"Could it be that a large wooden ship is buried in the courtyard where we're staying, and the building we see is just the exposed upper part of this ship, with the lower half buried underground!"

Li Bai's speculation was nothing short of astonishing, but Jiang Cheng quickly refuted it, "I don't think so. After all, this isn't the first time something like this has happened in the city. It's unlikely that there would just happen to be a ship buried underground every time. Besides, you've seen it too, this wooden ship is huge. Transporting such a large ship into the city and burying it deep would definitely not be a small undertaking. If they also wanted to keep it secret, it would be an almost impossible task."

Jiang Cheng's words were convincing, and Li Bai's frightened expression eased slightly. Gao Yanqing, with his fiery temper, stared at Jiang Cheng and demanded, "Then what do you think is going on? Don't hold back. We're all in this together. If we die here, we all die. No one can escape!"

"I can't guess. The sense of separation between this environment and reality is too great. Besides, now is not the time to discuss this. Let's focus on how to survive first."

Jiang Cheng didn't even look at Gao Yanqing. During their conversation, the water level continued to rise, and at the same time, a strange "thump thump" sound began to resonate, sounding very muffled.

"What... what's that sound?" Fatty widened his eyes, looking around in terror, as if some kind of monster was lurking in the dark lake water.

Zhu Jie reached out, pointing somewhat nervously towards the main hall, "The sound seems to be coming from that direction. I... I'm not sure."

Whether or not it was certain didn't matter now. What mattered was that someone had pointed out a direction. With the increasing influx of water, it was only a matter of time before the wooden ship sank.

In fact, everyone had another option in mind, which was to abandon the ship and swim out through the windows of the rooms. But that was a last resort. After all, no one wanted to swim in the unfamiliar and eerie Chun Shen Lake at night. Everyone agreed that the real path to survival should be on this ship, but they hadn't found it yet.

"Let's go, take a look." The seasoned and prudent Zhang Qizheng naturally became the leader of the group, leading them through the waist-deep water towards the main hall.

The "thump thump" sound came and went, and the feeling of unease in everyone's heart became more and more pronounced. The sound seemed to be guiding them, and the feeling of being led into a trap step by step made them uneasy.

Entering the main hall and following the direction of the sound, the group struggled to reach the right side of the hall, where they found several wooden doors connected together. The paper on the doors was already soaked with water. Just then, the eerie "thump thump" sound rang out again. Fatty immediately held his breath. Someone was knocking on the door, right outside those doors!

No, someone must be trapped in the room behind these doors. Judging from the layout of these doors, there should be a relatively large room behind them, a kind of side hall.

But through the door paper, they couldn't see the person knocking. The knocking became slower and more muffled, giving off a strong sense of suffocation through the door, as if the person knocking was about to drown in the water.

The instant that thought appeared, a very strange shadow suddenly appeared behind the door, protruding from below the door, feebly hitting the door. It was a hand!

Judging from the position of the hand, the person outside the door must have fallen into the water, or suffered a very serious injury, preventing them from standing up. That was why they could only knock on the door in a crouching position, and why the shadow of the person couldn't be seen on the door paper.

And if there really was someone behind the door, then it should be either the missing Lu Qin, or Shao Tong.

The sound of knocking was sometimes slow, sometimes urgent, with an indescribable rhythm. Unexpectedly, after hearing the rhythm of the knocking, Gao Yanqing's body suddenly twitched, and then, as if he remembered something, his eyes widened. "This... this is the secret code used by the Night Watchers. It might really be Lu Qin outside!"

Jiang Cheng didn't investigate how Gao Yanqing knew about the Night Watcher's secret code, but instead asked directly, "What does the secret code say? Can you translate it?"

Gao Yanqing's eyes tightened, and he couldn't help but step back. "Danger, extreme danger! Leave quickly!"

It seemed that the person outside was likely Lu Qin, but the secret code made everyone hesitate. Danger was obvious, everyone knew that. Leaving quickly was also easy to understand, but the problem now was where to leave from, and what counted as leaving.

Also, was the Lu Qin outside really in danger, about to die, or was Lu Qin reminding them to open the door and follow her to leave? In this chaotic scene, correctly interpreting information was a luxury, but it was also very important, because it concerned whether or not everyone could survive.

