Bloody Carnival
Chapter 107: Answer
With his back pressed against the other person’s chest, Qin Jiu’s presence engulfed him.
You Huo’s body instantly relaxed but it then quickly tensed up again.
They backed away to the living room until the back of their knees hit the sofa.
You Huo immediately pulled down the hand covering his eyes and pushed Qin Jiu down onto the sofa.
“Was it an accident or intentional?”
“What?”
Qin Jiu was surprised for a moment.
You Huo pressed down onto the edge of the sofa with one knee and interrogated Qin Jiu while grabbing his collar, “Were you planning on going crazy without a word again or was it an accident?”
With his back bent, he looked like a tensed bow. That posture of his carried both ferocity and aggressiveness.
But Qin Jiu had seen him wander around the house looking for him just a few minutes ago.
“Accident.” Qin Jiu said.
You Huo stared into his eyes.
“It won’t happen a second time, I promise.”
It’s very strange. The two of them were originally unrestrained people but now they had tied each other down.
Starting to worry about things that they had never worried about, starting to make promises they had never had to make….All done willingly, without a trace of reluctance.
After a while, You Huo’s tense body finally relaxed a little.
The fingers grabbing Qin Jiu’s collar relaxed slightly. Just as he looked like he was about to release the other party and stand back up, he suddenly bent down.
Half kneeling on the sofa and with a look of impatience, he grabbed Qin Jiu’s collar and kissed him.
This rare initiative taken by him made Qin Jiu about to go crazy.
But when he touched You Huo’s back, the other person’s heartbeat that passed through to his palm was both strong and quick. It had not calmed down ever since he had opened his eyes.
And so, the kiss he returned turned into one that carried appeasement.
He pecked the corners of You Huo’s lips, chin and eyes…….
In the end, that rapid heartbeat began to race even more.
Soon afterwards, You Huo suddenly turned his head away.
With one hand pressing down onto the back of the sofa, the line running from his jaw down to his neck was extremely beautiful.
Not far away was the large mirror. In the mirror, Chu Yu and Yu Wen looked up.
Qin Jiu looked over and You Huo also turned his head.
For a moment, the people on both sides of the mirror seemed to be looking at each other.
Although they knew that it was just a coincidence, it was enough to calm them back down.
“Why did you cover my eyes? There’s something wrong with the mirror?” You Huo’s voice was still a little hoarse. His eyes continued to look at the mirror.
Yu Wen and Chu Yue’s gaze as they looked over was filled with concern. It wasn’t because they had seen something. They were worried about how they should get You Huo out.
“You can’t look at the mirror for too long.” Qin Jiu said, “Haven’t you noticed that it’s difficult to look away once you look into the mirror?”
“A little.” You Huo said, “Other than that?”
If it was just being unable to look away, that was okay.
“We’re far from it right now,” Qin Jiu said, “but if you stand in front of it, you will have the urge to get in.”
“There are people who got in but don’t want to go back out?”
“Mn.” Qin Jiu laughed. He lifted the hand that he hadn’t used to touch You Huo, “If you try to go back out by forcing through, the consequences may be worse.”
You Huo looked down. There was a thin layer of bloody scabs on his fingertips.
“What happened?” You Huo frowned, “The medicines are all upstairs——”
“Something as small as this is fine.” Qin Jiu rubbed it, “It’ll soon fall off. When you entered, did you go through a patch of darkness?”
“Yes.”
You Huo remembered. That mass of black fog made him feel uncomfortable. His eyes and skin also stung as he went through.
“If you really tried to force your way through, you will encounter that thing.” Qin Jiu explained, “It’s okay coming in and taking a few steps in it is fine but it’s worse when you try to get out. This is the result the moment you touch it.”
He lifted his hand and pointed around the room, “The places that are not seen in the mirrors like the edges of the living room are filled with it.”
You Huo hadn’t had the chance to look around after entering. After hearing this reminder, he saw that the place they were in wasn’t the complete house and was just half the living room.
As a result, the space was very limited.
The bedrooms weren’t included and there were no other places where people could stay.
