Seeing that Xie He had finally finished eating and put down his chopsticks, the hostess stood up, put on her coat, and said, "Now, let me show you the blind box dolls. Please follow me, guests."
Mingzhu, helped up by her roommate, followed the group, her face ashen. She walked slowly, panting heavily, clutching her collar and looking around with a fearful expression.
After passing through a dimly lit corridor, they entered the blind box room.
The twelve life-sized blind boxes that had contained the players yesterday were still there. They hung high in the air, like upright coffins, exuding an eerie feeling.
The exterior was clearly just ordinary cardboard packaging. Yet yesterday, it had supported a player weighing over a hundred pounds, and the walls were like sturdy prison doors that couldn't be pushed open.
The female player's body had vanished; the white walls were clean, the bloodstains gone overnight.
Even if you painted the walls white to cover the bloodstains, the smell of paint would take at least two months to dissipate…
But there wasn't a trace of paint here, let alone the smell of blood.
It was eerily strange!
Besides the life-sized blind boxes, the shelves in the room were filled with many common small blind boxes, each containing a palm-sized doll.
The dolls were staring at the group with a sinister look, their mouths twitching wide.
The clock on the wall ticked away.
The newlyweds looked tense, their sweaty fingers clenching unconsciously, their hearts pounding.
The woman pointed to the blind boxes on the shelf and sighed, “Guests, these are all dolls my husband made when he was alive. Aren’t they beautiful? He won my heart with these dolls… I still dream about him often lately. I really wish that car accident five years ago hadn’t happened. Ah, I wish he could still be by my side…”
Before he died, in a car accident…
So the man of the house was… dead?
The players tensed, forced to force themselves to praise the dolls, saying they were “beautiful.”
The woman smiled contentedly at the praise, but couldn’t help remembering the past. The lonely woman lowered her head, seemingly wiping away tears. After a while, she calmed down a bit: "Sigh. Let's not talk about that. Once we start, we get carried away. Let's look at the dolls. That doll with the fisherman's hat, my husband spent a whole week making it; he really loves that doll. And that doll with the fishing net..."
As she introduced the blind box dolls, her eyes lit up, and she even carefully avoided touching them, afraid of breaking them.
Xie He, standing beside her, watched her silently.
He felt that the woman was less afraid of breaking the dolls and more afraid of touching them.
The woman continued to introduce the dolls.
The doll being described was right next to Xie He, originally with its back to him.
But as the clock ticked, the doll's head suddenly "click, click," mechanically turning 180 degrees—the plastic head so close to Xie He's!
"Bang!" The scene abruptly stopped.
The heavily painted face turned towards Xie He, grinning maliciously, its gaping maw a bloodthirsty slit—
Caught off guard by this sight, the onlookers screamed, stumbling back several steps in terror. Several players, their minds blank, collapsed to the ground, their legs weak.
Xie He narrowed his eyes and punched the doll's face. The punch, delivered with a whoosh, flattened the plastic doll's face.
Doll: "..."
Crowd: "!!!!"
The doll lay sprawled on the ground, its head crushed, its neck twisted, small parts tumbling out of its body.
Xie He casually withdrew his fist and went back to look at the other dolls.
The surrounding players stared in disbelief.
They looked at the nonchalant Xie He, then at the limp doll on the ground, smashed to pieces, clearly unable to attack them anymore.
This guy is amazing…
The comment section erupted with excitement:
[Ahhhhhh, I'm frantically taking screenshots!!! This is so cool!]
[Hahaha, poor doll!]
[55555 That punch hit my heart! I can't help but follow my brother!]
The hostess's smile froze. She glanced at Xie He for a long while before looking away: "It's alright, guests, let's continue watching—"
Liao Mingze glanced at Xie He with a dark look in his eyes. Even he hadn't expected Xie He to react so quickly… He clenched his fingers, a surge of jealousy rising in his heart.
Xie He looked thoughtfully at the mistress of the house.
Even if you show no mercy and beat the doll to a pulp, it's okay... right? The woman didn't show the slightest bit of heartache at the doll being beaten.
Sure enough, the woman appeared to love the doll, but in reality, she didn't care about it at all; she was lying from beginning to end.
He looked down at his fist and smiled faintly, having tested the waters.
The few who had collapsed earlier awkwardly stood up with the help of those around them. The group cautiously followed behind the hostess, anxiously hoping the tour would end soon.
The group continued their tour, with Mingzhu walking behind in a daze. Suddenly, she stared at something, her eyes widening: "What...what is this?"
"What..." The other players followed her gaze and were immediately startled. The hostess, who was explaining the dolls, heard the commotion and looked up with the others.
Among the life-sized blind boxes hanging in the gallery, the rightmost box had a triangle mark embedded in it. The mark wasn't large, but it emitted a chilling green light, like an eye watching them.
"This...what's that triangle on it?!" one player exclaimed.
Liao Mingze frowned. "Whose blind box is that?"
"The one on the far right, isn't that the blind box to my right...?" Another player pondered, his eyes lighting up, and he unconsciously raised his voice, "Right! I remember! It's the one who touched the corpse! I remember he walked out of the box to my right... it's the one with the triangle!"
The blind box of the person who touched the corpse was marked.
All eyes turned to Xie He. Xie He stood quietly in the center of their gaze, casually glancing up, seemingly unconcerned.
Upon seeing the mark, the hostess hastily averted her gaze, forcing a stiff smile at the crowd: "Guests, the explanation of the blind box dolls is finished. You are welcome to look around now. Ahem... Enjoy your visit."
After she finished speaking, she hurriedly left, looking uneasy.
After her footsteps faded away, the crowd stood there, stunned.
Even the hostess of the house was wary of this mark!
That corpse-hunter was doomed.
“Young man, it looks like the evil ghost has marked your blind box.” Liao Mingze stood among the players, looking at Xie He with a regretful expression. “The evil ghost failed to catch you last night, and it’s still angry—it’ll come back tonight to try and draw from you again. You’d better be careful.”
When he looked at Xie He, his eyes held an ambiguous meaning, seemingly a smile.
Tonight, the evil ghost will draw from that person!
Upon hearing this news, the players either secretly rejoiced that someone had taken the fall, allowing them to escape tonight, or worried that the evil ghost was too cunning to defeat, falling into a deathly silence.
Mingzhu, who had eaten a finger while eating, was already terrified at the mention of the evil ghost and instinctively retreated a little further away from Xie He.
“That sounds quite interesting.” Xie He, in the center of their gaze, leaned casually against his chair, chuckling indifferently.
In fact, last night, while inside the blind box, Xie He heard a rustling sound outside, realizing he had been marked.
He even felt a bit of pleasure—because he had been targeted by the evil ghost.
The enraged ghost marked his blind box. Since it used this method to mark him, it meant the blind box for each player wouldn't change.
The blind boxes might be rearranged tonight, but the one marked by the ghost would still contain Xie He.
Tonight, another ordeal awaited him.
A spark seemed to ignite in his withered heart, a vibrant flame burning fiercely. He loved it, loved this feeling of constantly facing death.
Just like in his original world, Xie He was always passionate about skydiving and bungee jumping from 100-meter buildings. Without hesitation, he only needed to take a small step forward, the only sound the whistling wind in his ears—the thrill of life-or-death races, hanging by a thread.
Very good.
A new challenge.
The countdown to death had only 13 hours left.
Comments
Post a Comment