CH 43.1

At that time, Gu Xizhou had already closed the toilet window. Several black shadows gradually grew larger as they moved closer. The faceless monster that was being strangled by Gu Xizhou looked at him, with two big eyes that looked like he had been wronged. His companion faced the window, pressing its face against it, but due to the newspaper blocking the window, it didn’t know that there were people inside. 

Fierce ghost: What’s blocking my throat OAO

“Be good, relax, as long as you’re obedient, I’ll let you go after I’m done questioning you.” Gu Xizhou smelled a strong, bloody scent, and he raised his eyebrows. He said softly: “I’ll even help you find your face.”

Fierce ghost: “?”

…

In the room, the windows were still filled with the outline of two human figures. Fu Yiran sat on the bed and wrapped himself in a quilt, his back turned to the figures in the window behind him.

After about two hours, Gu Xizhou let go of the monster with some satisfaction. While throwing it roughly, he accidentally hit another faceless monster. The monster roared, wanting to rush over–

The faceless monster that just been bullied and beaten by Gu Xizhou grabbed its ‘little sister’, and then flew away, disappearing into the night.

Gu Xizhou left the bathroom. At this time, Fu Yiran had wrapped his entire body in a quilt as he sat on the bed. After seeing Gu Xizhou, he seemed relieved.

Seeing Gu Xizhou sitting on the edge of the bed, Fu Yiran looked at him silently in the dark until Gu Xizhou lay back on the bed. He asked in a strange voice: “Hey, you’re just sleeping like this?”

Gu Xizhou pointed at the figures outside the window and whispered: “What will I do other than sleep? Go out and talk to them?”

Fu Yiran, still wrapped in the blanket, turned around and glanced at the figures behind the covered windows: “…”

The last day.

As soon as Gu Xizhou opened the door, he smelled the scent of food. 

When they walked into the dining room, they met the woman who had been cooking for them for a few days. The dining table was full of delicious dishes, and it was an even richer spread than yesterday’s dinner. Fu Yiran sat down and said suspiciously: “Why is today’s breakfast so rich?”

The woman with a big belly wiped her hands on her apron and smiled, saying: “Tomorrow is the day of the sacrificial ceremony.”

“Oh,” Fu Yiran nodded his head understandingly. “The last meal for those on the death row, I understand, that’s very cultured of you!”

Si Yu: “…”

Xe Wlhtbe: “…”

Snfgsbcf: “…”

Ole Bjl, ktb kjr yflcu tfiqfv ys rbwfbcf, tfjgv atbrf kbgvr jcv agfwyifv. Ktf fzqgfrrlbc bc tlr ojmf kjr euilfg atjc mgslcu. 

Ca ygfjxojra, atf jawbrqtfgf kjr nfgs vfqgfrrlcu. Xe Wlhtbe cbalmfv atja Me Tlgjc kjr nfgs gfijzfv cfza ab tlw. Coafg atfs mjrejiis jaf, atfs jii fcafgfv atf jcmfragji tjii jujlc. 

They had just started, when the women inside started to cry again, and the needles fell from the sky. 

The faces, under the marble that had been broken by the man who disappeared yesterday, had all disappeared. Gu Xizhou was acutely aware that the number of women crying today seemed to be less than yesterday.

“Ah… this time, I really can’t make it. It’s ok, there’s no loss, I was suffering from the last stage of gastric cancer, and should have died a long time ago.” One of the team members sat down in disappointment, visibly giving up. 

Fu Yiran also sat at the side, one hand supporting his jaw as he looked up at the sky outside. He said with a bit of optimism: “Don’t say that, the needles falling from the sky are actually quite pretty.”

“Gu Ran, look, those needles flickering under the sun, don’t they look like stars?!” Fu Yiran pointed to the sky outside and shouted at Gu Xizhou.

Gu Xizhou walked to his side and frowned. He looked at Fu Yiran and asked in a low voice: “Aren’t you afraid?”

Fu Yiran winked at him playfully and said: “I’m afraid, but I know there are at least two people who can carry me out of here alive.”

Gu Xizhou: “?”

“But I hope it’s you who carries me out, rather than the other person,” Fu Yiran said.”

Gu Xizhou: “What do you mean?”

Gu Xizhou looked at Fu Yiran with some suspicion. Did he hear him forcing the female ghost to confess in the bathroom yesterday?

But even though Gu Xizhou asked again, Fu Yiran stopped talking. A pair of black eyes just looked at him with a slight smile, and he no longer answered Gu Xizhou’s question, just looking at the sky far away.

Just when Si Yu was entangled with the meaning behind the Buddha statue, Gu Xizhou said to him: “The current situation is that we have to stand on the black marble to break other black marble. Some marbles should have no faces underneath. The problem now is how to determine which marbles do not have faces underneath!”

“Did you think of something?” Si Yu asked, putting down the plaque in his hand.

“Well…I was thinking before going to bed yesterday,” Gu Xizhou said. “The marble blocks with Buddha statues should not only constrain those monsters, but should also be a hint, that the number of Buddha statues are there for a reason.”

Si Yu, who was thinking of something with his head down, suddenly looked up at Gu Xizhou, and said subconsciously: “I also thought that those Buddha statues were key hints.”