You Huo was stunned for a moment. He asked Qin Jiu, “So Old Yu and the other’s aren’t here?”
Qin Jiu shook his head: “No. Only me here.”
You Huo recalled that there was a mirror above the bedside table in the guest room. If Old Yu entered that one, then the only place he could move about in was that room.
The master bedroom also had a tall mirror. Shu Xue and the others should be in there.
The three places are all separate from each other. For now, they had no way of finding them.
This made him a little worried.
“Then shouldn’t you be upstairs? Why did you get into this mirror?” You Huo asked Qin Jiu,
“I heard some movements outside and saw that the two brats weren’t in bed, so I followed the sounds and came downstairs.”
At that time, Shirley was squatting next to the mirror while Sali licked his lips and rubbed his stomach with a look of satisfaction.
“I actually vaguely noticed that there was probably a problem with the mirror because that diary frequently mentioned it.” Qin Jiu said, “The question mentioned it and the clues mentioned it, so it clearly isn’t here just because that little girl likes to look in the mirror.”
But no one had expected that the mirror could actually be used like this. Even they had overlooked it.
So they had basically fallen into the brats trap.
“By the way, I left the diary on the pillow. You must’ve——” Qin Jiu stopped halfway through his words.
You Huo’s expression changed a little.
“You didn’t read it?” Qin Jiu asked.
You Huo: “…….No.”
He was missing so who the hell would have the time to read a child’s diary?
“Then was the diary brought in with you?”
You Huo: “……..”
He tried to recall his actions during the commotion earlier.
“After I left the room, I left it——” You Huo looked around and saw a tall stool against the wall.
On the stool was a pot of vine flowers which had its vines hanging down past the pot. On the flowerpot was the diary.
“There.”
He got up from the sofa and strode over. Picking the book up, he saw that there were only a few pages that had writing while the rest were blank.
Qin Jiu walked over.
When he saw the writing on the page, his was surprised.
The person who wrote it had used a red watercolour pen. The writing was thick and very clumsy. It could be seen that the writer wasn’t very skilful at holding pens.
But this didn’t stop her from filling the page.
The upper left corner was a crooked “Sali said he’s very hungry”, under that was “I don’t want to write a diar and there was also another line “Shirley is annoying”.
Apart from those, the remainder of the page was filled with “Die.”
There were several places where the pages were torn. It evidently revealed how much strength the person writing had used and even revealed a hint of….no, a lot of madness.
This wasn’t an emotion a normal girl would have.
It was very strange.
You Huo frowned, “You read until here?”
Qin Jiu shook his head, “No, I only read the first few pages.”
The child’s writing were large and scattered. Not much was written in one page and the words used were simple.
Although Qin Jiu had only casually read it, he remembered its contents.
He pointed to the first blank page, “What date as it again? I didn’t pay attention. It was written here ‘Today I looked in the mirror several times. Mum said I became more beautiful.’”
You Huo: “………”
It was quite a terrible sight hearing those words coming out of Qin Jiu’s mouth.
Although he was only reciting the contents, his playful and joking attitude made it seem like he wasn’t taking it seriously.
“What? What’s with that expression?”
“Nothing.” You Huo pushed the diary over and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. He said lazily, “You’re beautiful. And then?”
Qin Jiu raised his eyebrow up very high.
You Huo cocked his ears to listen: “Continue.”
***
November 12th. Fine.
Today I looked in the mirror several times. Mum said I became more beautiful. I think so too.
But Sali said that I’m ugly because I’m missing a tooth.
He’s also missing a tooth. He’s the one that’s ugly.
November 13th. Rain.
My teeth seem to be growing. It’s very itchy. I want to bite Sali. He’s always saying that I’m ugly.
I looked in the mirror a lot today too. Mum said that the mirror is not as good-looking as I am.
I’m very happy.
November 14th.
Today, the mirror is strange.
Sali is ugly.
November 15th.
We made a bet to see who can hold back their laugh while the other makes silly faces.
I won. Sali should give me a candy but he didn’t. Mum never gives him candy so I forgive him.
November 16th.
