Mo Yi’s sweaty palm was pressed against the hard glass, and the edges of his palm have turned white due to the force. The glass under the palm was stained with a little body heat, which in turn felt scalding to his ice cold palm.
A dense pain emerged from the base of his injured finger, the nerve endings stimulated with stabs of pain akin to needle pricks.
He relaxed his hand and withdrew it, leaving a white handprint on the glass which slowly ebbed and disappeared.
Mo Yi stared at Jiang Yuanrou’s stiff profile across the window for a while, then averted his face. His lowered eyelids covered his dark pupils as he looked back towards the door.
The welded steel plate on the door remained closed, with those skinny and pale fingers retracted from view, leaving only a deep shadow leaking from the gap under the steel plate.
“Did you do it?”
Mo Yi’s voice was slightly hoarse, as if there was sand and gravel rubbing against his throat, his tone seeming as though there was a complex yet suppressed emotion surging in him.
There was a soft gleeful giggle from behind the thin door, followed by the soft voice of a child passing through the dead and silent corridor into his ears.
“How is that possible? Can’t you see that I am locked up tightly?”
The surroundings were silent, and Edwin’s voice rang eerily in the empty corridor.
“TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK, time waits for no one~”
While listening to the child’s deliberately lowered voice, Mo Yi was looking through the window at Jiang Yuanrou’s thin and petite back as she walked slowly and stiffly towards the blood-red door with a strange rhythm and gait.
Mo Yi’s tone was stiff and tense, and one could hear a slight tremor in it if they listened carefully.
“How do I let you out…?”
The child’s voice behind the door was filled with unbridled joy that held a hint of creepiness. “The key is in the room you just walked out of. You find it and take it here to open my door. I will help save your partner.”
After listening to Edwin’s words, Mo Yi’s tone became even more urgent. It was mixed with an unconscious tension and helplessness, like a bowstring which was stretched to the extreme, and could be snapped with just a little more force.
“But…”
Edwin’s tender voice held a hint of gloomy displeasure as he interrupted coldly.
“Do you still want her to live?”
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.
Mo Yi’s breathing hitched. The deep voice held a trace of forbearance and helplessness, as if the owner was gnashing his teeth.
“Yxjs…”
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“P vbc’a xcbk atf fzjma ibmjalbc bo atf xfs, jcv P vbc’a xcbk tbk ibcu la klii ajxf ab olcv la—”
Llr nblmf revvfcis yfmjwf ibk, klat j yla bo geatifrrcfrr jcv juugfrrlnfcfrr. “Vb, rb lo Tejcgbe lr vfjv, fnfc lo P olcv atf xfs, P kbc’a ifa sbe bea.”
Edwin’s immature voice was a little impatient. “Until you find the key, I promise that nothing will happen to her.”
Then, the child’s voice immediately became vicious and cold.
“Of course, for that, you’d better find the key within ten minutes, otherwise… I can’t guarantee nothing will happen to her.”
“Alright…” Mo Yi uttered a monotonous word dryly, then turned away and sped up his pace, striding back towards the door he just walked out of.
He stretched out his hand and pushed the door open. The strong smell of blood and dust washed over him. Shadows and darkness gathered around him as he walked deeper, swallowing his figure.
The door covered in the dull green wallpaper closed quietly behind him, blocking out the faint light in the corridor.
The vivid mood swings and visible emotions on Mo Yi’s face disappeared immediately.
The entanglement, anger, and tension just now were akin to a thin layer of frost and snow under the sun, leaving only a slightly damp and hard ground in its wake, which almost made people think that everything that had happened just now was nothing more than a phantom-like illusion.
He flicked on the flashlight.
With a soft ‘click’, it lit up, staining Mo Yi’s bloodless face with a layer of pale colour which made him look like a ghost in this dark room.
He raised his dark eyes slightly, staring coldly ahead.
—This “Mutual benefit and reciprocity” with Edwin was equivalent to seeking the hide from a tiger. Even if the decision was made for a good purpose, it was very likely that he would come to regret it later.
In addition, he did not hold much consideration for human life in the first place, be it Jiang Yuanrou’s or his own.
If Jiang Yuanrou was in danger when he was around her, he would of course try his best to help her, but if Jiang Yuanrou faced danger due to her own wrong judgement after they separated, then it could only be said that it was her mistake…
Therefore, it was extremely illogical to hope that Mo Yi would make an unwise decision just to save her life.
In addition… With the existence of illusions in this instance, it still remains to be answered whether that Jiang Yuanrou was really her.
Mo Yi narrowed his eyes slightly. Two small yet bright lights were shining in his dark pupils, akin to the cold stars and moon on a cold winter night.
