N-M Chapter 155 The Haunted Lin Family
Chapter 155 The Haunted Lin Family
Chapter 155 The Haunted Lin Family (6.2k)
"This house—is this a place for a human to live? I'm getting goosebumps all over," Ma Li added.
Li Jiuhe shook his head slightly: "Since we're already here, I'll handle it. You just need to follow me."
Ma Li had no choice but to nod, and subconsciously moved very close to Li Jiuhe.
Li Jiuhe quickly ended his "survival" mission and switched to his new mission of solving the "Blood Curse House".
Currently, if I want to level up as quickly as possible, completing this kind of task is the best way.
"Survive" is just the basic task. If he dies in other more purposeful task lines, the task will also be reset. And the experience points and rewards for completing these task lines are higher than those for "Survive".
This new questline was soon revealed.
[Task definition successful. The task is temporarily named "Solving the Mystery of the Haunted Lin Family House".]
Title: Unraveling the Mystery of the Haunted Lin Family House
[Level: Grade II, Class A]
[Requirements: 1. Solve all the ghost stories; 2. Catch the culprit.]
【奖励：1、任务总时长延长10分钟（当前总时长5小时30分）：2、奖励1个重置时间锚点；3、奖励1次可携带重置之前任一物品的机会；4、奖励1积分。（以上奖励可四选二）】
[Note: 1. Because this world is restricted by "domains," you can only use your abilities to a limited extent. It is recommended that you find suitable methods to solve the mission rather than relying entirely on your sequence abilities; 2. The "ghosts" in this world are invincible.]
After quickly glancing at the mission information, Li Jiuhe's guess was almost identical to his own.
Because we are currently in a haunted house, which is another form of boundary stone world space, except that all the scenery here, including people, are created by the "domain" of the haunted house.
Strictly speaking, the haunted house's ability is somewhat inferior to that of the boundary stone.
However, since we are in the current space, we must follow the rules of that space, which is also the meaning of the mission description.
It would be best to solve this in a more suitable way. Li Jiuhe secretly sensed that there were no problems with task definition, reset, and scenario replay, but the labeling function could not be activated.
Labeling is an offensive ability, but it seems to be restricted here.
This is just one of his current mission lines. The other mission line, set up outside the haunted house, is much larger and involves conquering the entire haunted house and uncovering the secrets behind the Moth Woman and others.
Of course, the level and rewards for that task would be much higher.
After listening to the Lin family's description, Li Jiuhe and Ma Li had fully embraced their roles as detectives and roughly knew what they needed to do.
After some investigation, it was discovered that seven people lived in the villa. Besides the head of the family, Lin Shouye, Lin Shouye's eldest son, Lin Jianguo, was the one who had just explained the details of the haunting to them. His wife had hanged herself on the third floor.
Lin Shouye's second son, Lin Jianmin, had just poured tea for Li Jiuhe and his wife. His wife was in the kitchen checking on the dinner preparations and was not present at the moment.
In addition, Lin Jianguo's son is already twenty years old, and his daughter has just come of age.
Lin Jianmin, on the other hand, only has one son who is still a minor.
After learning about the family's situation, and because Li Jiuhe and Ma Li, as detectives, needed to stay here for the next few days to conduct their investigation, the Lin family arranged accommodation for them.
Lin Jianguo led the two to a room on the third floor.
Ma Li followed behind Li Jiuhe and whispered, "Why were we put on the third floor? Wasn't that hanged man they were talking about on the third floor?"
Li Jiuhe nodded without saying anything.
Ma Li's face was pale, and she muttered softly, "I'm going to die, please don't put my room next to that hanged ghost—"
""
"Detective Ma, this is your room." Lin Jianguo arrived at one of the rooms with the door open and pointed inside, saying, "I'm sorry, because we haven't had any guests for a long time, the room isn't very well ventilated, so I opened it in advance."
