Chapter 994: Chapter 698: Bell_2
Yang Xiao took out a hanger from the closet, and Qu Hong used it to probe into the gap, sweeping out the clutter inside piece by piece. They were all inconspicuous little items—batteries, buttons, straws, ballpoint pens—until the last object appeared, instantly capturing the attention of Yang Xiao and the others.
It was a bell, copper-colored, resembling a wind chime. Most notably, the bell’s tail was attached to a white thread.
Through comparison, Yang Xiao confirmed that this thread was the same kind he had retrieved from the end of the nail earlier. In other words, originally, bells like this one were hanging under each of these nails. Every door and every window had a row of wind chimes suspended behind them.
At the same time, Yang Xiao suddenly recalled something—the female ghost that appeared by his side. Before she manifested, there had been the sound of bells.
It all connected!
No doubt about it, this was the place!
Yu Kai took the bell and shook it lightly. Before Yang Xiao could stop him, it was already too late. Strangely, the bell didn’t make a sound at all.
Peering through the gap, they discovered that the inside of the bell seemed to be blocked by something, perhaps a wad of paper, yellow and faded. Without proper tools, they couldn’t open it. Yang Xiao asked two people to lift him up so he could stretch out his arm and rehang the bell on the end of the nail above the doorframe. Sure enough, it fit perfectly.
After inspecting the ground floor, the group treaded carefully up the staircase to the second floor. The second floor’s space was somewhat smaller: one bedroom, one bathroom, and two previously unused rooms whose purpose remained unclear. Perhaps due to years of disrepair, the bathroom pipes were heavily corroded, layers of rust climbing up to the ceiling, resembling decaying flesh on a corpse. Under the dim lighting, the sight was unsettling.
The bedroom on this floor appeared to have been used too—the chaos here was even more intense than downstairs. Scattered across the floor were dozens of unidentified paper wads. Yang Xiao sighed inwardly, marveling at how Boss Sun was indeed unscrupulous and would do anything for money.
Much like the first floor, the doors and windows of the second floor were also adorned with dark, rusted nails. Combined, the total number of nails in these rooms easily exceeded a hundred.
As Yang Xiao was crouched down, looking for clues, Xi Huijun, positioned closer to the back of the group, suddenly whipped her head around.
"What are you doing?" Her abrupt movement startled Dou Jie, who was behind her. After all, the dim surroundings and the haunted house heightened everyone’s nerves.
"Did you... did you hear something?" Xi Huijun’s face had turned pale. Her terrified expression didn’t look contrived.
"What sound?" The stillness around was deafening. Qu Hong frowned as she pressed for answers, hearing nothing herself.
At that moment, Yang Xiao felt a pang in his chest, a sudden sense of foreboding. "A crisp, clear sound—it sounded... it sounded like a bell ringing," Xi Huijun stammered, trembling as she pointed toward the shadowy staircase, her face contorted in fear like she might break down crying. "From... over there."
In that instant, every single pair of eyes—veteran or rookie—shifted toward the staircase. The old wooden steps led downward, currently shrouded in dimness. Even when illuminated with the flashlight, due to the angle, several patches of shadow lingered.
"Did anyone else hear it?" Yang Xiao aimed his flashlight at the staircase and quietly asked. Despite maintaining vigilance since their arrival, he hadn’t heard anything resembling bells. He was certain of it.
"No."
"I didn’t either."
"Nope, I didn’t hear it."
...
Besides Xi Huijun, none of the others heard a thing. Faced with this scene, even Xi Huijun began to doubt herself.
"The hell’s wrong with you? Are you imagining things?" Dou Jie, still rattled by her earlier scare, asked sharply. As a newcomer, experiencing hallucinations or auditory delusions under the stress of the job wasn’t uncommon. Dou Jie had witnessed it firsthand during a past task where a rookie became so disturbed by the accidental playback of music by teammates that he became mentally unhinged and jumped out the window, ending fatally.
Feeling the mounting hostility from the rest, Xi Huijun shrank back in fear, curling into herself as she leaned against the wall. Her voice diminished to a barely audible whisper, like the buzz of mosquitoes. "I... I don’t know."
"Can you still hear that noise now?" Yang Xiao pressed her in a low voice, deliberately avoiding uttering the words ’bell sound.’ Deep inside, he resisted even mentioning it as the barefoot female ghost’s sudden appearance behind him had left him with a deeply unsettling memory.
Xi Huijun remained silent for an agonizingly long time, her hesitation exhausting Qu Hong’s patience. "Answer the damn question, are you mute or what?"
Xi Huijun shook her head repeatedly before finally answering timidly, "No... it’s gone. Maybe... maybe I misheard. I’m sorry."
Had the surroundings not been so quiet, judging by everyone’s expressions, Xi Huijun would likely have been punished physically. Veteran players had very little tolerance for rookies during missions, seeing them usually as either expendable or burdensome.
"Let’s go downstairs and check it out," Yang Xiao decided.
"Now?" Yu Kai twitched his lips.
"What other choice do you have? You want to linger in this haunted place forever?" Yang Xiao had checked earlier and determined that jumping down from the second floor was far too dangerous.
To leave, they had no choice but to return to the ground floor—there was no avoiding it. "I’ll go first. Keep up and maintain some distance; don’t bunch up too closely." Yang Xiao grabbed his flashlight and took the lead toward the stairs.
This wasn’t because Yang Xiao wanted to act heroic or play the leader. It was a calculated decision. There were two scenarios at play: first, Xi Huijun, as a rookie, was overly nervous and had misheard something—in that case, it would be a harmless scare, and the ground floor wouldn’t pose any danger.
Second, if Xi Huijun hadn’t misheard and the bell’s sound was real, it meant the ghost had appeared. Since only Xi Huijun heard the bell, she was most likely the one targeted by the ghost.
If the second scenario were true, then walking ahead posed minimal danger for Yang Xiao. Moreover, he preferred facing threats head-on rather than risking an ambush from behind.
Just as Yang Xiao summoned his courage and stepped onto the staircase, a sudden bang erupted from downstairs. Xi Huijun let out a piercing scream and bolted. Her abrupt flight immediately threw the group into chaos, and within moments, only Yang Xiao was left standing alone.
Realizing the predicament, Yang Xiao had no choice but to retreat, rushing to regroup with the others in the innermost bedroom.
Seeing the group panting and still shaken, Yang Xiao’s heart sank further. These people lacked reliable composure. If it came down to life-and-death, sticking with them might prove fatal.
Dou Jie’s face was ashen, his hands trembling uncontrollably. "There really... really is a ghost. Xi Huijun wasn’t imagining things!"
"It was just a noise—don’t panic. The more chaos, the more likely you’ll die," Yang Xiao said, steadying the group before turning to Xi Huijun. By this time, she had been reduced to tears, standing stiffly like a plank of wood.
"Xi Huijun, Xi Huijun!" Yang Xiao called out.
When Xi Huijun didn’t respond at all, Yang Xiao exchanged a glance with Qu Hong. Qu Hong understood instantly and delivered a sharp slap to Xi Huijun’s face. Sure enough, with a resounding ’snap,’ the blow seemed to bring Xi Huijun back to her senses, her gaze clearing significantly.
"Can you still hear the bell sound now?" Yang Xiao asked again urgently. What worried him most was the possibility that the female ghost might already be upon them, and they remained oblivious.
After all, for now, Xi Huijun was the only one who seemed capable of hearing that sound.
