Chapter 43 - Doll House(20)

The illusion in front of them disappeared. The Madams face returned to its deathly, ashen pallor and the butler redisgusied himself in that strict, fanatic mask.

However the castle still lost the glamor and glitter of luxury and had receded into a mottled, almost run-down state.

Under the numb gazes of the remaining players they retreated into the mansion, not before leaving a haunting reminder that two roles had not been played out.

Over a dozen persons came inband by this time, on the fourth day, half of them was dead.

"We need to work together, if we all want to live."

Shi XiaoDong spoke first, some regret staining his voice.

The first mistake they made was being arrogant enough to think that this low level instance didn't need any teamwork, nevertheless the instance quickly smacked them in face with their own weakness.

If they continue to work alone, most of them would die here.

"So far we can come to a certain conclusion, the Madam definitely took away those childrens bodies and it probably had something to do with how she was able to live so long."

This was a typical horror movie plot but when they truly came intact with it, the horror and cruelty was expanded exponentially.

"The bodies had never been placed in the coffin, neither had they been dug up. That goes to show that the Madam had an ulterior motive from the very beginning. The children might have not even been dead when they were first brought here but had been slowly tortured to death."

Chu Yi slowly reiterated his thoughts

"After a person dies, the corpse decays and produces gas to attract flies to lay eggs. If there is no accident, the first first fly larvae, known as maggots, can be seen within 24 hours. Another day, molting into second stage pupal, then third stage, adult fly.

When a corpse is first buried clusters of eggs and adult flies are attracted to the corpse, but no pupae, combined with the average temperature, and other characteristics, such as the condition of the corpse and the characteristics of the abdomen, he can judge that the corpse had never been buried, because in the empty coffins that they had dug up, their was no fly residue or stench."

The others turned slightly pale and something flashed through Shi XiaoDong's eye.

"So we can conclude that the dolls found around the castle are probably the souls of the dead children that have trapped somehow. Remember on the first day, the red doll had been found in the dead players room and how every doll had been placed in all of the restricted rooms."

"There have been many horror stories about dolls moving and harming their owners, so dolls have always been a medium to channel souls."

"Dolls have also been associated with immortality and beauty, therefore if the Madam had wanted to somehow prolong her life, sacrificing the souls of children and placing them in dolls to somehow power herself isn't a forgone conjecture."

"We just have to find out how she did it, and how to stop it."

The others nodded in agreement, they had to find out how the sacrifice worked before the Candle Lit festival in seven days and possibly even destroyed it before then.

"Let's search, there isn't much time till we have to go back to our rooms and we have to take every chance chance we get."

Chu Yi hummed, before turning around and walking towards the stairs.

They didn't walk far before, at the end of the first floor, the silhouette of two children holding hands at the far end of the corridor stood, not knowing when they had appeared. The lamps like voice-controlled lights in the corridor lit up with the sound of everyone's footsteps. Chu Yi raised his head and scanned the stairwell not far away, and then followed everyone behind to go up.

The first floor fell silent for a moment.

The flickering light in front of each room illuminated a small space in the narrow corridor, the air was full of blood and rancid smell, so harsh that it can almost be solidified, and standing at the foot of the door, a body lay blue-grey, with the belly torn open. The corpse was lying quietly in the middle of the corridor.

Those long-dead, turbid eyes slowly turned one frame and looked at the empty stairwell.

"Don't stop"

Before they could register the sight, under Chu Yi's cold command, the group subconsciously picked up the pace and bypass the dead corpse.

The cold, lifeless eyes watching as they climbed farther up the stairs.

The layout of the second floor is exactly the same as that of the first floor. The only difference was that a dark red wallpaper was pasted on the wall, blurred and faded because of the long time. The color on it is mottled, as if it has been splashed with gushing blood.

There was nothing on this floor and the players traveled unheeded up to the fifth floor.

The Madams room.

The brass-colored iron door was mottled and old and yet, through the gaps of the door, you could see remnants of the tall Gothic spires, and between the layered eaves, you could see the narrow and thin window creases with retro style.

Unexpectedly, the door of the Madam's room was wide open, and the light inside was dim but still lightly illuminated the entire room.

Although the furniture in the room was rusty and old and the walls in need of repair, you could still see the traces of has-beens and riches.

In the very middle of the room was an antique, retro style sofa sitting on a large chromatic carpet.

On that dusty sofa, there were two people sitting side by side, like a family, close to each other- it would have seemed like a regular scene, if their stiff and upright bodies were ignored.

Chu Yi walked around the sofa and looked at the two people sitting on the sofa.

-It was the two players who had died under the hands of the doll's.

The corners of the mouths of the two people grinned to the base of their ears, and a weird and bright red smile was evoked. The almost identical expressions looked very crippled in the immediate environment. One had his left eyeball, and the other had her right eyeball scooped out. The dug out eyeballs were placed in their respective palms, the only remaining sluggish eyeball was bloodshot and silent, staring straight at the open door not far away, the blood slid down the crooked eye sockets, on the pale face It looks particularly dazzling.

It was as if they were waiting for them.

Two dolls were neatly placed on the small bench beside them, with sweet and innocent smiles on their slightly faded faces.

The doll's eye sockets were empty, one missing the left eye and the other missing the right eye.

Such hints are already very obvious.

Chu Yi stepped forward under the eyes of the players and placed the soft and creamy eyeballs of the two players into the doll's eye sockets.

CRASH!

The players jumped, frightened. From beside them, an old bookshelf came slamming to the floor, scattering the antique papers and scrolls to the floor.

"What's that?"

Shi XiaoDong reacted first and with a keen eyesight, spotted an inconspicuous black book in the center of the scattered books, out of sight in the see of brown scrolls and papers.

He carefully stepped over the others and grabbed the book.

"It's the Castle's Account book."

They tried to open it but to their dismay, it was a locked book and could only be opened with a special key.

"This is a big clue related to our survival so we have to find a way to open it."

The others nodded in agreement.

The players dispersed quickly, looking for any special items that might be the key.

Chu Yi also followed the crowd slowly, and looked at the interior of the room that could be considered poor with cold eyes.

Almost every restricted room in the castle had traces of the lives of children aged five to ten years old, scattered with toys, crayons, dolls, etc . as can be seen from various details, these rooms belong to families with children, only the first floor where they lived was diffrent but those houses seem to belong to servants.

Such an estate that was visually on the verge of bankruptcy, how could they afford so many toys?