N-M Chapter 156 Hide and Seek
Chapter 156 Hide and Seek
Chapter 156 Hide and Seek (6.2k)
After realizing that the sound of combing hair was coming from behind her, Mali's entire body went numb.
She lay trembling behind the door, too afraid to turn around, wanting to release the black ant larvae to protect herself.
However, due to excessive tension, its tail naturally contracted and tightened, and it took a long time to release more than ten black ants.
The black ant larvae seemed a bit confused, a dozen or so of them circling around, wondering if their mother had suddenly released such a small number of them to fight, or to be trampled to death.
Ma Li recalled what Li Jiuhe had told her before: there is a "domain" in this haunted house space, which will restrict our abilities after entering.
"So, is this a limitation on my abilities?"
The thought flashed through her mind.
Slowly turning her head, she looked toward the dressing table from which the sound of combing hair was coming from.
The half-length mirror on the dressing table was originally covered by a white cloth, but now the cloth has slipped off, and a woman is sitting upright in front of the mirror.
The woman was holding an old, red comb with a very sharp handle, and she was combing her hair, or more accurately, scraping her scalp, back and forth.
Because Ma Li could clearly hear the sound of the comb teeth scraping hard against her scalp, she could tell that the woman was using a lot of force every time she combed her hair, and it seemed like she wouldn't stop until she had scraped her scalp raw.
Ma Li's skin broke out in goosebumps; she was terrified, as if a large bird had flown right in front of her.
Because the lights in the room were on, she could clearly see the woman's every move in front of the mirror.
The woman's clothes, her long hair, and even the fact that a lot of white strands could be seen in her hair every time she combed it.
Knowing she couldn't stay in the room any longer, Ma Li immediately started turning the doorknob after she couldn't release her ant larvae.
Worried about being discovered by the woman in front of the dressing table, she twisted very carefully, turning gently, her heart pounding in her throat.
Until the door lock is fully opened.
Almost at the same moment, the intermittent sound of combing hair coming from behind suddenly stopped.
Ma Li's heart skipped a beat, and a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead, slowly tracing the bridge of her nose and settling on the tip.
Her throat bobbed, and she kept her hand on the doorknob, instinctively turning her head to look back.
Sure enough, the woman had stopped combing her hair. The old red comb was still hanging in her hair, and she was sitting upright, slowly turning her head in this direction.
Before she could even see the woman's face clearly, Ma Li had already imagined her terrifying appearance. She screamed, flung open the door, and rushed out of the room.
The stool in front of the dressing table in the room behind her fell over, and the woman combing her hair suddenly stood up, her feet barely touching the ground, and followed after Ma Li's back.
Then, Li Jiuhe used his phone's flashlight to see the feet of the corpse that was constantly hitting the wall inside the room.
He slowly moved the flashlight beam, shining it from the feet of the hanging corpse towards its upper body.
The hanged woman was wearing a woman's nightgown and had no shoes on her feet. There were no shoes on the ground either, suggesting that she had entered the place barefoot before hanging herself.
The flashlight beam moved upwards, and soon a face that Li Jiuhe could not look at directly appeared before him.
The woman who was hanged was indeed Lin Jianguo's wife; Li Jiuhe had even seen her photo during the day.
At this moment, the woman's face was slightly swollen and purplish-blue, half of her tongue was sticking out of her mouth, and her eyes were wide open, as if she were staring at the person at her feet.
Li Jiuhe was startled and took a step back.
At the same time, he noticed that the rope hanging from the woman's neck was moving on its own without any wind, swinging incessantly and causing the woman's body to repeatedly slam against the wall next to it.
After a moment of silence, he looked at the swaying corpse and slowly spoke: "There must be a reason why you're here after you died. If you want..."
Please give me a hint so I can understand.
Immediately, a scream came from next door. The door opened, and Ma Li ran out in a panic.
Li Jiuhe was startled and turned to rush out. When he arrived in the corridor, Ma Li immediately threw herself into his arms.
