Chapter 150
Chapter 150
A hint of amusement spread through Qiudong’s eyes. He glanced up at the candlelight, somehow drew a conclusion from it, and stepped forward to take Cheng Miao by the hand, leading her downstairs.
“It’s almost time for dinner.”
Cheng Miao let him hold her hand. She did not even spare the path a glance, too busy sorting through the possible causes of the hallucination.
The doll?
That did not seem right. Dolls were everywhere in the castle, including inside their rooms. Xiao Yan should not have been the only one affected.
Even after Cheng Miao reached the dining room, she still had not untangled the knot in her mind.
To the players’ surprise, Yuko appeared at dinner. She had been making excuses not to show herself, leading them to suspect she might not exist at all.
Yuko looked the same as the woman in the painting, though illness showed on her face.
She sat in a wheelchair, smiling at the group.
Kojima stood behind her like a devoted knight. He bent down beside Yuko’s ear and introduced everyone to her.
“This is the gentleman I told you about, the one with great talent for making dolls.”
Yuko looked toward Lin Zhu and nodded with polite courtesy. Lin Zhu hurried to return the greeting.
“My apologies, everyone. I suddenly felt unwell and was unable to welcome you yesterday,” Yuko said slowly. Her illness had left her voice low and hoarse.
“Kojima originally suggested I wait until tomorrow to meet you, but that would have been terribly discourteous. I felt a little better, so I came to introduce myself now.”
After she finished speaking, Yuko had to rest for a long while. Looking at her deathly pale face, Cheng Miao worried that she might run out of breath and faint at any moment.
“Everyone, I should take Yuko back to our room to rest. Please begin your meal without us.” Even Kojima could not bear to watch any longer. He wheeled her back into the main hall.
Qi Jiajia slipped out after them. When she returned a short while later, she said quietly, “He carried her upstairs at the staircase and left the wheelchair in the living room. He looked very practiced at it.”
Cheng Miao nodded. Nothing appeared wrong with Yuko. She truly did seem to have been chronically ill, and the wheelchairs on both floors showed that the couple was accustomed to moving around this way.
Then what was the problem? Cheng Miao’s gaze wandered as she ate. Could the problem be the house itself?
Was there something wrong with the castle?
Xiao Yan had lost all appetite. He sat listlessly in his chair. Brother Lü wanted to comfort him, but could not find the words.
After dinner, Cheng Miao looked at Brother Lü and Xiao Yan sitting in the living room, unsure whether to return to their room, and sighed.
Xiao Yan rubbed at his reddened eyes. “Old Lü, go get some rest. I’ll stay here alone.”
Brother Lü’s eyes stung too. “We were good brothers even before this. I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
Cheng Miao sighed. “You can stay in the living room, but if something really does happen, being here instead of your room may not change anything.”
After surveying the furnishings, Cheng Miao added, “You should still cover the paintings. Rest near the middle of the living room, as far as possible from anything that could catch fire, and put out every candle.”
Brother Lü nodded and thanked her.
The players returned to their rooms in twos and threes. Cheng Miao took one last look at the pair blowing out candles in the living room, then closed her door.
After lying down for a while, Cheng Miao still could not sleep. She tossed and turned until the mattress suddenly dipped beside her, as though someone had sat down.
Every hair on her body stood on end. Before Cheng Miao could react, Qiudong’s chilly voice sounded beside her ear. “Can’t sleep?”
Cheng Miao breathed a sigh of relief. She turned around and looked at Qiudong’s faintly blue eyes in the darkness. “Do you think they’ll make it through the night?”
Qiudong climbed fully onto her bed. Lying on top of the covers, he leaned against the headboard and looked down at her. “Do you think they have an Item like Qi Jiajia’s hair clip or your lantern?”
Cheng Miao pictured Xiao Yan’s deathly gray face and the sweat pouring down Brother Lü’s anxious forehead. “Probably… not.”
Qiudong closed his eyes. “Then their chances aren’t good.”
The thought left a heavy pressure in Cheng Miao’s chest. Even when she closed her eyes, she saw that eerie painting. Just as she was about to sit up, Qiudong began humming beside her.
The melody was gentle and pure, and Cheng Miao had never heard it before. Strangely, as she listened to that unknown tune, her heart gradually settled.
“Brother, I don’t want to burn to death.” Xiao Yan sat on the smooth marble floor in the middle of the living room, his voice choked with tears.
Brother Lü gritted his teeth. “One of my Items creates a water sphere that can hide someone from danger for one minute. If a fire really starts, you have to hold on. Once you’re inside the Item, you’ll be safe.”
Some of the despair faded from Xiao Yan’s eyes. He nodded seriously and remained seated where he was.
Brother Lü could not sleep. He got to his feet and paced in circles not far from Xiao Yan.
They had not drawn the living room curtains because the fabric could easily catch fire. Both curtains had been pulled to the sides and tied against the walls.
Brother Lü walked to the window and peered outside. Everything was pitch-black, and he could not see what might be hiding in the darkness.
A craving for a cigarette hit him. He felt his pocket, then remembered the danger of a fire and forced himself to resist.
Suddenly, he noticed a bright reflection on one section of the glass.
He looked back. Oh, it was only a doll lying on the floor.
The doll’s eyes were made of glass beads, and their light was reflected in the window.
Brother Lü walked over and examined it. Once he confirmed it was an ordinary doll, he ignored it.
Then he saw a furtive figure enter the living room through the darkness. Xiao Yan was dozing where he sat and failed to notice, but Brother Lü saw the spark of fire at the stranger’s fingertips.
So someone had been setting the fires!
Brother Lü’s eyes widened, and he lunged forward, only to slam into the wall the next second.
“Hiss!” Brother Lü had no time to inspect his bruises. The shadowy figure had dodged aside and drawn a dagger from its pocket, its blade gleaming coldly as it slashed at him.
Brother Lü twisted aside, evading a fatal blow, then grappled with the figure as it charged him.
At last, he wrested the knife from the figure’s hand. With his life at stake, he had no time to think, much less worry about how they would investigate if the person died.
His survival instinct took over. Gripping the stolen knife, he drove it viciously into the figure’s chest.
Squelch. The blade sank into flesh with a wet burst of blood.
Still uneasy, Brother Lü stabbed several more times. Finally, the figure collapsed to the floor and stopped moving.
Brother Lü released a long breath, then turned to make sure Xiao Yan was safe.
But when he looked back, Xiao Yan was no longer sitting on the floor.
Brother Lü called his name softly several times, but no one answered. He searched the room twice and did not see a single shadow.
Returning to the corpse, he kicked it twice to vent his frustration. Where had that little brat run off to now?
Didn’t he know how dangerous it was?
Forget it. First, he needed to see who had tried to start the fire.
Brother Lü crouched and turned the corpse over. His eyes met Xiao Yan’s disbelieving face, twisted and frozen in death.
How… How could this be?!
Brother Lü fell to the floor and scrambled backward on his hands. The person he had killed… was Xiao Yan!
How could this be?!
Suddenly, his retreating body struck something icy cold.
It felt as though someone embraced him from behind. He might as well have been thrown into an ice cellar, the chill soaking through his entire body in an instant.
He turned his head and found a long-haired woman’s head hanging beside his own. A pair of bloodred eyes, so large they seemed ready to fall from their sockets, stared at him without moving.