"Are they... trying to get out?" Scattered Fireflies asked.
"Looks like it," Misty Rain Traveler said. "But we can't open this door either."
"I think we still need to kill them all," Great Northern Wilderness said. "Otherwise, how are we supposed to get the key to the next stage?"
"Don't rush. Let's check out that new room first," Bai Mu replied. "We might find sothing useful."
After a brief discussion, they left Great Northern Wilderness and Misty Rain Traveler at the door to keep an eye on the zombies. The other three entered the room to search for clues.
A Guard Mushroom was perched on Misty Rain Traveler's shoulder. Because of this, Bai Mu could observe the zombies through the mushroom's field of vision even while inside the room. He noticed that only the female zombies were missing arms and legs. The bodies of the male zombies were mostly intact; even if they were missing limbs, it was only ever an arm.
'The zombies' hands must have all been chopped off by the chef,' Bai Mu pondered. 'But it seems the chef only wanted human hands. He didn't even want the leftover scraps from the other parts, tossing them straight into the fire to burn.'
'Who could have taken the legs of those female zombies?'
Bai Mu recalled the contents of the first page of the witch's diary:
"My illness is congenital.
From the mont I was born, the skin on my face and feet was already festering.
The joints in my feet also seem abnormal; even walking brings pain."
'Could it be that her illness wasn't cured after she beca a witch?' Bai Mu wondered. 'Does she want to use these won's legs to replace her own?'
He carefully observed the legless zombies and found they all shared one common trait: a petite physique.
He continued his search of the drawing room. This seemingly cozy place was actually littered with faint bloodstains and scratch marks hidden in the corners. "Ah!"
Bai Mu heard a scream from behind. It was Scattered Fireflies. She seed to have stepped on a trap; the floorbrick beneath her feet had suddenly flipped, causing her to fall to the ground.
"What happened?" Nancheng Port asked, turning his head from a short distance away.
"A trap," Scattered Fireflies said, propping herself up. "But it's so strange. Was it just ant to trip soone?" "No, the trap has been tampered with."
Bai Mu walked over to Scattered Fireflies, crouched down, and closely examined the flipped floorbrick.
Catching a whiff of rust, he reached out and swiped his fingers across the brick. He felt gritty, coarse iron shavings, and noticed imperceptible traces of blood on the surface.
Opposite this brick lay a bear skin displayed as a rug. It was incredibly intact, with the head still attached to the pelt, the sharp fangs clearly visible within its open maw.
The drawing room housed quite a few items like this: the piano, the landscape oil paintings hung on the walls, the antique vases placed along the baseboards. These objects naturally drew the eye. Bai Mu could easily imagine the scene: the host giving guests a tour of the drawing room, serving them pastries and black tea. Then, once their guard was completely lowered, the host would use the excuse of introducing the collection to lead them around.
The unsuspecting guests would think they were being treated to fine hospitality, completely unaware that this was rely the descent into hell. The mont they stepped on the triggers hidden beneath the floorbricks, bear traps and iron shackles would snap shut around them.
Iron spikes would pierce their feet, leaving trails of fresh blood across the tiles. Following that, a seemingly ordinary wall would flip around, locking them in a pitch-black compartnt like prisoners. No amount of struggling or screaming would save them. The only proof they had ever existed would be the bloody handprints left on the walls from their desperate, skin-tearing attempts to escape.
"Soone disabled these chanisms," Bai Mu stated. "There should have been an iron clamp on this brick, but it was dismantled." "Is that so?" Scattered Fireflies looked down.
"Be careful. There might still be active traps. Before you approach anything conspicuous, it's best to test the ground with your staff first," Bai Mu advised.
Bai Mu glanced toward Nancheng Port, intending to warn him as well.
"I heard," Nancheng Port nodded. A long steel water pipe materialized in his grasp.
Seeing this, Bai Mu said no more. He pulled his Baseball Bat from his inventory and began carefully testing the room for traps.
Outside, the zombies were still tirelessly clawing at the main door, producing ear-piercing scratching noises. The place had montarily beco rather noisy.
The three of them probed around the antiques and decorations. As expected, they triggered quite a few pressure plates, but none were dangerous anymore. They mostly just popped up a floorbrick or dropped so dust from the ceiling, completely harmless to anyone.
Bai Mu tapped around the wall where the zombies had appeared. The area behind the wall was clearly hollow, resembling a cage of so sort, but he couldn't find the chanism to enter the space.
The trio tried interacting with everything nearby—turning vases, pressing wall bricks, lifting calligraphy and paintings... However, the cliché tricks learned from movies and TV shows proved utterly useless.
"According to the setting, this is probably just a place we aren't ant to enter," Scattered Fireflies said with a hint of frustration. "Why would a witch's house need that kind of chanism anyway? Logically, she could just flip the wall with a single thought. Big Brother Bai, I don't think we should waste our effort. Even if we can get in, it probably won't be through a physical switch."
Nancheng Port silently looked at Bai Mu, offering no opinion.
Bai Mu stood facing the wall. He appeared to be zoning out, but in reality, he had summoned the Hand of Walrider. There were small cracks between the wall panels, so he controlled the ghostly hand, slipping it through a gap and into the room beyond.
The 18-ter control radius allowed him to roughly map out the size of the space. It really was a cage-like room.
"Is there really no way in?" He frowned, carefully inspecting the parts of the room that had been tampered with.
Just as he was hesitating over whether to summon Lucy to perform a doodle divination, he spotted a needle and thread resting on a cabinet. The color of that ball of yarn was undeniably identical to the thread on the stuffed bear's arm.
Feeling a connection between the two, Bai Mu took out the stuffed bear doll and placed it right there.
A bizarre scene unfolded before the trio. The stuffed bear wrapped its arms around the ball of yarn, as if embracing sothing infinitely precious. "This..." Scattered Fireflies murmured. "What does this an?"
"So this thing really is alive," Nancheng Port scowled, raising his steel pipe and glaring at the bear with hostility.
"Can you help us get to the other side of the wall?" Bai Mu asked straightforwardly.
The stuffed bear remained perfectly still, simply hugging the yarn.
Nancheng Port shot Bai Mu a glance and made a hand gesture. Bai Mu understood his intent and nodded.
"If you can't do it, I'll tear you apart," Nancheng Port viciously threatened the bear.
The stuffed bear shivered twice but otherwise remained unresponsive, only hugging the yarn tighter.
After a mont of thought, Bai Mu said, "We don't want to hurt anyone. As you can see, we're victims too. We're trapped in this mansion with no way out, and we just want to figure out what exactly happened here."
"Look at those zombies. We haven't hurt them either."
Bai Mu grabbed the stuffed bear and turned its face toward the door.
A few seconds later, Bai Mu suddenly felt the stuffed bear break free from his grasp and launch itself at the wall, bumping against it.
Then, as if a chanism had been triggered, the wall bricks retracted inward, revealing a door large enough for a person to pass through.
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