Chapter 1 "What Does This Have to Do with the Sculpture?"

"What does this have to do with the sculpture you mentioned?" Jiang Cheng asked.

Judging from the school security guard's behavior, his death wasn't an accident. He was being targeted by something that wanted him dead.

Yuan Xiaoyi took a breath and gave Jiang Cheng a look of reassurance. "Because things happened so suddenly, he died less than 10 minutes after leaving the police station, and he died so... so tragically, everyone recalled the security guard's behavior shortly before, and a chill ran down their spines."

"The case itself wasn't anything special. A large truck was driving normally, just a little faster, and the security guard went crazy and ran across the road."

"But the police officer in charge was careful and investigated in detail, and got a very important piece of information from a nearby eyewitness."

"This eyewitness was on the side of the road at the time, not far from where the security guard was killed."

"According to him, he was waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk when the security guard rushed over diagonally from across the street, very fast."

"There weren't many cars on the road at the time, and at the security guard's speed, he would have been fine if he'd just kept going, but the strange thing was, he stopped suddenly when he got to the middle of the road."

"But..." Yuan Xiaoyi raised her head and looked at Jiang Cheng strangely. "The lane in front of him was empty, there were no cars at all!"

"He looked like he was scared by something, staring straight ahead for about six or seven seconds before... before what happened later."

Yuan Xiaoyi's words were very clear. If it hadn't been for those few seconds, the security guard wouldn't have died.

Jiang Cheng thought for a moment and had a general idea. He asked Yuan Xiaoyi, "Did you find out what the security guard was looking at before he died?"

Yuan Xiaoyi nodded, then said in a very low voice, "We did. The police did a reconstruction of the scene and brought the eyewitness back to stand in the same spot. The direction the security guard was looking in was..." Yuan Xiaoyi paused. "A coffee shop across the street."

Before Jiang Cheng could ask, Yuan Xiaoyi quickly said, "There's nothing special about this coffee shop. It's just a normal one with large floor-to-ceiling windows. You can buy a cup of coffee and sit in front of the windows all afternoon, watching the scenery and killing time."

"The strange thing happened the next afternoon, when the police got a video taken by some college students. It was a club from some university. They were at the scene and were going to film the traffic, but they accidentally filmed the whole process of the security guard's death."

"The coffee shop also appeared in the video. Although the camera flashed past it, you could still see a sculpture behind the coffee shop's floor-to-ceiling windows!"

"White, very obvious, it was... it was the one that was filmed in the sculpture hall!"

"A bust!"

Yuan Xiaoyi looked at Jiang Cheng nervously, her voice trembling, acting like a frightened girl, her fearful eyes were pitiful.

"At the scene of the security guard's death, this strange bust appeared again..." Jiang Cheng stroked his chin, as if he had thought of something.

Now the security guard's death was clear. The reason why he froze in the middle of the road was because of this suddenly appearing bust.

"That's right." Yuan Xiaoyi nodded repeatedly, adding, "And this time, like the last time, the police found the coffee shop and asked a lot of people, but no one remembered this bust, they had no impression of it at all."

"There are also surveillance cameras inside the coffee shop, but they didn't capture anything," Yuan Xiaoyi continued.

"Later, after the police went back, they found the video of the security guard in the police station. At night, the security guard was alone in the room, staring at the corner of the wall with his eyes wide open, without blinking."

"The police officer on duty that night was very strange and checked back and forth several times, but found nothing."

"But... but this time, they found a strange phenomenon. In the corner... there was a shadow on the wall facing the corner, very blurry."

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng asked in a low voice, "You didn't see anyone, but there was a shadow on the wall, is that right?"

"Yes, that's right." Yuan Xiaoyi nodded. "It's like there's an invisible person standing there."

"And not just this time!"

"It was the same with the psychologist, and it was even more obvious."

Yuan Xiaoyi said excitedly, "There was only one piece of clothing on the hanger, but the shadow on the wall behind it had a head, and... and it was shaking constantly, as if it was about to fall off, I mean the head... the head was about to fall off!"

Gu "Don't be nervous, Xiaoyi." Jiang Cheng reached out, looked into Yuan Xiaoyi's eyes, and comforted her, "It seems that all of this is related to that bust. The sculpture hall's urban legend appeared because of it."

"How did the school handle it later?" Jiang Cheng asked. "I mean the sculpture hall?"

Yuan Xiaoyi sighed after hearing Jiang Cheng's words, shook her head and said, "What else could they do? They moved all the sculptures used for the exhibition away, and then the sculpture hall was closed."

