I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

"You two keep an eye on the eternal lamp and the footprints, I'll go check on the coffin."

Lin Hao said in a deep voice.

"Huh? Close to the coffin?" Ouyang Qiu was stunned. "Won't it be dangerous? They're still fighting inside..."

Lin Hao waved his hand, "I'll just look at it, I won't touch it."

He made up his mind.

Fortune favors the bold; if things go wrong, I can always back out. After all, I still have a packet of exorcising lime powder on me.

He slowly took two steps forward, still half a meter away from the coffin.

The umbilical cord around his neck twisted more violently, and the traction became stronger, as if a hand was pulling him by the neck and dragging him toward the coffin.

There really was something there.

Lin Hao was overjoyed and took another step forward.

He was only one step away from the coffin.

He could even smell the sweet, fishy odor seeping from the cracks in the coffin, along with a faint smell of decay.

The scratching sound of fingernails became clearer, and the players inside seemed to know someone was approaching, so they scratched even more frantically.

Just then—

"stretch!"

A very faint sound, like a rubber band being stretched.

The umbilical cord around her neck instantly straightened!

An irresistible force came from my neck, as if the ghost infant at the other end of the umbilical cord had jumped forward violently!

Lin Hao had no time to react. He lost his balance and, like a sack of potatoes, crashed straight into the coffin lid!

"Bang!"

A muffled thud.

His forehead and nose slammed hard against the cold, hard coffin lid, and a sharp pain instantly exploded between his eyebrows.

"Hmm!"

Lin Hao groaned, and two streams of blood gushed from his nose.

Warm liquid trickled down his lips and chin, dripping onto the dark coffin lid and splashing into tiny blood flowers.

His mind was buzzing, and he saw stars before his eyes.

"Kobayashi, are you alright?"

"Lin Hao!"

Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu exclaimed in surprise and rushed over to help him.

But Lin Hao didn't care about the pain at all.

He was both angry and shocked. He ripped off the scarf around his neck, revealing the black and purple umbilical cord that looked like intestines.

One end was wrapped around his neck, while the other end dangled in the air, trembling slightly, as if his scheme had succeeded and he was extremely excited.

that's it!

It was this sudden burst of strength that pulled him over!

"brute!"

Lin Hao's eyes were bloodshot, his teeth were clenched, and he reached out to tear the umbilical cord off his neck.

"What the hell did I do to you?! How long are you going to torture me like this?! Let's die together if you dare!"

He was so angry that he was trembling all over.

Despite being constantly tormented, he had always secretly considered it a trump card for survival.

So even though it tormented him every day, making him wish he were dead, he forced himself to endure it.

The results of it?

At the crucial moment, it rammed him directly into the coffin!

This isn't a warning, this is a death sentence!

Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu finally saw the wriggling umbilical cord on his neck.

The two of them took a half step back at the same time.

The thing was dark purple, with a sticky sheen on its surface. It looked alive and was wrapped around Lin Hao's neck, looking incredibly eerie and disgusting.

"Wait, wait a minute."

Ouyang Qiu looked at the blood flowing from Lin Hao's nose onto the coffin lid, at the wildly twisting umbilical cord, and at the increasingly thick rat-like fur on Lin Hao's face.

She suddenly trembled, and her teeth chattered.

She spoke, her voice trembling, like a leaf fluttering in the wind:

"Lin... Lin Hao... we're rats now too..."

One sentence struck the three people like a thunderbolt.

Lin Hao froze abruptly.

We are mice too.

The task is to prevent cats and mice from touching the coffin.

He not only touched it, but he also bled.

It turns out that the ghost baby's first two warnings were just to make him lower his guard.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when the blood on the coffin lid stirred.

The blood that had fallen on it was visibly seeping into the cracks of the coffin.

It felt like something was sucking it in, or like the blood had crawled in on its own.

In just a few seconds, the few drops of blood from my nose disappeared completely.

The scratching sound of the player's fingernails inside the coffin suddenly stopped.

The mourning hall fell into a deathly silence.

The wind stopped, and the white cloth ceased its rustling.

The flame of the eternal lamp shrank to a tiny point, greenish-blue, like a will-o'-the-wisp.

Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu held their breath, their bodies stiffening.

Lin Hao forgot his anger, his eyes fixed on the seam of the coffin, his hair standing on end.

next second.

"Squeak—"

A harsh, slow creaking sound of wood rubbing came from the coffin.

The coffin lid was slowly pushed open from the inside by something, and the coffin nails broke with a "bang".

Little by little, just a little bit.

A slit, followed by a half-foot wide opening.

A hand reached out from inside first.

It's not a human hand.

The fingernails were sharp and long, with a bluish-black tinge, like hooks coated with poison.

The back of his hand was covered with fine, short black hair, and his skin was wrinkled, like old tree bark.

He placed his hand on the edge of the coffin and applied slight pressure.

With a muffled thud, the coffin lid was pushed open completely, slid to the side, and slammed heavily onto the funeral bed, shaking the entire mourning hall.

A figure slowly sat up from the coffin.

It was short, with a hunched back, like a curled-up old woman, and was wearing a brand new burial shroud.

The most terrifying thing is its face.

It's not a human face.

It has a cat's face.

Pointed ears, a three-lobed mouth, a stiff and long beard, and half of his face was covered in cat fur, while the other half was wrinkled human skin.

It tilted its head slightly and twitched its nose twice, as if it were sniffing something.

Then, it slowly lowered its head, its blood-red eyes staring straight at Lin Hao in front of the coffin.

"Meow—woof—"

A sharp, hoarse roar came from its throat, neither like a cat's meow nor a human's cry, but sharp as a needle, piercing one's eardrums with pain.

It pounced on Lin Hao.

Even after the cat-faced old woman tore off half of his arm, Lin Hao was filled with regret, wondering why he had been so foolish as to trust a ghost baby who wanted him dead.

"Hehehehe."

The end of the umbilical cord curled slightly upwards, emitting bursts of innocent laughter similar to that of a baby.

……

……

……

First mirror copy.

At the funeral hall in the threshing ground, Su Ya, Yang Asha, Yang Hexuan, and Lin Jianguo were sprinkling lime on the ground.

What was that sound?

Yang Asha suddenly raised her head and listened intently for a while: "It sounds like a child's laughter."

"Hey, Sasha, don't scare me."

Yang Hexuan rubbed his arms and muttered a few complaints:

"Why is there a task of keeping vigil for someone at night? Huang Facai doesn't keep vigil for his own mother, so what's the point of us outsiders keeping vigil?"

"Logically, we should be a film crew, but we haven't filmed a single scene yet."

Su Ya made a lighthearted joke, then turned to look at Lin Jianguo:

"Uncle Lin, let's summarize the clues we've gathered over the past few days later."

Lin Jianguo didn't even look up as he responded, and continued to carefully patch up the missing lime.

The fur on their faces grew thicker and thicker, turning black and gray, making them look like monkey children at first glance.

Fortunately, all four of them were focused on surviving, and none of them had time to complain about the others.

……

"Okay, maybe I misheard."

Yang Asha, holding the door latch, sat in the circle made of lime, and the four of them began to study the clues they had collected over the past few days by the light of the ever-burning lamp.

On the first day, they completed three small tasks and obtained three clues: [Old Lady Huang's wrongful death], [Rat infestation], and [The clay ghost in the ancestral hall].

On the third day, which is today, they completed the "Grave Digging" task, but did not get any clues, only a notification that each person would gain ten points.

But Suya really didn't know how to use the points.

The four sat around the offering table, the flame of the eternal lamp flickering and casting their shadows on the wall.

They were crooked and twisted, like four distorted rats.