C52 — 【2.15 – The Rose Manor】

The night was getting deeper and deeper, the whole manor was immersed in the darkness, only the corridors inside the castle were still weakly lit.

 

 

Julie, who was shivering from the rustling, looked into the corridor behind her by means of an electric lamp hanging on the wall.

 

The long corridor was carpeted in scarlet, and the oil paintings on the walls looked a little oppressive in the dim light, Julie didn’t find the source of the rustling.

 

She didn’t know if she was hallucinating, and could only comfort herself with a blank face that she should have misheard.

 

She subconsciously tightened her palm, suddenly realizing that she was still holding the rose in her hand.

 

 

Looking at the rose in her hand, Julie was somewhat surprised to find that it was actually a paper flower.

 

 

It was too blurry in the light just now and she didn’t look closely, thinking it was a real flower.

 

 

However, it was too late to think about who actually folded this exquisite to the real paper flower, the next second Julie felt that the surrounding walls became more humid, her ears also rang with more and more intense rustling sounds.

 

Hiss…

 

Julie’s body stiffened, not only because of the rustling in her ears that disturbed her, but also because of the black mold that suddenly spread rapidly on the walls.

 

These bizarre spread of black mold spots was filled with the fishy smell of seawater, and it was wet and slippery to the touch as if it was some kind of damp moss, touching it gave her chills.

 

Julie was so scared that she hurriedly withdrew the hand that had been placed on the wall, but it was too late, the palm of her hand had already been stained with moist traces, she wiped it on her clothes many times but failed to wipe it off.

 

 

“Who- ahem!”

 

 

“Give it back ……”
 

“Give it back!!!”

 

 

Just then, a deep, distorted voice came from the depths of the corridor, hardly resembling a human voice anymore, more like some hideous creature venting its inner rage, and perhaps pain.

 

 

Because Julie could hear the sound of gasping and coughing mixed with pain, it seemed to be the person in the room just now.

 

 

Julie’s pupils tightened and she turned her head, only to see a twisted shadow spreading from the darkness of the corridor.

 

The moment she saw the shadow clearly, Julie even had a kind of absurd feeling that she was dreaming.

 

 

The bloated and huge shadow was expanding under the light, and just a glimpse of it made her feel the incomparably terrifying aura emanating from the shadow.

 

As if it was some kind of creature that exceeded the limits of human cognition, not allowing human beings to spy on it, even just a little contact was enough to be fatal.

 

 

Julie’s face was white, but her spirit was still quite tough, letting her hold on and run forward desperately.

 

 

Although she didn’t yet know who the owner of this shadow was, she somehow knew that she couldn’t be seen by this shadow no matter what.

 

 

Otherwise she would be greeted by what would perhaps be a more tragic and painful end than death.

 

 

Julie’s mind went blank, she couldn’t think of a direction, she only remembered that she was constantly running, desperately fleeing in the opposite direction of the shadow.

 

 

It wasn’t until she ducked into a storage room that Julie finally breathed a sigh of relief.

 

 

Through the doorway of the storage room, she held her breath and carefully looked outside.

 

 

Ahem-

 

 

It was the sound of someone coughing in agony, and heavy footsteps.

 

 

The horrible monster chasing her behind her seemed to be nothing more than a weak, ordinary man.

 

 

But Julie remembered the fear she had felt when she had just seen the shadow, so she did not let her guard down.

 

Soon, a tall man’s figure appeared in the doorway.

 

 

His head was hanging low, his originally well-groomed hair falling in a messy fashion across his forehead, covering the upper half of his face, so that only his pale, bloodless jaw and those dried bloodstains that was spread across the blackness of his skin could be seen.

 

 

“Ahem-”

 

The man’s footsteps were slow, and with every step he would let out a suppressed gasp of pain, and his mouth was constantly oozing a thick black liquid, like blood, which slowly stained his white shirt and double-breasted vest black.

 

 

Coupled with his stiff demeanor and movements, it made him look like a walking corpse, terrifying to the extreme.

