I woke up with a start. The feeling of falling from the strange space that had just collapsed left me standing rooted to the spot, motionless as a statue. My mind at this moment was completely blank, save for a single, bitter thought repeating over and over again:
( So... have I been lying to myself all this time? )
-"Hey! What's wrong with you?"
The sudden voices of Qing Yashu and Xi Yong'an echoed from right behind, snapping me out of my chaotic thoughts. I shuddered slightly, trying to swallow my panic to regain composure:
-"Ah... It's nothing."
-"Just now, we saw you suddenly walk straight into butler Li's kitchen, your eyes blank just like someone who had lost their soul. Is everything really okay?" - Yashu stared at me, her eyes unable to hide her suspicion.
I was flustered, my fingers tightening, hesitant as I didn't know how to explain it to make them understand. But before I could speak, a series of terrifying sounds ripped through the quiet atmosphere.
Ah... ah... ah!
Desperate screams echoed through the corridors, intertwined with the wild, muddy roars of the hunchbacked demon. That was the voice of Pham Bach Kha's group! My brain clicked instantly: the demon must have caught their scent and found them while they were struggling to dismantle the glass pieces.
Xi Yong'an's face changed color, his voice urgent and full of worry:
-"We have to hurry up, whatever it is, tell us later! Right now, the most important thing is to find that little girl's body."
Yashu frowned, thinking for a moment. Her eyes suddenly flashed with a look of determination mixed with a bit of coldness, she lowered her voice:
-"To be honest... right now we should just smash all these mirrors to make it quick. Dismantling them one by one takes too much time. While Pham Bach Kha's group is drawing the demon's attention..." - She suddenly paused, hesitating slightly: "I know it sounds a bit cruel, but..."
-"It's fine, I completely support it!" - Contrary to Yashu's hesitation, Xi Yong'an's face brightened up completely, as if a heavy burden had just been lifted: "I've wanted to smash these damn mirrors for a long time too."
I nodded slightly in agreement. Without delaying for another second, all four of us grabbed the wooden chairs in the dining room, using all our strength to "smash" hard against the shiny glass surfaces.
Clang! Clang! Smash!
The sound of shattering glass echoed continuously, piercing the ears. After clearing out the mirrors in the dining room, the four of us immediately turned around and ran at full speed, heading straight toward the corridor that led to the secret chamber. The friend accompanying us didn't say a word, but their footsteps kept up quickly, the whole group coordinating with absolute coordination.
As we swept past the living room area, a chaotic scene caught our eyes: Pham Bach Kha's group was screaming, running frantically in all directions to escape. Right behind them, the twisted silhouette of the hunchbacked demon was roaring and chasing closely at their heels. Their flight inadvertently drew that horrific entity in another direction, buying us a little bit of precious time.
But the trouble was, this corridor had too many mirrors. Not to mention the mirrors hanging in each person's bedroom - we had absolutely no idea whether Pham Bach Kha's group had managed to smash them all or not. If we just stood here hesitating and lingering, the demon would eventually smell us and return to capture the whole lot.
While my chest was heaving as I gasped for breath, a small dark shadow suddenly appeared, blocking the way right in front of us. It was the demon girl holding the teddy bear!
All four of us startled, immediately stepping back into a defensive stance. Yashu, quick as lightning, tightened her grip on the Gem in the palm of her hand, ready to activate it at any moment. However, that demon girl didn't rush in to attack at all. She just stood there, raising her pale hand to wave, then slowly glided past the four of us like a chilly mist.
The little girl moved toward the stairs leading to the second floor, stopped at the steps, and turned her head to wave her hand again, as if signaling us to follow. Xi Yong'an swallowed hard, breaking the tense atmosphere with a suggestion:
-"Counting this time, it's twice that she hasn't attacked us... Why don't we just take a gamble and try following her?"
Yashu and I looked at each other, Ky Kha Nhien beside us also nodded slightly to give a sign. In this dilemma, this was probably the only clue. And so, the four of us carefully held our breath, steeling ourselves to take cautious steps following the small back of the demon girl upstairs.
The demon girl led us straight to the door of the mistress's room. From inside, the sound of whimpering, mournful crying was still echoing steadily.
The four of us shuddered simultaneously, our footsteps unconsciously grinding to a halt. Should we really go in? After all, since setting foot in this mansion, we had never faced the mistress even once. That woman's presence had always been a massive, mysterious, and terrifying question mark.
However, before we could deliberate or stop her, the demon girl decisively pushed the door wide open.
What struck our eyes was a horrific scene. In the middle of the room, a woman's corpse was hanging from the ceiling, her neck bent to one side, her eyes rolled back showing only whites, staring blankly into space. A dense and foul stench of death rushed straight into our noses, making the whole group almost vomit. We had to dig our nails into our flesh, trying to suppress the fear rising to our throats to follow the demon girl inside.
The mistress's room was decorated in an extremely bizarre manner. It was chillingly simple yet exuded a ghostly, melancholic aura. Right in the corner of the room, a large mirror was carefully covered by a thick curtain - a mirror wrapping style completely different from the ones outside the corridor. Right next to that mirror, I discovered an old audio player. The mournful crying we had been hearing all this time was actually coming from this damn machine.
