Mo Yi’s breath was muffled. He took a reflexive step forward. The light of the flashlight in his hand swayed slightly with his movements, illuminating the outline of the blurred figure in front of him more.
Jiang Yuanrou seemed to be aware of the approaching light, and her figure moved slightly, turning her face towards Mo Yi.
Under the unsteady light, her face appeared as pale as paper. There was a trail of drying around her bloodless lips, and her curly long light brown hair hung down messily with clotted blood staining the strands.
She looked very distressed, but at least she was alive.
Jiang Yuanrou stared at Mo Yi blankly. She narrowed her out-of-focus eyes sightly under the light, as if she had yet to recover her spirit completely.
Her eyes fell on Mo Yi who was standing at the other end of the corridor for a long moment before her light brown pupils slowly focused. Then, her expression twisted into one of surprise and she whispered in disbelief, “…Mo Yi?”
Her voice was terribly hoarse. It sounded as if it had been scorched by fire, or as if it was the screeching of fingernails on glass.
Then, right after Jiang Yuanrou uttered these two words, a heart-piercing cough ripped out of her throat. A trace of bright blood overflowed from her lips, forming a bright contrast against her pallid complexion.
Mo Yi took a few steps forward. He stuffed the flashlight in his hand into the side pocket of his backpack, then used his free hand to support Jiang Yuanrou who was doubled over.
His hand came into contact with a cold and sticky palm. Mo Yi glanced briefly at it, and noticed that his palm was covered with a layer of blood which resembled black tar adhering to his skin in this the dim light.
His heart clenched. He spoke in a low voice.
“Are you okay…?”
Jiang Yuanrou’s petite body felt cold to the touch, and she replied hoarsely, “I’m okay…”
She seemed to have thought of it something and abruptly struggled to stretch her hand out to Mo Yi. She held onto his arm forcefully, her slender fingers sinking deeply into Mo Yi’s skin, bringing a bout of burning pain.
Jiang Yuanrou raised her head, a mixture of panic and nervousness visible in her light brown eyes, as she gasped a breathy voice, “The key!”
Mo Yi stilled. He remembered that old brass key that he had just picked up.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Jiang Yuanrou’s pale face was stained with an abnormal blush. Her panicked light brown eyes stared at Mo Yi. The strength in her hand increased slightly as she continued speaking with some difficulty, “There was a key on this floor, I accidentally lost it in the chaos earlier. That was the important item for this floor!”
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“P… P tjnf ab ub yjmx jcv olcv la…”
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Her steps were heavy, as if she was staggering forward solely with sheer will.
Mo Yi squinted his eyes. He slowly retracted his hands which he was subconsciously reaching out to support her. Instead, he took a step back, immersing half of his body into the shadows of the corner of the corridor.
There was no expression on his pale face, and his deep black eyes were cold and quiet.
Jiang Yuanrou seemed to realise that something was wrong. She turned her head to look at him, and asked doubtfully, “What’s wrong?”
Before Mo Yi could answer, he heard a familiar voice coming from behind him. “Get out of the way!”
—This voice was?
Mo Yi’s eyes widened slightly. He turned his body reflexively, abiding the command, only to see a chair charge past him with great momentum, and slammed fiercely into Jiang Yuanrou—before passing through her.
With a loud ‘bang’, the chair slammed fiercely against the wall and ricocheted off. Jiang Yuanrou’s pale face slowly revealed a malicious smile before she slowly dissolved into dark red blood, sliding down the wall like melted ice and snow, and pooled across the ground.
The lights in the corridor were dim and gloomy, pouring down on him oppressively. The flashlight in Mo Yi’s hand shot out a beam of light, reflecting a small spot on the pool of blood.
His attention eyes lingered there for a while, then turned to look behind him.
He saw Jiang Yuanrou standing on the other end of the corridor. The darkness casted a vague shadow across her features.
She was panting slightly, supporting herself with a palm on the wall, as if the action just now had exhausted all her strength.
Seeing Mo Yi looking over, Jiang Yuanrou took a step forward. Her pale face was exposed to the dim light in the corridor. Her messy hair and the blood slowly seeping out from her abdomen were almost the same as the ‘Jiang Yuanrou’ he’d seen just now .
