CH 16

Gu Xizhou saw Si Yu’s incredibly unnatural expression as he nodded, and raised an eyebrow. “Did you just pull me again?”

“I saw it, I suppose I can’t help saving you, right?” Si Yu reluctantly laughed at himself. “Because of the compensation for the two dead fugitives, I was told to report to the police station today. Right as I reached the entrance, I saw that police car rushing towards you two.”

Gu Xizhou rolled his eyes at him and said silently, that Li He’s body didn’t go cold because of you!

“What’s going on?” Fang Zhi’s face was blank, and he interrupted the conversation between the two. 

Si Yu said as he walked: “It’s getting late. We should get to the mountain top first, this mountain won’t be safe at night. Since you know him, you can explain it to him.”

“Okay.” Gu Xizhou nodded, and called Fang Zhi over. Fang Zhi wasn’t the only one with doubts, he also had doubts lingering in his heart.

Fang Zhi looked at Gu Xizhou and Si Yu, saw that the two of them had calm expressions, and felt like his entire body was ignorant. 

“Fang Zhi, is there a string of red numbers in your line of sight?” Gu Xizhou asked.

Fang Zhi: “En, there is a string of numbers, and many zeros…”

Gu Xizhou said: “This number represents the countdown to your life. If you die in this world, you will also die in the real world in an accident.”

Fang Zhi: “…”

Gu Xizhou: “In addition, you may see some things here that cannot be explained.”

Fang Zhi heard this and froze, before asking: “What things?”

Gu Xizhou: “Supernatural phenomenons.”

Fang Zhi looked at Gu Xizhou with a face full of ‘you have to be kidding me’. “I, I don’t believe this! I have a police badge to protect me! Gu Ge, we’re policemen! We must believe in science!”

Si Yu glanced at him, and slight disdain appeared in the corner of his mouth. “Then you better not believe it at all, so that you won’t be as scared when you die.”

Gu Xizhou: “Do you know how to speak ah, you’re scaring our Xiao Fang! But if you don’t believe, you’ll die a little faster, that really is the truth.”

Fang Zhi: “…” Gu Ge, you also don’t really know how to speak!

A gust of wind blew past, and it was clearly a summer wind, but Fang Zhi felt that his back felt cold.

Gu Xizhou saw that Fang Zhi was a little nervous, and patted his shoulder: “Relax, I’ve experienced a world before. These things aren’t very scary, just follow me and you’ll be fine.”

Fang Zhi nodded. After hearing Gu Xizhou’s explanation of the rules in the mission world, his whole person felt faint. He was a true, downright materialist! He didn’t believe in these things!

After a brief conversation, Gu Xizhou and the rest reached a position near the top of the mountain, and they could already see the outline of the villa. Gu Xizhou reminded Fang Zhi: “Call me Gu Ran here, and call him Si Yaoxing.”

Fang Zhi hesitated for a few seconds when he heard the name. Thinking of the previous time when they caught the murder, after the glass window had fallen, this was how Si Yu had called Gu Ge. “Last time, Gu Ge…”

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Before reaching the villa, Gu Xizhou asked a quiet Si Yu with dissatisfaction in his voice, “Also, I had more than 40 hours to my life, why was I suddenly pulled here? This world doesn’t have any sort of spirit to uphold contracts at all.”

Si Yu: “…” Where exactly have you been wronged?

“It’s because of him.” Hearing Gu Xizhou’s scolding and complaining for a long time as they walked, Si Yu couldn’t bear it anymore and pointed at Fang Zhi, and the named Fang Zhi looked a little aggressive. “His life time was counting down, so when you grabbed his hand… And I grabbed your hand, so the mission world thought we formed a team to experience the mission, and threw us in together.”

Gu Xizhou heard this, and his gaze fell on Si Yu’s body. “So the last time…?”