Without even glancing at the room, Ma Li asked, "Where did your wife hang herself?"
"Next door," Lin Jianguo pointed to the room next to this one.
Ma Li:
"————"
After a pause, she asked, still unwilling to give up, "What about Detective Li's room?"
"The neighbor's neighbor."
"So our two detectives' rooms are sandwiched right between the haunted room, right?"
Lin Jianguo nodded calmly: "Yes, this arrangement also makes it easier for you to hear what we're saying at any time, which is convenient for investigating the case."
"Thank you!" Ma Li said, grinding her teeth.
"What other rooms are on the third floor?" Li Jiuhe asked.
Lin Jianguo pointed to the other rooms and said, "The rest are storage rooms, utility rooms, laundry rooms, rooftop garden walkways, etc. There were originally three guest rooms, including the one where my wife hanged herself."
He paused for a moment, then added, "But I can't possibly use a room where someone has died to entertain you two."
"Thanks again!" Ma Li rolled her eyes and asked, "What's her name?"
"Zhou Wenhui".
"Did you two have a fight or something unpleasant happen before?" Li Jiuhe asked, looking at the closed door of the room in the middle.
"No, my relationship with my husband has always been very good," Lin Jianguo explained. "She seemed perfectly normal that day, but then she suddenly went up to the third floor and hanged herself. I was woken up by a series of thumping sounds and searched for her with the children. When we finally found her on the third floor, we discovered she had hanged herself in the room, her body constantly hitting the wall."
"Was there a breeze in the house that night?" Li Jiuhe asked in surprise.
"There was no wind, but the corpse was constantly swaying and hitting the wall. It scared me quite a bit." Lin Jianguo recalled the scene, his face turning slightly pale.
At this point, he reminded them again, "If you're going to investigate, I suggest you go into that house now, but definitely don't go in at night. We usually lock that house. Here, is the key?"
He handed Li Jiuhe a key.
"Also, even during the day, if you hear any sudden noises inside the house, I advise you not to investigate. It's best to do it another time. Well, you can investigate first. I won't disturb you any longer. You can look around the rest of the house. If you need anything, you can come to me. My room is on the second floor."
"Which floor does Grandpa Lin live on?" Li Jiuhe asked.
"He has difficulty walking, so he'll stay in the bedroom on the first floor," Lin Jianguo reminded him as he walked down the stairs. "Please come down for dinner in about half an hour. My dad will introduce you to everyone in the house then."
"it is good."
Li Jiuhe held the keys and watched Lin Jianguo leave.
Turning around, I saw Ma Li crouching at the door of the room where someone had hanged themselves, eavesdropping cautiously.
"What are you doing?" Li Jiuhe walked over.
Ma Li lowered her voice and said, "I just listened, there's no sound from inside. Let's open the door and go in to investigate quickly, otherwise I won't dare to go in if there's any noise inside later."
Li Jiuhe shook his head: "There's no need to investigate if there's no unusual noise. Since the house is haunted, we need to investigate while it's making noise to find out the truth. Let's wait and see when there's a sound."
"Huh?!" Ma Li looked at him in surprise as he walked into the next room.
She then glanced back at her own room, shivered, and instead of going in, followed Li Jiuhe into his room.
Besides a bed, the room also has a dressing table with paper and pen on it.
Looking at the dressing table, especially the large vanity mirror it had attached, Ma Li's face showed horror: "This dressing table—there can't be one in every bedroom, right? Didn't they just say that a woman combs her hair in front of the mirror at night? Wherever there's a mirror, there's a certain probability that a woman will appear!"
Li Jiuhe nodded and glanced at the rosewood dressing table, which was clearly expensive.
"Lin Jianguo also said that no matter if the mirror is broken or simply carried out and thrown away, these things will automatically restore themselves and return to their original places by nightfall. So these dressing tables should be impossible to throw away or destroy."
