CH 57

Chapter 57: Witchcraft Sacrifice (XXVI)

[One of us went and came back.]

The last bloody word that appeared on the wall stunned Qi Leren.

What had gone and come back? Did it mean that a dead witch had been resurrected again? No, one of them going and coming back… Did that mean coming back here? Maybe, three years ago, there was a surviving witch candidate in the witchcraft sacrifice mission. Three years later, she came here again and mingled among them.

Was she a player or an NPC? Why would she do that?

The creepy feeling slowly climbed to the soles of Qi Leren’s feet from the darkness in all directions, and then slowly climbed up his body along the nerves, stirring his imagination, making the already strange situation more complicated and confusing.

If someone survived last time and came to this underground palace again, who would it be? He, Ning Zhou, Lu Youxin, and Isabel were the only people who are alive now. The Ellie-Aisha sisters were unknown. Which one was most likely?

No, it was impossible to make effective inferences. From another angle, if that person received this task again, she would be familiar with the task flow and terrain. If you were familiar with the terrain…

Between crackles, Qi Leren suddenly recalled the situation when he was in the swamp tower. At that time, Lu Youxin asked Ye Xia if she needed to copy a map of the underground palace for her. Ye Xia told the truth under Lu Youxin’s skill: she refused.

At that time, he and Lu Youxin thought it was because Ye Xia didn’t trust them, but now that he thought about it, could it be because she was very familiar with the terrain of the underground palace, so she didn’t need this quarter map at all?

But Ye Xia was dead. He saw and touched her body with his own eyes, and Xie Wanwan who killed her had died…

Was the body fake? The idea flashed by, and Qi Leren himself felt funny. This was not a detective novel, to be capable of putting the body in a false pretence. He had seen the bodies of these two people with his own eyes.

Isabel let out a whimper, struggling as if she had been strangled, looking very pained. Qi Leren checked her condition, and suddenly there was a flash of light. Could it be Isabel who went and came back? She also said that she’s lost her memory. Maybe in this lost memory, she followed her sister to the underground palace. For some reason, she escaped and lost these memories. Then three years later, she came here again.

Could it be what he thinks?

Oh, and the altar.

“Now all the seven witches are dead. According to the clue given by the wall, shouldn’t the altar have appeared?” Qi Leren said to Ning Zhou in wonder, “But now it seems that the altar hasn’t appeared here. Could there be some conditions that need to be reached?”

Ning Zhou silently shook her head, saying she didn’t know.

“She seems to be about to wake up.” Qi Leren caught a glimpse of Isabel’s eyelids trembling a few times and immediately squatted down beside her.

Isabel mumbled, as if shouting for her sister, and finally woke up from a coma. When she woke up, she just lay on the ground and looked at the dark ceiling as if she had lost her soul.

“Isabel?” Qi Leren called to her.

Isabel suddenly got up from the ground as if possessed, took Qi Leren’s arm and screamed, “It’s her! She’s back! It can’t be wrong, it must be her!”

“Calm down and speak slowly, who is it?” Qi Leren pressed her shoulder and asked carefully.

Isabel, who calmed down from her excitement, stared at him with empty eyes. Her eyes were out of focus. She pursed her lips and whispered, “…The woman with the knife.”

“Ye Xia? Have you seen her? ” Qi Leren asked again.

Isabel’s body was shaking and her voice was shaking: “Yes, three years ago, she was in the same carriage with my sister…”

Isabel, who was still in chaos, intermittently told what she’d recalled. From her messy and disordered statement, the memory she lost three years ago was slowly presented to the two people.

Her sister was taken away after being selected as a witch candidate. Isabel secretly inquired about the place where her sister was locked up. When the day of sacrifice came, she quietly followed the carriage to the forest and saw the witch candidates who had been driven out of the carriage. One of the ones with her sister was Ye Xia.

They were driven into the jungle by domestic dogs, and Isabel was worried about her sister, so she ventured into the forbidden forest after everyone left. At that time it was getting dark, and in the deep twilight, she frantically searched for her sister, trying to take her out of the forest, but she was quickly lost there.

Then, she met a woman.

