Free Web NovelChapter 340: Chapter 144: Astonishing Truth
Bai Wu hoped to get some clues from the radio.
At least to find the physical embodiment of another strange tale, which now seemed like a game of hide and seek.
In the past, he was weak and pitiful, hiding in corners unnoticed by Evil Fallen, slowly gathering information, looking for the "words" that could exploit their vulnerabilities.
The current situation is that these Evil Fallen are hiding and gradually growing stronger, waiting to surpass Bai Wu before reappearing to kill him.
The tides had completely turned, so the most important thing for Bai Wu right now was to find all sorts of clues.
But this time... the content on the tapes from the radio did not provide much in the way of clues.
The tape seemed to be sent by Zhao Cuican from downstairs, featuring content from Zhao Cuican’s midnight show. The little girl had put it in her drawer, clearly just out of pure fondness.
If there was anything of note in the content, it was that Zhao Cuican seemed to care a lot about his younger sister, who was a late-life child of his father. His father had divorced several times, and in his forties, with a woman in her early thirties, he fathered the sister.
All this was recorded on the radio, and there was a sentence from Zhao Cuican that slightly moved Bai Wu.
"I hope my sister can live a happy and healthy life. Although I narrate stories that hide in the darkness, in my heart, I am adamant they are just stories, which is why I can recount them without fear," he said.
Because he did not fear or believe in certain things, he was fearless, which was admirable. But it wasn’t suitable for a horror story creator.
Only those who can scare themselves can tell good horror stories; no wonder Zhao Cuican’s program was not popular.
As for the stories Zhao Cuican told, Bai Wu found them too lackluster.
Aside from "I have been watching you on television for two days," there was hardly anything noteworthy.
For example, a bizarre segment about a cat that liked to eat cats was quite baffling—
It was rumored that cats were going missing locally, so people began to search for the cat thief. But in the end, they found nothing because it was beyond their imagination that the cats were not stolen by humans, but were eaten by a cat that everyone was familiar with and fond of.
The tale was absurd, but not scary. It seemed to convey something, yet it was very obscure.
However, the lack of clues on the radio did not affect Bai Wu’s judgement; he stroked his chin:
"There is no one in this room, but my deduction should be correct. The traffickers abducted this girl, maybe when she was very young, and have been keeping her close by all along."
"Since it’s a trafficking ring, with both young and not-so-young members, they probably aim to appear like a family, right?"
"So, the ’brother’ doesn’t bother to disguise himself because it’s unnecessary."
"And the reason the ’parents’ don’t let the ’brother’ touch the sister is probably because they hope to sell her for a good price?"
Bai Wu continued to search the sister’s room for clues, but the other things he found had no real value.
Up to this point, he had learned a bit of the ins and outs. A false family of four lived here, the young daughter having been stolen by the other three people.
Because she was often abused, she hired the elevator murderer to kill her ’parents’, but... it failed.
Her ’parents’ didn’t die, and realizing the people she lived with were not her real parents, she committed suicide. frёeωebɳovel.com
And the diary hinted at one thing—there was a murderer in this apartment building who could kill on behalf of others.
That concluded Bai Wu’s entire exploration of this room. After combing through the information to ensure nothing was missed, he was ready to move on to the sixth floor.
He searched each level, aiming to gather all the information he could before midnight arrived.
That was what Bai Wu thought, but just as he walked to the door, about to leave room 5-12, he suddenly halted.
There were no pop-up notes in his eyes, nor did the TV emit any sound. Bai Wu stopped because he intuitively felt he had missed an important piece of information:
"Something’s not right... something’s not right!"
He quickly recalled what the Eye had mentioned when he entered this room.
[This room at the end of the corridor has a very thick wall, This place once housed a family of four—dad, mom, brother, sister. The sister was interesting; she made a kind-hearted mistake.]
Bai Wu had pondered over this statement before, but now, having gained some clues, and revisiting it, he found its meaning had suddenly shifted.
"The sister made a kind-hearted mistake, the sister was interesting... But whether it’s commissioning the elevator murderer to kill, or committing suicide, both could only be considered mistakes, certainly not kind-hearted. Moreover, within the style of the Eye, those who are called interesting... are usually not simple." fгeewebnovёl.com
Although the pair of eyes had seen many people, there were very few who could be praised by it. The people and things in its view were clearly ranked, or to put it another way, observed hierarchy.
The greatest riddle was always hidden in the remarks of Prayle’s Eye, after all, it was a "semi-omniscient" pair of eyes.
Bai Wu turned around:
"This room at the end of the corridor has a very thick wall, the remark wouldn’t mention this for no reason... There must be something wrong with this wall."
Just as he was about to drift away from the correct answer, deceived, Bai Wu suddenly returned to the right track because of the content of the remarks. And the truth of the entire story also took a turn as Bai Wu turned around.
