Chapter 16: The Apartment and the Colosseum
Ming Chenyan stopped at the nearest tombstone in front of him and shone his flashlight on it. The tombstone was inscribed, "Tomb of Loving Father Lu Dawei Born March 12, 1948 Died May 2, 2014" "Lu Dawei!" Seeing this name, Akatsuhiko's heart immediately tightened, "The villager who died not long after appearing in the third volume of Black Ghost!" "But the time of death doesn't match up." Situ Wenxuan quickly took out his cell phone and opened the reading software, he this software can perform a keyword search, a search for Lu Dawei, according to the novel's account, not sure of his specific date of death, but the year of death is definitely in 2019. "Maybe ……" Dong Ning then made an assumption, "The first appearance of Lu Dawei in the book may be a dead man." Hearing Dong Ning's words, Gao Yi Yu beside her instantly turned pale. "It's possible." Ming Chenyan did not deny Dong Ning's words, "But now it seems that the novel of Black Ghost Shadow is getting more and more closely connected to reality. Is it the curse that makes the novel a reality, or was Deep Sea originally modeled after real characters?" At this point, no one knew. "Search the nearby tombstones again, and if there are no new clues, go ahead and look for the Fukami family mansion on the nearby high slopes." According to Kiba's golden flash, Fukumi's mansion was located on a high slope, just like the murderous mansion of the Yuan family. Fukami should be living there with his wife, and by making contact with them, there was a possibility of obtaining the deposit. "Wait!" At this time, Gao Yi Fish raised a different opinion, "It's not even 10 o'clock yet for the start of the Bloodletter Quest, and we've already come in not to mention that it would be a little too dangerous to obtain the stock manuscript of Black Ghosts and Shadows even now?" "Yes!" Situ Wenxuan also voiced a different opinion, "There's no guarantee that the apartment will impose a big enough restriction on the evil spirits before the Bloodletter Quest begins, right?" Where Ming Chenyan didn't know that this was taking a chestnut out of the fire, but he still insisted on his own view, "Mr. Qin and I have long since discussed the various details that we might face on this mission. The matter of obtaining the manuscript is likely to have many twists and turns. As a precaution, it is still necessary to make the time as generous as possible. Of course, the mission is limited to a time when we can view the saved manuscripts." Dong Xie had thought of many ways before, hoping to obtain the manuscript in advance. Even Ming Chenyan had once hacked into the backend of Singularity.com's writers to try to steal the stored manuscripts, but his hacking skills were so subpar that he completely failed to break through the firewall. And according to Dong Xie's editor-in-chief, even Deep Sea himself didn't have a fixed micro-signal, and it didn't take long for him to change it and reconnect with his editor-in-chief. Even the chief editor often can not find the deep sea, much less know the deep sea's address. "This tombstone …… Sun Daquan …… Zhao Yousheng …… Tang Fang …… " Some of these names are indeed supporting characters in Black Ghost, but there are also names that have never been heard of before. "Moreover, none of the death times match up." This, too, was what most concerned Dong Ning. This circumstance made her think that it was likely a life path hint clue. Either the people on these tombstones would still appear after death, as she had guessed, or Fukai himself had intentionally written it that way. Dong Ning took photos of all the tombstones one by one, which would likely be important clues. Of course, there was no chance that these photos would turn into psychic photos after a while. After roughly sweeping through the tombstones on both sides, Dong Ning finally determined that none of the dates of death were correct. This was also thanks to her powerful memory. The dates of death, all of them were actually earlier than fiction. However, the vast majority of the names were unfamiliar, with only a few having appeared within the novel. At this time, they began to approach the farmhouse in front of them. It was an extremely low-rise, with walls made of bricks and tiles that were covered in cracks, leaving bricks exposed everywhere, and clearly in a state of disrepair. Ming Chenyan looked through the window towards the inside, and it seemed to be pitch black. If the plot of the novel was the same as reality, then there were less than ten living people left in this village now, and all of them, including the male protagonist, Yuan Ming, and the female protagonist, Chen Lan, were all listed as suspects of the Black Shadow. Ming Chenyan raised his hand and knocked