Alice's Hell (22): Hidden Mental Damage

The doll's face was blurry, a feeling that was hard to describe, similar to seeing something but not being able to process the information in your brain.

Han Xinyi felt herself being locked onto by a gaze, and the hairs on her body stood on end. Then, in the empty open-air exhibition hall, a song that sounded like a hymn floated out from the doll's mouth, echoing in her ears with a touch of etherealness.

"La la la... la la... la la la la~"

The language it used was obscure and difficult to understand, as if the doll was singing some kind of taboo. Whether it was her imagination or not, Han Xinyi vaguely heard a couple of Chinese swear words in the incomprehensible text.

... It must be my imagination.

She frowned and quickly covered her ears—clearly, Huai had no intention of cooperating at all; he, like her, was after the rewards for completing the enemy's mission!

No wonder the other party wasn't fooled by her hints; if the intention was malicious, the effect of the suggestion would certainly be greatly reduced.

Han Xinyi's smile faded, and she became wary, looking around.

The other party deliberately lured her to this location... Looking around from here, there were shattered stone statues scattered all over the ground, rolling down to the still intact stone statue bases, like a microcosm of decay and prosperity.

But this place wasn't much different from other places, and she couldn't see anywhere around her where she could set up an ambush that posed a threat to her.

The only possibility then is this singing doll. This doll is clearly a sacrificial offering with a strange purpose. She cannot listen to the song rashly; if the doll's power is control, then she will be in danger after losing control of her body.

So she covered her ears with both hands to block out most of the sound, and stomped on the doll, trying to crush it.

--The offering is not so easily destroyed, but physical damage can effectively prevent its use in the current simulation.

For example, if someone removes the base of Yu Xing's portable candlestick [Tears of the Underworld Candle], there is nowhere to insert the candle, so naturally neither of her abilities can be used. It can only be restored to its original state after exiting the deduction.

Just as Han Xinyi's shoe was about to crush the doll, a whooshing sound came from behind. She looked up, noticing something, and saw a sharp stone the size of a fist hurtling towards her head. She had no choice but to abandon her idea of crushing the doll and dodge the attack by leaping to the side.

In this way, to maintain balance and range of motion, her hand naturally moved away from her ear.

Seeing this, the doll sang even louder, angrily singing at the woman who had almost stepped on her. As she sang, she seemed to be indulging in self-admiration. Han Xinyi felt a surge of irritation and belatedly realized that the function of the singing was somewhat similar to her ability; both could affect the mind.

The singing wasn't bad; on the contrary, if you calmed down and listened, you could even appreciate a strange kind of beauty. But now, she felt nothing but disgust. She realized that no matter whether she covered her ears or not, the singing was like a leech, relentlessly burrowing into her brain!

"Clatter."

After a soft thud, another large rock came hurtling towards them. This time, Han Xinyi saw the direction of the rock clearly, suppressed the discomfort in her head, sneered, dodged the rock, kicked the doll away, and rushed towards the person who threw the rock.

"La la la~ la la la la~"

The blonde doll, dressed in an exquisite little black dress, arced through the air before crashing to the ground with a thud. It lay sprawled on the ground, chanting enthusiastically. For a moment, it seemed to smile, but the next instant, its voice crackled with sobs, displaying remarkable Impermanence.

It seems... to be angry.

It was during this song that Han Xinyi suddenly felt a momentary sluggishness in her mind. She shook her head, treating it as a form of mental distraction, and diverted a bit of attention to dispel the sluggishness.

A few seconds later, she swept past the stone statues and, sure enough, saw a tall, slender figure behind another large stone statue!

The figure was crouching on the ground. Due to the angle, his black hair covered most of his face, and he exuded a cold and sinister aura.

Han Xinyi slowed her pace, looking hesitantly at the figure, worried that this was yet another attack by the sacrificial offerings.

Although this figure was wearing a tourist hoodie from Alice's Hell, it didn't quite look like Huai; instead, it looked more like...

The figure, who had been looking down, slowly raised his head upon hearing her footsteps.

In the shadows, a pair of narrow, almond-shaped eyes fixed on her, just as they had the first time they met, like a glimmer of light in the mud.

