I don't know how I got back to the shabby house where Xiao Zhang and Meiling were hiding. My memory seemed to have been broken, leaving only a chaotic horror and disgusting memory of the stench of corpses. The highly rotten and twisted corpse under the rubble kept flashing back in front of my eyes, and I seemed to hear the "rustling" sound of maggots crawling in my ears. My stomach was still churning violently, my body couldn't help shaking, and I seemed to smell the sweet and deadly stench with every breath.

  When I appeared in front of the crooked wooden door again, looking pale and trembling, Xiao Zhang in the room was startled by my appearance. Although he was still in a state of obsession and trance, when he saw me looking so lost and almost faint, a trace of doubt and vague uneasiness flashed in his empty eyes.

  "Xue.Sister Xue? What.what's wrong with you? What happened?" he murmured, his voice still vague, but seemed a little more sober than before.

  Meiling was also awakened from her dazed state. She raised her tear-stained face and looked at me timidly.

  I opened my mouth to tell them what I had discovered, to describe the horrific scene, but my throat seemed to be tightly grasped by an invisible cold hand, and I couldn't utter a single word. The extreme terror and nausea almost made me lose the ability to speak.

  I could only shake my head vigorously and point in the direction where the stench came from outside the house, my eyes filled with unspeakable fear.

  Xiao Zhang looked blankly in the direction of my finger, sniffed again, and the infatuated expression on his face gradually faded, replaced by doubt and vigilance. "What's that smell. It stinks." He frowned.

  Meiling also sniffed carefully, then uttered a short cry of surprise and covered her nose with her hands: "It smells so bad! Like. like the smell of a dead mouse."

  "No. no." I finally found some voice, hoarse and trembling, "It's. it's a corpse. a human corpse."

  "What.what?!" Xiao Zhang and Meiling both widened their eyes at the same time, their faces suddenly turned pale!

  "Corpse?! Where is it?!" Xiao Zhang stood up suddenly and shouted in a sharp voice.

  I trembled as I described my discovery in a disjointed and incoherent manner: the collapsed ruins, the strong stench, the buried, highly decomposed corpse, and. the twisted arms and strange scratches on the body.

  With every word I said, I felt my stomach churning again, and the scene in front of me seemed to become blurry again.

  After listening to my description, the room fell into a deathly silence, with only the heavy breathing of the three of us trembling with fear.

  Meiling couldn't hold it back any longer and burst into tears. Her cry was sharp and desperate, as if she wanted to vent all the fear she had accumulated in the past few days. "Someone's dead.someone's really dead.I don't want to stay here anymore! I want to go home! Xiao Zhang! Let's go home! Please!!" She shook Xiao Zhang's arm frantically.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  But Xiao Zhang's reaction was beyond my expectation. He didn't break down and cry like Meiling, nor did he get mad and panic like before. His face was as pale as a piece of paper, his body was shaking violently, and his eyes were filled with extreme fear, but at the same time. there was also a strange, almost twisted. anger and suspicion?

  He suddenly shook off Meiling's hand, turned his head, and stared at me with a terribly gloomy look in his eyes.

  "Corpse.Are you sure it's a human corpse?" His voice was low and suppressed, as if squeezed out from between his teeth.

  "I. I'm sure." I felt uneasy at his cold eyes, but still nodded affirmatively.

  "How did you find out?" He pressed on. "Why did you find out? Have you been. hiding something from us?!"

  His question was like a bucket of ice water that brought me back from the shock of discovering the body. I was stunned: "You.what do you mean?"

  "What do you mean?!" Xiao Zhang suddenly exploded, shouting in a hoarse voice, "What kind of shitty reporter are you? You came to this kind of ghost place alone! And you know so much about this place! You know where the symbols are! You know where the old people are! And now a dead body has been found! Who the hell are you?! Are you in cahoots with the ghosts here?! Or. or it's you."

  He hadn't finished his words, but his vicious suspicion was already revealed!

  A mixture of shock, grievance and anger instantly surged into my heart!

  "Are you crazy?!" I looked at him in disbelief, "How could it be possible that I. I'm also a victim! I'm also trapped here! I almost died too!"

  "Who knows whether what you said is true or not?!" Xiao Zhang's eyes were red and he was extremely excited. Fear had completely distorted his reason. "Maybe. maybe there is no such thing as 'ghost wall'! Maybe there is no 'white snake lady' or 'fox spirit'! You just made them up to scare us! Just for. just for." He couldn't go on, as if he didn't even know how to make up the story.

  "Xiao Zhang! How.how can you say that to Sister Xue!" Even Meiling, who was crying beside her, couldn't stand it anymore and sobbed, "Sister Xue.she doesn't look like a bad person."

  "You know shit!" Xiao Zhang interrupted her rudely, "Women are the best at lying! Especially beautiful women!" He pointed his finger at me again, his eyes sinister, "Tell me! What is your purpose?! Did you kill that corpse?!"

  "You. you are totally unreasonable!" I was so angry that I was shaking all over. Fear, exhaustion, and the groundless suspicion and insults made me almost out of control. I really wanted to rush up and slap him, but reason told me not to do so. In this environment, internal strife would only accelerate our demise.

  The atmosphere in the room instantly dropped to freezing point. Fear was like a catalyst, rapidly corroding the fragile trust between us. Suspicion and hostility were like poisonous snakes, lingering and spitting out their venom in everyone's heart.

  The three of us seemed to have become three isolated islands. Although we were in the same small space, our hearts were so far apart.

  Silence. Deathly silence.

  Only Meiling's suppressed sobs and the occasional creepy noises coming from the thick fog outside the window (is it real? Or are we hallucinating?) continued to intensify the horror atmosphere in the house.

  The highly decomposed corpse was like a heavy shadow hanging over the hearts of all of us. It not only represented the threat of death, but also acted as a catalyst, stimulating the darkest, most selfish and most unbearable side of our hearts.

  The seeds of suspicion have been planted.

  The dam of trust has collapsed.

  What will be waiting for us next?

  I looked at Xiao Zhang's gloomy and twisted face, then at Meiling's desperate and empty eyes, and an unprecedented coldness and despair surged in my heart.

  Perhaps. the real horror is not this cursed village, but the human heart twisted by fear in the desperate situation?