The doll castle (2)

None of the other veteran players reacted particularly strongly when Bo Yi spoke.

In their eyes, Bo Yi, who had remained calm and composed ever since entering, was clearly a battle-hardened veteran just like them.

The host, meanwhile, seemed especially pleased that Bo Yi had taken the initiative.

"Please follow me." A warm smile spread across his face.

He led the players toward the stairs. Their jumbled footsteps echoed through the silent castle. As they followed the host, the players surveyed their surroundings: the entire castle was empty, and aside from their host, they had apparently seen no one else.

"The guest rooms are just down here."

The players looked curiously in the direction the host indicated. At the end of a long, narrow corridor stood a series of tightly shut wooden doors. Yet they all stopped at the entrance to the corridor, going no farther.

They swallowed softly as they stared down the narrow, dimly candlelit corridor.

Old portraits covered both walls. The faces in them were indistinct, but every pair of eyes was startlingly lifelike, almost as though-

They were watching them.

The middle-aged man at the front took one look and hurriedly averted his gaze. He lowered his head to avoid meeting the portraits' eyes and muttered, "This is creepy as hell..." With these paintings hanging here, who would dare walk down this hall?

"Th-th-those... those eyes..." the bespectacled man stammered. "They... they couldn't be..." Halfway through his sentence, he caught sight of the host standing to one side, smiling silently, and hurriedly swallowed the words "real eyes."

"They're painted." A cool, clear voice answered his question.

The voice was lovely, like jade beads falling onto a tray or the gentle murmur of a stream. Everyone instinctively turned toward it.

The male player who had been the last to arrive at the castle had somehow slipped through the crowd blocking the entrance. He was already standing in the corridor, carefully examining one of the portraits.

The players were stunned. When had he gotten over there?!

Bo Yi was studying the eyes.

They only looked realistic because the artist had blurred the face and its other features, making the eyes stand out in contrast. And-

He reached out and lightly brushed a finger across the eyes in the portrait. A thin layer of transparent liquid appeared on his fingertip. The eyes had also been coated with some unknown liquid, which reflected the flickering candlelight on the walls and created the illusion that the people in the portraits were staring at them.

But then Bo Yi shifted his gaze from the eyes to the thick frame-

He had no idea what design philosophy lay behind these frames. Viewed from the side, they were a full half-palm thick, and their bulky edges made perfect resting places for dust. Judging by the dust on them, these paintings had been hanging in the corridor for quite some time. Yet-Bo Yi rubbed the liquid between his fingers, feeling its slight greasiness-it was still moist and had not dried completely. He brought his fingers to his nose and sniffed lightly. A faint bloody odor wafted up.

Interesting... Bo Yi raised an eyebrow slightly. He had become curious about the liquid's composition.

The other players-well, the other players were dumbstruck.

This gorgeous man looked so cool and aloof, but was he really this reckless?!

Even the veteran players were left at a loss by Bo Yi's smooth sequence of actions.

Were paintings in a castle like this something you could just touch?! Couldn't he see that they wanted to stay a million miles away from those eerie things? Yet he hadn't just gone up close to look-he had actually touched them!

"Bro..." Zhao Wen Shan nudged Zhao Yi with her elbow. "Do you think he's a newbie or a veteran?"

Zhao Yi fell silent too.

If he was a veteran... he had actually reached out and touched a painting that was obviously suspicious!

But if he was a clueless newbie... Zhao Yi glanced at the flock of trembling "chicks" hiding behind him. Now that was how newbies were supposed to act...

Still, whether Bo Yi was a veteran or a newbie, Zhao Yi had decided one thing. "Let's... hold off on working with him for now."

Zhao Wen Shan nodded.

The other veteran players exchanged looks as well, all abandoning their plans to form an alliance with Bo Yi.

Even the new players who had intended to latch onto him decided to keep their distance the moment they saw him touch the portrait's eyes.

