Chapter 162
Chapter 162
The final division of labor was roughly as follows. Cheng Miao would set the fire, then deal with that scumbag once Kojima came after her.
Qi Jiajia and Qiudong would act as her shadows, following Cheng Miao to make sure nothing happened to her.
Qin Musong and Jiang Chen would handle Yuko’s ghost if it appeared.
Lin Zhu would take Xiao Wen and Yun Su to open the gate. The moment the time came, they would let the players out.
Gu Jian was responsible for watching the show.
Everyone had experience with hallucinations. Except for Xiao Wen, who remained lost in the shadow of Xiao Qing’s death, they all voluntarily collected dolls scattered throughout the castle and piled them into the doll workshop.
They agreed not to ask one another for help or suddenly appear beside anyone. Each person would be responsible for a separate area.
Although everyone was dragged into hallucinations to some extent, no one rashly touched a painting and died.
By dinner, the doll workshop was packed full. Lin Zhu gave the room key to Cheng Miao, and she handed him the front gate key in exchange.
The players waiting in the living room were nervous and hungry. They had not eaten all day.
Qi Jiajia had finished her marshmallows too. The instance only allowed them to bring small things like those inside, including marshmallows and Qian Ming’s fruit candy…
Even the large steamed buns from the Cockroach Brothers had not been allowed in.
After an unknown amount of time, Cheng Miao heard footsteps. Kojima approached with a face dark enough to drip water. Staggering, he pushed a cake cart.
Sharp-eyed Cheng Miao saw bandages wrapped around his chest and abdomen, already stained bright red with blood.
Doctor Xu had clearly wounded him badly. It also proved that Kojima could be killed.
But that was another trap in the instance. If the players failed to find the key to the puzzle and killed the NPC, no one would remain to celebrate Yuko’s birthday. They would fail to meet the condition for leaving and be trapped here forever.
Now that all pretenses had been discarded, Kojima had not even brought down the Yuko doll. An exquisite cake sat on his cart, with red jam spelling out: Happy Birthday, My Dear Yuko.
Candles on the cake formed the number 28.
Cheng Miao wondered absently how old Yuko had been when she died. She had met the wrong man while still so young.
“My dear guests…”
Unable to stand Kojima’s false affection through clenched teeth, Cheng Miao interrupted him and asked what truly interested her. “You really did love each other. Why did you kill her?”
Kojima’s face grew even darker. He stared ominously at Cheng Miao for a long while. Perhaps it was loneliness accumulated through too many years, or perhaps fear, but he finally spoke.
“All feelings are worthless before money and status. Besides, she was only an unknown painter from the village. Being with her forced me to endure too much gossip.”
“Yet you still got her pregnant.” Cheng Miao mercilessly ripped away Kojima’s final scrap of dignity. His expression shifted several times before returning to calm.
“Nothing I say now matters. I’ve already paid for what I did. I’ve been trapped in this damned castle for three years. Not once have I been allowed to go out and see the world beyond. Not once have I seen the sunlight I once knew.”
Kojima looked into the endless darkness beyond the window, his expression caught between disgust and fear. “Every day, I’m trapped with these neither-human-nor-ghost dolls, staring at that terrifying final painting of hers. How could any of you know what every day of these three years has been like?!”
Cheng Miao did not answer. Those who sowed evil reaped destruction. But another question occurred to her. “How far along was Yuko when she died?”
Technically, Kojima had killed two people, yet only Yuko’s ghost had appeared so far. Then what about the child…?
“Only two months.” Kojima showed no guilt or pity when mentioning his former child, as though he were discussing something completely unrelated to him.
Cheng Miao understood. A child that young would still be considered an embryo, without thoughts or emotions and therefore unable to produce the powerful resentment needed to become a vengeful ghost.
That meant Yuko was still the only ghost they needed to face.
“All right. Let’s sing the birthday song.” Whatever Kojima thought of seemed to improve his mood. A smile even appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Xiao Wen shrank into the crowd, wanting to hold on to someone. Yun Su extended a hand to her.
“It’s all right. We’re all here.” A faint sandalwood fragrance clung to Yun Su, calming Xiao Wen’s panicked heart.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…”
Cheng Miao swore it was the creepiest birthday song she had ever sung. Flickering candles, a male host whose face looked as awful as a corpse’s, and a female host who truly was dead.
She suspected birthdays would haunt her from now on.
The final word had barely trembled from the players’ mouths when a cold wind swept in from nowhere and extinguished the candles. The castle instantly plunged into darkness.
“Hahaha! Not one of you will escape! She’ll kill all of you!”
Kojima’s crazed laughter rang through the darkness. Cheng Miao ignored him and sprinted for the doll workshop on the third floor with Qi Jiajia.
Lin Zhu and Yun Su pulled Xiao Wen toward the front gate. Kojima knew the players would not wait peacefully for death, but their sudden movements still caught him off guard.
At that moment, the temperature inside the castle plummeted as if in the depths of a brutal winter. Everyone knew Yuko’s restrictions had been lifted.
Yet all of them chose to stake everything on one attempt. Cheng Miao’s group trusted Jiang Chen and Qin Musong, while Yun Su and Xiao Wen had no other choice.
At first, Kojima thought Cheng Miao had lost her mind by running upstairs.
Then towering flames erupted on the third floor and illuminated his face, nearly twisted to death with rage.
Who could have imagined that when she was about to die, Cheng Miao would still go burn his dolls?!
Kojima’s love for Yuko might have been diluted, but his obsession with dolls was entirely genuine.
Watching years of painstaking work burn to ashes, Kojima went mad and charged upstairs to fight Cheng Miao to the death.
Qin Musong and Jiang Chen watched Yuko slowly crawl out of the largest painting in the living room. She still wore the floral dress she had died in, but blood and mud had soaked the fabric until its original colors were almost impossible to see.
Yuko’s neck looked broken, her head hanging very low. Aquatic weeds clung to her black hair and gave off a fishy stench.
Her limbs were twisted as though snapped, folded backward as she crawled using her knees and elbows.
Qin Musong had no intention of waiting for Yuko to emerge completely. The Eagle-Eye Gun unleashed a long burst of bullets, blasting one bloody hole after another through her body.
Yuko merely staggered back two steps. Her spirit did not dissipate.
Jiang Chen tapped his Gentleman’s Cane twice against the floor. The gem on top erupted with fierce firelight. Jiang Chen lowered his eyes amid the flames and coldly watched Yuko crawl halfway out of the painting.