Alice's Hell (20)-Abandoned Defective Product

Jumping from the third floor to the first floor, supposedly a distance of two floors, is actually not the case.

Because the first floor of this castle is very tall, the dining hall alone looks like a palace. In terms of height, the first floor is about 1.5 times the height of the other floors.

In short, Yu Xing jumped a distance that would be fatal or seriously injured for a normal person.

He jumped without hesitation. After the feeling of weightlessness, he could feel the wind blowing from below, making his medium-length black hair messy. The sculptures and statues beneath his feet rapidly enlarged, and the patterns on their bodies became clearer.

"Bang!"

With a loud bang, Yu Xing crashed to the ground, his legs still pointing downwards. Instantly, a sharp pain shot from his feet all the way to his thighs. His vision went black, cold sweat poured from his forehead, and he uncontrollably slumped forward, feeling the impact pounding through his internal organs and even his head.

He looked pretty cool while jumping... but he didn't look so good after landing.

It took him nearly twenty seconds to recover from the dizziness and pain before he looked up and around.

This silver-gray space was exceptionally vast. As far as the eye could see, countless statues stood silently, some facing him directly, as if they were watching him.

Propelling herself up, Yu Xing tried to move her legs and immediately gasped.

"Hiss..."

As he expected, his leg was broken.

Not only his legs, but also his internal organs were clearly injured after such a huge impact, having just swallowed the blood churning inside him.

Fortunately, his arms were in good condition. He managed to turn over, and soon, he felt a dense, tingling, and dull pain in his legs. The dislocated bones began to set themselves as if they were alive, and the flesh began to regrow along an inexplicable path.

A burning sensation also came from my internal organs; it was a stinging, burning sensation, but it was a sign that they were repairing themselves.

Under the watchful eyes of the stone statues, Yu Xing lay there for five minutes until all his injuries were healed. He then moved his legs and got up.

It's amazing that it can heal itself.

... Although generally speaking, even if one can heal on their own, very few people would be like him, recklessly leaving themselves half-crippled.

Yiqing saw it clearly from the window. He blinked, his interest growing stronger.

How interesting, this human...

He drifted away in a strangely good mood.

Yu Xing dusted herself off, tidied her clothes and hair, and then stood at eye level to formally observe the sculptural space.

The ground was made of a hard, unknown metallic material, with fine, indistinct grout lines between the bricks, making it appear as a single, continuous surface at first glance.

At the end of his line of sight, the walls and floor of the sculpture space were made of the same material. Lamps, almost as tall as the sculptures, emitting a silver-gray glow, were randomly placed in various corners of the space. There was one very close to him, which was very stylish, with light shining through its openwork, making a large area around it reflect a postmodern color, making him feel as if he had returned to the steampunk style of Alice's Park.

It can be said that the castle still occasionally retains traces of the amusement park from the old version.

The sculptures seemed to be draped in a thin, silvery-gray veil, which added to their mystique and made them appear lifelike, as if they might come to life at any moment.

Yu Xing glanced back. From this angle, he could clearly see the windows of every room on the third floor, including the spot where he had jumped down, as well as this spot on the second floor that he hadn't yet visited.

He didn't know what part of the second floor corresponded directly to the third-floor bedroom. He could only see that the second-floor room was covered by curtains, and the curtains were blood red, which meant he had never been there before, otherwise he would definitely remember it.

Aside from the interior layout, the exterior walls were completely smooth, offering no footholds. Alice herself... I never imagined someone would be so reckless as to jump off a building, so I didn't install any black hole-like barriers outside the windows.

Yu Xing smiled. His unusually strong physique had indeed brought him many conveniences, but unfortunately, if it didn't have side effects...

As this deduction has progressed, he has encountered many ghosts. In fact, whenever a ghost approaches him, the cold aura within his body surges continuously. However, he has become accustomed to it. After entering the Absurd Deduction and becoming a deducer, the frequency of the curse power's surge has become higher and higher, to the point that he no longer shows much trace on the surface. When his blood rushes to his head, he simply swallows it back silently.

Several hours passed, and he was actually enduring pain that was beyond his tolerance every minute. That's why he felt comfortable and relaxed when he was soaking in the hot spring.

After adjusting for a while, Yu Xing began to wander among the many statues.

The statues are so numerous that it's hard to say whether some prop might be hidden among them.

He walked for a while and found a wooden sign on a wall.

A warning line was written in blood-red letters on the heavy wooden sign:

[Artwork exhibition, please do not damage]

"Can't be damaged? What if it gets broken accidentally?" Yu Xing secretly began to consider what the consequences would be if it were "accidentally" damaged.

"Will it attract those sculpted ghosts I've never seen before? Or perhaps the butler or the nuns?" he muttered to himself. "If it's the latter, that would be wonderful..."

