Chapter 15 Night of Sacrifice (11)
The “Please Make Up Room” sign, meant to allow housekeeping staff to enter, was in every guest room, but they hadn’t paid attention to it before.
“I must have been targeted because I brought the ghost’s belongings into my room,” Old Xu said.
He had been attacked last night, used his protective item, and passed out. He woke up to find the cleaning sign hanging on his door.
They checked the other rooms and discovered the sign had originally been in Lao Gao’s room. However, once it was moved to Old Xu’s door, only he could remove it.
Since Lao Gao’s door had been open, there was no way to know who had moved the sign. But whoever it was had acted between midnight and 2 a.m. Suspicion filled the air.
Driven by a need for unity and self-preservation, they decided to destroy all the cleaning signs.
“I see,” Zhu Ming said. “So there really is something wrong with one of you.”
Miss Zhao bristled. “Why us? You’re the most suspicious one. Yesterday, you said Teng Ge would be the next to die, and today, he’s dead.”
Zhu Ming almost laughed. “So I’m wrong for having good intuition? Think what you want. I’m not destroying my cleaning sign.”
“Why? The signs only serve to let the ghosts in. You insist on keeping yours. Could it be…” Miss Zhao eyed her warily, taking a step back.
Unbothered by her suspicion, Zhu Ming said, “Don’t close off your options, Miss Zhao. Who knows when it might be useful.”
Yun Zouchuan chimed in, “Xiao Song didn’t destroy his sign either. Why should Boss have to?”
Hmm? Xiao Song hadn’t destroyed his either? Zhu Ming looked at him. No wonder he had been acting strangely today. He was usually the most vocal, but today, he had been unusually quiet.
“We destroyed everyone else’s signs, including the one in Teng Ge’s room,” Yun Zouchuan explained. “But when it was Xiao Song’s turn…”
That morning, after much discussion, they had decided to destroy all the cleaning signs. After destroying Xiao Xue’s sign from room 2006, they moved on to Xiao Song’s in 2007. That’s when they encountered an unexpected problem.
The door to 2007 wouldn’t open.
Xiao Song’s face paled. He hid behind Miss Zhao, his voice trembling. “I knew I heard something last night! That room is occupied by a ghost! I shouldn’t have gone to your room!”
He had finally persuaded Miss Zhao to let him stay in her room, 1004. They were a couple, so it wasn’t unusual. But during the night, they had heard strange noises from upstairs, as if… someone was walking around.
Due to the villa’s layout, room 2007 was directly above 1004. Now, with the door to 2007 locked, they didn’t know if it was because Xiao Song had slept in a different room or because something else had taken over 2007.
Convinced he was next, Xiao Song couldn’t destroy his cleaning sign.
“I see,” Zhu Ming said, looking at him meaningfully. “I thought you couldn’t get into 2007 in the first place.”
Xiao Song snapped, “What do you mean by that? Don’t accuse me just because you’re suspicious. I know the truth! If you hadn’t stopped us from completing the ritual last night, we would all be out of here by now!”
Zhu Ming chuckled. “I don’t mean anything by it. It’s just a coincidence.”
Since they couldn’t force Zhu Ming to destroy her sign, they let the matter drop.
As she had done the previous two days, Zhu Ming went to the kitchen after waking up. This time, however, she was too late. Only a few dry biscuits, which she disliked, remained.
After forcing down two biscuits, she put the rest away and began examining the clues they had obtained last night.
A-Zou brought out her share as well, and they laid everything on the coffee table: a cell phone, a notebook, a group photo, and a key.
The others gathered around, watching silently.
Zhu Ming ignored them. As long as they didn’t interrupt, she didn’t mind their presence.
She examined the phone. This time, there was no passcode. The wallpaper was a standard system image. There was only one contact, “Yu Ge,” but there were a few text messages:
[SIM1 to Yu Ge: (2:13) Honey, everyone should be asleep by now. I’ll be waiting for you by the pool. Kisses~]
[Yu Ge to SIM1: (2:15) It’s too late. Let’s go back to our rooms. It’s not convenient with her around.]
[SIM1 to Yu Ge: (2:31) I’m not trying to make things difficult, and I don’t want to hurt her. But… I miss you so much. I can’t hold your hand openly like she can TAT. I’m not greedy. Just a little bit of your time is enough.]
[SIM1 to Yu Ge: (2:32) MMS (A photo of a woman’s lower body in a red swimsuit and several bottles of alcohol by the pool)]
[Yu Ge to SIM1: (2:35) Silly girl, I’ll be right down. How can I leave you alone like this?]
Xiao Cheng let out a low whistle. “A secret rendezvous? Interesting.”
Zhu Ming glanced at him, and he quickly retreated.
“I saw that MMS photo in the housekeeper’s room,” Zhu Ming said, recalling the poster. “The woman in the red swimsuit is the same one, but her face is visible in the poster.”
