Chapter 31: The Doll’s Hunger

‘Picked up from a stray?’

Lan Wuze stared at the little bear doll in Lan Ling’s arms and felt a chill creep up his spine.

No doubt, the doll was cute.

But Lan Wuze felt something was off.

Especially those two button eyes… They were just ordinary black buttons, but he felt they were watching him.

It wasn’t an illusion?

They really were watching him.

Because the angle of the button eyes shifted slightly as he moved, like living eyeballs embedded in the plush.

No, no, that couldn’t be. It was just a doll.

‘I’m just too tired… That business with Asimu has made me overly sensitive.’

Lan Wuze shook his head, suppressed the chill, and rubbed his temples.

Still no news from Asimu. Once the Spirit Spider was erased, he lost control of the situation entirely.

Who knew if the kid was alive or dead, whether he’d met the Saintess, whether he’d been discovered…

Or exposed anything?

A real mess to clean up.

Annoying.

Lan Wuze sighed inwardly and was about to stand to get a glass of water… then…

Wait.

That bear.

It looked familiar.

During the earlier blessing, didn’t the Saintess always hold a white bear doll in her arms?

Lan Wuze’s pupils contracted sharply. It felt like his blood froze for a moment.

Wait a second.

Could it be?!

The moment he realized this, Lan Wuze snapped his head up and turned sharply toward Lan Ling.

Then he froze in place.

?!

‘Wh-what?’

He saw the little bear that had been in his sister Lan Ling’s arms had become enormous.

Its belly swelled, splitting open into a huge maw.

The split stretched into a grin, revealing dark-red, writhing fibrous matter. That wasn’t any cotton stuffing. They were fingers… bloody, slick, monstrous fingers.

And Lan Ling?

She was nearly dragged into the doll’s body, only one hand still outside.

That hand clawed desperately at the air, her fingernails scraping against the coffee table edge with a shrill screech.

As if grasping at a final straw, she crushed the entire coffee table…

Then.

The hand stopped moving.

It drooped silently, blood dripping from her fingertips like broken pearls.

?

Huh?

Lan Wuze’s mind went blank.

‘Old… sis?’

He finally made a sound, hoarse and broken, full of fear and disbelief.

In that instant, Heavenly Source surged out of Lan Wuze, and he rushed toward the coffee table, trying to grab that hand, trying to pull Lan Ling out.

But the moment he took a step,

those bloody arms sensed his approach and all turned toward him.

The bear’s button eyes also shifted to fix on him.

?!

Lan Wuze’s steps froze.

Overwhelming fear flooded his heart, making his body disobey him.

He could only watch as Lan Ling’s body was completely swallowed by the doll.

After that, the arms reached out toward Lan Wuze.

No, he had to leave!

He had to run!

Driven by survival instinct, Lan Wuze gritted his teeth, spun around, and bolted.

The next second, he had burst through the door.

“Help!!”

“Someone, anyone!!”

“Monster, monster!!”

Lan Wuze screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing through the corridor.

But no one answered.

The corridor was long, unnaturally long.

He had walked this corridor outside the residence countless times. From one end to the other was only a hundred or two hundred meters.

But now he had been running for several minutes, and the same gray walls and pale lights stretched without end.

No.

The lights weren’t pale.

They were red…

Lan Wuze looked up and saw the lamps embedded in the ceiling had all turned blood-red, like bloodshot eyeballs, all staring at him.

Even the moonlight outside the window was red.

The whole world seemed soaked in blood.

‘What the hell is going on?!’

“What is this?!”

Lan Wuze crashed out a broken yell and glanced behind him.

There was no monster behind him, no bloody arms. Only the same endless red corridor.

But he could feel something watching him from that darkness.

That gaze was like a predator’s, making his hair stand on end.

“D-damn it…”

Lan Wuze turned back, gritting his teeth, and charged forward with all his might.

Heavenly Source churned wildly inside him. He accelerated, pushed harder, giving everything to sprint ahead.

But the corridor had no end.

“No way…!”