"It's... you? Yu Xing?" She was somewhat surprised, then jumped for joy, her eyes curving into crescent shapes. She showed no sign of the annoyance she felt at being hit with a stone by Yu Xing. "So you wanted to kill me, huh? Then I understand, hehe... but I'm not that easy to kill~ Why don't you consider giving up and just being with me?--"

She realized something was wrong only after she finished speaking.

Yu Xing just squatted on the ground, motionless and silent, watching her, when suddenly a smile appeared on his face.

Han Xinyi's pupils shrank immediately, because she saw that with that smile, cracks suddenly appeared all over Yu Xing's face, Yu Xing as perfect as a god. The lines crisscrossed, just like those stone statues that were about to shatter.

"What's wrong with you?" She subconsciously squatted down and reached out to touch the face. Yu Xing didn't dodge, and when her fingers landed on the face, a small piece of skin fell off.

Han Xinyi frowned, feeling a surge of inexplicable anger.

Because the face is covered in cracks, even the most beautiful face will become as ugly as a monster.

Her god hasn't belonged to her yet, hasn't fallen into hell yet, how can he be disfigured first? Who allowed him to become an ugly monster? How can the person she loves have such an obvious flaw!

"Who did this? Did you?" Han Xinyi's tone was unfriendly to Yu Xing for the first time. She grabbed Yu Xing's hand eagerly, "Put it back on quickly, you're the most beautiful!"

Yu Xing glanced at her; the flesh beneath the peeling skin on her face was bright red and extremely jarring.

"!"

Han Xinyi stared at the bloody mess, and her mind instantly cleared.

What is she doing? Such an obvious abnormality, and she's moving so close without any warning?

The warm skin of Yu Xing in her hand instantly turned cold and hard. When she looked again... it wasn't just the face; the entire body of this thing had turned into a sculpture, frozen in place, just like a stone statue in a half-squatting position, bearing no resemblance to Yu Xing whatsoever!

Hallucination?

Han Xinyi's pupils contracted, and she abruptly released her hand and straightened up, feeling a strong sense of embarrassment as she issued a warning.

She actually mistook the person she liked for someone else, and she ignored the danger like an idiot.

... Was it the singing that unknowingly disturbed her? This offering... worked faster than expected! But she didn't actually see any offerings that could create hallucinations in any of the videos, and if Huai was in the shadows, why was Yu Xing's image appearing in the hallucination?

The person who set off on a hostile mission... is it really Huai?

In the distance, the puppet serving as background music turned its head to look in her direction. "La la la~ la la la la~"

Han Xinyi: "..."

No, even if it means braving the falling rocks, she has to destroy this thing first!

The next moment, a pale hand reached out from behind her, brushed her hair, and held a dagger shrouded in blue mist to her neck.

"I don't know what you just saw... but talking to a stone statue is pretty stupid." A familiar, magnetic voice sounded above her head. Feeling the sharp blade pressed against her skin, she stiffened, her eyes widened, and a hint of embarrassment appeared on her face.

But she quickly regained her composure, even leaning back against the person behind her, looking quite affectionate. "So it really is your ability... Hehe, I just like you so much! You're amazing, why did you pretend to sound like Huai just now? It was so similar, I didn't even recognize it. Yu Xing, I want to hear your voice more."

Yu Xing lowered his eyes, sensing the girl's fearlessness in her tone. He loosened the blade slightly, and a bloody gash appeared on Han Xinyi's neck.

Disguising his voice as Huai's was a skill he already possessed—a technique he'd used in the deduction at the Haunted Bar. He placed the [Weird Doll] there to trigger its ability—

[The doll locks onto a target with its blurry face and indistinct eyes, and sings with its equally indistinct mouth. Its song can cause some degree of psychological damage to the target, or it can soothe them. Once it starts singing, it will continue indefinitely. If you tell it to shut up, it will become very angry and will be unable to use abilities ② and ③ for one hour. It can only be used once per game.]

When facing Han Xinyi, the doll's aim was naturally to inflict psychological damage.

