Chapter 137: The Friendship Boat Has Capsized
"Something's not right!"
Standing in the well, Wang Wenlong felt a strange sensation, as if he had fallen into the deep sea, his body sinking continuously.
His chest felt tight. He didn't dare linger, bending down to pick up the school badges on the ground.
As his fingers touched the edge of a badge, the moment he picked it up, Wang Wenlong noticed something seemed to be pressed underneath it.
About the size of a thumb, buried in the fine sand.
"A mechanism?" Wang Wenlong was cautious. He didn't touch the bump but instead brushed away the sand around it.
"What's hidden under the sand?" His fingers had already touched it—a sensation different from the gritty sand and gravel, softer and colder.
As the sand slid away, a face soon emerged. The bump was the tip of the nose on that face.
"Damn!" Wang Wenlong quickly pulled his hands back. He had checked carefully before jumping in and hadn't noticed anything unusual. "That's vicious! Burying it under the sand!"
If he had known there was a "corpse" buried under the sand, Wang Wenlong would never have jumped into the well alone.
Panicked, he picked up the two school badges and tossed them out of the dry well. "Pei Hu, pull me up, hurry! There's a dummy in the well too!"
"There's a dummy in the well too?" Pei Hu shone his phone light inside, revealing a man's face in the sand, staring up at the well opening.
He shuddered and reached his hand into the well. "Strange, it didn't seem this deep when you went down."
Wang Wenlong grabbed Pei Hu's hand, his feet pressing against the jagged claw marks on the well wall. Just as he was about to push upward, he suddenly felt something cold brush against his ankle.
His foot slipped, and he fell back into the well.
"Wenlong, what's wrong?"
"Something just touched me." Wang Wenlong looked at his ankle, but there was nothing there.
"Could it be a gecko or a bug?"
"I don't know." Wang Wenlong glanced around. He noticed that the sand on the "corpse" at the bottom was sliding away on its own, even without anyone touching it. Soon, most of the body was exposed, as if it were about to sit up.
"It's moving on its own? It can't be a haunted house actor! I jumped from that height—if it were a real person, stepping on them would have made them yell." Wang Wenlong's mind grew more chaotic, his thoughts blurring. "Pei Hu, pull me up now!"
He shouted loudly. Outside the dry well, Pei Hu heard Wang Wenlong's voice and quickly reached his hand in. "Grab me!"
This time, Pei Hu acted loyally. With one hand holding his phone for light and the other reaching into the well, his broad shoulders looked reassuring.
"Okay!" His teammate's voice brought Wang Wenlong some comfort. He gripped Pei Hu's hand, pressed his feet against the well wall, and kicked off hard, propelling himself upward.
Just as his upper body was about to emerge, his dangling legs were suddenly grabbed by something!
"What the hell?!"
Halfway up, he was yanked back down. Wang Wenlong turned his head in disbelief, and the sight before him sent a chill through his entire body.
The face in the sand had opened its eyes at some point!
"The dummy pulled me down?"
Wang Wenlong stared at the body buried in the sand. He felt as if its eyes were deliberately glancing at him.
"This is too creepy." Pressed against the well wall, Wang Wenlong looked up. The light from the well opening seemed to be getting farther away. "No, I need to get out! Pei Hu!"
"Keep your voice down! I feel like something weird is coming this way." Pei Hu reached his chubby hand into the well and clasped Wang Wenlong's. "Come on! Try again!"
Pei Hu pulled hard, but Wang Wenlong seemed to run into trouble again in the well.
This time, he was more alert. When he felt his calf being grabbed, he looked down.
There was nothing on his leg, but in the sand where he had just stood, another "female corpse" had emerged.
"Two dummies buried in the dry well? Was I standing on that woman's head just now?" A wave of revulsion washed over Wang Wenlong, along with an even worse thought. "Could there be more dummies under the sand? Is the person designing this haunted house insane? Burying dummies in the well and waiting for people to jump in..."
He clung to Pei Hu's hand, his legs flailing in the air, trying to break free from whatever was holding his calves.
"Stop moving! I can't hold on much longer!" Pei Hu pulled upward with all his might, his face turning red from the strain.
With one hand braced on the well's edge, as he dragged Wang Wenlong up, the uneasy feeling grew stronger.
Pei Hu kept glancing around. When his eyes swept over the path they had come from, his heart skipped a beat.
At the first fork in the haunted house, a girl in a school uniform stood with her head lowered.
The dark uniform was stained with blood, making her skin look especially pale.
"It's the doll I carried out!" Pei Hu felt a chill in the very air he breathed. His arms trembled. "Didn't its head fall off? Did the staff put it back together and leave it at the fork? Yeah, that must be it. How could a doll move on its own?"
"Pull harder! The dummy's eyes are open!" Just as Pei Hu was calming down, Wang Wenlong's tearful shout came from the well.
The sound was loud. At the same time, the doll at the fork, with its head still lowered, stiffly lifted its face. That face, dotted with purple bloodstains, turned toward the dry well.
"The head moves—maybe there's a mechanism in the neck. I should have thought of that." Pei Hu took a breath and looked away. "Can't get distracted. No matter what, I have to get Wenlong out today!"
He focused, but his eyes kept drifting back to the fork. He shouldn't have looked. One glance, and Pei Hu's heart nearly stopped.
The doll girl, which had been standing at the fork, was now in the left corridor!
She stood in the middle of the path, her face seemingly smiling.
Pei Hu's breathing quickened, his palms sweating, the fat on his body trembling slightly.
"What are you spacing out for?" His legs felt like they were tangled in seaweed while swimming, useless. Wang Wenlong struggled desperately, sweating in panic. He watched as the male and female dummies buried in the well opened their eyes. All he wanted now was to escape. "Pull me up!"
Pei Hu gritted his teeth and managed to pull Wang Wenlong up a few more centimeters. A cold wind blew from the other end of the corridor, and a soft sound reached his ears. He glanced sideways.
In the narrow hallway, the doll had somehow fallen. Its eerily grinning fake head, as if pushed by some force, rolled rapidly toward the dry well!
The face of the girl, suffocated to death, drew closer. Pei Hu's features twisted in terror. In that moment, he once again obeyed his inner voice, unhesitatingly letting go of Wang Wenlong's hand. With a speed completely at odds with his bulky frame, he dashed into the nearby Room 303 and slammed the door shut.
His hand released, Wang Wenlong's body fell. He stared at the well opening, so close yet so far, his expression frozen in shock!