"Brother Li, can I sleep with you tonight?" Ma Li suddenly asked, glancing around suspiciously, her fearful expression impossible to fake.
Li Jiuhe glanced at her, knowing what she was thinking: "Didn't you say you were only afraid of birds?"
"That was certainly true before I encountered ghosts," Ma Li said frankly. "But now I think it's necessary to add another one—ghosts."
At this point, worried that Li Jiuhe would think she was useless, at least not in this situation, she quickly explained, "But I can get the ant larvae to help you; they're not afraid."
She just tried it out and found that the ant colony could be commanded and transformed at will. These basic abilities were not restricted, but the attack power was greatly reduced.
Li Jiuhe nodded: "We'll talk about it later."
He sat down at the dressing table, picked up a pen and paper, and wrote as he went, saying, "We now know that there are three haunted incidents in this villa: combing hair at midnight, a room with a hanging, and children playing hide-and-seek in the stairwell at night. These three incidents seem to be unrelated for the time being, but we can't completely rule them out."
Mali asked, "If we find the reason for the haunting, will we have solved the mystery of this haunted house?"
"That should be the case," Li Jiuhe analyzed. "Because the Rubik's Cube Haunted House awakened as a sequence object and generated a domain."
These haunted scenes might have some kind of connection to it; solving the puzzles might allow the haunted house to accept us, much like the bond I had with another sequence item before.
"As long as you accept me and don't let ghosts scare me, that's fine." Ma Li looked around suspiciously.
Then Li Jiuhe circled the words "the room where the person hanged himself".
"Since the room is right next door, let's investigate this ghost story first. Later tonight, we'll go check on the kid who likes to play hide-and-seek in the stairwell."
"What about the woman combing her hair?" Ma Li reminded her.
"If she appears in our room, we'll investigate; if she doesn't, we won't investigate for now."
"All right."
As dinner time approached, the two emerged from the room one after the other.
As Li Jiuhe passed by the room where the hanged man was, he also pricked up his ears to listen. It was quiet inside, with no unusual sounds coming from inside.
Ma Li quickened her pace, not even glancing at the door, and hurried past with her head down.
He then crashed directly into Li Jiuhe, who had stopped and was staring at a young man standing at the top of the stairs.
This man appears to be Lin Jianguo's son, a young man of about twenty years old. He seems to be waiting for the two of them here.
The young man looked nervous, glanced at the room where someone had hanged themselves, and then approached Li Jiuhe.
"Your name is Lin Siyuan?" Li Jiuhe vaguely remembered his name.
The young man nodded, turning to look back as he spoke rapidly, "Detective Li, the night my mother hanged herself, she had a fight with my father. They were arguing very quietly, thinking no one else knew. I could only vaguely hear the illegitimate child saying things like, 'Go find him,' and 'Tell your father,' but I didn't make out what they were arguing about."
"Oh?" Li Jiuhe was surprised.
Lin Jianguo had just told him that his wife hadn't argued with anyone the night she hanged herself, and that their relationship was harmonious.
So, does this guy start lying to me the moment we meet?
"Where were you when your mother hanged herself?" he asked.
Lin Siyuan said, "Because I knew they were arguing, I wasn't asleep at the time. I was lying on my bed in my room, which was right next to their bedroom."
What was your father doing when your mother hanged herself?
"He must have fallen asleep later, because I heard him snoring."
"After your mother's body was discovered, was there any forensic examination?" Li Jiuhe asked.
There was no other way. Although his current role was that of an agent, he should theoretically know these things, but he genuinely didn't, so he had no choice but to ask.
Lin Siyuan said, "They checked it and said it was a suicide. There were no signs of a struggle before the death, and there were no messy traces in the house."
"So you mean—your mom and dad had a fight, most likely because of an affair," and then she hanged herself that night? Li Jiuhe asked.
Lin Siyuan glanced subconsciously at the room where Li Jiuhe had hanged himself not far behind him, and nodded hastily: "I hope you can find the truth as soon as possible, so that my mother can't die with her eyes open in disgrace."
