Chapter 199: Trust

“Yinyin, you’re so clever! How did you know this gravesite was safe?” Gong Jian was very surprised and asked Lin Yin after all the Faceless Person had retreated.

“You remember not to act on your own; just follow my lead and it’ll be right.” Lü Yang waved his hand at Gong Jian. Surviving this danger wasn’t something to celebrate. He started thinking and improving his plan—the plan to end this Mysterious Domain.

Lü Yang never thought that girls’ screams could become a weapon. Now this combat team was quite well-configured: including ‘Lin Yin’, there were eight girls, plus the tall and strong Gong Jian.

Eight girls screaming continuously should be enough to carry out this plan. However, Lü Yang still wasn’t sure if doing this was the Path of Survival for this Mysterious Domain.

But the worst outcome could still be returning to this Cliffside Cemetery. If they stayed on this cliff without moving, when the Mysterious Domain ended, everyone would be directly Erased from reality.

If Lü Yang had figured out this Path of Survival earlier, maybe so many students wouldn’t have died pointlessly in the Ancestral Hall. Of course, he still wasn’t very certain if this plan was truly the Path of Survival for this Mysterious Domain. Only by truly trying it could it be confirmed.

“We need to go down together now…”

After thinking it over repeatedly, Lü Yang explained his action plan to everyone in detail, especially emphasizing several key action points, such as the order of screaming, the formation while screaming, and the specific division of tasks after entering the Ancestral Hall, etc.

Led by ‘Lin Yin’, everyone managed to escape. Just now, ‘Lin Yin’ had everyone hide in the gravesite, successfully avoiding a large-scale attack by several Faceless Person. Though no one understood why, they now trusted ‘Lin Yin’ very much. So after ‘Lin Yin’ finished explaining the action plan, no one raised any objections, except Gong Xue demanded that ‘Lin Yin’ give her a detailed explanation after all this was over…

Lü Yang didn’t mind this at all. Once they left the Mysterious Domain, Gong Xue wouldn’t remember anything, so the explanation would be nonsense.

Gong Jian took the lead, and everyone climbed down the cliff one by one. Under ‘Lin Yin’s’ arrangement, they formed a circle at the bottom of the cliff. Two screamers were in the center of the circle, while the others held hands and formed a ring around the two screamers. Gong Jian carried an Iron Shovel and could move freely but couldn’t go more than two meters away from the screamers. In this formation, they slowly advanced towards the Ancestral Hall.

“Once we enter the Ancestral Hall, we might see a very scary scene. Everyone, prepare yourselves mentally. Don’t scream out of fear and waste energy, and don’t run around, or you’ll just die for nothing!” Lü Yang emphasized to everyone again.

What women might do after being frightened was very hard to predict and was what Lü Yang found most troublesome. This would be the only variable in his plan, so he had to emphasize this point again.

Guided by Gong Jian and ‘Lin Yin’, everyone walked back into Mountain Peak Village. Not long after entering, they ran into several Faceless Person. Of course, now they had faces—faces cut from the boys and girls who had been stripped naked.

“Don’t scream… don’t scream…” Lü Yang directed the team to keep moving forward. When several Faceless Person approached about three meters from the team, Lü Yang shouted ‘Scream!’ One of the two girls in the center of the formation immediately let out a sharp scream.

The woman’s scream was indeed piercing and very lethal. The Faceless Person showed extremely irritated expressions on their faces, and their whole bodies instantly stiffened in place. Seizing this opportunity, Lü Yang led the team forward quickly.

More Faceless Person heard the noise and rushed over. But once they came within two or three meters of the team, they would be affected by the girls’ continuous screaming, looking irritated and stiffening in place.

Gong Jian wasn’t idle then. He used the Iron Shovel to scrape the faces off those stiffened Faceless Person one by one, making them search for faces everywhere to delay their actions.

Like this, the team moved forward, slowly advancing near the Ancestral Hall. Because the earlier face-cutting ritual had already finished, there were no Faceless Person guarding the Ancestral Hall entrance. However, the team’s earlier screams had attracted a large number of Faceless Person, making them gather here again.

But due to the effect of the girls’ screams, these Faceless Person couldn’t come within two meters of the team.

The floor inside the Ancestral Hall was covered in pale bodies—all the stripped girls. Some lay on their backs with their chests upright, others lay face down with their bottoms upward. Because their bodies were clean without bloodstains or wounds, the scene didn’t look bloody. This made Gong Jian, the ‘only’ boy in the team, blush bright red, not knowing where to look.