It was a woman so beautiful she could not be described in words. In the sunset, she stood quietly under a withered giant tree, with a bloodied corpse sprawled at her feet. She looked at her, and her eyes couldn’t tell whether it was coldness or gentleness, but only by looking at her like this, she had forgotten everything, even forgetting that there was a corpse lying at her feet.

“You are not the chosen one, why did you come here?” The woman asked her, her voice graceful and elegant as a lark singing in the morning light.

“I came to see my sister,” Isabel answered.

When she heard her answer, the woman showed an expression like a smile, and the slightly curled corners of her mouth turned her from a perfect sculpture into a living person. She said briskly, “It’s not the time for you to come, come back three years later.”

When she heard her words, Isabel seemed to be possessed, and she couldn’t help agreeing. When her consciousness began to blur, she struggled to ask the last question: “Who are you?”

The woman still smiled calmly at her, but gave a shocking answer: “I am the one you will serve.”

After that, she gently touched her finger on her lips and smiled mysteriously and charmingly: “Brave little girl, you have to keep this secret for me.”

Memories came to an abrupt end here, and Isabel woke up in her own bed and lost that memory until she saw Xie Wanwan’s bloody body in the underground palace and finally remembered the scene in the forest three years ago.

Qi Leren was shocked speechless. After a long time, he murmured: “Is the person you saw the Devil of Fraud?”

Isabel covered her face and said trembling, “I don’t know… I don’t know who she is.”

Frowning slightly, Qi Leren looked at Ning Zhou and found her deep in thought.

“If the Devil of Fraud really came to the sacrifice three years ago, it would explain why the last witch died so tragically.” Qi Leren recalled the bloody tips on the cliff and the witches he had met, and his mind had vaguely connected things together.

For some purpose, three years ago, the Devil of Fraud joined the mission disguised as an ordinary person. She was happy to see human strife, deception and despair. She played with the group of poor witches and provoked them to kill each other. He still remembered that Isabel’s sister was locked in an iron coffin and was burned alive by pouring in molten iron. She said, “I didn’t hurt her… She lied to you”, and this “she” probably referred to the Devil of Fraud. And the witch who created the dreamworld. She twisted in the love that she wanted, and constantly destroyed other witches. I’m afraid it was just a game for the Devil of Fraud.

But what happened to Ye Xia? She also took part in the sacrifice for three years, and then she survived? On one hand, she may have been the final winner of the last sacrifice, or on the other, she may have just survived. However, she survived, and came back here again three years later, and then died in the hands of Xie Wanwan.

It was too strange, it didn’t make sense at all. For a woman who had survived the task under the control of the Lord of Fraud, it didn’t make sense for her to have simply died here!

Qi Leren thought more and more, and looked forward with empty eyes. Ning Zhou stood there, quietly looking at the words on the wall, just a figure which easily attracted his attention.

Qi Leren suddenly remembered his situation of talking with Ye Xia in the dreamworld. At that time, Ye Xia had said to him…

-Whether you are truly loved or falsely loved, you are happy as long as you are loved. Sometimes love can’t help but help itself. Even if you know it’s impossible, you won’t give up easily.

Was that “Ye Xia” herself? Who was the impossible love she said she was dedicated to?

In the silence, a familiar voice came.

“Oh, I finally found you.”

Qi Leren almost jumped up from the ground as this voice came from the door of the temple. A translucent virtual shadow stood there, like the wandering souls everywhere in the underground palace.

Lu Youxin’s phantom stood there with her arms crossed and looked at them calmly. Her voice mechanically said, “Congratulations on winning the lucky prize. I am a kind-hearted person and this is the final time I’ll do a good deed of the day. I’ll tell you three crucial things, whether you can live and leave here depends on this. ”

“Lu Youxin?” Qi Leren’s voice was lost. No matter how you looked at it, the person in front of them was not like a living person, but a spirit.

Lu Youxin seemed to be unable to hear his voice, and her voice continued stiffly: “First, I am dead. Second, the woman who killed me seems to be Xie Wanwan. Third, she can transfer her soul. She took my body. To sum up, the murderer is Ye Xia.”