Si Yu: “…”

Gu Xizhou saw the way he was speechless, to the point where Si Yu looked as if he wanted to roll his eyes, and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s too pitiful, brother! Rest assured, your big brother will carry you through!”

Si Yu: “No need, please stay away from me in the future, meeting you is never a good thing.”

Gu Xizhou: “…”

The hilltop villa has two huge iron gates, and the entrance was filled with yellow sunflowers. The three of them reached the summit, and saw that nine people were already standing outside the villa. Upon seeing the three of them, a few people gave a brief introduction of their names. The nine people at the entrance had already formed their small groups, but the largest one had five people, led by a bearded man named Lei Ge. 

Soon, their sight landed on the interior of the villa. A person sat at the entrance, and a huge drawing board was in front of the person, blocking their face and body. 

“Why are you all standing at the door and not going in?” Gu Xizhou frowned as he asked the people who had arrived first.  

Lei Ge rolled his eyes and said, “The door has such a huge lock, are you blind?

Gu Xizhou: “…”

Gu Xizhou and Si Yu looked at each other, and Si Yu’s gaze landed on the door. At that moment, Si Yu heard the person next to him open his throat and shout at the person inside.

“Hey, the person inside, can you help to open the door?”

Lei Ge was startled, and hurriedly grabbed Gu Xizhou to ask: “What are you doing?!”

Gu Xizhou: “Asking them to open the door for us ah! Isn’t there only just one person?”

Lei Ge lowered his voice: “It’s still uncertain if that’s a human or a ghost!”

But after Gu Xizhou yelled at the person, they didn’t seem to hear it, and still didn’t come to open the door. It was getting late, and in the mission world, if they couldn’t even find a place to sleep, then it would seriously be very dangerous!

Right when Lei Ge was getting anxious, the three tall and strong men he had sent out to look for a way in had come back, excitedly shouting: “Lei Ge, there’s a dog hole in the left wall! We can climb in!”

Looking at the gradually darkening sky, Lei Ge heard this and looked relieved. He immediately ordered them to bring people over,  and even kindly called over Gu Xizhou and the two other people.

“Dog hole? … No, I’m not going to dig through a dog hole, this is my final stubbornness!” Gu Xizhou clung to the door with determination. 

Lei Ge: “…”

Si Yu: “…”

Fang Zhi weakly raised his hand. “I also don’t want to dig through a dog hole…”

“Huh, you’re already going to die, and you still care about whether you’re digging through a dog hole?”

“Hehe, when it’s dark, we’ll see if they still refuse to climb into the dog hole!”

The other eight people said in a weird and mysterious manner, leaving one after another. Fang Zhi glanced at their backs and said: “Gu Ge, what should we do now?”

Gu Xizhou spread his hands, and looked at Si Yu, who hadn’t left. “Why didn’t you go with them?”

Si Yu: “Me? Have you ever seen a handsome and dignified guy like me dig into a dog hole? A great man, is unyielding in the face of force!”

Gu Xizhou: “Heh, what a pretty boy.”

Regardless of how hard they shouted, the person inside ignored them. Gu Xizhou and Si Yu rarely doubted their outlook on life, but was this dog shit mission world really so full of malice, to the point that the pitiful and weak humans had to crawl through a dog hole to survive?

As Gu Xizhou questioned his outlook on life, Fang Zhi weakly asked: “Gu Ge, do you think he… can’t hear us?”

“It’s possible!” Gu Xizhou heard his words and picked up a rock the size of a fist on the ground, and threw it hard. It just managed to hit the person’s paint bucket, and the person in the yard turned to stare at the entrance. When they saw Gu Xizhou and the other two people, a smile filled their eyes, and their voice was as pleasant as a skylark. “You’re finally here!”

The girl was wearing a white dress with a short skirt, and had tied a ponytail. Her eyes were round and big, and she was very beautiful. She put down the paint brush in her hand, and quickly ran over to open the door. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, ai, where are the rest? Why are there only three of you?”

