CHAPTER 18: Everyone disappears

The curse called 'Escape from the Evils of the World' of 'the sheep who want to live'. Those who are caught in the curse by their three desires of Greed, Anger, and Delusion. As humans, who is not greedy, lustful, angry, hateful, and blind? It's just that more or less, no matter how kind and good-natured a person is, they cannot escape the Three Poisons of Affliction.

Existing in this curse, people only have one thing in them, which is 'Greed for Life and Fear of Death'. Finding ways to step on the lives of others to live, it is very rare for a gentleman to be called an angel to share his own life with others.

However, if a good person meets a good person as a teammate, they will easily overcome the mission, helping each other to decode the code to escape the curse. But if a group of bad people become teammates, surely no one will survive. But life is random, good and bad are arranged to meet each other, so it is impossible to judge people's hearts by their faces.

In the end, Xie Cheng's teammates all have good and bad sides. The demons hidden deep in their subconscious just haven't come yet, and the time has not come for them to burst out, to reveal their 'sheep-wanting-to-live' faces.

The four of them walked out into the hall, Liang Zun was now less afraid that Xiao Xin in the dining room was a ghost. He immediately jumped in to tell everyone the truth, and in less than three seconds, he was seen running out in a cold sweat.

"Everyone in the dining room has disappeared!"

The three of them ran into the dining room, the dining room was now empty, not a single person there. However, the food on the table of those people looked like it had just been brought out, steaming and no one had touched it yet.

Xie Ying walked to the dining table, bent down to sniff, and suddenly his face darkened, saying: "These dishes of food smell rotten!".

"The food just brought out is rotten." He couldn't believe it and immediately went to pick up a meatball, without smelling it he put it in his mouth.

"Clack." His chopsticks and the meatball flew out and fell to the ground.

Xie Cheng: "?!".

It was Liu Yu who knocked the chopsticks away, he frowned: "Don't eat it, it's human flesh!".

The three people were shocked by his words.

Although he hadn't put it in his mouth yet, Xie Cheng felt a slight ickiness in his throat and his face turned pale, swallowing back the nausea.

Liang Zun went to look at his stomach and started shouting.

"It looks so delicious, how could it be human flesh, this is fried meatball with tomato sauce." He was drooling with desire.

A meatball on the plate was knocked by Liu Yu, the fried breading cracked, revealing a round, white thing inside.

"Live eyeball." Liu Yu scooped it up.

The white eye was sticky with a green-black slime and blood lines that stretched into strings, surrounding the eyeball and reaching the black pupil that had lost focus.

"Ugh!!!". Liang Zun was disgusted and vomited on the spot.

The fishy smell was disgusting, Xie Cheng backed away: "Oh my god! Don't tell me the remaining plates are also other body parts?!".

Liang Zun vomited until his face turned pale, he staggered to his feet and ran outside to avoid smelling the disgusting smell.

"Hey!". Xie Ying grabbed his collar from behind.

Xie Ying: "You cowardly bastard! Do you want to be captured by a ghost by running out alone?".

Liu Yu used two fingers to pick up the eye and crushed it, fresh blood and green liquid splattered out. The eye shattered, something was shining inside, he immediately brushed the meat pieces to the ground and took it out.

"Is it gold?". Xie Cheng stood beside him and said.

Hearing about gold, Liang Zun's eyes lit up and he turned to look: "More gold?".

But then he remembered that Liu Yu had said that the gold and silver in this curse had no meaning at all, so the ray of hope in his eyes suddenly disappeared.

He put the gold ball into his side pocket: "This is the third one".

"Why can gold be stuffed into the eyeball? Could it be that gold grows inside the eyeball?" Xie Cheng asked.

This question was really hard to guess, even an experienced old man like Liu Yu didn't know how to answer. He shook his head: "I don't know".

Ever since he was cursed, he had been asking everything without thinking for himself, so he felt a little embarrassed, so he smiled and let it go.

"AUUUUU!".

"Huh?! This howl?". Liang Zun listened attentively.

"Wang?!". Xie Cheng was startled.

He immediately followed the howl and ran outside, Xie Ying hurriedly ran after him from behind: "Hey Xie Cheng Cheng!".

As if being led by a demon, controlling his mind, he kept running without knowing where he was running. His eyes were surrounded by black smoke, he couldn't see anything, but his feet kept running and running. The sound of Xie Ying's call behind him gradually faded away and was no longer heard.

His footsteps slowed down and then stopped, the black smoke dispersed and his eyes regained their light. He opened his eyes wide and looked around, then found himself standing in the middle of a dark hallway with only the flickering candlelight placed on the table by the wall.

"Where is this?" The hallway was quiet, he couldn't feel anything except his breathing.

Why did he suddenly run out here? He suddenly remembered hearing Wang's howl earlier, so he ran out to see. In the end, he didn't know where he had gone.

