Salted Fish Zombie

Chapter 47.1: Manman (20)

June 23, 2023 by Wyrd

The scene in the photo looks familiar—it’s the toy room that Ning Su recently visited.

In the photo, a man was holding a wax doll and trying to put it in the little girl’s arms.

He had a smile on his face, friendly and warm, but his eyes carry an indescribable gleam.

The little girl quietly looked at the wax doll. At the age of three, it’s natural to not understand many things, and her face didn’t show any particular expression.

The sunlight outside the window was bright, casting silvery rays on both of them.

Coincidentally, someone captured this moment, preserving it forever in the photograph.

Ning Su looked at this photo for a long time, lost in thought.

He put the picture frame back in its original place and surveyed the study.

The study was filled with books, primarily divided into two categories: politics and economics, and supernatural and paranormal.

There were not only books on the supernatural and paranormal, but also printed materials related to them. These materials had never been published because they would never pass censorship.

In reality, many of the books here were privately printed and circulated.

The pages were filled with dark legends and accounts of Gu Man Tong, especially methods on how to make them, which were numerous and gruesome.

For some sensitive and timid individuals, looking at the pictures would give them nightmares for a whole night.

Ning Su grasped the handle of the locked drawer on the desk. Using black energy, he silently pulled it open.

In the two drawers, he found most of the information about ghost friends, or rather, the Gu Man Tong.

All these materials were handwritten, with an elegant and powerful font.

One would wonder what kind of mood that person was in when they meticulously wrote down all this extensive information.

Ning Su finished reading through these manuscripts one by one and placed them back in their original positions.

He left the study and walked to the master bedroom on the same floor, which had the best and largest view of the entire villa. The walk-in closet and bathroom were also very spacious.

Ning Su advanced towards the nearest bathroom, which was just as messy as the study.

The liquid in the bathtub had long dried up, leaving a thick layer of an unknown reddish substance.

Bottles and containers were scattered all over the floor, partially concealing the bloodstains.

The walk-in closet remained in disarray, with clothes strewn everywhere. Several sets of men’s suits and women’s formal dresses had been torn into pieces.

The bedding should have been white, but it was difficult to tell now. It was covered in red and yellow stains, some resembling drips from the walls, others like something crawling or being dragged across it.

Ning Su searched under the vanity and found another photo frame. It was a wedding photo taken during marriage.

The man in the photo was the same as the one in the study, while the woman was obviously his wife—a remarkably beautiful and gentle woman, with looks comparable to that of a female celebrity.

She bore a slight resemblance to Manman.

The children’s room was connected to the master bedroom. Upon opening the door opposite the bed, one could immediately arrive there.

In the families where Ning Su had stayed, children would share beds with their parents until the age of five. He wondered at what age Manman had been moved to this eerie children’s room.

The room was filled with terrifying figurines, grotesque masks, and skeleton toys.

Instead of soft bedding, the bed was covered with long, thick hair, several meters in length. The pillow was a human body with a skull at the bedside.

On the small bookshelf, every picture book was filled with stories of ghosts and horrors.

The only normal book was about filial piety.

Just as Ning Su was about to continue reading, his nose suddenly twitched, catching a whiff of something.

He immediately set the book aside and crawled out through the window.

***

The chilling sensation brought by those icy little hands spread from her face to her spine, causing goosebumps to form all over her body.

Her bun came loose, and two strands of hair hung down, swaying in front of her eyes.

Her vision was divided by the hair, and she looked at the boy’s grayish-purple lips with a torn gaze. She smiled, tugging at the corners of her mouth, her voice low and hoarse, “Zhi Zhi, what are you saying?”

The boy stood there quietly, not responding to her question.

His hand was still on Zhu Shuangshuang’s face, and he leaned in closer, rubbing his face against Zhu Shuangshuang’s. “Sister, you’re so good to me, really good. No one has ever been so gentle with me, protecting me. I really like you.”

“I like you too, Zhi Zhi,” Zhu Shuangshuang swallowed hard, “Can you please put sister down first?”

The boy still didn’t respond to her question.

Zhu Shuangshuang felt dizzy, the rotating lights of the pink lotus lamp and the storage room filled with talismans made her feel even more dizzy and uncomfortable.

She forcefully closed her eyes, trying to calm herself down and analyze the current situation and Zhi Zhi’s state of mind.

“Put sister down, and sister will take you to bed, okay?” Zhu Shuangshuang said, “Tomorrow, sister will teach you how to play chess at home. Zhi Zhi is not at all stupid. You’ll learn in no time, and then we can play chess at home.”

