(2/2)
Xingwang Hotel
Chapter 324: Human Skin Coats
Bai Xue’s slightly hoarse voice echoed through the empty shop.
His tone remained calm, without the slightest fluctuation, but the meaning hidden in his words sent a chill down one’s spine.
Wen Jianyan suddenly turned around.
Behind him, a few human-skin coats on the shelves were stirred by an invisible wind. Faint outlines of human faces emerged on the fabric—mouths agape, eye sockets sunken—as if they were silently screaming.
The clothes seemed to be soaked, gradually dripping with liquid.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
A thick, foul stench filled the air, distinct from the smell of rain.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze instinctively shifted downward, pausing slightly on the floor beneath the clothes.
His pupils contracted.
It was blood.
“Damn, damn it! Get out of here now!!!”
Upon seeing the blood pooling on the floor, a member of Zhong Shan’s team turned deathly pale. He took a few slow steps back before panicking and sprinting toward the entrance.
Clearly, he also understood what suddenly appearing blood signified in this dungeon.
“Wait—”
Wen Jianyan urgently shouted to stop him.
If this were just an ordinary crisis originating from the instance, the best choice would undoubtedly be to leave as quickly as possible.
After all, whether it was rain or blood, both were extremely dangerous in this dungeon.
As time passed, the blood would spread more and more, and what followed would become increasingly terrifying.
But the problem was that the danger they were facing now was not normal.
However, before Wen Jianyan could finish speaking, the man bolted like a frightened rabbit, dashing toward the exit.
Just as he was about to step out of the shop, a sudden, invisible gust of sinister wind erupted. One of the human-skin coats abruptly lifted, moving like a living creature. Without warning, it wrapped tightly around the man, completely enveloping him within the fabric that bore ghostly human features.
“Ahhh—mmmph—!!!”
A piercing scream broke from his throat but was quickly muffled within the human-skin coat, turning into a stifled, murky groan.
The man thrashed wildly, clawing desperately at the reeking garment constricting his body. His nails scratched frantically at the human skin, but it was useless—leaving only fleeting pale marks before vanishing.
Blood dripped down rapidly, pooling beneath his feet.
In the blink of an eye, the screams ceased.
Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, the man’s raised arms fell limply. He swayed slightly before going completely still.
“……”
Wen Jianyan’s expression darkened as he stared at the “person” still facing away from him.
Just as he thought.
Generally speaking, after lights-out in the hotel, stepping into the Rainy Town didn’t usually result in an active attack by the instance’s monsters—unless they attempted to take the resident portraits back to the hotel.
But this time was different.
They had only entered this shop.
They hadn’t done anything yet…
And they had already encountered something like this.
That meant there was a high probability that the Black Faction was involved.
This wasn’t part of the instance’s mechanics.
This was a deliberate, malicious trap.
Therefore, escaping the shop as quickly as possible wouldn’t solve the problem.
On the contrary, doing so might be exactly what the enemy wanted, accelerating their demise.
And the death of this Zhong Shan’s team member made Wen Jianyan acutely aware—
No matter what the source was, the crisis they were now facing was far from simple.
Even if this person’s abilities weren’t particularly outstanding, he was still an experienced anchor.
A misjudgment might lead to mistakes, but he should never have been so easily “captured” and killed.
More precisely, he never even had the chance to resist.
This involuntarily reminded Wen Jianyan of his own experience the last time the lights went out.
In the rain, he had faced simultaneous attacks—both from the residents and from the curse lurking beneath the umbrella.
Logically, he should have had a way to escape.
But in the critical moment, under the chilling assault of the curse, he lost all ability to move.
Even though Wen Jianyan knew that activating the Holy Infant Remains would allow him to escape unscathed…
He simply could not do it.
Under Wen Jianyan’s gaze, the “teammate” standing with his back to him suddenly began to move.
Squelch—
The sound of thick, congealed blood squishing beneath his shoes rang out, sharp and jarring in the deathly silent room.
Everyone instinctively held their breath.
Under countless watchful eyes, the team member slowly, stiffly, turned around—inch by inch.
His head tilted unnaturally, drooping as if it had lost all support.
In the dim lighting, his face looked eerily grotesque.
His skin was deathly pale, devoid of the slightest hint of blood, rigid and rough like that of a corpse.
