The World Below Surface

Chapter 49

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Late at night, cold wind blew.

Nie Yunzhen and Shi Yan ran for their lives, and they didn't know how far they ran in the dark night. Nie Yunzhen now truly regretted it: "If I had known earlier, I would..."

If he had known earlier, he shouldn't have let these people come! It doesn't matter how long they play here as it's just the two of them.

Shi Yan couldn't help but feel a little resentful, but then she thought, wasn't it her who rigged the cards to make Yun Qian come looking for her? Thinking this way, she didn't seem to have any right to blame Nie Yunzhen.

The result of their careful calculations was that they put themselves in a dead end. It must be said that they really brought it upon themselves.

"Stop talking and run quickly." There is no point in thinking about it anymore, Shi Yan said.

The damp and cold night air was breathed into their lungs by the heavy breathing after the intense exercise. They ran for a long time and became more and more awake.

"Wait a minute, I suddenly have a question." Because there was no ghost chasing him, Nie Yunzhen's messy brain tried hard to regain clarity, and he asked a question that Shi Yan did not dare to ask in his heart.

"What if... the Chu Xiu who sent us the message is also fake?"

These words made Shi Yan silent.

Her eyes traced the appearance of the man in front of her through the moonlight. He did not seem to be pretending, but she could not help but become suspicious because of this sentence.

Yes, who can prove that the “Chu Xiu” is definitely real

Or, who can prove that the current Nie Yun is real

Shi Yan stopped and looked at Nie Yunzhen, who followed her and stopped in confusion. "You're right. Now, everyone is suspecting that the other person is the devil. So, the best choice now is for us to go our separate ways."

"What?" Nie Yunzhen didn't react at all.

Shi Yan continued, "In this situation, it is completely unreliable to tell who is a human and who is a ghost. I can only believe that I am not one, and the same goes for you. Even if I am not one now, I may be secretly replaced by a ghost in a while. So, let's go now. Turn your phone to silent mode. You can send messages to each other, but never ask questions like where the other person is, and don't answer them even if you ask."

Nie Yunzhen quickly understood what she meant. He was a little reluctant, but he had to admit that what she said made sense. He hesitated for a while and nodded: "That's fine. We can be more rigorous and not trust anyone except ourselves."

Shi Yan agreed with him.

"There's a small fork in the road ahead. When we get there, we'll go left. I'll go left, and you can do whatever you want."

"good."

The two of them trotted to the fork in the road. Shi Yanwei was panting, and took a few steps back facing Nie Yunzhen, and then quickly disappeared into the darkness.

After a while, they all received news from Chu Xiu.

Chu Xiu: "Are you guys gathering together now? It's best to go separately, don't ask each other about the location, and make sure all your phones are on silent mode."

Chu Xiu: "From now on, everyone should try not to contact each other anymore. Just wait until the next morning and take the bus back by yourself."

Judging from his tone, he even gave up on gathering after the game.

After sending the message, Chu Xiu put his phone away immediately, looked around with an alert look, identified the direction, and walked in a certain direction.

"What should I do? That voice just now must be Zhang Zhijie's." Ling Weiwei was almost incoherent. She grabbed Sun Hao's sleeve tightly and did not dare to let go.

After Yun Qian was chosen to be a ghost, she naturally teamed up with Zhang Dan, but neither she nor Zhang Dan was particularly brave, so they brought two boys along, one was Sun Hao who was in the same class with her, and the other was Huang Yuanwang who didn't know which class he was in but didn't want to be alone.

The other two boys were also terrified, and Huang Yuanwang was even more terrified. He was just discussing games with Zhang Zhijie in the car, but soon after he heard the news of his death. This cruel fact made it difficult for him not to collapse.

"Don't talk nonsense. What if you heard it wrong? Maybe Zhang Zhijie just likes to shout." Huang Yuanwang tried to convince others with a clumsy reason that he himself didn't believe.

"What should we do now? Should we hide?" They originally planned to hide for a few rounds and return when someone was caught. This would save them face and not take too long. But now... who dares to get caught

That's a real ghost...

