Doll House(6)

The morning descended quietly onto the lone tower, the harsh yellow sunlight reflecting a sharp glare along the castle walls.

The weather was unexpectedly good today, the occasional tweet of passing birds sounding pleasant in the morning sky.

Except the occupants inside the castle had no mood to appreciate this rare weather.

Currently the butler was staring particularly pissed at the group of faux servants in front of him, a deep, ugly scowl marring his wrinkled face.

Maybe it was because they had already met the death requirements yesterday, no one had died last night but looking at the current stance of the butler,made it seem like he wanted to immediately rip each of them apart, limb by limb.

Although they tried their best to leave the room exactly as they found it , there was always going to be a place that they couldn't restore. Knowing this, they weren't particularly suprised to see the ugly look on the butlers face.

Finally with a face looking like a fierce ghost, the man spat through gritted teeth,

"This will be the last time, you insolent wretches. No doubt I will have you skinned and thrown into the fire pit with the pigs next time.."

Then with stiff wave of his hand, he gestured for the three maids, a man named Wu Rong and two women named Tan Xinglan and Ye Yangzhi to follow him out.

After a few steps, they dissapeared and no one could discern where they were.

Zhao Pengyu turned to Chu Yi but hesitated to speak.

Something about him had changed.

It seemed that since yesterday, an invisible shackle had been removed.The previous deadly aura around him had been heightened exponentially and he could tell that the man was in an awful mood.

The Chu Yi in Zhao Pengyu's mouth was in fact in a bad mood.

Yesterday he had still been immersed in the excitement of catching the man hiding in close proximity.

He had never doubted the inexplicable premonition that he would follow him here but that excitement quickly cooled down.

Having already been caught, the man turned unscrupulous.

In the middle of the night, ghostly hands had never seized to stop roaming his body mischievously. Pinching and caressing. Whenever he would open his eyes, instead of stopping, the dirty rogue would only use more force, not letting him relax for a moment. Forcing Chu Yi to stay up all night and eventually getting up with deep dark circles in the morning.

When he had inspected the doll this morning, he noticed that it had gotten bigger putting him in an even worse mood.

There was no guarantee that the man wasn't intentionally playing with him, tormenting him as he could only accept it helplessly.

The more he thought about the more angry he got, a blazing fire bursting forth in his red eyes.

But he quickly pushed down that anger, a deep chill surfacing in his eyes.

One by one  he marked down all of Ruan Quixi's 'good deeds.'

He would revenge it later.

****

In a dark empty space in the most hidden corner of the system, there was a slight ripple. The first movement in thousands of years.

'It' seemed to sense something vaguely and with a low, deep laugh, it resumed its wait.

Faster, Faster little demon.

****

With increased urgency, Chu Yi didn't bother to wait anymore.

"Since the 104 children are buried on the castle grounds, let's dig them up and see if we can find anything of use."

The others players that were still in the middle of discussing their next plan of action, fell into a speechless lull at the abrupt words.

All heads swiveled with disbelief to Chu Yi.

"That-..why would we dig the graves. Isn't that asking to be targeted."

Unexpectedly it was Zhao Pengyu who explained,

"There is obviously something off about the Madam and the children buried in the castle definitely have something to do with the Madam being alive. Only if we dig it up will we possibly find some clues."

The others still hesitated. Digging graves was an ominous thing just by hearing the description much less the graves of the people buried on the castle grounds.

Who knows what they would find there.

"Are you planning to just follow the path given by the system and hope that out of the three people, you'll be the lucky one to survive?"

"Cowards."

Distaste and disdain was almost tangible in Chu Yi's voice and several of them with their cowardly thoughts exposed went red in the face.

Yes.

From the description and circumstances described by Xiong Qi, they had already discussed and concluded that only 1 out of the 3 people that went to perform would come back alive.

And these few people, standing beside them, harboured thoughts of just following along with the system. No need to take unnecessary risks.

These 5 people were also the ones with the most lacklustre performance when searching the rooms yesterday, muddling along, disinterested at the edge of the corner.

Evidently they had decided a long time ago.

The rest of the others who had been hesitating also woke up.

Only one of them would survive from each group and no one could guarantee that they would be one of the lucky few.

Although digging the graves sounded risky so was opening the restricted rooms.

Seeing the cruel glare of the butler in the morning, it was especially clear that they would testing the limits if they did open another door.

Without waiting for them to gather their thoughts, Chu Yi started walking to the door.

He wasn't planning to dig up all the graves anyways and only threw an olive branch because he hated getting dirty.

Whether to come or not was up to them.

Zhao Pengyu watched him leave, then with gritted teeth hurried to chase him out.

This was a pure gamble and hopefully he hadn't chose wrong.

The rest also looked at each other quietly before following the two of them.

They had no intention to wait for death.

The five people that were left behind watched their leaving backs mockingly.

"Tch. A bunch of fucking retards."

"Yeah, yeah. Who the fuck would be so stupid to provoke the evil ghosts like this."

"I bet they'll soon come back crying when they hit an iron wall."

"Following that little white face, I bet they'll be the first to die."

After several bouts of insults and jeers, the cowardly group finally managed to calm their panicking hearts and with a sneer each retired to their room, waiting to see the others fail.

The graveyard was located at the back of the castle and was one fully covered in weeds and overgrown grass.Beneath their feet was sticky mud from the nearby swamp, green with algae and rich fungus.

Gritting their teeth they managed to ease through the marsh and eventually come upon a wide open space.

As far as the eye can see, there were rows upon rows of grave stones.

They had evidently been left unattended because some of them were already crumbling and rusty from decay.

What caught Chu Yi's attention was the peculiarity of the graves stones.

In the newspaper article before, it described the Madam as kind and benevolent, volunteering graciously to provide graves for the lost souls.

So why were these graves unmarked?

The question would only be answered after they started digging.

Singling, they each picked a nearby grave and started carving up the soil.

There was no shovels, which in hindsight they should have carried when they were inside ,but right now they could only use their hands.

Fortuantely, The soil was moist and loose enough to not bruise and scrape their hands as they dug.

Chu Yi stood behind Zhao Pengyu, watching him slave away at the ground with no intention of doing the same.

Knowing that they were all smart people and there was no way they would deny his suggestion, he had already taken them as manual workers to do do all the dirty work from the get go.

Zhao Pengyu could tell that Chu Yi was standing behind, the intensity of his gaze forcing a feverish blush on his face. He couldn't help it, anyone under those charming eyes would feel their blood rushing and their head dizzying, even he a straight man felt faintly flattered by Chu Yi's presence.

Although his hands never stopped moving, Zhao Pengyu was already immersed in his own fantasy world and ge didnt even realize how much time had passed until he felt his hands hit something hard, looking around, he realized that Chu Yi had long walked away to view someone else's progress and he couldn't help but feel a flash of disappointment.

Turning that disappointment off however, Zhao Pengyu turned to the coffin lid that faintly appeared in the dirt.

Gods and Ghouls must have been at work when he somehow decided not to call on the others and instead worked the coffin out until it was fully displayed in front of him.

With bated breath, he grabbed the edges, fingers white from the force and slowly pulled the tightly sealed coffin lid off.

Finally with a loud clang, the top came flying off to the side.

Chu Yi heard the noise drom the other side and turned back to look, walking over to Zhao Pengyu who stood dazed in front of the open coffin, faintly feeling that something was wrong.

He came beside the still man who looked to have lost his soul and peered inside.

He expected to maybe see brittle skeletal remains of the children or maybe some wicked bloody formation to extract their soul but what he didn't expect was this.

Empty.

The coffin was empty.