Chapter 234 Strange Tales of Huaishu Road Construction Site 32

Chapter 234 Strange Tales of Huaishu Road Construction Site 32

All the players in the room gathered around the desk.

It was inefficient to pass the book around one by one, so Qin Fei took charge and explained it aloud.

The young man's clear voice echoed in the dimly lit room.

"According to the method recorded in the book, to construct this formation, nine different items are needed."

"These include cinnabar, chicken blood, rice soaked in chicken blood and copper coins, paper ash, and four items that belonged to the ghost when they were alive."

"To destroy the formation, it's simple; you just need to dig these things out from their corresponding locations."

Qin Fei's pale eyes seemed unusually dark in the unlit room: "Destroying the formation is something we can do easily. The small black house on the construction site hasn't been built yet, and with Mid-Autumn Festival tomorrow, the foreman will definitely have us speed up the construction."

The players will have a legitimate reason to enter the area. As long as they follow the directions in the book to find those nine items, it should be quite easy.

But that alone isn't enough.

To completely release the trapped ghost, they also need to light four red candles and four white candles at the four corners of the house, place four untarnished copper coins, and draw four talismans with living human blood.

When Qin Fei mentioned this step, the players hadn't reacted yet, but the female ghost spoke up first.

She hesitated for a moment before interrupting Qin Fei: "I can help you gather all these things."

The people in the neighboring dormitory had been watching them closely, and the female ghost could see that.

The players had already told her that they couldn't leave the accommodation area at night.

And once daylight came, they would immediately be under surveillance by the group next door.

Everyone on the third floor had fled, and the female ghost didn't mind making an extra trip to help her tools solve a minor problem.

Qin Fei shook his head after hearing this: "Thank you, but it's not necessary."

He waved at Cui Wenxuan, who was still in shock: "Didn't you bring a lot of these things before?"

Cui Wenxuan was momentarily confused, but after two seconds, he began pulling items out of his personal storage space.

Candles, talisman paper, cinnabar, copper coins...

Various miscellaneous items spread across the floor.

"Four red candles, four white candles, copper coins." Cui Wenxuan rummaged through the scattered items and quickly found what was needed.

The female ghost's eyes gradually widened.

Cui Wenxuan secretly glanced at the female ghost and silently curled the corner of his mouth.

Who doesn't know how to pilfer?

Qi Xiu saw this scene and couldn't help but feel a sharp pang in his brow.

What is there to be proud of???

The red-clothed female ghost looked at the items on the ground, perhaps triggered by some unpleasant memories, and the atmosphere around her suddenly turned gloomy.

It felt like a cold gust of air had invaded the room, causing many players to instinctively hunch their shoulders.

"Everything has been said. Remember to get it done tomorrow," the female ghost's voice was icy cold. "Don't try to fool me; I know you won't be here for long."

The female ghost's favorability meter had risen to nearly 20%, but she remained suspicious.

Her dark gaze swept over the faces of the players present, as if trying to memorize each one.

"Noon tomorrow is your final deadline," the female ghost issued her ultimatum.

"We can't do it."

Almost without any pause, the young man gave a swift response.

The female ghost looked terrifying, but Qin Fei seemed completely unfazed, his demeanor relaxed and his tone gentle, showing no sign of tension.

His soft eyelashes were slightly lowered, partially concealing his calm eyes, as if he were merely chatting idly: "The houses on the construction site haven't been completed yet. To avoid exposing ourselves, we'll follow the foreman's arrangements and blend into the houses tomorrow."

This meant the players couldn't decide the timing themselves.

They could only guarantee completing the task before the workday ended at five in the evening.

"And most importantly."

Qin Fei raised his eyes to meet the female ghost's gaze.

"Can you promise not to harm us after we rescue him?"

This was what Qin Fei truly cared about.

Although the female ghost and the players had reached an agreement, it was merely a cooperative task from start to finish.

The female ghost had never given any assurance that she wouldn't harm them.

With her unpredictable nature, Qin Fei had to guard against her turning on them after achieving her goal.

The air grew quiet after Qin Fei finished speaking, and neither the players nor the NPCs spoke for a while.

Standing opposite Qin Fei, the female ghost felt strangely stifled.

If Qin Fei had shown panic or arrogance, the female ghost would have exploded in anger.

But Qin Fei was so calm, so composed that the female ghost felt as if her emotions were like a punch landing on a cotton ball.

The female ghost wanted to issue a few more warnings to this living person, but she also felt that the more she spoke, the more unreasonable she seemed.

She had forgotten that, being a ghost, being unreasonable was somewhat expected of her.

"..." She gritted her teeth, her voice unnaturally clear, as if she wanted to grind the person in front of her into pieces and swallow them whole.

After a long while, the female ghost uttered a single word: "Fine."

Fine.

After the female ghost agreed to Qin Fei's demands, Lu Cheng quickly sent a text message in the guild channel.

"Lu Cheng: The mission has changed!"

Originally, the mission assigned to Lu Cheng only included the requirements and the punishment for failure. Now, it had refreshed with new content.

"Mission Reward: Gain the favor of the red-clothed ghost. Before the end of the strange tale, you can be immune to all attacks from the red-clothed ghost's side."

With the system's confirmation, even if the female ghost wanted to renege later, she couldn't!

Lu Cheng's eyes lit up.

Qin Fei's smile deepened: "We have no other issues. If you want to leave, feel free to do so anytime."

Female Ghost: ?

