Chapter 80: 1552 Haunted House (12)
Huang Hong realized something. He turned his head stiffly and the blood in his body became cold as he shouted, “Lu Ming!”
The bathroom door wasn’t locked. Huang Hong pushed it open in one click. Xie Chi had expected Lu Ming’s death to be bad but when he saw Lu Ming’s body, his throat moved a few times before he barely suppressed the desire to vomit.
The retching of several people was heard behind him.
The bathroom was a shocking red and the floor was wet and sticky with blood that splashed everywhere. Lu Ming was leaning back on the toilet, his head tilted to one side weakly. Besides the bloody holes, his body was covered with bite marks.
People’s legs became limp and their faces were pale. You Jing was also frozen in place by this scene. By the time he reacted, Xie Chi had taken off his coat and covered his nose and mouth. Then he came forward to look at the scene.
He crouched down and his eyes became hard. Lu Ming’s skin was completely torn apart and his heart was gone. You Jing was unwilling to be left behind so he squeezed Xie Chi aside and checked it himself. Xie Chi shrugged and stood up, looking down at You Jing. There were so many eyes that You Jing couldn’t hide anything. This person could be happy.
A few minutes later, You Jing stood up with an extremely ugly face. “His heart, liver, kidneys and tongue are gone.”
The group was astonished. “There is a beast in this movie! Bite marks! He was torn to death!”
“They’re gone. It shouldn’t be…” A man shivered. “Eaten, right?”
The group shuddered when they heard this conjecture.
“It shouldn’t be a dish, right? The woman who died on the bed previously should be charcoal roasted suckling lamb? I heard about it when I was a child and have a deep impression of it. I just never thought that the chicken would be the charcoal roasted suckling lamb…”
The cause of the woman’s death was pointed out. Those who ate the chicken were afraid and glad.
“That Lu Ming…”
Xie Chi searched around the room. He didn’t find Lu Ming‘s missing organs so he returned to the corpse.
Meanwhile, You Jing examined the body and immediately stood far away. He walked up to Zhao Jinhua with a solemn expression and lowered his voice. “Mom, this should be the work of the male ghost with the abnormal appetite?”
Zhao Jinhua nodded silently. The other actors were guessing a beast but anyone who saw the corpse clearly would know what was going on. The male ghost with an abnormal appetite couldn’t bear it and started to attack the actors. Sure enough, the animals were just a small mess. The male ghost with the abnormal appetite was the focus. It was just that they never imagined the male ghost would even eat human organs or eat them raw. Then You Jing thought of the baby soup on the menu and suddenly felt it wasn’t strange.
“Mom, we have to hurry to help the female ghost find the teeth. Since we have chosen to help the female ghost, we are standing on the opposite side of the male ghost. If we drag things out, the male ghost will definitely attack us.”
Zhao Jinhua nodded. She wasn’t too afraid. She had shot many movies and had means to save her life. Instead, she was afraid that she wouldn’t find the teeth within the specified time and the filming would fail.
As You Jing and Zhao Jinhua reached an agreement, Xie Chi took the trouble to check the body again. Then he walked to the worried Lu Wen and whispered, “Let’s go back.”
Ren Ze also followed. “How is it?”
Xie Chi pushed up his glasses. “Cannibal.”
“What?” Lu Wen’s eyes widened. Once he confirmed that he heard correctly, his expression was ugly. “You mean that Lu Ming was eaten by a ghost? It wasn’t an animal?”
After all, according to the previous speculation, there were animal spirits in the house that wanted to harm them. He thought since the animals would hurt humans…
“No,” Xie Chi spoke calmly. “There are human tooth marks on Lu Ming’s body.”
“Human teeth marks are different from those of animals. Animal teeth are pointed and sharp. Humans have many flat teeth. This is one thing. Go back and I’ll tell you the rest.”
They were in the corridor and there were many people and eyes. It wasn’t a suitable place to talk. The three of them returned to their room. Xie Chi closed the door tightly and didn’t speak. He first took a bite of his arm. It wasn’t very deep but the bite mark was clearly visible.