"We can't wait any longer. A few of you, go upstairs and search. If we still can't find Lu Qin and Shao Tong, then we'll have to think of another way out." Zhang Qizheng spoke quickly, while looking at everyone.

But at that moment, no one moved. Fatty looked up at the dark ceiling. Going upstairs... who knew what kind of ghosts were waiting for them up there. The image of the six gnawed corpses in the Fu'an Inn flashed through Fatty's mind, the wounds on them shocking.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Qizheng sneered, grabbed Jiang Cheng's wrist, "Since I proposed finding a way out, I will naturally go. You come with me too!"

"Why me?" Jiang Cheng pretended to struggle, but Zhang Qizheng, despite looking frail, was actually a trained fighter. His hand was like an iron clamp.

Fatty Yao Shunyu saw this and wanted to rush up to help, but was interrupted by Jiang Cheng, "Don't waste time, I'll go. The rest of you continue to think of a way."

Worried that the doctor might be in trouble, Fatty also wanted to go with them. In the end, Zhang Qizheng, Fatty, Yao Shunyu, Li Bai, and five others went to find people, leaving Gao Yanqing and three others to guard the main hall.

Tang Qisheng watched the group struggling through the water, a complex emotion seemed to flash in his eyes, as if he couldn't figure something out.

The stairs were slippery, and water was constantly flowing down them. Every step had to be taken carefully. Reaching the corner of the second floor, completely out of sight of Tang Qisheng and the others, Zhang Qizheng turned his head and looked at Jiang Cheng.

Fatty and the others immediately became alert. After all, this Zhang Qizheng seemed very suspicious. "Mr. Zhang, what exactly do you want to say to us?" Jiang Cheng asked.

Zhang Qizheng nodded slightly, then squatted down and looked through the gaps in the stairwell towards the first floor, towards the connected doors and the side hall where someone was.

"There's a ghost behind that door." Zhang Qizheng suddenly changed his expression, explaining, "Do you remember when I left the banquet alone to go to the toilet? I took the opportunity to take a quick walk in the courtyard. I'm sure there's no side hall at all in that location. There's only a wall."

Fatty understood and his hair stood on end. He stammered, "You mean that side hall appeared suddenly, and those doors are also..."

"All fake." Zhang Qizheng nodded.

Such words might fool Fatty, but Jiang Cheng, Yao Shunyu, and Li Bai would not completely believe them. Yao Shunyu immediately retorted, "Since you know there's a ghost behind the door, why did you save us? We don't even know you."

Zhang Qizheng glanced at Yao Shunyu, and said unhappily, "The one I want to save isn't you, it's him." Zhang Qizheng stared at Jiang Cheng, and then looked at Fatty, "And you, Wang Fugui."

"Us?" Fatty blinked. "Old man, do you know us?"

"I not only know you, but I also owe you a favor." Zhang Qizheng's expression became serious, "Lin Muyun, Lin Muwan, do you know these two people? They are my grandchildren. You saved them, and I'm repaying the favor this time."

Hearing the mention of two acquaintances, Lin Muyun and Lin Muwan, Fatty immediately perked up, but his words were still somewhat suspicious, "Old man, you are Lin Muyun and Lin Muwan's grandfather, but your name..."

Zhang Qizheng showed a helpless expression, "I also didn't expect that you would dare to use your real names in such a world. Don't you two know how famous you are?"

"Precisely because of this, there's nothing to avoid. Even if I turn into ashes, the Night Watchers will find me." Based on the relationship between Zhang Qizheng and Lin Muwan and Lin Muyun, Jiang Cheng also knew that these people were on the same side as Lin Wan'er, so there was no need to hide anything from him.

"How are Lin Muyun and Lin Muwan doing now?" Fatty asked.

Zhang Qizheng sighed, "They're fine. You can worry about yourself now. Our situation is pretty bad. I don't have any good ideas for the time being, but my intuition tells me that we must not leave this ship. Like I said before, none of the corpses found in Fu'an Inn were drowned. They were all bitten to death by those ghosts."

Seeing that they were all acquaintances, Yao Shunyu and Li Bai also breathed a sigh of relief. Li Bai hesitated and asked, "Old man, what about the people downstairs? Are we just going to stay here and not go back?"

