Back in the living room, comnts on the computer screen were refreshing rapidly. Soon, the ratings for the second round ca out. Qu Yi had improved to 6 points.
The readers’ reviews were even more incisive, pointing out that while Qu Yi’s courage was comndable, her capture of details was too poor.
With only 5 points the first ti and 6 points the second, even a perfect score of 10 points in the last round would be of no use.
Now, the only way for Qu Yi to survive was to avoid being found by the Writing Ghost in the final round of the ga.
"Miss Qu, ti is running out~" Mr. Wen expertly tied the blindfold over his eyes, then turned around and began to count silently.
Qu Yi’s brain whirred into action. She thought of the readers’ reviews on the screen, saying she was poor at capturing details, but... where were the details?
A mont later, Qu Yi realized there were lights in the living room, a small one in the bedroom, and even in the bathroom. That ant only the storeroom was dark, pitch-black, as if it were deliberately hiding sothing.
And every ti, the Writing Ghost started the search in the storeroom first. Could it be... could it be that he was worried she would discover the secret of the storeroom?
With this thought, Qu Yi made a decisive move. She swiftly walked to the lamp in the living room, which had a long power cord. Carrying the lamp, she ca to the storeroom, which was now unrecognizable due to the Writing Ghost’s destruction; cabinets and boxes were toppled, and the wallpaper on the walls was torn. Only when she got closer did she discover that behind the wallpaper was not a wall but a large piece of glass.
No, that was wrong—it was a large mirror!
The mirror was taller than Qu Yi and nearly covered the entire wall. As the Writing Ghost’s hints from the living room approached, Qu Yi’s ti was running out.
She had no ti to guess the purpose of the mirror. The urgent task was to find a hiding place. Based on the experience of the first two rounds, she already had in mind a spot to hide.
Of course, first, she had to turn on all the faucets, including that old, flaky washing machine.
She purposefully knocked over a cabinet in the storeroom to make a noise and then knocked on the mirror. It was useless for her but could draw the Writing Ghost’s attention.
Leaving the storeroom, she turned on several faucets and the washing machine, then headed for the large wardrobe where she had hidden before. This ti she didn’t tread lightly, deliberately pulling open the wardrobe door with force. The wooden door hit the wardrobe with a "thud," and then she took all the neatly arranged clean clothes from the left side of the wardrobe and tossed them away, creating the illusion she was hiding inside, then she tightly shut the left door. What she had to do next was crucial.
She opened the right wardrobe door, gathered up the dirty clothes piled inside, and threw them on top of the wardrobe, right in the blind spot. She quickly hid in the right side amongst the dirty clothes, curling up and covering herself with the remaining dirty clothes, disguising herself as part of that pile.
The most critical part of the plan was that the right wardrobe door must not be closed; it needed to be left halfway open so that the Writing Ghost could directly see the familiar "dirty clothes."
Once everything was ready, and ti was up, Qu Yi curled up tight, daring not to move at all. She had done everything she could. Playing hide-and-seek in such a small room with the original owner of the house was an impossible task.
As she had expected, the Writing Ghost seed a bit panicked this ti, rushing directly to the storeroom and searching for a long ti, much more violently than before. Although Qu Yi couldn’t figure out what the mirror was for at the mont, she was certain it held a significant secret.
After coming out of the storeroom, the Writing Ghost quickly turned off the faucets and the washing machine, further delaying his search. Qu Yi held her breath as footsteps approached her.
"Bang!"
The left cabinet door was yanked open violently, slamming against the wooden fra. Then, the few remaining clean clothes inside were pulled out in a single move. Qu Yi, who was hiding on the right side amongst dirty laundry, didn’t dare to move a muscle and silently prayed for the blessings of all the gods and buddhas in her heart.
As if a deity truly heard her sincere prayers, Writing Ghost, after searching the left cabinet, surprisingly did not check the right side where she was hidden. Instead, he quickly looked under the bed, behind the curtains, and every other possible hiding spot, even the space behind the couch where she had once hidden.
Then, he dashed into the bedroom, and noise of ransacking filled the air. Qu Yi’s heart was pounding fiercely. She knew Writing Ghost didn’t have much ti left, probably less than 10 seconds. This round... she had won!
Soon, Writing Ghost erged from the bedroom, but this ti, his footsteps halted. Qu Yi’s heart tightened. The place where the footsteps stopped seed to be not far from the computer.
Shortly after, a series of crisp keyboard clicks filled the air, and Qu Yi suddenly had an ominous premonition.
But before she could figure it out, the footsteps moved quickly towards her the next second. A hand reached into the wardrobe, yanked her out, and threw her hard onto the floor.
"You cheated!" Qu Yi, enduring the sharp pain, demanded loudly.
It never occurred to her that the greatest danger would co from those unseen and intangible readers who had revealed her hiding spot to Writing Ghost.
At that mont, Writing Ghost’s deanor shifted from his previous gentle image. With a hideous face, he yanked Qu Yi’s hair, dragging her into the storage room and threw her inside. The force was so great Qu Yi couldn’t resist. Only after she knocked down a wooden table and a cabinet did she finally co to a stop.
Laying helplessly on the floor, it took her a long ti to finally swallow the bloody taste in her throat. She was injured, but fortunately, all her limbs were still mobile, and she hadn’t suffered any fractures.
It was pitch black all around, likely because Writing Ghost had shut the door. She couldn’t stay here for long. She needed to get moving, to find the door and leave this place before Writing Ghost decided to kill her.
No, that wasn’t right. The thought struck terror in Qu Yi’s heart. Maybe Writing Ghost was also in the storage room at this very mont. This was the final ga, the real ga of hide-and-seek.
Regardless, Qu Yi knew she had to move. Gingerly, she started to shift towards the right, her imdiate goal to find a wall. If she could find one and follow it, she would surely find an exit.
Ti ticked away, and Qu Yi was becoming frantic. She was sure she had been walking in a straight line all along, but there were no walls to be touched. Even more terrifying was that the surroundings seed to have changed; all the nearby clutter was gone, and sothing soft was underfoot.
Crouching down, she reached out to touch, and Qu Yi’s suspicion was confird—a thick plush carpet was beneath her feet.
There was no such thing in the storage room. So... she must have arrived in a strange place, which felt more like a cozy bedroom.
Suddenly, Qu Yi rembered the large mirror hidden behind the wallpaper of the storage room, and panic set in. She couldn’t be in the world inside the mirror, could she?
At this point, Qu Yi had no way out. She could only continue tentatively exploring into the unknown darkness ahead. Before long, she touched a bed.
The bed was soft, fitted with a thick mattress. But then, Qu Yi accidentally touched sothing cold.
It was a chain—very sturdy, with one end extending into the darkness, while the other lay on the bed. Following the chain towards the bed, Qu Yi’s hand reached the end. In the next second, she shivered uncontrollably, as she felt a cold little hand at the end of the chain.
User Comments
0 comments from readers