Ch44 - All of us here can’t escape, right?

In the following time, Pan Xiaoyun functioned as the main storyteller, with the other three people adding tiny bits of information when needed, recalling their events over the preceding few days in detail.

On the first day, that is, the night of May 31, when these teachers and students discovered the long-abandoned Xuanmen village, they were not scared at all. They merely saw it as a fun and fascinating pastime on their route to gather some photos before the competition.

A group of students had a good time even though it was a desolate village with no water or power supply, and even if the network was sporadic and the signal was weak.

They dragged Song Qi, a counselor of a few years old, to play the Bi Xian and Qian Xian. And then some people insisted on testing out the accuracy of a local folklore, like whether one could summon ghosts by knocking on bowls at street junctions. 

However, they all stated unequivocally that everyone did play the games that night, and that a few people purposefully spooked their classmates, but that nothing unusual occurred during the game or throughout the night.

Hearing this, Bei Quan nodded and a gleam of light flashed in his eyes.

It wasn’t until almost one o’clock in the morning that this group of students finally felt tired.

“At that time, Old Song and I… Er, Teacher Song sent all three girls back to the next yard, watched their windows until the girls doused the candles, and locked the gate for them before returning to sleep here.”

Pan Xiaoyun glanced at Liu Lingling and Huang Lan and continued, “I’m sure everyone went back to their room to have a rest.”

That night, Pan Xiaoyun remembered feeling very exhausted. He almost fell asleep as soon as he laid down.

When Pan Xiaoyun spoke of this, Bei Quan also confirmed it with three other students. They all said they all slept well, and they didn’t notice anything unusual that night.

As a result, they drifted off and were awakened by the villagers the next day. 

“Wait.”

Speaking of this, Bei Quan raised his hand and interrupted the students’ narration.

“When you were awakened by the villagers, did you pay attention to your classmates?”

Pan Xiaoyun and others looked at each other as if they could not understand Bei Quan’s meaning for a while. 

Bei Quan patiently clarified.

“I mean, including yourselves and the three who have disappeared now. Were they all present in the room?”

The two girls looked at each other.

“Well, Lingling and I were together.” 

Huang Lan raised her hand and said, “I did see Julie when they dragged her out.”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Looking back carefully now, in Pan Xiaoyun’s memory, there would indeed have been other classmates beside him and he heard their cries, but he wasn’t too sure.

On the contrary, Lousen, who seemed quite dumb, switched places with their unreliable monitor and answered Bei Quan’s questions. 

“There should be four people. I saw everyone.”

Bei Quan nodded and motioned the people to continue.

Pan Xiaoyun mentioned that on the first day, he was so scared that he didn’t dare to escape. He just stood on the bank and watched the so-called ‘festival’ unfold with trembling legs.

The sacrificial process he described was no different from what Bei Quan saw firsthand by borrowing the empathy of Julie’s soul. 

First, a group of strong boys came up and carried hundreds of paper men and horses to the river. One by one, they threw them into the river and then poured a lot of stinky blood. Then, the villagers sang and cut their fingers with a knife to add their blood to the river.

But unlike Julie, who ran away from the festival halfway in fright, Pan Xiaoyun insisted on seeing the end on the first day.

It turned out that after dropping blood into the river, there was another step, that is, for everyone to shout in unison:

“Purge out the evil spirit! Dispel your grievances! Ten thousand tribulations will go with the water, the weather will be pleasing and disasters will not invade!” 

After shouting, they ignited a large canopy of hay with a strange smell and poured all the burned powder into the river. The festival was over.

“Well, after that?”

Bei Quan continued to inquire.

“After the ceremony, the crowded villagers dispersed, and no one bothered about us any further.” Pan Xiaoyun replied, “We had no place to go, so we returned here…” 

He pointed to the room where they were seated.

“Then we found that Chaoyang and Julie were gone.”

Bei Quan knew that he was talking about a boy named Dong Chaoyang and the girl named Julie.

Bei Quan was very sure that the girl was indeed dead. 

The other one, or, more precisely, everyone who had vanished now, according to Julie’s predicament, were also most likely dead. And the ones who were still alive were in grave danger.

Bei Quan thought and asked, “Two people went missing on the first day?”

“That’s right.”

Pan Xiaoyun nodded vigorously, “I found Chaoyang missing first. We are roommates at school, so we have a better relationship.” 

