Chapter 31.3

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the wall was covered in paintings, because the entire wall was filled with paintings and picture frames without even the slightest gap. And the strangest thing was that all the paintings were the same.

It was a portrait of someone – an extremely beautiful woman who seemed to calmly look at the people outside the painting. She was dressed like someone from the Middle Ages.

This was a portrait of a very beautiful person, but because the entire wall was covered with the same painting, it felt rather strange and creepy.

“Fuck! Even I’m starting to feel like I have trypophobia……” Tang Mianmian murmured.

Xiao Tangqiu frowned slightly, “It’s the same as the statue outside…..”

“Statue?” Tang Mianmian looked carefully and suddenly realized, “You’re right! This is the Virgin Spring!” The woman in this picture is clearly the statue outside!

Everyone else’s expressions had also turned rather ugly. The female college student summoned the courage to ask the housekeeper, “Is…… is she the Saintess? Why does your Master hang up so many paintings of the Saintess?”

Tang Mianmian muttered to himself, “Isn’t it obvious? He’s a fanboy!”

While others chase celebrities, I’m chasing a Saintess – that’s much more high class and loftier than your average person!

The housekeeper remained silent for a moment before saying in a low voice, “This isn’t the Saintess, this is Mrs. Lily Marlene.”

“Mrs. Lily Marlene?” Xiao Tangqiu paused.

The housekeeper’s voice sounded lower and lower, “This is the first wife of the Master, Mrs. Lily Marlene.”

“The first? How many wives did he have?” asked Xiao Tangqiu.

“……Three.” The housekeeper’s voice was very low.

Xiao Tangqiu mused, “Are they all dead?”

The housekeeper stopped talking and fell silent at once.

The newbies obviously didn’t understand why Xiao Tangqiu had asked something like that. They glanced anxiously at the housekeeper, fearing that Xiao Tangqiu’s rude questioning had angered her.

Xiao Tangqiu turned to give Tang Mianmian a look; these two revealed a similar expression at the same time.

According to the usual process of unraveling horror games, it only led to one thing!

The Master of the castle was the murderer!

He married and then killed them, even repeating it three times in a row! This bastard was definitely a crazy wife killer!

This wall was really too eerie. Even Xiao Tangqiu, who didn’t have trypophobia, felt uncomfortable. However, he was afraid of missing any important clues so he examined all the details of the portraits with a flashlight, but found nothing.

The housekeeper had turned around and continued to climb up the stairs, so he had to walk while he observed, trying to find any discrepancies in the thousands of paintings.

At the end of the long spiral staircase, was the second floor of the castle.

The second floor was also dark and gloomy, without a window in sight. There was a long corridor with rooms on both sides. At the door of each room, a candle had been placed but because the rooms were rather far from each other, the lighting was insufficient.

“Wow, there are so many rooms. Are we free to choose from these rooms?” Xiao Tangqiu turned to ask the housekeeper.

The housekeeper nodded slightly, “The third to the fifth floor are all empty rooms. You may choose at will….. but please remember, once you have chosen a room, you cannot simply change rooms with others.”

“Can’t simply change rooms with others?” Windbreaker Man smiled and asked, “……What would happen if we did?”

The housekeeper looked dully at the crowd, cracked a strange smile on her face, but didn’t speak.

Xiao Tangqiu felt his hair stand on end at that smile of hers and immediately noted down the matter.

“There is one last thing. You may move freely in the castle before twelve o’clock at night – except for the attic. But after twelve o’clock at night, you must stay in your room and cannot leave.”

This time, no one asked what would happen if they went out at night. The crowd fell silent all at once. Although the newcomers were still a little confused at what was going on, for the moment, they didn’t dare act out.

“Please choose your rooms. When it’s time for dinner, someone will be here to inform you.”

The housekeeper uttered that last sentence and disappeared, leaving them to look at each other in dismay.

The old castle was very big. At one glance, it was impossible to see the end of the corridor. There were dozens of rooms on the second floor alone. That, plus the third floor, the fourth floor and the fifth floor….. There must’ve been more than one hundred rooms…… How did the servants know which rooms they were staying in?

While Xiao Tangqiu was pondering over the matter, Windbreaker Man had already walked straight towards the first room. He picked a room casually, pushed open the door and went in.

Windbreaker Man was so fast that the door was closed before the crowd could see what was inside the room. After that, the two women next to Shen Yuan looked at each other, then, one of them asked him, “Captain, which room do you want?”

Shen Yuan answered impassively, “Whichever is fine.”

