0p0 Chapter 452 [The Train] Zhang Qiang's Purpose?
Chapter 452 [The Train] Zhang Qiang's Purpose?
In a remote, abandoned house.
Chen Ji stared intently at the horrific scene before him, as painful groans echoed in his ears.
After he and Du Tingfeng left the woods, the further they walked westward into the village, the more they felt something was wrong. The abnormality finally erupted when they approached the village chief's house where they had previously stayed.
The air was so oppressive that it was almost suffocating, and not a single insect chirp or bird call could be heard.
And if you walk a little further west, you'll find Zhang Qiang's home!
This means they have entered the ghostly realm.
Moreover, that ghost has definitely already made its move.
Sure enough, the village chief's house was empty, except for a yellowed old diary lying on the ground. The two picked it up and immediately realized something was wrong.
Just as Chen Ji had guessed, this was Zhang Tiegen's house. The diary only recorded the early grudges between Zhang Tiegen and the brothers Zhang Qiang and Zhang Zhu.
One sentence was circled in red:
[That bastard Zhang Zhu, relying on his job as a gravedigger, actually swapped his mother's grave with my family's ancestral grave...]
"How did this diary end up here?"
Du Tingfeng said warily, "Thirty or forty years have passed, and apart from this diary, nothing else has been left in the house!"
"Zhang Qiang left it there on purpose."
Chen Ji frowned: "The child he was pretending to be came to our door before. He probably anticipated that we would stay here."
Look at the markings; the red circle was drawn by my uncle and his friends, which proves that this is key information.
In other words, for some reason, the uncles and others believed that the information that Zhang Zhu was the gravedigger was very important.
Given that no one had discussed anything like this before Chen Ji left, the truth is obvious.
“Uncle Chen must have sensed something was wrong, so he called you to check on your safety,” Du Tingfeng deduced. “But like you, Zhang Qiang intercepted the call.”
“Yes.” Chen Ji thought so too: “If we can detect that something is wrong with the diary, there’s no reason why others wouldn’t notice it.”
"The only possibility is that Zhang Qiang impersonated me and tricked them into searching through the diary, where they found the information that 'Zhang Qiang is the gravedigger.'"
Du Tingfeng continued, "Its ultimate goal might be to get them to find Zhang Qiang and obtain more clues."
With the whole incident basically cleared up, Chen Ji and his companion exchanged a glance, their hearts sinking.
The ghost was too good at disguising itself. They only learned from Liu Yan that the village had long been deserted, but their uncles didn't know that.
They immediately left the village chief's house and hid in the shadows to observe for a while. They found that Zhang Qiang's door was wide open, but it was quiet inside, as if no one was there.
On the ground in front of the door, faint traces of blood could be seen.
This means that other people did go in and were injured, which proves that they had discovered something was wrong.
This was roughly in line with Chen Ji's expectations. These people were not novices, and it was impossible for them to be wiped out completely; surely some of them had escaped.
After a while.
In a secluded abandoned house, Chen Ji found Han Bing and his team.
But... Uncle and Wusu aren't here.
In addition to him and his uncle, the team sent to investigate the ghost train incident consisted of five people: one team leader and four team members.
One of the team members, Zhao Hong, was lying on the ground, her face contorted in pain, forcibly suppressing her groans.
Her left arm hung limply, as if she had been slapped by a bear's paw, the joint dislocated; a horrific wound cut across her entire chest and abdomen, blood gushing out and soaking through the gauze.
Fortunately, it wasn't a fatal injury.
Han Bing stood to the side, her face ashen.
He was extremely wary when he first met Chen Ji, and it was only after he presented various pieces of evidence that Chen Ji was able to enter the house and see everything.
"What exactly happened?" Du Tingfeng asked after quickly telling Han Bing everything that had just happened.
"It's no different from what you guessed."
Han Bing's voice was low as he recounted the previous ghostly phone call.
After exchanging information, Han Bing learned that there was no such person as "Zhang Zhu," only the ghost of Zhang Qiang, who had been dead for many years.
The child, the elderly, and even the "Chen Ji" who called earlier were all imposters.
"After meeting Zhang Qiang, we realized we had entered a ghostly illusion and could no longer see the fields, but at the time we all thought it was the work of the madwoman ghost."
Han Bingdao said that Zhang Qiang was cunning and had already told them over the phone that there were other ghosts in the fields, thus dispelling everyone's suspicions.
Afterwards, Chen Yuetan realized something was wrong and sneaked back into the house with Wu Su, but they were quickly discovered by Zhang Qiang and became his primary target.
It was precisely because Zhang Qiang was drawn away by Chen Yuetan that the illusion in the vicinity was shattered.
Although they still hadn't seen the railway, Han Bing immediately realized that Zhang Qiang was in big trouble!
They rushed to the main room, but in those few short minutes, Zhang Qiang, Chen Yuetan, and Wusu had all disappeared.
"You were attacked by ghosts again after that?" Chen Ji turned to look at Zhao Hong.
Fearing being discovered by the ghost, Zhao Hong had no choice but to suppress her screams, her pale face covered in cold sweat.
"Correct."
A shadow crossed Han Bing's eyes.
As a seventh-level entrant to the domain, Zhao Hong had already lit up two stars, but she still couldn't defend against that ghost!
While everyone was searching, it disguised itself as a team member and infiltrated the group without anyone noticing. It suddenly attacked when Zhao Hong was searching the cubicle alone, catching her completely off guard!
Then, it immediately fled.
"The ghost is gone?" Chen Ji was taken aback.
“Yes, we don’t know why either,” Han Bing said. “It acted very quickly. When we got there, we only saw Zhao Hong on the verge of death.”
"Her initial injuries were much more severe than they are now; her entire body was almost torn apart. What you see now is the result of the monster's repair."
So the ghost left only after it was certain she couldn't survive?
A hint of confusion flashed in Chen Ji's eyes.
He thought about it for a moment, and realized that the fact that he had almost been fooled before proved one thing.
That ghost seems to prefer single targets.
First of all, with Wusu by his side, it's unlikely that anything bad will happen; he's probably just stalling for time.
Seeing that killing his uncle was hopeless, Zhang Qiang returned to find Han Bing and the others.
"I just thought about it," Han Bing said. "It has been disguised for so long, never revealing itself, just to lure us into leading the way."
"If the railway appears randomly, then where is it going to take us?"
“If it’s only about killing people, gathering you all together would actually make it harder to carry out the plan,” Du Tingfeng said, stroking his chin.
Unless it can wipe everyone out at once, waiting until everyone is present before taking action is tantamount to self-destruction, exposing its greatest advantage.
In other words, it's a disguise.