Gu Xizhou whispered: “They went to dig a dog hole.”

Gu Xizhou thought the girl wouldn’t be able to hear them, but the girl unexpectedly started to laugh. “Why didn’t they call me, seriously!”

Gu Xizhou furrowed his brows and said to himself: “This isn’t a deaf person!”

As if hearing Gu Xizhou’s words, the girl gave him a particularly unhappy glance, saying in a voice that sounded like a skylark, “I’m deaf, but now I’m pretty clever, I can read your lips.  Don’t think that I didn’t know the bad things you were saying about me!”

Gu Xizhou: “…”

After talking, the three of them pretty much figured things out. This girl was called Lin Meng.  Because of her father, her family had left the country to live in a foreign place when she was very young. This time, when they came back as a family to visit relatives, they returned to the villa that was their former residence, and invited classmates and friends who had a good relationship with the girl in the past, treating it like a small gathering in the family residence.

“You’ve even learned how to paint?” Si Yu asked, pointing to the painting clipped onto the drawing board.

Lin Meng nodded, and looking at the three of them expectantly, as if waiting for a compliment. “I learnt it when I was bored while I was abroad, is it nice?!”

“It’s nice.” Gu Xizhou said this sincerely. There were six people in the picture. The girl stood in the middle, holding a baby, and her parents stood on her left and right. There were two white-haired old people standing behind them, and the six of them stood in a field of sunflowers. The skin of the girl and the baby in her hands was white, but the other four people had slightly darker skins.

Gu Xizhou glanced again at the beautiful girl in front of him, and felt like she looked like a charming little girl in a lively TV drama that smiled sweetly. He couldn’t think of any supernatural phenomenon that would happen in a place like this.

The three followed Lin Meng into the villa. She pointed at the sofa and said: “Sit anywhere you want, I’ll get you something to eat. This mountain is so high, you must be tired after coming up!”

After that, the girl went to the large double-door refrigerator in the living room and took out some water and snacks to pass to Gu Xizhou and the rest. “Drink some water and quench your thirst.”

Lin Meng handed a bottle of water to Fang Zhi last. Because the range of movement was a little wide, she had to lift the white skirt that reached her thighs. Fang Zhi, who was closest to her, closed his eyes subconsciously. Lin Meng also noticed something amiss, and called out, “Close your eyes!”

When Fang Zhi put down his hand, his face was a bit red, and he explained: “I, I didn’t see it! Don’t worry!”

Lin Meng heard this, and her eyes bent into a small moon as she laughed: “Is that real or fake?”

Fang Zhi said with a face full of righteousness, “I swear!”

“Okay, I believe you!” The girl smiled, and then heard Fang Zhi seriously say–

“Don’t wear such a short skirt in the future… It’s easy to expose yourself.”

Hearing Fang Zhi’s words, Lin Meng hesitated slightly before nodding. “Okay.”

Si Yu: “…”

Gu Xizhou: “…”

Later, there was the sound of someone knocking on the door. The three of them informed Lin Meng, and she trotted all the way over to open the door to the guests outside while Gu Xizhou and Si Yu looked at each other.

When Lin Meng came in, she brought Lei Ge and the people who had climbed through the dog hole. Several of them were embarrassed, and their bodies were covered with mud. Before this, there had been a rain over this mountain, and everyone’s clothes were full of mud. After entering the villa, Lei Ge froze at the sight of the three people sitting on the sofa.

“How did you come in?”

Gu Xizhou pointed to Lin Meng, who had just walked in behind them, and said: “The Young Miss helped us open the door!”

Lei Ge: “But just now she clearly ignored you!”

“The Young Miss’ ears aren’t good, and she can’t hear clearly, so we threw a stone.” Saying this, Gu Xizhou even blinked and pretended to throw a rock with his hands. 

The people who had climbed through the dog hole looked at him silently, then turned to look at Lei Ge, who took them through the dog hole: “…”

Lei Ge: “…”