated from the world. So we feel that this is like a horror prank or a game."
"Call it: hide and seek."