Chapter 97

"I'm not going!" Shen Jiarui suddenly screamed, taking several steps back. "I'm not going! It's too terrifying, wuwuwu, I want to go down the mountain..."

Chang Anning turned around abruptly, her gaze becoming sharp.

"You've been acting strange since just now, Shen Jiarui. What exactly are you afraid of? Or could it be... that you are the murderer, and you're afraid we'll find evidence in the wooden cabin?"

"I'm not!" Shen Jiarui broke down in tears, her face smeared with tears and snot. "I'm not the murderer! What right do you have to say that about me!"

"Then why don't you dare to go in?"

"I'm scared! Is that not allowed?!" Shen Jiarui shouted hysterically. "If you haven't experienced the feeling of almost dying, stop speculating about others!"

"Don't you think the murderer is the Pen Spirit? Why don't you say Chi Luoyi is the murderer? She condoned the Pen Spirit killing Jiang Yue and watched coldly as a classmate died outside the door."

"You must be the murderer, Chi Luoyi!"

The spearhead suddenly turned toward Su Mian.

Jingzhe immediately blocked Su Mian: "Shen Jiarui, calm down."

"Calm down?! How can I calm down!" Shen Jiarui waved her arms, acting as if she were insane.

"I can't stay in this ghost place for even a second! Does it matter who the murderer is? Hurry up and vote! No matter who we vote for, I want to leave! Right now!"

Her mental state was clearly not right; the whites of her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils were dilated, and her breathing was rapid.

"She's gone a bit crazy," Jingzhe whispered to Su Mian.

Just as Chang Anning wanted to step forward to grab Shen Jiarui, Shen Jiarui gave a violent push.

"Ah!"

Caught off guard, Chang Anning fell backward, also hitting Jingzhe and Su Mian, who was barely standing.

The four of them rolled down a steep slope like dominoes.

The world spun around.

Tree branches scraped against their skin, and dirt and dead leaves poured into their mouths and noses.

Su Mian subconsciously protected her head, feeling that she had rolled seven or eight times before finally stopping, ending up in a patch of soft grass.

"Cough, cough..." She struggled to sit up and found that the other three were also climbing up one after another.

Miraculously, apart from scrapes and bruises, no one was seriously injured.

"Shen Jiarui, you—" Chang Anning just wanted to get angry, but the sound got stuck in her throat.

They had rolled directly under the wooden cabin, only a few meters away from the door.

The door was open, like a bloody mouth.

The space inside the door was full of shelves, densely packed with dolls of uniform size, staring at them without blinking.

"Uh..."

Chang Anning finally felt scared in hindsight and moved her body to retreat, but a powerful suction force grabbed her neck and dragged her in. The few of them fell into the net like captured lambs.

With a 'pop', the door closed, and only countless pairs of glass eyes reflected light through the gaps in the nailed-up wooden boards.

Jingzhe: "Why did Shen Jiarui stop screaming?"

"She fainted."

Su Mian checked her breathing, leaned her against the door, and looked up at those dolls; a guess gradually became clear.

She had seen the patterns on some of the dolls' clothes in the head teacher's office, on the fabric pressed down by books.

Was it originally used for cutting clothes for the dolls?

Then, was the owner of these dolls also their head teacher?

Jingzhe took a step forward and carefully observed the shelf labels corresponding to each doll.

"They are people's names, and most of them are from our class."

She scanned them one by one but accidentally bumped into the table in the center; the desk lamp lit up instantly, almost blinding them.

There was a simple workbench there, with tools scattered on it: scissors, needle and thread, paint, and glue.

Several cardboard boxes were piled next to the table, with cotton and fabric exposed in the boxes.

Jingzhe: "Whose workbench does it look like?"

"Our head teacher's."

Su Mian took a step forward and touched the workbench, suddenly feeling a looseness; she pried it open, and a strong stench of rot hit her.

"Ugh... quickly, close it."

Chang Anning covered her mouth and retreated, feeling so uncomfortable she almost rolled her eyes; Su Mian frowned and retreated.

"It's ashes," Jingzhe said.

She looked at the names on the wall; Liang Chuchu was also among them, but the place where her doll was placed was empty, clearly already sent out.

What significance did these dolls have for the students? Was their function the same as Liang Chuchu's? Or was there another hidden story?

"Holy crap!"

Chang Anning suddenly screamed and pointed to a shelf, which clearly had Shen Jiarui's name on it, but the place where the doll was placed was empty.

"How... how does she also have a doll?"

"Everyone has one."

Jingzhe looked closely and found her own and Chang Anning's dolls, one with blonde hair and one with black hair.

Su Mian looked for a long time before finding her doll in the corner; hers was unique, tied with a side braid, and on her pale little face, a pair of dead fish eyes glared at Su Mian with resentment.

Very good, it looks a lot like her.

She put the doll in her bag; the sky was getting dark, and Su Mian reminded them to leave; Jingzhe and Chang Anning dragged Shen Jiarui down the mountain.

Although she was the murderer in this case, she didn't know many things; now it seems that these events revolve around Liang Chuchu, but they involve the entire class, and even the entire school.

Why did some dolls disappear while theirs were still on the shelves? Why did Liang Chuchu's doll turn into her own face? Could it be that after death, the soul was trapped in the body of this doll?

And the ashes... what were the ashes used for?

Su Mian, who washed up and went to bed, couldn't figure it out, so she took the doll out to look at it again.

She poked its face and fiddled with its hands, suddenly feeling that the doll's expression was even uglier; she sighed, chose not to waste her energy, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

––

"Three days left until the college entrance exam."

The time for voting was getting closer and closer; except for Su Mian, the other three looked very tense, relying on intuition.

Su Mian felt that Shen Jiarui was very likely to know that she was the murderer; were the things she said while going crazy yesterday a lucky guess? Or did she really know something?

The problem lies right here.

How did she know? Was her doll on her person, and would she do something with the doll?

Su Mian suddenly remembered the class rules.

You can write what you think in your heart on the draft paper, and the head teacher will answer for you.

So she pulled out a piece of draft paper and paused with her pen.

What to write?

She wrote a math problem casually, but after waiting for a whole class, strangely, nothing happened; what would Shen Jiarui most likely write?

She supported her cheek and suddenly put pen to paper.

I want to live.

This time, she seemed to hear something calling, sometimes far and sometimes near, the voice was blurry, but... it seemed to be her own voice.

Su Mian immediately took out the doll from her schoolbag; eerily, the doll that had its mouth turned down yesterday was now opening its mouth, as if waiting to be fed.

When class was over, she was called to the office again; the head teacher seemed very angry.

As soon as she entered the door, she glared at Su Mian, muttering in her mouth.