At some point, a human-skin coat had already fitted snugly onto his body. It clung to him perfectly, as if it had been tailored just for him, without a single gap.
Under the dim lighting, the human skin took on an ashen gray hue, as though it had just been peeled from a fresh corpse.
“……!”
He twisted his head and looked toward Blond. “The blood on the floor—see how many people are in it?”
The light in this place was too dim, and from this angle, an ordinary person’s vision wouldn’t be able to see clearly.
But for Blonnd, whose sight had been enhanced through his talent, it was a different story.
“……Alright.”
Blond shifted his steps slightly, fixing his gaze on the pool of blood beneath the four figures wearing human-skin coats.
However, the moment he got a clear look, his face turned deathly white.
“You see it?” Wen Jianyan asked beside him.
Blond, his face drained of color, shuddered slightly before responding in a weak voice, “It’s… it’s two people.”
In the distance, near the shop entrance, a thin layer of blood was spreading across the ground.
On its crimson surface was the reflection of a corpse standing stiffly. Its head hung low, face ashen, and mouth stretched into an eerie grin.
Wrapped tightly around its shoulders was a pair of grayish-blue arms.
A second “person.”
Its face was ghostly pale, its features blurred, resembling the other residents who wore masks. Its rigid lips curled into a grin, faintly visible in the rippling blood below.
Although they had mentally prepared themselves, the others still couldn’t help but feel a jolt of terror at Blond’s words.
Wen Jianyan, however, appeared unsurprised.
“……So that’s how it is.”
“What do you mean?” Blond looked confused.
“These human-skin coats are just like the human-skin umbrellas we found before. They’re mediums.”
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and spoke slowly while watching the “corpse” take stiff steps forward.
Whether it was clothing or umbrellas, they could all provide shelter from the rain.
But if used for too long or too many times, the ghosts connected to these mediums would awaken, and the curse would transfer onto the user—until it killed them.
And those who died from the medium wouldn’t disappear like other victims of this town, whose corpses were dragged beneath the water and only resurfaced when someone tried to take their portraits away.
Instead… they would remain standing where they had died, draped in human skin.
Although only one person stood above the surface, beneath the water, there were two shadows.
From this theory, a chilling realization emerged.
Chen Mo froze, staring at the rigid corpse advancing step by step.
“Wait, does that mean—”
Wen Jianyan nodded.
“Exactly.”
In other words…
If someone died under an umbrella or within the coat, their corpse would remain above the surface, becoming a stable conduit.
The ghost attached to them could then use their body to move freely on land.
If any of them died under an umbrella, they would end up just like that Zhong Shan’s team member—becoming a walking corpse, a vessel controlled by the vengeful spirits lurking beneath the water.
“These human-skin coats should have been used to their limit, which is why this is happening,” Wen Jianyan said slowly. “But the problem is… none of us used them this time.”
Chen Mo quickly caught on.
“The Black Faction did this?”
Wen Jianyan: “It’s possible.”
Even though they had figured out the cause of this crisis, the situation had now reached an impasse.
They couldn’t approach the human-skin coats, or they would end up just like the previous victim.
But staying still wasn’t an option either, or the ghost-controlled corpse would eventually catch up to them, using the expanding pool of blood to begin its slaughter.
To make matters worse, they still hadn’t located Yun Bilan or determined why those people were unconscious here. They couldn’t just leave them behind.
Wen Jianyan stood in place, his gaze sweeping across the shop.
There were three coats in total.
One was already worn by the corpse, while the other two billowed in the eerie wind, the faces embedded in their fabric flickering in and out of visibility—like sinister creatures lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike.
His lips pressed into a thin line as his mind worked rapidly.
There was a solution.
But it was extremely dangerous.
Still, given the circumstances, they had no choice but to take the risk.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and tossed one of the umbrellas to Chen Mo.
Instinctively, Chen Mo caught it.
The pale umbrella surface shimmered faintly in the dim light, resembling human skin. The handle bore a deep, blackened handprint, as if someone had once gripped it tightly.
“…?!”
Chen Mo froze for a second, then abruptly looked up at Wen Jianyan.
“You mean—”
“That’s right,” Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and said, “Remember last time?”
The last time they had entered Rainy Town after lights-out, Wen Jianyan had already tested the theory with his own life.
It was possible to make the two forces clash.
The theory was simple.
But the risks were immense.
Regardless, it was their only way out.
