Translator: Cinder Translations
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As soon as the words were spoken, the Fatty seemed to suddenly realize something. He raised his head and hesitated before asking, "Could it be... could it be that they heard something?"
Based on the reactions of the blonde man and the others, it seemed they had heard some kind of sound, and it had terrified them so much that they ran off immediately.
"Do you mean that there is a sound inside this room that ordinary people cannot hear?" The rock-climbing woman's expression became strange.
When these words were spoken, everyone held their breath, as if by being quiet, they might actually hear something.
Outside the small window, the city floating on the sea was still brightly lit, with light spots occasionally moving within it. Most likely, these were people carrying torches.
A faint black mist enveloped the city, and the sound of waves made the city on the sea seem even more mysterious.
A few seconds later, Jiang Cheng and the Young Master's pupils suddenly shrank; they really did hear something!
It was a weak but very hurried sound of breathing.
And it was coming from this room.
Apart from them, there were others in this room!
The two of them quickly pinpointed the location of the breathing sound: it was coming from the basket that had been used to store firewood earlier.
The Young Master raised his torch and approached, while Jiang Cheng held his now extinguished torch in his other hand, using it as a weapon.
At this moment, the advantage of their team, made up entirely of experienced players, became clear. No one panicked; everyone calmly took their positions.
Jiang Cheng, the Young Master, and the Fatty moved forward, while the rock-climbing woman, the little girl, and the tall man guarded the only exit behind them. No matter whether it was a person or a ghost inside, they couldn't afford to lose their escape route.
The Young Master quickly reached out and lifted the lid off the basket, revealing a face twisted beyond recognition.
"It's her!" the Fatty exclaimed in shock.
An elderly woman was curled up inside the basket. Her face was green, her features grotesquely twisted, and her two withered, claw-like hands were tightly covering her mouth, her eye sockets almost splitting open.
At the first sight of the woman, the Fatty immediately recalled the appearance of Xie Yu from the first nightmare when he died.
What had scared this woman to this point?
And as the Fatty looked at the basket, he had been wondering for a long time how a full-grown adult could fit inside it. A 6-7-year-old child might just about fit, but he couldn't figure out how the woman managed to crawl in.
Many others shared the same thought, but due to their preconceptions, they hadn't checked all the baskets in their rush.
That was their oversight.
Jiang Cheng and the Young Master quickly moved the woman out of the basket. She seemed to have been so frightened that she had lost her senses. All she did was shiver and desperately try to cover her mouth with her hands.
As Jiang Cheng held the woman's arm, he realized how thin she was—so thin that it was almost unimaginable. Her skin was wrapped around delicate bones, much like the Jews imprisoned in concentration camps during World War II.
After helping the woman to sit aside, she kept trembling, her eyes vacant and unfocused. Everyone looked at her with a mix of curiosity.
The rock-climbing woman tried to close the stone door to the room, but was stopped by the little girl.
The group formed a semicircle, with the elderly woman trembling alone in the corner.
They flipped through the remaining baskets, then carefully searched the whole room again. They moved the shelves but found no trace of the biker girl.
"Where did the woman who was left behind go?" the rock-climbing woman asked.
She had seen enough of this woman's ugly face. Her patience running thin, she stepped forward and grabbed the woman's collar with a forceful grip, her forearm muscles bulging as she lifted the woman up. "I'm asking you! Where did the woman go? Did you harm her?"
Many people in the nightmare weren't killed by ghosts; they died at the hands of their own uncontrolled emotions. The Young Master stepped forward to separate the two.
The rock-climbing woman gave a forceful shove, sending the woman to the ground.
The woman lay there in a lifeless state, her eyes blank, and her body horrifically withered. "It's coming," the woman suddenly said, "Everyone's going to die."
"What did you say?" The Fatty's voice changed in fear as he scanned the surroundings, "Who's coming? Did something come?"
"I heard its voice," the woman suddenly became agitated, her voice shrill, "I heard its voice! It's calling me! It's calling me!"
"It recognized me! It must have recognized me!!"
The woman seemed to be in a trance, muttering to herself at an increasingly rapid pace. It felt as though she were conversing with another person inside her, "I should have died here, died with them!"
"No!" The woman stared with bloodshot eyes and shouted, "It's not just me! It definitely felt them too! They didn't die! None of us died!"
"We're all alive! No, it's you! You're all alive, all living inside my body," the woman cried and laughed, her eyes full of both ferocity and devotion.
"It's waiting for us. Waiting for us to return. No one can escape, no one!!"
At this point, the woman suddenly tilted her head and collapsed to the floor, silent.
After a brief hesitation, the Young Master quickly stepped forward, first checking for the woman's breath, then feeling her neck. He turned around and sighed, "She's fainted."
The woman had been in poor health, so it made sense that she fainted after such agitation.
After settling the woman, the others sat in a circle to discuss what to do next.
"Did you really hear something?" the Fatty licked his lips, glancing at the woman's resting position, and whispered, "She said she heard it too."
"She might have gone mad and is just rambling," the rock-climbing woman retorted angrily. "I suspect the disappearance of the other person is related to her."
The Young Master smiled. "But this crazy woman hasn't seen anyone from Blackstone Town."
The rock-climbing woman was stunned for a moment, then her expression turned dark.
He was right. This woman had never seen anyone from Blackstone Town, so she couldn't possibly know the information they brought. Yet, their stories strangely matched, especially when it came to the "sound."
The woman said she heard it too—the sound.
A chill slowly spread over everyone's hearts. It seemed that this so-called "sound" was real, but most people couldn't hear it.
And the most helpless thing was that the only person who could sense the "sound" had already fainted, and her mind was clearly disturbed. The things she said made no logical sense.
"Let's just leave it for now, everyone rest," the Young Master glanced at the city on the sea. "I'll take the first watch, then..."
"It's whale song," the little girl softly said.
Her voice was light, but carried an undeniable strength. She looked up at the tall man who was squatting beside her, tightly gripping her arm. She patted his hand, then shifted her gaze and continued, "That sound is whale song. Normal people can't hear it, but he can."
(End of the Chapter)
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