Gu Xizhou looked at Si Yu and said: “…To make an example, I think we should regard each stone marble as a square lattice. If one marble block has only one Buddha statue, then there is only one directly adjacent block with faces below it. If there are Buddha statues in one marble block, then there are three directly adjacent blocks with faces below it.”

“There are a lot of Buddha statues on the ground, and the circles formed between them can help us determine the position of the marble blocks that have faces on them!”

“…” Si Yu glanced at him. “Minesweeper?”

Gu Xizhou heard this and froze for a moment. Yesterday, he and the female ghost had played charades for a long time to understand the purpose of the Buddha statues. He had used all his energy to understand the rules, and took about two hours to guess, but Si Yu figured it out in one word. 

Gu Xizhou carefully thought about his previous communication with the female ghost. Si Yu wasn’t wrong in using the word ‘minesweeper’ to describe the current circumstance–if he changed his way of explaining it, it would really just be a simple minesweeper game. “Yes.”

The Buddha statue was like a digital prompt in the minesweeping game. The face buried in the ground would be a mind in the game. The only difference was that if you step on a mine, it wouldn’t be a GAME OVER, but the people who stepped on the mine would die. All they had to do was dig the mine out. 

Si Yu glanced at the ring of black marble, and found the spot where the teammate had disappeared from yesterday. Judging from the position of the surrounding Buddha statues, the marble block seemed to adhere to the minesweeper rules, and there really was a ‘mine’ below. 

“It is indeed possible,” Si Yu said softly after a while.

Seeing that Si Yu was a little hesitant, Gu Xizhou said: “I’ll do it, you can just remember where the positions are, and I’ll act when you tell me to.”

There seemed to be hundreds or thousands of women crying at the same time in the ancestral hall. Their tears kept flowing, and Gu Xizhou looked at Si Yu. “Relax! We’ll definitely go back.”

Si Yu stared at him for a while, then looked at the sky outside, and finally nodded reluctantly. His eyes fell on the Buddha statue and marble for a moment, then he said to Gu Xizhou: “I’ll remember, start from here then.”

Si Yu pointed to a piece of marble not far from him, and told Gu Xizhou to stand on it.

Gu Xizhou smashed the first marble, but nothing happened… Si Yu’s gaze was always on him. Then, Gu Xizhou pried open and smashed the second marble. Si Yu kept staring at Gu Xizhou’s soles, and after confirming that nothing happened to him after he smashed the second large block of marble, he breathed a sigh of relief. 

After Gu Xizhou shattered the third and fourth blocks, Si Yu visibly became calmer, losing his previous tension. He leaned against the wall that leaked out crying sounds and directed him quietly, but his gaze never left Gu Xizhou. 

When Gu Xizhou shattered all the blocks that had mines below, the cries from the wall came to an abrupt end. 

Gu Xizhou raised his head and saw that the surrounding walls were slowly infested with blood, and a blood-colored human figure appeared. It was like that day when Liu Kai sat on the Buddha statue, but this time, the girls didn’t cry or laugh. 

The faceless women left the walls and shuttled amongst the four of them, until they walked to the marble blocks that Gu Xizhou had smashed open. One woman took a face on the ground, and passed it around. This continued until one of the faceless women took the face and paused. It pressed the face on her hands, and then lifted it to cover its face. 

An ordinary-looking woman showed a satisfied smile, and then its body began to collapse and wither like weathered stones in the sun. 

Eventually, the last faceless woman came to Gu Xizhou hesitantly with a face in her hand. She seemed a little afraid. Gu Xizhou glanced at her and immediately recognised that this was one who had been beaten by him last night!

It stuck the face it had just obtained on its own face, and Gu Xizhou saw a beautiful and gentle woman stand before him. She had a unique aura around her, and her eyes hid a smile. Her mouth moved slightly, and although there was no sound, Gu Xizhou could guess what she was trying to say. 

She was thanking him.

As the last ‘thing’ disappeared, the entire ancestral hall suddenly turned silent. 

Fu Yiran, who was standing outside, grabbed the plaque on the ground and hung it up with the help of another companion. Fu Yiran jumped off the ladder and said: “It’s done!”

“The people in this village are really sick. They put the faces of those women on the ground and let it be stepped on by tens of thousands of people,” Fu Yiran sighed. 

Someone else frowned and said: “Why would they do this?”

“Open the door, and you’ll know when you go in,” Fu Yiran sneered. “It’s just a messy history.”

Then, Fu Yiran took one step closer to Gu Xizhou and smiled at him. “See you next time.”

Gu Xizhou: “…” Who wants to see you?!

After he heard those words, the man agreed, and didn’t hesitate. He had already wanted to leave from the very beginning, and after thanking a few of them, he pushed the door open and went through. Fu Yiran spoke with Gu Xizhou, then, without speaking to Si Yu, he smiled as he walked through the door.

Gu Xizhou and Si Yu had to go back to find Liu Kai who had been left in the house, so they didn’t immediately push the door open. They went back to pick up Liu Kai.

“Don’t worry, after you leave the mission world, your eyes should be fine.” Si Yu interrupted Liu Kai’s thanks, and after Gu Xizhou forced Liu Kai through the door, Si Yu made an inviting gesture to Gu Xizhou. “You first.”

“En,” Gu Xizhou said, nodding. “See you outside.”

Gu Xizhou opened the wooden door, and as before, his consciousness soon fell into blur–