He roared and slammed his fist into the wall.

He tried to break through.

The power of Heavenly Source erupted. The wall split with a crack, but what appeared inside wasn’t concrete or rebar, nor the normal world outside.

Instead, it was a mass of pitch-black, writhing, blood-arm-covered flesh.

Lan Wuze’s stomach churned.

He didn’t dare touch the wall again.

He turned and kept running.

Kept charging…

How long did he run? Minutes? Hours? Or just a few seconds?

He couldn’t tell anymore. His consciousness was blurring, and a black veil crept over his vision.

Then, after what felt like an eternity,

Lan Wuze suddenly felt the staring behind him vanish.

So he cautiously glanced back.

The corridor was empty. Nothing.

The chilling dread that had surged over him was gone entirely.

“Ha… hehehe… ha…”

Lan Wuze stopped, gasping, leaning against the wall, struggling to stand straight. He turned and looked back.

‘Did I… make it?’

‘Did I shake it off?’

‘Or did that thing… stop chasing?’

‘Either way, I must have escaped, right?’

Lan Wuze took a deep breath, pressed a hand to his chest, and was about to move on.

In that instant, a cold chill shot down his back.

That feeling again.

That sense of being watched.

But it was colder, more unsettling, more terrifying than before.

More importantly,

closer…

For a moment, Lan Wuze’s breath stopped.

He stood frozen, cold sweat trickling down his forehead.

After standing still for dozens of seconds, Lan Wuze slowly turned his head.

?!

Then the boy discovered in terror…

The little bear doll was standing quietly behind him, its button eyes fixed on him.

Its stomach split open again under his desperate gaze.

The opening was larger than before, revealing a pitch-black, bottomless cavern.

Countless bloody arms reached out, like blooming petals, one after another, lunging toward him.

Lan Wuze’s pupils shrank.

Under extreme terror, rage erupted.

“Get away from me!!”

Facing the bloodied hands filling his vision, Lan Wuze let out a hysterical roar.

If he couldn’t escape, he wouldn’t just wait to die.

With all his strength, Lan Wuze threw a punch at the oncoming mass.

Soon,

his Heavenly Source aura and his screams vanished into the surge of bloody arms, without a trace.

****

The next morning.

After dressing properly, Mochen walked out of his rest quarters, ready to begin his busy day.

But barely a step out the door, he couldn’t help frowning.

“Hm?”

At the end of the corridor, a guard came stumbling toward him, his expression grim, clearly about to report bad news.

“Mas… Master Mochen!!”

The guard rushed up to Mochen and reported what he had just learned.

“The Blue family’s two… Young Master Lan Wuze and Miss Lan Ling… they…”

“What happened?”

Mochen’s voice was calm, betraying nothing.

“Speak directly.”

The guard swallowed hard, forcing the words out from his throat.

“They… they died in the training grounds… Preliminary investigation shows they killed each other…”

Mochen didn’t answer right away.

He paused, then asked:

“What about the surveillance? Did it capture anything?”

“It… it’s all broken…”

The guard lowered his head in shame and fear.

After all, with such a major incident occurring, they, as the training ground guards, were guilty.

“Last night, the base’s surveillance system malfunctioned. Nothing was recorded… The technicians are looking into it, but they haven’t found the cause yet…”

Mochen lowered his eyelids. There was no surprise in his eyes, only a sense of having seen this happen many times before.

“I see.”

“Master Mochen, rest assured! We’ll fix it as soon as possible and get to the bottom of…”

“No need.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

The guard was stunned, looking at the old steward in confusion.

To this, Mochen narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the guard sternly.

“I said… no need to continue investigating. I’ll handle this matter myself. You just go do your job.”

“But…”

“Understood?”

“Yes… yes, Master Mochen.”

With a faint nod, Mochen no longer paid the guard any attention. Instead, he slowly turned his gaze, looking out through the corridor window into the distance.

Toward the Saintess’s residence…

A hint of confusion flashed in the old steward’s eyes.

Still,

doing something so conspicuous.

That wasn’t her style, was it?

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