My mind felt as if a bolt of electricity had flashed through it, all the clues instantly connecting together:
( So the mistress died a long time ago. The crying all this time was just a play staged by this machine. Butler Li lied to us! His purpose was to create a terrifying mystery so that no one would dare to venture near this room. )
Without further hesitation, we used all our strength to smash that curtained mirror into pieces.
Thud! Clang!
The glass shattered, bringing with it a foul stench a hundred times thicker than before that rushed out. The whole group had to shut their eyes tightly, one hand pinching their noses to prevent the urge to vomit. Just as predicted, hidden inside the space behind the mirror was the body of the young miss!
Everything had come to light, but another huge question immediately surfaced in my mind. In the end, was butler Li secretly helping us or was he intentionally concealing a crime? Or... did even he not know that the young miss's body was right in the mistress's room? Perhaps he simply wanted to protect the room of his deceased master?
Looking at the two cold corpses in the ghostly room, the entire picture of the brutal truth that had been hidden for so long suddenly appeared, stringing together clearly in the minds of the four of us.
It turned out that the tragedy of this mansion originated from a despicable man - the one chosen by the mistress to be her husband. But hidden behind that mask, he was a sick, animalistic pervert, who always stalked the two poor little daughters of his own wife. On a fateful day, he ruthlessly kidnapped one of the two little girls, locked her up in the dark secret chamber, and brutally tortured her day after day.
Discovering that her daughter had suddenly gone missing, the mistress along with the grandmother cried their eyes out and immediately reported to the police. Meanwhile, the remaining daughter, while running around and playing, accidentally found the entrance to the secret chamber and witnessed her sister being imprisoned. To silence the witness, that demon in human skin murdered the little girl as well, then stuffed the child's body into the space behind the mirror right in his wife's bedroom - the place where no one would least expect it.
The police later stormed the villa and arrested the depraved husband. However, they only found one poor body in the secret chamber, while the whereabouts of the second child remained forever a mystery left in the dark.
The pain of losing both little angels at the same time suffocated the two poor women. The grandmother, due to excessive grief and pain, fell ill and passed away. The ultimate hatred over the unjust deaths of her grandchildren transformed her soul into the hunchbacked demon, wandering and roaring around the villa every day to find someone to avenge.
As for the mother... after days of living in a living hell, she chose to hang herself right from this ceiling to liberate herself. But because her soul was inherently too kind and holy, she did not turn into a malicious ghost. She just quietly departed, leaving behind the crying player as a warning, an invisible wall separating the outside world from touching her family's painful secret.
And what about butler Li? Initially, we thought that out of loyalty and respect for the mistress, he stubbornly protected this room.
The four of us simultaneously closed our eyes tightly, holding our breath as we waited for the Demon gate to appear and declare the mission completed. However, time passed quietly, and the surrounding space remained terrifyingly silent. Nothing happened at all.
I snapped my eyes open, the palms of my hands sweating profusely, my mind falling into a state of shock:
( Impossible! Where did our deduction go wrong? )
I frowned, trying to piece together every detail from beginning to end, and then a horrifying thought suddenly flashed: ( Butler Li... Perhaps he wasn't good and pitiful at all like we thought... ). As if realizing the truth, I immediately spoke to the remaining three:
-"Could it be... butler Li was actually an accomplice of that perverted father?"
My words seemed to shatter the fog. We immediately changed our perspective, overturning the entire story in our heads: Butler Li wasn't protecting the room out of loyalty, but he was helping to cover up the horrific crime from years ago!
The moment that brutal truth took shape, the palms of all four of us suddenly grew scalding hot like burning fire.
Boom!!!
A earth-shattering sound rang out, a massive Demon gate crashed down from mid-air, embedding itself firmly into the floor, radiating a mystical energy. The final mission had been successfully triggered!
Xi Yong'an looked at the gate, letting out a soft, shocked sigh:
-"The story is truly too tragic..."
Ky Kha Nhien - the girl who had been quiet from the very beginning until now, unexpectedly was the one with the fastest reaction. Without a word, she decisively strode forward, becoming the first person to walk straight into the Demon gate to complete this survival mission.
Watching Kha Nhien's figure gradually fade away, Xi Yong'an seemed to suddenly remember something important. He turned around, nudged my shoulder gently, and reminded me subtly:
-"Hey, once we escape from this godforsaken place, you two remember to drop by my place! My family owns the THYN corporation, located on Street 56, Sunshine District. When you get there, just look for the area with New Wind Central Park, Swan Lake, and the Spectrum art pedestrian street, you'll see it right away!"
Hearing that, I burst out laughing, the long-standing tension easing up a bit:
-"Alright, if I have time, I'll definitely drop by. But your house is a whole corporation? You're richer than I thought."
-"Hehe, see you later!" - Xi Yong'an waved his hand and stepped into the Demon gate. Yashu gave me an meaningful look, then quickly followed behind him.
At this moment, in the ghostly room, only I and the demon girl remained. I bent down to look at the small, pitiful figure of the little girl in front of me. Without a shred of fear, I gently reached out my hand and lightly patted her head:
-"Thank you so much."
My unexpected warm action left the demon girl stunned. She stood frozen in place, her blank eyes staring at me as if it had been a very long time since someone had been so gentle to her. Then, with a timid movement, she slowly held out the old teddy bear she was clutching tightly in her arms right in front of me, intending to gift her most precious toy.