Chapter 988: Come Out

Heimu crumpled the note into a ball and accurately tossed it into the trash can in the corner.

She smashed five jars.

When the fifth bear hit the ground, it surprisingly stood up on its own, its wet body swaying left and right, lunging at Heimu's ankle.

Heimu stamped it back to the ground with one foot; the Magic Staff's tail swung and smashed, crushing the sound emitter in the bear's belly with a "puff" as it leaked air.

She glanced at the bear and said, "You've got quite the drive."

Then she continued to smash the remaining jars.

The sound of glass shattering and liquid flowing filled the room.

When the last jar broke, a "click" sound came from behind the whole row of walls, like a lock being opened.

Heimu wiped the liquid off the staff, and walked toward the source of the sound.

A narrow doorway appeared on the wall, just wide enough for one person to slip through sideways, emitting a faint green light from within.

Heimu squeezed sideways into it, and was met by a row of plastic curtains hanging from the ceiling.

She pushed aside the curtains, and the view opened up.

It was a more spacious room, the floor a black-and-white checkerboard, and all four walls were lined with life‑size mirrors.

Each mirror reflected Heimu's figure, but the movements differed by the slightest margin.

Some were half a second slower than Heimu, some half a second faster, and one mirror showed a person who didn't move at all, standing there with their back to her.

"Reflection in the mirror."

Heimu recalled the Rule at the entrance: if you see someone in a mirror waving at you, close your eyes.

She scanned the mirrors; the silhouettes inside were also slowly turning toward her.

In one mirror, the person had no face; the place where a face should be was a smooth patch of skin, as if wearing a flesh‑colored mask.

Heimu stared at it for two seconds; the surface of that mirror suddenly filled with cracks, the fissures forming a slanted line of characters: Stay.

"I'll keep your head!"

Heimu swept her staff horizontally; a fan‑shaped purple Light Blade sliced out, shattering several front mirrors at once.

Glass shards rained down like a storm; before they hit the ground, they melted in midair into silvery droplets that reflected twisted faces.

Heimu's second strike slammed into the floor, the energy bursting outward, scattering the droplets in spray.

They landed on the walls and ceiling, emitting a sizzling burning sound, yet continued to slowly coalesce.

Heimu gave them no time to regroup; she rushed across the room, thrusting the Magic Staff like an iron rod toward the mirror showing the silhouette with its back to her.

The mirror surface exploded, the silhouette inside let out a half‑shout, then turned into a puff of black smoke that dispersed.

The remaining mirrors simultaneously lost their luster, becoming ordinary silver glass.

Heimu breathed out, brushed the brim of her hat, and felt the lingering frustration inside her ease a little.

She turned back to glance at the wrecked room; the floor was covered with broken mirror pieces, reflecting only the empty ceiling.

She suddenly thought that those horror‑story warnings like "don't break mirrors" here were basically teaching people how to die in frustration.

It's clearly a haunted house; why should one follow the owner's rules? She refused to.

The door at the far end of the room had opened by itself.

Outside the door was a descending iron staircase, its handrail entwined with dried flower vines; stepping on it produced a "dong‑dong" metallic echo.

Heimu went down; the stairs behind her seemed to be slowly swallowed, each step vanishing into darkness.

At the bottom, she saw a warm yellow glow; beneath it was a red velvet sofa, on which sat a life‑size doll resembling A Bo Ni Ya in several ways.

The doll's mouth was stitched into a smiling curve with black thread, and it cradled a bronze gong in its arms.

A small plaque stood beside it: Please strike the bronze gong to awaken the sleeping guide.

If you strike the wrong number of times, the guide will take one of your companions away.

Heimu walked over and pulled the bronze gong out of the doll's embrace.

The doll's arms instantly snapped back to place, and its two button eyes "pop" out, rolling to Heimu's feet.

Heimu didn't even look, and slammed the gong onto the floor.

The gong didn't shatter; instead it emitted a low "hum", as if the whole building sighed with it.

She raised the Magic Staff and struck the sofa and the doll with a single blow.

Purple light poured like a bucket of overturned paint, swallowing everything before her.

Seconds later, the light faded; the sofa and doll vanished, leaving only a large hole in the wall, beyond which was the haunted house's Backdoor, with night wind pouring in, carrying the chill unique to the glacier's surface.

Heimu stepped out of the hole, her boots' soles clacking on broken bricks, making a faint rattling.

She inhaled a deep breath of the cold outside air, finally feeling the stale smell of the haunted house dissipate.

On the side of the haunted house, Pa Duo, Ying, and A Bo Ni Ya were already there.

Ying's sword was still unsheathed, its tip lifting a small strip of black cloth.

Pa Duo's tail drooped, as if just having survived a life‑or‑death adventure; seeing Heimu emerge, it let out a "howl" and leapt to hug her leg.

"Madam! You finally came out! We almost got chased by a life‑size rabbit inside! How does this haunted house still have live props!"

Heimu reached out, rubbed Pa Duo's head, and also pressed down the raised fur.

She didn't ask them about their side of things; judging by Ying's sword and Pa Duo's frightened state, they'd probably dismantled quite a few.

A Bo Ni Ya stood quietly under the moonlight, her veil fluttering gently in the wind.

She nodded at Heimu, her eyes conveying the understanding, "You didn't follow the Rule either."

Heimu was about to speak when she suddenly sensed something, her gaze turning to the surveillance screen only she could see.

The light screen over Luofu flickered; the image showed the glacier already turned into countless bubbles, a cyan‑gold light bathing the whole sky like dawn.

At that moment, a gigantic indescribable ice blade pierced down from the sky above, its surface gleaming with a chilling light, as if it would split the world in two.

Heimu stared at that ice blade, her pupils contracting slightly.

"Jing Liu..." she whispered the name.

The perspective shifted.

Qingque had already gathered a handful of flower branches in her hand.

The gray-green twigs that had fallen from her body lay limp in her palm, some snapped in two, some still bearing half-broken buds, their color darker than when they first fell.

As she walked, she added the newly fallen twig to the pile, flicked the dry branches with her fingertips, and murmured softly: "This is the twelfth one; if they keep falling like this, will I be back to normal soon?"

Yao Guang walked beside her; hearing this, he turned his face to look at her, a smile flickering in his purple-blue eyes.

Gentle, yet not exactly easy.

She said softly, "You're really optimistic."

"Of course." Qingque straightened her chest, hugging the small bundle of dry twigs to her bosom as if it were a precious trophy, "Boss Yao Guang, think about it: the things growing on my body can fall off on their own, which means they don't want to stay; if they don't want to stay, it means my body is driving them out, and once they're gone, I'll be back to normal!"

After saying that, she laughed twice first.

Yao Guang didn't respond, merely letting his gaze linger on Qingque's face for a few seconds.

She was indeed a little worried.

The golden five-petaled flower still floated steadily beside Qingque's Lock bone, showing no sign of falling.

Although the flower branches were shedding, the fine twigs sprouting from Qingque's skin showed no noticeable decrease; instead, it seemed as if several new green points were emerging from deeper within.

All this left her feeling uncertain.

Shedding the flower branches might be expelling something, or it might be something else.