Weird collapse, chasing husband crematorium

The masked genius slowly turned his head.

The mask fell off, and dense black spiders crawled out from it, blending into the shadows and quickly chasing in the direction where Kanagawa Qimeng escaped.

On the other side, the minister waited for a long time in the hall, but Kanagawa Kimu didn't come back for a long time.

"Could Qi Meng have fallen asleep somewhere? Why hasn't she come back in so long? I've looked for her almost everywhere!"

The minister complained, but immediately started counting people again.

After counting three times, only two people were missing.

One is Kanagawa Kimu, and the other is a member who wears a mask and pretends to be a ghost during the day.

However, there were two people pretending to be ghosts during the day. The director walked over to the other member pretending to be a ghost and asked, "Isn't the person who pretended to be a ghost with you and scared us before with you?"

The other person shook his head: "I hid with the others and didn't notice her."

"Oh, that's strange... where did Qimeng go?"

The minister was very confused.

A strange voice appeared in the crowd: "Minister, could it be that Qi Meng encountered a ghost?"

The minister immediately interrupted, "Don't be ridiculous! If there were ghosts, why didn't we encounter them? I don't believe that among all of us, Qi Meng and one other person encountered ghosts. You know, when we cleaned the place before, we thoroughly cleaned every corner and found nothing unusual."

"But it was daytime."

"..."

The minister became anxious and turned on his phone, but there was no call record.

I called Kanagawa Qimeng several times but couldn't get through. The message said that the other party's phone could not be reached.

It's not turned off, nor is it canceled intentionally, it's like there is no signal.

"The remaining twenty-two people will form groups of four to search inside the house. If you encounter any problems, call us immediately. Another classmate and I will form a group to search outside. If we find Qimeng or discover anything strange, we will send a message to the group immediately."

The minister instructed that if they couldn’t find it inside the house, it was most likely outside.

After all, with Kanagawa Kimu's bold nature, it is very likely that she would go outside to look for someone, even if the rules state that she is not allowed to go out.

----

At the gate of the manor, Li Mo stood there motionless, raised his head and glanced at the vague black fog. The air around him was filled with the smell of rust.

"It's the time of the strange surge, 8:32 pm, it should have been a while."

"Rusty iron gates, spiderweb-covered walls, and strange black fog."

"It's normal for the iron gate to be rusty, but there seem to be too many spiders. It doesn't conform to a normal ecosystem. There are so many birds around, so spiders shouldn't be so rampant."

Chapter 3 Humanoid Spider

"What's the pattern?"

"There's a door, but no threshold. It's obviously not capable of resisting ghosts, and..."

Li Mo looked around and found some willow trees planted on both sides of the gate. Although it was not the season when the willow trees were lush and green, the effect of gathering shade would not be reduced too much.

In the information Mei collected, Li Mo had seen that the "funeral sticks" and "soul-guiding banners" used in folk funerals were all made of willow wood. If they were contaminated with weirdness, he might be able to touch some abstract weirdness, although it would be useless and could not be suppressed.

However, the manor is a real Western-style manor, which means that there are people in the manor who understand the funeral etiquette of China and want to summon the soul.

"..."

"No, it's not just summoning spirits, it's very likely raising ghosts."

"If you want to nourish your soul, you don't need to plant a few willow trees; mulberry trees will do just as well."

"The willow tree has only one special homophonic attribute: to stay."

"Does this mean that if I enter the manor I'll never be able to leave?"

Li Mo raised his head and stared at the rusty gate for a long time, but he was not in a hurry to enter. He would never go through the main gate again when encountering supernatural events.

Right now, I know nothing about this supernatural event. Going straight in would be tantamount to committing suicide. Even if I still have three chances to restart, restarting is very precious and must not be wasted. I must obtain useful information.

The appearance of the willow tree made the manor even more dangerous, just like the locust tree forest on Mount Taixu.