Although Xiao Tangqiu didn’t have an extremely keen sense of hearing, he still recognized a familiar feeling from Shen Yuan’s voice.

There could be two people who looked alike in this world, but would they also sound alike?

Xiao Tangqiu stared fixedly at Shen Yuan, but Shen Yuan didn’t look back. He chose a room diagonally opposite Windbreaker Man and casually walked into the room……. From start to the end, he hadn’t spared Xiao Tangqiu a glance, not even looking at him from the corner of his eye.

Xiao Tangqiu frowned slightly and wavered.

Was it just that they both had the same appearance and voice?”

Seeing that Shen Yuan had also picked a room, the two women picked out one hand-in-hand. It was also diagonally across from Shen Yuan’s.

Once they got the ball rolling, the others began to choose their rooms as well. He wasn’t sure what they were all thinking, but no one chose the room next to or directly opposite of someone else. The four old players shared two rooms, and the newbies shared two rooms as well, except for the mother and son.

Xiao Tangqiu didn’t know why the middle-aged woman was so daring. Generally, those who dared to leave the team and acted alone in horror games would only end up dying early in the game. He hesitated for a moment and wanted to persuade the middle-aged woman to follow the bigger group. However, he had just stepped forwards when the middle-aged woman looked at him warily and asked, “What do you want?”

Xiao Tangqiu tried his best to show a kind smile, “I think you should share a room with the others. It’s safer that way.”

The middle-aged woman looked at Xiao Tangqiu with vigilance, “How do I know if you’re evil kidnappers or not? What if you want to kidnap my son?”

Xiao Tangqiu laughed bitterly. Although he wasn’t a very kind person, he couldn’t bear to watch both mother and son die without understanding the situation clearly. But before he could speak again, the boy who had been tightly held by the middle-aged woman suddenly broke free and ran to the end of the corridor.

“Stop where you are! Son! Son!” The middle-aged women quickly caught up to the boy.

Although the naughty child was bursting with energy, he was immediately caught by the middle-aged woman who grabbed him and dragged him into one of the rooms in the middle of the corridor.

Xiao Tangqiu saw this and shook his head reluctantly, then, randomly picked out a room with Tang Mianmian.

After entering the room, Tang Mianmian immediately asked Xiao Tangqiu curiously, “Where did you get this flashlight? Why haven’t I seen it before?”

Xiao Tangqiu casually threw the nuclear powered flashlight to Tang Mianmian and then narrated the story of his live stream channel, “……This should just be an ordinary flashlight. I don’t think there’s anything special about it.”

He began to check out the room. It was quite large, with a shower and toilet. There was a large bed in the middle that could probably fit three or four people. The decoration and furniture were pretty good, but there was no electronic equipment, not to mention a TV, computer, or even a telephone. And the worst thing was that there were no windows and lights. The only light source was a candlestick on the bedside table that was currently lit up.

There was a painting hanging on the wall across the bed. It was the portrait of Lily Marlene.

Xiao Tangqiu looked at the portrait under the flickering candlelight and felt that it was even more creepy. However, he didn’t dare to remove it and could only turn away from it.

“It’s really not environmentally friendly to use candles for lighting. It’s also troublesome to change candles once they’ve finished burning.” Xiao Tangqiu tried to make fun of the situation and lighten the mood, “They’re also potential safety hazards. If we’re not careful, it could cause an accident or a fire. The castle is full of flammable items, and it’s located in a remote place. I’m afraid, just one candle, and it’s all over.”

Tang Mianmian suddenly looked up at Xiao Tangqiu with great interest, “This is really a nuclear powered flashlight!”

Xiao Tangqiu frowned and realized that it wasn’t a simple matter, “Huh?”

“Look!” Tang Mianmian raised the flashlight to show Xiao Tangqiu the battery compartment he had just opened, but there was no battery!

“This thing doesn’t have a battery at all, can it be a solar powered flashlight? It seems that this flashlight is really the legendary nuclear powered flashlight!”

Xiao Tangqiu thought about it and had to admit that a flashlight that didn’t need batteries was really useful in horror games.

“Fuck!” Tang Mianmian suddenly turned pale and stared behind Xiao Tangqiu.

Xiao Tangqiu noticed Tang Mianmian’s expression of horror. He froze before turning around quickly. However, he saw nothing – there was only a wall with a painting hanging on it behind him.

“What happened?”

Tang Mianmian opened his mouth but only managed to squeeze out a sentence after a long time, “Fuck! I think…… I just saw the woman in the painting…….. staring at you……”