Chapter 38 [Third Night Part Eight]

MAY 17, 2022~ 8ONI

Un-edited so please don’t kill me if you find anything wrong, please gently commenting so I can fix it. Thank you.

Sensing something is off, Fang Daichuan stood helplessly behind Li Sinian and touched his shoulder.

Li Sinian bent over and moved the lighter close to the skeleton in the corner. The skeleton was half-leaning on the stone wall, surrounded by a lot of algae. You can tell that it has been soaked in water for some time after death. The wall where the skeleton leaning was covered with moss, a shade-loving plant struggles out of the thin crust of dirt on the stone wall, wrapping itself around the dead bones and rotting flesh to produce a small white flower in its darkened eye socket.

Li Sinian gently shakes off the dirt and water weeds on the bones. Without the water weeds wrapping around the skeleton, it instantly scattered to the ground. The white skull rolled twice at the feet of the two of them, stopped by the puddle. The small flower in the eye socket shook gently.

Li Sinian instantly wavered, his expression was a mix of astonishment and disbelief, he even turned his head and gave Fang Daichuan a crooked smile, as if laughing at the untimely blossoming skull. Then quickly turning around, he raised the back of his left hand, as if he was going to gently kiss the rings on his little finger before his whole body heavily slammed against the stone wall.

Fang Daichuan lowered his head and dared not to speak. He silently picked up the skull. He didn’t know if it was appropriate to let it lay on the ground or not. After all, it was Li Sinian’s father. So he meekly held it in his hands.

In the darkness, Fang Daichuan looked at his silent back and could hear his repressed muffled voice, as if he was trying to swallow tears.

“I…I am sorry for your loss,” Fang Daichuan thought for a long time, finally walking over to comfort him, “I know this must be hard for you, but…”

He leaned back against the stone wall, not too close to Li Sinian, looked down at the skull in his palm, said: “Your father, I am certainly sure he doesn’t want you drowning in sorrow.” The skull he was holding feels like a peculiar shaped flower vase. Thinking like that makes Fang Daichuan feel a little bit better, “Look, uncle seems to know that his son will do anything to find him, and there is even a flower in his eye socket. Doesn’t it seem to give you a sign to ‘lives on’?”

——–The flower blooms eerily and sincerely, like the last signs of life left in the world by the departed.

Li Sinian’s forehead was against the stone wall, the aura oozing out from his body filled the room. “I’m mentally prepared,” he swallowed, with a thick nasal voice, “I just… need some time.”

He turned around after collecting himself, moving his gaze at the skull in Fang Daichuan’s hand. Fang Daichuan turned on the lighter and peeked at his face. Li Sinian looked as usual, but his nose was red.

Li Sinian took off his shirt, pulled out the flower, and tightly wrapped the skull.

“I want to take him back, I can’t let him stay here…” Li Sinian sniffed, raised his head, and stared straight at Fang Daichuan, as if waiting for Fang Daichuan to object. For the first time the stubborn and impulsive look characteristic of youth appeared on his face, unlike his usual noble and spectator look.

Fang Daichuan breathed a sigh of relief. If Li Sinian insisted on taking his father’s entire bones, even with the two of them, they would not be able to ship it out. If Li Sinian was right about the tide and that they could escape while the sea water filled the cave, then time left for them would not be too long. If it is just two of them, everything will be fine, but Fang Daichuan really can’t see them bringing out the whole skeleton.

But taking away only one skull is doable.

“Of course we can’t leave uncle here,” Fang Daichuan also took off his shirt and took the bone-wrapped cloth bag. The rest of the fabric was twisted into two strands of rope so it could tie to Li Sinian’s waist when he went out later. “Although I don’t know if the two of us can live to the end, at least we can bury him on the beach. Uncle must have been suffocated down here for so many years.”

Fang Daichuan felt that he had said something stupid as soon as he finished speaking. He looked at Li Sinian cautiously, but Li Sinian had no expression. He just stared at the small handful of cloth in his hand and closed his eyes slightly.

The two sat facing each other in the dark, for a while, neither of them spoke.

Fang Daichuan was afraid of Li Sinian having random thoughts, he was desperately trying to find some topics to chat about.

“Oh by the way, I haven’t had time to ask you yet,” Fang Daichuan said stiffly, “You closed the window last night, right?”

“?” Li Sinian looked up, his expression was not as smart and indifferent as usual, his eyes were hollow, his face was blank, he seemed to have no recollection of the window at all.