That was precisely why he acted like he was deeply affected by Jiang Yuanrou’s predicament at the beginning, so that Edwin would think that he had acquired an extremely useful bargaining chip, a bargaining chip which could completely control him. It was only in this way that Edwin would be paralyzed and intoxicated by the joy of his imminent victory, and reveal his flaws and flaws in just a few words.
That was also why Mo Yi pounded on the window and shouted Jiang Yuanrou’s name so affectionately at the beginning, then acted like he was restless and being led by the nose in the subsequent confrontation, then bit by bit, tried to subtly test each other.
And in Edwin’s words, he found a small, non-obvious loophole.
Mo Yi took a step forward, pacing slowly in the room. His eyes followed the movement of the flashlight, wandering around the room as he continued contemplating—
Edwin had said at the beginning that he was not the one who manipulated Jiang Yuanrou, because he was locked up and did not have the ability to. This was very likely to be true.
The key to his room was just next door, but he couldn’t get his hands on it, which clearly illustrated that his control on this floor was greatly limited after he was locked up, and that was why he had to count on Mo Yi to look for the key.
Mo Yi walked forward slowly along the wall of the room. While walking, he bent his knuckles and rapped at the wall lightly, trying to see if there was a hidden space inside.
The sound made from beneath the dark green wallpaper was hard and cold—solid.
Pursing his lips, he continued down the train of thought just now in his mind, thinking deeper.
—When confronting Edwin just now, he proposed that ‘Jiang Yuanrou’s life needed to be protected while he was looking for the key’, and Edwin easily agreed, even going to the point of giving him a moderately reasonable time frame.
And since he wanted to regain his freedom so badly, the possibility of deception was not large.
After all, Mo Yi made his point very clearly—if Jiang Yuanrou was dead by the time he found the key, their deal would not stand.
So… Edwin obviously had a certain degree of control over Jiang Yuanrou.
He was unable to control the space in this room right next to him, but was able to influence Jiang Yuanrou, who was separated from him by a whole corridor, and had the confidence to ‘keep her safe for ten minutes’. Furthermore, the window that was very ‘coincidentally’ positioned—it just happened to be at the door he came out of, and happened to be able to see into the opposite corridor where there was the crucial blood-red door at the end.
There was only one reasonable explanation for why there were so many ‘coincidences’ stacked up.
And that was that what he had seen earlier was not real but a manipulation by Edwin from inside that door.
But… the key would still need to be found.
Not only was it a rare clue in this instance which had very few hints, but it might also become a very important bargaining chip in the future.
But… for Edwin to know that Mo Yi and Jiang Yuanrou were separated, as well as clearly form a flawless illusion with her appearance…There are only two possibilities.
One was that his control on this floor was not as weak as Mo Yi thought, and the other was that he had met Jiang Yuanrou before and might have even communicated with her.
A tiny trace of uneasiness welled up in Mo Yi’s heart, along with small, ominous ripples. Regardless of which answer was correct, neither was the explanation Mo Yi wanted.
He took a deep breath and suppressed the chaotic thoughts in his mind, then stood still at the base of the wall, raising his dark eyes to stare thoughtfully at the void in the darkness.
Mo Yi had already walked around the room previously, and found no spots to hide things in the surrounding walls. Although the room was large, there were not many things in it, and it also had a simple layout.
So where was this key?
Mo Yi’s brows pulled together slowly as he rubbed his cold fingertips subconsciously. His gaze fell on the broken doll on the floor, and he couldn’t help being but freeze.
Then, he strode forward quickly and crouched to pick up the toy. The arms, legs and feet attached to the body fell off, emanating a stale smell of dust which entered his nostrils.
There wasn’t anywhere to hide things…
Mo Yi pursed his lips. He walked to the dismembered plush toy next, and carefully searched the clumped cotton in its belly, but also came up empty.
He stepped up to the mouse’s corpse next. Enduring the slight nausea, he slowly inserted his fingers into the mouse’s exposed belly and rummaged through the greasy internal organs of its thin and small body.
Nothing.
Mo Yi seemed to have found a knack, and his movements sped up. After searching the cat’s corpse to no avail, he immediately turned his attention to the disembowelled male corpse.
Crouching beside it, he stretched his palms into his exposed internal organs.
The smell of blood in the air became more and more intense, and the scent was almost suffocating.
Mo Yi endured the discomfort and nausea and slowly moved his fingers that were deeply embedded in the cold and sticky viscera of the dead body.
After groping through the broken intestines and lungs, his fingertips came into contact with something cold and hard.
It seemed to be the outline of a key.
Thanks for the update
He already has one key and now he found another one
Thank you for your translation 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
What is with this arc and stuffing keys into bodies smh….thanks for the chapter!