“And here,” Yun Zouchuan said, pointing at the group photo. “This person is also wearing a red swimsuit.”
The photo had been taken by the pool, featuring nine men and women, the same number as the participants. They were all wearing swimsuits or shorts, posing cheerfully. But there was one glaring problem: all their faces had been scratched out.
Zhu Ming stared at the photo, then turned to Old Xu. “Where’s your phone?”
Old Xu handed it to her. “What is it?”
Zhu Ming opened the housekeeper’s phone, zooming in on the wallpaper. She pointed at a faceless man in the group photo. “They’re wearing the same watch. If I’m not mistaken, this is the housekeeper when he was alive. And the woman in the red swimsuit is the water ghost in the pool.”
Xiao Xue, on friendly terms with Zhu Ming and Yun Zouchuan, leaned closer. “Interesting. Who is the housekeeper’s girlfriend?”
The housekeeper and the woman in red were standing together in the photo, but their poses weren’t intimate. Another woman, however, was clearly his girlfriend, her arm around his waist.
Combined with the text messages, it wasn’t difficult to imagine the love triangle.
“Speaking of which, I found a hair clip in my room, identical to the one this person is wearing,” Xiao Xue said, pointing at another figure in the photo.
They realized there were nine people in the photo and nine participants, and each participant had an item corresponding to someone in the photo.
They identified their counterparts, including Zhu Ming, who matched a girl with a tattoo. Most of them weren’t important characters, but three stood out.
Yun Zouchuan matched the woman in red, Miss Zhao matched the housekeeper, and Lao Gao matched the housekeeper’s girlfriend.
“Lao Gao is already dead. That doesn’t prove anything,” Miss Zhao said dismissively.
“True,” Zhu Ming said, putting down the photo and picking up the notebook.
The notebook was thin, filled with handwritten folk tales and strange drawings. The drawings became more defined towards the end, eventually matching the totem in the basement.
The notebook didn’t explain the purpose of the formation, but the folk tales it contained were mostly about reincarnation, ghost children, fertility, and supernatural conception. It wasn’t difficult to guess the true purpose of the ritual.
“Can I take a look?” Old Xu asked. “Maybe I can find something else.”
Zhu Ming took a picture of the notebook with her phone and handed it to him, then grabbed the key and headed towards the storage room.
If she wasn’t mistaken, this key would open it.
…
In the living room, Teng Ge’s body still lay where they had found it, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
His left eye and the back of his head were a bloody mess, as if pierced by a sharp object. Blood had soaked into the carpet.
No one dared to touch the body, so it remained where it was. Passing by, Zhu Ming noticed a flashlight nearby. “Is Teng Ge’s flashlight dead too?”
“It still had a little bit of power when we found the body,” Yun Zouchuan replied, “but it died soon after.”
Having experienced the housekeeper’s attacks the previous night, she knew that even a flashlight wasn’t a guaranteed defense.
Zhu Ming nodded, then raised her foot and crushed the flashlight beneath her heel.
Xiao Song gasped. “He’s dead! There’s no need to do that, even if he offended you.”
“It couldn’t even protect its owner,” Zhu Ming said coldly. “What good is it?”
She was used to getting her way. Those who couldn’t fight her had to endure.
Xiao Cheng patted Xiao Song’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. If it weren’t for Miss Zhu and Miss A-Zou’s efforts last night, we wouldn’t be able to open the storage room today.”
Xiao Song, now a prime suspect, didn’t argue.
The key did indeed unlock the storage room, 1002. Unlike the basement, a cloud of dust billowed out as the door opened.
Yun Zouchuan sneezed repeatedly, covering her nose, waiting for the dust to settle.
Zhu Ming shone her flashlight inside, while Yun Zouchuan stood guard at the doorway, preventing the others from entering.
The small room was crammed with dusty, miscellaneous items. Finding anything valuable in this mess seemed like a daunting task.
Zhu Ming made her way to the back of the room, pulling a plastic sheet off a pile of junk, sending another cloud of dust into the air.
Beneath the plastic sheet was a brand new window with a small curtain. And behind the window… was an old, rusty—no, bloodstained—barbecue grill!
A few minutes later, Zhu Ming emerged, dragging the grill behind her. Xiao Xue, who had been waiting outside, gasped. “Is this the grill that killed the housekeeper? Where are the skewers?”
“There aren’t any,” Zhu Ming replied.
“How can there be no skewers?!” Xiao Song exclaimed. “Did you hide them?!”
Zhu Ming rolled her eyes. “Believe what you want. There aren’t any.”
She had searched the entire storage room. It contained old food, biscuits, and various tools. The only things of note were the new window, the barbecue grill, and a crumpled ball of paper tucked away in a corner.
The paper was the same type as the three pages they had found earlier, just dirtier. Unfolding it, she saw a single sentence: There is a ghost among you. Sacrifice the ghost, and the deity will protect you all!
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