Chapter 58 The Well

Without hesitation, he grabbed the rabbit's ears and tried to pull it out of the dirt, but he met with great resistance.

Just then, the moonlight shone into the well, and he saw a pale hand emerging from the soil, tightly clutching the rabbit's body.

The hand was small, clearly belonging to a child. As he pulled, the hand was tugged, and more of the body buried beneath the soil was revealed.

"How... how could this be?" Pan Du sat down hard on the ground as he saw the corpse clearly.

Twenty years had passed, but the corpse hadn't decayed at all.

The girl still looked as she had when she died, her eyes closed.

Long eyelashes were mixed with dirt, as if she had just been killed and dumped there.

"No, no! This is all an illusion, an illusion!"

Pan Du's mind had been tense, but he hadn't collapsed yet, entirely based on the belief that as long as he destroyed his sister's remains, he could be free.

But now that he had actually seen his sister's corpse, he understood that his fear of the latter had always been there; he had only been running away.

The next moment, his hand was suddenly grabbed by a cold, small hand.

Pan Du mechanically turned his stiff neck, and a pale but delicate little face appeared before him.

The small face was still covered with dirt, emitting a strange smell mixed with floral fragrance.

"Brother," the girl opened her mouth, her mouth a bottomless pit of darkness. "You've finally come to see me."

"You still love me, right? It was just an accident." The girl grabbed Pan Du's hand tightly, leaving a black handprint on it.

"Why is this happening?" Pan Du fell to the ground, surrounded by unprecedented fear. He crawled backward, trying to get away. "You're dead, you're already dead! How... how could you still be here?!"

"I'm waiting for you, Brother. I've been waiting for you here all along."

"I knew you would come back to see me." The girl's voice sounded fine at first, but after being reflected off the well walls and reverberating within, her voice became increasingly shrill, until it almost pierced his eardrums.

The defenses within Pan Du's heart completely collapsed. He knelt on the ground, begging for mercy, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. It was my adoptive parents, they were the ones who did wrong, I had no choice."

"For the past 20 years, I've been blaming myself. I shouldn't have killed you, please forgive me!"

His sister's eyes gleamed with an eerie light. The corners of her eyes tilted upwards, revealing a smile that wasn't a smile. "Yes, Brother, in the blink of an eye, 20 years have passed. You've grown up, seen the outside world, but I'm still the same, buried under the well, with only it to keep me company."

She pointed with her little finger, referring to the plush rabbit.

At that moment, the rabbit lay on the ground, having lost its former luster, reverting to an ordinary plush toy.

As if its mission to lure Pan Du down to the bottom of the well was complete.

"Sister, I will... I will make it up to you, I'll make it up to you twice over!" Pan Du looked at his sister's face, and a bad feeling suddenly welled up in his heart.

He had seen similar expressions before, in the police station's basement, and on the corpse of the Daoist priest in the Feng residence.

His sister's expression wasn't that exaggerated yet, but it gave him the same feeling.

"Heh heh heh..." A creepy laugh echoed, and the sister in front of him moved closer and closer. "Brother, I also want to live, I also want to leave here, to experience life in the outside world."

"Could you..." The girl's voice suddenly changed. "Lend me your skin, let me go out and see the outside world!"

As soon as the words fell, before Pan Du could even feel fear, he suddenly felt something wriggling inside his body.

Many things, one after another, with sharp, prickly sensations, seemed to want to pierce his skin and drill out from the inside.

"What is this?" Pan Du scratched at his body, crying out loudly, "What did you put in my body? Help! Save me!"

He hoped that someone in the village outside would hear his cries for help, but this was the bottom of a deep well.

And what he didn't know was that the village outside hadn't changed at all since he had appeared.

Not even the lights had changed, and no one had appeared.

"Riiiip—"

The sound of cloth tearing echoed, and in Pan Du's shocked, even desperate gaze, he tore open the skin on his arm with his own hands.

But no blood flowed out. Under the skin, which was stretched almost transparent, there was no flesh or blood, but rather it was filled with dry straw.

He could clearly see the awns on the straw, rough like the scarecrows in the wheat fields.

"Why? Why is this happening?" Pan Du looked at his body and let out a helpless wail.

More and more straw was stabbing out of various parts of his body. He felt suffocated, and at the same time, a strong friction in his throat, as countless straws began to pour out of his mouth.

Then his nose, ears, and even... eyes.

The sharp straw pierced his eyeballs and swarmed out of his eye sockets. In the last moment of his life, he saw the girl reach out and tear his skin off him.

A complete human skin peeled off, and then the girl draped it over herself.

And he could only barely bend his already straw-filled arms, helplessly reaching towards the girl's direction, "Skin... skin... give me back my skin."

The sound coming from his throat no longer sounded like a human.

In the dry well, a scarecrow twisted its body as the bright moonlight shone down. Beside the scarecrow lay an unwanted rabbit doll.

......

Dawn broke.

Everyone was gathered in one room, and even though no one was speaking, the invisible pressure in the air could be felt.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the person lying on the bed.

Pan Du.

Not long ago, they had been woken up by a cry of alarm, and then they had witnessed this strange scene.

Pan Du lay flat on the bed, his hands crossed on his chest. Strangely, his face was exactly the same as those who had died!

His skin was pale, as if drained of blood, his eyebrows were raised exaggeratedly, the corners of his eyes were upturned, and his eyes were slightly narrowed... a strange look that was hard to describe.

But there was no doubt that he had been hit and had become the first casualty of the mission.

Deaths were common in paranormal events, but it was rare to die so inexplicably.

It seemed that he had simply been sleeping peacefully and had not done anything special, such as going out at night.

"He must have violated some taboo during the day, which led to a ghost coming to his door and killing him at night." Chen Qiang offered a reasonable hypothesis.

But to his surprise, Zhao Xingguo, who hadn't said much, grabbed his hand and pressed it against Pan Du's chest.

The next moment, Chen Qiang's expression changed drastically.