bantayden Chapter 27 Dim Candlelight
Chapter 27 Dim Candlelight
Tian Baiwei expressed her admiration for Gao Yang's "courage" in risking his life simply because he couldn't stand her.
"Where's the box?" Tian Baiwei asked.
"It's..." Yan Junchi searched the room for a while, then finally pointed to the shadow under the table and said, "Look, it's there..."
Tian Baiwei bent down and peered over.
Sure enough, the lock on the box was gone.
It's highly likely that Gao Yang accidentally broke the lock on the box while stepping on it, and then... released the contents of the box.
Tian Baiwei had a general idea of Gao Yang's death, but she was completely baffled by Xuanxuan's disappearance.
At least Gao Yang has a "corpse" for them to analyze, but Xuanxuan is nowhere to be found, neither alive nor dead...
"You don't need to worry too much."
Seeing that Tian Baiwei was so frustrated that she started biting her nails, Geng Yao couldn't help but comfort her, "You can watch the game recording after this game is over, right?"
That's right!
Tian Baiwei then remembered that she had turned on screen recording, originally intending to record Yan Junchi and the others' reactions when they were frightened, but she didn't expect it to have this unexpected use.
"So, since we can't find the reason, our top priority now is to quickly complete the mission and finish the game, and then ask Gao Yang and the others what exactly happened in the game..."
The proposal was unanimously approved by the remaining two people.
However, the harmonious atmosphere in the room only lasted for a second.
Geng Yao had initially thought the game was more difficult than they had anticipated, and suggested that they team up to complete the task. Tian Baiwei and Yan Junchi didn't object to this, but they started arguing about which task to do first... In the end, to quell the argument, they decided to go their separate ways and do their own thing.
Yan Junchi, still displeased from the argument, searched for villagers in the village with a stern face.
Because Gao Yang had logged off, Yan Junchi took over his quest to find the Red Candle. Yan Junchi wasn't really that responsible, wanting to help a companion who was no longer with the mission.
He was just putting on a brave face to avoid being ridiculed by Tian Baiwei.
Thinking of this, Yan Junchi couldn't help but complain in his heart again about how Gao Yang and Fang Haoyu had embarrassed him.
They originally came to mock Tian Baiwei and the game, but now, on the girls' side, only Liang Lexuan, who wasn't originally a combat-oriented character, logged off last night, while on the boys' side, two out of three have "died."
How embarrassing!
Even just now, Yan Junchi didn't dare to look at Tian Baiwei's face much, for fear that if they met eyes, he would see the mockery in Tian Baiwei's eyes.
If Liang Lexuan hadn't also disappeared this morning, diverting Tian Baiwei's attention, he had no doubt that Tian Baiwei would have mocked them immediately after seeing Gao Yang's death.
Therefore, he can only get revenge through the missions—as long as he completes most of the quests and clears the game, he can make up for the time he was dragged down by Fang Haoyu and Gao Yang, and Tian Baiwei won't be able to say anything.
He walked quickly through the village, lost in thought, and unknowingly found himself in a corner. Seeing that the area was clearly deserted, Yan Junchi took a deep breath and prepared to turn back.
But as he turned around, "Huh?"
His peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of a house at the very back of a row of houses, with its door half-open.
Was I seeing things wrong, or...?
Since he was already there, Yan Junchi walked over out of curiosity.
The door was indeed half open!
The room seemed to have no windows; the half-open door revealed darkness, making it impossible to see if anyone was inside. Yan Junchi stepped forward.
"……Hello?"
He stood in front of the crack in the door, peering inside:
As soon as he approached the crack in the door, he was hit in the face by a musty smell that he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Using the slanting sunlight streaming in, Yan Junchi could make out the somewhat strange layout of the room—
There was no bed, no table in the room... The empty room was only filled with rows of wooden shelves hanging on three walls.
The wooden frame was very tall; the highest shelf almost touched the ceiling, while the lowest shelf was right next to the ground.