He looked back and saw a door at the end of the hallway, the door that had brought him here, so he walked towards it.

"Clank!" The door wouldn't open.

Xie Cheng's face darkened: "What the hell?".

The door was locked, how did he get in here just now? Did he go through the door?

No, he was taken away by a ghost!

"Hee hee hee". A creepy laugh echoed through the air.

Breaking out in a cold sweat, he took a deep breath and exhaled, then his fingers groped for the long-bladed knife and slid to the iron stick at his side.

Swallowing his saliva, he turned around and pulled out the stick, his voice trembling as he said loudly: "If you're good, come out here and don't hide and scare me with those few laughs!".

The hallway was quiet without any response, suddenly he got goosebumps, his neck shivered because the sudden change in temperature made the hallway cold.

Xie Cheng pulled his shirt sleeve over his hand and squeezed the stick as he moved forward.

The candle on the table was about to burn out, he stopped in front of the table and quickly opened the drawer to look for a flashlight.

The table had three drawers, he opened the bottom drawer first, inside there was nothing but two old pieces of paper. He took it out and read the contents by candlelight:

"June 3, 1988.

Qing Fei Hotel was renovated to be new and beautiful to better serve tourists.

Mr. Qing Fei Hui recruited thirteen new service staff and appointed Tan Nhi as manager.

June 6, 1988.

Mr.Qing Fei Hui's wife's funeral was held grandly in a villa just a piece of forest behind Qing Fei Hotel.

June 10, 1988.

Mr. Qing Fei Hui was extremely sad and went on a trip with his 4-year-old son to ease his sadness".

"Mr. Qing Fei Hui? The owner of Qing Fei Hotel? What happened next?". He flipped the paper over to the other side and saw that there was nothing more written on this side.

Looking at the second piece of paper, the content:

"Live well even though life is terrible!".

After reading this line, I felt a bit like myself, having gone through so much contempt and torment in life, I only encouraged myself to be happy despite my terrible life.

Maybe this piece of paper is for people who need motivation.

He flipped it over: "Huh? 8 6 3?".

There were three numbers written on the corner of the paper, maybe it was a code or something.

Briefly reading the content of the two pieces of paper, he felt that this was the clue to the plot of the mission.

If you come across papers like this on the way to carry out a mission, you should read to see what stories surround this hotel.

Putting the two pieces of paper in his pocket, he opened the second drawer, there was nothing inside so he closed it. Opening the last drawer, the lighter rolled out, he felt that he was very lucky, whatever he needed, it automatically appeared. He needed a flashlight but had a lighter instead.

Suddenly a cold wind blew from somewhere and extinguished the candle, the hallway was now pitch black.

Xie Cheng threw away his fears and used the lighter to light up his way forward, only to see a few doors on both sides of the wall. He went to open each door but all of them were locked, leaving only the last door in the hallway.

"Click".

Opening the door, a marble rolled out from underneath. As if he was compelled to pick it up, Xie Cheng's face turned pale under the fire and he threw the marble to the ground.

It was an eye!

The eyeball rolled into the corner of the wall and lay still, its pupil kept pointing up and stuck to him. Xie Cheng clenched the stick in his hand and calmly used his foot to kick the eye hard. The eyeball was crushed, flesh flying all over the floor. He lifted his foot and found something shining in the puddle of slime. He curiously picked it up.

"Gold?". There was another eyeball containing gold.

Put it in his pocket.

Turned around and opened the door, this time just in case something appeared and rushed over, he would hit it with the stick.

"Thump, thump."

Shining the lighter inside, nothing rushed out, he breathed a sigh of relief and walked in.

The room was dark, outside the window, dark clouds covered it, no light could be seen. Xie Cheng just realized that it was almost dark now, perhaps the suggested mission would appear soon.

He shined the lighter around the room, the surroundings were neat and tidy. There was only a desk, a chair and a few potted plants in the room, nothing else.

Wondering what eye had just rolled out?

The drawers of the desk were all locked, so he couldn't open it. Xie Cheng immediately walked around and walked to the door behind the desk.

Opening the door, he stepped out into another hallway, also pitch black.

After walking a few steps, he found himself in the hotel square, below was a large stage. Above was a piano, dimly illuminated by the lights on the ceiling of the stage.

Based on the little light, he could observe how beautiful and luxurious this square was. The audience seats were arranged like steps, the chairs with gold-plated frames and legs were shining, the red animal skin chairs had gold patterns printed on them, very noble.

Stepping onto the stage, he saw the shiny floor, he could clearly see his face like a mirror, on both sides were red curtains with phoenix patterns, creating a strange attraction.

Walking closer to the shiny black piano, his fingers glided over the keys.

Besides being a barber, he also loved playing music and singing, so seeing the piano made his hands itch.

As he reached the end of the keys, he stopped moving because of the unforgettable memories of the past.

It reminded him of the person he loved betraying him.