Because Han Xinyi's main ability relies on her spirit, any damage to her spirit would be a huge blow to her Combat Power. However, he was not quite sure what aspect of Han Xinyi was damaged. It seemed that apart from talking to the stone statue just now, she was quite normal at other times.

... relative to an abnormal normality.

However, Yu Xing thought that Han Xinyi probably didn't even know what was wrong with her.

She continued to express her affection, "Really, Yu Xing, I love everything about you right now. Even the way you held a knife to my throat... it's all so coldly captivating. Why did you have to lie to me using Huai's voice?"

Even though Han Xinyi used a way of speaking that was really hard for a man to handle, Yu Xing had lived for so many years and seen everything, so he would only think that this was child's play.

She's just a psychologically disturbed, extremely paranoid, and possessive young girl.

He said with a smile, "Because I want to see what an interesting scene it would be to talk about cooperation while already holding a knife in one's hand."

"If I had known it was you, I wouldn't have come at all. I don't want to be your enemy." Han Xinyi tilted her head back to avoid the sharp knife. She felt the wound on her neck and her neck stiffened.

She had slit so many people's throats; she knew what it looked like to die from a slit throat.

It's ugly.

That's incredibly undignified.

After their blood vessels rupture, they can only kneel on the ground, futilely covering their wounds with their hands, trembling all over, making "hoarse" sounds from their throats, like dying animals struggling helplessly in despair.

They might have wanted to cry for help, to curse her, their eyes piercing through the rain as they stared at her, but even as their hands were soaked with blood, they couldn't utter a single word.

She didn't want to die so helplessly; it was the way she hated to die. Even though the dagger couldn't really hurt her now, she still instinctively resisted the coldness around her neck.

Han Xinyi thought to herself that Yu Xing was a very clever person, having even considered this psychological factor and using it specifically to control her.

Yu Xing smiled and asked, "Are you the only one here? Where's your uncle?"

"Him?" Han Xinyi suddenly felt like laughing when she heard the word "uncle." "I made up an excuse to get rid of him. Do you think I'm too safe to leave him around?"

"Oh?" Yu Xing raised an eyebrow.

He deduced that there was a rift between Han Zhiyong and Han Xinyi, and it was by taking advantage of this that he was able to complete his plan to make the police witness Han Xinyi committing murder.

Logically, Han Xinyi shouldn't know this, otherwise she wouldn't have let Han Zhiyong know all about her crimes. But now it seems that's not the case?

"Hehe, are you curious? If you put down the dagger, I'll tell you the whole truth, just as you wish, okay?" Han Xinyi smiled sweetly. "I know you care about the truth~ Otherwise, you could have just killed me right now, without giving me a chance to react. Right? If you had just killed me, those two uncles in the Criminal Investigation Detachment... might never get the complete truth they want."

She was right.

Although the Throat Cutting Case was unrelated to Yu Xing, he had a reason to be determined to find out the truth.

But Yu Xing has always been the kind of person who, if others are flamboyant, will inevitably be even more so. Hearing the hidden threat in Han Xinyi's words, he leaned down slightly and whispered in the girl's ear, "Coincidentally, I don't mind playing the role of a cruel official. Torture or persuasion, you can choose whichever you prefer, but there's no option to regain your freedom."

Han Xinyi grasped Yu Xing's wrist, which was holding the dagger. "I might as well tell you, I have the ability to leave the place I was in after I die once, you know?"

Yu Xing: "I also have the ability to make you gradually rot without killing you immediately~"

After saying that, he added, "It means your whole body will rot away, and you'll become very ugly. Do you want to move around the castle looking like that?"

Han Xinyi: "..."

Doll: "La la la la~"

A bead of cold sweat trickled down Han Xinyi's forehead.

The doll's singing still echoed in her ears; the doll sang endlessly, but since being held hostage by Yu Xing, she no longer felt the singing had any controlling tendencies or hallucinatory effects on her.

After a two-second silence, before the dagger pierced her skin again, she spoke, "Alright, since you want to know, I'll tell you."

"But before that, I'd like to ask you to promise me one thing."

Yu Xing tilted her head. "Go ahead, I'll think about it."

Han Xinyi's lips curled up. "I don't really care about decay or anything like that. I'm only telling you because you're the one who wants to know the truth. See? After knowing that you were the enemy, I haven't laid a hand on you, right?"

