Thriller Night Talk

Chapter 45: Sure enough, he’s an expert!

Translator-Rhapsodite

Editor-PerpetualMreow, Proofreader-Ghostie

If Bei Quan’s hypothesis was accurate, and the fragmented space on both sides flowed at the same speed, the time for the missing teachers and students to trigger the cycle should begin on the 1st of this month.

On June 1, the first day of the loop, they lost a male student, Dong Chaoyang and a girl named Julie.

On June 2, the second day of the loop, Julie’s boyfriend, Cai Tianzhen, disappeared.

On June 3, the third day of the loop, that was, the day Bei Quan received Pan Xiaoyun’s call for help through [Thriller Night Talk], they lost their teacher, Song Qi.

Today was the 5th of June, and yesterday was June 4th, the fourth day of the loop, and there were four remaining pupils, all of whom had lasted until today.

Something significant must have occurred yesterday in order to disrupt the previous cycle of one death per day.

Sure enough, after listening to Bei Quan’s question, the four students looked at each other, and then Liu Lingling timidly raised her hands.

“I guess I should mention this…I had an accident yesterday…”

She turned to look at Huang Lan, “Fortunately… Lan Lan saved me.”

Liu Lingling informed Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan that after being compelled to observe the festival for the fourth time, she ran across Huang Lan, who was also on the riverbank, yesterday.

They were afraid to go anywhere. So they dashed to the familiar courtyard, eager to see their remaining companions as quickly as possible.

After the previous two days’ lectures, the pupils dared not go to the bathroom, go out to get water, or even light a fire on the stove behind the house to make meals.

They could only eat the bread on the table while drinking the raw rainwater from the tile jar beneath the eaves. Even physical requirements could only be met using the containers available in the house.

Fortunately, everything they had in this space was cyclical, and the food and water they had eaten and drunk would resurface the next day, precisely the same as the day before, so they didn’t need to worry about going hungry or thirsty.

But even after being so careful, Liu Lingling still had an accident yesterday.

“We just walked around the yard…”

Liu Lingling said with lingering fear, “Then, suddenly, a hand caught my foot!”

Bei Quan nodded and said in his heart, “this way of killing people is too old-fashioned and uninspired.”

“I was frightened. I looked back and saw—— ”

Recalling the terrible experience of life and death yesterday, Liu Lingling’s voice trembled, “I saw it, stretching out from a puddle, a hand, it grabbed my foot and tried to drag me down!”

Bei Quan arched his eyebrow, “It came out from the puddle?”

“Yes, it was a puddle!”

Huang Lan next interrupted, “I saw it very clearly. It was kind of a shallow puddle!”

She compared the short distance with her thumb and index finger, “Probably around two or three centimeters deep, it wouldn’t have reached the tip of the index finger!”

The girl explained eagerly, “But that hand stretched out from the shallow puddle, grabbed Lingling’s foot and tried to drag her into the puddle!!”

Wei Fuyuan shivered after hearing this.

He had instantly conjured up a visual image with his vivid imagination: underneath the shallow and tiny puddle lies a bottomless swamp, with a water ghost waiting to take people in at any time.

Bei Quan nodded slightly, “So, how did you get out of danger?”

“In fact, we are not so sure…”

Liu Lingling and Huang Lan looked at each other.

According to the two girls’ descriptions, Liu Lingling’s entire lower body had been submerged into the small puddle, leaving only her upper body from the waist up, remaining outside.

She screamed and wailed, and her arms flapped wildly, looking for a fulcrum to grasp onto— but it was futile because the hand stretching out from the water gripped her shoulder from behind and slammed her firmly onto the ground.

Just when Liu Lingling was about to be dragged into the puddle completely, Huang Lan felt an unexplainable powerful energy course through her body. She even stretched out her hand to tear the ghost hand off her best friend.

“Then, the string of jade hand cards I wore on my wrist broke…”

Huang Lan showed her wrist to Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan, “For some reason, when the bracelet broke, the ghost hand let go of Lingling, retracted into the puddle and disappeared.”

Then she lowered her head and touched her bare wrist.

“That string of jade hand cards is a relic from my grandmother. My mother said it can ward off evil spirits and prevent disasters.”

The girl smiled sadly, “Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning, I found that the hand cards had not returned to their original shape… I guess it blocked the disaster for us yesterday.”

Bei Quan’s lips were slightly curved.

In his heart, he thought the girl was quite decent. She didn’t turn back and flee when she saw her friend being grabbed by a ghost. She, on the other hand, dared to save her. It was sufficient to deem her righteous.

Although, without the protection of the jade hand card, the outcome would have been “buy one, get one free”, and the two would have perished together. Bei Quan had only opted to send them out safely because of the girl’s bravery.

——But,

Bei Quan touched his chin and surveyed Liu Lingling’s and Huang Lan’s faces.

From their experiences yesterday, they confirmed at least two of his guesses.

——Very good, it would make things much easier to handle.