"There's a ghost in your room—the one combing her hair—"
After stabilizing Ma Li, Li Jiuhe pushed her out a little before turning his head to look at his own room.
A short woman with seemingly graying hair was seen inside the door, but she did not come out.
After seeing Li Jiuhe and Ma Li reunite, she stared intently at the two of them with her grayish-white eyes, then took a step back and slowly closed the door.
During this process, Li Jiuhe also noticed an old-fashioned comb hanging in the woman's gray hair.
Li Jiuhe did not approach the room until the door closed, but instead turned his attention back to the room next door where the woman who had hanged herself.
When Ma Li saw the woman combing her hair close the door, it was clear she didn't want them to go in anymore.
She briefly recounted her experience to Li Jiuhe, then looked at the still-open door of the hanged ghost's room and asked, "Is there—"
"Yes." Li Jiuhe nodded. "I just saw Zhou Wenhui hanging herself."
After saying that, he continued walking into the house with his phone flashlight, and Ma Li followed closely behind him.
However, as the flashlight beam shone through, Li Jiuhe discovered that the room had changed. Zhou Wenhui, who had been hanging there, was gone, and even the rope was gone.
The sounds of hitting the wall and the tightening of ropes had all disappeared.
"See if the lights can be turned on?" Li Jiuhe instructed Ma Li behind him.
Ma Li immediately reached for the light switch by the door, pressed it, and the lights in the room immediately turned on.
It seems the light was working fine to begin with, but some strange event just happened, which is why the light stopped working.
There was only a bed in the room; there wasn't even a stool.
Li Jiuhe looked down and noticed that there was a pair of slippers directly below where the woman had hanged herself.
These are the kind of cotton slippers for home use, and they seem to be a men's style.
However, he was certain that he had already checked carefully and there was nothing under the woman's feet; the slippers seemed to have just appeared.
After a moment's thought, Li Jiuhe said, "We'll stay in this room tonight."
"Ah!" Ma Li exclaimed in surprise, "This—there's a—hanging ghost here—!"
Li Jiuhe shook his head and said, "The hanged ghost is not scary. On the contrary, the female ghost who was combing her hair just now clearly had a very strong sense of territory."
The other party closed the door, preventing them from entering the room again. Li Jiuhe could tell that the woman combing her hair was hostile to them and would not tolerate any infringement on her authority.
On the contrary, the woman who hanged herself has not yet expressed any opinion on this matter and seems to be cooperating with the investigation.
Just now, Li Jiuhe said that if a woman needs help, she can give him a hint.
In retrospect, those men's slippers seem to have been the clue she gave us.
Ma Li obeyed his instructions and quickly closed the door, and the two of them stayed in the room.
She knew that her original room also had a dressing table with a mirror, and if she moved in there, it would be just as dangerous as before.
Instead, the middle room only had a bed and nothing else, which made it feel much safer.
"Mali, use your black ants to examine these shoes, including their smell, appearance, and any marks," Li Jiuhe instructed.
Ma Li nodded. She was no longer so afraid and easily released a swarm of black ants, which surrounded the slipper, crawling around on it and sniffing it constantly.
After a moment, she said to Li Jiuhe, "It's ready."
Li Jiuhe nodded: "Okay, now control these black ants to go to the second floor and check each bedroom. Pay special attention to sniffing out the other slippers in the bedrooms, starting with Lin Jianguo and his son Lin Siyuan's room, and then his daughter Lin Siyu's room."
These shoes are men's shoes, so Lin Jianguo and Lin Siyuan, who are related to this, are the key people to be investigated.
Of course, this does not dispel suspicion about Lin Shouye's second son, Lin Jianmin. As for Lin Jianmin's son, he is only eight years old and is the least suspicious.
Without saying a word, Ma Li immediately controlled the swarm of black ants to crawl out through the crack in the door and up the stairs to the second floor.
Li Jiuhe sat on the bed, turning his gaze away from the spot where Zhou Wenhui had hanged herself, and said to Ma Li, "Now tell me in detail all the details of the woman combing her hair that you just saw, make sure you don't miss anything."