Although she seemed to be barely keeping herself together, her eyes were still sharp and vigilant.
Jiang Yuanrou clutched her bleeding abdomen. She hobbled several steps forward and cautiously came to a stop a little distance away from Mo Yi.
She glanced at the dirty pool of blood with some trepidation, then took a deep breath, and spoke hoarsely to Mo Yi.
“I need to know if you are real or fake.”
Mo Yi’s eyes met hers. He scrutinised her for a moment, and asked: “How can I prove it…?”
Jiang Yuanrou stared intently at Mo Yi, then slowly bent down. She placing a sharp piece of wood on the ground and slid it over to him.
“—wound.”
Mo Yi took a deep look at her before bending to pick up the wood chip on the ground, and slashed it across his palm.
Bright drops of blood beaded up from the place where the wood sliced him and flowed into the cuff along his pale and thin wrist.
The odd hint in Jiang Yuanrou’s eyes mellowed. She drew in a low breath, then took out another piece of wood and slashed her wrist.
Blood gushed out from her wound.
Jiang Yuanrou leaned most of her body against the wall. Her face was pale due to excessive blood loss. She pulled out half a roll of gauze from her pocket, and neatly bandaged her wound.
When she raised her head again, she looked much calmer, and offered an explanation weakly.
“It can transform into anyone on this floor. However, the transformed figure is simply a projection so it cannot be hurt.”
Mo Yi nodded. He seemed to have noticed something, and continued questioning, “The key you were talking about just now…”
Jiang Yuanrou’s expression was a little gloomy. She pushed herself into an upright position and elaborated as she walked.
“That key is the crucial item needed to leave this building. You must have picked it up somewhere or she wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to attempt to cheat it from you like this.”
Her eyes fell on Mo Yi. “You don’t need to give it to me now. It’s the same regardless of who holds on to it.”
Jiang Yuanrou’s complexion became even paler, and she said to Mo Yi, “Come with me.”
After she finished speaking, she continued walking towards the place where the light was on in the corridor. At the end of that corridor was the elevator which Mo Yi came out of earlier.
Mo Yi followed her pace.
Jiang Yuanrou’s expression was heavy, and she continued speaking as she walked, “It isn’t as if I was idling around after having survived on this floor for so long. I have found enough clues to determine the way to leave this building…”
She suddenly stopped speaking.
The footsteps behind her halted at some point—
Jiang Yuanrou turned her head and saw Mo Yi standing at the door where he’d picked up the key just now. He was staring thoughtfully into the dark ward.
Seemingly having noticed Jiang Yuanrou’s eyes, Mo Yi turned to look at her.
“Do you know how I knew she wasn’t Jiang Yuanrou’s just now?”
Jiang Yuanrou was momentarily surprised for a moment. She had obviously not expected that Mo Yi would bring up this insignificant topic at this juncture.
“Because it was too clumsy.”
Mo Yi lowered his eyelids, his eyes darkened. “Not only did she not raise any doubts about whether I was really her teammate, but also revealed her intentions as soon as we met. This level of skill is really substandard.”
He raised his gaze. The depths of his bottomless eyes were like the calm surface of a pitch-black lake, quietly trained on Jiang Yuanrou’s pale face.
“Comparatively speaking, you are much more sincere.”
While I did know that this assylum could make you mental, I hadn’t thought it could become your evil twin.
Thanks for the chapter.
At some point while reading this arc, I started wondering if Mo Yi was even Mo Yi himself 🙃 Thanks for reading!
😂😅
I’m some kind of missing our mist boyfriend
Thank you for your translation 💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛
Indeed, things feel less scary when the mist boyfriend is there 😭 I need the dog food and the sugar 55555
Casually binged all of this novel in the past 3-4 days. Can’t wait for more 👀✨ Thank you for your hard work!
Thank you! ❤
I fcking knew it!! I totally guessed after she slashed her palm that it seemed too weird to me, something wasn’t right, she didn’t ask anything even tho the act was definitely better. Good job Mo Yi for not falling for it! Thank you for your hard work! <3
Fakes after fakes?! Where is the real Jiang Yuanrou! I knew it in the last chapter itself that it wasn’t the real Jiang Yuanrou. A woman’s intuition is never wrong.┐( ˘_˘)┌
Thank you Reina-qianbei! <3