CH 45

Great Demon King 04

Disturbing someone’s peaceful dreams is unethical, regardless of whether the one disturbing is a little girl or even a small female ghost.

Xin Lan doesn’t know why she was chosen as the first target. Does she appear weak or something?

The problem is these ghosts like to come out and wander around in the middle of the night, specifically after she falls asleep. This situation is quite serious.

It’s only because the other party is a little girl that Xin Lan reluctantly responded with two words. If it were something else, she would have already lashed out.

The reaction from the Xin Lan startled the little girl. Her pale face showed a trace of grievance, looking pitiful.

“Sister, my mom and dad aren’t home, and I’m so bored being alone at home. Can you please play with me?”

“No, I can’t.”

Xin Lan glanced at the group of people sleeping haphazardly beside her, then looked around.

The surroundings seemed enveloped in a thin mist, making it difficult to see anything clearly except for the little girl in front of her.

The little girl pouted, sitting cross-legged beneath Xin Lan with a sullen expression.

Xin Lan gave her a cold glance and closed her eyes, drifting back to sleep.

The little girl was taken aback and immediately stood up.

“Sister, sister, don’t sleep. Wake up, sister, sister…”

The persistent calls of the little girl continued, but Xin Lan’s temples throbbed, and she impatiently opened her eyes, grabbing the collar of the little girl’s dress.

“Didn’t your mother tell you not to disturb someone while they’re sleeping?”

Xin Lan’s expression was irritable as she glared at the little girl in front of her.

“My mom never said that!”

The little girl retorted defiantly.

“Then go ask your mom if what I said is true or not!”

Xin Lan threw the little ghost away from her grip, her whole body filled with a sense of low pressure.

The little girl was thrown to the ground, letting out a piercing scream.

Xin Lan didn’t even bother to acknowledge her, wondering why she was bothering with this.

Sitting on the ground, the little girl covered her face and began to sob.

“You’re bullying me! I’m going to tell my mom.”

“Go ahead.”

“You don’t want to play with me, you’re a bad person, and my mom is a bad person too. You’re all bad eggs!”

The little girl’s soft sobbing turned into loud wailing, and Xin Lan’s expression grew increasingly grim.

“If it weren’t for me not hitting children…”

Xin Lan pressed her temples, desperately wanting to silence the little ghost.

“You’re all big bad eggs! None of you want to play with me, none of you want me…”

The little girl sat on the ground, muttering to herself, then suddenly raised her head to look at Xin Lan.

That face no longer held the previous pitiful expression; instead, it was devoid of emotion, exuding an eerie aura.

The thin mist flowing in the air suddenly transformed into dense smoke, filling the air with a choking odor.

The smoke relentlessly infiltrated the respiratory passages, causing Xin Lan to cover her mouth and nose. The visibility in the surroundings decreased rapidly.

Xin Lan stood up, surrounded by a dense fog, unable to see anything.

Zero Nine provided a map with red and blue marks, indicating the location of the little ghost with the red mark.

Xin Lan approached the thick fog and accurately seized the little ghost.

The little ghost widened her eyes, surprised that she had been discovered.

Enduring the increasingly suffocating smoke, Xin Lan used her other hand to grip the little ghost’s neck.

“What are you doing?!”

“Do you know what happens to disobedient children?”

“If you disturb my sleep again, I’ll twist your head off. Do you hear me?”

The little ghost was already dead, so she couldn’t feel the suffocating sensation. However, when her neck was being squeezed, she experienced an inexplicable fear that made her tremble.

Xin Lan released her grip on the little ghost, and in that instant, the ghost quickly fled.

The choking smoke gradually dissipated, and Xin Lan felt considerably relieved.

As she lay back on the couch, she heard a child’s voice coming from the mist.

“My mom said that someone as fierce as you won’t find a partner in the future.”

?

Xin Lan closed her eyes; she didn’t need a response.

When she opened her eyes again, it was already the next morning.

She glanced at her phone and saw that it was 7:30 a.m.

However, no sunlight entered through the window, and the lights were still as bright as they were last night. If one didn’t look at the time, it seemed like they were still in the darkness of that night.

One by one, everyone woke up. The first person Xin Lan made eye contact with was Qi Haolin. He looked at her, and she coldly stared back, unflinching, until Qi Haolin uncomfortably averted his gaze.

Only Molly was still asleep, but her eyebrows were furrowed.

“It’s strange. Nothing happened last night. We all slept until morning?”

Ren Difei scratched his head, feeling perplexed. He had originally planned to stay awake, but with nothing to do, he couldn’t stay up and ended up falling asleep in a daze.

Pi Tianzi: “Are you expecting something to happen?”

Ren Difei: “Honestly, I feel a mix of excitement and disappointment.”

“You’re crazy.”

Pi Tianzi frowned, her face appearing somewhat weary.

“Look at your phones. It’s already 7:30 a.m. The sun should have risen by now. Why is there still no light?”

Sheng Lifan’s voice trembled, and his hand holding the phone involuntarily shook.

Everyone followed suit, looking at their phones, but there was still no signal. Since they entered the villa last night, there had been no signal, and emergency calls couldn’t go through—just a constant busy tone.

Pi Tianzi: “It’s true, it’s already 7:30 a.m…”

The lights inside the villa softly illuminated the surroundings, but when they looked outside, it was still pitch black.

