Chapter 1918: Chapter 1088: Midnight Offerings (Part 2)
"Mr. Chu, Miss Takagi, you must be on guard against that bastard Watanabe Gou, and... and Yandeta Chiyoda, she’s not a good person either!" Xiao Lin Zhengyan said angrily.
Just then, the phone on Yang Xiao buzzed once. He curiously took it out; the screen showed a message, the sender was Kato Shinjiro.
"Why is he messaging you?" Takagi Reina leaned over, blinking curiously. "Is there something he couldn’t say just now?"
While Yang Xiao and Takagi Reina were huddled together staring at the phone, Xiao Lin Zhengyan and Yamamoto Chunai stood honestly where they were, kept quiet, and didn’t go over to gawk.
Xiao Lin Zhengyan knew very well that if he wanted to survive this time, he could not afford to offend Chu Xi or this Takagi Reina.
"Could it be a trap?" Takagi Reina looked extremely alert, eyes wary, like a fox.
"If getting a text in broad daylight meant you just drop dead on the spot, then we might as well stop trying in this mission, find a place for a last meal together, then get drunk and wait for death." Yang Xiao ignored her and opened the message.
The first glance after opening it, the opening few words were shocking: Yandeta Chiyoda set me up! I’m still alive, at the station, help!
There were two more segments after that, which read like Kato Shinjiro explaining that sentence.
"Last night, besides that photo, I also received a text message. It was sent using Hirano Yuuhi’s phone, and that was what it said."
"The distress text was sent first, then the photo, with a time gap of 3 minutes and 52 seconds between them."
Yang Xiao understood. The reason he was only telling him now was because earlier Yandeta Chiyoda and Watanabe Gou were both present, so he couldn’t say it outright.
So it’s confirmed: Hirano Yuuhi’s death wasn’t an accident. Yandeta Chiyoda sold her out, used her as a Substitute Death.
"Why is he telling only you? Are you two... on really good terms?" Takagi Reina looked at Yang Xiao curiously, her gaze clearly suspecting he was hiding something from her.
"Hey, hey, hey, what are you thinking? We’ve been together this whole time, we didn’t even split up for the bathroom. Have you seen me in private contact with him?" Yang Xiao sounded like a husband urgently trying to prove to his wife he hadn’t cheated.
"That’s true." Takagi Reina thought for a moment. "I get it. He doesn’t trust Yandeta Chiyoda and Watanabe Gou either. Reaching out to you means he’s hoping to team up with us."
Putting away his phone, Yang Xiao nodded. Seems last night’s behavior from Yandeta Chiyoda and Watanabe Gou had already made the other teammates wary. Especially Hirano Yuuhi’s letter of accusation—this completely wiped out the credibility of those two.
Yang Xiao couldn’t quite see through Kato Shinjiro, but he was sure the man was a pro. If he was sincerely willing to cooperate, Yang Xiao would be more than happy.
Counting Kato Shinjiro and Sakai Misaki, they now had six people on their side. With ten people still alive in total, at least they held a numerical advantage.
Kato Shinjiro’s text came at just the right time and carried a lot of information. It revealed at least two key points.
First, it confirmed that Watanabe Gou and Yandeta Chiyoda had teamed up to pit and kill their teammates.
Second, after being possessed by the Half Ghost and kicked off the train, you do indeed end up at Youjian Mountain Station, but you don’t die immediately; you can at least survive four or five minutes, and there are other murderous Ghosts at that place.
This gave Yang Xiao a bold premise to work with—maybe getting off the train and going to Youjian Mountain Station was also one ring in the mission.
In other words, being thrown off the train didn’t necessarily mean certain death. As long as you found the clue in the station and completed some task, there was a chance to survive.
No, not just survive—there might be a chance to completely end the mission.
Yang Xiao shared his idea with Takagi Reina. She agreed with him, but it was still only a hypothesis; they needed evidence to confirm all this.
At least for now, Yang Xiao had no intention of taking the Ghost Train deeper into Youjian Mountain Station. That was simply too dangerous.
Two teammates had already been sent to Youjian Mountain Station by the Ghost Train and then vanished from the human world.
