PD -Chapter 50 The Tenth Killer

At that thought, my heart suddenly skipped a beat. I worried that the spirit might attack Wang Ke and his father again tonight. But then I reconsidered—it seemed unlikely. The town hospital was a twenty-minute drive from the village.

Besides, there was no water in the hospital ward for them to come into contact with. As long as they stayed there, they should be safe.

I shared all of my deductions with Liu Xiaoqiang and Tang Shanshan, and both of them agreed with my reasoning.

However, there was still one thing I couldn’t figure out: what exactly was Tang Shanshan’s connection to all of this? Why had she repeatedly seen hallucinations related to these events?

I was just considering whether there might be a hotel near the hospital where I could get some sleep. Once Wang Ke’s father woke up and explained what had happened all those years ago, we might finally understand the truth and have a chance to eliminate the spirit that Wu Yi had become.

At present, the spirit was hiding in the deep pool, and we had absolutely no way of dealing with it.

Judging from what had happened yesterday, the spirit wasn’t attacking indiscriminately. When our inflatable doll had sunk to the bottom of the pool, it had merely hidden inside the cave and watched. It was only because I had pushed too far and insisted on pursuing it to uncover the truth that I had provoked it.

“I just don’t feel safe leaving Wang Ke there alone…” Tang Shanshan said worriedly as she looked up through the car window toward the hospital ward building.

I thought about it. Tang Shanshan seemed to be deeply connected to this whole incident now. Every one of her hallucinations had come true. At this point, we couldn’t afford to ignore her intuition.

I sighed and motioned for them to get out of the car.

It looked like all of us would be spending the night in that hospital room, keeping watch over the father and son.

The town hospital naturally couldn’t compare to the city hospital where Tang Shanshan had stayed before. Conditions were quite basic. The ward was a small two-bed room.

Fortunately, there weren’t many patients admitted, so the second bed was empty.

Liu Xiaopeng and I found a couple of stools to sit on, while Tang Shanshan and Wang Ke squeezed onto the spare bed.

By the latter half of the night, seeing that nothing unusual had happened, I gradually slumped in my chair and drifted into a light sleep.

I had no idea how much time had passed when I vaguely heard a man’s voice echo through the ward.

“Xiao Ke… Xiao Ke…”

I jolted awake.

Opening my eyes, I saw that Wang Ke’s father had somehow regained consciousness.

“Was it you who saved me?” he asked, looking at me.

I nodded. Just as I was about to ask how he felt, he glanced around nervously and asked:

“Where’s Xiao Ke?”

I froze.

Turning toward the bed where Tang Shanshan had been lying, I found it completely empty.

Neither Tang Shanshan nor Wang Ke was there.

My heart sank.

I immediately shook Liu Xiaopeng awake.

The three of us split up and searched everywhere. We checked the hallways, the bathrooms—every corner of the hospital.

They were nowhere to be found.

A terrible feeling rose inside me.

The image of the deep pool flashed through my mind.

“Quick! To the pond!” I shouted as I sprinted outside and jumped into the car.

Liu Xiaopeng and Wang Ke’s father quickly followed.

We sped down the road.

The other two kept scanning the roadside for signs of Tang Shanshan and Wang Ke, but after ten minutes of driving, there was still no trace of them.

“Brother Han, there’s no water in the hospital ward. How could they have been influenced by the spirit?” Liu Xiaopeng asked.

I paused for a moment before realizing the answer.

“I overlooked something.”

Gripping the steering wheel tightly, I continued:

“Wang Ke has lived in the village his entire life. The water he drinks and uses every day comes from there. Naturally, there would still be traces of water in his body that the spirit can manipulate.”

“As for… Tang Shanshan, I have no idea why she’s being affected.”

“Wang Ke’s father,” I asked while driving, “did you know Wu Yi from the neighboring village?”

The moment he heard the name “Wu Yi,” his body visibly trembled.

“N-No… I didn’t know him.”

His evasive response made it obvious he was hiding something.

“Do you realize he’s come back for revenge? Your son is in grave danger right now! At a time like this, are you still refusing to tell the truth?”

I shouted at him from behind the wheel.

The man’s face turned deathly pale.

His entire body shook, yet he still refused to reveal what had happened all those years ago.

Liu Xiaopeng, sitting in the back seat, suddenly sprang up.

Grabbing the man’s collar, he roared:

“Do you know that you almost drowned today because of Wu Yi’s vengeful spirit? Do you want your son to die the same way?”

“V-Vengeful spirit?”

The man nearly collapsed in the passenger seat from fear.

But Liu Xiaopeng wasn’t finished.

“Wu Yi died a miserable death in that pond. His resentment was so intense that he’s become a spirit dwelling in the water. The disappearances of those nine children are all connected to him.”

“And their parents, just like you, were classmates in the same year as Wu Yi.”

“Do you want Wang Ke to end up just like them?”

Only then did something seem to click in the man’s mind.

He muttered blankly:

“Nine… nine? Not ten…”

At last, he began telling us the hidden truth of the past.

Wu Yi really had been killed by ten people.

Back then, they were the first group of children from the village to attend elementary school in town.

Wu Yi was the youngest among them.

His father had died when he was very young, and the other village children constantly bullied him because of it.

Every day, the eleven children would walk home together in a line.

Since Wu Yi walked slower than everyone else, none of them wanted to play with him.

That evening, when they reached the embankment, they suddenly scattered and hid beneath it, waiting for Wu Yi to catch up and search for them.

When Wu Yi finally reached the edge of the pond, they rushed out together, lifted him up, and threw him into the water.

The children had all grown up near the pond and often swam there.

They assumed Wu Yi knew how to swim as well.

What none of them knew was that because his father had died early, nobody had ever taught him.

After being thrown into the water, Wu Yi flailed desperately for a few moments before sinking beneath the surface.

Yet the other children simply stood there laughing, watching the water become still.

Several minutes passed.

Wu Yi never resurfaced.

Only then did they realize something was terribly wrong.

But not one of them thought about jumping in to check.

Instead, they scattered in panic and ran home.

From that day forward, the ten of them kept silent about what had happened.

Eventually, Wu Yi’s disappearance became a cold case.

With no clues to follow, the matter was quietly forgotten.

As he finished speaking, we arrived at the embankment.

I switched on the high beams and illuminated the pond.

Sure enough, I saw two figures—one tall and one short—walking slowly toward the water.

We immediately jumped out of the car and ran after them, shouting their names as we went.

Under the beams of our flashlights, Tang Shanshan and Wang Ke continued forward without even turning their heads.

They had already crossed the warning line and were heading straight into the pond.

By the time we reached the shore, they were already standing in the water.

The pond had risen past their knees.

“Sister Shanshan!” Liu Xiaopeng shouted.

But Tang Shanshan acted as though she hadn’t heard a thing.

Like sleepwalkers, the two of them continued deeper and deeper into the pond, one step at a time.

“W-Wu Yi!”

Suddenly, Wang Ke’s father widened his eyes and stared toward the center of the pond.

A chill ran through me.

Following his gaze, I looked out across the water.

In the middle of the pond, a head slowly emerged from the surface.

It was Wu Yi.

The same Wu Yi whom Wang Ke’s father and the others had thrown into the water all those years ago.

Now, Wang Ke’s father and his companions were middle-aged men in their forties.

But Wu Yi’s age and appearance had remained forever frozen at the moment he died.