“Look at it.”
The bite mark on Xie Chi’s arm was neat and flat, very beautiful. Ren Ze was stunned for a while. Then he thought of the wounds on Lu Ming’s body and suddenly understood something. “It is a cannibal with broken teeth!”
The bite marks on Lu Ming’s body were flat but pitted.
Xie Chi nodded.
“Then our tooth…” Lu Wen’s face turned pale and he glanced pointedly at the wall where the tooth was hidden.
Xie Chi took out a piece of paper and wrote on it. “The clues are now very clear. Those animal spirits were eaten by the cannibal and it was before the cannibal died. The animals weren’t willing to be cruelly eaten and their resentment made them harass and attack the humans living here. At present, there are two ways that animals can hurt people. One is very clear. You eat the special dish and the spiritual body represented by the special dish will retaliate against you that night.”
“The second one?” Ren Ze frowned.
Xie Chi wrote, “The second type isn’t obvious but it can be guessed by the fact that I was harassed by the mice. In other words, the second type is actually an indiscriminate attack that depends on luck. It is very random and there isn’t a death condition. For this reason, the mortality and risk of this indiscriminate attack should be lower than the first method. After all, we have done nothing wrong.”
“In other words, we can only 100% meet the spirit body represented by a particular dish on the night when the dish is produced. However, we might be harassed and attacked by other types of spirit bodies in the house at any time, so we must be cautious.”
“The problem now is which dishes did the cannibal like during their lifetime or how many dishes they ate. I don’t believe that this number is countless because this isn’t a comedy, nor is it a satirical hodgepodge like Cabin in the Woods. It won’t end up filling the house with countless animals. It is likely to be an animal protection movie, preaching that we shouldn’t eat what shouldn’t be eaten or humanity will be destroyed.”
“I have every reason to suspect that You Jing and Zhao Jinhua know this number and even the specific dish name. We have to find a way to get it because it will help us a lot.”
Lu Wen was in awe. During the time when he was in a daze, Xie Chi had mastered a large amount of information and completed the linking of information.
Ren Ze secretly showed surprise in his eyes.
“Then let’s talk about the teeth. This is a pros outweigh the cons movie. I don’t believe there will be major loopholes in the logic of the movie’s backstory. Therefore, the most reasonable explanation for the teeth is that they are valves on the ghost’s power.”
“Valve?” Lu Wen realized the meaning of the word.
“Compare the power of the ghost to water locked in a reservoir. Every time the ghost with the broken teeth finds a tooth, a small valve will open. It will become stronger and stronger until all the teeth are found. Then it will kill all the people in the house in one go. At that time, all of us will become the most delicious food on the table.”
A chill went down Lu Wen’s back.
Ren Ze thought it over and felt that the logic chain was very complete.
Xie Chi added, “This is logically the most reasonable. Of course, other explanations can’t be ruled out. After all, the quality of the movie is pros outweigh the cons. The cons are unknown. The logic chain of the movie might be imperfect.”
Ren Ze stared. Xie Chi was even taking the quality of the movie into consideration?
Xie Chi continued, “The teeth of the cannibal ghost should be deliberately hidden because someone didn’t want it to kill evilly.”
“I have two guesses about this. One is that it was done by the animal camp standing on the opposite side of the cannibal ghost because my second tooth was found when I encountered the monkeys. The monkeys hid the cannibal ghost’s tooth on themselves and it accidentally fell out because of panic. It was picked up by me.”
“Tooth?” Ren Ze’s voice was soft. He didn’t know that Xie Chi had found the ghost’s tooth but Xie Chi’s logic was clear. He easily knew what Xie Chi had encountered previously.
Ren Ze glanced at Xie Chi, secretly grateful. Xie Chi had actually told him such an important matter, showing that he wasn’t regarded as an outsider.
“What about guess two?” Lu Wen felt that Xie Chi’s first guess was already very careful and there wasn’t another possibility.
“My second guess is that beside the cannibal ghost, there is another ghost in the house. The teeth were hidden by this ghost and the animals.”