On these wooden shelves, rows upon rows of black-painted wooden...signs? On these signs, different names were written in white paint.
However, in front of each black sign stood a white candle; the candlelight flickered and trembled in the stagnant air, and the shadows cast by it swayed slightly, blocking Yan Junchi's view of the words.
However, Yan Junchi was completely oblivious to what was written on the wooden signs. His entire attention was drawn to the blank black sign, without any writing on it, located in the center of the wooden shelf directly opposite the door.
Because in front of it was a red candle.
Red candles!
The only red candle in the entire room!
Yan Junchi's eyes lit up.
Gao Yang's mission is now complete!
Without hesitation, he pushed open the door and walked toward the red candle.
The blood-red candle dripped with an ominous glow, its wax dripping in layers like congealed old blood. The flame wasn't a warm orange-yellow, but rather a deeper, dark red. Instead of dispelling the darkness, the dark red flame cast a thin, blood-red haze over the blank black plaque before it.
Yan Junchi took a deep breath and carefully reached out his hand. The moment he touched the candle, a bone-chilling coldness shot up his fingertips.
The candle was unusually slippery, with an unpleasant oily feel. Yan Junchi suppressed his discomfort and reached out to pull the red candle from in front of the black memorial tablet.
The instant the red candle detached from the wooden frame, "Whoosh—!" A sudden gust of cold wind appeared out of nowhere in the room and rushed towards Yan Junchi.
As Yan Junchi instinctively dodged, the white candles burning silently before the black wooden sign flickered in unison. With a series of rapid, short bursts of sound, all the flames seemed to be extinguished simultaneously by an invisible hand. Wisps of smoke, carrying the smell of burning, rose straight up, only to be instantly dispersed by the wind in the room.
For some reason, the sky suddenly darkened, and both inside and outside the house became pitch black, as if we had fallen into another space; only the red candle in Yan Junchi's hand, its dark red flame suddenly rose higher, its color becoming even deeper red and almost black, began to throb violently like a living thing, and reflected an ominous blood color all around.
Those black memorial tablets, which were originally silent and shrouded in red light, began to sway slightly, whether blown by the wind or awakened by the red light.
The temperature in the room had dropped at some point, and the chill crept up Yan Junchi's ankles, sending shivers down his spine.
This is... not good...
Yan Junchi kept a wary eye on the swaying black memorial tablets while gripping the red candle in his hand, and carefully began to back away from the door.
step……
Two steps...
Three steps —
"Thump!"
His back slammed solidly into something cold and hard.
The blood in his body seemed to freeze at that moment. Yan Junchi stiffened his neck and turned his head back very slowly, bit by bit.
In that one glance, he felt a chill run from the fingertips holding the red candle straight to the top of his head—
The doorway of the house had become crowded with people.
They crowded together at the doorway, standing there silently, their bodies ramrod straight, like a silent human wall, completely blocking the only exit from the house.
Yan Junchi... This was the first time Yan Junchi had ever known that there were so many villagers in the village!
The dim red candlelight cast flickering shadows on their faces, which were expressionless, devoid of even the rise and fall of their breaths. They simply stood there, staring intently at him with a somber, piercing gaze.
"Gulp..."
Yan Junchi swallowed hard.
For some reason, even though these villagers were just ordinary people, and there weren't many young adults in the crowd, Yan Junchi still felt that these villagers, whom he would never normally pay attention to, were...very dangerous.
"What are you doing in our village's ancestral hall?" The villager standing at the front asked, his eyes lowered and his face grim.
...An ancestral hall? What's that?
However, Yan Junchi knew that now was not the time to get to the bottom of things. He took a step back away from the villagers and carefully answered, "I...I am here to get the red candles the village chief asked for."
However, even if he was slow to react, he could tell from the villagers' reactions that this thing... couldn't be taken casually.
He was about to say that he would put it back right away when he saw the villager standing at the front suddenly grin.
"You want red candles?"
