FEG | Chapter 13

Chapter 13, Values

It was nearly midnight. Sun Fangchi blew out the candle in his hand. Out of the seven candles, only two remained. One was in Ning Xiaomeng’s hand, and it would be kept until the very end. One was in Bald Guy’s hand, and he was the last one who had not told a story.

The light from the two candles was extremely faint, like two helpless fireflies in a pitch-black wilderness.

At the foot of the mountain, the person in charge gave the order, “Turn on night vision mode.”

The darkness on the screen was made transparent, and the silhouettes of the seven people appeared. In the infrared thermal imaging, the figures took on an eerie blue-green color.

Bald Guy’s head was brighter than the candle. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m a rough guy, I don’t know how to tell stories. I’ll just tell an internet joke.”

“Let’s say there’s only one person left in this world, and he hears someone knocking outside. The end.”

“You’re just taking my story and changing its shell!” Tianshi Li said unhappily.

Bald Guy hehehe’d and blew out the candle. “Something like that is good enough...”

Dong, dong, dong.

The wooden door was knocked on.

The room instantly fell into dead silence. The few of them all froze, not moving at all.

“Did everyone... hear that? Or was it my... illusion?” the weird-eyed man said in a strange voice.

“H-heard it, someone’s knocking at the door!” Pangye Zuiheng said, his face full of terror.

Tianshi Li clenched his fists. “...Could it be the staff? Deliberately coming to scare us...”

“R-right... very likely...” Bald Guy pushed Sun Fangchi beside him. “Why don’t... you go take a look?”

Sun Fangchi tilted his head and asked back, “Are you sure? What if the one who comes in after opening the door isn’t staff?”

“Then let’s not open it!” Bald Guy said quickly.

Spirit Young Master calmly stood up and said, “I’ll go take a look.”

Ning Xiaomeng had nearly bitten through her lower lip. One hand was gripping Pangye Zuiheng’s clothes tightly, and the fat man was similarly scared out of his wits, with the chair beneath him making faint scraping sounds from his shaking.

Before Spirit Young Master had even taken two steps, the folding table in the middle of the seven of them slowly sank down. Tianshi Li shouted, “Not good!” The ground in the very center suddenly sank with a whoosh. In just two or three seconds, a big pit had actually appeared.

The folding table had already sunk deep beneath the ground, and the soil at the edge of the big pit kept sliding into it. The pit was still expanding.

“It’s the story! The things in the story have come true!” the weird-eyed man screamed in fear.

The people around the pit hurriedly backed away. Bald Guy was so scared that all the muscles in his body tensed. In that rigid state, his left foot tripped over his right foot, and the whole person fell straight into the pit, which was waist-deep.

“Ah...” Bald Guy rolled his eyes and fainted.

Ning Xiaomeng, who held the room’s only source of light, tightly grabbed the fat man, and the fat man dragged her along as he ran toward the corner.

Bang——

With a loud crash, the door was smashed open. The two door panels swung wide open. Outside, the moonlight was hazy, and the mountain forest was dim and indistinct.

A black ball, from who knew which direction, flew over, passed through the doorway, hit the back wall inside, and bounced back out with a thud.

Pangye Zuiheng pointed at the ball that had flown away. A long “ge ge ge” sound came out of his throat, and he could not say a word. His legs went weak, and he collapsed to his knees on the ground. Ning Xiaomeng was directly dragged down by him. The candle flame swayed violently for a moment, almost going out.

“Turn on the lights! Turn on the lights!” the weird-eyed man shouted.

People at the foot of the mountain saw this scene on the screen and immediately panicked.

“What’s going on? Which department pulled this stunt?” the person in charge said angrily. “Hurry up and turn on the lights! Who told you to do this!”

A staff member said timidly, “Supervisor, it wasn’t us. There’s no one on the mountain except the seven of them.”

“Hm?” The person in charge was sweating coldly. “You mean...”

Could there really be ghosts? No way...

“Be careful.” Bu Xiling stood in front of Sun Fangchi, warily staring at the doorway.

Sun Fangchi also had a feeling that things would not end this simply.

Sure enough, the black ball flew in again, bouncing up and down as if being slapped by an invisible hand.

Pu, pu, pu...

The black ball struck the ground, making a dull sound.

“It’s a human head! It’s the one from the story I told... It’s here to kill me...” Pangye Zuiheng wailed in despair, as if someone had pinched his throat. His voice became shrill, like a woman’s.

“Was it a coincidence?” Sun Fangchi said softly, “Or did we all have a collective hallucination?”

Bu Xiling frowned tightly. “It’s not a hallucination. Could it be that the ghosts mentioned while telling the stories have all come here?”

“Then that’s strange... Pangye’s story was clearly made up. Could it be that this place is so sinister that it can manifest the ghosts mentioned in stories?”

“Something... seems to be coming...” Bu Xiling said, looking outside the door. Hearing this, Sun Fangchi also looked out. A tall, thin figure was walking over. Its gait was like that of a half-paralyzed patient, one leg dragging on the ground, the left and right sides uncoordinated.

Tianshi Li was terrified beyond measure. “It’s... it’s Old Zhuang’s wife... She’s here!”

The weird-eyed man shouted excitedly, “Tianshi, hurry and make your move! Since you could subdue her once, you can definitely subdue her a second time!”

Tianshi Li was so furious he wanted to curse. “I was just bragging, and you fucking want to get me killed!”