Visiting residential clusters along the Renhe Line, Yang Xiao’s group of four deliberately picked some older-looking villages and focused their key search around Youjian Mountain.
After a whole morning, aside from hearing a bunch of vague, nebulous legends, they had practically nothing to show for it.
At lunch, Yamamoto Chunai seemed a bit dejected; she had no idea how much longer she’d be stuck in this damned place.
Maybe... no, not maybe—very likely, very likely she was never getting out.
Yamamoto Chunai hung her head, eyes brimming. At that moment, she wasn’t so much afraid of death as thinking about her family.
She hadn’t become Slap Girl by choice. Her mother was sick and needed money for treatment, and she had no education and no other way to make money, so she had no choice but to do this. Some perverted customers’ twisted requests were also hard for her to stomach.
"Miss Yamamoto, don’t be sad. With Mr. Chu and the others here, we’ll definitely get out of this place alive. Please believe me." Xiao Lin Zhengyan was still whispering comfort.
Having finished the ramen in his bowl, Yang Xiao tilted his head back and "ton ton ton" drained a small bottle of cold beer. A bit of alcohol could ease the emotional fatigue and help him stay sharp in the afternoon.
"Miss Yamamoto, we’re not empty-handed. At the very least, we’ve confirmed that there’s definitely something wrong with this mountain." Setting down the empty bottle, Yang Xiao rubbed his stomach as he spoke.
"But those are all unverified rumors." Yamamoto Chunai didn’t feel comforted. She’d heard with her own ears how unreliable many of those stories sounded.
"How many different stories did we hear today in total?" Yang Xiao suddenly asked.
Yamamoto Chunai thought roughly for a moment. "At least ten."
"And what about the other mountains nearby?" Yang Xiao asked again.
That stumped Yamamoto Chunai. After a pause she answered, "It seems... it seems there aren’t any."
There weren’t just Youjian Mountain around here; there were several other mountains as well, many of whose names Yang Xiao and the others had only just learned.
"There you go. Think about it—there are so many mountains around here, yet all the supernatural stories are focused on Youjian Mountain alone. What does that tell you?" Yang Xiao guided her step by step.
Yamamoto Chunai instantly grasped what he meant. "It means Youjian Mountain is the center of all these paranormal incidents!"
"So stop looking so gloomy. I’ve already found out there are several forest fire observation posts at the foot of Youjian Mountain, with foresters stationed there." Yang Xiao paused, then continued, "Or, in your words, forest fire surveillance officers. They might know something."
Soon, after eating and drinking their fill, the four set out again. Passing by a convenience store, Yang Xiao even bought a bag of snacks, planning to save them for the night.
In the afternoon, after a bit of trekking, they really did find a Mountain Guardian cabin at the foot of the mountain.
The spot wasn’t particularly remote; it looked more like a temporary rest station, used to store food and for shift changes.
The person manning the station was an old man with graying hair, dressed in an old-style uniform that looked a bit like a police outfit with a turned-down collar. Outside the door he kept a large, pure black hunting dog.
The old man’s face was weathered, but his posture was straight and his spirits high. He was also very hospitable; after patting his beloved dog to calm it, he invited them into the cabin.
They hadn’t expected that after sitting down for a casual chat, they would actually get some information out of him.
The old man’s name was Moriyama Yasuo. According to him, he’d been stationed at this forest post for nearly forty years—a real veteran.
Like the people at the train station, he had no knowledge of any Youjian Mountain Station, but he casually brought up an old incident that immediately caught Yang Xiao’s attention.
As the old man recalled, when he was young and had just arrived here, he had once seen people bringing offerings to the entrance of Youjian Mountain Tunnel to perform rituals, and always at night.
Those people came and went in a hurry, sobbing quietly, their faces full of sorrow.
Once, he just couldn’t hold back his curiosity and secretly followed them, wanting to ask who they were paying respects to. Could it be... they had ancestors buried here?
But to his surprise, when those people saw him, they reacted like mice spotting a cat and bolted, abandoning even the unopened incense candles and offerings laid on the ground.