When Bai Wu looked at the room again, he was no longer in such a hurry.
"Haste makes waste, perhaps there is more to the contents of this room than I imagined."
Bai Wu began to inspect the mother’s room.
Since this mother was one of the traffickers, she naturally was a faux mother, yet the room she shared with the father indeed resembled the layout remembered by Bai Wu from other parents’ rooms in his previous lifetime.
Bai Wu even noticed a few books on the shelf—"How to Get Along with Children," "Adolescent Children," "Home Cooking Manual," "Basic Adult English."
It seemed very real, Bai Wu remembered a mom in his town who also read cooking-related books and studied English.
Only, as time went on, she did learn cooking, but her English remained the same few phrases.
About the books "How to Get Along with Children," and "Adolescent Children," once one considers the person to be a trafficker, these books take on a different flavor, making one feel even more that the person is a trafficker.
After all, traffickers who kidnap children always have to deal with them.
But the strange thing is exactly here, real traffickers would never read such books, and when kidnappers traffic children, they rarely choose those who are eleven years old.
Bai Wu opened "Adolescent Children" and found a bookmark at page ninety-four, where the content read:
"Something appeared on the child’s underwear, I mentioned it to his dad, and he just laughed it off, saying I’m worrying about nothing, the child is growing up, we don’t need to do anything, kids are not happy discussing these things with adults."
What followed was an explanation, warning parents not to overreact. Obviously, the mother had stopped reading after this point.
Bai Wu suddenly had a chilling sensation down his spine, not from fear, but from disbelief and astonishment, finding it hard to accept a certain deduction.
Because he suddenly realized... this person seemed like a real mom, not a fake one portrayed by a trafficker.
This woman might have considered the content in the book to be reasonable, thinking she shouldn’t pay too much attention to her child’s budding concept of sex, so she relaxed and stopped reading this book.
All of this seemed to indicate... she was very concerned about her son and tried to think from her son’s perspective.
These clues did not bring joy to Bai Wu; his expression became even more solemn.
Next, Bai Wu went to the brother’s room in search of clues. In this room, all he found was some pornographic material.
Since he thought the most significant clue was in the sister’s room, he didn’t look too closely the first time. He just found it curious that these magazines and CDs were somewhat too conspicuous.
But as Bai Wu raised his head, his gaze went towards the air conditioner’s filter slot, and a remark appeared.
[I wanted to give you a little surprise, didn’t expect you to find it so quickly, yes, something is hidden inside. Hurry up and take a look.]
Bai Wu dismantled the air conditioner’s filter slot and, as expected, found something inside—a stack of photographs.
There were no textual descriptions, just the photos. It was the brother taking pictures of the television with his cellphone.
At first, Bai Wu found it strange. Why would anyone take photos of their TV with a phone?
But the next second, he noticed something was off.
At a glance, there seemed to be nothing on the TV—all the photos were the same. The television was pitch black, clearly turned off.
However, Bai Wu was, after all, an experienced detective, and he instantly noticed the eerie detail.
Although each photograph was of the phone aimed at a turned-off TV, the TV screen can reflect images!
In the reflection on the screen, Bai Wu noticed two girls!
There were nine photographs in total, and if you looked closely, you could see two girls together in every one of them!
It was too dark to make out many details, but Bai Wu could feel that one girl’s eyes in the reflection were sinister.
"We know that TVs occasionally reveal certain information... Since this big brother is taking pictures of the TV, obviously he thinks something inconceivable is showing."
Bai Wu could imagine such a scene—
A teenage boy wandering around the house, passing by the television, discovers reflections of two girls in the TV screen, one with a dark expression staring at him!
Clearly, there was nothing behind him, so why would there be two girls in the reflection of the TV?
This probably gave the brother a good scare!
"He saw something supernatural, but why hide the photos?"
Bit by bit, Bai Wu started piecing together the clues.
"If the mother is truly the mother, and the son she cares for is truly her son, then would he just leave CDs and magazines scattered about?"
"Moreover, with a cellphone... those CDs and magazines are even less likely to be there."
If it were collecting physical books, that’s one thing, but if it’s for viewing adult content—clearly, the phone would be more convenient.
So suddenly, Bai Wu’s previous deductions seemed to be overturned... that spine-chilling feeling hit him once again.
In the end, Bai Wu found the eye’s description of that very thick wall—
"The scene is hard to wreck, so there’s no need to demolish it just yet. You must be wondering, what’s hidden behind the wall? As a good partner, why would I pose you a riddle? Let me tell you straight, behind the wall are three skeletons. But what is the kind-hearted mistake? That cannot be revealed just yet.
As for these three skeletons... let me tell you one more heart-wrenching detail—they are a family of three. Remember the rule I mentioned? ’Believe, and it exists,’ and this rule... someone has proven it once."]
