Yashu looked down at the Nine Skies Cold Dew bead still resting silently in her hand - she hadn't even had the chance to use it. She turned back toward me, her voice urgent:
-"It seems that little girl bore us no ill will; she must be one of the two girls, Yen Yen or Xue Xue."
But a sharp, definitive crash of breaking glass forced us to snap back to reality. The hunchbacked demon was shrieking right behind us. It had smashed through the window to lunged outside; it was clearly much stronger than it had been on the first day. Its eyes were wild with ferocity and aggression as it followed hot on our heels.
We accelerated frantically, sweat pouring down our foreheads. Suddenly, the demon gathered its strength and pounced toward us. Its mouth hung wide, revealing rows of jagged, razor-sharp fangs, the inside coated in gore - a truly terrifying sight.
In that split second, Yashu intended to use the Nine Skies Cold Dew again, but the pull-tab was jammed tight by the demon's dripping flesh and blood. Just as our lives hung by a thread, a slender hand reached out from the adjacent window and threw something with great force - it was the photograph Tu Qinghe had found in the dining hall, the one featuring the two little girls.
The demon, about to snap its jaws around us, suddenly froze, its eyes widening slightly. Seizing the opportunity, that mysterious hand grabbed my shirt and hauled me back into the room with incredible strength. Yashu and Xi Yong'an quickly scrambled in after me.
I staggered slightly but stood up immediately, looking up to see who had saved us. To my surprise, it was Ky Kha Nhien. I never expected her to have such arm strength; for a moment, I thought it must have been a man.
I turned to look through the window and saw the hunchbacked demon clutching the photo in its hands. It stared at the image intensely, standing motionless as if drowned in the echoes of the past.
I turned my head and spoke softly:
-"Thank you... Ky Kha Nhien."
Perhaps from this moment on, my perspective of this girl had completely changed.
Yashu also stood up from the floor, brushing the dust off her clothes as she asked:
-"Me too. But... how did you know that photo would be so important to the demon?"
-"Speculation," Ky Kha Nhien replied curtly. She stepped forward to open the door for us to head out; standing too close to the hunchbacked demon right now was, after all, a great risk.
I looked around curiously and asked her:
-"Was your room not invaded by those vines?"
-"What vines?" she replied, letting out a long, lazy yawn. "I don't know."
Seeing her reaction, I didn't press further. I silently took out the piece of paper with the hexagram and two circles, casting my gaze toward Butler Li's room.
Xi Yong'an asked softly:
-"Planning to go there?"
-"Yes, but I don't know if he's in his room." I looked up at the hallway ahead. Immediately, my emotions went numb, and my heart seemed to skip a beat. There was blood everywhere. Perhaps because I had been so focused on escaping earlier, I hadn't noticed the surroundings. I never expected this place to look like a horrific battlefield.
Looking toward Li Junjie's room, the door had been kicked open. Right at the edge of the doorway lay... a bloody head. Judging by the hair, it was clearly a male.
Xi Yong'an recoiled, his face turning pale and dark as the bottom of a pot:
-"Oh my god! This is hideous..."
Yashu's pupils constricted in terror. Only Ky Kha Nhien remained indifferent, yawning as if the bloody scene before her had nothing to do with her at all.
We stepped cautiously toward the other rooms, but there wasn't a soul in sight. On the roof, a series of "thud-thud" sounds echoed continuously, sounding like a pack of large rats moving above. I thought to myself: ( Could everyone have fled to the roof to hide? )
Without time to think much, we closed our eyes and tried to pass by Li Junjie's room. Despite warning myself, I couldn't help but peek inside. The scene was truly tragic beyond words. The two people in the room had been torn apart until they were deformed, their original human shapes unrecognizable. Their internal organs seemed to have been gouged out, scattered everywhere. Their eyes were wide and bulging with resentment; their limbs were covered in a horrific web of claw marks and bite wounds. Around them, the vines tightly coiled around the remaining body parts like pythons enjoying their prey.
By the half-open window frame, Hoang Nhat Tan lay slumped. Perhaps he had tried to open the window to find an escape route, but the wicked vines had snared his feet, ensuring he could never escape in time. A tragic and pitiable death.
As we neared Butler Li's room, we were stunned to realize - he wasn't inside! Yashu looked around for a while to confirm once more; Butler Li had truly vanished without a trace. No one knew where he had gone amidst the chaos.
Standing right at the butler's door, Yashu gripped the Nine Skies Cold Dew Gem tightly, ready to activate it at any moment. She was on maximum alert; should something suddenly lunge out, we would still have a chance to defend ourselves.
Yashu carefully wiped the dried blood off the Gem, then pulled the switch firmly to ensure it was ready. We gave each other a small nod, and then I took a deep breath and pushed the door into Butler Li's room.
Everything went much smoother than I had imagined. I went straight to the old safe in the corner of the room, my hands trembling as I inserted the carefully arranged slip of paper into the slot. After a few seconds of breath-taking silence, the safe let out a dry click and slowly creaked open.
Lying inside was... another recording tape.
I quickly took it out. Xi Yong'an scanned the room to scout for danger, then nodded to confirm it was safe. I approached Butler Li's desk and slid the tape into the player. Static hissed, and then a conversation began to play:
-A young girl's voice: "Grandma! Do you think my drawing is pretty?"
-An old woman's affectionate voice: "Oh, you drew so beautifully! Let me see... This is Xue Xue, this is you, and this... is your mother and me, right?"
-The girl giggled: "Hehe, no it isn't, Grandma, you looked at it wrong. The one on the left is big sister Xue Xue, and I'm the one holding the red apple."
-The old woman laughed gently: "Ho ho! I'm getting old, my eyes are failing so I got it all mixed up."
-The girl replied politely: "It's okay, Grandma! Hehe. But guess what - where is our family standing in this picture?"
-The old woman's voice hesitated in thought: "This tree... and the flowers too... Ah, is it the river near our house, dear?"
-The girl cheered with delight: "Yeah! You guessed right, Grandma!"
The tape ended there, leaving a heavy silence hanging over the entire room.