Chapter 57: Kitchen

“Let’s go help them search…” someone among the group suggested.

“Yeah, we need to figure out what’s happening soon, or the next Ashes Urn might have our names on it!”

After a brief discussion and sighs, the group decided to split into three teams to help the unfortunate father and daughter search for their wife and mother. One team would search nearby, one would check the Restroom and surrounding area, and one would go to the Restaurant and nearby regions. Lü Yang was grouped with two teenage boys who had been playing games; they were responsible for searching the Restaurant and its vicinity.

…

The Restaurant was empty. Under the lights, tables and chairs were neatly arranged, giving an unreal, eerie feeling, as if they were in a horror game world like Silent Hill.

After entering the Restaurant, the two boys shouted Bai Wenzhi’s name but got no response. Then the three of them walked towards the Kitchen behind the Restaurant. Compared to others, although the two boys were young, they weren’t timid. They wore indifferent expressions on their faces and even walked ahead of Lü Yang.

But as soon as they entered the Kitchen, the two boys screamed together, as if they had seen something extremely terrifying.

At the same time the boys screamed, Lü Yang rushed over and saw what was happening in the Kitchen…

On the white wall of the Restaurant Kitchen, there was a large line of bloody words and a long string of question marks…

What have I forgotten????

Below this line of bloody words stood the wife of the middle-aged man who served as their temporary driver, the mother of the teenage girl, Bai Wenzhi, covered in blood. The boys’ screams made her turn her head, looking blankly in their direction.

After Bai Wenzhi turned around, Lü Yang and the two boys noticed that her chest was stabbed with various knives, and she even held a sharp knife in her hand. In front of them, she opened her mouth and violently stabbed the sharp knife into her left cheek, the blade piercing out through her right cheek.

Lü Yang immediately rushed over, wanting to stop Bai Wenzhi from harming herself further, but she quickly grabbed a kitchen knife from the nearby counter and swung it, preventing Lü Yang from approaching. Her eyes didn’t seem to be stopping Lü Yang; it was more like she sensed a threat nearby, and the kitchen knife in her hand was just swinging blindly around.

Hurried footsteps came from outside, accompanied by the shouts of the middle-aged man and the girl. The girl rushed in first and, seeing her mother Bai Wenzhi covered in blood with several knives in her chest, froze on the spot and began screaming hysterically.

The middle-aged man who rushed into the Kitchen afterwards charged forward desperately, trying to grab the kitchen knife from his wife Bai Wenzhi’s hand. But before he could get close, Bai Wenzhi suddenly swung the kitchen knife blade towards her own neck…

It seemed she used all her strength for that strike. From Lü Yang’s perspective, it didn’t look like she did it herself; it was more as if an external force grabbed her wrist and slammed the kitchen knife into her neck.

The middle-aged man finally managed to take the kitchen knife from his wife Bai Wenzhi’s hand, but he couldn’t stop the blood gushing wildly from the severed blood vessels in her neck.

The girl also threw herself over, desperately pressing her hands against her mother’s bleeding neck, but it was no use. Her face covered in blood, she turned around and let out a hysterical cry for help to Lü Yang and the others who had arrived: “Is anyone a doctor? Please help me! Save her!”

Listening to the girl’s heartbreaking cries, seeing her blood-covered face and pleading eyes, everyone sadly turned away. Bai Wenzhi was injured so badly, especially with her carotid artery severed—no one could save her now.

“I… remember…” Bai Wenzhi suddenly spoke with difficulty, uttering three words. She opened her mouth to say more, but no sound came out.

…

The middle-aged man carried his beloved wife’s gradually cold and stiff body out of the Kitchen. Everyone followed. After standing still for a while, Lü Yang was about to leave when he noticed what seemed to be a few bloody words on the floor where Bai Wenzhi had lain…

According to Lü Yang’s speculation, before she died, Bai Wenzhi must have wanted to say that she remembered what she had forgotten earlier, but she no longer had the ability to speak it aloud.

The light in the Kitchen was dimmer than outside. Lü Yang crouched down, trying hard to identify the words, and finally recognized three bloody characters on the floor: one appeared to be the character for ‘death,’ another was the character for ‘ground.’ Beside the character for ‘ground,’ there was half of another character: the radical for ‘dog’ plus a dot and a vertical stroke. Based on Lü Yang’s guess, it should be the character for ‘prison.’

‘Death,’ and ‘Hell.’

What did Bai Wenzhi want to say before she died? What she remembered—was it ‘death’ and ‘hell’?

‘Death’—did it mean she knew she was about to die, or… that she had already died? ‘Hell’—what does hell refer to? This place? For Lü Yang, in this incredibly dangerous Mysterious Domain, as long as he triggered the Main Quest and completed it, there was at least hope for survival. But if he couldn’t trigger or complete the Main Quest, he might fall into an inescapable hell, where there would be no chance of survival at all.

Earlier, when the Minibus driver died, he also said a word that sounded like ‘yes’ or possibly ‘death.’ And that bearded man Zhou Chao who was eating instant noodles kept repeating the word ‘stop’ before he died. Now, Bai Wenzhi left behind the word ‘death’ and another word: ‘hell.’

What do ‘death,’ ‘stop,’ and ‘hell’ represent? What exactly did they forget and then remember right before dying!?

Lü Yang crouched on the floor, carefully analyzing all possibilities. In just half an hour, three people had already died: the minibus driver Hu Wenhai, the bearded man Zhou Chao who hid in the service area’s Small Supermarket eating instant noodles, and the mother from the family of three among the passengers, Bai Wenzhi.

If things continued like this, probably no one would survive. The Ashes Urns and the names on them undoubtedly represented death. The appearance of the next Ashes Urn would definitely mean someone else would die.

If they couldn’t investigate and figure this out quickly, Lü Yang knew that sooner or later, an Ashes Urn with his name on it would appear. Based on the experiences of these people, once an Ashes Urn with your name appeared, everything that followed would be irreversible.

Analyzing the steps: first, the appearance of the Ashes Urn would make the person whose name was on it become dazed and struggle to remember what they had forgotten. Then, because of this struggle or some other reason, they would become insane, showing various forms of self-harm. Only at the moment before their death would they have a brief moment of clarity, finally remembering what they had forgotten and tried so hard to recall, like a final flicker of life. And then, death.

Lü Yang speculated that the only way to stop this from continuing, the only way to survive after an Ashes Urn appeared, and the only chance to end this Mysterious Domain, was to figure out what these deceased individuals forgot after the Ashes Urn appeared—or rather, what they were trying to remember.