As the villagers' grins widened, Yan Junchi realized something was wrong and became wary.
However, he misplaced his vigilance—he focused all his attention on guarding against the villagers, forgetting the only red candle in his hand.
A soft popping sound was heard, the red candlelight flickered slightly, and the entire room was plunged into complete darkness.
Consciousness, like a stone sinking into an ice cave, rapidly plunged into boundless chaos.
When light returned, Yan Junchi found his world completely upside down—he was hanging upside down in a room he had never seen before.
His hands were tied behind his back, and his feet were tightly bound with rough hemp rope, dangling high under a beam. He only moved his body slightly out of the subconscious after waking up, and heard the creaking sound of the ropes rubbing against the beam echoing in the enclosed space.
Because of the prolonged upside-down position, his blood rushed to the top of his head, his ears were ringing like thunder, and his head was throbbing as if it were about to explode.
The air was filled with an extremely strong and complex odor: the greasy, fishy smell unique to boiled animal fat, mixed with the pungent smell of inferior spices, plus the stuffy smell of solidified old wax... These smells weighed heavily on the lungs, making one nauseous.
There were no windows in the room, only a single oil lamp burning dimly. Yan Junchi used the dim light to survey this completely unfamiliar room.
The surrounding walls were covered with sharp iron hooks of unknown purpose, wooden and copper molds, and thin, soft white lamp wicks...
In the corner was a human-sized earthen stove, on which sat a large, dark iron pot. Thick, dark red, suspicious paste-like substance had congealed around the rim of the pot, and the earthen wall above it had been stained a blurry, charred yellow by years of grease buildup. Next to it was a large earthenware jar filled with semi-solidified wax, with wax dripping from the edge of a long-handled copper ladle hanging from it.
On the crooked wooden shelf against the wall, there were stacks of earthenware jars of different sizes and dirty colors, which seemed to contain grease from various sources.
The most eye-catching feature, of course, was the large, greasy, and shiny wooden table in the center of the room. On the table sat several unfinished candles, their bodies askew and seemingly unpainted.
Even if he wasn't familiar with the tools in the room, Yan Junchi knew what the room was for after seeing the half-finished products on the table.
This must be a candle-making workshop.
If he weren't hanging upside down in the center of the room like a piece of material to be processed, Yan Junchi would probably be very happy to have discovered this place where red candles could be made.
But what should he do now?
He had no sharp weapon on him that could break the rope around his wrist; judging by the thickness of the rope, it shouldn't be something he could break by force alone.
Even if he were willing to swallow his pride and ask Tian Baiwei and Geng Yao for help, this unfortunate game simply didn't have an in-game chat system, so he couldn't even send a message, let alone ask for help.
Just as Yan Junchi was racking his brains for a solution, the door creaked open.
Yan Junchi quickly looked towards the door. He had originally intended to use the scenery outside to determine his current location, but to his surprise, it was pitch black outside.
A villager walked in from the darkness.
He was a middle-aged man with a stocky build; he wore elbow-length leather gloves and a brown leather apron around his waist, which was covered in layers of grease and suspicious dark stains.
"What...what are you going to do?!" Yan Junchi asked with difficulty.
But the villager didn't answer. He just glanced coldly at Yan Junchi hanging upside down—his gaze was more like that of someone looking at a piece of meat or raw material, rather than a living person—and then walked straight to the blackened earthen wall on one side.
He reached out and took down a strangely shaped iron hook from the wall.
The hook is about a foot long, thick and black, with an exceptionally sharp tip and several deep grooves carved at the bend.
He carried the hook and walked step by step toward Yan Junchi. His leather boots made a sticky "crunch" sound as they stepped on the stained ground.
"What exactly are you trying to do?!"
As the villager stopped in front of him and gently stroked the hook tip with his gloved thumb, Yan Junchi seemed to realize something and began to struggle desperately.
However, the cold hook tip still touched his scalp.
"Pfft—"
The cold metal pierced through the top of the skull without any resistance.