As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around and ran downstairs. Li Jiuhe noticed that the guy was still standing on tiptoe and was only wearing socks, not shoes.
He was clearly afraid that Lin Jianguo would overhear him.
"Do these two, father and son, distrust each other so much?" Ma Li asked curiously from the side.
She could also clearly sense that Lin Siyuan was wary of his father, Lin Jianguo.
"It seems there are some things about this family that we don't know about," Li Jiuhe nodded.
The two arrived at the restaurant next to the lobby on the first floor. The table was already full of a dazzling array of dishes, more than twenty in total, but there were only nine people dining, including Li Jiuhe and Ma Li.
Although the chef, gardener, and maid in the villa did not eat, they all came to the dining table and were introduced to the two detectives, Li Jiuhe, by the head of the household, Lin Shouye.
Lin Shouye's wife passed away three years ago, and now his eldest son's wife has hanged herself, leaving only seven members of the nine-member family.
Few people spoke during the meal, which Li Jiuhe found somewhat oppressive. He wasn't even sure if he had actually eaten anything while eating in this haunted house setting, so he put down his chopsticks after taking a couple of bites.
Ma Li only ate a little bit symbolically.
The two took a stroll around the villa after dinner and found that the front and back yards were quite large. The front yard had some flowers, plants and fruit trees, while the back yard had a pond and a row of small houses.
The cottage was where the servants and cooks lived, and it looked clean and tidy from the outside.
Because of their detective status, Lin Shouye ordered everyone to cooperate with the investigation, and their movement within the house was unrestricted.
They took this opportunity to check the gate to the courtyard and found it locked, while it was pitch black outside the courtyard wall.
This is clearly a sealed-off situation, meaning that no one can freely leave the haunted house until the ghosting incident is resolved.
The sun sets and night falls.
When Li Jiuhe and Ma Li returned to the villa, they found it quiet and deserted, with no one in sight.
In contrast, the doors to each room were tightly closed, indicating that everyone had already returned to their respective rooms.
Because the ghost stories had been going on for some time, they had developed a tacit understanding that they dared not stay outside at night.
The lights in the living room remained on.
Just as Li Jiuhe and his companion were about to go upstairs, the door to a bedroom on the first floor opened, and Lin Shouye appeared in the doorway.
"Detectives, my family members have all gone back to their rooms. We usually don't come out at night. Please be careful while you investigate!"
"Okay." Li Jiuhe nodded.
"I wouldn't have come out either," Ma Li whispered.
The bedroom door closed, and as the two reached the third floor, Ma Li suddenly jumped and exclaimed, "Someone's here!"
They saw a figure standing with his back to them at the top of the stairs on the third floor. The position he was in was exactly the same one where Lin Siyuan had secretly come to find them earlier that day.
This person appears to be observing the direction of the room where Zhou Wenhui hanged herself.
Upon hearing footsteps, the person turned around. It was Lin Jianguo's daughter, and also Lin Siyuan's younger sister, Lin Siyu.
Lin Siyu is exactly eighteen years old this year. She has a slender figure, is wearing a light-colored patterned pajama set, and has short hair that reaches her ears.
Her expression was serious. She first gestured for Li Jiuhe and the other person to be quiet, then looked downstairs, seemingly paying attention to the commotion below.
Then Lin Siyu whispered to Li Jiuhe and the other detective who came to greet her, "Detectives, there's actually something strange going on in our house! There were too many people around just now, so it wasn't convenient for me to tell you."
"Oh, there's more?" Ma Li looked at her in surprise.
"Go ahead," Li Jiuhe said.
Lin Siyu spoke quickly, "It's my grandfather. A while ago, he brought back a strange young man from outside, and then this man disappeared. I'm sure he's been locked up somewhere and hasn't left the area of this villa."