They couldn't help but feel scared when they thought that they had come to Yinming Road with ghosts, ridden on the same bus with them, and were now playing hide-and-seek with them.

"Hide, of course you have to hide. The question now is where to hide." The first person to calm down was Zhang Dan, who was not very outstanding on weekdays. She tried to calm down, "There are dead trees everywhere here, and there are no small uphill slopes, caves or anything like that. Except for the extremely dark night, there is no way to play hide-and-seek."

"The disadvantage for us now is that we can't see clearly in the dark. I don't know... I don't know if Yun Qian is the same." Zhang Dan couldn't help but feel scared when she mentioned that name, but she had to say it.

One person's calmness can easily infect others, and before they knew it, a small group formed with Zhang Dan as the leader.

"So, what should we do now?" Sun Hao grabbed his hair in annoyance.

"Keep running," Zhang Dan said. "It's the only way. I've played a lot of escape games, and they're all like this. If you stand still, you'll definitely be caught. You have to keep moving."

Her gaze lingered on Ling Weiwei's frightened pale face for a moment, and she continued with a determined heart, "Besides, we'd better run apart."

"Why?" Ling Weiwei was incredulous.

"It's simple. Whether it knows our location or not, the chances of us being caught are the same. Once it finds one of us, it's equivalent to finding four of us. If we spread out, no one will know where anyone is. In this way, if one of us is accidentally caught... it won't affect the others."

"How could you..." Before Huang Yuanwang could finish his question, Sun Hao interrupted him: "Actually, what she said makes sense. What's the point of the four of us getting together? Can we resist? It's better to stay together and give ourselves and others more chances to survive."

"But, I..." Ling Weiwei didn't say it out loud, but everyone could see that she was very scared.

Zhang Dan said, "Everyone is scared, not just you, I am too." She curled her lips, "But there is nothing we can do. Who knew something like this would happen?"

She didn't want to come at first, but the money was so tempting that she thought she could buy her sister some delicious food and a pretty skirt with the money, and the rest of the money would be enough to last until the end of the semester if she saved it. But...

She hugged her arms tightly and swore to herself in her heart that she must go back!

She must go back alive, and then, she will never enter the underworld again!

The four people had different opinions and had an argument. In the end, Sun Hao and Zhang Dan chose to leave alone, while Huang Yuanwang and Ling Weiwei left together.

Huang Yuanwang: "Well, we are both quite scared, but I will definitely let you run first later."

Ling Weiwei is very beautiful. It would be a lie to say that he doesn't have other thoughts in his mind normally. It is the same now. He can't help but let his imagination run wild while being afraid.

Ling Weiwei's face looked better and she nodded, "Thank you, let's keep going, it would be best if we can get out. I will definitely not hold you back."

The two of them trotted forward hand in hand, and about 500 meters behind them, a girl in school uniform walked forward at a leisurely pace. There was almost no white in her eyes, and other than that, she looked like a normal girl.

City Police Department.

Officer Zhao waited for a long time until all the reporters left. She breathed a sigh of relief and hurried to the parking lot to pick up her car and leave.

But what annoyed her was that there was a car right behind her car. No matter how good her driving skills were, she couldn't drive her car out from between the wall and the car.

"Who is this? You're really sick!" she cursed angrily.

At this moment, the car's headlights came on and it backed up half a meter.

There is someone inside

She walked half a circle from the rear of the car to the front. The side windows of the other car were all one-way glass, and only from the front could she see that the driver was a fair and gentle man.

"What do you want from me?" Officer Zhao remained calm, his hand already reaching for the electric baton at his waist.

"Don't be so nervous, I just want to ask you something." said the young man in the car.

He raised his hands to show that he was unarmed, then opened the car door and stood in front of her.

"Officer Zhao, right? My last name is Lu, and I'm a journalist." The young man had a press card pinned to his chest, and it didn't look fake.