He turned to Liu Lingling and Huang Lan.

“As for the girls, it was Mr. Song who confirmed that Julie had also disappeared.”

The two girls quickly agreed, confirming that this was the case.

It was strange enough for a deserted village to become populated overnight, let alone the loss of two people in quick succession. Everyone was terrified at the moment, and those with better psychological fortitude had barely managed to resist a nervous breakdown. 

Someone suggested leaving the village once, but Pan Xiaoyun, as the monitor, insisted on first locating the two missing classmates.

As a result, the remaining six people were split into two groups. Teacher Song Qi had Liu Lingling and Huang Lan wait at the village’s entrance initially, while the three boys searched the village for their missing classmates.

They decided to meet at the village’s entrance one hour later, whether they found anyone or not and escape this place.

However, when the two parties were reunited, neither the missing persons nor the car they had arrived in was found. 

They quickly discovered that they were imprisoned in this bizarre mountain village and were unable to leave at all!

“We even tried walking out…”

Pan Xiaoyun said dejectedly, “But it’s no use. No matter how we walk, we just walk around the village in circles! Even if we keep walking for hours, we will still come back here in the end!”

On their first day in fragmented space, they found themselves trapped in the village. 

The frightened teachers and students tossed around the village until it was dark and they couldn’t find a way out. They had to return to the village and stay in the little courtyard under the arrangement of the enthusiastic villagers.

However, two people were missing. None of them dared to split apart. They were all crammed into one room, men and women alike and no one dared to sleep. They intended to wait until daybreak to find a solution.

As a result, when it was just midnight, the people who thought they were going to stay up all night seemed to be hit by a sudden spell of drowsiness and lost their consciousness directly.

When they opened their eyes again, what they saw and heard was exactly the same as the day before——  the only difference was that the missing Dong Chaoyang and Julie did not reappear. 

“Wait.”

Bei Quan stopped Pan Xiaoyun’s narration again.

“Are you sure it was midnight?”

“Yes.” 

Pan Xiaoyun pointed at the watch he was wearing.

“Only what we were wearing remained when we arrived. Everything else, including phones and baggage, was gone… I tend to sleep without taking off my watch, therefore I’m the only one who has a watch.” He explained, “I’m afraid to sleep these days. I can’t help looking at my watch every ten or twenty minutes.”

Bei Quan understood.

Presumably, after the boy found the regular pattern, he stared until midnight to find the exact return point of this fragmented space. 

On the next day and the third day, they were still awakened by the villagers every day as on the first day and then dragged to see the same festival they had seen the previous two days.

Moreover, every day, when no one was aware, someone would disappear without a trace.

“Next day we lost Naive”

Pan Xiaoyun was referring to a boy named ‘Cai Tianzhen’. But because his name was homophonic, he was given the nickname ‘Naive’. 

Bei Quan remembered everyone’s information very clearly. He knew that this classmate was Lousen’s roommate as well as Julie’s boyfriend.

At this point, Pan Xiaoyun blamed himself.

“We had agreed that no matter where we went, at least two people should act together. I was in a group with Naive that day…”

He unconsciously clenched his hand in a fist. 

“I just went to the toilet and asked Naive to wait for me outside the door… But when I came out, he was nowhere to be seen…”

“On the third day, it was Old Song’s turn… He simply went out to fetch water with Lousen and never came back!”

When Pan Xiaoyun recalled this particular event, he was still slightly muddle-headed and forgot to use a respectful title towards his teacher.

“Although Old Song usually jokes around with us, he is actually very reliable… As soon as he disappeared, we didn’t know what to do!” 

He pulled at the personalised ‘bird nest’ on his head.

“We were so scared that we wanted to escape from this place right away, but it was useless! We couldn’t run anywhere! The village looked so big, and no matter which direction we ran, we would always come back here in the end…”

Pan Xiaoyun used his nails to dig out imprints on his arm nervously, and unconsciously said almost exactly the same thing he had said on the hotline.

“If it goes on like this, it will be my turn soon, won’t it?” 

“All of us here can never escape, can we?”

Bei Quan’s eyes flashed.

“But there are four of you left?” He smiled, “So, that means none of you went missing yesterday?”

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The author has something to say: Well, all the relevant characters have come out. You can guess who the bane is! (Hello)