In an old, dilapidated house.
Dark and silent.
On the ground nearby lay the corpse of a girl, her face contorted in a horrifying expression, eyes wide open in death.
A man wearing an old-style military coat sat at a table, gripping a pencil with his arm extended, the tip of the pencil touching a sheet of white paper on the table.
Behind this man stood a pale figure shrouded in black mist, motionless, its features indiscernible to any observer.
"This should be how to play it, with the wrist and elbow not touching the table. There's supposed to be some kind of incantation, but I've forgotten... We'll make do," Lin Mo muttered to himself.
He remembered that it was best to close one's eyes when playing this game.
At that moment, he closed his eyes and chanted: "Planchette spirit, planchette spirit, are you there?"
Waiting.
In the room, apart from Lin Mo's voice, the silence was terrifying.
Just when Lin Mo thought nothing would happen, suddenly, he felt an ice-cold hand grip his own hand holding the pencil without warning.
His fingers instantly went numb from the cold.
Lin Mo immediately opened his eyes.
The previously empty chair opposite him now had a figure sitting in it.
It was a girl wearing a dirty school uniform. Her head was lowered, long hair falling forward, obscuring her face. She exuded an aura of resentment and malice.
Blood dripped from the hem of her clothes.
The floor beneath her was already stained red.
In an instant, an overwhelming sense of danger washed over Lin Mo. He could feel the intense hatred emanating from this evil spirit, a malevolence that sought to kill all living beings.
Playing the planchette game was actually very dangerous.
Because what one summoned could be a terrifying evil spirit. If you encountered a reasonable spirit, it might be okay, but if you met an unreasonable one, you could only blame your bad luck.
Clearly, the one before him was unreasonable.
Lin Mo hadn't even asked a question yet, but it had already started writing.
The pencil moved.
The power of this evil spirit was immense. Lin Mo's hand began to write on the paper involuntarily.
Die!
You will die!
Every word was filled with malice.
Lin Mo silently thought this was not good. The words written with this pencil could potentially become a terrifying curse. Just like that poor girl earlier, who had strangled herself to death according to the "method of death" written on the paper.
The cautionary example lay right beside him, impossible to ignore.
No one could guarantee how the method of death written on the paper would be realized.
What if the written method of death was certain to be fulfilled?
Lin Mo certainly didn't want to be cursed for no reason.
But his strength was clearly no match for the evil spirit opposite him.
The pencil tip slowly wrote words on the paper.
You
Will
Be
Hanged
...
Lin Mo watched helplessly as these words were written. He knew what the last word would be.
It would definitely be the word "dead."
The girl earlier had been strangled to death, while his fate was to be hanged.
He absolutely couldn't let the spirit write that last word. Lin Mo resisted with all his might.
Most people in this situation would be scared stiff, at the spirit's mercy. But not only was Lin Mo using all his strength to struggle against the evil spirit, he had also prepared a backup plan.
He intended to use his other hand to snatch the paper from the table.
Without paper, let's see how you write.
If pushed to the extreme, he'd even flip the table.
Despite Lin Mo's all-out effort to prevent it, half of the word "dead" had already been written.
He couldn't wait any longer.
Lin Mo prepared to act, but at that moment, something unexpected happened.
A pale arm suddenly reached out from behind Lin Mo, grasping the hand of the planchette spirit across from him.
Lin Mo was stunned.
The planchette spirit opposite was also startled.
Lin Mo could clearly feel its hand tremble.
The current scene was this: Lin Mo gripping the pencil, the planchette spirit holding his hand, and the pale ghostly shadow behind Lin Mo extending its hand to grasp the evil spirit's hand.
A three-way standoff?
Such an unexpected situation was rare.
Lin Mo abandoned his plan to snatch the paper.
He decided to wait and see what would happen. As long as the final word "dead" wasn't written, the curse shouldn't form. Without a fully formed curse, he had nothing to fear.
Now it was the pale ghostly shadow and the planchette spirit locked in a power struggle.
In the room, pots, pans, and dishes began to rattle. Some fell to the floor, shattering. Strange noises erupted, like whispers and curses.
These two entities were much stronger than Lin Mo, and he could sense that the pale ghostly shadow seemed to have the upper hand.
The planchette spirit was being suppressed.
Lin Mo took advantage of this moment to quickly analyze the current situation.
He had a good idea why the pale ghostly shadow had suddenly intervened.
It wasn't out of kindness to help him.
On the contrary, the one who most wanted Lin Mo dead now was probably this pale ghostly shadow.
Lin Mo could sense that after countless failed attempts to lure him to turn around, the pale ghostly shadow was angry. He could clearly feel its frustration and hatred.
Perhaps for this reason, the pale ghostly shadow didn't want Lin Mo to die at someone else's hands.
It wanted Lin Mo to die according to its own method.