Officer Zhao frowned tightly, but soon regained her calm expression to prevent this guy from going out and writing nonsense to damage the image of the police. She forced a fake smile and said, "Hello, Mr. Lu, what can I do for you? If you want to know about the car crash that happened on Yinming Road, you can go and read the case report."

The person who came was Lu Yanli. He shook his head and talked about another topic: "I believe in the credibility of the people's police, so I am here to ask about another case." As he spoke, his eyes became deep, his speech became long unconsciously, and his tone carried a hint of other special meaning.

"Don't worry. I'll leave soon after I finish asking questions." He spoke slowly in an indescribable tone.

As soon as she met those eyes, Officer Zhao felt calmer. She began to reflect on herself, thinking that her attitude just now was a little bad. They should answer the questions of the common people.

"you say."

"Officer Zhao, do you know the Omniscient God?" Lu Yanli stared into her eyes.

"I know, I know." The superiors have repeatedly stressed the need to crack down on evil cults and prohibit religion from entering the classroom.

"Is the recent death of a student at the Fourth Middle School in this city related to the Omniscient God Cult?"

Unexpectedly, Officer Zhao frowned slowly, as if trying to remember something. After a while, he shook his head and said, "No."

How could that be

He clearly found out that all of those students' families believed in the omniscient God.

Lu Yanli continued to ask: "The top leaders of this school show signs of believing in the Omniscient God religion. Did you know that?"

Officer Zhao frowned even more and shook his head slowly: "I don't know. I just took office not long ago. The previous team leader only knew about it."

"Who was the previous team leader? What was his name?"

"It's... it's Anru."

"Where did he go?"

"He... he went to investigate the Yin Ming Road... Everyone told him not to go, but he went anyway. After that, he disappeared and never came back."

Lu Yanli subconsciously felt that An Ru was an important breakthrough, so he continued to ask: "Do you have a photo of An Ru? Can you let me see it?"

Officer Zhao shook his head.

She had just transferred from another place and didn't know much about it.

Lu Yanli was not disappointed and decided to continue his investigation with An Ru as a breakthrough point. Since he was investigating the Yinming Road and the All-Knowing God Cult, there might be some unexpected surprises.

"Okay, Officer Zhao, it's getting late, go home early." Lu Yanli said goodbye to her politely, backed up to make room, and drove towards the gate.

Behind him, Officer Zhao rubbed his eyes dazedly, and couldn't help but smile bitterly when he saw that he had unknowingly been standing in front of the car in a daze.

Really... I've been under too much pressure recently. I should relax when I go home on the weekend.

The sound of another car starting up was heard from the direction of the parking lot entrance. Officer Zhao subconsciously looked over and saw a small private car preparing to leave.

She suddenly realized something was wrong and turned around abruptly!

The parking lot was empty and there weren't many cars. Logically, if there were people hiding in this environment, they would definitely not escape her sharp eyes. But now, she couldn't see a single person, but she felt like she was being watched secretly.

This feeling of being chased by gazes made her very uncomfortable, as if... she was a prey being targeted by a wild beast.

"Who? Who's in there?!"

No one answered, and the lights in the deepest part of the parking lot suddenly dimmed. Then, the lights went out one by one, and the darkness quickly spread to where Officer Zhao was.

Officer Zhao felt fear for no reason. The fear engraved in her bones made her quickly open the car door and get in. Just as she was about to start the car, she was stunned.

She slowly lowered her head.

The seat belt that she had fastened subconsciously felt cold and slippery to the touch. But that texture was not a seat belt at all, but... a group of beetles that were clinging to the seat belt and wouldn't let go! They were still crawling and had already crawled onto her body!

The seat belt began to tighten, and then a pair of white, soft arms stretched out from the back seat and tightly wrapped around Officer Zhao's neck.

“No… Don’t!”

Officer Zhao tried to call for help, but her throat was strangled and she couldn't make any sound out of the car. She struggled desperately and tried to cut the seat belt with a knife, but she couldn't cut it at all. She tried to pry open her icy hand, but she was still unable to do so. She could only watch herself die in the rearview mirror.

Before she died, she realized that those were insects.