on the door. Then, he took a large step back and held his breath as he waited. Dong Ning, on the other hand, kept her eyes constantly scanning around, keeping an eye on the wind. Gao Yi Yu, on the other hand, was so frightened that almost her entire body was wrapped around Sitwen Xuan, trembling in fear. Tens of seconds passed, the door never opened. "Go …… find the next one." Ming Chenyan didn't want to waste even one more second. Since there was none here, look for the next house. It would be best to have a villager to show them the way forward to find the deep sea. Only, after Ming Chenyan heard Dong Xie explain the specifics, he, like Qin Ziyuan, strongly suspected that Fukami and his wife might have both met an untimely end. While everyone turned their heads towards the other house, Dong Ning looked back towards the door of that house. Her intuition told herself that the inside …… of this house was by no means empty! But what exactly was inside, that was very hard to say. Bai Ye noticed her eyes and said, "What are you looking at? Dong Ning?" Dong Ning shook her head and said, "No, nothing." Now that the Bloodletter mission had just begun after all, it was better to keep a low profile. At the moment, as Fang Wenxuan had said, it was not possible to ascertain whether the apartment would adequately exert protection on the residents before the bloodletter mission began. After all of them had left, suddenly, the door suddenly made a slight "creaking" sound, and with that sound, the door was slowly pushed open! At this time, Ming Chenyan and the others came to another house, and knocked on the door as before, but also the same nothing, no one opened the door. Could it be that the village was really already empty? At this time, this thought surfaced in the minds of all five occupants at the same time. And if this place had really turned into an unoccupied and lonely village, then it was really a bit creepy! "Forget it! Let's directly go up that high slope over there first and take a look!" Ming Chenyan, after all, was the one who had followed Qin Ziyuan around, still with an unchanged face, "Everything in the current situation is efficiency first, so maybe the village really is deserted. Let's go up to the high slopes first and take a look!" Dong Ning also knew what Ming Chenyan's thoughts were. Even if Blue Moon Village wasn't a dead village yet, it was definitely a dangerous and vicious place. Continuing to knock on the doors of houses one by one, the probability of an evil spirit coming to open the door was much higher than the probability of a living person coming to open the door. At present, the first thing they have to consider is to obtain the manuscript as soon as possible, this is the first thing, the other can be temporarily put aside. Thinking about it, it was mostly Qin Ziyuan who took care of him. At this moment, Ming Chenyan was actually the most nervous person. He also hesitated for a long time about whether or not to go searching for a stockpile of manuscripts before the official start of Bloodletter, and he had even chatted with Qin Ziyuan all night earlier. However, it was clear to everyone that once they failed to complete this Bloodletter mission, the dreadfulness of the Shadow Curse would be even greater than the evil spirits themselves. After all, the Shadow Curse represented the apartment, and if the apartment wanted you to die on the third shift, you would never live to see the fifth shift. "Obtaining the manuscript is the first priority. It's clear that the apartment is using every means possible to thwart us from having a way to find a stockpile of manuscripts before the Bloodletter quest, so thought that the only way to go is to go that night. No matter how dangerous it is, it can't be more dangerous than the curse that the apartment has placed on our shadows." As Qin Ziyuan spoke, he pointed to the shadow they had cast on the wall, making Ming Chenyan fully aware of it. This shadow was a constant reminder to every resident that they were slaves without any freedom before the apartment, as if they were gladiators in the ancient Roman Colosseum, and the evil spirits were like a fierce beast in the Colosseum! And even more terrifying than the beasts were the Roman aristocrats who ran the Colosseum! "All we have to do is to break through the Colosseum like Spartacus!" Qin Ziyuan's words still echoed in Ming Chenyan's ears. Gladiator, this was really a very apt metaphor. A group of five people began to slowly approach the high slope in front of them. Obviously, this high slope was still within the Blue Moon Village's boundaries. Under the moonlight, they were able to see that above the high slope, there was indeed a mansion situated there! Unsurprisingly, this mansion should be Fukami's home.