Chapter 165 : Chapter 165
Chapter 165
The moment Lin Changqing opened the bathroom door, he was shocked by the sight before him.
It was a sea of bloodstains. At first glance, his heart almost skipped a beat.
In front of the sink outside the door, the huge mirror was covered with twisted letters. The spaces between and below the words were filled with scratch-like blood marks. A few drops of blood trickled down the smooth mirror surface, leaving several crimson trails, as if some terrifying entity, its resentment still lingering, had come to claim a life, leaving behind a jumbled short phrase.
The mirror was huge, and the messy words on it seemed to be pressing down on him. The visual impact was indescribable. In the gaps between the letters on the mirror, his stunned face was reflected.
Go-going this big?
Lin Changqing's gaze moved downwards to the floor, where there were pools of blood leading to the hallway.
But he didn't remember hearing anyone's footsteps just now, though there was a strange door-knocking sound.
The air was filled with a faint, cold fragrance of plum blossoms, like ice and snow. It was the scent of Bai Xuechao's lure-pheromone, indicating that he had just left not long ago.
He stood there, took a deep breath, and shouted to the outside, "Bai Xuechao? Did you do this?"
Still no response.
Lin Changqing continued helplessly, "Alright, I admit I was scared. Come out now."
He waited for three seconds, but it was still quiet. There was no sign of Bai Xuechao.
"I'm going to get angry!" Lin Changqing shouted at the hallway outside, but it was still quiet. He shouted again, "I'm really going to get angry!"
It was a completely useless threat, and even had a hint of cuteness.
The surroundings remained very quiet, so quiet that Lin Changqing could hear his own breathing, which had quickened by two beats in the long silence.
"Damn it," Lin Changqing cursed under his breath.
It wasn't that he had any problem with Bai Xuechao, but he was starting to get a little worried.
He quickly took a few steps forward and came to the huge mirror in front of the sink. He reached out, wiped off a bit of the blood, and brought it to his nose to sniff carefully. At the same time, his dark eyes stared at the words on the mirror, trying to reconstruct the scene from just now.
Having killed so many people, how could Lin Changqing not know what blood looked like?
But no matter how he sniffed, the tip of his finger always smelled of the familiar scent of blood, with a hint of floral and fruity fragrance—
Blood naturally contained lure-pheromones, but for special ability users, the blood of special ability users and mutated species smelled no different. Both were edible and had an alluring fragrance.
Therefore, special ability users could only determine who the blood belonged to based on the scent of the lure-pheromone in the blood, or by judging whether they had an appetite for it to determine if the blood belonged to a special ability user with the same alimentary nature. But they couldn't tell if the blood belonged to a special ability user or a mutated species.
The good news was that the smell of this blood did not belong to Bai Xuechao.
It could be a special ability user, or it could be a mutated species.
It should be a special ability user, because a mutated species wouldn't write a terrifying "message in blood." Maybe the location of some token had been exposed, and an enemy had tracked them down using the token, then deliberately used someone's blood to leave such words to intimidate them, just like how assassins used to send a warning note before.
But it was also possible that a new type of mutated species had appeared and landed on the floating island. This had happened before, and that would truly be a gift from nature.
Thinking of this, Lin Changqing squatted down again, wiped off a little more blood, and sniffed it, finding that it still had the same smell.
There were now three possible scenarios.
One was that Bai Xuechao and Yuan Lan had teamed up to use blood to create a scene of a vengeful ghost coming to claim a life, just to scare him for fun. Two was that an enemy had infiltrated the floating island. The hallway on this side of the bathroom happened to have a window open for ventilation. The other party came in through the window and saw Bai Xuechao washing his hands, and directly ambushed him from behind. Three was a gift from nature, also coming in through the window, which Bai Xuechao caught and used its blood to write the words to scare him, but the mutated species suddenly fought back and Bai Xuechao failed.
After all, Bai Xuechao was still wearing the black bracelet, so he could barely use his special ability. Plus, with his body, even a level 3 mutated species might be able to take him down.
Lin Changqing couldn't be sure if this was a prank by Bai Xuechao. As for the lack of footsteps, it could be that Bai Xuechao was deliberately playing tricks and not making any sound, but it could also be that a special ability user had come, covered his mouth, and then carried him away as a hostage. Or the mutated species could fly and was poisonous, poisoning Bai Xuechao and then grabbing him and flying away to eat him somewhere else.
These were all possible.
There were too many reasonable scenarios that could be imagined.
Lin Changqing didn't make things difficult for himself. He immediately took out his phone and made a video call to Yuan Lan, wanting to ask him directly if he was messing with him together with Bai Xuechao.
At the same time, behind the corner at the other end of the hallway, Yuan Lan was holding his phone, which he had already muted. He glanced at the video call invitation on the screen, smiled at Bai Xuechao and Yu Ruolan who was suspended from the ceiling, and prepared to use his puppet threads to quietly pull himself away, to a place where Lin Changqing couldn't hear him speak before answering.
At that moment, Bai Xuechao suddenly reached out his hand to him.
Yuan Lan understood, grabbed Bai Xuechao's outstretched hand, and left with him.