The lights dimmed one by one, and the darkness silently swallowed up the light. All of this was the spread of the swarm of insects. When the last bit of light was swallowed up by the darkness, she was also completely swallowed up by the black beetle.

The swarm of black insects was chasing after the car from the parking lot like a tide. The lights that had been dimmed lit up again, and the black tide was about to catch up with the private car that was about to leave.

Lu Yanli gripped the steering wheel tightly and stepped on the accelerator to the bottom.

It was late at night. Normally, even if there were few people in the city at night, it wouldn't be like this, with not a single person in sight. The whole street was empty, there was not a single car on the road, and even the traffic lights were black. He ignored the traffic rules, stepped on the accelerator, and drove towards the city at full speed.

Behind him was a street that was constantly being swallowed by darkness.

Faster...faster!

Lu Yanli tried hard to identify the direction. He didn't care about anything else and just kept moving forward. The sound of the tires rubbing against the road echoed through the night sky, and his speed was already infinitely close to the vehicle's maximum speed.

But the black insect tide devoured faster, surging up layer by layer like waves. No one knew when they appeared, where they appeared from, or why there were such a large number. In short, after Lu Yanli drove across nearly half of the city, the black insect tide was still behind him.

He gritted his teeth, turned the steering wheel, and drove towards the Yinming Road.

"Zhang Zhijie is dead, and Fang Nan is dead too." Tian Le held Fang Nan's cell phone in his hand and ran forward desperately. His face was covered with physiological tears mixed with sweat. When the cool wind blew, his whole face was frozen stiff.

Just now, he and Fang Nan walked past a tree together, and then a pair of white hands stretched out from behind the tree and pulled Fang Nan over.

“Found it.”

When he heard Yun Qian's cold and hoarse voice, he was immediately frightened out of his wits and fled like an arrow.

Therefore, he did not see that after a while, another figure walked out from behind the tree. The figure was wearing a school uniform, his face was pale and blue, and there was a long cut on his neck.

He and Yun Qian looked at each other and gave a weird smile, then they dispersed to look for other people.

Good friends, we should always play together.

Tian Le ran very far. He vaguely heard the sound of a car starting, but he had no time to think whether those people got in the car and ran away. He just kept running forward. He didn't even know where he was running to. He was tripped by something and dropped his cell phone heavily, which fell next to a pair of shoes.

He followed the light and saw the man.

This person... He had never seen him before, but he looked like a human. No, that's not right, could this person appearing on the Yinming Road at this point be a human

He was so scared that he jumped up, without even picking up his cell phone, and continued running in another direction.

The man bent down and picked up the phone.

The light from the mobile phone screen illuminated his face. On the other side, a man hiding behind a tree was shocked.

Lu Yanli? !

How come he is here

However, Lu Yanli noticed it immediately and looked straight in the direction of the gaze. He also shone the flashlight in his hand in that direction, and then raised his eyebrows slightly: "Chu Xiu, it's you."

"Wait, don't come over here yet." Seeing him walking towards him, Chu Xiu said cautiously, "I'm not sure if you are..."

Lu Yanli had just roughly browsed through the phone and was still on the class group chat interface, and their class groups... all used real-name systems.

As soon as he saw the name displayed on the chat screen of the phone's owner, Lu Yanli immediately turned off the phone and threw it far away.

"Let's not talk about this for now. Let me ask you, did you find a group of students to play hide-and-seek?"

Chu Xiu: "How do you know?" He paused, and immediately explained, "I was unconscious at the time. This was a decision made by Nie Yunzhen and Shi Yan, but I am also responsible for this matter..."

Lu Yanli interrupted him, his eyes bright in the darkness, but they were obviously burned by anger: "Do you really... think you have lived too long?" He gritted his teeth and said every word with some reluctance.

He never expected that these people would insist on running into a dead end. What made him even more helpless was that now he himself had jumped into such a dead end.

Chu Xiu had never seen him really angry, so he felt a little guilty for some reason, and immediately asked, "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? I'll just tell you one thing, these students, all of them." He didn't finish his words, but Chu Xiu immediately understood the word he didn't say.