"Don't go back. We'll just stay here, and don't go upstairs to search. It's too dangerous. Let's try to stall for time."

"The remaining people won't wait for us. They'll definitely be afraid, so they're unlikely to dare come upstairs to find us. If I were them, I'd probably take some extreme measures. Anyway, we're all going to die, so we might as well take a chance before we die."

"Also, that Night Watcher Lu Qin, especially that Shao Tong, he gives me a strange feeling. I suspect that these two people are also hiding in the dark. The reason they haven't shown up is that they are also waiting for an opportunity, waiting for others to make a mistake, so that they can find clues, or a way to leave directly."

Hearing Zhang Qizheng's words, Fatty thought that the older the ginger, the spicier it was. Lin Muyun and Lin Muwan, whom they had met before, were both very clean and pure people, a completely different feeling from Zhang Qizheng.

Fatty liked to be with simple people, because he didn't have to use his brain.

On the other end, things were developing in a way that was, to some extent, in line with their plan. Zhu Jie, holding his phone, hung up in a very suppressed atmosphere.

"What's going on? No one's answering yet?" Gao Yanqing's face was somewhat distorted. It had been a while since those people went up, but there was no movement at all, and what was even stranger was that the phone couldn't be reached.

"Could it be that those people are playing us?" Gao Yanqing clenched his fingers, his knuckles turning white. His gaze searched the vicinity, and naturally settled on the doors.

Since Jiang Cheng and the others left, the knocking had gradually stopped, as if the person behind the door had died.

"Maybe, I feel like this place is weird." Zhu Jie said softly, but before she could say the following words, her gaze met Tang Qisheng's eyes.

After their gazes met, they understood each other's meaning. Tang Qisheng said in a convincing voice, "I don't think so. Mr. Zhang doesn't seem like the kind of person who would do something like that. Don't forget, he has always been the one leading us to find clues, and it was his idea to open the door for Jiang Cheng and the others. And he went alone, he told us to hide and wait for him."

Zhu Jie nodded in agreement, "Indeed." The next second, Zhu Jie tightened the corners of her mouth, her gaze worried with a hint of unconcealable fear, and her voice lowered, "Then if that's the case, they... they must have encountered trouble up there, maybe they encountered those things!"

"Don't think of people so well, maybe they just ran away." Gao Yanqing was annoyed. He didn't know why, but he had a bad feeling ever since he came to this world, and it had continued until now, as if something was hindering him in the dark.

"That's not possible. If they ran away, they would definitely call us. After all, the mission has just begun, and a large loss of teammates would not be beneficial to them." Tang Qisheng's voice was very steady. In adversity, a reliable person like him was extremely needed. His voice changed, "But what Brother Gao said is not without reason. We can't just wait foolishly, we have to find our own way."

Gao Yanqing couldn't help but glance at him. "What's your idea?"

"First of all, I will never open this door. We leave here, go out, go to that room in the front yard." Tang Qisheng coaxed, "There must be clues in that room."

Gao Yanqing frowned, "That room is used to store corpses, and the whereabouts of those 6 corpses are still unknown."

Before he finished speaking, as if in response to their speculation, there was a sudden movement behind the doors, as if someone was quickly wading over. A figure, staggering, appeared behind the door, the shadow reflected on the door paper, then, as if suddenly discovering something, the body bent, "Lu Qin, how... how are you here?"

Gao Yanqing and the others were shocked, because the voice coming from behind the door was actually Shao Tong's. At this moment, Shao Tong's voice no longer had the previous neurotic tone, but instead had a strong sense of fear, which felt very real.

After a while, Shao Tong behind the door began to knock, "Open the door, hurry up and save people, save people!"

Tang Qisheng and the others held their breath, not saying a word.

"Open the door, save people! Hurry up and save people!"

Slowly, the sound became louder and more shrill, but what really made Gao Yanqing and the others feel fear, even despair, was that the figure behind the door gradually blurred, splitting from one into two, then four, eight... Shao Tong's voice also changed, the voice twisted, and it was even impossible to distinguish between male and female.

Now, countless people were standing behind the door, constantly shouting, calling for help, women crying, men roaring, the sharp sound of nails scratching the door, the whole scene was in chaos.