freeallnovels Chapter 79 The Crying Groom and the Smiling Bride, A Mysterious Death
Chapter 79 The Crying Groom and the Smiling Bride, A Mysterious Death
Li Qingchen used up his resurrection chance, and the game continued!
Your heart was pounding as you left the basement.
You carefully closed the basement door.
After confirming the door lock was reset, you tiptoed back to your parents' room.
You take a deep breath, suppressing your unease, and begin a thorough search of the room, leaving no corner unchecked.
You open the first drawer of the bedside table; inside are several old books and some miscellaneous items, neatly stacked.
After searching for a while, you finally found a neatly folded prescription deep in the drawer.
When you see the composition of all the medicinal ingredients listed above, a strange sense of surprise wells up inside you—
You've seen this prescription in an old medical book before, and it left a deep impression on you.
The combination of these medicinal herbs is unusual; it's clearly a formula used to treat a rare and incurable disease.
[But in your memory, everyone in the family is healthy. Your parents have worked hard all year round, and although your older sister Lin Wan is frail, she hasn't shown any signs of illness recently.]
So, who exactly is this prescription for?
Is someone concealing their illness?
Is it one of the parents, or the seemingly unharmed older sister?
Or perhaps, this is just an old, discarded prescription, and I'm just being overly sensitive and naively overthinking things?
Li Qingchen frowned.
The doubts in my heart grew stronger.
Just then, a line of striking red text suddenly appeared on the screen, glaringly obvious:
【The True Lord of Blessed Mind is disappointed with your performance.】
"Tsk, if you want me to do well, give me more hints."
Li Qingchen couldn't help but complain.
Regardless of the True Lord below, the game continues.
You memorized the medicinal herbs listed above, then put away the prescription and continued searching the room. Your gaze fell upon the bottom drawer.
Try gently pulling the drawer open with a little force.
[A pile of old clothes sat in the drawer. You patiently rummaged through them, when your fingertips suddenly touched something cold and hard.]
Upon parting the clothing, they found a small, delicate brass key.
Holding the keys, you started to have doubts—
What locks can this key open?
Is it that locked wooden box in the basement?
Or is it hidden in a closet somewhere in the house?
Regardless, this key is definitely not simple.
You carefully hid it in the inside pocket of your clothes, pressing it down to make sure it wouldn't fall out.
You searched the room again, turning over every shelf of the wardrobe, every drawer of the bedside table, and even checking under the bed and in the crevices of the walls, but you found nothing useful.
This room is no longer of any use to you.
Not daring to linger, you quickly put everything back in its place, carefully checked it over, and after confirming that there were no traces of your intrusion, you breathed a sigh of relief and quietly left your parents' room.
The moment you turned around, a chill suddenly ran down your spine, as if something was watching you.
You stiffly turned your head and found your sister, Lin Wan, staring intently at you. Her gaze was calm and expressionless, yet it sent a chill down your spine.
Lin Wan's voice drifted over slowly: "Little brother, what are you doing? It's so late, what are you doing here?"
[Whether it's your imagination or not, you clearly sense a faint, yet palpable, aura of death.]
Lin Wan's words were calm, but beneath that calm lay a powerful sense of oppression, making it almost impossible for you to breathe, and your palms instantly became sweaty.
You realize that you may have aroused the other party's suspicion, which could potentially trigger the death mechanism.
You force yourself to calm down, trying to keep your voice steady: "It's nothing. I remembered I left my book in this room, so I came to look for it. I just found it, and I was about to go back to sleep."
Your sister, Lin Wan, stared at you for a long time, then glanced at the door to your parents' room behind you. A hint of suspicion flashed in her eyes, but she didn't ask any more questions. She simply said:
"Go to sleep early, it's getting late, your parents should be back soon." With that, she turned and left down the corridor.
You looked in the direction Lin Wan had disappeared and let out a long sigh of relief.
