CH 96

Chapter 96: Castle Cry (XXIII)

{cw: crossdressing joke}

As the phantom in the mirror revealed the fatal temptation, Mrs. Sarah looked at the mirror with empty eyes. She was possessed and cut off her nails according to her instructions. The cut nails fell to the ground. Mrs. Sarah jerked and suddenly woke up.

With a scream, she threw the mirror to the ground and shouted, “The Devil! You’re the Devil!”

There is a giggle from the mirror: “When you look in the mirror, all you see is the desire in your own heart. Don’t resist it. There is already a jealous witch in your heart, and that is the real you.”

Mrs. Sarah stamped on the fragments of the mirror, and the voice stopped abruptly. She fell back trembling and sat down on the bed.

“Madam, I heard your voice. What happened?” The bedroom door was knocked on and Nina’s voice came.

“I have nothing to do and accidentally broke the mirror,” Mrs Sarah tried to speak calmly, adjusting her skirt.

Nina opened the door, bowed, and came in to clean up the debris on the ground. Sarah watched her work and said to herself, “Johann will be back soon.”

“Yes, madam,” Nina responded to Sarah’s words, cleaning the broken mirror on the ground.

“He will be very happy.” Sarah suddenly laughed and stroked her flat belly. “Although he’s never said it, he must like children as much as I do.”

Nina let out a soft cry, and her cut finger started bleeding. She quickly put her finger in her mouth, for fear that the blood might touch the beautiful carpet. Sarah sighed: “You’re too careless. Forget it. Stop first and let others clean it up later.”

“It doesn’t matter, madam. I’ll fix it.” Nina said anxiously, her head lowered.

Sarah sat on the bed and murmured, “Will he love me more when he has a baby?”

Nina shivered and trilled: “Your husband loves you deeply.”

Sarah smiled, looked ahead with empty eyes, and murmured: “Yes, he loves me, just like I love him…”

Nina, who was kneeling on the ground to clean, quietly raised her face and looked at the crazy lady quietly and painfully. She forgot that her finger was still bleeding, and a bead of blood fell from her fingertip on the colorful carpet and penetrated into the complicated patterns…

The phantom faded, and Mrs. Sarah’s last words lingered in the room, repeating the lie over and over again into a sad belief. It seemed that she’d discovered John’s infidelity long ago, but she didn’t want to admit it. She would rather hypnotize herself over and over again until she believed it.

“It seems that this phantom is an explanation to how the crazy lady got the sacrifice method, but at this time she has not yet miscarried, and her mental state seemed to be fairly stable… Nina was a little nervous. She was really afraid that the crazy lady would go crazy,” Qi Leren said, not sure how many emotions - pity, guilt, and even passing jealousy - were contained in Nina’s last complicated expression…

Up to now, Qi Leren hadn’t drawn a conclusion: What kind of role did Nina play?

“Hey, now that the six sacrifices have been collected, can we go to the boss fight?” Dr. Lu asked after putting away the last Devil’s sacrifice.

Su He opened his pocket watch and glanced at it. “Get ready to go back to the outer world. It’s almost time.”

With the six bells ringing, the three people once again returned to the outer world - based off the time, this should be the last hour. After all, the task required them to leave the castle before dawn, and it was now six o'clock. Although the sun would rise late in this season, it would be dawn at seven o'clock.

“Everything has been found, and all that’s left is the hound and the crazy lady. I can think of three ways to deal with the hound for the time being, so you leave it to me.” Su He closed the pocket watch, nodding to the two.

“God, I just want to have a bug in every copy. Su He and you are the real bugs!” Dr. Lu was delighted by this feeling of having everything taken care of by others.

Su He smiled implicitly. “The first method is dangerous. It comes from what Nan Lu did before. Why did she and Luo Xueyi wear the crazy lady’s clothes? I’m swayed to think that this is a symbolic meaning, which means that they have assimilated with the crazy lady. So when Nan Lu called for the hound, he followed her obediently because he thought she was his master. How did it distinguish her? By recognizing her? That’s obviously wrong. Nan Lu and Mrs. Sarah have very different appearances and voices; By Mrs Sarah’s clothes? It’s possible. If it relies on theDevil’s power…” Su He caught Qi Leren’s eye and caused his heart and soul to jump, thinking that Su He would reveal the seed in him. “Then the sacrifices we got can be used.”

Dr. Lu smiled with a sloped voice: “You mean to let Qi Leren wear the crazy lady’s clothes and take the Devil’s sacrifice, to pretend to be Mrs. Sarah and lead the dog away?”

Qi Leren’s heart was dead: “…I won’t do it, I would rather die!”

“This task isn’t difficult. Dr. Lu should be competent,” Su He smiled.

Qi Leren was overjoyed: “You’re the same size as Mrs. Sarah’s clothes, perfect!”

“…Oh NO!” Dr. Lu screamed in horror, “I refuse!”

“It seems that there’s no way to reach an agreement. Let’s talk about the second method: I also said before that the dog collar in the piano room on the second floor could be used. After picking up the collar, the hound should be attracted. There should be no problem in ambushing it. To be safe, this would require quick decision making and a miniature bomb that can be fed to it,” Su He said.

Qi Leren was a little distressed. This was all in exchange for the number of survival days. Couldn’t they just not do it and only go against the crazy lady? “Is there another way?”

“Use the armor.” Su He said only three words, but lit up the idea in Qi Leren.

“Yes, before when the armor and hound fought, it was completely one-sided. Maybe there’s some magical power. And the armor’s material is hard, so you don’t have to worry about being bitten by the dog. This is a good idea!” Qi Leren got a little excited.

