Fraud

Translator: Cinder Translations

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"I see," Su Xiaoxiao smiled as well, "Then I'll leave it to you, Mr. Chen. I only want my brother and I to survive. As for who's the first to walk out the door, I'm not concerned."

Chen Ran widened his eyes, curious, "Miss Su, don't you want to try for it?"

"No," Su Xiaoxiao lowered her voice and said seriously, "I don't want to be enemies with lunatics, especially a group of them."

Chen Ran squinted, seemingly accustomed to such labels, even enjoying them. He slowly curved his lips into a smile, which, combined with his calm face, created a striking visual contrast.

It was like a beautiful piece of art suddenly collapsing.

"You're a disciple," Su Xiaoxiao stared at Chen Ran's face, "You're... one of the Crimson people."

Chen Ran's smile grew even more exaggerated.

Their conversation ended here. Chen Ran led the way, and Su Xiaoxiao followed about two meters behind him.

Strangely enough, their original plan was to trick Jiang Cheng and the Fatty into thinking they had already entered the forest to search for clues, luring them to enter as well.

In reality, they had been hiding in the abandoned hall on the first floor of the building, waiting for Jiang Cheng and Fatty to leave before they followed, watching them enter the forest from a distance.

Whether from Su Xiaoxiao's narration or the stories from the people of Black Stone Town, the white stone tablet was the beginning of the story.

The curse originated from it.

Such things, if not looked at, would always leave one uneasy.

And this raised another question: Who would look at it first?

Su Xiaoxiao and Su An only went the first time because they didn't know about the stone tablet's eerie nature. Otherwise, she would never have gotten close, let alone touch it.

At least she hadn't touched it with her hands.

So, they needed a few "teammates" to clear the path for them.

They had planned to wait until Jiang Cheng fell asleep before leaving under some pretext, and before leaving, they specifically "instructed" Fatty to stay home and not go anywhere.

This was because they feared Jiang Cheng would see through their trick if he was awake and insist on coming along.

To be honest, Su Xiaoxiao was betting the safety of her brother, hoping Jiang Cheng wouldn't see through their lie.

As for Fatty, he wasn't considered in their plans.

From their experience, it was established that anything out of the ordinary in a nightmare was mostly not something good, it's more probable for it to be something bad.

So their plan was to follow Jiang Cheng and Fatty, using them to scout the path.

As for what the people of Black Stone Town said about the strange stone tablet being hidden deep in the forest in a hard-to-find, rarely visited place—no one paid attention to such nonsense. After all, for the people involved in the task, no matter how hard it was to find, these key locations would always be discovered, or the task couldn't continue.

That was the rule.

It was even likely they would find the strange stone tablet soon after setting off.

Before long, the two arrived at the edge of the forest.

Chen Ran still had that strange expression on his face, but Su Xiaoxiao was different. She had just recently escaped from this nightmare-like forest.

Now, she had to go back in.

No matter how carefully she planned in her mind, psychologically, going against her instincts and heading inside the forest was the hardest part.

This forest was a nightmare within a nightmare for her, and just approaching it made her extremely resistant.

She had a foreboding feeling that if she stepped into this forest again, she might never leave.

"Miss Su," Chen Ran's voice interrupted her thoughts, waking her from her memories. He smiled slightly, "Please lead the way."

Chen Ran, whether in appearance, emotion, or even his micro-expressions, didn't seem to have any hint of threat, but all the uncanny factors combined, his face appeared quite disturbing.

Su Xiaoxiao disliked being threatened, but this time, she had no choice but to comply.

"Mr. Chen," Su Xiaoxiao turned her head at the last moment before stepping into the forest, staring into his eyes. After a pause, she said coldly, "I hope there's only one team scouting the path."

Chen Ran seemed not to understand her words and widened his eyes slightly, "Miss Su, what are you saying? We're companions!"

"Let's hope that's truly the case."

Su Xiaoxiao stepped into the forest, and after a moment of hesitation, Chen Ran followed suit.

The two, under Su Xiaoxiao's lead, moved toward the direction she remembered.

There, they would witness the process of "assimilation" and even the origin of the curse.

As Su Xiaoxiao hurried forward, she suddenly had a strange illusion. It seemed that the two people who entered before them were meant to be the sacrifices to the forest.

Yes, it made perfect sense, because in her brother Su An's memory, this forest... was alive.

It was watching them enter, one group after another, the crew that had been stranded here by a shipwreck, and the people of Black Stone Town!

They were all sacrifices, offerings to the entire forest.

Perhaps, it also watched over the indescribable, unpredictable, and unstoppable "it" that the people of Black Stone Town spoke of.

After Chen Ran and Su Xiaoxiao entered the forest, the forest's boundary fell silent once more.

It seemed that the eerie silence was the main theme of this place.

However, only a few minutes later, the silence was broken by an out-of-place sound.

"Zhi—, crack!"

A nimble figure slid down from the top half of the tree, which was well-covered by the trees, holding onto the trunk, then let go, spun 180 degrees, bent their knees slightly, and landed smoothly.

The figure looked in the direction where Chen Ran and Su Xiaoxiao had disappeared, narrowing their eyes, then made a sound with their mouth.

A moment later—

"Doctor," came Fatty's voice from the tree, sounding terrified, speaking in a low voice as if afraid to disturb the possible ghosts in the forest.

"How do I get down?"

Fatty's voice trembled. He was afraid of heights, and he was at least five or six meters off the ground. With his size, if he fell directly, breaking a leg would be the best case scenario.

Just looking down made his legs shake.

In the end, it was Jiang Cheng who used some special method to help Fatty get down safely from the tree.

"Doctor," Fatty had just gotten down and hadn't steadied himself yet when he looked at Jiang Cheng with admiration and awe, "You're amazing! How did you know these two were acting, and their goal was to trick us into the forest?" Fatty's eyes sparkled.

Jiang Cheng took a deep breath and seriously said to Fatty, "Fatty, if I told you that I thought of their plan too but didn't have time to act on it, and they beat me to it, would you believe me?"

Fatty nodded repeatedly: "I absolutely would, I believe in you, doctor. It isn't without reason that you're an orphan, everything you say makes sense."

(End of the Chapter)

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Translated 4 Series, 1.65K+ Chapters and 2.01M+ Words.