Chapter 188
Chapter 188
Jiang Li looked at the small cabin in front of her, then turned to look at the cabin opposite it.
Once she made out the layout of the cabin across the way, Jiang Li’s expression suddenly changed.
She immediately spun around and sprinted in the opposite direction.
A mirror image…
Everything in the cabin on the right was a mirror image of the cabin on the left!
The clock inside the room just now had been turning counterclockwise.
Even the numbers on the clock had been flipped in mirror image!
A simple mirror image alone wasn’t enough for Jiang Li to sense danger.
The problem was that every detail that appeared in the cabin on the right had an original counterpart in the cabin on the left.
Including the door that had been pushed half-open, waiting for Jiang Li to enter.
The cabin was indeed a safe place.
But the Mirror Cabin absolutely was not!
A mirrored cabin was a kind of “deliberate” imitation.
As for who was deliberately imitating the Safe Cabin, the answer was self-evident.
The Aberration inside the Mirror Cabin had disguised itself extremely well. Since it had gone to such lengths to lure Jiang Li inside, there was no way it was trying to keep her safe.
And the true target the Mirror Cabin was imitating was the real Safe Cabin the Aberration “wanted to conceal”-the house on the left with its door open.
Jiang Li didn’t dare waste even a second. She rushed toward the cabin on the left.
Out on the street, Santa Claus had already finished fighting whatever was in his sack and lifted his head.
Seeing Jiang Li running back and forth, the Old Man looked a little bewildered.
Jiang Li quickly pulled open the door to the Safe Cabin that had been opened for her, then slammed it shut with a bang.
But things did not go as planned.
A pair of bloodstained hands shot in from outside the door, blocking it just as Jiang Li was about to close it.
Santa Claus and Jiang Li started struggling against each other.
Jiang Li wanted to close the door. Santa Claus wanted to open it.
Santa Claus split his mouth into a grin full of rotten teeth and chuckled foolishly.
Through the crack in the door, that face covered in bloody scratch marks looked kindly at Jiang Li.
“Hehehehe…”
“Present… I haven’t given you your present yet.”
Muttering to himself like a madman, Santa Claus pulled a red stocking out from behind him.
The thick red stocking had been stuffed until it bulged.
The opening of the stocking was still loose and limp, as if it had just been taken off someone’s foot.
“A present for you. Hehe.”
Santa Claus shoved the stocking into Jiang Li’s arms and, while he was at it, even helped Jiang Li shut the door with a bang.
Outside the glass window, Santa Claus wailed miserably with exaggerated gestures.
“Ahhh~~ I’ve been locked outside! How cruel…”
“Please, children, open the door for Grandpa! Grandpa has presents for you!”
“If you won’t open the door for me, then I’ll have no choice but to… climb down the chimney! Hehehe…”
Outside the glass window, Santa Claus bent down, hoisted that bloodstained sack over his shoulder, jingled the bells around his ankles, and walked into the fog spreading across the street.
Jiang Li watched the Old Man disappear, then lifted the red stocking in her hand and looked it over twice, momentarily unsure what to do with it.
Just then, however, the sound of something slamming against a door came from the bathroom inside the cabin.
“Thud, thud, thud!”
It sounded like a head banging against the door.
Jiang Li looked around the cabin, but she didn’t see its owner.
If there was no owner, then who had opened the door for Jiang Li?
And who was making the noise inside the bathroom?
“Save me! Is there anyone who can save this old woman…”
“I know someone’s out there. Good child, help Grandma.”
“Thud, thud-”
That aged voice was exactly the same as the Old Lady’s in the Mirror Cabin across the way.
The person locked inside the bathroom should be the owner of the Safe Cabin.
“I see you,” came a voice from the crack beneath the Toilet door, where a pair of blood-red, ferocious eyes appeared. “Hurry, listen to Grandma~ Open the door, good child.”
Jiang Li didn’t dare act recklessly.
She checked the Family Photo hanging in the room, as well as the memorial portrait on the wall, and immediately understood.
Jiang Li immediately shouted inside the house, “Zhao Qingqing!”