Bei Quan was sure of it.

“No matter what the culprit was, its medium is water.”

Bei Quan explained to the several students.

Pan Xiaoyun’s psychological strength was not excellent, but when he wasn’t in a panicked state, he was quite intelligent and instantly grasped the keywords.

“So we can save our lives as long as we stay away from water sources?”

Then he shook his fist, “Anyway, doesn’t the time here circulate all the time? We can’t die if we don’t eat or drink all the time?”

Bei Quan smiled and asked, “So you are planning on staying here for all of time?”

Pan Xiaoyun was stunned, “Ah?”

Bei Quan didn’t hold back and stated unequivocally, “Being away from water may indeed save lives for a while, but if you want to leave this place, you must use the same medium.”

He paused, “In other words, to escape this place, we have to get out through the water.”

Pan Xiaoyun’s lips trembled.

Although he had not seen the ghost hand reaching out of the puddle like the two girls had, he had frightened himself just by simply imagining it.

“That, that…” He trembled and asked, “What should we do?”

Bei Quan took a pocket watch out of his pants pocket and looked at the time on it.

It was 9:22 in the morning, about half an hour before the beginning of the festival.

“We can’t do anything now.”

He smiled, “Let’s at least wait until the festival begins.”

After saying this, Bei Quan stopped wasting time, stood up straight and made the necessary preparations.

This time, when entering the fragmented space, he didn’t carry the black suitcase and the black silk umbrella as usual. Even his usual black clothes were changed into moon white loose robes.

However, when he climbed out of the river, the white robe had gotten too soaked and could no longer be worn. As a result, he was now wearing a dark blue cotton shirt? he had found in a random house, although it was not the right size for him. The design was rustic and old, with short sleeves and trouser legs.

Although their own outfit was unkempt, Bei Quan, nonetheless, still had the temperament of a real master.

The four students experienced a four-day death cycle. When they were about to lose hope, they suddenly ran into Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan who appeared before them. They had long regarded them as rescuers who dropped from the sky.

They were looking at Bei Quan intently at this point, unsure of what he was doing. They were all sitting up straight, let alone asking inquiries. They even took fewer breaths involuntarily, for the fear of interfering with the experts’ practice.

Bei Quan possessed no magical equipment, not even a ready-made yellow talisman. His only option was his Qianguang Vientiane Brush.

But it was not hard for him.

Bei Quan drove everyone off the Kang, lifted the quilt, and pulled out the mat under it.

The family used mats made of bamboo strips. It was obvious that they had been in use for a long time: the edges were uneven, and the braided ropes in many places had been off-lined and cracked.

Bei Quan called Wei Fuyuan to help, cut all the stitches off the mat and disassembled them into bamboo strips one by one.

Then he summoned his Qianguang Vientiane Brush, cut his hand, used his blood as the medium and began to write hard on the bamboo strips.

Pan Xiaoyun was terrified, but he couldn’t help but be curious. For a time, he stretched out his neck and gazed at it from a distance. He discovered that the shape of the phrases written by Bei Quan on the bamboo strips was light and graceful and they were all exquisite, but they were written so slovenly that he couldn’t recognize a single word.

Soon, Pan Xiaoyun noticed something more strange.

He watched Bei Quan slash his palm and then drop some blood onto the tip of the brush, but the bloodstains that should have solidified when they came into contact with the air lingered on the brush for a long time. They didn’t dry up until Bei Quan finished writing on all the bamboo strips, and the color was always brilliant red and full, much like excellent vermilion ink.

——Sure enough, he is an expert!

The flame of hope in Pan Xiaoyun’s heart suddenly flared up again.

Twenty minutes later, Bei Quan had written all the bamboo strips he needed, stacked them all up, tied them with an old cotton thread, and stuffed them into Wei Fuyuan’s hand.

“You take these.”

Bei Quan approached Wei Fuyuan, almost breathing on his ear and whispered, “When I call you, you’ll throw them all where there’s water, okay?”

Wei Fuyuan tried to resist the impulse to rub his ears. He nodded carelessly, but his ears subconsciously turned red.

Just as he had just collected the bamboo strips, the door suddenly opened with a “Dong” sound from the outside.

A large group of villagers poured in. There might have been some thirty or forty people.

These villagers were like NPCs with a good game plot. Their only task was to invite all the “distinguished guests” to watch their festival.

The villagers didn’t care whether these distinguished guests were asleep or awake, let alone whether they were all in the same room, repeating lines such as “go quickly” and “it’s about to start”. They couldn’t stop themselves from grasping everyone’s hands and dragging them out.

The four students were dragged for the fourth time. They all relaxed and let the villagers drag them out, knowing that resistance was futile.

Wei Fuyuan really wanted to find Bei Quan, but the place was too crowded. The situation was just too tumultuous. He couldn’t see where his boss was at all.

But, regardless, the destination remained the same. He and Bei Quan would not allow any losses, so he ceased engaging in futile struggles.