"But that doesn't mean... I won't fight back if you actually try to kill me. Yes, I realize that you're much better than I thought, a real threat to me."

"So what I want you to promise me is... after hearing my story, if you no longer think I'm completely wrong, then give up the idea of killing me. I like you, and I want you to be with me, but if I had to choose between my feelings and my life, I would definitely choose the latter."

As she spoke, she no longer hesitated to face the blade, turning around despite Yu Xing 'Yu Xing restraint to meet his gaze. "This is my chance, and it's also my chance for you."

"When you know the truth, give up killing me. I will continue to love you and do whatever you want until you love me too."

"If you insist on killing me... then I'll have to take action against you. If I can't be with you, then killing you and keeping you as a souvenir will be quite nice."

Looking at the madness in her eyes and the large, bloody gash on her neck from the dagger as she turned away, Yu Xing knew that a single weapon could not shake this girl with her twisted personality.

However, it is precisely because of this distortion and prejudice that Han Xinyi would not lie to him.

He simply sheathed his dagger and leaned against the stone statue behind him. "Alright, I'm all ears."

As I said before, there are many reasons why a person's psychology becomes distorted. It may be just a momentary collapse and reconstruction, or it may be due to the constant pollution and decline caused by the surrounding environment, which eventually leads to the formation of such a personality.

Han Xinyi probably belongs to the latter category.

She left her parents when she was very young, and her earliest impression of them was the back of the old director of the children's welfare home.

In the orphanage, she tried her best to grow up, eating food that didn't suit her taste, and closing her eyes when the other children slept, but she suffered from insomnia for a long time.

An anxiety lingered over her day and night, even though she was only five or six years old, but already intellectually developed and capable of thinking a great deal.

She couldn't pinpoint the source of her anxiety; she felt as if she had forgotten something, and unease clung to her like a shadow. So, every day, the little girl studied on her own in the small library donated by investors, constantly enriching herself, becoming increasingly intelligent, and gradually distancing herself from the other children in the orphanage.

Han Xinyi asked the director why she was sent to the orphanage.

The dean smiled kindly, patted her head, and told her that her parents had died in an accident and gone to another world, but would be watching over her from heaven.

That bullshit about another world, it's just death.

Han Xinyi easily saw through the dean's well-intentioned lie, but she didn't say anything. Instead, under the dean's gaze, she nodded blankly and showed a happy smile that met the dean's expectations.

Her parents were dead, but Han Xinyi felt no grief whatsoever.

They were just two strangers whose faces they couldn't even remember.

One day, while she was watering the flowers for the headmistress in the courtyard, a handsome man who looked to be under thirty walked in, knelt down beside her, and said, "Is this Xinyi? I'm your father. I've come to pick you up."

It was then that she realized all the other children in the yard had disappeared, and the headmistress hadn't come either; only this exceptionally handsome man was smiling at her.

Is this my dad?

Han Xinyi looked at that face and compared it to her own; they were indeed very similar.

Perhaps only this man's genes could produce a child like her, a child who, even though she has distanced herself from everyone, is still loved by all because of her cuteness.

She took the man's hand and followed him outside.

It wasn't until she walked out of the orphanage and stood in front of a private car that she suddenly snapped out of her daze and realized that she had somehow wandered out in a daze.

This man who claimed to be her father was like a hypnotist... An unease began to rise in her heart. She clung to the car door, refusing to get in, and stubbornly asked, "Where is Grandma Director?"

The man half-coaxed and half-forced her into the car, a smile on his young and handsome face that Han Xinyi couldn't quite understand.

Only then did she notice a few drops of red on the man's suit shirt.

What is that?

The man patted her head. "Xinyi, remember, my name is Han Yan, your father, and your only family. As for Grandma Dean... she's just an unimportant stranger."

Han Xinyi pushed his hand away, disagreeing with his words.

To her, her parents were unimportant strangers, while the headmistress was a kind grandmother who had always taken care of her!

Seeing her insistence, Han Yan started the car and chuckled softly.

"If you really want to know... Grandma Dean... it's in the trunk."