Ma Li tried hard to recall and described in detail the features of the woman she had seen, as well as the eerie sound of her combing her hair.
As Li Jiuhe summarized, he said, "This woman seems to be quite old, with gray hair. The comb she's using is an old-fashioned one; it's rare to see combs with such sharp handles these days."
He paused, then asked, "She hasn't said anything or made any other sound?"
Ma Li shook her head: "No, but the lights were on in that room over there, and I noticed that the skin on her hands was wrinkled, so she is indeed not young."
"You saw it before, who is this elderly person in the family?" Li Jiuhe asked intentionally.
Ma Li said, "The only ones who are old are Lin Shouye and a gardener, but they are both men."
Li Jiuhe waved his hand: "We can't just count living people."
Ma Li immediately realized: "Then there's also Lin Shouye's wife, who died three years ago."
Li Jiuhe then asked, "Have you seen any photos of his wife in these rooms?"
77
"no."
"I don't have any either."
"So you suspect that the woman combing her hair might be Lin Shouye's wife?" Ma Li asked in surprise. "But why would she do that?"
"Have you forgotten what was written on the door when we entered this haunted house scene?" Li Jiuhe asked.
Ma Li frowned, thought for a moment, and then exclaimed, "The Blood Curse Family!"
Li Jiuhe nodded: "I suspect that the people who died may have been cursed by this blood curse, which is why they became vengeful ghosts and are constantly appearing in this house."
"But where did this blood curse come from? Who is using the blood curse to harm people?" Ma Li was completely confused.
Ever since she sat in this room where someone had hanged themselves, she would occasionally look up at the ceiling above her head, where an iron hook hung. Originally used to hang something, it had become the perfect tool for hanging people.
"We'll have to investigate this thoroughly," Li Jiuhe said. "Perhaps what we find out will be the key to dispelling the haunted house illusion."
"Got it, now I finally know where I'm going." Ma Li grinned foolishly.
Her silly grin froze slightly: "Found it, my ant chicks have found some clues."
At this point, Ma Li looked down at the shoes from before, only to find that they had disappeared.
"Hey, where did those slippers go?"
Li Jiuhe did not answer, because he knew that the slippers were just a clue given to them by Zhou Wenhui, and might not be a real object, which was why they had disappeared.
"What did you find?" he asked.
"In Lin Siyuan's room, which is Zhou Wenhui's son's room, we found a pair of slippers. The scent and signs of wear on them matched the shoes we just saw," Ma Li said.
"In other words, the shoes that disappeared just now should belong to Lin Siyuan." Li Jiuhe nodded.
Ma Li asked in surprise, "But didn't Lin Siyuan just secretly tell us today that his mother had argued with his father before she hanged herself?"
"It's not uncommon for thieves to cry 'stop thief'," Li Jiuhe said. "But this evidence alone isn't enough. Let the black ant colony search again."
"Okay." Ma Li nodded.
Instead of controlling the ant larvae to return, she continued searching for more traces in each bedroom.
Li Jiuhe was very tired at this moment, so he leaned against the bed and quickly fell asleep.
Because Ma Li had taken a nap in the car earlier, and since she wasn't human and could control her sleep, she kept her eyes wide open, observing her surroundings.
When Li Jiuhe woke up, it was exactly 4:30 in the morning.
Ma Li was still sitting at the other end of the bed with her eyes wide open, alertly observing her surroundings, while Ma Li had covered her with a blanket.
Li Jiuhe sat up, reset the task, and asked Ma Li, "Have you found any more black ant colonies?"
"The second-floor bedrooms had the most, and we searched them all, but we haven't found anything yet. I've moved them to the first floor," Ma Li said.
"First floor?"
"Well, isn't Old Master Lin Shouye's bedroom on the first floor? Since everyone has already searched, we can't possibly overlook him."
"Okay." Li Jiuhe nodded, glanced at the time, and said, "It's the middle of the night now. I'll go take a walk in the stairwell."
