Nightmare Onslaught - Chapter 14 - Disappearance

“This isn’t a vacation.”

Fatty seemed to think of something, his face turning pale. “So, are you saying that Nuan-Jie earlier was a ghost?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jiang Cheng nodded.

“Then what about the real Nuan-Jie, and the girl named Chen Xiaomeng in the house…”

“Enough,” Jiang Cheng interrupted him. After a few seconds, he said, “Let’s go to the living room.”

To avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, Jiang Cheng didn’t deliberately lighten his footsteps as he descended the stairs. But when he and Fatty reached the bottom, only the roaring fire in the fireplace remained.

Fan Li, who should have been by the fireplace, was gone.

Fatty, somewhat scared, asked, “Could something have happened to him too?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes swept around the room, then he said, “Come out, we’re human, not ghosts.”

As soon as the words were spoken, a bear-like figure rose from behind the sofa. Fan Li stared at them with caution, a sharp knife in his hand reflecting a cold gleam.

“Why did you come down?” He quickly glanced at the stairs before focusing his gaze on Jiang Cheng’s face. “Where are the other two?”

“They’re in trouble.”

Fan Li eyed them suspiciously. According to previous deductions, women should be safe in this mission. How could something like this happen?

Fatty quickly recounted their recent encounter to Fan Li.

Fan Li’s expression changed slightly, then he sighed. “From what you’re saying, it’s likely they’re in grave danger.”

More than just grave danger, Fatty thought to himself, hoping only that their deaths wouldn’t be as gruesome as Xie Yu’s.

Since the ghost had already appeared tonight, Jiang Cheng and the other two were relatively safer. But after what had just happened, even Fatty couldn’t sleep.

“Let’s rest for a while,” Jiang Cheng said. “I won’t sleep. I’ll wake you up in two hours.”

Perhaps Fan Li had experienced such things too often and had gotten used to them. In any case, he lay down, not on the sofa, but in front of the fireplace.

No one knew if he was really asleep, and the sharp knife he had found in the kitchen was tucked away, probably hidden somewhere on his body.

Warmed by the fire, Fatty’s nerves began to waver. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in a long time, and only remnants of consciousness were keeping him awake.

He sat on the sofa, the scene before his eyes gradually blurring.

When he opened his eyes again, the sky was already faintly lit. Jiang Cheng and Fan Li were huddled together, discussing something in low voices. Jiang Cheng’s expression looked as calm as usual, while Fan Li seemed occasionally agitated.

Fatty shifted his body, causing the sofa to emit a slight creak.

Jiang Cheng turned his head and looked at him. “Awake?”

“Yeah,” Fatty replied, rubbing his face sheepishly. “It’s daylight. Shouldn’t we go upstairs to check things out?”

“No rush. Let’s wait until it’s fully bright.”

So, they waited for about half an hour. During this time, the three of them ate some small bread-like snacks to barely fill their stomachs.

When the sky was completely bright, Jiang Cheng stood up and said it was about time. The three of them picked up their items and began ascending the stairs.

Fan Li was still holding the sharp knife from last night. Jiang Cheng now carried a rolling pin, and Fatty, seeing nothing else useful in the kitchen, took the cutting board, holding it in front of his chest like a shield.

They slowly made their way to the second-floor corridor, inching closer to the master bedroom.

By now, they were certain that Nuan-Jie and the others must have encountered trouble.

The door to the master bedroom was a third of the way open, and there was no sound inside.

Jiang Cheng reached out and pushed the door open.

Fatty immediately raised the cutting board.

They had prepared themselves to see two corpses, or even for a ghost to pounce on them. But when the door opened, there was nothing inside.

No bodies, no ghosts, no bloodstains.

Not even traces of a struggle.

The bed in the room was neatly made, the items on the table and chairs were in perfect order, and a silk robe was draped over the sofa, as if the lady of the house had just stepped out.

“Where are they?” Fatty asked, his eyes wide.

Jiang Cheng checked under the bed, while Fan Li, with a grim expression, inspected the wardrobe. Then they looked in the bathroom, behind the sofa, and even searched through several nearby rooms, including the one where Xie Yu’s body had been found earlier.

Nothing.

They were gone.

Nuan-Jie and Chen Xiaomeng, two living people, seemed to have vanished into thin air.

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Cheng suddenly said to Fan Li, “Is it possible that they’re not dead and have already successfully left this place?”

“You mean they’ve completed the mission?” Fan Li’s expression was uncertain, but after a moment, he replied, “It’s unlikely, but we can’t rule it out.”

Fatty chimed in, “If that’s the case, how do we explain the ghost we encountered last night?”

Jiang Cheng knew what Fatty was getting at. Since the ghost had taken on Nuan-Jie’s appearance and appeared in the master bedroom where Nuan-Jie and Chen Xiaomeng were staying, it was likely that something had already happened to them.

Last night, before encountering the ghost, Jiang Cheng had been on the second floor the entire time. He hadn’t heard any footsteps in the corridor, which meant Nuan-Jie and the other woman hadn’t left the room.

The windows in the villa couldn’t be opened either, so there was no possibility of them escaping through a window.

Therefore, there were only two possibilities: either Nuan-Jie and Chen Xiaomeng had already been killed by the ghost, and their bodies were hidden somewhere, or they had completed the mission before the ghost appeared and left the Dream Realm, returning to the real world.

Regarding the method of leaving the mission, Fan Li shared his experience. He said that once all the clues were found, a black iron door would appear.

Passing through that door would take them back to the real world.

However, he also emphasized that the black iron door could appear anywhere, though it generally wouldn’t be in an overly remote location. Most of the time, it was related to the important clues in the mission.

“Like the black iron door we pushed open in the dream?” Jiang Cheng asked.

Fan Li nodded. “Yes, you can think of it as a passage connecting the Dream Realm to the real world.”

Returning to the living room on the first floor, Jiang Cheng sat on the thick carpet, while Fan Li and Fatty sat across from him.

The situation they were facing now was somewhat complicated.

“Alright,” Jiang Cheng said, looking up. “Let’s assume for now that Nuan-Jie and the others successfully left this place. Let’s think about how they might have done it.”

Fatty hunched his shoulders and stammered, “But I can’t help feeling like they were killed by the ghost.”

Jiang Cheng looked at him and said coldly, “That line of thinking is pointless. If you insist they were killed by the ghost, then we might as well just wait here to die.”

Fatty was startled by Jiang Cheng’s tone and didn’t dare say anything more.

Fan Li nodded immediately and said, “You’re right. Nuan-Jie and the others must have found a way to leave!”

“So now it’s our turn,” Jiang Cheng said, patting his pants and standing up.