Chapter 10 The Start of the Mission

It was… the statue in front of the sculpture classroom!

But how could it be here?

Before he could react, his body tilted to the side as a hand yanked him back.

Immediately afterward, a "thump" sounded where he had been standing, the marble floor shattered, and a dark hammer appeared on the ground.

It had been thrown!

The person who pulled him was naturally Wang Qi, but Jiang Cheng had no time to worry about anything else, because the female statue in front of him was moving as well.

Because it was a bust, it had no legs, only an upper body. It fell to the ground and scurried towards him like a spider with broken legs.

At that moment, Jiang Cheng understood that the mission had truly begun.

He immediately ran towards the door. Fortunately, it could be opened. Wang Qi, after briefly blocking the male statue that had attacked Jiang Cheng, also ran towards the door.

Once Wang Qi ran out, Jiang Cheng quickly closed the door.

The two turned and ran down the hallway.

But the resurrected sculptures clearly weren't going to let them go. The wooden door of the sculpture hall made a loud "thud, thud" and was then smashed open.

The two resurrected statues chased after them, the same two they had seen in front of the sculpture classroom.

The male statue held a hammer in his hand and chased after them. The female statue crawled quickly on the ground. Coupled with the dark setting, it was truly frightening.

"Find an open space and take them out," Jiang Cheng said quickly.

"They're just a bit stronger than normal people, nothing special," Wang Qi said, summarizing after his brief exchange with the male statue, "but normal attacks don't work on them. You can only kill them by attacking the back of their heads."

The two quickly reached a fork in the road. To the right was a staircase, and next to the staircase was a small door that looked like a storage room for cleaning tools.

"Follow me," Jiang Cheng said, running towards the staircase.

When the two statues chased after them, they saw someone standing on the stairs. Jiang Cheng looked down at them from above.

In just half a minute, the two statues had changed, both in feeling and appearance. The material on their bodies had become wrinkled, and from a distance, they looked like they were wearing grayish-white clothes.

A shocking guess emerged in his mind. If given enough time, they might become exactly like real people.

The moment they saw Jiang Cheng, the empty eyes of the two statues actually showed an emotion similar to human excitement, which then turned into greed.

The two sculptures rushed up the stairs, scrambling over each other, not noticing the small door behind them being quietly pushed open.

The male statue raised the hammer with both hands, making a throwing gesture from afar, apparently wanting to repeat the trick and throw the hammer to kill Jiang Cheng.

But before the hammer could be thrown, Wang Qi suddenly appeared behind him, swung his hook, and slammed it hard into the back of his head.

With a muffled "bang," a visible crack extended from the back of his head to his entire head. Finally, with a "crash," the statue's head… shattered.

The remaining body maintained its throwing posture, but had returned to being an ordinary statue, unmoving.

Seeing his companion killed, a hint of human fear appeared on the female statue's raised face.

With Jiang Cheng blocking the front and Wang Qi behind, the situation instantly reversed.

Perhaps because her companion had just been killed by Wang Qi, the female statue chose Jiang Cheng as a breakthrough point, pouncing on him.

Jiang Cheng dodged, avoiding the statue's sharp, dagger-like fingernails, then punched it to the ground and finished it off with a scythe.

"Phew…" Jiang Cheng exhaled. Fortunately, it was about what he expected. These moving statues, apart from being a bit stronger and more grotesque, weren't that difficult to deal with.

But what he meant by "not difficult to deal with" was for people like him and Wang Qi. Fatty and the others were clearly not in that category.

"Hmm?" As if noticing something, Wang Qi squatted down, staring at the female statue's body, and even reached out to touch it.

Jiang Cheng certainly didn't think he was taking advantage. Frowning, he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Look, their bodies… seem to have changed. There's a layer of wrinkles, like molting…" Wang Qi paused and said.

Jiang Cheng had noticed this before, but he had been thinking about Fatty and the others and hadn't delved into it.

Now that he heard Wang Qi say it, he walked over, squatted beside him, and touched it with his hand. The headless statue was motionless, but it did feel different from a normal statue, more delicate.

And if you pulled it lightly with your hand, you could pull up a layer, like a layer of stiff clothing stuck to the statue's body.

After a moment, Jiang Cheng suddenly stood up and walked back to where he had been standing earlier. There was a folded piece of clothing on the ground.

It was what he had taken from behind the door of the sculpture classroom, grayish-white, and when he touched it, it actually had the same texture as the statue's body.

Could it be… that this piece of clothing was peeled off from the living statues?

"Could it be that if you wear this piece of clothing, the statues will treat you as one of their own and no longer attack you?" Wang Qi looked at Jiang Cheng and asked strangely.

