Chapter 12: The Photograph

Just a little more.

Ning Qiu Shui would have died at the hands of that terrifying woman!

"Thank you…"

Only after a long while did he finally calm down.

His tone was icy when it came to the deaths of strangers.

Ning Qiu Shui didn't mind helping others—especially those who'd done him no harm—but only if it didn't endanger himself.

After all, when he'd asked the group earlier to join him in uncovering the truth, not a single person had stepped forward.

Why should he risk his life while others reaped the benefits? He was no saint, sacrificing himself to save the world.

"Hey… I've got another question," Liu Chengfeng said, now mostly recovered.

"Ask."

"How… did you know the rules of that thing in the villa? How it kills?"

Ning Qiu Shui fell silent in the darkness for a long moment.

"Before boarding the bus… I received an anonymous letter."

"A letter?"

"Yes. It contained a photograph and four lines of text."

Ning recited the words slowly:

"When the wind blows, no lamps shall glow;

When rain descends, no candles burn.

With sunlit skies, climb not on high;

When night arrives, keep watchful eyes."

Liu Chengfeng's eyes widened in shock.

"Holy crap… It all fits! Dude, you've got some powerful backer helping you! What about the photo?"

Ning Qiu Shui glanced at him, hesitation flashing in his gaze.

"You want to see it?"

Liu Chengfeng paused. "Is it… not allowed?"

Before he could finish, Ning reached into his black plaid shirt and pulled out a yellowed photograph, holding it face-out toward Liu Chengfeng.

The latter's pupils constricted violently.

"No way…"

Under the moonlight, the photo clearly showed a person—and that person was none other than Liu Chengfeng himself.

The two men stared at each other across the thin photograph, silence stretching between them.

Liu Chengfeng saw his own image but missed the words scrawled on the back:

[A friend worth keeping… though he asks ten thousand questions.]

When Liu Chengfeng reached out to examine it closer, Ning withdrew the photo with a faint smile.

"Shocking, right? I felt the same. At first, I thought it was a prank or a misdelivered letter… But when I woke up on that bus and saw you, I knew this was no coincidence."

"The driverless bus, the mysterious fog, the blood door… and all of us. There's an invisible hand pulling the strings behind everything."

Liu Chengfeng laughed bitterly.

"Let's be real… No one in the real world could orchestrate this. You've seen what's out there. These aren't things humans can do."

Ning said nothing. He didn't argue, but every word from that mysterious letter had proven true so far: the blood door, the bizarre rules of slaughter… and this stranger who'd risked his life to save him.

It was terrifying.

As if… someone had been watching him from the shadows all along.

The night passed without further words.

Exhausted from the sleepless previous night and the adrenaline crash, both men succumbed to fatigue.

Dawn broke with a bloodcurdling scream from the second floor, shattering the villa's silence.

Another death.

But what horrified the survivors more was the disappearance of three people: not just their de facto leader Ning Qiu Shui, but also the old woman—the key figure in their mission to "care for her for five days."

How were they supposed to care for a ghost now?

Listening to the chaos below, Ning and Liu learned that the victim was a man named Kitajima. Eaten alive.

"W-where did they go…?"

"H-have they all been…"

"I don't want to die here…!"

Yan Youping's fragmented sobs drifted upward. Liu Chengfeng shouted desperately through the window, but their voices seemed trapped on the third floor. No one came. No one heard.

"Enough," Ning Qiu Shui said coldly as Liu strained his throat.

Liu frowned at his indifference.

"You're a doctor, man! There are living people down there! How can we just abandon them? It's too—"

Ning closed his eyes.

"I'm a veterinarian. And I follow three rules when saving lives."

"Three rules? What rules?"