Chapter 19 Devil

"So, you're saying that when I arrived yesterday, Nuan-jie's body was still in the bedroom."

"Yes, right behind the door." Chen Xiaomeng paused, staring at Jiang Cheng with a cold smile, "If you had taken a few more steps in yesterday, that ghost would have dragged your corpse here too."

Jiang Cheng ignored her and continued, "Where is Nuan-jie's body now?"

Chen Xiaomeng stood up and walked towards the door. Jiang Cheng immediately followed, keeping less than a meter away.

"The door isn't open yet, I can't run," Chen Xiaomeng sneered.

Jiang Cheng shook his head as he followed her closely. "Don't misunderstand. I just feel happier being closer to you."

Chen Xiaomeng was speechless, so she simply ignored him. She walked to the wall, fumbled around, and pressed a button. Suddenly, the scene inside the room became clear.

The light overhead turned on.

Almost at the same time, Fatty's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He saw that the room had been decorated like a church.

A huge crucifix hung on the wall, and Nuan-jie was tied to it upside down, her face twisted. She was clearly dead.

Looking closer, the entire crucifix, like Nuan-jie, was inverted.

Various instruments of torture were arranged around the room, archaic and bloody, with a hint of the medieval. Most of them were covered in gruesome bloodstains.

This was a torture chamber.

"The cross represents God, the inverted cross is a symbol of the devil," Jiang Cheng said expressionlessly, staring at the torture devices one by one. "It seems this family are followers of the devil."

Fatty was shocked by the scene, but Chen Xiaomeng looked at Jiang Cheng with interest. "It seems you guessed this a long time ago?"

The setup here couldn't have been done in a short time, so the owners of these torture devices could only be the owners of the villa, not those two poor outsiders.

Fatty came back to his senses and immediately looked at Jiang Cheng. "So... the real murderer is the family in the villa, and those two men..."

Jiang Cheng nodded. "Didn't you just see them?"

Like a bolt of lightning, Fatty seemed to realize something suddenly. He trembled and said, "The bus that came to pick us up! The male driver, the mother with the child, the female ticket seller dressed as a man, and the girl from the couple... they are the family! The owners of this villa!"

"That's right," Chen Xiaomeng shrugged. "And the man from the couple, the older boy from the mother and son, are the victims who were imprisoned and abused by this family."

Fatty recalled the various abnormal things about the mother and son and the couple on the way here. For example, the man in the couple always wore a blindfold and didn't move, while the older boy who was brought out by his mother to play looked terrified and didn't say a word. So... that's how it was.

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

The murderous female ghost wasn't seeking revenge. She was just continuing the evil she committed in life. Those things engraved in her bones could never be changed.

"When did you find out the truth?" Jiang Cheng asked, looking at Chen Xiaomeng.

"After that ghost killed Nuan-jie, the photos we found on the wall suddenly became clear," she said, taking out a photo. The wooden frame was gone, probably removed to save trouble.

Jiang Cheng took the photo. It was a group photo of the family of four in the villa. Each face matched the faces in Jiang Cheng's mind. The background was this torture chamber.

In a slightly off-center position in the photo were two men, one lying down and one sitting, both chained up. Because they were looking down, their faces couldn't be seen, but the clothes they were wearing were exactly the same as the clothes worn by the two men on the bus.

"So... the taboo this time is disguise." Jiang Cheng looked at Chen Xiaomeng's face. "Because the ghost used disguise to lure the victims into the villa when she was alive, even after death, she continued this characteristic."

"Fan Li and the others were killed because they didn't see through the ghost's disguise," Jiang Cheng continued.

Chen Xiaomeng shrugged. "That's right."

A faint, ghostly light began to emanate from the door, and the entire space began to tremble.

The mission was over.

The door was about to open.

"Why did you lie to us? What good does this do you?" Jiang Cheng steadied himself and quickly asked the last question.

Chen Xiaomeng was clearly used to the tremors after the door opened. While Fatty was still holding onto the wall to prevent himself from falling, she had already walked to the iron door.

The iron door opened completely, revealing a gray mist behind it.

Without waiting for an answer, Chen Xiaomeng stepped into the iron door and disappeared into the mist.

Jiang Cheng turned his head to look at Fatty behind him and stepped into the mist as well.

After a strange feeling of dizziness, Jiang Cheng's body stopped, as if he had stepped onto a hard, flat surface.

He lowered his head and, using the faint light, made out the wooden floor beneath his feet.

Everything around him became familiar.

He took a deep breath. He had actually returned to his psychological counseling studio.

It was still night outside the window, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering in. Everything was exactly as he had left it.

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. The texture was slightly rough. Using the faint moonlight, he could see that it was a piece of paper folded multiple times.

He was slowly unfolding the paper when suddenly his body froze. A hand silently landed on his right shoulder.

The person had been lying in ambush behind him, as if they knew he would return here.

Jiang Cheng slowly raised both hands. "There are twenty thousand yuan in the hidden compartment of the third drawer on the left side of the desk. The drawer is locked, and the key is in the second coffee cup from the end in the kitchen."

There was no sound from behind him. He paused and continued, "That's all the money I have. If you want to rob someone else, I suggest going upstairs, but there's no bed, just a mattress. You'll have to make do."

After a long while, the hand on his shoulder trembled, and a voice, sounding full of energy, rang out, "Brother, you've got a nice place here!"

The moment Jiang Cheng heard the voice, he grabbed the hand on his shoulder, and while turning around, he twisted it, pinning a plump figure against the wall.

"Brother! Brother!"

Fatty slapped the wall, wincing in pain.

Jiang Cheng recognized this Fatty, who had barely survived in the dream realm. He said coldly, "What are you doing here?"

He quickly glanced at the position where the door should have been behind him, but now there was only an ordinary wall.

According to Fan Li, if you survived the mission, the survivors would return to the starting point in the real world. In simple terms, everyone would go back to their own homes.

But... this was clearly not Fatty's home.

Fatty's right arm made a creaking sound, as if it was about to be twisted off. He quickly explained, "Before entering that door, I was just thinking that it would be great if I could be with you, brother. When I came out, I saw you standing in front of me with your back to me. Maybe we're just destined to be together..."

But before Fatty could finish speaking, Jiang Cheng interrupted him. "Stop it. You want me to take you through the nightmare barrier."