 

 

“Give it back ……”

 

The man somehow seemed to be in a trance, constantly uttering broken words from his mouth, and she could tell that he was enduring some sort of ever-increasing pain to the point where his spirit was in a state of chaos.

 

 

But he still held on and refused to fall down, holding onto the wall while searching for the thief who had stolen his precious items.

 

 

“My …… return ……”

 

The man’s low voice felt somewhat familiar to Julie, and she looked at the gradually approaching figure, her eyes widening as if she remembered something a long time later.

 

Fear and shock grew in her deep green eyes.

 

It was the old count!

 

It was the old count who had returned to his youth!

 

Looking at the monster-like Old Count, Julie covered her mouth in horror, not daring to leak out the slightest sound.

 

 

It was just as Reid said, the old count had made a deal with the devil and regained his youth after paying for the lives of those innocent teenage girls as payment.

 

 

And now, the old count who had made a deal with the devil had finally eaten his own evil and turned into this horrible appearance today.

 

 

The ghastly bloated shadow just now was the evidence!

 

 

Julie instantly understood everything, she gripped the rose in her hand tightly, cold sweat soaked her temples, her face still pale.

 

 

But she had made up her mind that if she could escape tonight, she would expose the old Count’s scandalous behavior! Let everyone know that the old Count was a terrible monster!

 

 

Cough-cough-the sound of agonizing coughs still echoed.

 

 

Outside the door, the old Count wandered down the corridor, his pale arm resting weakly on the damp wall as he leaned forward against it.

 

 

Shadows, increasingly eerie under the pull of the light, also swelled and wriggled against the wall.

 

 

It was as if some sort of giant sea mollusk was constantly swimming across the damp mold-strewn walls.

 

She didn’t know whether it was an illusion or not, but Julie even felt that the huge shadow was absorbing the mold spots on the wall and seemed to be about to turn into a solid body soon.

 

 

Julie didn’t dare to imagine what this huge bloated shadow would look like if it really appeared in the real world, and a chill ran through her heart.

 

Frightened by this terrifying shadow, Julie retracted her gaze, not knowing if it was due to looking at the shadow a few more times, she felt her brain throb and her spirit became tense.

 

 

In the end, she could only hold her breath and pray that she would be able to escape from this monster, and at the same time, she once again deeply realized the fact that the old count was a horrible monster.

 

 

Even more frightening was the fact that this horrible monster was searching for her outside the door of the storage room where she was hiding.

 

The fear from the bottom of her heart made Julie’s face pale, so white that it didn’t even match the old count outside the door, and her heart tensed up, so afraid that she even stopped breathing.

 

 

Click–

 

It was the sound of the door of the room being opened.

 

Julie’s heart stopped beating for an instant.

 

 

Fortunately, God blessed her, the old count opened the door of a guest room not far away, not this narrow storage room.

 

However, it seemed that God didn’t always bless her, after opening the door of the room, the old count looked at the empty room, his torso stiffened as he traveled to the next room and opened the door again.

 

 

The old Count was checking from room to room to see if anyone was inside!

 

Julie who realized this instantly trembled even harder, because she knew that the old count must have realized that she was close and that was why he was prepared to check the rooms one by one.

 

He would never rest until he found her.

 

And there weren’t many rooms in this corridor.

 

If she sat back and waited, then it wouldn’t be long before the old Count found this place.

 

Julie peeked out through the crack and saw that the old count’s pale, corpse-like arm had already opened the door to the penultimate room.

 

 

Two more rooms to go to find this place!

 

 

Julie felt that her clothes were drenched in cold sweat, and her blank brain couldn’t even think of a single way to get herself out of today’s predicament.

 

 

It was horrible.

 

 

The old count was too scary!

 

 

Julie, who was still thinking of exposing the old count’s crimes before, was now completely flustered.

 

 

She couldn’t control her tears and called out her lover Reid’s name over and over again in her heart.