With a sense of eager anticipation, Yu Xing continued to wander among the stone statues.

These statues are all quite strange. They could have been sculpted as normal people, but they were deliberately given a touch of the eerie. For example, this statue of a young man has one eye without a pupil.

For example, the female statue in front of Yu Xing has a solemn and dignified expression. She is touching her obviously protruding belly with both hands, as if she is pregnant. However, there is a small crack at the navel, and a sharp claw is sticking out of the crack, as if it is about to tear the mother's body apart.

These stone statues are life-size, but because they stand on high bases, they are at least half a meter taller than a living person. The woman's large belly is just slightly lower than Yu Xing's head.

Yu Xing looked at the small paws that were clearly different from those of humans, and curiously reached out to touch them. She even pressed her finger against the sharp nails, and almost instantly, a drop of blood seeped out.

"It's really sharp..." Yu Xing withdrew her hand and exclaimed.

As if in response to his words, the little paw twitched.

Wait... it moved?

Yu Xing silent, then looked up along the stone's veins, his eyes meeting those of the female statue in front of him.

That's outrageous.

When did it lower its head?

Its two eyes looked so real that they seemed to start rolling around if he wasn't paying attention.

The most terrifying thing is that the solemn and dignified expression has been replaced by a split mouth and sharp teeth.

Yu Xing: "..."

He asked, "Hello, what's making you so happy?"

Statue. "...?"

The statue didn't know how to answer for a moment, so it reached out and tried to grab Yu Xing's shoulder.

The stone statue moved with tremendous force.

Clumps of small stone chips fell down with a soft thud, and as the statue moved, a rattling sound came from inside. The stiff fingers stretched out with difficulty, and in Yu Xing's eyes, it was as if a large, sluggish doll had suddenly come to life, its face contorted as if it were about to crush its prey alive.

[You have discovered the "Abandoned Defective Product," the ghost notification has been updated.]

He nimbly dodged the attack, touched the spot on his finger where he had been pricked and bled; the skin there had healed, but it gave him a Spiritual Sense.

He simply couldn't believe that he would be so lucky as to pick out the ghost disguised as a ghost from among countless stone statues and willingly offer himself up for punishment.

Moreover, the three statues blocking the fifth-floor corridor were burly and clearly different from this one.

Are [the Abandoned Defective Product] and [the Headless Man] also a group?

Unlikely.

The number of stone statues in the castle far exceeds that of Headless Man, which are usually invisible ghosts. If they were a group, wouldn't every single statue be a ghost?

That kind of ghost is much harder to deal with than other ghosts; it's completely unbalanced.

Moreover... he hadn't even destroyed the artwork when the ghost appeared, meaning the warning sign wasn't pointing to the sculpture ghost, but something else entirely.

In the instant Yu Xing's mind raced, the pregnant female statue swayed for a moment, the sound of breaking stones beneath its feet rang out, and it actually broke free from the constraints of its base, bending its legs as it stepped down.

At the same time, Yu Xing heard a loud baby crying.

"Wow..."

The crying sound came from inside the female statue's belly!

The mother and son both recognized Yu Xing and chased after him with heavy steps. The female stone statue had many cracks, and the surface was covered with dense cracks, making it look even more ferocious and ugly than before, which was originally normal.

The stone statues cannot speak, but the female statue's eyes come alive, filled with malice.

Now that things had come to this, Yu Xing's eyes gleamed cunningly, and he led the female stone statue to dart around wildly.

Several innocent stone statues were smashed to pieces by the female statue's waving arm, falling to the ground as a pile of stones.

The baby's cries grew louder and louder. Suddenly, the lights in the silver-gray lamps placed in the venue went out, followed by a bright red glow, like a series of alarms.

A flat, emotionless female voice came from the lamplight. "Alarm! The sculpture exhibition hall has been maliciously attacked. From this moment on, the exhibition hall will be under a 'no exit' policy. Nearby visitors are requested to voluntarily go and apprehend the culprit who vandalized the artworks and hand them over to the steward. If the vandal is not caught within thirty minutes, Alice will enter the monster camp ahead of time to capture the perpetrator. At that time, the restrictions on the sculpture exhibition hall will be lifted."

"Oh?"

Yu Xing rolled over, clutching her throbbing head to dodge the female stone statue's attack, and a question arose in her mind.

In this situation, is the person who destroyed the artwork the artist himself, or the [Abandoned Defective Product]?

If he catches the defective product and hands it over to the butler, could he take the opportunity to offend the butler?

Just as he turned his gaze to the female statue, intending to cause trouble, the statue suddenly froze in place and trembled.

The baby's cries weakened and soon disappeared completely. The stone statue seemed to lose its support all at once, cracking and shattering along the cracks, eventually turning into a pile of ordinary stones.

Yu Xing: "... So I'm the one taking the blame?"