Although they are different in nature, their ability to gather Yin is similar.

The ritual has not been clarified, but there is a rough guess about the rules, but this is far from enough. To get more information, we must rely on the notebook's future predictions.

"My friend, it's time you dug a hole for me."

"By the way, remember to dig a good hole for me so I can sleep comfortably in it."

Li Mo joked that these words were meant for Page One.

But he did not intend to do what was said on the first page. The information he needed most was "Love makes you want to live" on the second page and "Speak without reservation" on the fourth page.

The second page tells him what he needs to do to survive; the fourth page gives him some hints about the future that may be of reference value, as if it is telling his memories at different time points.

No matter which one it is, Li Mo will not believe it completely.

Whether it is the second page or the fourth page, if you want to complete the ceremony, you must bear certain risks and pay the corresponding price.

"Okay, tell me what would happen if I entered the manor."

Li Mo tried to skip the first page of the notebook and turn directly to the second page, but it was obviously unsuccessful. The first page forcefully pressed the second page down.

[My name is Li Mo. The moment I entered the manor, I disappeared from this world.]

Just a simple sentence, no further hints are given on the first page.

"What if I stay outside the manor?"

[My name is Li Mo. The manor is too dangerous, so I decided to observe outside the manor wall for a night.]

At 8:00 PM, the manor will be shrouded in a mysterious black fog. For safety's sake, I stay away from the willow tree at the entrance, take out my thermometer, and constantly be on the lookout for any approaching evil spirits. At the same time, I hold my third-filled, strange pistol in hand. I believe I'm perfectly safe in this situation.

At exactly nine o'clock in the evening, a ghostly figure appeared in the black fog. It moved very quickly, and the temperature on the thermometer dropped sharply. I immediately took out my strange pistol and prepared to suppress it.

At 9:03 p.m., I heard a knock on the door.

[At 9:04 pm, I was dismembered, but I'm not dead yet. I still have a chance to restart...]

[At 9:07 PM, the reboot failed and I died.]

"The restart failed again? Why this time?"

Li Mo's expression became a little more serious. Restart was his biggest trump card. There were many people who could restrain this ability, but they were definitely not many either. However, he had been encountering them recently.

One is to be like Guiqi, directly crushing the regular mechanism and forcibly locking time and space.

The second is to erase the soul consciousness level, which directly kills Li Mo's original self and allows another existence to replace the restarted body.

For example, the assimilation of the cat-faced grandmother and the replacement of portraits.

"Ruling out the first possibility, if it's regular restraint, then it won't take more than three minutes."

"Assimilation does take time, but I don't think it would take me three minutes to assimilate a ghost that's already dead. Besides, I have a strange pistol and a strange coin. I can't just sit there and wait for death."

"The notebook depicts me being dismembered. The process should have been instantaneous, otherwise I would have been able to react and immediately suppress the opponent or kill myself to force a reboot."

"After being dismembered, the reboot failed after three minutes. So...it's very likely that something happened during those three minutes, leaving me incomplete and unable to restart due to the strange power within me."

Li Mo quickly concluded that the ghost could not prevent him from restarting, but if he gave it three minutes to completely complete its strange pattern, the restart on his body would be ineffective.

The solution is also very simple. Hold the strange coin in your hand. As long as you are dismembered, the strange coin will fall along with your arm, thus attracting the attention of the ghost.

"Wait, I seem to have forgotten a word. What's the significance of the knocking sound?"

I was so focused on the failed reboot that I overlooked the simplest sentence: "At 9:03 pm, I heard a knock on the door."

It was after this sentence that his future was to be dismembered.

There might be some necessary connection between the two. The first page of the notebook described this sentence lightly, as if deliberately letting Li Mo ignore it.

At exactly eight o'clock in the evening, black fog emerged, and at exactly nine o'clock in the evening, a ghostly figure moving at an extremely fast speed appeared in the black fog.