 

 

How she wished that Reid could suddenly descend like a knight now, defeating the old count, that eerie old monster, and saving her from this horrible manor.

 

 

But fantasies were fantasies after all, and it was impossible for Reid to appear here instantly.

 

Julie wiped the tears from her face and pulled herself together anyway.

 

She racked her brain for a response.

 

Through the crack in the door, Julie looked at the old count who had walked into the guest room next to her searching for something, and summoned up the courage to gently open the door to the storage room.

 

 

Taking advantage of the short gap between the old count’s search for the guest room, Julie boldly got out of the storage room and carefully walked away quickly to the corner of another corridor.

 

Then, not caring that the sound of her footsteps would attract attention, she ran down the red-carpeted corridor, dragging her weakened legs.

 

 

She had to get out of here quickly, and couldn’t care less about evidence or anything else for the moment.

 

 

Julie was already so scared that she couldn’t think of anything else, perhaps it was because the mental oppression brought by that shadow was too severe, all she could think of now was the idea of escaping.

 

 

And not long after she ran out, the old count with a pale face looked at the door of the storage room that was opened, and the resentment in his dark pupils seemed to deepen.

 

 

He wanted to continue to look for that damned thief and retrieve the rose that he was going to give to his lover, but his body was so weak that he could only bend over, coughing uncontrollably and spitting out many pieces of his internal organs once again.

 

 

Those writhing flesh and blood as if conscious climbed up the wall, and with the damp mold, it went to the increasingly hideous bloated shadow behind them.

 

 

The old count’s trance-like consciousness didn’t let him realize that the shadow behind him was getting bigger and bigger, so big that it was almost turning into a solid body.

 

 

He was still holding on to the wall, and seemed to have only the thought of finding the rose in his mind, not paying any attention to the fact that his pale arm on the wall was gradually merging with the monstrous and horrifying shadow behind him.

 

 

It was almost as if the old count had become that bloated and hideous shadow, filled with a grotesque and ghastly aura.

 

 

Even his sanity gradually disappeared as the fusion progressed, and his gasps became heavier and more agonizing.

 

 

Whew! Whew!

 

 

Julie ran out of breath, she didn’t know where she had run to, and only after the rustling sound behind her if any disappeared did she stop, observing her surroundings with fear and trepidation.

 

 

Fearing that the old Count might suddenly appear from around any corner.

 

 

Reid had never told her that the old count would have such a scary side, and if she had known that this journey in search of evidence would be so difficult, she would have come back with more preparations.

 

 

Instead, she was now panicked and could only fall prey to being hunted by a monster.

 

 

“…… Where is this place?”

 

 

Julie looked at the unfamiliar corridor with a pale face.

It had been over a year since she’d been to the castle, the decorations had been replaced, and she couldn’t identify her exact location.

 

So Julie had to walk down the corridors in fear, cowering like a scared bird, even a shadow on the wall could make her nearly jump.

 

 

As she looked around, she didn’t notice a slender shadow coming around the corner.

 

 

The two met head-on, and Julie nearly crashed into the person’s arms, only to be dodged lightly.

 

“!”

 

Julie was startled, she covered her mouth that almost let out a scream, and after barely standing still, she suddenly stared at this strange blonde-haired youth in front of her with wide eyes.

 

 

This youth was tall with a slender waist, as if he had just woken up from his bed, his blonde semi-long hair was slightly messy, revealing his snow-white skin and flawless features.

 

With blue pupils and rose petal-like lips, he was as beautiful as a carefully painted portrait of an angel in a church.

 

 

His eyes widened slightly, his beautiful blue eyes looking translucent and moving even in the dim light, and Julie was a little dumbfounded for a while before she came back to her senses.

 

 

The young man in front of her was truly the most beautiful person she had ever seen in her life, and this impactful beauty was enough to compel anyone.

 

 

Julie was no exception.

 

 

She seemed to have instantly forgotten the fear she had just experienced, her pale cheeks flushed a shy red, and she subconsciously straightened her messy hair.