"Damn it, this guy's phone is usually glued to him. How come I can't reach him at a critical moment?" Lin Changqing muttered to himself. He had already waited for almost ten seconds and couldn't help but mumble again, "What's he doing? Even if he's in a fight, it wouldn't stop him from answering the phone."
The video call was finally connected.
"What's wrong, A-Qing?" On the screen was Yuan Lan's smiling face, "Did you and Little Xuechao fall into the toilet? Why aren't you back yet?"
The moment Lin Changqing heard Yuan Lan's words, he knew something was wrong.
Bai Xuechao didn't come back?
He asked directly, "Are you and Bai Xuechao teaming up to play with me?"
"Play what?" Yuan Lan stopped smiling and brought his face closer to the screen. His sudden seriousness made Lin Changqing a little uneasy, "Where's Little Xuechao?"
Lin Changqing felt like it was over, but he still tested him again, "Are you two done yet... Stop playing, I give up, alright? You can't just fleece me, can you two go fleece Mortar and Lin Lang? Especially Lin Lang, he hasn't had any performances lately, and his life is so good I'm envious. We can't let him be too comfortable."
As he spoke, his face had a forced smile, but it was actually a little stiff.
Hearing this, there was not the slightest hint of a smile on Yuan Lan's face.
Lin Changqing's heart immediately felt heavy. Before Yuan Lan could speak, he took the initiative and said, "Boss, I think someone has entered the floating island."
"Oh?" Yuan Lan said.
And opposite Yuan Lan, on the back of the phone, Bai Xuechao was standing with his arms crossed, listening in.
When he was setting up the scene with the blood plasma Yuan Lan had made, he had already imagined several scripts that could rationalize it. Now, it all depended on which direction Lin Changqing's imagination would take him.
That cup of blood plasma, if he wasn't mistaken, was the blood of the animals that the servants (ordinary people) ate, which were kept in the back kitchen. He had added the juice of mutated flowers and fruits to simulate the lure-pheromone scent of a special ability user, to downplay the slight difference in smell between animal blood and human blood. At the same time, adding the juice could also reduce the viscosity of animal blood, which was slightly higher than human blood. And although Bai Xuechao hadn't tasted it, he guessed that Yuan Lan had probably also added a little salt to simulate the more obvious salty taste of human blood compared to animal blood.
The smell of each type of mutated species was about the same. If he had used the blood of a mutated species directly, Lin Changqing would have tasted it if he licked it, and it would have been the exact smell of the mutated species that the Apocalypse Society raised. It was also possible that Lin Changqing wouldn't taste the blood, but only smell it, but instead of betting on that probability, it was better to be more rigorous when making it.
Over there, Lin Changqing said seriously, "Bai Xuechao is missing. I found blood on the ground that doesn't belong to him. I suspect..."
"A-Qing, immediately follow Little Xuechao's lure-pheromone to find him. I haven't given him X8 these past two days because he's been sick." Yuan Lan spoke very quickly, so quickly that Lin Changqing could only follow his orders and had no time to think, "I'll call Mortar to notify the others, then I'll come find you."
Lin Changqing replied, "Alright."
Yuan Lan hung up the phone, grabbed Bai Xuechao's waist, and carried him in one arm as he ran outside, "Quick, quick, if we're slow, we'll miss the show!"
After Lin Changqing hung up the video call, he immediately did as Yuan Lan said.
Like a hunting dog, he sniffed Bai Xuechao's lure-pheromone and chased out along the hallway. At the same time, he tried his best to recall the sounds he had heard when he was in the bathroom.
Just as he was approaching the corner, a person suddenly fell in front of him. It was a thin, small woman with disheveled hair and a blood-stained white dress. She appeared in his field of vision almost instantly, like a ghost. Before this, he had not noticed anything above him at all.
Lin Changqing was so scared by the "female ghost" that he gasped and threw the phone in his hand.
He reacted immediately and quickly reached out to catch his phone.
But when he saw the woman writhing and convulsing on the ground in front of him, he was so scared that he threw the phone he had just caught again.
Then Lin Changqing reacted again and caught his phone.
He saw that the terrifying woman was still lying on her stomach, but her arms were bent behind her back as if she had no bones. It was something that a human couldn't possibly do, it was too soft. Her posture at this moment was a bit like someone who had jumped from a building and landed on the ground, with her entire body twisted and deformed.
What the hell is this thing!
Lin Changqing's mind went blank, and he just wanted to run away.
When he saw the strange humanoid thing reach out to him, its arm swinging from behind its back, still terrifyingly soft, he subconsciously wanted to get away from it and turned to run.
He trembled, shouting as he ran, "Ahhhhh—!"
After running a few steps, he saw the big, blood-red mirror in front of the bathroom in the distance. He suddenly remembered, damn it, he was running in the wrong direction, this was the way back to the bathroom. So he had to turn around and change direction again.
As a result, he saw material for nightmares for the rest of his life.
The woman was on her back, but her hands and feet were on the ground, and her head was tilted to the side at a ninety-degree angle. Her hair covered most of her face, and he could only see her mouth, which was grinning widely.
She was crawling towards him quickly in this twisted and strange posture!