Like a lion that had targeted its prey, absolutely refusing to let a hyena steal it away.
The current situation was still very dangerous, but it was precisely because of this that Lin Mo saw an opportunity.
With lightning speed, he reached out his left hand and snatched the paper from the table. Then he stood up and kicked the table over with one foot.
A loud crash rang out.
The eerie noises in the room instantly ceased.
Both ghosts withdrew their hands simultaneously.
The pale ghostly shadow quieted down, now motionless.
The planchette spirit opposite vanished without a trace, as if it had never appeared.
However, Lin Mo knew it hadn't left, but was hiding in the pencil he held.
A normal person who experienced what just happened would never dare to play the planchette game again, but Lin Mo was clearly not normal.
Mainly because he really did have questions to ask.
He set the overturned table upright again, then took a new sheet of letter paper from nearby and placed it on top.
Seated, Lin Mo extended his arm holding the pencil, its tip touching the paper.
"Planchette spirit, planchette spirit, what happened earlier was just a small misunderstanding. Let's start over."
"..."
He waited for a while.
No response.
Lin Mo opened his eyes a crack, saw the chair opposite was empty, and continued: "Planchette spirit, planchette spirit, are you there?"
"Planchette spirit, are you there?"
"Are you here?"
"..."
After persistently asking more than ten times, Lin Mo finally felt a small, cold hand hesitantly grasp his own.
Lin Mo was a bit excited.
It was late, but it had come after all.
This planchette spirit was clearly one of the fierce evil spirits. At first, it had come intending to curse and kill without even letting him speak. But with the pale ghostly shadow watching Lin Mo, other evil spirits would have to get in line if they wanted to kill him.
After realizing this principle, Lin Mo, who never knew what fear was to begin with, started to become a bit reckless.
At this moment, under the guidance of that cold little hand, the pencil tip wrote a crooked character.
"I'm here!"
Lin Mo immediately asked: "Can I ask you questions?"
This time the planchette spirit responded quickly, guiding Lin Mo's hand to write a line on the paper.
"I can only answer three questions per day."
Only three?
Lin Mo was a bit troubled, as he clearly had more questions than that.
But having some was better than none.
However, to Lin Mo's surprise, the planchette spirit added another sentence.
"You've already asked two just now."
What?
Lin Mo's eyes widened as he carefully recalled, and realized it was true.
The first question was "Are you there?"
The second was "Can I ask you questions?"
Those counted?
Lin Mo cursed silently to himself, not daring to say it out loud. If the spirit responded with "Yes, they count," then today's three questions would be used up.
Lin Mo suspected this was the planchette spirit's deliberate retaliation for what happened earlier, but he had no proof.
With only one chance to ask a question left, Lin Mo naturally had to be careful.
After some thought, Lin Mo consolidated and refined his doubts, then asked one question.
"I want to know, who is the mastermind behind dragging us into this nightmare world?"
This question, seemingly abrupt, was actually quite cunning, and presupposed many premises.
It meant that by answering this one question, multiple doubts could be resolved.
For example, was this incident a natural disaster or man-made?
The distinction between these two was enormous.
Lin Mo presupposed it was man-made.
And that there was a mastermind controlling it.
If the planchette spirit said there was no mastermind, then it was a natural disaster; if it said there was, then it was man-made, and he would also know who was responsible. This was much more efficient than asking step by step.
Applying game theory, Lin Mo was proactively trying to understand the world's background.
Perhaps the official staff knew some things, but they might not tell him. So Lin Mo could only use his own methods to seek answers from this dark world.
This time, the pencil didn't move. The planchette spirit didn't immediately answer the question.
Lin Mo wasn't in a hurry.
After a long time, the pencil finally moved.
But this time, Lin Mo could feel the planchette spirit's hand trembling. It wrote the number '404' on the paper, but just as it was about to write the words after, the pencil tip seemed unable to bear the burden and snapped with a crack.
Then came a scream.
The sound was sharp and piercing, filled with terror.
Lin Mo's mind went blank. He looked up to find the planchette spirit had vanished.
Gone again?
No matter how Lin Mo called after that, the planchette spirit didn't respond or reappear.
What had happened?
Lin Mo was a bit confused. Recalling the situation just now, it seemed the planchette spirit had detected something terrifying and was suddenly struck down.
Otherwise, it wouldn't have screamed so miserably.
Lin Mo looked at the pencil in his hand. With the tip broken, he'd need to sharpen it with a pencil sharpener if he wanted to write again.
However, it was unexpected that this cursed object inhabited by an evil spirit could be damaged.
The cause of all this was the question he had asked.
The '404' on the paper was undoubtedly a very important clue.
Lin Mo stared at it for a while, already forming a guess in his mind.
"What the planchette spirit wanted to express definitely wasn't that the webpage couldn't be found. I guess this must be a room number?"
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