Hell App (Web Novel CN)

Chapter 83: Nursery Rhymes

[Visiting Graves At The Middle Of The Night: Ball, how could there be a ball in a place like this? It can’t be a person’s head!]

The ice-cold comment spoke out everyone’s thoughts, but in this heavy ghostly environment, Sen Leng’s mechanical voice seemed strange.

Bai Yan slowly raised his head and gazed at a distance. His sight wasn’t good, especially under this troublesome lighting, but amid their dusky surroundings, he, instead, could see clearly.

Before anyone else found out, he saw the lump of a petite figure getting up from a grave. Seeing its stature, it ought to be a kid.

The child’s back was hunched over, while his mouth was mumbling something incoherently as though he was talking to someone.

As the child walked closer, Bai Yan could then faintly make out the words coming out of the child’s mouth. What this kid perpetually saying was actually a weird nursery rhyme——

“Dong Zi’s Daddy throttled Dong Zi’s Mommy to death,

Dong Zi’s Mommy strangled Dong Zi’s Granny to death,

The boy used his little dusty hands to hold the ball, perking his head up to look at him, not saying a word, only giggling maniacally.

“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to tell me?”

Bai Yan muttered to himself and asked, “Do you know Dong Zi? Where did Dong Zi go?”

This time, the young boy finally reacted.

He mischievously laughed for a while and said using his big tongue, “Dong Zi… Dong Zi has been reunited with his parents!”

As soon as these words came out, shock spread across the two anchors’ faces. Dong Zi’s mom was already throttled to death. So, don’t these words mean that Dong Zi’s dad and Dong Zi had also passed away?

Under the influence of the dark and bleak environment, the dreadful nursery rhyme had made Bai Cui feel so cold, her teeth started chattering. Horror was consuming her so fast that she couldn’t utter any words out.

Beside Bai Yan, Lu Ruichao opened and closed his mouth, wanting to say something, but upon seeing Ye Shangyu also squat down directly beside the child, he shut his mouth and resumed his silent demeanor from earlier.

“Little brother, you didn’t finish your nursery rhyme, what’s the rest of it?”

The boy just held his ball, his eyes looked lost as though he didn’t understand what Ye Shangyu meant.

He used his sharp child-like voice to sing the nursery rhyme again, and when he reached ‘threw Dong Zi’s Sister to her death,’ the color of confusion flashed through his eyes as if he didn’t know what the lines to the rhyme were.

However, after stopping several times at ‘Dong Zi’s Grandpa threw Dong Zi’s Sister to her death,’ a smiling expression suddenly appeared on his face, seeming to be happy that he recalled the lyrics by himself——

“…Dong Zi’s Grandpa threw Dong Zi’s Sister to her death,

Then, their family of six were together again!”

Singing the very last line, the boy put down his ball and started to applaud his singing, most probably feeling proud of himself.

After listening to the boy sing the entire nursery rhyme, Bai Yan also saw through that this nursery rhyme must have been self-composed by the boy. Since it was self-composed, then there’s a possibility that this event had once happened in this village.

Finally finding a clue, this evening wasn’t in vain.

Seeing the body continue to foolishly laugh, Bai Yan couldn’t help but expose a mischievous smile himself, but noticing that the boy was looking at him in a daze, he quickly adjusted his expression accordingly, asking again in an amicable manner, “Who is Dong Zi?”

“Who is Dong Zi?”

The boy repeated this under his breath, unexpectedly standing up and beginning to dribble the ball. Who would know what he was thinking.

“A nice boy, but unfortunately…”

Bai Yan regrettably clicked his tongue, thinking that this silly child was unhinged, perhaps a nutjob.

Sure enough, the app always favored people with mental problems.

Either from knowing too much or not having an untimely demise, they would go mad.

The young boy evidently knew a lot, but he was answering evasively, and adding onto his mental instability, everyone also can’t force him to answer.

Generally speaking, threatening a child was also ineffective.

But, after encountering a character that had clues, everyone was no doubt unlikely to give up that easily.

After switching their manner of questioning a few times, the boy just giggled playfully and lowered his head to play with his ball, basically ignoring them.

Bai Yan’s group of three also knew that if he couldn’t answer or didn’t want to answer the question, the boy would never open his mouth from the start.

Seeing that there’s nothing left to ask, in the end, Bai Yan hopelessly asked one last question, “How did you know? Dong Zi’s family is gone, did you see it?”

Bai Yan initially assumed that the boy still wouldn’t pay him any mind but didn’t expect that upon hearing this question, the boy unexpectedly threw away his ball and prostrated himself onto the ground, his butt up in the air.

The boy stretched his head for a while and then crawled on all fours on the ground.

Getting in familiar with everyday rural objects, interest flashed through Bai Yan’s eyes, “Digging dog holes?”

The boy repeatedly nodded his head, looking up with a foolish smile.

Probably from feeling that he shared a common language with this uncle, he threw himself at Bai Yan, wanting to hug him. But, Bai Yan nimbly hid behind Ye Shangyu, so the boy pounced on Ye Shangyu instead, leaving behind two dusty handprints on her khaki pants and leaving Ye Shangyu speechless.

‘Going this far?’

‘How naive.’

Ye Shangyu shot a glance at Bai Yan and lifted her hand to lightly pat the boy’s head, softly saying, “We’re going.”

The boy nuzzled against Ye Shangyu’s hand like he was quite reluctant to part with her gentle pet.

He lifted his head, and seeing Ye Shangyu take back her hand, he couldn’t help but whimper a bit, slowly falling back by two steps.

