Nightmare Onslaught - Chapter 17 - The Journey Back

“So, when I arrived yesterday, Nuan-Jie’s body was still in the bedroom?”

“Yes, right behind the door,” Chen Xiaomeng paused, staring at Jiang Cheng with a cold smile, “If you had walked a few steps further yesterday, that ghost would have dragged your corpse here too.”

Jiang Cheng ignored her and continued, “Where is Nuan-Jie’s body now?”

Chen Xiaomeng stood up and walked towards the door. Jiang Cheng immediately followed, keeping a distance of less than a meter.

“The door isn’t open yet, I can’t run,” Chen Xiaomeng sneered.

Jiang Cheng, following her closely, shook his head and said, “Don’t misunderstand, I just feel happier being closer to you.”

Chen Xiaomeng was left speechless and decided not to engage with him anymore. When she reached the wall, she fumbled and pressed a button. Suddenly, the room became clear.

The light above their heads turned on.

Almost simultaneously, Fatty’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He saw that the room was arranged like a church.

A huge cross hung on the wall, and Nuan-Jie was tied upside down to it, her face twisted, clearly dead.

Looking closer, the entire cross, like Nuan-Jie, was inverted.

Various torture instruments were placed around, their designs ancient and bloody, reminiscent of the medieval era, most of them stained with terrifying bloodstains.

This was a torture chamber.

“The cross represents God, an inverted cross is a symbol of the devil,” Jiang Cheng stared expressionlessly at the torture instruments, “It seems this family are devil worshippers.”

Fatty was shocked by the scene, but Chen Xiaomeng looked at Jiang Cheng with interest, “You seemed to have guessed it already?”

The setup here couldn’t have been done in a short time, so the owners of these torture instruments could only be the villa’s inhabitants, not the two poor outsiders.

When Fatty regained his composure, he immediately looked at Jiang Cheng, “So the real killers are the family in the villa, and those two men…”

Jiang Cheng nodded, “Didn’t you just see them?”

As if a lightning bolt struck his mind, Fatty seemed to suddenly realize something, trembling, “It’s the coach that picked us up! The male driver, the mother with the child, the male-dressed female conductor, and the girl from the couple, they are the family! The owners of this villa!”

“Exactly,” Chen Xiaomeng shrugged, “And the man from the couple, the older boy from the mother and son pair, they are the victims imprisoned and tortured by this family.”

Fatty recalled the strange behavior of the mother and son and the couple on the way here. For instance, the man in the couple had always worn an eye mask and remained motionless, while the older boy brought out by his mother had a look of terror in his eyes and stayed silent the entire time. So, this was the reason.

Hell is empty, and the devils are among us.

The female ghost wasn’t killing for revenge. She was simply continuing the evil she had committed in life. Those things ingrained in her bones could never be changed.

“When did you figure out the truth?” Jiang Cheng asked, looking at Chen Xiaomeng.

“After the ghost killed Nuan-Jie, the photo we found earlier on the wall suddenly became clear,” she said, pulling out a photo. The wooden frame was gone, likely removed for convenience.

Jiang Cheng took the photo. It was a family portrait of the four members of the villa, each face matching the ones in his memory. The background was this very torture chamber.

In the corner of the photo were two men, one lying down and the other sitting, both chained up. Their heads were lowered, so their faces were unclear, but the clothes they wore were identical to those of the two men on the coach.

The door began to emit a faint glow, and the entire space started to tremble.

The mission was over.

The door was about to open.

“Why did you lie to us? What’s in it for you?” Jiang Cheng steadied himself and seized the moment to ask one last question.

Chen Xiaomeng, clearly accustomed to the tremor that came with the door opening, had already walked to the iron door while Fatty was still bracing himself against the wall to avoid falling.

The iron door swung open completely, revealing a gray, misty haze behind it.

Chen Xiaomeng turned her head, quietly stared at Jiang Cheng for two seconds, and then said, “Nothing. I just like it.”

With that, she disappeared into the mist beyond the door.

Jiang Cheng glanced back at Fatty and then stepped into the mist as well.

After a strange wave of dizziness, Jiang Cheng’s body jolted as if he had stepped onto a hard, flat surface.

He looked down and, under the faint light, recognized the wooden floor beneath his feet.

Everything around him became familiar.

He let out a deep breath. He had truly returned to his studio.

Outside the window, it was still night, with only a sliver of moonlight breaking through. Everything was exactly as he had left it.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something with a slightly rough texture. In the thin moonlight, he could see it was a piece of paper folded multiple times.

He was slowly unfolding the paper when suddenly his body froze. A hand had silently rested on his right shoulder.

Someone was lurking behind him, as if they had known all along that he would return here.

Jiang Cheng slowly raised his hands, “There’s a hidden compartment in the third drawer on the left side of the desk with twenty thousand yuan. The drawer is locked, and the key is in the second-to-last coffee cup in the kitchen.”

There was no sound from behind him. He paused, then continued, “That’s all the money I have. If you’re looking to rob something else, I suggest going upstairs. But there’s no bed, just a mattress. You’ll have to make do.”

After a moment, the hand on his shoulder trembled, and a robust voice rang out, “Bro, you’ve got a nice place here!”

As soon as Jiang Cheng heard the voice, he grabbed the hand on his shoulder, turned around, and twisted it, pinning a chubby figure against the wall.

“Bro! Bro!” Fatty winced in pain, slapping the wall.

Jiang Cheng recognized the man who had barely survived in the Dream Realm. His voice turned cold, “What are you doing here?”

He quickly glanced at where the door should have been, now just an ordinary wall.

According to Fan Li, if someone survived the mission, they would return to the starting point in the real world-in other words, back to their own homes.

But this clearly wasn’t Fatty’s home.

Fatty’s right arm creaked as if it was about to snap. He hurriedly explained, “I just thought before entering that door, it’d be great if I could end up with you, bro. And when I came out, I saw you standing right in front of me, back turned. Maybe it’s fate!”

But before Fatty could finish, Jiang Cheng cut him off, “Cut the crap. You just want me to help you get through the Nightmare Barrier.”