"Why are you so sure?" Li Jiuhe asked.
Lin Siyu hesitated for a moment before explaining, "Because I gave him a bracelet, which has a proximity sensor inside. If we are within a certain range, both bracelets will vibrate."
"I think I've seen this kind of little gadget before when I was at the night market," Ma Li said thoughtfully. "Is this bracelet a couple's set?"
Lin Siyu blushed slightly and nodded silently.
What is the effective feedback distance?
"Within four or five hundred meters," Lin Siyu said. "I've calculated it; including the area around the villa, it's roughly that distance."
Li Jiuhe and Ma Li exchanged a glance, then Li Jiuhe said to Lin Siyu, "Okay, we will investigate this matter."
"Yes, yes, please don't tell my family, especially not my grandfather!"
After saying that, she tiptoed downstairs, just like her brother had done at the beginning.
Li Jiuhe glanced down and noticed that Lin Siyu was also barefoot, wearing only a pair of white socks.
These two siblings really are family; even their habits in doing this kind of thing are exactly the same.
"Brother Li, it's getting dark, let's go back to our room!" Ma Li urged softly.
Li Jiuhe nodded, turned around and walked towards her room. Ma Li didn't go to her room either, but followed closely behind Li Jiuhe.
As the two passed by the room where the hanged man was, Li Jiuhe paused, took two steps closer, and leaned over the door.
Actually, he could hear it even without this posture. At this moment, there was a slight thumping sound coming from inside the room, as if something was rhythmically hitting the wall.
At the same time, the sound of a rope tightening rang out. The sound was so real that it felt as if a rope was actually strangling Li Jiuhe's neck, giving him an indescribable feeling of suffocation.
He turned to Ma Li and said, "You go back to your room first."
Ma Li had already heard it. Her heart was in her throat, and she immediately nodded like a chick pecking at rice, replying, "Okay, be careful."
After saying that, he darted into Li Jiuhe's room and slammed the door shut behind him.
If it weren't for the fact that Li Jiuhe was still outside, she probably would have locked the door immediately, preventing anyone from coming in.
Standing behind the door, Ma Li nervously leaned against the door, listening intently.
Li Jiuhe took out the key Lin Jianguo had given him during the day and slowly inserted it into the lock. During this time, he could hear the sounds of impacts and ropes tightening inside the room.
Unbeknownst to him, his palms were sweating as he gripped the door with one hand and gently turned the key with the other.
With a click, he immediately turned the doorknob, pushed open the door, and reached for the light switch next to him.
I pressed the button a few times quickly, but the room remained dark and unresponsive. I didn't know if the light was broken or if there was a problem with the wiring in the room.
Li Jiuhe tried hard to open his eyes and look into the room, but he could only see an area of one or two meters in front of him. He couldn't see anything any deeper inside.
But he could still hear the impact continuing inside, and at the same time, the invisible rope around his neck tightened, making the feeling of suffocation stronger and stronger.
Quickly take out your phone. Although the phone has lost signal since entering this haunted house scene, other basic functions are still available, such as the flashlight.
Li Jiuhe quickly turned on his flashlight and shone it into the house.
In the innermost part, two dangling feet were visible, swinging in mid-air and hitting the wall next to them with a "thump thump thump" sound.
As the flashlight beam slowly moved upwards, Li Jiuhe's breathing became rapid.
At the same time.
Ma Li, who was guarding the door next door, was tense and her scalp was tingling as she listened carefully to the sounds outside.
A short while later, after Li Jiuhe opened the door to the next room, she heard it more clearly. It was indeed the sound of impact and the sound of ropes tightening.
However, there seemed to be other sounds mixed in.
Ma Li pressed her body against the door, tilting her ears to try and discern what the sound was.
Before long, she recognized the sound as the "swish-swish-swish" of a comb scraping against her hair and scalp.
Moreover, the sound didn't come from next door; it seemed to be coming from behind her!
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