Of course, this scene also made the girls who entered feel quite awkward. They knew clearly in their hearts that if they hadn’t followed ‘Lin Yin’ to escape from here and found a preliminary way to deal with the Faceless Person, they would be like these girls now—stripped naked and left drying here like salted fish.

Lü Yang led everyone to find enough brushes and paints from the students’ personal items. They came before the Mural… Now only nine young people’s images remained on the Mural; everyone else had disappeared from it.

Many students from the art design department were skilled at painting, and Gong Xue’s painting skills were famous throughout the school. Once they reached the Mural, they immediately divided the work. They left two girls to continue screaming to suppress the Faceless Person, while the others, following ‘Lin Yin’s’ instructions, began drawing eyes, noses, and mouths on the Faceless Person in the Mural.

According to Lü Yang’s speculation, drawing eyes, noses, and mouths on the faces of the people in this Mural was likely the Path of Survival for this Mysterious Domain!

The people who came for the investigation were all skilled at painting, and there was an unfinished painting on the Ancestral Hall wall. Such an obvious Path of Survival, and he only realized it now. Lü Yang couldn’t help but feel disappointed with his own intelligence.

If he had thought of this earlier, perhaps so many classmates wouldn’t have been harmed!

Of course, it was still too early to conclude this was the Path of Survival. Everything would only become clear after all the faces on this Mural were drawn.

Along the way, the one thing Lü Yang worried about—the girls screaming randomly out of fear or leaving the team without permission—didn’t happen. However, he still miscalculated one thing… All the Faceless Person were attracted by the girls’ screams. They tried to catch ‘Lin Yin’s’ team but couldn’t approach due to the screaming. As a result, they formed a semi-circular encirclement about two meters away from where everyone was!

This meant that if Lü Yang’s inference was wrong—if drawing faces on the Faceless Person in the Mural didn’t end this Mysterious Domain—everyone would be unable to leave the Ancestral Hall and return to the Cliffside Cemetery! What awaited them would be, after everyone could no longer scream, being caught by these Faceless Person, taken to the Altar to be stripped and checked, having their faces cut off with a short sickle, and then their bodies thrown into the Ancestral Hall!

Thinking of this, Lü Yang couldn’t help but feel very nervous, a chill running down his back, but he didn’t dare show it.

If he showed fear and panic, everyone would be finished. Their ability to calmly paint while surrounded by so many Faceless Person was entirely built on their immense trust in ‘Lin Yin’.

…

Lü Yang wasn’t Lin Yin, so he couldn’t paint at all. He pretended he needed to direct the team to take turns screaming to scare the Faceless Person, so he didn’t participate in the painting Task.

Yi Ya’s work was almost finished quickly. She chose a man’s face to draw, and the facial features she drew were clearly Lü Yang’s image…

Gong Jian drew a woman’s face, which was obviously Lin Yin.

After all the faces were finished, they actually began to tremble slightly. Gong Xue quickly finished the face she was supposed to draw and then rapidly started on a second face. When the last person’s face in the Mural was completed, a very strange scene occurred…

Some of the Faceless Person surrounding everyone, those closer to the outskirts, turned around as if preparing to leave when the girls’ screams lowered slightly. Those closest to everyone had dazed looks in their eyes and didn’t seem to want to capture everyone anymore.

After observing for a while, Lü Yang signaled the girl performing the screaming Task to stop…

After the girl stopped screaming as instructed by ‘Lin Yin’, all the Faceless Person who recovered from their stiffened state actually walked away casually as if nothing had happened! They completely gave up on capturing everyone!

The Faceless Person in the Mural who had just had faces drawn on them seemed to come alive one by one, breaking free from the wall and walking out. They also showed no intention of attacking Lü Yang’s group, each walking aimlessly in all directions.

“We are safe. Actually, the entire Mountain Peak Village is safe now!” Lü Yang solemnly announced to everyone.

His back was soaked with sweat!

He regretted so much… originally, he shouldn’t have only saved these few people…

“We’re safe!?” After hearing ‘Lin Yin’s’ words, the girls couldn’t help but cry with joy.

“Their goal was just to find faces for their companions. Now that they have faces, naturally they won’t cut our faces anymore. If only I had thought of this earlier, so many people wouldn’t have died for nothing!” Lü Yang sighed and looked somewhat apologetically at the pale corpses on the Ancestral Hall floor.

“You already saved us; don’t blame yourself anymore.” Gong Jian heard ‘Lin Yin’s’ muttering and came over to comfort her. His face was still very red. For an eighteen or nineteen-year-old boy, these pale female bodies on the ground—his eyes couldn’t avoid them, making it hard for him to stay calm inside.