What was with that tone, as if giving an order to leave?

The female ghost's frustration lingered, yet she didn't know what to say. After a moment, she managed to utter: "What about those people?"

If they weren't allowed to touch their own people, surely the people in the two neighboring dormitories wouldn't matter, right?

Qin Fei nodded: "Do as you please."

Those people had nothing to do with them. Whether they lived or died was a matter of fate.

Qin Fei believed this wasn't something he should worry about.

Finally hearing something agreeable, the female ghost felt satisfied. Her form gradually faded until she disappeared into thin air.

...

Zhou Yong was unaware that he had been sold out in his sleep.

He felt this sleep was particularly good.

Ever since entering the rule world, every day was fraught with uncertainty. Even when resting in the central city, it was hard to truly relax.

But this night was different.

The heavy stone hanging over his heart seemed to have been lifted. Lying on the bed, Zhou Yong felt an indescribable sense of relaxation. He slept until morning, opening his eyes to find the sky outside turning from dark to light.

"Wake up?"

The player speaking was Qu Yuanzhou, one of Zhou Yong's closer partners in the guild and also a puppet of the butterfly.

Qu Yuanzhou walked past Zhou Yong and casually pulled back his blanket: "It's about time. We should head to the construction site."

This morning, Qu Yuanzhou noticed that the rain had stopped.

At 7:30 AM, the teams from the southeast split into two groups; one went upstairs, and the other directly to the construction site.

Upon waking up to such good news, Zhou Yong felt refreshed and smiled: "They must be getting anxious."

Qu Yuanzhou felt something was off, but couldn't pinpoint what it was, always frowning slightly.

...

At 7:50 AM.

All surviving players gathered at the entrance of the construction site.

The foreman and the contractor had entered and exited the building several times in the morning, whispering together after returning.

Players from the northwest groups didn't notice this detail, but Qin Fei's group was well aware: the two NPCs were losing their composure because they couldn't find the yin-yang master.

Fortunately, the arrangements for the construction site were already set. Even though the third floor of the building was empty, it wouldn't delay the plans.

The two NPCs whispered in a corner for a long time before gathering the players to assign today's tasks.

"Your main task today is to finish building the house on the construction site."

The foreman wore a forced smile, which seemed strained despite his efforts to appear relaxed.

"Today is the deadline for the entire project. By tonight, you must complete the last half of the wall." The foreman pointed to the center of the construction site. "Four groups will take turns working. You decide the order yourselves. Everyone, work hard and speed up the process. The sooner we finish, the sooner we get paid."

For regular workers, building a wall in a day would not only be easy but almost effortless.

However, after the foreman spoke, there was a long silence among the players.

For the players from the northwest groups, the house on the construction site was undoubtedly terrifying.

The gruesome death of the player two days ago still haunted everyone's minds. With the disappearance of the female ghost, this house had become the sole source of danger in the strange tale.

Qi Xiu and Cui Wenxuan exchanged glances and stepped forward simultaneously.

"We'll start working in the morning," Cui Wenxuan said, turning his head to glance at the two groups behind him, hinting, "If they don't want to work, we can do double the work."

Zhou Yong, of course, could not agree to let the Southeast teams do double the work.

Although the female ghost had vanished, Zhou Yong was not so careless as to simply lie down and rest.

In the end, the foreman arranged for the four teams to take turns working.

Qin Fei's East Team went first, followed by the Northwest teams, with the South Team last.

All the tools needed for bricklaying were already prepared. Qin Fei and his team put on their safety helmets and entered the small dark room, immediately enveloped by a chilling aura.

Lu Cheng's eyes kept darting towards the center of the house: "Do you guys remember... the dream we all had two nights ago?"

Everyone had the same dream, in which they were buried underground, painfully scratching at the restraints around them but unable to escape.

Without a doubt, what they dreamed about was the male ghost trapped under the construction site.

Mi Yang bent down to pick up a brick, applied cement, and placed it over the wall's gap, but his gaze was fixed far away.

In the distance, the other three teams of players were helping to mix mortar for bricklaying, but only Cui Wenxuan's team was working diligently. The other two teams were merely going through the motions, their numerous pairs of eyes like bright searchlights, all focused on the small dark room.

The entrance to the small dark room was covered with plastic sheeting, obstructing the view. The distant players couldn't see inside clearly, only catching glimpses of shadows moving about.

The location where things were buried inside the room matched exactly what was recorded in the book given by the female ghost. After thirty minutes, all nine items were dug out.

When the last bloodstained shirt was exposed to the air, the temperature in the room dropped several degrees further, causing goosebumps to rise on Qin Fei's exposed arms.

He seemed to hear a faint cry of pain.

But when he listened carefully, it disappeared.

Two hours later, the first group of players left the small dark room.

Four pairs of red and white candles were placed in the corner, copper coins were buried in the ground, and the nine pits from which items were taken were filled in, leaving no trace behind.

In the original plan, the players decided that the first group would dig up the items, and the fourth group would place the candles.

But Qin Fei vetoed this arrangement.

"If I were Zhou Yong," Qin Fei said calmly, "I would finish the wall as quickly as possible, preventing anyone else from having the chance to go back in."

Zhou Yong might not necessarily do this, but it was necessary to be cautious.

Besides, they had already made a pact with the female ghost, and completing the task early would not bring any adverse consequences.

Why complicate matters?

Qin Fei took one last deep look at the house behind him before turning to leave, passing by Zhou Yong at the entrance.