The boy picked up his ball and turned his head, running away to a distant place. With a few breaths, the boy disappeared into the cemetery and not a trace of him could be seen anywhere.

Under the upstaging of the three players, the two anchors could only stare in awe.

Bai Cui heard the players ask a series of questions. Her brain turned into mush as she suddenly found out that these six travelers weren’t as simple as they seemed.

And, followed by ‘Haunted Live Broadcast’ and ‘Old Lady Ghost Eats Chicken,’ the live broadcast met with another small high. The wave——

[Flickering Lights: First, there was a person who claimed to see a human head on the pile of straw. Next, a fat old lady ate a live chick. Now, here comes a foolish child playing ball in the cemetery in the middle of the night. If this isn’t the anchor finding actors in advance, then these events are strange enough…]

[Beautiful Thighs: Sister Bai, those six travelers clearly have a problem! Did you hear what they were asking? Would normal people ask these sorts of questions?]

[Terror City: Interesting, will anchor broadcast again tomorrow? I feel that this village is still hiding a lot more secrets. Don’t give up halfway.]

[There’s A Ghost Knocking: Sister Bai, I also can’t hide this from you any longer! Truthfully, in the village, besides you, all of them are ghosts! Little tanned brother had also long been swapped for a fake. No kidding, don’t say more, run! Run away quickly!]

The comments in the live stream came like a barrage, and the phone’s narrating function couldn’t keep up with it.

Bai Cui switched off the narrating function and rapidly glanced at the comments, feeling colder and colder the more she read them.

Mother, if everyone said it like this, she’d really believe that problems are all around her!

However, money was influenced by popularity.

Seeing the tips the nouveau riche sent her, she first swore that she would surely broadcast again tomorrow since there was no way she would leave this place without fully exploring the village’s secrets.

On the way back, Bai Cui wanted to say something but was hesitant to do so, but when they reached the farmhouse, she finally gritted her teeth and asked, “What’s the meaning behind the questions you asked the kid? What did you find out?”

“We merely felt that this nursery rhyme had a meaning to it, so we only asked. Since you’re playing as a supernatural investigator, shouldn’t you ask more questions? Entertainment comes from this unknown atmosphere.” Bai Yan paused, shooting a surprised look at Bai Cui and saying, “You guys don’t really think that there are ghosts in this world, do you?”

“…”

Oh right.

Faced with Bai Yan’s thoughts, Bai Cui felt super embarrassed.

Yes, after experiencing many strange matters, she was truly hesitant to start wondering if there were ghosts in this world after the audience’s trickery.

Without a doubt, ghosts don’t exist in this world.

Bai Cui’s face turned red, suddenly speaking in a low voice, secretly ashamed of herself for lying to her audience during her live broadcasts to earn money all day long, almost like she was conning her viewers.

Seeing Bai Cui dispel her doubts, Bai Yan also relaxed his tone.

Good, she’s settled.

These NPCs that brazenly court disasters were hard to find. If he’s already found some, where would he find that were just as good cannon fodders?

The group of people headed back to the farmhouse with their own thoughts in mind. The lights towards the farmhouse still haven’t been extinguished yet, and the sounds of these five people coming in didn’t wake up the old lady and Xu Lanfang.

By the time they had reached the house, it was almost midnight already.

The most dangerous time was after midnight. And, with the level’s background story of a ghost village, not leaving someone on watch duty would undoubtedly that they regarded their lives as jokes.

The game was only a brief three days, so there was no harm in losing some sleep.

The players discussed it over, deciding on two waves of night watch. The first wave would keep watch until 5 AM, while the next one would get the 5 AM to 10 AM shift so that everyone on night watch could still sleep for 5 hours.

After talking it over, the two girls and the habitually silent Lu Ruichao lied down and went to sleep with their outside clothes on. This way, if there were any mishaps, they could still escape.

Through the seven levels of filtering, the remaining players’ mentalities were undoubtedly formidable.

Not long, these three players fell asleep, one after another, saving their energy for their exploring on the second day.

Beside them, the three big men stared at each other, wide-eyed, in the room… After only looking at each other for a moment, they shifted their lines of sight somewhere else.

Three places in the room needed to be watched attentively, and as it so happened, the three people watched over these spots.

Bai Yan was in charge of watching the window leading to the courtyard. Quinta followed closely by watching the door. As for Ozawa Hiroya, he was responsible for watching the small window on the wall behind the heatable brick bed to avoid someone leaning forward to take a peek at them.

In the quiet night, the three people didn’t say a word, only occasionally hearing sounds of insects from outside as well as the shallow breaths of the people inside the room.

Time passed by a second and by a minute…

And around 2 AM, the three people were somewhat drowsy, but they still used their sheer will to power through, not risking closing their eyes to rest.

When the three felt that nothing would happen, suddenly, the sound of a door opening from outside came through.

Bai Yan quietly listened in. The sound seemed to be coming from Bai Cui’s room.

In Bai Cui’s room, there was only her and Fang Niu staying there.

After that person opened the door, the person walked towards the kitchen and went through the kitchen door that led to the courtyard.

Naturally, since the door was near the players’ room, when the person opened the door, the three people heard it clearly.

Almost immediately, the person, who opened the kitchen door, walked to the courtyard, passing by the East room’s window.

Bai Yan stared at the window, which had lowered bamboo curtains in front of it, the only space that could be seen was the size of a pinky finger at the bottom.

However, there was no need to see, because just from the voice, Bai Yan could recognize who it was. The person who left the room was Fang Niu.