Unsettling

Translator: CinderTL

Using flashlights to illuminate their surroundings, they quickly found the wig shop that Song Xiaoyou had mentioned.

In an inconspicuous corner, the shop was in complete disarray. Wooden chairs were overturned, and shards of broken glass lay scattered near the wall.

Several large mirrors were mounted on the walls, some already cracked. As the flashlight beams swept across them, the reflections of the group appeared in the mirrors.

The cracks on the mirror surfaces resembled sharp blades, fragmenting the figures of those reflected.

"Don't face the mirrors," Wan Yuanning warned.

The beams of light moved away from the mirrors, and soon they found a door at the back.

The door was slightly ajar. Banana Wolf stepped forward and slowly pushed it open, the hinges emitting a piercing creak.

It seemed no one had been here for a long time.

But as the door opened, even without Hua Luo's reminder, the other two's expressions suddenly changed. They caught a strong whiff of blood.

Inside, the air was hazy. The flashlight beams seemed restricted, only able to illuminate a distance of two to three meters.

"What do you think?" Hua Luo asked Wan Yuanning, placing all his hopes on her.

After looking inside for a while, Wan Yuanning shook her head. "No, I can't see clearly either. What's strange here is this mist, not just the darkness."

"What should we do then?" Hua Luo frowned. "Come back later and bring more people?"

"Who would come?" Banana Wolf retorted.

"Those from Building 1," Hua Luo steadied himself and said, "The Long-Haired Ghost here is probably the one who attacked Chu Jiu."

"Of course I know that. What I mean is, are you sure they'll believe us?" Banana Wolf pursed his lips. "I'm worried they'll think we made it up to get them to take the risk for us."

"Then what do you suggest?" Hua Luo spread his hands, frustrated that nothing seemed to work.

"I don't agree with going back either," Wan Yuanning analyzed. "From what we've seen, Yu Lan has already been attacked. In the missions I've experienced before, ghosts rarely kill two people in a row."

"As long as we're careful during this time, we should still be safe." Her voice carried a strange power, and her words made sense.

"Let's do it," Banana Wolf stepped forward, taking the knife from Wan Yuanning's hand and lowering his voice. "Stay close to me."

Banana Wolf led the way, and Hua Luo nodded to Wan Yuanning. "You walk in the middle, I'll be behind you."

Wan Yuanning was slightly surprised. Her eyes swept over Hua Luo's face, as if her impression of this man, who was more beautiful than most women, had changed.

"Be careful," Wan Yuanning said.

Hua Luo nodded.

The three of them entered the storeroom.

Inside, a strange mist enveloped the space, reducing visibility. Rows of shelves lined the room, each holding model heads.

The heads were adorned with various wigs.

In such an environment, it was hard not to feel tense.

Hua Luo gripped his flashlight tightly. The beam shone on the heads, and for a moment, he felt as if the heads might suddenly come to life.

Peeking at them, or perhaps blinking or curling their lips in places they couldn't see.

Taking a deep breath, he tightened his grip on the flashlight.

Suddenly, Banana Wolf, who was walking at the front, abruptly stopped.

A moment later—

"Did you hear that?" Banana Wolf asked softly, without turning around.

Wan Yuanning and Hua Luo held their breath. A few seconds later, all three of them looked in the same direction. They had all heard it.

The sound of dripping water.

"Drip."

"Drip."

It wasn't far, as the area wasn't very large.

Unlike Banana Wolf and Wan Yuanning, who were staring intently in the direction of the sound, Hua Luo's attention was more focused on their rear.

Every few steps, he would suddenly glance back.

Nothing unusual, then continue walking.

Unlike the fierce and brutal ghosts in horror movies, the ghosts in Nightmares were mostly sinister and cunning. They could appear anywhere you least expected.

In ways you couldn't imagine, and then take your life.

This sound... was likely a trap.

But they had no choice now, as they were trapped in this storeroom. The door they had entered through... had disappeared.

Finally, they reached the source of the dripping sound.

It was between two rows of shelves.

Here, the mist was especially dense, and the flashlight's battery seemed to be draining rapidly. Visibility was now less than a meter around them.

"Tap." Banana Wolf's footsteps stopped.

He looked down. A slippery sensation came from under his feet, as if he had stepped on some liquid. He slowly crouched down, focusing intently.

Until a bright red color caught his eye.

There was a large pool of blood on the ground.

At the same time, a soft "tap" sounded on his shoulder, and liquid splashed onto his face.

It was wet, and carried a slight warmth.

The next second, he immediately stood up and stepped back, looking up at the same time, the flashlight beam following his gaze.

The mist seemed to dissipate at that moment, and the sight above them made all three gasp in shock. A massive, black, olive-shaped object, entirely wrapped in hair, was suspended upside down in mid-air.

Like a giant cocoon.

Blood dripped intermittently from the strands of hair, falling into the pool of blood below, creating the dripping sound.

Even more terrifying, the cocoon seemed to sense something and began to slowly writhe. Then, under the trio's gaze, a corpse was spat out.

"Thud." It hit the ground.

The corpse was severely shriveled, and the sound it made upon hitting the ground was crisp, like a large piece of dried wood.

There was no doubt that the dead person was Yu Lan, not from her face, but from her clothes and the single white leather shoe still on her foot.

The hair had acted like blood-sucking vines, draining her dry.

Her face was unrecognizable, the dried skin tightly clinging to her bones. Her mouth, now permanently open in a dried state, seemed to be screaming in fear and resentment before death.

What was even more psychologically unsettling was that her mouth, eye sockets, and nostrils were all stuffed with hair—long, dense hair.

Her two withered, claw-like hands were twisted near her mouth, as if she had been struggling to pull the hair out of her mouth before she died.

The flashlight beam shone on Yu Lan's face, her skin as rough as tree bark. Just as Banana Wolf sighed, a glint appeared in Wan Yuanning's eyes.

"Huh?"

She stepped forward, not daring to touch the hair directly, so she used her clothes to wrap around it and began pulling the hair out of Yu Lan's mouth.

Before long, she held a ring in her palm.

The ring had been wrapped in the hair and clearly didn't belong to Yu Lan.

Turning the ring to a different angle, she saw a line of small characters on the inside.

"Shen," followed by a heart shape, and finally a single character: "Wei."

(End of the Chapter)

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