"I also encountered Su Lian." Ningng Busuan looked down at the photo in her hand. "She just died as well..."
"So many people have died already." Hao Laoshi shivered.
"I wonder how the other three players are doing now," Wenqin Tan Jiu said, thinking of Gu Mian and the others. "We suffered heavy casualties, and I doubt they're faring any better. I wonder how many of them remain."
Hearing this, Hao Laoshi blinked and opened his mouth, but said nothing. The other two didn't notice his discomfort.
Ningng Busuan presented the photo in her hand to Wenqin Tan Jiu, asking, "This photo was taken by Jin Ye Bai right before he died, right?"
Wenqin Tan Jiu looked at the photo in her hand, his eyes widening. "You brought this photo too?"
"Yes. Su Lian told that these photos might be the key to surviving this instance." Ningng Busuan frowned; Su Lian had been killed by a ghost before she could finish speaking, leaving Ningng Busuan in the dark about Su Lian's theory on the way out.
"But we've already tried photographing the ghost, and it didn't seem to affect it at all," Wenqin Tan Jiu said, looking at the dark image in the photo.
When they first took this photo, there was a ghost in it. But now, the photo only showed a blurry bowl against a dark background. Ningng Busuan was also puzzled. If the photos can't confine the ghost, why would they be the way out?
As she pondered, she looked in the direction she had just run from. That's when she noticed a security cara mounted on the entrance of a nearby shop. Ningng Busuan froze, staring at the cara.
"What's wrong?" Wenqin Tan Jiu asked, noticing her sudden stillness.
Ningng Busuan ca to her senses, her face pale. "I think our initial assumptions might have been led astray by the instance," she said. "When we saw the photos and the ghost in them, we focused on using the photos to confine the ghost."
"But the way out isn't necessarily about confining the ghost. From the beginning, we focused on the relationship between the photos and the ghost, ignoring what the photos could do for us."
"You an..." Wenqin Tan Jiu began, seeming to grasp sothing.
Ningng Busuan lowered her gaze to the photo in her hand. "Su Lian reminded ," she said. "The purpose of these photos might only be to make the ghost visible. And we've all seen it—the ghost can move within the photo. So the photos don't capture a specific mont of the ghost, but rather its continuous, long-duration movents."
"I think the photos are like these surveillance caras, live-broadcasting the ghost's every move." Ningng Busuan looked up. "The ghost doesn't erge from the photos; it's always there. The photos just make it visible."
"At the beginning, we saw a ghost in the group photo. But in reality, the ghost wasn't *in* the photograph; it was at the location where we took the photo. So at that ti, the ghost could only snarl and snap within the photo. It couldn't actually harm us because it was far away."
"The ghost's actions in the photos led us to believe the photos had so sort of control over it, but in reality, they didn't."
Ningng Busuan raised the photo in her hand as she explained, "When Jin Ye Bai took this photo, the ghost was right in front of him. That's why he was killed imdiately."
"I think the way out of this instance is to use these photos to avoid the ghost. We can identify the ghost's location from the photos and then avoid it."
Wenqin Tan Jiu felt a chill run down his spine as he listened. If Ningng Busuan's theory about the way out was correct, they had already ruined their only lifeline.
They had already burned all the other photos. The only ones left were the discarded group photo, the one in Ningng Busuan's hand, and three unused sheets of film in the Polaroid cara.
Ningng Busuan took a deep breath. "If we had been more cautious on the bus and hadn't imdiately destroyed the other photos," she said, "we might have discovered the way out then."
But it was too late now.
The sun was slowly rising, but Wenqin Tan Jiu felt terribly cold, devoid of any warmth.
After so ti, he finally managed to find his voice. "Your guess makes sense..." he said. "But if this truly is our way out, I doubt we'll be able to make it out of this instance alive."
They had already burned their lifeline.
As they hesitated, Hao Laoshi suddenly saw a hand reach out from behind and land on Wenqin Tan Jiu's shoulder.
Wenqin Tan Jiu jumped, startled by the sudden touch.
Before he could react, a familiar voice sounded from behind him, "So this is where you've been hiding. I've been looking all over for you."
They all turned to see Xu Xingcheng's beaming face.
Seeing Xu Xingcheng, Hao Laoshi's spirits lifted montarily. But when he looked around and couldn't spot Gu Mian, his face fell again.
Wenqin Tan Jiu and Ningng Busuan's first reaction was also to look for Xu Xingcheng's two teammates. It wasn't that they particularly wanted to see Gu Mian and Chu Changge, but rather they wanted to know if the two were still alive.
Not seeing Gu Mian or Chu Changge, Wenqin Tan Jiu asked with a serious expression, "Where are your teammates?"
They were probably killed by the ghost, just like Jin Ye Bai and the others, right?
However, Xu Xingcheng didn't seem bothered. His jovial expression didn't at all match that of soone who had lost teammates.
Wenqin Tan Jiu was puzzled.
"Them?" Xu Xingcheng said, recalling Gu Mian's recent actions. "They forced to rummage through a lot of trash cans, then rcilessly abandoned and told to find you."
"They're fine?" Wenqin Tan Jiu asked.
"Rummaging through trash cans?" Ningng Busuan interjected.
Their points of focus were completely different.
Wenqin Tan Jiu hadn't expected them all to be unscathed up to this point. Could it be that the more peculiar a person was, the stronger they beca?
Ningng Busuan, on the other hand, wanted to know why they had to rummage through trash cans.
"What were you rummaging through trash cans for?" she asked.
"To find photos," Xu Xingcheng replied, pulling out a crumpled photo—the group photo.
Wenqin Tan Jiu suddenly had a thought. "Searching for photos?" he asked. "It seems your guess is the sa as Ningng Busuan's—that the photos could be our way out."
In fact, Gu Mian hadn't searched for the photos with the way out in mind. He just wanted to see if the ghost was still in the photo, and if so, to try and pry it out.
Ningng Busuan looked at the photo in Xu Xingcheng's hand, sowhat excited. "I believe these photos serve as surveillance screens, allowing us to view the ghost's real-ti location," she said. "Is that what you think as well?"
Xu Xingcheng humd nonchalantly in agreent. "That's right," he said. "When you were all burning the photos, our dear Doctor, out of caution, secretly kept three. Not long after we split up, he noticed sothing unusual about them."
In truth, Gu Mian hadn't been particularly cautious; he just wanted to see if he could pry a ghost out of those photos.
Xu Xingcheng was trying his best to portray Gu Mian as a normal person.
"He noticed that a ghost appeared in one of the photos and was moving within it. We therefore speculated that these photos were like surveillance feeds, allowing us to observe the ghost's every action as long as it was within the fra."
"To verify this theory, our Doctor took an enormous risk by returning here and ordered to search countless trash cans to finally find this group photo."
To make Gu Mian sound like a normal person, these words contained quite a few of Xu Xingcheng's own embellishnts.
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