“It’s the window in the corridor,” Fang Daichuan explained with his head bowed, still in a somewhat downcast mood as he thought about his reasoning and Li Si Nian’s lie, “Liu Xin came up before and after you, and he said the window was closed when he came up. When I asked you at the time, you said no.——You lied to me. I really don’t understand what you open and close the window for. Apart from thinking that you are lying about being the seer, I really can’t think of other possibilities. But Liu Xin then said that he is not a seer, so you are the seer…”

Fang Daichuan achieve his original goal after dropping the bomb. Li Sinian’s mood turned into helplessness: “You doubt me because of that window?”

Fang Daichuan quickly raised his eyelids, glanced at him and nodded.

Li Sinian sighed, and he stroked his hair irritably, as if trying to sort out his thoughts in the chaos. He said: “I did close the window. I will explain it to you from the beginning. When I went out, I found some murals faintly appearing on the wall of the corridor. I counted the same number and gender as us and wondered if this boss could have something to do with what happened back then, using this killing game to try and find out something. Yang Song’s father is dead, Ding Zihui’s mother committed suicide, Du Chaosheng seems to have lost a secretary, Niu Xinyan has lost her husband, and each of them has a reason to set up such a game. I was looking at it for a while but I was in a hurry to get out and check people’s roles, so I didn’t stay any longer and went downstairs. As a result, when I came back, I found the window was open. I thought that someone must have understood the hint in the painting, that is why they wanted to wet the wall with rain, so that they could see better. There was no one in the corridor at the time. From my perspective, whoever opens the window, since they can read the hints from the boss, they must know some inside stories, which must have something to do with the deaths of so many people back then. With that in mind, I played a sneaky hand and closed the window in silence, trying to put a bit of psychological pressure on the guy who opened it to see if anyone would mention hanging pictures or windows tomorrow.”

Fang Daichuan raised his head in astonishment.

“As a result, you pulled me over and told me that you opened it,” Li Sinian sighed helplessly. “What can I say? You are a passerby who has nothing to do with this situation. I casually said a few words to get along with you, who knew you would pay so much attention to the window… I am really impressed.”

When Fang Daichuan heard this, he couldn’t help but smash his forehead with an embarrassed expression.

“In your brain, don’t even mention raising goldfish, you can even raise a great white shark.” Li Sinian summed up weakly.

(T/N : LMAO alright so for people who don’t know, you can’t keep great white shark inside aquarium, so basically Sinian said ‘your brain hole is as big as ocean’)

Fang Daichuan was annoyed and dumbstruck. Sure enough, people with low IQ shouldn’t do brain work, after thinking for a long time, not only getting despised, but also slapped in the face.

“But, but it’s not all on me,” Fang Daichuan defended his intelligence, “since ancient times witches are on the wrong side, you are a stranger, I don’t know you, so why should I trust you wholeheartedly.”

Hearing this, Li Sinian suddenly raised his head and asked helplessly: “You don’t know me? You really don’t remember?”

Fang Daichuan was stunned: “Remember what?”

Just as Li Sinian wanted to answer, there was a sudden gurgling sound outside.

Both of them froze before hurriedly ran out to check.

What they saw is the mouth of the cave began to gurgle out. The water came up in a white foam, carrying gravel and water plants. In a few minutes it rose to ankle height, with great speed and a loud sucking sound, as if the mouth of a demon was swallowing the air.

Li Sinian’s face was grim.

He quickly walked back inside, bent down to pick up the bones that were still scattered, piled and tied them firmly with water plants before tying them to the corner stones.

“Hurry up!” Fang Daichuan completely forgot what they were talking about before and shouted from outside, “The water is rising!”

Li Sinian stared at the small pile of bones, feeling the cold water slowly climbing up to his legs. He closed his eyes, picked up the wrapped skull, turned around decisively and walked out of the room.

The water outside had already reached the waist length, the sea water was spinning in circles inside the cave, forming a strong whirlpool. Li Sinian walked through the water with difficulty, firmly guarding the skull in front of his chest. The sound of the water is already very loud, plus it is in a fairly large confined environment, the sound of the water combined with the echo, the whole cave seems to be shaking.

“Are you ready?!” Fang Daichuan shouted, the water had reached their chests.

Before the water reached the head, Li Sinian nodded firmly toward Fang Daichuan.

Splash–, two people plunged into the water at the same time. Li Sinian is a good swimmer. He grabbed the cloth bag with one hand and held Fang Daichuan’s wrist firmly with the other. Fang Daichuan was already dizzy in the whirlpool, unable to discern his direction.

Li Sinian floated on the water, there was a last bit of space left, he held Fang Daichuan allowing him to take a last breath.

The power of the current instantly stopped.

At that moment, the two people rushed toward the exit at the same time.

(T/N : So below is fan art for this chapter. I wish I could link the artist website but the thing is, there is a lot of spoiler art there so sadly I can’t. Please remind me when this novel reaches the end to give the link, ok?)