Chapter 81 Falling for the Trap: I said, Cultivator Han, you're way too easy to fall for this trap...
Han Shannan held his breath and looked over. He saw that the people in the iron cage all had empty, dull eyes, as if they had lost their souls. Even when they saw him run in, they did not react at all and just sat there blankly.
So, those puppets outside were actually made from living people!
Unfortunately, he is currently in dire straits himself and has no time to save these people. If he were to rashly bring them out, it might only hasten their deaths.
The dancer who had been following him seemed to have been temporarily shaken off. He no longer heard the light footsteps, nor the clear sound of the silver bells on her body as she turned.
He had just entered through that door, and if he went out the same way, he would probably run into the dancer who had been chasing him. So he had no choice but to move along the wall, tiptoeing, trying to find another way out of this secret room.
However, just as he slowly moved to the edge of an iron cage...
"jingle……"
A clear, silvery sound rang out unexpectedly from beside him.
He froze instantly, his neck feeling as if it had rusted, and slowly and stiffly turned toward the source of the sound, his eyes meeting those of a dancer standing in the shadows of a corner.
Just like the dancer he had encountered before, she bowed to him with great respect, a gentle smile on her face, looking sweet and charming.
Having learned from her previous experience, Han Shannan didn't even wait for her to start dancing this time. The moment he saw her bow, he suddenly turned around and ran away!
Regardless of whether there were other doors or whether he would run into trouble if he went back the way he came, all he knew was that if he didn't get out of this small secret room now, he would definitely die!
Whether it was the heavens or the things here that heard his inner cry, as soon as he rushed out of the secret room, he saw the dancer who had been chasing him standing quietly in the corner opposite him.
It seems that when the dancer chased them to this area, she lost sight of them and simply stopped moving. But she never expected that they would run into each other as soon as she stepped outside.
Han Shannan: "..."
The dancer's head slowly turned in his direction, and then her body slowly turned around in an inhuman, dislocated posture.
During this time, its body made a "crackling" sound, which was both eerie and chilling to the bone.
Then, she smiled slightly and gracefully bowed to him again.
When the two silver bell sounds rang in his ears at the same time, Han Shannan felt like he was going crazy.
He randomly chose a direction and ran frantically, but his luck seemed to be too good at the beginning, so much so that he ran out of energy before he could find an exit.
He had just reached a fork in the road and hadn't even had time to choose a direction when he saw a dancer standing quietly at the fork in the road on the right.
"Ring ring..."
The three silver bell sounds rose and fell, one after another, pleasant to hear, but at this moment they felt like a death knell for him, driving him to the brink of madness.
He had actually tried to cut them off directly, but after the longsword severed their heads, their bodies did not fall down because they were headless. They could still dance gracefully, and even pick up their heads and put them back on.
He once glimpsed an empty neck when a puppet bent down to pick up its own head.
There were no bones or flesh inside, only a perfect outer skin.
Even if the skin is destroyed, it doesn't matter; it can be reassembled. The severed head can be reattached, the severed legs can be reattached, and the severed waist can be reattached.
So they cannot be killed or stopped. All he can do is run away, run away, run away, and keep running away!
His chest heaved violently, whether from exhaustion or fear, he didn't know. He only knew he couldn't stop, not for a moment, not for a second. If he stopped, he would...
Then...
The jumbled thoughts in Han Shannan's mind suddenly stopped at this moment, and his steps also came to an abrupt halt.
He stood there, listening to the three silver bell sounds approaching from behind, but showed no intention of running away.
"Ring ring..."
His gaze was somewhat vacant as he stared ahead.
This is a one-way street with no forks. His only options are to go back or go forward; there is no third choice.
Now, retreating is impossible for him, but advancing...
That's impossible...
He gazed into the distance, where, illuminated by candlelight, a graceful and beautiful dancer smiled and bowed slowly to him.
She was clearly enveloped in a warm and gentle aura, but at this moment, he could only feel a bone-chilling cold and despair.
he……
They're surrounded...
They were completely surrounded...
He barely had time to react before he felt the sound of silver bells, accompanied by a chilly wind, brush against his back...
Just then, a warm hand suddenly grabbed his arm.
Immediately afterwards, he felt himself being pulled away from that suffocating, cold place by a powerful force, and his chaotic mind instantly returned to clarity.
He suddenly opened his eyes and found himself standing not far from the entrance of the Weeping Dew Pavilion, while the two people he had been following earlier were now "scattered" on the ground.
Yes, it's scattered.