For a fleeting moment, you even thought you were about to trigger the death mechanism; that feeling of being targeted was truly terrifying.
"What the hell?! This is way too easy to trigger the death mechanic!"
Li Qingchen patted his chest, thinking to himself that this instance was too cunning.
"I was only standing outside my parents' room for a short while when Lin Wan saw me."
"Was she just passing by, or was she watching me the whole time?"
"And whose prescription is it?"
"There was something off about Lin Wan's gaze just now. Could she be the one hiding her illness?"
A series of questions swirled in Li Qingchen's mind, making him feel more and more that this family was full of secrets.
Everyone seemed to be wearing a mask.
It's impossible to see its true appearance.
You composed yourself, not daring to linger any longer, and quickly returned to your room, locking the door behind you.
You took the brass key out of your pocket and, using the room's light, carefully traced its shape and the patterns on its handle.
[Then, you put the key back in the bottom drawer of your parents' room.]
[You know very well that now is not the time to take the keys. If your parents find out the keys are missing, they will definitely become suspicious.]
You tiptoed out of your parents' room again, and just as you turned the corner in the hallway, you bumped into your parents who were returning home.
Your heart skipped a beat.
Your father frowned, his gaze sweeping over you, his tone carrying a subtle hint of scrutiny:
"What are you doing in there, sneaking around like that? It's so late, why aren't you in your room sleeping? What are you doing standing outside our door?"
Good thing you already had an excuse ready.
You calmly take a book out of your pocket.
[This book is something you just took out of your room and deliberately kept on your person.]
Your tone carried a hint of innocence: "I left my book in your room and forgot to take it. I came to get it, just found it, and was about to go back."
You're lying, yet there's not a trace of panic on your face.
Your mother glanced at the book in your hand, a relieved smile appearing on her face, her tone softening considerably:
"Xiao Mo is studying so hard. It's so late and she's still thinking about getting her books. Go back to sleep now, don't overwork yourself, you have to get up early tomorrow."
You nodded vigorously, forcing a sweet smile, quickly grabbed your book, head down, and hurried back to your room.
After you left, your parents' expressions became serious again.
The father walked quickly to the door, looked around to make sure no one else was in the hallway, then gently pushed open the door, pulled his mother inside, and quickly closed and locked the door.
"Is something wrong?" Your father asked in a low voice, a hint of tension in his tone. His gaze quickly swept across every corner of the room, especially the bottom drawer and the bedside table.
Your mother shook her head, walked to the drawer, opened the bottom drawer, glanced at the old clothes inside, and then checked the other drawers, her tone tinged with uncertainty:
"It's not immediately obvious; everything is still there. Maybe we're being too sensitive."
"No, we can't be careless." The father's tone was serious. "That thing is too important. It absolutely cannot be discovered, especially not by the children. We must be extra careful. From now on, we must lock the room at night and not give anyone another chance."
The mother nodded, her expression growing increasingly grave: "I know, I'll be careful. I'll check the basement again tomorrow to make sure there are no problems."
The conversation inside the room was conducted in hushed tones, yet fragments of words still escaped through the crack in the door, reaching your ears as you hid around the corner of the hallway, not having gone far.
The doubts in your heart grow deeper—what exactly is "that thing" they're talking about? Is it the wooden box in the basement? Or some other secret?
You dared not listen any longer, fearing your parents would discover you, and quickly and quietly returned to your room.
"Therefore, there must be something in this basement that is key to passing the level, and the parents have been desperately trying to hide this secret."
Combined with that prescription.
Li Qingchen already had a direction for his investigation in mind.
Nothing was said that night.
The next morning, you rubbed your throbbing temples.
You just woke up to find a letter slipped under your door.
A thought struck you, and you quickly went over to pick up the envelope, tearing it open impatiently.
The letter contained a few lines written in neat, albeit slightly messy, handwriting, revealing the writer's unstable, even somewhat broken, emotional state at the time.
