Xingwang Hotel
Chapter 351: Well
Everyone exchanged glances and saw the same cautious expression in each other’s eyes.
The distance between the hidden door and the abandoned well behind the ruined house was not entirely exposed to the rain.
The drizzling rain poured down, blocked by the slanted roof, dripping through the holes with a steady tick-tock, leaving shallow and deep puddles on the ground.
“Let’s go and take a look,” Wen Jianyan thought for a moment before adding, “Oh, and don’t wear the human-skin coats yet.”
Without the masks, the human-skin coats could no longer be easily suppressed as they had been on the streets before. And with the rain pouring down so heavily, if they wanted to keep moving later, it would be best to conserve them.
The group nodded, carefully avoiding the spots where the rain leaked through the broken roof, and arrived at the well.
Strangely, though the area behind the house was filled with accumulated water and the roof was in tatters, the area around the well was completely dry, without a single trace of rainwater.
As soon as they stood at the edge of the well, a shiver ran through them. It was too cold.
An almost tangible chill emanated from within the well, like unseen icy tendrils slowly crawling up the well walls, making their backs tingle with cold. Even just standing near the well was enough to send chills down their spines.
Blond cautiously took a step forward and leaned over to peer into the well.
“What do you see?” Chen Mo asked.
Blond didn’t respond. His already slightly inclined upper body leaned forward even more, as if he was slowly being drawn into the well.
“Hey!”
Chen Mo swiftly reached out and yanked him back.
“!”
Blond snapped out of his daze and turned his head. “Huh? Huh? What’s wrong?”
“You almost fell in just now.”
Seeing him regain awareness, Chen Mo finally let go.
He furrowed his brows, looking at Blond seriously. “What did you see?”
“It’s too dark inside,” Blond shook his head and said, “Even with my eyesight, I couldn’t see anything.”
Watching Blond’s completely clueless expression now, Wen Jianyan frowned slightly.
He said, “Stay away from the well and don’t look inside again.”
Blond’s reaction just now had been unusual, almost as if something inside the well had lured him in. If Chen Mo hadn’t noticed in time and pulled him back, he might have fallen in headfirst.
“So… what do we do next?”
Zhong Shan took a step back, his face showing a mix of fear and hesitation.
According to the painting’s guidance, they had found the well from the painting. But the problem was… now what?
The woman in white had given them very vague instructions—only telling them to come here, without providing any clear next steps.
And with Blond unable to see through the darkness inside the well, and even standing too close posing a potential danger… They couldn’t just send someone down into the well, could they?
“Um… maybe I can give it a try.”
Rui Rui, who had been following the group, spoke softly.
Oh.
Everyone’s spirits lifted.
Rui Rui’s ability was Psychography. With her power, they might be able to figure out what was inside the well.
“Can you do it?”
Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes slightly and asked gently.
“Mm!” Rui Rui nodded, sensing her own condition before answering, “I can.”
“Alright, then let’s give it a try.” Wen Jianyan nodded.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to use Bai Xue’s ability.
The main issue was that Bai Xue’s talent was “perceiving and even altering probabilities”, not “seeing all possible future developments.” That kind of information load and computational power would be too much, even for a supercomputer.
Wen Jianyan had already figured this out when playing cards with Bai Xue before. Bai Xue could only provide an accurate answer when actively seeking knowledge about a specific event. However, she would know the result but not the reason behind it.
That was why Wen Jianyan had misled Bai Xue into probing the wrong aspect, ultimately allowing him to cheat and win the game.
Bai Xue’s ability was incredibly useful when the exact question was known. But in this situation—where they had no clear direction, no idea what to do next, and no clue about the future—her ability was greatly limited.
Meanwhile, Rui Rui’s ability was perfectly suited for such circumstances.
Rui Rui took a deep breath, pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen from her pocket, and slowly closed her eyes.
Her arm stretched straight, her pupils rolled slightly upward, and then—like she was being controlled by something—her hand began moving eerily across the paper, drawing with an unnatural posture. Amidst the pattering rain, the frantic scraping of the pen against the paper was jarringly sharp.
Everyone held their breath, waiting in silence.
Soon, Rui Rui put down the pen, staggering as if drained of energy. Yun Bilan, who was standing beside her, reacted quickly and caught her.
“Are you okay?”
Rui Rui took a deep breath and slowly nodded. “I-I’m fine.”
Wen Jianyan stepped forward, tilting his head to look at the crumpled sheet of white paper in Rui Rui’s hands.
On it was a familiar mess of chaotic strokes, black lines tangled together to form a disturbing and unsettling image. It was faintly recognizable—a well.
A crooked, twisting well extended downward into pure darkness on both sides. And at the very bottom of the well…
Was a single, wide-open eye.
Wen Jianyan felt a chill run down his spine.
“No, you’re looking at it the wrong way.” Rui Rui, having regained some strength, shook her head. She slipped out of Yun Bilan’s support, then flipped the thin sheet of paper around before handing it back to Wen Jianyan. “It should be viewed like this.”
Wen Jianyan froze.
From this angle, the well was upside down.
And at the very top of the well was a single, wide-open eye, crying.
Tears trickled from the eye, dripping down the length of the well before vanishing into the darkness below.
“So, what’s actually inside the well is… an eye?”
Blond rubbed his arms, whispering uneasily.
Rui Rui, her face pale, stared at the childlike scribbles on the paper, her expression serious. “A corpse.”
…A corpse?
What did that mean?
Everyone was momentarily stunned.
“I’m not sure either,” Rui Rui furrowed her brows, looking equally puzzled. “But according to my interpretation… whatever is inside the well, it has to be a corpse.”
She took a deep breath, as if mentally preparing herself, before speaking slowly:
“And not just one corpse… but many, many corpses.”
Her voice trembled slightly.
“They’re all… all children…”
A stunned silence fell over the group. No one spoke. The air itself seemed to freeze.
Just then, Wen Jianyan suddenly heard a faint scratching sound behind him, echoing from within the empty well. The noise was barely distinguishable beneath the rain, but it was there—clear and sharp.
His head whipped around.
Before their eyes, one hand, two hands, three hands…
Countless pale, child-sized hands clawed their way out of the well. Their arms had been stretched unnaturally thin, like limp, elongated noodles, writhing like a mass of squirming maggots. And at a terrifying speed, they surged toward the group!
“RUN!!”
Chen Mo’s pupils shrank as he shouted, “Back to the house!”
Everyone turned and bolted toward the hidden door at the back of the house as fast as they could.
But something was wrong.
Not a single hand reached for anyone else in the group. Every single one of them was lunging straight at Wen Jianyan!
A chill crawled up Wen Jianyan’s ankle. He looked down, and his pupils shrank in horror.
Oh, shit.
A small, deathly pale hand had wrapped tightly around his ankle. Though it looked tiny and frail, its grip was monstrously strong—so strong that it yanked Wen Jianyan off balance, sending him crashing onto the ground.
More hands swarmed over him, clawing at his legs and dragging him backward.
The direction they were pulling him toward…
Was straight into the well!
He is really loved by ghost babies xd
Once a bride, forever a bride