CHAPTER 789: CHAPTER 489: ILLUSION!

Fatty Gao and Ye Zixu were with Sui Yi, staying in the adjacent room; they were now in Sui Yi’s living room, having just shut the door. Fatty Gao sat down and said, "Boss, I saw it, those green, gleaming eyes, it really was a spotted leopard.. truly from the Zoo Garden."

Sui Yi pondered thoughtfully, "Only one?"

"No, there seemed to be several... It’s strange, do leopards live in groups?"

"Generally not," Sui Yi replied.

Considering the vast scope of the natural glass area, it didn’t make sense for the leopards to congregate in one spot...

"And I feel.. they were very scared," Fatty Gao observed astoundingly. He also possessed night vision, a fact Sui Yi had only learned some time ago, seemingly a side effect of being possessed.

A fortuitous side effect.

"Scared?" Ye Zixu asked.

"Right, they must have seen me too~ Normally they should be very aggressive, but they all scurried back... as if they were really afraid of humans."

Fatty Gao recalled the scene with an odd expression.

Sui Yi and Ye Zixu also felt it to be strange.

"Were there any other creatures?"

"Not enough time, that attendant arrived so quickly... yes, didn’t you think he came too fast? Even though the glass was in the way, and it’s bulletproof glass, I’m certain, technically I wasn’t in any danger, but he seemed so anxious rushing over... Yet, when questioned, he was tight-lipped as if he had anticipated our questions already, truly a strange place, strange people."

"That attendant leader has no small strength.. at least comparable to someone with Hundred-Year Inner Strength.. converting that, it’s roughly the same as a C or D level Adventurer, and yet here he is just an attendant... Hellfire Castle, profoundly powerful," Sui Yi commented.

When Sui Yi spoke of power, it was certainly terrifying.

Ye Zixu had felt this since arriving.

"I think those wall paintings and the whole castle are very sinister," he said.

"Sinister? Not at all, I find it quite warm; there’s heating everywhere.. why would you feel cold?" Fatty Gao, drinking his tea, suddenly changed his expression, "Don’t tell me there are really some dirty things here!"

Ever since being possessed, Fatty Gao had been particularly averse to anything related to ghosts.

"As for such things, if you believe in them, they exist; if you don’t, they don’t."

"So do you believe?" Fatty Gao asked, trembling slightly.

The two from Sui Yi nodded neatly in unison.

Oh my god!

"Ye Zixu, I’ll stick with you.."

"No need,"

"Boss, can I sleep on the floor in your room tonight?"

Ye Zixu gave him a sideways glance, "I’ll stay with you."

Fatty Gao sneered, huh, I knew you’d yield like this...

As they were leaving, Ye Zixu brought up one more matter: "The geographical location of this castle... it has a fierce Feng Shui, and that mountain also seems a bit odd, have you noticed?"

Sui Yi didn’t appear surprised upon hearing this, nodded, and after thinking for a moment, conveyed a message in lip-speak, stunning both of them.

-- Be wary of the wall paintings.

What did that mean?

Ye Zixu escorted Fatty Gao into the next room; Sui Yi also closed the door, turned around, and looked at several wall paintings hanging on the room’s walls; there were beautiful landscape oil paintings... as well as portraits of people.

It was a middle-aged man.

Facing the master bedroom, he too looked on... his eyes and brows exuding kindliness.

Sui Yi stood in front of the portrait for a while before heading into the bathroom..

Inside the bathroom, Sui Yi took off her coat and saw that the area around her right elbow... her shirt had been soaked through with fresh blood, the tendons bruised.

Natasha was ruthless.

Now it would be a bit difficult for her to wield a sword.

After cleaning the wound and changing into clean clothes, Sui Yi took out the medicine from Jiang Chenyu, applying it to the injury. It was very cooling and relieved the nearly unbearable pain she had felt before.

When Sui Yi came out, she saw the portrait again as she opened the door. She tilted her head and casually glanced at it before walking into the bedroom.

The door closed.

If she had looked when opening the door, she would have seen the portrait facing this door as well.

In the room without any portrait paintings, there was only a lonely blooming daisy, the warm color palette making the room’s lights bright and the outside was a beautiful seascape...

Sui Yi stood by the window for a moment before closing it. She then turned back the covers and lay down.

The lights dimmed...

The daisy continued to bloom, warmly, turning yellow...

Sui Yi felt she hadn’t dreamt in many years, but this time she slept deeply, as if her bodily fatigue and pain were released all at once.

In her dream, she returned to that dim playground, which, to her younger self, seemed so vast... buried with many people’s skeletal remains. Perhaps beneath the stone tube where she, Yi, and Liu often sat, many people were buried... be it the pudgy kid with poor health who was rumored to have been adopted early, Rice Cake, or the thin, greedy Lang Qing who often tried to steal their food...

She couldn’t tell.

Until that day, when many kids were playing hide-and-seek... she and Yi ran into the kitchen, carefully locking the door behind them. It was naptime, and the kitchen was empty..

Footsteps approached from the outside, and in their desperation, they pulled open the large freezer...

Just hiding for a minute or two would be fine...

Just as they were about to hide... the head of Rice Cake stared at them, his pupils bloodshot, the mouth of the ever-gluttonous kid gaping open due to the inflow of outside air, pouring out black blood... his tongue gone.

