Chapter 185: Evacuation
Chapter 185: Evacuation
However, the clever Lü Yang soon thought of a way to accurately tell whether the body was Lin Yin’s or not…
Lü Yang reached between the legs, fingers exploring into the middle crevice. He probed slightly back and forth… and encountered no resistance or pain. His fingers easily slid into the body’s vagina!
This… truly wasn’t Lin Yin’s body!
Why was this happening!?
Suddenly, the ground beneath Lü Yang’s feet gave way. He stumbled and fell back into muddy water. Struggling desperately to stand, he failed to rise again. His body only sank deeper into the sludge…
After the mudslide, the area where the Mountain Peak Hotel once stood had clearly become a terrifying swamp!
“Xiao Ya!”
Lü Yang shouted loudly, but soon couldn’t make another sound. Thick mud quickly reached his chest, its immense pressure making breathing difficult.
“Am I about to die here?”
Lü Yang struggled frantically to climb out, but his efforts only made him sink faster. Before long, mud covered his neck, his mouth, his nose… until it submerged his entire head.
Breathing became harder and harder…
“Ahhh!!!!!”
Lü Yang screamed and finally woke up.
He was indeed awake. He hadn’t suffocated in the swamp’s mud. Instead, he was still lying on the small bed in Gong Xue’s room at the Mountain Peak Hotel!
The room lights were off. Gong Xue had been woken by Lin Yin’s scream. Groggy, she guessed it was probably just a nightmare. After waking briefly, she turned over and drifted back toward sleep.
Just then, the room lights flickered on. Gong Xue opened her eyes to see Lin Yin standing terrified before her.
“Sister Gong! A mudslide is coming! We must evacuate the entire class to higher ground immediately! Any delay will mean disaster!”
“Mudslide!?”
Gong Xue stared blankly at Lin Yin. Middle of the night, thunderstorm raging… wake everyone and drag them out of the hotel into the hills? Was she insane?
“Hurry! Waste any more time and it’ll be too late!” Lü Yang hastily threw on clothes and bolted out the door. He pounded furiously on the room opposite and shouted down the hallway.
Soon, everyone was awake from ‘Lin Yin’s’ frantic yelling. Hearing that a mudslide was imminent, that the Mountain Peak Hotel would be buried, sleep vanished. They quickly dressed and gathered anxiously in the hallway to discuss.
“No time! The mudslide hits any moment! Evacuate NOW!” Lü Yang grabbed an umbrella, seized the barely-dressed Yi Ya, and dragged her toward the staircase, roaring at others to follow.
Nobody knew how Lin Yin knew about the mudslide, but dying buried alive in debris wasn’t appealing. Students threw on clothes, grabbed umbrellas or raincoats, and followed Lin Yin downstairs, waking classmates on the second and first floors.
Outside the hotel, a terrifying scene greeted them: pouring rain, violent thunder, blinding lightning.
Some students hadn’t packed rain gear. Huddling under shared umbrellas, a few woke the front desk clerk to buy supplies. The lobby shop had limited supplies: few umbrellas, but a box of raincoats. Students swiftly bought them all.
Nearby villagers awoke to students yelling “Mudslide!” Some, panicked, ran outside in pajamas. Others scoffed, cursed the noise, and slammed shutters tight before going back to sleep.
Lü Yang knew he couldn’t convince them all. Saving Yi Ya was paramount. Though holding an umbrella, he’d grabbed two raincoats at the desk. He pulled one over Yi Ya, threw one over himself, kept the umbrella open, clutched Yi Ya’s hand, and charged outside. He didn’t stop, pulling her straight uphill.
“How… how do you know there’s a mudslide?” Yi Ya, bewildered by sleep and being dragged around by ‘Lin Yin’, finally managed to ask.
“Just trust me!” Lü Yang couldn’t explain. He just tightened his grip and kept running uphill.
More students emerging from the hotel ran toward open ground or sheltered under large trees outside the boundary, looking around helplessly…
Seeing this, Lü Yang yanked Yi Ya back downhill. He yelled at the crowd: Don’t shelter under trees! When the mudslide comes down, this entire area will flood below. Anyone not on high ground WILL be buried alive!
Amidst ‘Lin Yin’s’ frantic commands, everyone reluctantly trudged uphill in the rain. Several hotel staff awakened by the commotion, including three daytime tour guides, climbed up with the students. They questioned the students incessantly about the source of the mudslide warning.
Eventually, everyone’s questions focused solely on Lin Yin.
“I just KNOW it’s coming!” Lü Yang finally snapped under pressure, struggling to explain. “Believe me or not, we’ll know before dawn! I’m just trying to save you! Want to stay behind and get buried? Fine by me!”