“Zhao Qingqing! It’s me, Jiang Li. Are you home?”
At the sound of Jiang Li’s voice, the lock on the second-floor Bedroom door clicked open.
The Bedroom door opened, but there was nothing inside.
Zhao Qingqing, wearing the invisible Big Red Cloak, glanced warily downstairs.
To make sure it really was Jiang Li, the invisible Zhao Qingqing asked, “Then tell me-what does this string of Morse Code mean?”
Then Zhao Qingqing knocked on the door more than a dozen times.
If she asked any other question, such as something that had happened before, the Aberration might have prepared an answer in advance.
But Morse Code was different.
There was no way for an Aberration to steal what was inside Jiang Li’s head.
Jiang Li looked toward the empty Bedroom doorway on the second floor and smiled. “It doesn’t mean anything. You just knocked randomly.”
Jiang Li answered without the slightest hesitation.
Hearing Jiang Li state the answer with such certainty, Zhao Qingqing’s doubts instantly vanished.
Zhao Qingqing took off the Big Red Cloak, and her figure appeared.
Hugging the cloak, she came pattering down from the second floor.
“Jiang Li, it really is you! Thank goodness. I was scared half to death!”
Zhao Qingqing ran to Jiang Li’s side and immediately started pouring out her grievances.
“The rules require me to open all the doors in the house when the fog appears. It was terrifying! I thought something awful was going to come in.”
This place, one of the Safe Houses, was Zhao Qingqing’s grandmother’s home.
The two people in the Family Photo on the wall were none other than Little Red Riding Hood Zhao Qingqing and her grandmother.
After Zhao Qingqing entered the fairy-tale world, she arrived directly at her grandmother’s house.
However, the moment Zhao Qingqing got here, she realized that the kindly Old Lady in the house was not her grandmother.
Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother was already dead. The memorial portrait of her grandmother on the wall was proof.
So Zhao Qingqing had gone to great lengths to get the Fake Grandmother into the Toilet.
And because of the restrictions of the rules, the Fake Grandmother could not come out of the Toilet.
Little Red Riding Hood’s Fake Grandmother peeked through the gap under the door.
When she discovered that Zhao Qingqing and Jiang Li knew each other, she knew there was no chance Jiang Li would let her out. Dejected, she had no choice but to keep banging her head against the door with dull thuds.
“You still haven’t gone to recreate the scene from the prophecy?” Jiang Li asked Zhao Qingqing.
Zhao Qingqing led Jiang Li to sit down on the sofa and shook her head.
“No. I have to go to the castle first and get my human skin mask from Meng Zihan before I can recreate it.”
Jiang Li raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to Brand Castle too? Then we can go together.”
Zhao Qingqing agreed at once.
But a second later, her expression turned troubled again.
“But… the moat outside is a real problem! I asked the Neighbors in town. Without a specialist to lead the way, there’s no way to get to the other side.”
At the mention of a specialist leading the way, Jiang Li instantly thought of that Little Soldier on horseback.
“Oh no!” Jiang Li shot to her feet.
She had put all her energy into escaping with her life and had completely failed to look after the Little Soldier and his Pony.
If something really had happened to the Little Soldier, then neither Jiang Li nor Zhao Qingqing would be able to cross that moat, much less reach the castle on the far shore.
According to the Invitation Letter, Jiang Li had to arrive at the castle before midnight tonight to attend the banquet.
“What’s wrong, Jiang Li? Don’t scare me.” Zhao Qingqing also stood up with her.
Jiang Li’s brow tightened as an image surfaced in her mind.
When the Mirror Cabin had lured Jiang Li inside, the Little Soldier had appeared there before.
Everything inside the Mirror Cabin had been a copy of Zhao Qingqing’s house.
Jiang Li looked at Zhao Qingqing with a grave expression.
“Did you ever catch a child? A Little Boy with a Pony, wearing a soldier’s uniform. You… didn’t kill him, did you?”
Zhao Qingqing sucked in a breath. “You mean the kid who brought a Pony to my backyard to take a dump?”