She remembered the day he was adopted, how he ran over... stuffing two boxes of cookies into their chests.

"Ah Yi, Xiao Yi... you wait, just wait,"

"I’ll definitely come find you later, bringing lots of goodies... I’ll take you both to eat teddy bear cakes~..."

"This is my hidden stash, here, for you..."

Turns out, he never left.

At that moment, they were petrified, hearing a knocking sound from the kitchen’s underground... someone coming up.

They fled.

But they never truly escaped... and later... Yi started acting odd.

"Why is the freezer in our orphanage kitchen so big~"

"Idiot, because it has to fit a lot of people’s heads~"

Rice Cake’s, Lang Qing’s, Willow’s, yours, mine...

--------

"Huff!" Sui Yi suddenly opened her eyes, sat up from the bed, panting, and wiped her forehead with her palm, covered in cold sweat.

She thrust her hand into her hair and softly called out, "Yi... Rice Cake..."

Some fears are hidden deep within the folds of memory; if you don’t peel back the aged skin of the years, how can you see your own fear?

These fears, which she had once subconsciously forgotten, had started appearing frequently of late.

Sui Yi pressed her forehead, sitting on the bed for a while, then suddenly felt a coolness. She turned her head and saw the sea breeze blowing in from the window, slightly fishy... It fell cold on her skin clad only in a tank top, very cold.

After a while, she felt someone watching her and turned her face to look at the wall.

That middle-aged man was looking at her.

She looked at him, and he at her.

As they stared, tears welled up in his eyes... blood red... blood red...

Sui Yi felt a sharp pain in her head, feeling dizzy, turn on the light!

The light flooded the room, and when she looked with her eyes quickly opened, what she saw was that daisy.

A warm, pleasant oil painting in warm yellow.

Sui Yi threw off the covers, got out of bed, walked up to the daisy, looked at it for a while, reached out a hand, her fingertips brushed over it, and a bit of yellow appeared on her fingers, yellow powder. She sniffed at it and suddenly felt a wave of dizziness...

Her body swayed...

Clang!

The bed seemed to shake as if something had sprung out!

A hand pressed against her back, sticky and wet.

The smell of blood and decay wafted to her.

Sui Yi spun around, her fingertips coming together.

Whoosh!

Sword Qi burst forth from her fingertips...

Thud!

The Sword Qi shot into the wall!

There was nothing unusual about the bed.

A hallucination?

Sui Yi stared blankly, then suddenly!

"Ah!"

A scream came from next door!

Sui Yi hastily grabbed a coat hanging on the rack along with the Demon Que Sword from the Sword Bag and rushed out...

The scream echoed in the previously quiet rooms, naturally causing a lot of unrest. Sui Yi was the closest and fastest, immediately heading to the next door. Whoosh! The door was cut open by the Demon Que Sword, opened!

Fatty Gao, who was clutching his behind and screaming, was dodging in horror... Sui Yi entered the room...

Whoosh!

An icy gleam approached!

Clang!

It struck against the Demon Que Sword Edge, and Sui Yi turned her head just in time to see Ye Zixu’s cold, merciless face, his eyes brimming with murderous intent.

Whoosh!

The long blade turned, aiming to slice at her neck!

With a flick of her wrist, the Demon Que spun, its edge whirling along the blade, clang! The long blade was forced away by the Demon Que, both blade and sword sticking into the wall.

Whoosh, Sui Yi lunged forward, her fingertip touching Ye Zixu’s forehead!

Bang!

Ye Zixu’s head jerked! His body froze, then went limp against the wall.

He gasped for air.

Fatty Gao weakened as well, leaning against the wall, drenched in cold sweat.

By then, the others had also arrived,

Cao Ling and her group.

Their faces weren’t looking too good, still shaken, but they were surprised by the mess in Ye Zixu’s room.

"Are you hurt? Did he do this?" Cao Ling asked Fatty Gao, who was gripping his behind, then looked toward Ye Zixu.

In theory, Ye Zixu would not attack Fatty Gao, but he had...

"I don’t know what came over him, all of a sudden he pulled out his sword and stabbed at me.. damn it! I was hoping he would protect me!" Fatty Gao couldn’t have sounded more wronged...

Imagine his horror upon waking from a nightmare to actually see his roommate suddenly wielding a weapon and stabbing at him in the pitch dark!

Damn, that thrill!

"If it weren’t for my strong bladder, I almost pissed myself just now! I am but a lover lost in love, mistaking her man’s unfaithfulness for loyalty~" Fatty Gao complained... even remembering to use the tune from a classic opera~

Ye Zixu also regained some consciousness, took a deep breath, and after considering Sui Yi’s thoughtful gaze, said, "I was deceived... I dreamt of something... terrifying, and I thought he and you were enemies."

He didn’t specify what that terrifying thing was, offering only a scant explanation, but it sent a chill down everyone’s spine.

What kind of deception could make even Ye Zixu lose his mind?

"But I did not stab him in the back..." Ye Zixu was quick to add.

"Right, my behind!" Fatty Gao suddenly recalled, "When I was dodging his attack, I suddenly felt a tightness in my... my behind started bleeding!"

Cao Ling didn’t look at his behind, her gaze directed at the wall instead, then turned silently to look at Sui Yi. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it on Qidian (qidian.com), Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)