Blame it on a dream? That would convince no one.
The two boys and two girls who’d gone missing that afternoon had now reappeared, mingling with the others on the hillside. When Lü Yang looked over, all four wore identical eerie smiles while staring directly at him.
The face of one girl… it was EXACTLY the face reflected in the swamp water as he’d sunk into the mud during the lightning flash!
A chill ran down Lü Yang’s spine. Confronting them now was dangerous. Already, many people muttered about ‘Lin Yin’ losing her mind. Mentioning bizarre soul transfers, or resurrected Faceless Persons? Dreams of strange murals? That crazy talk would only make people disbelieve him completely.
“Well… building the resort did consider possible mudslides.” The oldest tour guide, Old Gu Zheng, in his fifties, spoke up, calming the crowd slightly.
Gu Zheng pointed towards the distant Mountain Top Lake. “To prevent catastrophic bursting after heavy rains, a strong retaining wall was built specifically facing the Mountain Peak Hotel during construction. It’s set dozens of meters away. Experts inspected it. The chance of it failing… seems highly unlikely.”
Old Gu Zheng’s words sparked a wave of renewed discussion. Voices questioning Lin Yin grew louder. However, given the life-or-death stakes, though doubt swelled, no one dared retreat back to the hotel buildings below.
Yi Ya, still firmly held by ‘Lin Yin,’ now cast doubtful glances her way. Though silent, her expression mirrored the others—convinced Lin Yin had gone either crazy or demonic these past days.
Lü Yang didn’t notice Yi Ya’s suspicion. His attention remained fixed on the two boys and two girls lingering apart. They still wore those unnerving smiles. From their silence and posture, none were engaging in the arguments swirling around… as if the coming night was entirely irrelevant to them.
…
The students endured. Cold, soaked, and scared, they stood huddled in the rain. Some shivered violently under flimsy umbrellas; others endured soggy raincoats.
Around 4 AM, awakened by Lin Yin’s warnings, they’d climbed here. By 6 AM, faint dawn light pierced the gloom. The rain finally stopped. Below them, the Mountain Peak Hotel stood intact. The Mountain Top Lake shimmered peacefully. No sign of violent overflowing. No sign of collapsing walls.
Cold, exhausted, aching – and utterly sleep-deprived for hours with nowhere dry to even sit – several students started coughing violently as bone-chilling winds sliced through damp clothes. Frustration exploded. Accusations against ‘Lin Yin’ sharpened. Cruel, lingering distrustful stares pinned her… as if she were some asylum escapee… or worse, some monster.
Lü Yang also felt bewildered. Thrown inexplicably into that Cemetery behind Mountain Peak Village… fighting through Faceless Persons to arrive here, only to witness the resulting mudslide… was all that really just a dream?
No… That couldn’t be. It had felt so vivid. That strange soul-jumping phenomenon… inhabiting one of those girls…
He stared again at the elusive quartet blending into shadows between shifting groups… Were those REALLY students? Or Faceless Persons now wearing stolen faces? Had they used those sickles to peel skin from those actual students… and then masqueraded among his classmates? What was their goal?
Confronting them… loudly labeling them monsters… was useless now. Pointing fingers would only isolate him further. Surely, it would cement everyone’s belief that he was either insane or dangerous.
Lü Yang stayed silent. Enduring stares and whispered insults swirling near him, he offered no explanations. Gradually, the crowd thinned. Only Gong Xue, her brother Gong Jian, Yi Ya, and Hu Yulan remained positioned near where he stood helplessly. They worked quite hard deflecting the rising anger… placating those who muttered most fiercely about ‘her’ earlier hysteric behavior… trying hard to dissipate growing resentment lingering around Lin Yin.
By 7 AM, rain ceased entirely. Thin morning sunlight weakly emerged atop distant ridges.
The stranded group who stayed appeared completely drained. Several openly hostile eyes glared openly toward Lin Yin. Standing exhausted until sunrise proved their doubts correct: mudslides simply weren’t occurring on this peaceful slope. Groups who’d strained mindlessly upward finally gave way… stumbling backwards downhill… boots sliding in slick mud left by the storm… heading toward the familiar safety of warm hotel beds below to try and recover sleep stolen prematurely.
Finally, only Yi Ya… Hu Yulan… plus the Gong siblings still remained… clustered helplessly nearby.
“Yinyin…” Gong Xue eventually broke the miserable silence for them all… keeping fatigue under careful restraint… stepping closer to ‘Lin Yin’ who merely stared emptily downhill toward the eerily quiet hotel… “…something crazy happen?… family troubles? Too much pressure? Making you nervous about things?” Only the deep desire to preserve brother Jian’s clear affection prevented her voice turning angry completely just then.