"Later, until the school got a new leader, I heard that the new leader was quite young, from a big city, and had spent many years abroad, so he didn't really care about... about this kind of thing." Yuan Xiaoyi said with some emotion, "Then not long after he came, everyone found that the sculpture hall had been renovated, and after a while, the renovation was completed, and it was reopened."

"After it reopened, nothing else happened?" Jiang Cheng asked.

"There were some things, but they weren't that serious. Some people who went there said it was very cold inside, the kind of cold that made you feel gloomy, and it was no use wearing thick clothes and bringing a hand warmer."

"Some people also said that the sculptures in the sculpture hall often moved inexplicably. When they closed the door in the afternoon, everything was fine, but when they opened the door the next morning, the positions had changed, and they couldn't find the reason for a long time."

Speaking of this, Yuan Xiaoyi suddenly lowered her voice, "Because many people know about the male teacher and the security guard, they turn a blind eye to the sculpture hall, and they don't dare to investigate too deeply, as long as the things inside can't be lost."

"By the way, after the male teacher's incident, no one dared to work the night shift in the art center building. The school's security department said that someone was staying behind at night to strike the night watchman's clapper, but everyone in our school knows that it's all just to fool outsiders, there's no one in the security room, just a light on."

"At 5 pm, when it's still light outside, the last batch of students finish class, and the art center starts driving people out, and then they lock the doors."

After listening for a long time, most of the stories were incoherent. Jiang Cheng became slightly impatient. He went straight to the point and told Yuan Xiaoyi that he wanted to know how to save Xiaoyu, who was trapped in the urban legend.

Seeming to notice the change in Jiang Cheng's attitude, Yuan Xiaoyi said nervously, "Senior, don't worry, maybe... maybe I'm too long-winded, but I really don't want to see anything happen to Xiaoyu, so I want to explain the whole story clearly."

"I don't have many friends at school, Xiaoyu is my best friend." At this point, Yuan Xiaoyi actually felt a little aggrieved, and her eyes turned red.

Jiang Cheng sighed secretly in his heart, this girl is quite the actress, but he still cooperated with her emotions and comforted her.

"Senior." Yuan Xiaoyi raised her head, her eyes pitiful. "Xiaoyu told me that the things in the sculpture center, the sculptures... sculptures and that kind of thing, are alive, and... and there's more than one. They move, at night."

"Even if she hides, she can still hear the sound of their footsteps, and the sound of them crawling back and forth on the ground, scratching, it's very scary."

"Those things are looking for her. If Xiaoyu is found, she will definitely be killed by them, no, not them, it's it... it's it that's right!"

Yuan Xiaoyi seemed to have lost her soul, speaking incoherently. The more Jiang Cheng listened, the stranger it became, but the last sentence attracted Jiang Cheng's attention. Yuan Xiaoyi said, "Because Xiaoyu knows its secrets, knows its identity, and... and has seen it, so it must kill Xiaoyu!"

The similar narrative couldn't help but make Jiang Cheng feel familiar. "Like hunting down the security guard?" Jiang Cheng asked with a frown, "Also, what do you mean by Xiaoyu knowing its secrets?"

"Senior, that bust... has a history," Yuan Xiaoyi said in a low voice. "Later, someone took a photo of the bust and asked around, and someone actually recognized it. It was an old man, almost a hundred years old, who was blind in one eye and lived in a town near our school."

"When he saw the photo, the old man's remaining eye went straight, and he couldn't do it at the time, he was scared."

"Later, after a long time, he cried and sobbed, saying that he knew this person, he was a big bandit."

"In those days, he led a group of bandits, burning, killing, and looting in this area, committing all kinds of evil and his hands were covered in blood."

"The villages and towns in this area were really ruined by him. It's no exaggeration to say that when children heard his name at the time, they were so scared that they immediately stopped crying."

"His eye... his eye was blinded by this group of people."

"The old man hated him so much that he gnashed his teeth and said that after the liberation, this person was caught by the soldiers, and then he and his men were taken to the execution ground and killed."

"At first, they said it was by shooting, but the people didn't agree, because they were so angry, you can't imagine the scene at the time, there were crowds of people everywhere, and every family had relatives who died at his hands, and some villagers brought scissors, knives, and other things, wishing they could skin him alive."

"The other bandits were shot, but not him, they didn't use a gun..." Yuan Xiaoyi imitated the old man, wiped her neck with her hand, and said in a low voice, "He was beheaded, with that old-fashioned broadsword, with a piece of red cloth tied to the back."

"The old man said that it was a ghost head sword, using this kind of sword to cut off his head, even the Yama (king of hell) would not accept him for reincarnation, and he would be a lonely ghost for the rest of his life."