At this, Ito Misari looked at Hattori Heiji, and her syrupy smile turned sinister:
"To keep you from trying any tricks, let's raise the stakes a little. We'll wager the little girl behind you—from now until dawn tomorrow, you have twelve hours. For every hour you fail to solve it after the deadline, I'll chop off one of her fingers. If you still can't solve it by the last two hours, I'll cut off her ears. And now..."
She gestured to one of her underlings, signaling him to cut one off first as an opening act.
The underling with a face full of flesh strode over, only to be kicked in the face by the terrified Toyama Kazuha with an "Aah—!!" The burly man toppled backward with a thud and hit the floor hard.
He remained stunned for two seconds before climbing back up, wiping his face, and stalking toward her viciously in humiliation.
But just then, the doorbell suddenly rang.
—Someone else had come.
"Tch." Ito Misari cursed under her breath in irritation. "I'll go down and take a look. Keep an eye on these two."
She opened the hidden door and headed downstairs.
Hattori Heiji and Toyama Kazuha let out heavy sighs of relief. With someone here, they naturally couldn't keep cutting off fingers—these kidnappers did not want to make too much noise and alert the people downstairs.
But what happened after that?
"..." Cold sweat ran down Hattori Heiji's temple as he tried to find a way to save themselves.
At the same time, he silently strained his ears, trying to hear who had arrived. Maybe Jiang Xia and the others had belatedly realized something was wrong and come back to rescue them!
Ito Misari went down to the First Floor entrance hall and looked through