Chapter 35: Endless Mermaids in the Well
"What happened next? What happened after he jumped? What exactly was the recipe?" the Newcomer pressed, his voice tight with urgency.
Yotsuya Miko simply shook her head, her expression grim as she handed the fairy tale book to him. "The book only goes up to here."
A heavy silence descended upon the room. For a moment, no one spoke, each person left to organize the fragmented clues they now possessed.
The Mermaid Prince from the story clearly corresponded to the deformed people they had encountered. The palace was, without a doubt, this very pension.
The tale described the prince gathering all the required materials and scattering them into the water tank where he was imprisoned. The water's surface then transformed into a rippling mirror, reflecting the free ocean on the other side.
The meaning of that passage seemed straightforward enough. If they could find the "magic recipe" left by the witch and scatter it into the correct "water tank" within the pension, they could activate a path to survival. By jumping in, they could escape and regain their freedom.
But two critical problems remained.
Where, exactly, was this water tank?
And what, precisely, was the magic recipe?
They had already scoured the entire pension inside and out—twice. They hadn't even spared the surrounding grounds. It felt impossible that they could have missed anything.
The shadow of death crept closer with every tick of the clock. The suffocating pressure made it difficult enough to concentrate, let alone think clearly.
"The water tank should refer to the well in the first-floor Water Storage Room. Does everyone agree?" King Chen was the first to break the silence, his voice a steady anchor in the tense atmosphere.
Everyone nodded. Aside from that deep, dark well, there truly wasn't a more fitting candidate.
"Then, perhaps the magic recipe only appears at night," King Chen added, his brow furrowed in thought. "And at night, we've all been hiding in our rooms. We've never come out to look."
Hearing this, a flicker of understanding lit up in Haruto's eyes.
That's right. The night.
He had felt that something was off, and now the pieces were finally clicking into place. The mermaid's purpose wasn't just to kill them.
The creature never loitered in front of the other, empty guest rooms; it only ever targeted theirs. This proved it already knew exactly which rooms they were hiding in. The reason the mermaid merely paced outside their doors wasn't because it couldn't get in—with its strength, breaking down a door would be trivial. It was to prevent them from going out at night.
"Who will lure the mermaid away?" Haruto asked, his gaze sweeping across the group.
King Chen was the first to raise his hand. Then, after a moment of hesitation, the Newcomer gritted his teeth and raised his hand as well.
Haruto arched a curious eyebrow. It was no surprise that King Chen would step forward, but he hadn't expected the Newcomer to volunteer. In his impression, the boy was relatively obedient but also timid and utterly lacking in initiative.
This was no small risk. While the mermaid's speed wasn't overwhelming—it had even struggled to keep up with the hopping Liu Cangzhen earlier—there were hidden dangers. As they had already speculated, there might not be just one mermaid. There could be a second, or even a third.
"Two people are enough," Haruto decided. "You two see if you can lure it out of the pension."
He handed each of them a large firecracker and a lighter. "If the mermaid senses something is wrong and tries to rush back, light the firecracker and throw it in the direction of the pension. These things are loud; as long as you aren't too far away, we'll all hear it."
King Chen and the Newcomer accepted the items with bewildered expressions. They truly couldn't fathom why Haruto would have brought something so mundane into a life-or-death game.
"What's the plan now? Do we split up to find the mermaid?" King Chen asked, his hand already on the doorknob.
"No need." Haruto shook his head and pointed toward the left side of the corridor.
While everyone watched in confusion, he raised a hand and tore open a Gap in the air. Through the swirling, eye-shaped rift, they could clearly see the corner of the main staircase. Sprawled across the floorboards like a discarded rug was a sheet of human skin, a sight that made their hair stand on end.
"Is... is that the mermaid?" Liu Wensong's voice cracked. "Why is it just crouching at the stairs?"
"Because Uncle Chen was right," Haruto said, his eyes narrowing. "The remaining clues only appear at night. The mermaid doesn't want us coming out to find them."