Actually, when I smiled yesterday the me in the mirror didn’t smile.
Should I tell Sali?
November 17th.
The mirror is looking at me
***
“I only read through those pages.” Qin Jiu shook several sheets of paper, “I’m not sure if I remember correctly.”
In the part that he saw, Shirley’s tone was still normal.
“Thought of something cliché.” You Huo said, “The Shirley in the mirror came out and replaced the original one.”
Qin Jiu said, “That’s quite old-fashioned, but it’s very likely. It’s something the unimaginative system would come up with.”
“If that’s really the case, then this diary may be useful.” You Huo said.
If the Shirley in the mirror can come out, they should be able to too.
If the diary talked about how they can get out……Then Shirley is an angel.
As he was in thought, You Huo who was leaning against the wall suddenly felt sharp pain on his shoulder.
It felt like something was stabbing him several times.
He turned around to look and saw that the black fog that was originally a foot away from him had somehow spread over and was devouring his shoulder.
It had penetrated through his coat and t-shirt and was crawling over his shoulder.
He agilely turned around and withdrew to the centre of the living room with Qin Jiu.
The black fog that was at the edges were moving to the middle at a speed that was inperceivable to the naked eye. Both quickly and slowly, it converged towards the centre.
“What the hell is this? Why is it coming over?”
Qin Jiu ripped off a tablecloth from the dining table and lowered his head to dress You Huo’s shoulder.
“The mirror is probably digesting.”
“……..”
Thinking this, You Huo’s expression turned bad.
If this continued, not to mention themselves, Old Yu, Shu Xue and the others would be in trouble.
It was unknown how long they can last.
Past the glass not far from the mirror, they could faintly see the diary also sitting on the tall stool in the corner.
Outside, Yu Wen and Chu Yue were immersed with solving the problems and knew nothing of their predicament inside.
You Huo said: “Yu Wen can’t sit still, and he especially hates working on problems. He would probably start wandering around so he will notice that diary sooner or later. As for Chu Yue…….”
As for Chu Yue, he didn’t remember much.
But from his limited memory, that person is someone he could rely on.
They could only hold their breaths and wait.
But they saw Yu Wen pull a blank piece of paper over and start to draw something using the marker.
“Why is he dotting the paper?” Qin Jiu squinted as he watched him.
You Huo: “He’s not dotting the paper….”
He was probably counting the number of triangles one by one.
His dotting almost made his brother and his boyfriend lose all their patience. Eventually, he finally managed to dot out an answer.
Having managed to solve an elementary school question, he was quite excited. He grabbed his scrap paper and showed it to Chu Yue before writing the answer down.
There were suddenly rustling sounds behind them. It sounded like the friction between pen and paper.
The two exchanged a look and turned to find the source of the sound.
They saw that there was a sheet of paper on the black coffee table.
On the paper were the questions. It was exactly the same as the outside the mirror with the exception that the words were reversed.
At this moment, another number appeared under the first question —— A reversed 28.
After another two seconds, there was a small red tick next to it and a ‘+6 points’.
The moment the answer was correct, the black fog receded a few inches before stopping.
On the sofa, the bound Sali twitched and appeared to be extremely anxious.
With his digestion stopped halfway, it was very uncomfortable.
“You brother isn’t bad.” Qin Jiu didn’t hesitate to praise exaggeratedly.
As soon as he praised him, he saw Yu Wen move onto the next question and seriously try to work out the answer.
He chewed on his pen for a few seconds as Chu Yue said something to him.
A lightbulb lit up above this little classmate’s head and he immediately wrote down the answer to the second question.
In the living room, there was another bout of rustling.
Another answer had appeared on the paper in You Huo’s hand.
Yu Wen had written one word under the second question ——–Infinity.
After a few seconds, a bright red cross appeared.
The dark fog started to move again. You Huo and Qin Jiu felt like they were about to suffocate.
Shirley had her mouth flattened but before she had the chance to cry, her brother Sali had cried first. He cried very pitifully……
Dammit, he was going to eat people again.
KK has something to say:
Why are these two so cute together ahhhhhh
