Vol 3: Chapter 5-1.

Zero came back to the park by evening. Nightfall was within two hours. Aside from having some snacks, they spent most of their time observing all sides nervously. Especially now that the sun was setting, they felt more and more anxious.

Anyone that had seen The Grudge should know the ghosts in this movie weren’t afraid of sunlight. They could hunt day and night. Yet everyone still hoped to stay under the lights. Such an odd mentality, even when they knew the ghosts weren’t afraid of light, staying under the light gave them a little bit of courage.

Jie ran up to Zero and patted his shoulder with a laugh. “Shit, I thought you ran away with the gold. Haha, how did it go? How much money did you get?”

Zero smiled and took out ten credit cards. He handed the golden one to Zheng. “100% pure gold. I got each of you a card after selling them. The passwords are all 123456. There are…”

Zheng took the card and laughed. “It doesn’t matter. As long as there’s enough to last us seven days. Not like we will bring this money back to God’s dimension. Haha…”

The ten of them finally left this park. They took three taxis and headed toward the best five star hotel in this city. Even though Japan’s cost of living was high, those gold bars were enough to let them live luxuriously for seven days.

The three women got in a taxi, the three college students got in one, and Zheng, Jie, Zero, and Tengyi got in one.

Inside the taxi, Zero took out a few copies of maps. “City map with hotels, transportation, and sight seeing points of interests…”

Zheng took one and started studying with the other two. Zero continued, “I chose Sunlight Hotel. It is surrounded by open roads, very accessible. We can escape at any direction. Of course, if you are not ok with it…”

Zheng said, “No, this type of hotel is suitable to our current situation. Complex surroundings can trap us when we get attacked. Were you able to buy guns?”

Zero nodded. “No problem, but we need to pick them up tomorrow… Zheng, can magical bullets really damage those things? Did you damage it before?”

Zheng smiled bitterly. “I don’t know. I felt danger back them, that’s why I lost control of myself. To be honest, I also felt a premonition of death, as if I was going to get killed any second. I’m really scared of dying. People that are afraid of dying tend to lose control easily when they feel death is coming.”

“Is that so? You’re also scared of dying huh…”

The four of them fell into a silence. Before long, the taxis arrived at Sunlight Hotel.

Zero was very dependable. Not only had he sold all the gold within half a day, he also got them fake IDs. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to live in the hotel even if they had the money.

It was summer season in the movie, most of the rooms were already taken. The leftover rooms weren’t in the same floor, so they had to settle on a presidential suite that could fit all of them.

Yinkong immediately said, “I don’t want to live with anyone. Get me a single room, one with a computer.”

They looked at her in surprise. Zheng said, “Isn’t it better to live together? That way we can help each other.”

She put down her book and replied coldly, “I don’t want to live with deadweight. I think what the person that left in the beginning said was correct. I have also watched all three movies of The Grudge. This curse isn’t something you can defend with more people. Instead of getting dragged in when you get killed, it’s easier to escape alone.”

Zheng sighed. He discussed with the others and to his surprise, the majority wanted to split up into groups and not stay together. This way they could help each other while not dragging the whole team in an encounter.

Lan naturally grouped up with Yanwei. The seven men were split into two groups randomly. Zheng, Tengyi, and Renjia in a group, Jie, Zero, Binyi, and Ding in a group.

These four rooms were all in different floors. Yinkong in 11th floor, Zheng in 12th, Jie in 14th, and Lan in 16th.

The night passed peacefully. Everyone met up in Zheng’s room at noon the next day with sleepy eyes. Aside from Zero and Yinkong, the rest of them couldn’t fall asleep until it was past midnight.

“Good, seems like we are all doing fine. Today is the second day, we just have to last until the seventh day. Then we can all go back alive.”

Zheng rubbed his puffed eyes.

“All doing fine? Maybe not.” Yinkong put down her book and sneered. “I hacked into this city’s police network. There were two murders today just past midnight. The police found two bodies in a park not far away from us. In one of the bodies, all its internal organs were gone, its face was twisted. The other body was impaled through its stomach by a utility pole. Yet the rest of the pole was intact. All the police in this city were put into action but they couldn’t find the identities of these two people. According to the residents, they saw these two people with seven others. Are you feeling surprised?”

Their faces suddenly turned pale, a few people even trembled violently. Death wasn’t scary, yet dying in an unknown way wasn’t something they could endure.

Zheng took a deep breath and asked Zero, “You get the guns yet?”

Zero took out six guns from a briefcase behind him and Zheng took out six hundred magical bullets. “Don’t shoot normal people. I don’t want to evade the police at the same time. Even though killing a team member costs 1000 points… I don’t mind tying you up and leaving you in a dark place. I think the ghosts like people that can’t resist.”

The three college students got excited when they saw the guns but Zheng’s words shut them up immediately. Tengyi took a bullet and studied it carefully. “This seems to be made of regular silver? The runewords look like a combination of oracle bone script and cuneiform script… Perhaps, oh right, I remember seeing similar runewords on some coffins.”

Zheng grabbed his hand and said, “You saw these runewords on coffins? What do they mean? What do they do? These are magical bullets exchanged from God, even though they’re the cheapest ones, they can damage spiritual beings!”

Tengyi rubbed his head. “I don’t know what the runewords mean, I am just an appraiser, not a professional grave robber. But I heard some professionals say that these runewords can prevent a corpse from becoming a zombie (Chinese zombies). Of course, I always thought of those as superstitions.”

Zheng was rather disappointed, but he suddenly remembered something and took out a stack of Taoist paper charms. He said with excitement. “I almost forgot about these. Come, one for each of you. These charms will start to burn when a ghost comes near. While it’s burning, the ghost can’t harm you. It should buy you enough time to run or yell for help.”

Jie and Lan also took out a few charms from their backpack excitedly. They exchanged these charms after Resident Evil but since so many things had happened afterwards, that they had forgotten about the charms. Even though they put them in the backpack, if Zheng didn’t mention it, they would’ve forgotten their existence. Under current situation when they couldn’t know when the ghosts will come, this was the most useful item.

Zheng laughed and patted Tengyi on the shoulder. “Thanks for reminding me. If the real world has runewords to counter spiritual beings, then why can’t there be similar items in this world? Those temples shouldn’t just be there for sightseeing. Haha, maybe we can even learn some spells. Doesn’t God also have these type of enhancements for exchange?”

“Good! We will visit those temples this afternoon… to find hope to beat the Ju-On!”