All...are ghosts?!

Chu Xiu was shocked.

He did not doubt Lu Yanli's source of information and subconsciously believed the other party.

Lu Yanli took a few deep breaths, his chest heaving twice, and waved his hands a little weakly: "Forget it, even if you don't take the initiative, I guess these things will find ways to come to us."

There are not many living people in this world. As long as the person who issues the so-called mission is willing, anyone they find may turn into a ghost.

"Why are you here?" Chu Xiu continued to ask.

He now believed that the person in front of him was a living person, and naturally wanted to know why.

Lu Yanli's back stiffened slightly.

He knew that these people were going to play hide-and-seek here, and playing hide-and-seek would inevitably involve ghosts, so he lured those things over to see if he could find a way to make them fight each other.

It now seemed that the ghost playing hide-and-seek had the upper hand, and none of the corpse worms flew in.

"You don't need to worry about that. I have my own things to do." Lu Yanli changed the subject. "Are those two still alive? If they are, do you need to notify them?"

Without his reminder, Chu Xiu immediately sent a message to the two of them.

The shock this news brought to them was beyond words.

Everyone... all of them

They weren't playing hide and seek with one ghost, but eleven ghosts?!

Nie Yun really wanted to travel back a few hours ago and beat himself to death for making the suggestion, and Shi Yan regretted it so much that his intestines turned green.

how so

Deep in the jungle, in an abandoned factory, a strong stench filled the air.

If an experienced detective were here, he would be able to easily tell that it was the smell of a rotting corpse.

Unexpectedly, there were not many flies around the rotting corpses. Instead, fireflies flew out from the factory one after another, green and dancing in the dark.

What should have been a romantic scene only looks scary when placed on the eerie and desolate Yinming Road, and if you are not careful it might be mistaken for a ghost fire.

Yun Qian, Zhang Zhijie, Fang Nan, and Xie Yu, four people stood in front of the factory.

Behind them, there were twelve skeletons neatly arranged. At this moment, they were placing something on the skeletons. The four "people" looked at each other, smiled strangely, and left while singing.

They are going to find other good friends.

“Twinkle, twinkle little star, the sky is full of little stars…”

The gentle voices of the boy and girl floated in the night sky. Unfortunately, there were no stars or moon tonight, only the flying fireflies could barely be called "a sky full of little stars".

Seeing them walking away, a girl ran out from behind the factory, pinching her nose.

That girl was Wen Qing. She followed the taxi and rushed here. It was already dark when she arrived. She didn't know where the group had agreed to meet, so she took a detour from another place to the intersection, but she couldn't find anyone. She didn't have a mobile phone, so she naturally didn't know how to contact them, so she could only look for them slowly by herself.

After finally seeing the light of the car lights, Yun Qian got out of the car. Just as she was about to run over, she witnessed her good friend Yun Qian opening her mouth and swallowing Zhang Zhijie in one gulp.

That scene... Even now, when she thinks back on it, she still feels a little scared.

Yun Qian...she is no longer a human being.

Then, she saw Yun Qian opened her mouth again and spit out one bone after another. The pile of bones assembled themselves into a person on the ground. Not long after, Zhang Zhijie, who had been swallowed, reappeared.

Perhaps because the shock and sadness were too strong, Wen Qing had forgotten to be afraid. She now had only one thought in mind, which was to find other classmates and take them away!

Wen Qing approached cautiously, came to a row of bones, and lowered his head to look.

They had just put something down, and when I got closer I saw that it was a few playing cards.

Poker

What does this mean

Wen Qing was confused. She thought for a long time, then reached out, picked up the four playing cards and put them in her pocket.

In the distance the singing continued, almost penetrating the space, and the whole woods echoed with their clear, melodious chorus.

"Hanging in the sky, shining brightly, like many little eyes..."

One after another, fireflies drilled into the white bones, and the two black eye sockets on the skull head lit up with a glowing green light.

"My eyes are full of little stars..."