Chapter 144
Chapter 144
It was a somewhat abstract oil painting, with chaotic red and black lines filling the background. The entire painting contained only one strange woman.
She had an elongated neck and long black hair. Huge eyes occupied half her face, while her black mouth hung slightly open.
She wore a white garment over her upper body with a black corset. Her lower body was naked, and her enormous sagging belly made her overlong neck and tiny head look especially bizarre.
The painting’s chaotic, frightening style was uncomfortable to look at, yet copies of it were everywhere inside the castle.
Large and small, hanging upright and upside down.
Everywhere they looked, they saw bloodred color and the woman’s hollow gaze, making their skin crawl.
Xiao Wen tightened her grip on Xiao Qing. Xiao Qing pressed her lips together, terrified of making a sound.
The young couple had already huddled together. The man, Ge Hui, held his girlfriend He Xin close and comforted her quietly.
Cheng Miao looked toward Kojima. He smiled and stepped forward, raising a hand as if to stroke the canvas, only to stop just short as though afraid of damaging it.
“Yuko is a painter. This is the work she’s proudest of.”
Cheng Miao lied without blinking. “It’s beautiful.”
Kojima’s affectionate smile looked incongruous on his overly thin face with its prominent cheekbones.
Holding an oil lamp, he led the players upstairs. “I made these children. I’m a dollmaker.”
Seeing the players give the dolls along the route a wide berth, an inexplicable light flashed through Kojima’s eyes. “Don’t worry. They’re only dolls. They don’t move.”
The players shared the same thought: Emphasizing that only made them more frightening.
Kojima didn’t appear healthy either. His coughing rose and fell in strength without pause. After showing the guest rooms to the players, he excused himself and said he needed to prepare their dinner.
“Your home is so large. Don’t you have any servants?” Cheng Miao approached him and tried to build rapport. The whole castle was as quiet as a tomb.
Kojima shook his head and covered his mouth with a handkerchief as he coughed several more times. “Neither Yuko nor I enjoys being disturbed, so I personally handle every aspect of our lives.”
“You’re a truly enviable partner.” Cheng Miao noticed a strange expression flash across Kojima’s face at those words, an incongruous mixture of vanity and fear that appeared without explanation.
After watching Kojima descend the stairs, the players looked at the nine guest rooms and then at one another.
Cheng Miao had already gained considerable experience choosing rooms.
Every room would have some kind of problem. Hoping to choose a completely safe one through luck alone was pure fantasy.
She took the keys to the middle three rooms, then found herself facing a problem. Her team had five members. How were they supposed to sleep?
Without the slightest awareness that he had created trouble for everyone else, Qiudong casually took one key and tossed the remaining two to Qi Jiajia and Lin Zhu.
Qi Jiajia bristled. “Don’t even think about it!”
Qiudong raised one elegant brow, walked over, and bent down to whisper a few words to Qi Jiajia. Her face darkened, but she agreed.
Cheng Miao stared in shock. What happened to your principles, Qi Jiajia?!
Qi Jiajia’s sinister gaze swept over the female players present before settling on Yun Su.
She walked over and raised her hand, revealing the key inside.
Qi Jiajia rarely interacted with people outside her team. Looking awkwardly to the side, she said, “My room still needs one more person.”
Yun Su smiled at her, rolled the prayer beads around her wrist, and took the key.
Cheng Miao stared at Qiudong’s entire sequence of maneuvers, then grabbed his sleeve. “Wait, I never said I’d share a room with you!”
Qiudong narrowed his eyes dangerously. “Then where do you want me to sleep?”
He swept a disdainful gaze over everyone present. “Surely you don’t expect me to share with them?”
Cheng Miao paused. That was true. Cats recognized their people and were obsessed with cleanliness.
Seeing Cheng Miao’s unusually blank expression, Qiudong curved his lips. “Besides, it isn’t as if we haven’t slept together before. What is there to mind?”
Cheng Miao had a silent objection. Sleeping with a man and sleeping with a cat were still rather different, weren’t they?
That might be what she thought, but when she met Qiudong’s clear eyes, she felt as if she were making a fuss over nothing.
This was an instance. Who shared with whom didn’t matter. If necessary, Cheng Miao could accept sharing a room with any other man. Her reaction just now truly had been excessive.
Cheng Miao nodded. “You’re right. What is there to mind inside an instance?”
She pushed open her room door. Following behind her, Qiudong’s smile deepened.
The others outside divided up the keys themselves. Gu Jian casually chose a room, hooked an arm around Jiang Chen, and headed for the door.
Tsk, tsk. That Cheng girl looked clever enough. How was she so easy to fool?
Lin Zhu scratched his head as he watched Cheng Miao and Qiudong enter their room, then sighed. “Sister Miaomiao is completely wrapped around Qiudong’s finger, isn’t she?”
Qin Musong’s expression was calm. “Miaomiao exercises her own judgment, but I’ll still remind her if necessary.”
It was obvious that Qiudong bore Cheng Miao no ill will, but his identity as a receptionist remained a problem. Until that was resolved, Qin Musong couldn’t feel comfortable handing their captain over to him.
Then he saw that Cheng Miao remained immersed in her role as a cat slave, and a gloating smile curved his lips.
Qiudong was making his plans far too early. There was no need to worry.
The fog in Cheng Miao’s mind vanished the moment she entered the room. It was spacious and fully equipped with a washroom and dressing table.
Two beds stood inside, one against the wall and one beside the window. Dark green canopies hung over them, and red silk blankets lay across the snow-white sheets, decadent and bright as blood.
Cheng Miao narrowed her eyes. The room also contained dolls made by Kojima. She picked one up and turned it over to inspect it.
The doll was exceptionally well made. It wasn’t carved from wood. Its silicone texture made it feel much closer to real skin.
Unlike the dolls in horror movies and books, these weren’t designed to look like toys.
They were extremely realistic. Without touching one, anyone would assume it was a real child.
Yet they were more perfect than real children, and that very perfection made them unsettling.
The doll’s glass eyes made Cheng Miao uncomfortable. According to the uncanny valley effect, once a doll’s resemblance to a human reached a certain degree, humans would develop an intense sense of fear toward it.
These dolls looked almost indistinguishable from people, yet the perfect curves of their lips and their flawless faces produced an odd sense of wrongness.
Cheng Miao turned every doll in the room to face away. She didn’t want those things watching her at all times.
Inside Qi Jiajia’s room, the two women were also turning the dolls around. Yun Su curiously studied Qi Jiajia’s gloomy face and tilted her head. “You seem very dependent on Miss Cheng. Why did you agree to sleep separately?”
Qi Jiajia said nothing, gritting her teeth. It was all because Qiudong had told her she couldn’t depend on Cheng Miao forever. Instead of clinging to Cheng like a spoiled, ignorant brat, she should display her independence and strength so Cheng Miao would like her more.
That way, her position in Cheng Miao’s heart would carry more weight.
The reasoning was sound, but Qi Jiajia was still furious.
She yanked on her little braid. That scheming cat!