Dr. Lu whistled at the side: “You can cheat the system.”

Qi Leren sneered: “Then you can do it.”

Dr. Lu was a coward.

The three men went back to the stairs where the armor had been scattered. With the help of Dr. Lu and Su He, Qi Leren put this heavy metal armor on his body: “It’s a bit heavy, but I can still move around. It’s more flexible than expected.”

“Of course, this is originally modeled after the armor used by knights in the Middle Ages in Europe. It would be strange if you couldn’t wear it,” Dr. Lu said haughtily.

Su He paid more attention to it: “Do you feel any special power in this armor?”

“Well, there’s no such thing. It seems that it’s just plain armor,” Qi Leren said regretfully.

Wearing the armor, he went up the stairs, and Qi Leren returned to the third floor and followed the trail of blood spread to the end of the corridor. To be on the safe side, Dr. Lu and Su He waited for him at the stairs on the third floor. Although Qi Leren was a little nervous to face the danger alone, after being tempered so many times, he was not frightened for such a battle. At most, he was a little nervous.

Where the hell was the hound?

The clang of metal armor moving sounded in his ear, every step accompanied by the sound of metal clanking, and the helmet’s visual field was limited, so Qi Leren was constantly worried that he had missed some subtle movement.

Finally, when he was about to walk to the open room at the end of the corridor, the charred hound appeared from the shadows like a ghost. The castle in the world was dark and old, and the lightning outside the window lit the night sky of heavy rain again and again, which also lit up the explosive battlefield.

The hound leaned down and growled menacingly in the depths of its throat. Qi Leren wore the metal armor and held the armor’s sword in his hand, ready to stab-

Move!

The roar of the hound thundered down, and it sprang up on its hind legs and pounced towards the armor! Its figure lit by the lightning suddenly became nothing but an afterimage!

So fast! He couldn’t see at all!

Qi Leren instinctively wielded the sword, slashing it down. The hound that had landed jumped up again. A slave to momentum, Qi Leren was knocked down to the ground with the heavy armor. He hastily shored up his body but forgot to take his sword, and directly swung at the hound that jumped towards him with an iron fist! His fist seemed to be endowed with incredible power. At the moment the punch met, Qi Leren felt that even the opposite wall could easily be penetrated!

The fist collided with the hound, and the hound whined as it crashed into the opposite wall and fell to the ground.

Good opportunity! The fallen Qi Leren wanted to get up and make up for the blow, but the heavy armor limited his movement. Struggling, he rose to his feet, picked up the long sword on the ground, and stabbed it through the hound’s body.

The burnt body of the hound exploded, and the flames swept over its body instantly, burning through it and leaving no ashes.

This time it had gone well. Qi Leren got up from the ground slowly, took off his helmet, and let out a sigh of relief.

Although the hound’s speed was much faster than during the last encounter with it, thanks to this armor, he was not bitten. The battle ended quickly enough, and the degree of fright was greatly reduced, which made Qi Leren very satisfied.

Su He came over with Dr. Lu, and Dr. Lu was surprised: “How fast!”

“That’s a given,” Qi Leren said, pretending to be calm and trying to show his superior demeanor.

“Qi Leren is very powerful,” Su He praised, his eyes curving with a gentle smile. 

Being praised so sincerely, or being praised by a person who was far superior to him, Qi Leren was very flustered. What was even more embarrassing was that Dr. Lu’s eyes were wrong…

“Well, the crazy lady didn’t show up after the hound was killed. It seems that the worst situation you said won’t happen,” Qi Leren quickly changed the subject.

Before the fight, Su He had put forth various possibilities. The most troublesome one was that hatred was shared between the hound and the crazy lady. Once the hound was attacked, the crazy lady would appear, and it would be a lot of trouble to deal with it. However, according to the difficulty of the copy, it was unlikely.

Fortunately, this kind of situation didn’t happen. Otherwise, Qi Leren who was wearing heavy armor would be bound to have a hard time dealing with the crazy lady. Although Su He promised that he would step in if this happened, Qi Leren still hoped to solve the task by himself. This relatively safe exercise opportunity was really too precious.

Take off your armor, bring your weapons, take Luo Xueyi’s ashes, and prepare the Devil’s sacrifice. Qi Leren glanced at the small staircase at the end of the corridor, which led to the rooftop garden on the top floor.

There, a grand battle was about to start.

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The author has something to say:

PS: However, the witty Dr. Lu has seen through everything: my (copy) boyfriend is always entangled with men, he really is a gay  ╮ (╯ ▽ ╰) ╭

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Crazy lady on standby: What a mess your circle is

I wish you all a happy Valentine’s Day. I will reply to the messages first, and if there are any omissions, I will reply tomorrow :-D

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Editor’s Notes: The cw at the top of this chapter brings a good opportunity for me to mention something not so nice that I’ve been worrying about: 

While it’s not very present in this installment of the trilogy, once we get into Nightmare Game II there does start to be somewhat prominent issues of transmisogyny in this series. I’m using my own discretion to edit out any slurs the mtl gives me (especially since I don’t know the specific connotations of the words used in the Chinese), but I don’t think it’s my place as a someone only invovled in translation to completely take out or greatly alter a portion of the original text. 

As we are now moving towards the climax of Nightmare Game I, I feel that it’s best for me to mention this early so that people who do not want to continue reading something with transmisognistic content have the opportunity to drop it if they wish before they get too emotionally invested in the series. I do apologize for not mentioning this earler. Once we reach those scenes, I will be sure to include warnings whenever relevant. 

If you have any further questions or worries about this (or anything else), I encourage you to message me. I would like for people to be able to enjoy this series to the greatest degree possible, even despite the issues present in it.