Chapter 99: The Human Skin Drum (3)

Page (1/3)

When questioned, the man was about to respond. However, a woman beside him pushed him back and stepped forward herself, blocking the visiting outsiders from striking up a conversation with her man.

“If you have any questions, just ask me,” she said.

Though this woman was also wrapped from head to toe, compared to the timid man behind her, she was somewhat more approachable to strangers.

“We just want to ask, is there anywhere we can stay overnight?”

“If you want lodging... just follow the village road inward, all the way to the end. There’s an inn there. By the way, how many of you are there altogether?”

“Around fifty or so.”

“That’s plenty,” she replied. “Old Wang’s inn is quite large. It can accommodate hundreds. Go find him.”

With that, the woman pushed her man along and walked away without even looking back.

The players looked at these villagers, who were indifferent to them, utterly perplexed.

“Shall we go then? To Old Wang’s inn?”

No matter what, they had to find a place to set down their luggage.

The village was small, seemingly consisting of just a few hundred households. Chickens, ducks, fish, and geese roamed freely throughout. Beside the village ran a large river, over which was a massive waterwheel used for irrigation.

People washed clothes and vegetables by the riverbank, but without exception, were wrapped from head to toe, only their eyes visible.

They had expected the entire village to be dressed this way.

But upon entering Old Wang’s inn, they found that both the owner and the young woman at the front desk appeared perfectly normal.

“What’s really going on in this village? It’s like they’re hiding something.”

Old Wang was smoking.

He took a deep drag, filling his lungs, then slowly exhaled. The small inn on the first floor was thick with the haze of secondhand smoke.

“Well, it’s nothing much. They recently caught some kind of skin disease. Seems the water they drank had some issues. But it’s fine now—they’ve found a cure and are all on medication. The bumps on their skin just don’t look good, so they wrap themselves up to avoid scaring you.”

“And you and this lady... you didn’t get infected?”

“We eat and drink from our own supplies. We don’t share with the rest of the village,” Old Wang said, inviting the guests inside. “Who’s in charge of you? Whoever it is, have them register everyone.”

Old Wang handed out more than twenty room cards to the guests in turn.

“You’re all on the third and fourth floors. The first and second floors are too damp, so we won’t give you rooms there. Meals are included—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But I have to warn you: strange noises occur in the village at night. If you hear anything, don’t move around. Just stay quietly inside your rooms.”

Old Wang spoke at length, then, feeling thirsty, reached for a drink. Seeing his employee still playing on her phone, he suddenly scolded her loudly, “What are you doing? The boss is working, and you’re just playing on your phone?”

The front desk girl was defiant. “They can’t do anything anyway...”

“Shut up,” Old Wang snapped, glaring sharply at her. “No matter what happens, the customer is God! Is that how you talk to God?”

After being reprimanded, the girl reluctantly put down her phone and stood up. “Come on, I’ll show you your rooms upstairs.”

The inn rooms were mostly double occupancy.

They had to arrange roommates themselves, two per room. Conveniently, the number of men and women was even, so they could be paired off perfectly.

One player, standing close to the front desk girl, couldn’t help but ask her.

“You told your boss, ‘They can’t do anything anyway’—what did you mean by that? Can you be clearer?”

“It’s nothing,” the girl said, unwilling to elaborate. “This is the elevator. Just look at your room cards and find your rooms. Like my boss said, if you hear noises outside your door or in the village at night, don’t open your door or wander around. That’s the only way you’ll safely leave this village after seven days. Otherwise... you’ll never get out.”

With that, the front desk girl left without looking back.

The players exchanged bewildered glances.

Though they already knew this was some kind of strange horror game,

the NPCs always giving half-answers was really frustrating.

“Fine, fine. Let’s just go check our rooms first.”

Tang Mu and Ge Wenqian were assigned to share a room.

This time, Tang Mu wasn’t on the fourth floor but the third, in a room near the corridor’s end by the window. The room was fairly well-equipped, with a TV, an electric kettle, and a private bathroom.

Page (2/3)

The room was spacious.

But perhaps due to the abundance of trees surrounding the area, sunlight couldn’t fully reach inside. Even during the day, the room had to be lit for the finer details to be seen clearly.

On the white wall by the bed hung two oil paintings.

These two were distinctly in the style of ancient Greek art, which seemed somewhat out of place in this rustic folk village of Luomen.

“Now that we’ve settled our things, let’s head out,” Ge Wenqian said to Tang Mu. “Usually, in an A-level game like this, you need to search quickly during the day for clues about any abnormalities in the environment, and also get a sense of the geography and terrain.”

But Tang Mu lay on the bed, touching the soft mattress, unwilling to move.

“You guys go ahead. I’ll stay here and observe this room carefully.”

“What’s there to see in the room?” Ge Wenqian looked puzzled.

Tang Mu didn’t want to answer, so he ignored her question.

Ge Wenqian didn’t bother with him either.

She was different from Tang Mu—he’d been formally recruited by Qiao Yuan. She had begged Qiao Yuan to take her into the association. To make an impression, she had to work hard.

Once Ge Wenqian left, Tang Mu approached the two paintings on the wall by the bed.

Both depicted men and women in classic ancient Greek style. But what puzzled Tang Mu was that the figures shown as pregnant—with swollen bellies—were men, not women. The infants were held by the men, but their gazes were directed at the women. Even those few infants looking at the men did so with disdain, contempt, indifference, or coldness. Yet when they looked at the women, their expressions were fervent, hopeful, passionate, and warm.

A stark contrast.

Then Tang Mu walked over to the window.

As the old saying goes, a courtyard should have no dead trees, nor should trees be so dense as to block the beneficial yang energy from the house, which otherwise invites decay and lifelessness.

The backyard of this inn was full of dead trees, and no one cut them down. The dense, dried branches completely blocked sunlight from entering the room.

It gave off a gloomy, shadowed feeling.

Page (3/3)