What He Qing was referring to was another room behind the underground basement.
As soon as they entered, they saw a dense array of human skins hanging from the ceiling.
There wasn't a single drop of blood on the human skins. They looked just like simulated props.
Shen Weixun didn't sense any aura of the living on the human skins. After taking a casual glance, he said, "They're just props."
"No!"
Xiaotuanzi suddenly retorted with great certainty.
"Third Senior Brother, I saw a few people. They're the ones who didn't come to the dining hall today."
Hearing this, Shen Weixun immediately frowned.
There was no doubt about Niannian's memory. She never told lies.
Nor would she joke about such things.
So, what Niannian said was the truth.
These lifeless human skins, which didn't look like they were peeled from living people at all, were actually real?
The human skins were hanging on the ceiling, making it hard to see their facial features clearly.
Shen Weixun took a closer and more careful look at each one.
He noticed that in the innermost part, there was a female human skin with a rose tattoo on the thigh. And when he observed the players yesterday, one of the women had such a tattoo on her thigh.
On the next human skin, there was a very obvious birthmark on the face. The birthmark was quite large and very eye - catching.
It was precisely because the birthmark was so prominent that Shen Weixun remembered this person at a single glance yesterday.
If the tattoo could be just a coincidence or a simulation, the birthmark couldn't be faked.
He had seen people proficient in Luban's Art, Horse Immortals, Yin - Yang masters... and even a Yin - born child.
None of the people present were simple. These two must also have some skills.
How could they be skinned silently and hung here without anyone noticing?!
The unknown made people vigilant and suspicious.
The curse...
Find the curse...
"Did any of you find anything in the rooms before, like notes or books?"
Shen Weixun suddenly thought of the two things he found in the room and asked He Qing.
"Yes, a letter, a piece of cardboard, and a seashell."
He Qing quickly took out the things from his pocket and handed them to Shen Weixun.
"At first, we found a puzzle box with a Kongming Lock. After opening it, there was a key and this letter. We used the key to open the wardrobe lock, and there was only the cardboard and the seashell inside. Our clues were cut off, so we had to keep looking. Finally, we found the key by luck."
He Qing let out a bitter laugh and continued.
Shen Weixun took the things He Qing handed over. There were a few tiny holes cut in the middle of the cardboard. The seashell was very ordinary, just the most common ornamental seashell. The only valuable thing was the letter.
"The demons can only hide in the darkness during the day. It's only at night that it's their time to revel. The sunlight is too bright for them to touch. Warmth will make them melt and turn into seawater, disappearing on the horizon."
"The demons who have always lived in the darkness long for warmth. They're still pursuing something that was once within their reach but is now out of reach. Yet, they've never regretted it."
Shen Weixun repeatedly speculated on the meaning of the two letters, but the words in them were really confusing.
He looked back at the crowd who were shocked and stunned by the human skins in front of them, and shouted, "Who else has a letter on them?"
A woman stepped forward and took out a crumpled envelope from her pocket, whispering, "I have one."
"I have a letter too." Another man jumped out and said.
The two handed their letters to Shen Weixun. They were the same, with only two sentences in each letter.
"Some people don't want to be demons, but so what if they don't? People accidentally break into the demons' territory and are threatened into signing a contract. The demons take away the love they cherish as their life and turn them into cold - blooded monsters."
"The imprisoned love finds the demons' weakness deep in the jungle, but the monsters are helpless. They don't want to lose their love, so they can only ignore all of this."
"The god is kind. She endows people with a good harvest; the god is proud. She looks down on all sentient beings; the god is sad. For this, she loses her life; the god is angry. For this, she sets up a cage."
"The cycle of life is endless, but the lives in the cage have lost the qualification for the cycle. The greedy pay the price, and the avengers also lose their reason and freedom at the same time."
The eight sentences in the four letters were all telling one thing: the god, the demons, humans, and the monsters that shouldn't have appeared.
Niannian was holding the envelope and, out of boredom, was playing with the envelope cover.
While Shen Weixun was concentrating on decrypting, he heard a tearing sound from Niannian's side.
Looking up, he saw Xiaotuanzi on the verge of crying.
She was still tightly clutching two torn pieces of paper in her hand.
"Waaaaah! Senior Brother, I didn't mean to..."
Xiaotuanzi seemed to realize that she had caused trouble. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell without any warning, making Shen Weixun completely unprepared.
The most important thing was to comfort Tuanzi.
He didn't even have the heart to decrypt anymore. He threw the letters aside and came to Niannian, saying softly, "It's okay, it's just an envelope. It doesn't matter..."
Halfway through his words, Shen Weixun suddenly found that there were still words written on the inner wall of the envelope.
When the two torn sides were put together, it formed a sentence.
"If you want to get out alive, break the curse. Otherwise, you'll be like us, forever trapped in the abyss."
It was a blatant threat.
Shen Weixun could even imagine the sinister smile on the face of the person who wrote this sentence.
He tore open the other envelopes. The same words were written on the inner wall of each envelope.
Only the handwriting was different.
They were all hand - written. Some were a bit childish, some were more forceful, and some were crooked, as if the person couldn't even write properly and was just copying.
If it weren't for the series of terrifying discoveries, these words would only seem childish and ridiculous.
But now, they smelled of conspiracy.
Shen Weixun finally understood why all the people who came here today were from the mysterious sect.
The thing that lured them here might be the cursed person in the story. It lured them here with the purpose of using their power to break the curse.
Humph.
It was really a good plan.
Luo Wuyou was probably also a part of the scheme.
When he encountered such strange things back then, this guy must have told a lot of people. That fake friend of his could disguise so successfully. Either he had all the information about this person, or he stole this person's memories by some means.
So, it wasn't a secret at all for his friend and that fake that Luo Wuyou knew them.
The other side didn't invite anyone else in the circle except Luo Wuyou. Maybe they were thinking of using Luo Wuyou's hand to trick him and Niannian here.
"Niannian, let's go. Wait for three days. When the ship comes in three days, we'll leave."