The night passed quickly.
Ever since Egger stopped making a sound, Xie Mingchi had fallen asleep quickly, still holding the same posture. When he opened his eyes again, it was already bright outside.
In the room, both Wan Wuqiu and Zhen Jia were safe.
Xie Mingchi let out a heavy sigh of relief and told them everything that had happened the night before.
By the time he finished, Zhen Jia looked shattered. Tears welled up in her eyes again almost instantly. She cautiously scanned all the mirrors in the room, crying out, "She came… Are we not safe anymore?"
Xie Mingchi shook his head. He didn't know either.
Wan Wuqiu frowned and thought for a long moment before finally looking up. "You did the right thing."
When you don't know what might violate the rules, doing nothing is actually a good strategy.
Though not foolproof.
He was just lucky this time.
"But why didn't she choose me too?" Wan Wuqiu was still confused. "Why split the puppeteer and the ghost puppet?"
Xie Mingchi had been wondering the same thing.
In Mr. Du's Puppet Realm, no matter who the Four Corners Game picked, there were always two pairs. There had never been a case where only one from a pair was selected.
But Egger didn't seem to care. She had only picked out Xie Mingchi.
When they couldn't figure it out, Xie Mingchi suggested, "Let's go check on the others."
All three agreed. After washing up, they stepped out of the room.
They first went to the door of Shen Feinian and Feng Yu's room. Xie Mingchi leaned in and listened but didn't hear anything, so he knocked.
*Knock knock knock—*
The sound echoed solidly on the wooden door. Not long after, footsteps approached from inside.
The door opened just a crack. The person inside visibly relaxed upon seeing them, then opened the door fully. "Senior, it's you guys."
It was Feng Yu. But he didn't look the same as he had yesterday.
Yesterday, even though Feng Yu had been afraid inside the Puppet Realm, he'd still looked like a naive college student with a touch of energy.
But now, he looked like he'd aged twenty years overnight. Deep dark circles hung under his eyes, his eyeballs bloodshot, and his shoulders drooped. He looked like a man drained of his soul.
"Hey, you…" Xie Mingchi made the connection with his own experience last night and asked immediately, "Did something happen to you?"
Feng Yu nodded hard. "Come in, I'll tell you."
Wan Wuqiu asked as they walked in, "Where's Shen Feinian?"
"He's still sleeping."
The moment they entered the room, Wan Wuqiu spotted the sleeping Shen Feinian and couldn't resist yanking off his blanket and throwing a pillow at him.
"Ugh! Wha—" Shen Feinian jolted awake, confused by all the people around him. "Oh, everyone's watching me sleep. How embarrassing…"
Feng Yu looked at him with a mix of envy and frustration. "You sleep too well, man."
While Feng Yu was going through hell last night, Shen Feinian hadn't even turned in bed.
Xie Mingchi carefully shut the door, turned around, and said, "Okay. Tell us what happened."
Feng Yu slumped down and spoke dully. "I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Egger… she was in the mirror, watching me. She told me to make a wish— the mirror next to the sink."
Xie Mingchi felt a strange sense of comfort.
Thank you, Egger. At least he wasn't the only one being haunted.
Shen Feinian dropped his joking tone and grew serious. "And then? You're okay?"
"I'm fine," Feng Yu nodded. "She told me to make a wish, but I remembered that in the legends, you have to do a summoning ritual before making a wish to Bloody Mary. I hadn't summoned her, and I didn't want to make a wish, so I figured maybe she got the wrong guy… I just ignored her and went back to sleep."
He added, "Well, tried to sleep. I couldn't. Stayed up all night. That's why I look like this."
So, Feng Yu had lucked out too. Even though Bloody Mary came for him, he didn't break any minor rules. That's probably why she let it go.
Feng Yu looked up, despair in his eyes. "Senior… am I going to die? She came for me…"
"No," Xie Mingchi cut him off firmly. "She came for me too. If we'd broken any death conditions, we wouldn't be standing here."
Feng Yu blinked. "So we…"
Xie Mingchi nodded. "Dodged a bullet."
Feng Yu visibly relaxed. A massive weight seemed to lift off his shoulders.
Meanwhile, Xie Mingchi started mentally reviewing the details about the mirrors.
Yesterday afternoon, both he and Zhen Jia had looked into mirrors. Feng Yu hadn't. Yet at night, it was he and Feng Yu who were targeted.
So, looking into mirrors—any kind of mirror—wasn't the death trigger.
Then came the night. He and Feng Yu were both approached by Bloody Mary.
And it was clear—she had only come for them. The others had all fallen into some kind of deep sleep.
So the question was—why them?
Just like Wan Wuqiu had said, why split the puppeteer from the puppet?
It was as if they'd done something that let Egger identify them instantly.
Xie Mingchi thought back carefully. Since entering the castle, he and Wan Wuqiu had practically been glued together. Their actions had been almost perfectly synced. Compared to Feng Yu, they were more in tune.