King Chen said no more. He clapped the Newcomer on the shoulder, took a deep breath, and counted to three in his head. Then, he and the boy threw the door open and burst out into the hall.
The instant they stepped out, the human skin at the stairwell twitched and rose. The mermaid lurched out from the corner of the corridor. Though its movements were stiff and unnatural, its speed was now much faster than when it had first appeared. Even with King Chen and the Newcomer sprinting, they could only barely maintain a small lead.
Haruto stared intently through the Gap, tracking their progress until the mermaid had been successfully lured out of the pension. Only then did he wave his hand, closing the rift.
"Move out."
The remaining three members of the team had their assignments. Yotsuya Miko was responsible for the first floor, Kaguya took the second, and Liu Wensong headed for the third.
As for Haruto himself, no arrangements were made, yet no one raised an objection. Anyone with eyes could see that he had other plans.
And indeed, he did.
Haruto didn't stay idle. He walked over to the pension's front desk, sat down in the dusty chair, and opened another Gap.
This time, the rift seemed to press against some invisible resistance, struggling to expand. He frowned, channeling more power into his hand, and finally forced the Gap open.
The view on the other side was the scene inside the well in the Water Storage Room. The image was blurred, the water churning violently. Haruto shifted the Gap's perspective, and suddenly, a pair of swollen, dead eyes filled the frame.
It was a mermaid.
It floated motionlessly in the turbid well water, its arms hanging limply at its sides.
Haruto pulled the Gap back, widening the field of view. The surrounding scenery immediately came into focus.
One. Three. Ten. A hundred...
Eventually, he stopped counting. It was meaningless. There were simply too many. The well was packed with them, a silent, submerged army of horrors.
If there were only two or three mermaids, they might have been able to find a way to maneuver, to fight back. But facing these densely packed figures, an endless column of drowned bodies waiting in the dark... there was no way to win.
Fight back? They could stop dreaming. They should be thanking their lucky stars that these things hadn't simply assigned one to each room and blocked them in completely.
Although he had guessed that the second instance wouldn't be so simple, he truly hadn't expected it to be this ridiculous. After taking a moment to calm himself, Haruto opened the Gap again, trying to probe deeper. The well seemed bottomless.
Five minutes passed, and still, there was no end in sight.
Seeing this, he gave up on finding the bottom. He closed the Gap and glanced at the time.
Outside, the two runners had already begun to pant, their physical strength gradually failing. The mermaid only walked, but its quick, relentless pace was not slow at all. Even running at full tilt, King Chen and the Newcomer could only maintain a small distance, and unlike them, the mermaid knew no fatigue.
Fortunately...
Since they had already searched the building once before, Kaguya's group was highly efficient. Before long, they finished their inspection and gathered back together.
Haruto led them back to their temporary base—the three interconnected guest rooms—and then notified the two outside to return.
Upon receiving the command through the Gap, King Chen and the Newcomer squeezed out their last reserves of stamina, sprinting back at top speed and leaving the mermaid far behind.
The moment they burst into the guest room, Liu Wensong, who was guarding the entrance, immediately slammed the door shut and threw the lock. About ten seconds later, that unique, hurried "da-da-da" sound of footsteps echoed outside again, persistent and unnervingly close.
Ring-a-ling... ring-a-ling...
Just then, a piercing bell rang out from the third floor. In the dead-silent pension, the sound was exceptionally jarring. The footsteps outside immediately changed direction, turning and heading quickly up the stairs.
Only when the sound had completely vanished did Haruto speak. "Did you find anything?"
Kaguya and Liu Wensong shook their heads.
Yotsuya Miko, however, took out her phone and opened the photo album.
"If I'm not mistaken, this should be the magic recipe left by the witch," she said, her voice low. "I took a photo. Everyone, take a look."
The photo showed a section of wall. Carved into the plaster was a single line of words, emitting a faint, ethereal glow in the dim environment.
[Skin, Flesh, Pure Yang Blood]
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