"After my brother died, no one in this world will care about me anymore."
"Even if I'm bullied, no one will stand up for me."
"I'm so useless. I'm the older sister, but it's always that immature younger brother who protects me."
That night, I suddenly saw a strange man wearing a Zhong Kui mask in the courtyard. He was dressed in a long black robe, tall and imposing, and was dancing in the courtyard.
"Who is he? Why is he dancing in my yard? Is he here to harm me?"
"I'm scared, I'm shaking uncontrollably, little brother, where are you?"
The next day, someone in our town got married. There was a lot of noise, and the town was decorated with lanterns and streamers, but I felt something was strangely unsettling.
Because the bride and groom looked somewhat strange, they were both wearing masks.
The groom wore a crying mask; his face was deathly pale, his lips turned down, and he was crying his heart out, his voice filled with despair, yet not a single tear fell.
The bride wore a smiling mask with a wide, chilling grin that seemed to emanate from hell, sending shivers down one's spine.
They walked down the street, but the people around them seemed to take it all in stride, showing no sign of anything amiss, and continued chatting and laughing as before.
"I was really scared; that eerie atmosphere almost suffocated me."
"I told my parents about it, but they just impatiently told me to focus on my studies and not worry about these things, saying I was overthinking and being too sensitive."
"What? I dared not ask any more questions, and could only keep all my fear to myself."
"I always felt like something bad was going to happen. I felt like I was an abandoned person, and nobody cared about me."
[Who exactly are that strange man with the Zhong Kui mask, and that eerie bride and groom? What are their parents hiding?]
This letter was undoubtedly written by the older sister, Lin Wan.
There was just a bit more panic and despair.
Li Qingchen read the contents of the letter repeatedly.
Every word Lin Wan spoke revealed her fear and loneliness, as well as her dependence on her "younger brother".
"The Zhong Kui masked monster... could it be the one who appeared in the courtyard last night?"
A strange image flashed through Li Qingchen's mind.
A tall figure dressed in a black robe and wearing a Zhong Kui mask danced a stiff dance under the moonlight.
The mere thought of that scene sends chills down one's spine.
And then there's the strange bride and groom in the town, the crying groom and the smiling bride.
One cries and the other laughs, and yet the people around them take it all for granted. Why is that?
The people in the town have all been taken into custody.
Or is this simply the norm in this small town?
Based on my parents' conversation last night, could the "thing" they've been protecting be related to these strange occurrences?
[You were completely baffled, and just as you were scratching your head in frustration, you heard the sound of a suona (a traditional Chinese wind instrument) approaching from afar.]
[The sound of firecrackers followed immediately. You ran outside and saw a wedding procession, with a crying groom and a smiling bride.]
They weren't wearing masks; the masks were practically grown onto their faces!
They are not human at all!
You feel a chill run down your spine, turn around and go back into the house, where you bump into your parents.
"What are you doing, all flustered?" your father scolded.
You point outside: "Someone's getting married—no, two monsters are getting married! We'd better report it to the authorities!"
Your mother said displeasedly, "Don't talk nonsense. Who gets married like that?"
You were startled. Were your parents blind? Or were they pretending?
You suddenly started crying, tears streaming down your face.
Your parents were terrified by your strange behavior and rushed you to see a doctor.
You see the groom crying on the street.
You cried even harder.
What you're shedding now isn't tears, it's blood.
Your blood has dried up from your eyes.
You are dead!
"What would happen if we pretended not to see them?"
Li Qingchen used up his resurrection attempts once more.
You hear the sound of suona horns approaching from afar, followed by the sound of firecrackers.
You covered your head with the blanket.
You hear someone knocking on the door; it's your mother calling you to get up.
You pretend you didn't hear.
You suddenly realize there's a woman's figure in your bed.
The woman's smile stretched all the way to her ears.
You started laughing too.
You are dead!