Lu Wen suddenly remembered what Xie Chi had overheard previously. “The man beat the woman and the woman was crying! The violent man should be the cannibal ghost and the dead woman should be the good ghost helping the animals hide the teeth.”
“No.” Xie Chi’s eyes were sharp with a bit of insightful cunning. “That’s wrong.”
“Why is it wrong?” Lu Wen was blank.
Xie Chi put down his pen, smiled softly and spat out very lightly, “The woman is the cannibal ghost.”
“Eh?” Lu Wen covered his mouth, eyes full of disbelief. Ren Ze also stared at Xie Chi.
Xie Chi shrugged. “It is a simple thing. Have you forgotten the appearance of the tooth we found?”
Lu Wen was stunned for a while. Then he thought about it and a chill went down his back. “It was… a woman’s tooth.”
“Yes.” Xie Chi continued. “When I found the first tooth, I thought that the man abused the woman and pulled out the woman’s teeth. Our task was to help the female ghost find the teeth. However, just now, the bite marks on Lu Ming’s body overturned my conjecture. The teeth of the cannibal ghost are missing and the woman’s teeth are missing. This means the woman is the cannibal ghost.”
Lu Wen’s fingers stiffened. “Then how do you explain Zhao Jinhua’s psychic communication…?”
Xie Chi completely put down the pen. He leaned against the swivel chair in a leisurely manner and asked with a smile, “Have you ever heard of a saying?”
“What?”
Ren Ze understood. “A bogus story.”
“Yes.” Xie Chi glanced at him approvingly.
“You mean…” Lu Wen sucked in a breath. The victim was actually the perpetrator. The weak woman was actually the cannibal ghost. The scene that the psychic Zhao Jinhua saw was fake, an illusion that the cannibal ghost deliberately created to deceive her.
Xie Chi shook his head and laughed. “I lost. I shouldn’t have eavesdropped because I ended up misleading myself…”
Finally, Ren Ze figured out what Xie Chi had done.
Eavesdropping…
Ren Ze’s mouth twitched as he figured out why Lu Wen came to him that day and acted crazy. Xie Chi climbed the wall outside to eavesdrop?
“How can this type of powerful ability go wrong? I thought it was 100% correct? Shouldn’t a psychic have some degree of accuracy? Can’t the psychic ability force the ghost to tell the truth?”
Lu Wen still found it a bit hard to accept for a while.
Xie Chi told him, “Even if the psychic error rate is one in ten million, we must take it into consideration. It is because once it happens, one in ten million is one.”
“The animal spirits aren’t the same as the ghosts. The animals’ own IQ determines the IQ of the animal spirits. The animal spirits can only be a bit higher than animals in terms of IQ. This is why we encountered cunning monkeys and incompetent baby mice. However, the ghost is another matter. After all—” Xie Chi smiled. “During the time when the ghost was alive, she was a human, the most cunning and full of intrigue.”
Lu Wen clenched his fists.
Xie Chi said, “Thinking like this is actually very tiring. We don’t actually need to consider the probability of the psychic ability failing. Let’s put it another way. Start from the benefits itself. This is the most reliable. It is only when there is a demand that there will be a connection. Demand is paramount to everything. After all, this isn’t an unsolvable movie. The ghost can’t just kill anyone she wants to kill. There must be some cause and effect.”
“The cannibal ghost is in demand. She needs Zhao Jinhua to help her find her teeth to strengthen herself and to kill.”
“Of course, this is all speculation.” Xie Chi saw the two serious people and joked, trying to ease the atmosphere.
Ren Ze’s mood was complicated.
“The fact that I suddenly received an invitation from the animal camp proves there is more than one camp here.”
“The animal camp can only accommodate me alone. This is extremely unreasonable.”
“So my guess is that there is a female ghost camp.”
Xie Chi paused. “Of course, there is also a high probability that there is… the camp for the man who hid the teeth.”
6th Anniversary Event Page (Final Submission Date: 15th November)
Proofreader: Purichan