The weird-eyed man choked with anger.

Spirit Young Master moved closer to the doorway, waiting for Old Zhuang’s wife to come near.

Bu Xiling suddenly said, “I understand.”

“Hm?”

“All these phenomena are constructed by some kind of power. It was that ghost from yesterday who did this.”

“Then, in the end, it still comes down to making us feel fear?” After thinking about it, Sun Fangchi felt this made a lot of sense. “And the ghosts in my story and Spirit Young Master’s story never appeared. That should be because when the two of us were telling our stories, we weren’t afraid.”

Thinking of this, Sun Fangchi clapped his hands to draw everyone’s attention.

“Comrades, stay calm. This is the evil hypnosis of imperialism that refuses to give up its designs on us. We absolutely must not fall for it!”

The others: “...”

The weird-eyed man pointed at the big pit in the room and the black ball bouncing up and down. “This fucking thing is hypnosis?”

Sun Fangchi nodded very firmly. “We can’t let imperialism’s schemes succeed. Come on! Let’s recite the core socialist values together!”

The weird-eyed man said in disbelief, “Are you an idiot?”

That sentence voiced the common thoughts of the others. They all looked at Sun Fangchi as if he were a lunatic.

Sun Fangchi did not care. He clenched both fists and recited loudly and firmly, “Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity, friendship...”

This guy’s gone crazy, everyone thought in unison.

The black ball seemed provoked. It suddenly shot up and crashed into the back wall, using the rebound to fly straight toward Sun Fangchi.

“Aah——” Ning Xiaomeng closed her eyes, unable to bear looking any longer. In everyone’s eyes, Sun Fangchi was already a dead man.

Bu Xiling kicked precisely at the center of the black ball with a high kick, sending it flying out through the door and protecting Sun Fangchi from the attack.

What the others saw was this, the black ball flew toward Sun Fangchi, then seemed to hit some invisible obstacle around him and bounced away.

“...For real?” Pangye Zuiheng’s jaw was about to drop. Spirit Young Master also looked at Sun Fangchi with a strange expression.

“I said it, as long as our faith is strong enough, imperialism’s tricks will collapse on their own!” Sun Fangchi said passionately.

The weird-eyed man was starting to question life.

People at the foot of the mountain felt the same.

They stared blankly at the screen, not understanding why things had developed like this.

The flood of “cao ni ma” comments across the screen made them feel that they were not alone.

I believe your ghost, that old bastard is wicked as hell.

Hardcore ghost exorcism, I’m convinced, farewell.

Socialism makes me fearless.

I feel like my intelligence has been insulted.

Sun Fangchi did not know any of these comments, and even if he did, he would not have taken them to heart. At this moment, he was focused on teaching everyone to recite the core values.

Pangye Zuiheng was the first to take the initiative and ask to recite with him. Sun Fangchi’s goal was to divert everyone’s attention and ease their fear, so naturally he would not refuse.

“Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality...” After reciting it twice, Pangye Zuiheng felt that his whole body was filled with strength, and courage kept welling up from the depths of his heart. The fat man’s face was red. “It really works! Everyone, hurry up and recite it together!”

With Pangye Zuiheng’s healing case as an example, the others gradually joined Sun Fangchi’s recitation team, and even the most stubborn weird-eyed man agreed under Tianshi Li’s persuasion.

Bu Xiling looked at the room full of people shouting the core values and felt deeply powerless.

The black ball that had flown out the door never came back, and Old Zhuang’s wife, who had been dragging her leg and walking this way, also slowly disappeared. Probably the other side felt that these little tricks were no longer working and gave up.

After more than half an hour of reciting, everything calmed down. Aside from the big pit in the middle, there was not a single trace left.

The others stopped one after another. After confirming that there was no danger for the time being, they then pulled Bald Guy out of the big pit.

Bu Xiling went outside to look around and came back to tell Sun Fangchi, “It’s gone, maybe it left.”

Sun Fangchi curled his lips. Too bad for you, you can’t beat your big brother.

The weird-eyed man was standing close to him and just happened to see him smile. He thought Sun Fangchi was laughing at his own change in attitude before and after, and could not help but resentfully snap at him, “What are you laughing at!”

Sun Fangchi did not understand. Only after seeing his anger did he vaguely realize what was going on. He said, with wicked amusement, “I’m happy. I just like seeing you look like you can’t stand me, but have no choice but to build a harmonious society with me.”

“You fucking...” The weird-eyed man was both angry and wanting to laugh, so he had to change the subject. “What do we do next?”

The lights still could not be turned on, and the candle in Ning Xiaomeng’s hand had already burned past halfway. There were still nearly five hours until dawn.

“We have to run. Staying here might make something happen!” Tianshi Li said.

“It’s the middle of the night, I think it’s even more dangerous outside!” Pangye Zuiheng kept shaking his head.

The weird-eyed man voted for him. “I think so too. We should wait until dawn before leaving. First collect the other candles, and as one burns out, light the next one. That should be enough to last until dawn.”

Ning Xiaomeng said timidly, “Let’s call the people down the mountain to come save us! I don’t want to stay here for even one minute...”

The weird-eyed man looked around. “I don’t know whether the people down the mountain can still see us. My phone already has no signal.”

Sun Fangchi thought to himself that he hoped the people down the mountain still knew to come save them. Otherwise, tonight would definitely be hard to endure.

At this time, the people down the mountain were also hurriedly making rescue preparations.