Ma Li immediately tensed up: "You're going to see that—hide-and-seek—child?"
"Okay, you don't need to come with me, just stay here." Li Jiuhe got up and walked towards the door.
"But this place is also—also—" Ma Li cried out in terror.
"You're helping Zhou Wenhui find more clues right now, you're helping her, she won't be your enemy," Li Jiuhe comforted him.
Ma Li breathed a slight sigh of relief, thinking about it, and said, "Uh, I hope so."
Li Jiuhe left the room and went to the stairwell on the third floor.
Looking downstairs, he realized that the living room light, which had always been on, had been turned off sometime earlier.
The entire villa was pitch black at that moment.
Li Jiuhe didn't know whether the lights would automatically turn off when the little devil appeared in the stairwell.
He didn't turn on his phone's flashlight for the time being, but instead walked downstairs.
Although the lights were off, the light was dim, not completely blind like before.
Li Jiuhe stopped after walking down a few steps because he vaguely heard the sound of combing hair, just as Ma Li had described—the sound of comb teeth scraping through dry hair and the nauseating sound of scraping the scalp.
But the sound wasn't loud, and it was impossible to tell whether it came from the third floor or from another room on the second floor.
However, like Zhou Wenhui who hanged herself, the woman combing her hair should also have a trigger mechanism.
The fact that Ma Li was chased by this woman just now is likely due to an incorrect trigger mechanism. Otherwise, the Lin family members would have been killed by this woman long ago, and it's impossible that they are still safe and sound.
Li Jiuhe paused for a moment, then continued walking up to the second floor.
Just as he reached the corner of the stairs to the second floor, he stopped again. In his eyes, he saw a little boy sitting in the middle of the steps, his back to him, his hands wrapped around his legs, his head resting on his knees, motionless.
The little boy was only wearing shorts, and his skin was all blue, as if he were covered in bruises.
No, it wasn't just "seems." Li Jiuhe turned on his phone's flashlight and discovered that the little boy's body was indeed covered in bruises, one after another.
The little boy seemed to notice the movement behind him, and slowly raised his head and turned around.
When Li Jiuhe saw his face, her heart skipped a beat.
The boy's mouth was wide open, his eyebrows were curved, and he maintained a laughing expression, but the scene looked creepy.
His mouth remained open, and his facial expression remained unchanged, yet his voice rang out: "Uncle, uncle, shall we play hide-and-seek? If you find me within five minutes, I can answer one question for you."
Li Jiuhe hesitated for a moment, then nodded: "Okay."
"I'll hide now, and you're not allowed to peek!"
The boy stood up. He looked to be only five or six years old, but his tone of voice was clearly more than that.
Li Jiuhe couldn't tell his age either.
Then you see this little boy wearing only a pair of shorts running barefoot down the stairs to the first floor.
He then heard the sound of a door opening and closing, and silence returned to the surroundings.
"Come find me!" A voice suddenly rang in his ears; it was the little boy who spoke.
Li Jiuhe immediately looked around and realized that the little boy was reminding him in this way that the other party was actually hiding on the first floor.
Li Jiuhe first quickly set a five-minute countdown on his phone, then went up the stairs to the first floor.
In addition to the living room, kitchen, and dining room, this floor also has two rooms, one of which is a study and the other is Lin Shouye's bedroom.
He stood by the stairs and looked around.
The sound of a door opening and closing was heard just now, so the little boy must have hidden in a room with a door, such as a study or bedroom.
Without much thought, Li Jiuhe walked directly to Lin Shouye's bedroom, gently turned the doorknob, and then pushed the door open.
This bedroom is quite large.
The blanket on the bed was slightly raised, clearly indicating that Lin Shouye was lying there, but it was unclear whether he was awake or not.
Li Jiuhe guessed that he should be awake. Old people usually doze very lightly, and the sound of the door opening and closing just now had most likely woken him up.
However, Lin Shouye did not move, which means he probably knew what was happening.
