166 Save me!!!
◎Bone Pen◎
The atmosphere was eerily quiet.
Wrapped in darkness and fog, Qi Qiuxue stared at the lanterns, watching them sway in the wind, flashing red lights, and increasing in number.
As if freed from the ropes, lanterns slowly floated up and gathered one after another, getting closer and closer to her. The heads in the lanterns kept their eyes closed, looking as if they were asleep, extremely peaceful.
There was only blood, a steady stream of blood flowing from the broken necks, dyeing the lanterns below and the ground beneath their feet red.
——After being baptized by blood, the strange red light became brighter.
For a long time, Qi Qiuxue was unable to make any movement. She was forced to stand there, waiting for what was about to happen next. The brightness of the red light gradually increased with the passage of time, from faint to bright, and finally to a dazzling strong light.
For a moment, the entire house seemed to be soaked in an endless pool of blood, and every place was covered in blood and scarlet.
“…”
Suddenly, the light went out.
Darkness came again, and the extreme alternation of light and dark made it difficult for the eyes to adapt for a while. Qi Qiuxue heard the sound of her own violent heartbeat, which sounded very regularly in the quiet night.
"Boom, boom, boom..."
Qi Qiuxue realized that she seemed to have regained her mobility.
She quickly drew out the bone knife, and stared wide-eyed in the darkness, alert to any movement. Originally, Li Yiqing was standing very close to her, at a distance that Qi Qiuxue could touch him with just a slight raise of her hand, but now, she could clearly feel that there was no one behind her.
There was only the wind, and... the sound of floating.
In the next second, light replaced the darkness again, and countless lanterns with human heads appeared in front of her. Qi Qiuxue looked at the pairs of eyes that were very similar to her own, some were crying, some were laughing, and some had madness in their eyes.
One after another, voices identical to hers rang in her ears, sharp and shrill—
"I don't want to die."
"Save me."
"Save me."
“Save me!!!!”
"Axue!" Li Yiqing shook Qi Qiuxue's shoulders vigorously. Qi Qiuxue's eyes had been empty since a while ago, and she was in a state of complete unconsciousness.
During this period, no matter how Li Yiqing called out or shouted, he couldn't wake her up until just now, when she saw Qi Qiuxue take out the bone knife again.
But this time she seemed to be controlling her behavior instinctively. Her hand holding the bone knife was raised high in the air, but it did not fall down.
She was afraid that she would hurt her lover, and Li Yiqing understood that.
And this time, the call finally worked. Qi Qiuxue, who was called back to reality by Li Yiqing, suddenly came back to her senses. When she looked up again, the lanterns were still hanging in the same place, with no human heads inside, only flickering candlelight.
“…”
"What happened?" Li Yiqing raised his hand to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead, his eyes full of worry and concern.
"Nothing." Qi Qiuxue lowered her eyes and shook her head vigorously, trying to completely drive away the negative emotions brought by the hallucination. "Now is not the right time to talk. It's important to complete the mission. We can talk about other things when we get back."
"Okay." Qi Qiuxue was right. Li Yiqing did not refute, but this time, she held Qi Qiuxue's hand even tighter.
"Walk."
-
The two finally arrived at Li Yichuan's residence.
At this moment, there was no one in the yard. Qi Qiuxue quickly came to the flower bed and looked for an area that had been turned over recently.
She had only taken a quick glance during the day and noticed only one place. Now that she was closer, Qi Qiuxue discovered that there were six more areas like this. The scope of each area was not too large. It would be a bit far-fetched to say that human corpses were buried there.
But if there were animals buried there...
Qi Qiuxue took out the tools she had prepared early in the morning, and she and Li Yiqing were responsible for three areas each. They started digging quickly. Just as she expected, under the soil in each area was an animal corpse.
Li Yichuan uses the blood of these animals to paint, and even—
Qi Qiuxue put on gloves and gently touched the body of the black cat in front of her. No wonder the kitten looked so thin at first glance. It turned out that not only had its blood been drained, but its bones had also been removed.
The same goes for the other few.
Qi Qiuxue frowned in pity. Li Yichuan was much worse than she had imagined.
"Axue." Li Yiqing seemed to have found some useful clues. She opened her mouth and called Qi Qiuxue over, pointing to the corpse of the last animal. Compared with the others, this one was obviously more decayed and seemed to be the first animal to be killed. Through some details, it could only be roughly judged that this was a small puppy.
The puppy had also had its blood drawn and its bones removed, but unlike the others, this puppy had a small round silver medal hanging around its neck.
Li Yiqing raised his hand to take it off, and looked down at it in the dim red light around him. There were a few words engraved on it: [Li Xixi.]
Judging from the brushstrokes and handwriting, it seemed to be from Li Yichuan's handwriting. Qi Qiuxue had seen his handwriting in the paintings he showed her in the morning. The "Li" on the round plate was exactly the same as the "Li" in the signatures of the paintings.
This is the Li family's dog, or more specifically, Li Yichuan's dog.
“…”
He actually killed his dog with his own hands and took away its bones mercilessly.
Qi Qiuxue slowly stood up. She believed that Li Yichuan would not do anything useless. He showed an almost obsessive passion for painting. He took blood to blend it into the paint, and took bones to--
Qi Qiuxue subconsciously glanced at the bone knife in her left hand. For Li Yichuan, who was passionate about painting, the pen was his weapon.
Did he make bone pens from the bones of these animals?
His treasure might be the bone pen.
Qi Qiuxue had already made up her mind. She looked at Li Yiqing beside her and said calmly, "Ah Qing, I'm going to enter Li Yichuan's room now. There's only one prop I can use right now. I'll just go in, and you stay outside to keep watch for me."
"No." Li Yiqing rejected her words immediately. She shook her head and said firmly, "I'll go."
"Ahxue, you're not in good shape right now. It's not suitable for you to take any more risks. Why don't you let me do it?" She began to discuss the pros and cons with Qi Qiuxue. "Besides, no matter what, I'm the eldest daughter of the Li family. Even if they find out, I can find an excuse to get away with it. It's much safer than you going there yourself."
"Just leave it to me, okay?" She smiled and said softly, "Be careful when you're out there alone. If you feel anything is wrong, turn back as soon as possible."
She does have a point.
Qi Qiuxue took a deep breath, thought for a moment, and finally nodded: "Okay."
"You too, be sure to be safe." As she said that, she opened her backpack and transferred her props to Li Yiqing.
Li Yiqing quickly accepted the props and said, "Don't worry."
【Author’s words】
My eyesight is not very good yet and I am very busy today, so I wrote one update. The second update will be moved to tomorrow. I will update it together in the evening.
There is also a red envelope for this chapter. Thank you for your continued support, thank you for the overlord tickets and nutrient solution, and thank you for leaving comments and reading ~ Love you!
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