Soon, Liu Haiping realized sothing was off; the footsteps were becoming increasingly chaotic—it wasn’t just one person’s footsteps!
She couldn’t tell how many there were, but... but as the footsteps multiplied, although Liu Haiping couldn’t see, she could imagine many people cramd into a small space, bodies pressed against bodies, feet against feet, all stepping incessantly.
No, not people, but corpses, a multitude of corpses walking out from that coffin-like wardrobe!
Liu Haiping’s heart was in turmoil; she could hear her own erratic heartbeat. She couldn’t fathom why... why so many corpses could fit inside a wardrobe, or maybe... they weren’t complete corpses, just parts of corpses.
The next second, Liu Haiping’s pupils, concealed beneath the veil, trembled violently. A terrifying conjecture suddenly surfaced in her mind—perhaps... perhaps the wardrobe didn’t contain whole corpses, but pairs of severed legs, and right now behind the screen, those cyanotic severed legs were stepping.
"Step."
"Step."
"Step."
The stepping sounds continued, and for Liu Haiping, this was the most frightful night of her life. Monts later, a wave of hazy sleepiness swept over her. Despite forcing herself to not close her eyes, let alone fall asleep, she ultimately lost consciousness gradually with a slight sway.
In the last mont before losing consciousness, Liu Haiping still rembered the housekeeper old woman’s instructions. Using the last of her strength, she propped herself up to prevent her body from collapsing, her arms supporting her on the table, her hands cradling her head—a pose that almost required no effort, intent on not letting the bridal veil fall off after falling asleep.
After an indeterminate amount of ti, Liu Haiping suddenly woke with a start; everything before her eyes was black, as the candle in the room had unknowingly extinguished.
Her heart couldn’t help but race, thankfully the touch, like a thin veil on her face, was still there—at least the Red Bridal Veil had not fallen off.
She slowly reached out her hand, touching the dressing table in front of her. The table still held so rouge boxes. Feeling these familiar objects, Liu Haiping’s heart finally settled down a bit, relieved that she was still in the clan leader’s daughter’s boudoir and had not been taken to so chaotic place.
But the next second, Liu Haiping seed to suddenly realize sothing, and her entire body stiffened. The boudoir was exceptionally quiet; the footsteps from before... were gone.
Liu Haiping didn’t dare to move, let alone turn her head. She tried her best to control herself from thinking wildly, but it was impossible. In her imagination, those cyanotic severed legs might have stepped out from behind the screen and were now... now neatly aligned behind her!
The tension of such a prolonged period was almost snapping her nerves; Liu Haiping kept swallowing saliva, waiting for the nightmare to descend.
She seed resigned, even hoping that those severed legs behind her would just do it, quickly end her life so she could be released. This fear of anticipation was more terrifying than death itself.
However, things did not go as she imagined. After a long wait, her life flashing like a rapid slideshow in her mind again and again, those ghostly things behind her still showed no intention of acting. The pressure on her was imnse.
Several tis she wanted to turn her head to confront those ghostly things, but every ti she had this idea, she rembered Tong Han’s face.
"Rember what I told you, good luck."
For Liu Haiping, Tong Han was just an ordinary teammate in the mission, barely connected to her, but not long ago, when Tong Han gently embraced her and said those words, Liu Haiping was deeply moved. She had a daughter who had died young, and if... if her daughter were still alive, she would be about the sa age as Tong Han by now.
Tong Han had a rather delicate appearance, and in her mory, her daughter would have looked similar, adorable at first sight.
Rembering her daughter, Liu Haiping seed to suddenly find strength again. She was still enduring; she guessed those things wouldn’t kill her without reason. Their most likely tactic was to keep applying pressure until she cracked ntally, exposing flaws, and then they would kill.
This was an old trick in the Nightmare World. Liu Haiping had experienced a mission a few months ago where one of her teammates had been killed in this exact way.
Liu Haiping rembered vividly because that teammate had died a horrific death, all skin flayed from the body, and when they finally found him, that skin was wrapped around a scarecrow.
If she rembered correctly, this was known as the Skinning Veratrum, an ancient form of brutal torture, sothing she had learned from the last mission’s team leader.
Her thoughts drifted further and further, but Liu Haiping didn’t stop them; for her, maintaining clarity and relaxation was crucial.
"As long as I make no mistakes, hear nothing, speak nothing, do nothing, see nothing, I will survive!" Liu Haiping was convinced of this; it was her belief.
Ti ticked away, and Liu Haiping could even feel that it seed to be getting a little lighter outside, but she was worried it might be a deceptive trick by ghosts, so she wouldn’t let her guard down until she heard the crowing of a rooster.
No, not just that. Even if she heard the rooster’s crow, she wouldn’t act, nor would she take off the Red Bridal Veil, unless soone entered the room after the crowing, and an ordinary person wouldn’t suffice—it had to be one of her teammates, either Tong Han or Mi Shu, in whom she had an inexplicable trust.
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