"Don't move. I'm playing hide-and-seek with that boy. It has nothing to do with you. Don't be nervous," Li Jiuhe gently reminded him.
He then turned to the side where Lin Shouye was lying on his side, and sure enough, he saw that the old man had opened his eyes and looked terrified.
However, he heard Li Jiuhe's reminder, so he remained motionless.
Li Jiuhe gestured for him to be quiet again before using his phone flashlight to scan the surroundings and begin searching for the little boy.
The bed in this bedroom has a solid base, so no one can hide underneath, but just to be on the safe side, Li Jiuhe still pulled out the drawers on both sides and at the foot of the bed to check.
No findings were found.
He then opened the two wardrobes and searched them carefully, even turning over the clothes and blankets piled up inside, but still found nothing.
He carefully checked behind the door, in the corners of the walls, behind the curtains, in the gaps at the head of the bed, and even in places that seemed impossible for a normal child to squeeze into.
Still nothing was found.
Just then, Li Jiuhe looked up at the large bed in front of him.
Lin Shouye remained in the same right-side sleeping position, without moving, and he dared not move.
Li Jiuhe said, "Grandpa Lin, don't move. I need to check what's under the blanket."
He then walked behind Lin Shouye, grabbed the corner of the quilt, and pulled the quilt off the old man.
Under the blanket was the old man's trembling, curled-up body; no child was hiding inside.
Li Jiuhe wasn't entirely at ease, so he completely unfolded the quilt to make sure nothing was missed.
But the child was nowhere to be found.
As Li Jiuhe pulled the blanket back over herself, her doubts grew stronger: "Could it be that the child didn't hide in Lin Shouye's bedroom, but in that study instead?"
However, he had a strong intuition that the little boy had entered this room, not the study.
"He must be inside. Now we just need to see how he hides."
Three minutes have passed.
Li Jiuhe frowned, walked to the window, and subconsciously pulled up the closed curtains.
The windows were locked, and there were metal bars on the outside, though those bars probably wouldn't have been able to stop the little boy at all.
"Did he run out the window again?"
Li Jiuhe reached out and pressed on the window glass; it was very sturdy, and the lock was on from the inside.
Just then, his pupils suddenly contracted as he looked through the window at the row of rooms near the corner of the wall in the backyard.
The row of rooms housed a gardener, a cook, and a maid. A familiar figure appeared, then vanished in a flash, disappearing in front of one of the houses.
If Li Jiuhe wasn't mistaken, that figure was indeed Lin Shouye!
"Lin Shouye—how could he be over there?!" Li Jiuhe's body trembled, and he turned around abruptly to look at the old man lying on the bed facing him.
After a moment, he tentatively spoke: "You're not Lin Shouye, I've found you!"
"Hehehe————"
The look of terror on Lin Shouye's face as he lay on the bed vanished, replaced by a wide grin that sent chills down one's spine.
The blanket was then pulled back, and Lin Shouye's body rapidly contracted, his face changed, and he quickly returned to the appearance of the little boy that Li Jiuhe had just seen.
He sat up abruptly: "Hehe, not bad, you found me, and you haven't gone over time. You can ask me a question now."
Li Jiuhe finally realized that this little guy could not only hide, but also change his appearance to resemble someone else.
If he hadn't seen the real Lin Shouye through the window, he wouldn't have guessed that the person on the bed was a little boy in disguise.
But then again, it was not even five o'clock in the morning, what was Lin Shouye doing alone in the backyard?
Upon hearing the little boy's words, Li Jiuhe immediately regained his composure, temporarily setting aside his unintentional discovery and focusing on the boy covered in bruises.
"Was your death accidental or murder?"
"It was murder," the boy replied with a grin.
He sprang out of bed in a flash, covered his eyes with his hands, stood in the corner, and said, "Now it's your turn. You hide. If I can't find you in five minutes, I can answer one more question. If I find you, you'll have to skin this whole body off me."
Li Jiuhe: (；°A°)