"Where did you just come back from?"
When Ethan heard Riyana's words, he immediately broke out in a cold sweat.
Because hadn't Riyana just had lunch with him, and even been force-fed soup by their mom?
Why did she seem to remember none of it?
"School?", Riyana looked at Ethan strangely, "Brother, are you sick or something? At this time, shouldn't school have just let out? Where else could I have gone?"
"Right, school just let out," Ethan took a deep breath. He didn't dare argue with Riyana at all and could only nod reluctantly, "Then… let's…"
"Of course we're going home," Riyana linked her arm through Ethan's, "Brother, be honest. Did you lose your key? So you're afraid Mom will yell at you when we get home?"
"My key?", Ethan froze for a second before suddenly realizing, "Right, right, I lost my key! Riyana, do you have yours? Can I borrow it to get a copy made first?"
"Of course I have my key."
Hearing that, Riyana immediately pulled a key out of her pocket.
The moment she took out the key, a red exclamation mark appeared on the copper-colored key in her hand.
[Clue 4: Copper Key]
Ethan's eyes lit up, and he reached for the key in Riyana's hand.
But Riyana immediately pulled it back, "I'm not giving it to you! Hmph! Do you think I don't know what you're thinking?"
"Thinking what?"
Ethan felt a little regretful. If only he had moved a little faster just now.
But Riyana tugged the left corner of her mouth and sneered, "Hmph! You just want to trick my key away, and then when Mom asks about it later, you'll pin the blame on me! You want to get me beaten by Mom. No way!"
"Uh…"
Ethan suddenly remembered that he really had been famous for being scheming at home.
For example… it was clearly him who had been playing on the pull-up bar and broken the towel rack in the bathroom.
But to shift the blame, the moment he broke the towel rack, he immediately rushed out of the room and shouted, "Mom, how did the towel rack in the bathroom fall down? Come take a look!"
"What happened?"
When Mom went into the bathroom to look, Ethan would put on a confused and puzzled expression and say, "I don't know. It was already like this when I came in. I have no idea what happened."
Then Mom would shout for Riyana and ask if she had broken it.
And if his little sister denied it, she would get beaten.
Mom would say she wasn't being honest.
And then… Ethan would take the opportunity to say a few words in his sister's defense, deepening Mom's mistaken impression of her while shifting the blame at the same time. He simply enjoyed himself very much.
No wonder his little sister didn't trust him.
"But…", His little sister pulled Ethan upstairs, "If you're willing to let me sleep in your room tonight, I can lend it to you for a while this afternoon. And you absolutely can't pin the blame on me."
"Deal!"
Ethan agreed without hesitation.
By now, he had basically figured out how to clear this game. He probably needed to collect all these clues, or rather, collect certain keys.
So far, he had already seen the golden key on Mom and the copper key on his little sister.
And according to the diary in Clue 1, there should be another key on Dad. If Ethan wasn't mistaken, that key should be inside the water tank on the rooftop.
It was just… he didn't know who was inside the black plastic bag that Mom had thrown into the water tank on the rooftop earlier.
"Hmph! That's more like it," Riyana finally nodded in satisfaction, "Brother, speaking of which, don't you think Mom has been acting strange lately?"
"How is she strange?"
Ethan was afraid of missing any clues, so when Riyana asked, he naturally followed up.
Riyana scratched her head, "I can't really put it into words, but I just feel like the Mom we have now isn't Mom. Every time she gets close to me, I always feel scared."
"And it's the kind of fear that comes from deep inside. I can't control it at all. I don't know what's wrong either."
"Do you feel that way too?"
"A little," Ethan nodded along with Riyana's words.
But now that he had found Clue 2 and Clue 4, he wanted to hurry up and remove the lid of the rooftop water tank and find the remaining clues first.
"Riyana, you go home first. I'm going up to the rooftop to get something?"
"What are you getting?"
Riyana asked.
Before Ethan could answer, they had already reached the stairs on the fifth floor.
The door to their apartment was wide open. Their mom, who had already fallen to her death, was somehow standing eerily at the doorway, smiling at the two of them.
"You're back? I was just wondering why you two hadn't come back yet. The soup is almost cold. I was about to go downstairs to look for you."
"I…"
The excuse Ethan had originally planned to use to trick Riyana got stuck in his throat, and he had no choice but to swallow it back down.
'Didn't this monster already fell from the rooftop and die?'
'She regenerated this quickly?'
'Looks like…'
'I can't go to the rooftop for now.'