In this unsettling atmosphere, Molly woke up and rubbed her eyes.

After a few seconds of confusion, Molly remembered what had happened, and her expression underwent a slight change.

She glanced at the group of people staring at her inexplicably and pinched her leg.

“Why are you all staring at me?”

“It’s already the year 8012, and you’ve finally woken up.”

Ren Difei said softly.

Molly looked at the time and promptly flipped Ren Difei off.

But as she glanced at the sunless interior, she immediately realized what had happened.

Ke Xuguang went to pull the door again and shook his head at Xin Lan and the others.

Molly: “Didn’t you say that this kind of thing usually resolves itself overnight?”

Ren Difei: “You know I said ‘usually’!”

Pi Tianzi: “What should we do now?”

Sheng Lifan: “Who knows? We shouldn’t have come to this cursed place in the first place!”

As he spoke, he glared at Qi Haolin, but Qi Haolin wasn’t one to be easily intimidated and glared back.

“It’s not like I forced you to sign up and come here. With the heavy rain just now, we couldn’t have reached the destination anyway. Even if you blame me, it’s pointless.”

Qi Haolin replied, showing no sign of guilt on his face. It seemed as if he had no connection to this entire situation. Who could have imagined that it was an elaborate scheme deliberately designed to bring them here?

“Enough, it’s late, so stop arguing. We should focus on what to do now.”

Ke Xuguang said impatiently, his demeanor fierce, causing the others to immediately quiet down.

“It’s quite obvious that if this were a horror story, then we are the characters in it, following the plot. We’ll be subjected to various kinds of deaths.”

Ren Difei analyzed, although his leg kept trembling, making him appear fearless.

“I don’t want to die! I want to get out of here!”

Molly exclaimed, abandoning any pretense of coquettishness and tightly gripping her small bag.

“Who doesn’t want to get out? Nobody wants to die, okay?”

“You’ve read so many stories. Do you have any solutions to decipher this?”

Qi Haolin looked at Ren Difei, waiting for his answer.

“Logically speaking, if we’re trapped here, unable to leave, then last night shouldn’t have been so uneventful.”

Ren Difei’s gaze shifted to the others, his expression filled with confusion.

Xin Lan remained silent, acting as if she were invisible, observing everyone.

If that little ghost hadn’t chosen her last night, perhaps they would have seen someone in trouble today.

“Did anything happen to any of you last night?”

Ren Difei asked, and everyone shook their heads.

“This doesn’t make sense. How could ghosts be so kind? Could this be not a supernatural story, but a mystery to unravel?”

Ren Difei proposed another possibility.

“What do you mean by a mystery to unravel?”

Molly asked curiously.

“For example, uncovering the truth behind a story or finding clues to escape. If that’s the case, then the family of three we saw yesterday should be one of the clues to this mystery.”

“The little girl, her mother, and the hidden photograph—it’s definitely related to the little girl’s father.”

Sheng Lifan calmed down quite a bit upon hearing Ren Difei suggest that there might be no actual ghost involved.

Ren Difei: “Let’s go to other places now to search for clues.”

Pi Tianzi: “Should we go together or split up?”

Qi Haolin: “Let’s split up. This place is quite big, and with seven of us, we can form three groups.”

Molly: “Then I’ll go with you.”

Qi Haolin didn’t object and looked towards Xin Lan, who was sitting aside.

“Then I’ll go with you.”

Ren Difei suddenly pointed to Xin Lan. Xin Lan, being called out, raised an eyebrow and nodded.

“From the beginning until now, you haven’t said a word. Could it be that you’re mute?”

Molly, who was naturally wary of girls who were prettier than her, immediately spoke up and mocked Xin Lan upon seeing Qi Haolin looking at her earlier.

“She can speak.”

Qi Haolin responded with a faint displeasure on his face, but it quickly disappeared.

Molly closed her mouth and remained silent.

With two groups formed, Pi Tianzi, Sheng Lifan, and Ke Xuguang naturally became one group.

The living room extended in two directions—on the left was the kitchen, and on the right were the rooms.

Ren Difei went left, while the remaining two groups went right.

Xin Lan noticed the items on the dining table—half-eaten pizza, remnants of fried chicken burgers, an unopened bucket of instant noodles, and cola in paper cups.

She glanced at the trash bin and saw white takeout boxes inside.

It didn’t match the situation depicted in the photo they had seen earlier. If this were a house where a mother lived with her child, it wouldn’t make sense to have so much leftover fast food traces. Instead, it seemed more like a place where a single person lived.

Xin Lan walked into the kitchen and found uncut meat on the cutting board. It looked like someone had started cutting it but then left, leaving the knife behind.

The meat’s surface surprisingly showed no signs of spoilage, as if the owner had just stepped away briefly.

Xin Lan picked up the knife from the cutting board and turned to look at Ren Difei.

“What are you looking at?”

This person had been staring at her since earlier.

Ren Difei trembled as he saw Xin Lan holding the knife and instinctively took a step back.

In fact, he had been thinking of saying that it might not be a ghost causing trouble but rather that one of them had already been killed by a ghost.

Generally, girls like Xin Lan, who remained silent in the corner, tended to be the final big boss. That’s why he had intentionally wanted to team up with her.

But now… Was it still possible to run away?