Just like the puppets he had cut down before, their joints broke, revealing empty interiors devoid of flesh and bone, like broken puppets that had been dismantled, with various parts scattered all over the ground.
Li Chenjin's voice suddenly rang out from the side: "Ah... that was close. Luckily, Sect Leader Shen and I couldn't sleep at night and happened to hear someone coming downstairs, making quite a commotion. We just wanted to see what was going on, but we didn't expect it to be you, Cultivator Han."
Li Chen looked at him and smiled, his voice tinged with a hint of mockery, "I say, Cultivator Han, you're too easy to fall for, aren't you? Weren't you going upstairs to monitor and follow those two? How come you got bewitched by them instead? Luckily we acted in time, otherwise, if you had disappeared after leaving this door, I really wouldn't know where to look for you in this vast world."
"Wh-what?" Han Shannan was still a little dazed. "I...I've fallen into an illusion again? But I clearly saw..."
He subconsciously looked toward the center of the hall, toward the statue.
Contrary to his memory, the statue, where there should have been a door, was now completely sealed, with no trace of any mechanism.
Looking back now, even the most elaborate mechanisms will always leave some clues, so the hidden door beneath the statue he saw earlier was just his illusion...
Li Chen shook his head. "I think we were wrong from the start. Those who went missing and those who left are not in the Weeping Dew Pavilion. Otherwise, judging from the number of people who caused trouble before, there would have been one or two meticulous people who knew to investigate first instead of causing trouble rashly."
"But think about it, in the end, without exception, all of those people chose to cause trouble. What does that tell you?"
"What does that mean?" Han Shannan asked.
"This shows that they couldn't find any evidence to prove that Pavilion Master Liu was problematic in this Weeping Dew Pavilion. So their choice to cause trouble wasn't due to a lack of consideration, but because they had no other choice but to cause trouble."
Han Shannan frowned, still feeling there were some things he didn't understand. "So...so what I just did was...but when exactly? I..."
Just as Han Shannan was feeling completely bewildered, he suddenly remembered something.
In his memory, the senior sister's footsteps stopped in front of his room and then she started knocking. He felt as if the sounds were alive, drilling into his brain.
Then the sound suddenly disappeared. It wasn't that he couldn't hear it anymore, but rather...
He had already been infected at that time...
So the sound of the door opening that he heard later wasn't the sound of the neighbor opening their door, but rather his own...
It was him...
I opened the door myself...
After that, in his memory, he was always following those people. When they entered the passage, he was so close to them that it was impossible for him not to be discovered.
After all, while invisibility talismans can make someone invisible, they cannot make a person truly disappear. Once touched, the puppet will still know that someone is there. However, during that time, no puppet noticed.
It wasn't because he was lucky, or because the puppets were stupid, but rather...
In reality, he was just following behind those puppets, or rather, behind the senior sister...
Li Chen sighed, "It was my fault for letting you investigate these things. Luckily we weren't asleep, otherwise, if something had happened to you, your family and I would have had a hard time explaining it."
"We adults can handle the rest. You should rest for a bit."
As she spoke, she suddenly cupped her hands around her mouth, making a megaphone shape, and then called out loudly towards the empty hall, "Sect Master Liu, since we've come this far, why don't we have a proper talk?"
Han Shannan was startled by her sudden shout. Just as he was about to cover her mouth, everything went black, as if all the lights around him had suddenly gone out.
But then, the lights that had been turned off came back on.
But what he could see at that moment made his scalp feel like it was about to explode.
The Weeping Dew Pavilion is still the same Weeping Dew Pavilion, looking exactly the same. The only change is that the place, which was originally deserted, is now densely packed with people.
Among those people were puppets and guests who had participated in the Biyun Competition. At this moment, those guests who had been chatting and laughing during the day now had empty eyes and blank expressions, standing quietly like puppets being manipulated.
Countless dark gazes focused on them, making them extremely uncomfortable.
Han Shannan subconsciously took a step back, but suddenly felt that the sensation under his feet was a bit strange.
He looked down and saw that the ground beneath his feet seemed to be alive, constantly wriggling and undulating, as if it were slowly breathing air.
Immediately, the surrounding walls and beams began to writhe and undulate, as if the entire Weeping Dew Pavilion had come to life the moment he realized the ground had come to life.
The statue that had been standing in the center of the hall slowly opened its lowered eyelids. The stone eyes rolled and made a "click, click" sound. Finally, as the rolling sound disappeared, the statue's gaze fixed on him.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com