Wan Wuqiu and Feng Yu were also trying to figure out what had drawn Egger's attention, while Shen Feinian finally crawled out of bed to wash up.
Zhen Jia, watching them all fall silent in deep thought, started to feel anxious. "Um… if the mirrors are fine, maybe we can inspect them? Just to be sure?"
Xie Mingchi thought it was a good idea. "Let's do it after breakfast. First, we need to find the pattern of Bloody Mary's appearances."
As he said "Bloody Mary," Xie Mingchi noticed a flicker of discomfort cross Zhen Jia's face. Maybe the name hit her too hard—"Egger" sounded far less threatening.
Just then, Feng Yu was about to speak, but Wan Wuqiu suddenly raised a hand and signaled for silence. Feng Yu immediately shut up.
Wan Wuqiu quickly strode to the door and yanked it open.
"Ah—!"
The person outside lost balance and fell flat on their face.
Xie Mingchi recognized him. His name was Lu Meng. If he remembered right, Lu Meng and his partner had teamed up with Janna and Xia Zhi.
He frowned.
The guy had been eavesdropping.
It was almost breakfast time. According to their agreement yesterday, they'd be sharing their findings after breakfast.
So why was Lu Meng trying to snoop now?
Clearly, he—or maybe his whole team—had no intention of sharing anything at all.
It was simple. If they got to eavesdrop on Xie Mingchi's group and then refused to share their own findings, they'd have more intel.
And Xie Mingchi's group would be at a disadvantage.
Easier to die that way.
Wan Wuqiu's face darkened. He glared at the man on the ground and growled, "Get lost."
Lu Meng scrambled to get up, clearly embarrassed and about to leave.
But Xie Mingchi stepped forward, face just as grim. "You're just gonna let him walk away?"
Before Lu Meng could fully stand, Xie Mingchi kicked him hard, sending him tumbling and rolling right out of the doorway.
"That's what 'get lost' means," he said coldly.
"You—!" Lu Meng stood up, face already turning blue with bruises. He looked ready to explode, but with so many people in the room, he backed off, cursing under his breath.
After Shen Feinian finished washing up, the group headed toward the dining room. Even though Egger hadn't said when breakfast was, they figured it was around this time.
On the way, they ran into Xiao Xiao and Chu You.
Seemed like they were okay too.
In the dining room, the table still held shattered mirrors and melted candle stubs. There was nothing edible in sight—just some cups of water.
Once seated, Wan Wuqiu leaned in and whispered to Xie Mingchi, "We can go without food and water. Time in the Puppet Realm doesn't pass the same as in reality."
Xie Mingchi nodded. He'd figured that out. In the last Puppet Realm, they'd stayed three days, but only fifteen minutes had passed in the real world.
He asked, "Does the difficulty level affect the time?"
Wan Wuqiu replied, "Yeah. The harder the realm, the longer it projects into reality. In a mid-level realm, one day is about an hour in the real world."
So even if they stayed here for four or five days, only a few hours would pass outside.
No food or water? Totally manageable.
For the sake of his physical health, Xie Mingchi mentally declined Egger's "meal."
People started trickling in. First came Janna and Xia Zhi, then Lu Meng and Xiao He.
Thanks to the earlier drama, both Lu Meng and Xiao He looked sullen. Lu Meng, especially, looked like a mix of shame and resentment.
But Janna and Xia Zhi seemed normal. They even sweetly greeted Zhen Jia, who was sitting alone.
Xie Mingchi figured they probably had no idea what Lu Meng had been up to. No way a first-timer in the Puppet Realm would have a poker face that good.
Now, everyone was present. No one had died last night.
It was over.
Xie Mingchi thought grimly.
Egger was going to be pissed.
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Egger stormed in, face clouded with anger.
She hadn't even bothered to invite her "guests" to breakfast, yet they'd all shown up anyway.
Now she was even more annoyed.
And when she saw both Xie Mingchi and Feng Yu sitting there safe and sound, her fury hit its peak.
Clang—
She sat down and immediately hurled her plate onto the table, letting it shatter. Then, she picked up the broken mirror shards and candle wax and started chomping on them.
Crunch crunch, crunch crunch.
Crunch crunch, crunch crunch—
The sound of her chewing felt like an irreversible injury to everyone's ears.
Seeing the pained expressions on their faces, Egger finally looked a little pleased.
She picked up a knife and fork with one hand, mirror shards with the other, and looked around the table.
Her gaze landed on Xia Zhi, who sat closest to her.
She reached out with her left hand. "My plate's broken. Give me yours."
Xia Zhi hesitated. "It's right there on the table… You can take it."
Egger's eyes instantly flared with rage. She screamed, voice suddenly several octaves higher, "I said—hand it to me!"
"I told you! Hand it to me!!"