Doll Castle (20)

At midnight, while every living creature in the castle lay deep in slumber, a thick black fog drifted through the corridors.

It seemed to be searching for something, stopping before every door to sniff around until it found one that caught its fancy-

With a creak, the door was gently pushed open a crack, and the thick black fog slipped soundlessly into the room.

Inside, someone lay quietly on the bed. His face was peaceful, his shoulder-length hair spread across the pillow. His long lashes cast faint shadows over his cheeks, fluttering gently with his soft, even breathing.

In the dense darkness, a man's quiet chuckle seemed to drift through the air.

"Ah, found you..."

The black fog slowly closed the door and floated over to the bed, gradually coalescing into a hazy human shape beside it. Then the figure bent down, bringing his face close to Bo Yi's.

"You really are a beauty..."

He seemed very pleased, even extending a tendril of fog to "stroke" Bo Yi's face.

But just before it could touch that beautiful face, those raven-feather lashes suddenly trembled-the sleeping beauty abruptly opened his eyes.

Once again, the detector's vibrations had woken Bo Yi.

Strangely, though, the detector, which had been vibrating furiously a moment earlier, went still as soon as he opened his eyes. He narrowed his eyes and cautiously surveyed the room. The door was firmly shut, and the room was empty, without any strange shadows.

Bo Yi leaned against the headboard, turning the detector over in his hands.

A new entry had appeared in the detector's history. Yet it showed no numerical reading-the value had exceeded the detector's upper measurement limit.

So something really did come here...

Bo Yi pondered this. He remembered that, the instant he opened his eyes, he seemed to have seen a patch of dense black fog before him. Within that churning fog had been a pair of dark red eyes.

But those eyes, as beautiful as rubies, had lingered in his vision for only a second before swiftly retreating into the fog and vanishing completely along with it. If the detector had not retained a record, he might well have dismissed those eyes as a groggy hallucination.

Unfortunately, they had disappeared too quickly for Bo Yi to get a proper look.

So he sat in the darkness and waited a while longer. But the eyes never reappeared, and Bo Yi could only drift off to sleep with lingering regret.

The next day, Zhao Wen Shan knocked on Bo Yi's door.

"Good morning!"

Her eyes were bright and her expression relaxed, with none of the tension she had carried when she first entered the instance. When the door opened, she lifted her head energetically and greeted Bo Yi. "Today's the last... huh?" Her gaze landed helplessly on Bo Yi's shoulder. "On your shoulder..."

"What is that?"

Hm? Puzzled, Bo Yi turned his head to follow her gaze.

A tiny boy doll was sitting upright on his shoulder. It wore British-style trousers with suspenders, and its little feet swayed gently as he moved.

Bo Yi's heart gave a jolt.

He had no idea how this doll had appeared in his room, let alone on his shoulder.

He reached up and took the doll off. Somehow, it had managed to stay firmly seated on his shoulder the whole time. It was also so light that he could barely feel any weight when he held it in his palm, which was why Bo Yi had failed to notice its presence.

Zhao Wen Shan leaned closer. "Wow, this doll has really pretty eyes..."

Just as Zhao Wen Shan said, the doll had a pair of red eyes as clear as gemstones. They looked remarkably lifelike. When the doll was turned, the light reflected in its eyes made it seem as though it were shifting its gaze to meet yours.

For some reason, Bo Yi thought of the beautiful eyes he had glimpsed the night before, while half asleep. And so, the hand that had been about to throw the doll away changed course and tucked it into his pocket instead.

Only the tiny doll's head poked out of the pocket. Perhaps because Bo Yi had not tucked it in properly, both its hands happened to rest on the pocket's edge. From a distance, it looked as though the little doll were holding on to the pocket and peering out.

At least, Zhao Wen Shan found it unbearably cute. For a moment, she even forgot that dolls represented the ghosts and monsters of this instance. She watched Bo Yi's movements eagerly and was even itching to reach out and touch it.

Fortunately, the dependable Zhao Yi stood behind her and promptly caught the hand she was spreading like a wing at the very edge of courting death. He looked at Bo Yi. "Today's the last day."

"As long as we get through tonight's banquet, we can clear the instance and leave. But right now, we don't know what this banquet actually means..."

Over the past two days, they had practically turned the castle upside down, yet they had found no clues about the banquet, nor any sign that the castle was preparing to entertain guests.

He suspected that the "banquet" mentioned in the instance's task was nothing like the "banquet" they had in mind.

Zhao Wen Shan looked completely at ease. "Oh, what are you scared of... didn't Bo Yi already do this to the master last night...?" She raised a hand and made a throat-slitting gesture across her neck.

"Now that the NPCs are all gone, we just have to wait out the clock." Zhao Wen Shan sounded deeply appreciative. None of the instances she had been in before had ever been this easy!

Generally speaking, instances with deadlines like this grew increasingly difficult as time ran out. The restrictions on killing imposed on the creatures inside them loosened as time progressed. There had even been cases where, in the final moments before an instance was cleared, its monsters went on a killing spree and wiped out every player inside.

But now! They no longer needed to worry about that! Because kindhearted Bo Yi had eliminated the source of the problem for them the night before!

The thought left Zhao Wen Shan positively beaming.

"Well, well~ what's got you so happy?"

"It's-" Zhao Wen Shan turned toward the voice, and her cheerful expression vanished the instant she saw who had spoken. "What's it to you?" She gave the approaching Pan Lulu a disdainful glance.

She had almost forgotten that they still had this loose cannon among them.

Zhao Wen Shan planted her hands on her hips, ready to unleash a verbal barrage, when a voice rang out from a short distance behind her, instantly sending a chill down her spine.

Her neck stiffened as she slowly turned around.

"My guests, last night..."

The master, whom she had believed dead, was standing at the gallery's exit, watching them with a sinister gaze.

"Did. You. All. Sleep. Well?"