Three minutes later, there was a knock on the door and he was dismembered. Three minutes later, the restart failed and he was confirmed dead.

Li Mo briefly summarized the information revealed on the first page of the notebook, and found clues in it based on his normal cognition and experience.

"The first sentence seems to be taken literally, but I over-interpreted it."

"Staying outside the manor after nine o'clock is a sure death."

"Eight o'clock is the final deadline to leave. We must escape this black fog and leave alive."

"And if you don't want to leave at eight o'clock and want to survive, you can only enter the manor and go to another world."

Li Mo thought of the old world and the new world in the Weird Bud incident, where there was also such a dilapidated door.

"But... can I really transform immediately after entering the manor?"

Li Mo was skeptical about this, but he didn't have much time to think about it right now.

The time has come to 8:58. In two minutes, the ghost in the black fog will target him.

"What do I need to pay attention to in order to survive?"

Li Mo asked the notebook.

The first page was finally no longer suppressed, and the second page was finally opened as desired, revealing the life-saving content.

Although this life-saving method has great flaws, it only ensures that Li Mo will not fall into a restart situation, rather than the survival of his true self.

When it's time to die, you have to die decisively.

[My name is Li Mo, and I only have two choices to survive.]

[Leave the black fog immediately and return to the original world. ]

[And... enter the manor before nine o'clock, run... run! I must find my companions before the ghost catches me.]

[The haunted house has five floors. Every time someone survives a day, a staircase leading to the upper floors will appear.]

[There is a corridor to the left of the lobby on each floor. There are guest rooms next to the corridor. Hide inside and don't leave until 8:00 the next day. Do whatever it takes to keep the candles burning.]

【Once the candle goes out, it means the ghost is nearby.】

At 8:59, Li Mo had not yet entered the manor.

There are no more hints on the second page, or perhaps the time is not enough for it to explain all the life-saving information.

Li Mo didn't know, but the notebook quickly turned to the fourth page -

[My name is Li Mo. I made a wrong choice. I shouldn't have opened the door.]

[The shadow is gnawing at my head. I can't resist. The strange coin and the strange pistol have no effect on this ghost. I feel like I'm going to die...]

Li Mo frowned. The second page reminded him not to go out after entering the room, but he went out anyway.

Does this mean that after entering the room, he encountered something that required him to open the door and take a risk?

"No time to think, just run!"

The time displayed on the mobile phone was exactly nine o'clock. Li Mo climbed over the wall instead of going through the main gate.

In an instant, a gaze from the depths of the black fog focused on Li Mo's back.

"Zizi..."

A creepy scraping sound came from not far behind him, like the sharp sound of teeth scraping against the rough ground.

Li Mo did not hesitate. He mobilized all his strength and ran along the gravel road under his feet. The black fog obscured his vision and he could not see the environment several meters away at all.

He could only run along the gravel road, but halfway through, Li Mo suddenly realized that the gravel road was going in a circle and did not lead directly to the haunted house predicted by the notebook.

If he stayed any longer, the ghosts in the black fog would dismember him.

No wonder the second page of the notebook told me to run immediately.

"It's too late. Restart immediately, otherwise I won't even have a chance to commit suicide." Li Mo took out a strange pistol, put it into his mouth, and aimed at the brain above his throat.

At such a close distance, the momentum generated by the upgraded strange pistol can easily kill any ordinary person.

Just as Li Mo was about to shoot, his head involuntarily spun in one direction, and his eyes seemed to mechanically capture the image with preset parameters, strangely focused and concentrating.

There was clearly a vast black fog in front of him, and even the stone road under his feet was dimly visible, but Li Mo saw the scene of the tightly closed doors from the inside to the outside of the haunted house.

Someone turned on a light in the dark, illuminating the door of the haunted house.

She screamed desperately and pounded on the door of the haunted house, but the door did not move at all. She was too weak. An ordinary person could not push open the heavy door of the haunted house at all.