Finding someone strong to rely on was important, sure, but someone strong who courted death seemed even scarier than having no one at all!

Bo Yi remained completely oblivious. Or rather, he simply did not care what anyone else thought.

Not only did he finish examining the portrait as though no one else were there, he continued down the corridor admiring the paintings as if he were visiting an art exhibition.

The paintings along the corridor all featured different kinds of beautiful eyes. Around the corner at its far end lay a row of rooms hidden in darkness. Bo Yi chose one at random, pushed open the door, and walked inside.

Throughout all this, the host simply stood at the corridor entrance and watched with a smile, neither urging him on nor stopping him.

Only after Bo Yi had disappeared entirely behind the door, and the other veterans had finally confirmed that the host had no intention of attacking him for acting on his own-or of leading the way for them-did they step into the sinister corridor. "Let's go!"

The new players hurried after them. They kept their heads down, not daring to look at the paintings on either side. The man who had shouted the loudest in the hall earlier was still caught up in the corridor's terrifying atmosphere. By the time he came to his senses, he had fallen to the very back. He hurriedly shoved his way forward, even pushing aside a female player walking ahead of him.

Caught off guard by the shove, the new female player stumbled sideways and instinctively reached out to brace herself against the wall. As luck would have it, her hand landed directly on a portrait's eyes.

"What are you doing?!" With sticky liquid all over her hand, she could not help angrily confronting him. But the loudmouth did not even look at her, keeping his head down as he pushed onward. A bespectacled man who had also fallen behind did glance back, but the moment he met her gaze, he looked away as though scalded and hurried to catch up with the group.

She had no choice. Seeing the distance between herself and the others growing, she hastily wiped her hand on her clothes and followed them, fuming.

Inside the guest room, Bo Yi was surveying his surroundings.

The castle's guest rooms did not quite match its majestic exterior. This room could even be described as cramped:

The cold, damp air carried the smell of moldy wood, making the room feel suffocating from the moment he entered.

The large bed in the middle took up most of the room. It was spacious enough to sleep two people, but Bo Yi had quickly counted the guest rooms before entering: there were exactly ten. Unless something unexpected happened, the game probably intended for each of them to have a room of their own.

The consequence of such a wide bed was an extremely narrow passage alongside it, barely wide enough for an adult man to squeeze through. Thick curtains hung along one side of the bed, their heavy fabric trailing to the floor and making the already cramped passage even narrower.

Swish-

Bo Yi pulled the curtains open. Behind them was a glass window, and beyond that, utter darkness. At some point, thick fog had risen around the castle. The dense mist hung like a black curtain, completely blocking the light outside and putting an end to Bo Yi's idea of opening the window for ventilation.

Still, although not a glimpse of the scenery outside was visible, drawing back the curtains at least eased some of the oppressive feeling that clung to the room.

Facing the window, Bo Yi sat on the bed's cold silk bedding and carefully wiped his fingers, which were smeared with the unidentified grease. Whatever it was made of, it clung stubbornly to his fingertips no matter how much he wiped.

The faint candle flame by the bed flickered gently, and the wax trickling down slowly hardened into overlapping skirts. Apart from the candle's occasional crackle, the only sound in the room was the soft rasp of cloth rubbing against his fingertips.

After an unknown amount of time, Bo Yi finally released his fingers, their pads now rubbed red. He turned them this way and that, checking for any spots he had missed. But the candle was a little too far away, and the room was too dim to see clearly.

Bo Yi lowered his hand, intending to bring the bedside candle closer. But the instant he raised his eyes, he froze as though someone had pressed pause-

In the dim candlelight, two hazy silhouettes inside the room were reflected in the window opposite him.

Two... silhouettes...

Bo Yi silently stared at the window before him. With the thick fog obscuring it, the glass had suddenly become an excellent mirror, clearly reflecting the scene behind him:

A woman had appeared in the room at some unknown point and was standing soundlessly behind him.

She simply stood there in silence, her head lowered as she looked at him.