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Cheng stared at the clothes in his hand. The thought that it was peeled off from a statue made him uncomfortable.

Wang Qi saw Jiang Cheng's hesitation and reached out, saying, "If you're afraid of danger, I can try it."

As Jiang Cheng put on the clothes, he said, "Wang Qi, brother, what are you saying? I'll take care of anything dangerous."

The clothes also had a hood that could be turned over and put on the head.

After putting it on, Wang Qi immediately felt a cold aura.

It seemed that from the moment he put on the clothes, Jiang Cheng's attributes as a human disappeared, completely disguised as a ghost.

From the outside, you couldn't see Jiang Cheng's face at all. The face was covered by a layer of semi-transparent gauze, giving it a protective suit feel.

All grayish-white, in this dark environment, if you stood still, at first glance, you would indeed look a bit like a statue.

"It really is like that…" Wang Qi glanced at Jiang Cheng's clothes with some jealousy.

Jiang Cheng didn't have much of a reaction. He moved his arms and legs, then squatted down a few times, and finally did some high knee jumps.

"How does it feel?" Wang Qi asked.

"A bit cold, gloomy, but acceptable," Jiang Cheng stopped and said, "and looking outside through this gauze feels different than before."

"But…" Jiang Cheng lowered his head, looking at the position of his arm, "what's going on here? Why are there so many scratches?"

"Where?" Wang Qi walked over, following Jiang Cheng's gaze. He didn't see any scratches on his arm.

He touched it with his hand, but there was nothing. The clothes were made of some unknown material, cold and smooth, like touching ice.

"Right here, can't you see it? It seems that only the person wearing this outfit can see it." Jiang Cheng stared at his arm and said, "Someone deliberately carved it on, four slanting lines, and then a vertical line going through it, like this as a group, a total of 5 groups."

After Jiang Cheng described it, Wang Qi understood, "It's for counting, like how we draw the character 'zheng', 5 groups, a total of 25."

"It's the number of active statues in this mission. Two of the first group are disappearing, which should correspond to the two we took down," Jiang Cheng said after thinking.

"Besides these, there's also a pattern, like an eye, on the back of my hand, which should refer to the bandit ghost," Jiang Cheng continued.

Wang Qi turned his head to look in the direction they had come from, a hint of worry flashing in his eyes.

……

"How is it?"

"Nothing."

"I… I don't have it here either."

"How is that possible? Two living people, gone in the blink of an eye. Can this curtain eat people?" Fatty had lost count of how many times he had pulled up the curtain.

But no matter how he looked, it was just a curtain, thick at best, and it couldn't conjure up the disappeared doctors.

And what made them even more puzzled was that behind the curtain was a wall, an unremarkable, blank wall, with no window at all.

Just now, when Jiang Cheng and Wang Qi lifted the curtain, they disappeared. The three of them didn't understand what was going on at all.

When they reacted, they immediately went to find them, but after searching nearby for a long time, there was no sign of them. Not a person, not even a ghost.

"Could it be… could it be that this curtain has a mechanism, like a time tunnel or something, that transported Mr. Jiang and Wang Qi to another time and space?" Shen Mengyun's eyes were filled with worry, "Like the night the male teacher was killed."

"But this mechanism can't only be used once, right?" Huai Yi was also an experienced player and immediately raised the question.

They had lifted the curtain many times, from different angles, but the result was still the same.

Huai Yi gradually calmed down and said after thinking, "This path won't work. Let's change our thinking. Is the problem not with them, but with us?"

"Us?"

"Yes." Huai Yi nodded, "Do you still remember the charred ghost in the school library that could steal sight?"

"You mean Mr. Jiang didn't disappear, it's just that we can't see each other?" Shen Mengyun's dim eyes gradually lit up.

"That's right, but this time it's obviously more troublesome, because this time we can't touch each other either," Huai Yi said, "and I said the problem is with us, there's also a basis, after all, only our team, that is, you two, saw that…"

From the shape of his mouth, Huai Yi initially wanted to say "that person," but quickly changed his mind and said, "saw that ghost."

Apart from them, there wouldn't be any other living people here.

"I have an idea. We definitely can't find Brother Jiang and the others now. We can only continue to look for that ghost."

"If we find that ghost, this situation should be resolved," Huai Yi said in a low voice.

"Let's do it!" Fatty and Shen Mengyun both agreed. After all, in the current situation, they could only try anything.

"That ghost is wearing a red hijab, it's easy to recognize!" After the three of them discussed, they turned around together, preparing to look for the ghost in the sculpture hall.

But as soon as they turned around, the three of them were stunned.

In the sculpture hall, all the sculptures within sight were wearing a red hijab. A gust of wind blew, and the corners of the bright red hijab lifted, revealing gray-white chins.