Three skeletons, a family of three. Could it be the father, mother, brother... but that shouldn’t be...
In that moment, Bai Wu finally put all the pieces together, and although there was no absolute evidence, he suddenly thought of a perfect crime, a terrifying twist!
"Girls are disappearing frequently in the neighborhood, everyone suspects human traffickers, and indeed there are traffickers here."
"But no matter how the police search, they cannot find the traffickers’ whereabouts. Why? Because it never occurred to the police that the image of the trafficker is far from usual!"
"This trafficker is smart, cunning, cruel, and evil... and most importantly, she is a... girl!"
Who would suspect a monster that eats cats... is a cat herself?
The words of Zhao Cuican on the horror broadcast, that absurd and not at all horrifying story Bai Wu heard... had finally taken on a sinister turn.
It seemed to remind Bai Wu of another thing Zhao Cuican had said—
"I have always been telling horror stories, but I’ve discovered that the most terrifying thing is my reality. I am very worried about my sister."
What if the brother in this family, the two girls he saw on TV... one was Zhao Cuican’s sister... and the other was the sister from this house?
What if the phrase "Spectating and silence are also complicity in sin" wasn’t referring to onlookers coldly watching a girl being bullied... but to this family of three being bullied?
Bai Wu’s index finger trembled again:
"No one thought of the cat eater as a cat, so no one thought that the one who actually took those little girls away... was herself a little girl!"
"Little girls kept disappearing, prompting the people in the apartment to call the police, but the police couldn’t find her, yet not being found wasn’t what she wanted to see."
"Thus, she killed her father, mother, and brother... and hid them within that thick wall."
"She then committed suicide. But the so-called suicide... was just an illusion. She carefully falsified a ’brother who liked to molest his sister,’ while also cautiously hiding her diary, but didn’t hide it too well!"
"This secret compartment of the drawer, it’s actually quite normal... People always want to believe the first truth they painstakingly uncover, yet aren’t willing to believe in things that come too easily, just like she fooled me too!"
Who would suspect a little girl? Especially one who has committed suicide? Especially the police from Prayle... who found in the secret compartment a whole diary of the girl being abused. Just when the little girl has killed herself... it so happens that she is not related by blood to this family, and it also happens that this place is always losing girls, indicating the presence of traffickers...
Thinking of the sinister and wicked smile of that little girl in the photo, Bai Wu couldn’t help but think of a movie—a similarly cute, yet decades old "girl."
At this moment, however, Bai Wu still had one doubt—
"Why did she fabricate a ’murderous demon’ that could grant wishes?"
As his thoughts reached this point, Bai Wu narrowed his eyes, seriously contemplating for a few seconds:
"Verification! Yes, she was verifying the rule! Is it possible... that the elevator murderer never existed... but in the end, she created it using the rules of this place?"
The apocalypse descended, and various places in Baichuan City began to undergo strange changes, with the rules becoming weird and bizarre.
A little girl was picked up by a family, who thought they had only taken in an ordinary girl.
But the girl was far more terrifying than they imagined, harboring some twisted obsession for "girls" similar in size to herself.
More and more girls disappeared, and with the entire apartment already experiencing odd occurrences, the place became ghostly and filled with fear.
The girl’s body, seemingly empowered by the distorted rules, gained a certain ability to peek into the area’s rules. Upon understanding the rules of this prison, she began to formulate her evil plan!
So, the urban legend of the elevator murderer never existed, but after people saw the little girl’s suicide note, combined with other pre-existing urban legends in the apartment, more and more people began to believe in something... under the influence of the girl’s diary.
In the end, that thing really came into existence!
"’Mommy and Daddy said, the elevator stopped on the fifth floor, I hope it’s not another dead person.’"
"This sentence misled me, making me think the elevator murderer was an established urban legend, but perhaps it was just something that this little girl... no, this witch, suggested... and created."
"Clearly, this witch was not some frail girl; her body must have been given power by the apocalyptic rules, with a high probability of being Evil Fallen. So her suicide was real... but she couldn’t truly die."
"The family of three was not a group of traffickers... they were just unfortunate scapegoats, who were then hidden in the thick wall, unknown to anyone. In the end, the witch’s suicide allowed this matter to fester."
Bai Wu could imagine, as the witch died, people found the little girl’s hidden diary during the investigation, and thus, the longstanding unsolvable case of missing girls... was closed.
Because people always believe in their own prejudices... how could a cat eat a cat?
This tremendous subversion lacked absolute proof for Bai Wu, and there were still some questionable areas, but just at this moment, as if to confirm a certain rule—Bai Wu felt an intense chill approaching.
One of the six urban legends finally made an appearance! Standing behind Bai Wu was a girl with her hair draped over, her gaze malicious, a wicked smile on her face.