“Sister loves playing chess. It’s not boring when someone plays with me. I won’t feel like going out.”

“For the remaining days, sister will be with Zhi Zhi at home.”

The boy finally responded to her question. He said, “A few days are not enough. You have to be here with me all the time.”

A teardrop fell from Zhu Shuangshuang’s eye. “I also want to stay here forever. There’s food and shelter here. I don’t want to go to those dangerous and terrifying worlds.”

The boy finally showed a clear reaction. His feet in small leather shoes moved, and his hands twisted together.

Zhu Shuangshuang continued, “But how can sister stay here forever? Sister might be taken away by a very powerful force. Can sister really stay here forever?”

“It’s possible!” There was a noticeable emotional fluctuation in the boy’s voice as he picked up a delicate doll. “As long as sister is placed inside here, it’ll be fine.”

Zhu Shuangshuang trembled all over.

On the first night of staying in the castle, Shi Tianzhu asked her if she knew why they turned into children when they entered the instance.

Later, Zhu Shuangshuang found out that it was because they hadn’t “been born” yet.

Now Zhu Shuangshuang knew another reason, because they might be turned into Gu Man Tong, and Gu Man Tong naturally had to be children.

***

Ning Su sneaked out of the villa quietly in the night.

Following the scent, he arrived in front of a dilapidated house on the street.

It was called a dilapidated house because it seemed to have been moved from the top floor of a certain building, giving it a sense of age. The walls were cracked, dirty, and the roof was missing a corner, unsure if it would leak.

“Ah.”

The boy in front of the door turned around. In the dim night, Ning Su saw that the oil painted puppet had transformed into a boy with a birthmark. There was also another child standing next to him.

“Gu Witch, you’ve come out to enjoy the moon again.”

Silence.

The boy with a birthmark seemed to have thought of something, “Haha.”

Ning Su: “...”

Ning Su pushed open the door and let the Gu Witch go in first, while he and the boy with a birthmark followed behind him, entering the room.

They arrived late.

In a dim and dilapidated room, on a damaged sofa with springs poking out, lay a player who resembled a mummified corpse.

Ning Su remembered his name was Dai Jiuming, a player on the fifth floor.

Ning Su also remembered that after learning that using intimidation could earn luck points from ghost friends, none of the players on the fourth floor used this method, while the fifth floor had the most players using it, including Zhu Ji and Liu Liantian, as well as this Dai Jiuming.

Originally, this six-year-old boy had chubby baby cheeks.

At this moment, a thin layer of skin clung to the bones on his face, and the withered blood vessels were clearly visible.

The clothes on him were a size too big, indicating that his entire body had become just like his face.

Strangely enough, he was not yet dead.

His eyeballs were moving, and they moved even more noticeably when he saw them, as if he wanted to tell them something or perhaps seek their help.

Beside him, sitting next to the old sofa, was a little girl with two twisted braids. The little girl was wearing a tattered floral cotton jacket and was licking the last drop of blood from her fingers.

The boy with a birthmark hid behind the witch and watched her.

Ning Su and the witch stood silently in the room.

The Gu Witch said, “I always thought I would never have good luck, that I was a person abandoned by the heavens.”

Ning Su replied, “In this game, you are the luckiest person.”

At first, Chen Jinpeng and Zhu Ji also had good luck, but because of their greed, they caused the death of their ghost friends.

Two of the three precious ghost friends.

In the eyes of many players, the Gu Witch, who should be the best at tormenting people, had never forced or threatened his ghost friend.

He was currently the safest player and can almost guarantee a smooth clearance.

Ning Su pondered about this game. It seemed that being too unkind to ghost friends was not acceptable, but being too good to them also seemed inappropriate.

The witch was just right in this regard.

Hmm, perhaps there was one more person.

The Gu Witch turned his head and looked at Ning Su. His gaze lingered on his face for a long time. Just as he was about to speak, her sight caught another girl who appeared in the room, so he closed his mouth.

“Does Mom think he’s lucky because I’m not good enough?”

Ning Su turned to look at the little girl at the door.

The little girl in the tattered jacket sitting next to the broken sofa also looked up at her.

At the entrance, a little girl was wearing a bubble-sleeved cotton and linen white nightgown. She had thick, shiny black hair, fair and tender skin, and long eyelashes. She was very beautiful.

Just as beautiful as that night.