 

 

Just now, she was too flustered during her escape and didn’t pay too much attention to her image, and now she already had a completely dirty look.

 

Meeting this beautiful boy with this appearance was just too embarrassing for Julie.

 

 

“You, hello.”

 

 

Julie greeted a little embarrassed, seemingly not realizing how weird it was in the quiet and dim corridor in the dead of night.

 

“…… Hello.”

 

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed youth swept his gaze over Julie’s brown hair and green eyes, paused, and then curved his pretty blue eyes, his voice gentle as he inquired, “This young lady, may I ask why you’re here?”

 

His voice was so nice, sweeter than a lark’s.

 

This was the only thought in her brain, she didn’t even hear Jiu Shu’s question and just stared blankly at him.

 

 

Jiu Shu, who had long been accustomed to the face-control nature of this world’s people, slightly raised his eyebrows, and suddenly saw the rose that Julie had been pinching in her hands.

 

 

Due to Julie’s overly fearful mood, the delicate paper rose she had originally pinched in her hands had turned into a crumpled mess due to her subconsciously tightened fingers.

 

 

The pliable branches were bent and the petals were wrinkled.

 

“……”

 

Seeing this, Jiu Shu pursed her lips and extended his hand towards Julie, “Can you show me this flower?”

 

 

“Ah, yes, yes!”

 

 

He took the rose, his white fingertips brushed over the soft surface of the petals, and he seemed to let out a slight sigh.

 

 

Sure enough, it was a rose made by the object of punishment.

 

 

Raising his eyes, he looked at the somewhat foolish heroine in front of him, and a seemingly harmless smile appeared on his snow-white, beautiful face, “Can you tell me where you got this rose from?”

 

He could already imagine the object of punishment being furious when he saw this rose.

 

 

No wonder the scent in the manor was becoming more and more humid, never mind, he’d just find him first.

 

“…… That’s the thing, I found it from that study…”

 

 

“- You’re Angus, aren’t you, I’ve heard of you.”

 

 

Julie looked at the beautiful and fragile youth in front of her with a look of pain.

 

This extremely beautiful face, besides the indescribable beauty of Angus mentioned by the maids, Julie couldn’t think of a second answer.

 

She originally thought it was the exaggerated words of the maids, after all, these maids who stayed in the estate all day and didn’t go out had never seen many handsome beauties. They often boasted about Angus’s incomparable beauty, which inevitably made people laugh.

 

 

Especially Julie had always thought that Reid was the most handsome person, but she didn’t realize that this young man named Angus really had a beauty beyond the ordinary.

 

Neither she nor Reid could compare.

 

No wonder he was imprisoned here by that monster, the old count.

 

 

“You must be having a hard time, I will definitely save you! Don’t be afraid!”

 

 

Julie’s voice softened a lot, as if she was afraid that Angus would recall the painful time he was imprisoned by the old count, she she was going to hold Angus’s hand to escape from here together.

 

 

“Let’s go, that monster is right behind us!”

 

The old count was right behind them, it would be too late if we didn’t leave.

 

 

However, Angus dodged her hand.

 

Julie looked at Jiu Shu and the expression on his face that was gradually becoming cold.

 

 

“No need, just tell me where you last saw Norman.”

 

 

Angus’ voice, which had been soft a moment ago, turned cold, even calling the old count Norman affectionately.

 

 

This made Julie’s mind spin a little, and she looked at the extremely beautiful youth in front of her, opening her mouth in bewilderment, not knowing what to do, “Wh, what?”

 

This was completely different from what Julie had expected.

 

 

Shouldn’t Angus, who had been forced by the old count and imprisoned in the manor in the mouths of the maids, hate the old count as much as she did?

 

Jiu Shu looked at the heroine in front of her and added with a calm expression, “As well, ma’am, please don’t just call someone a monster, it’s really rude.”

 

The object of discipline was not a monster, but his lover.

 

 

Even though Jiu Shu had a good temper, he would still firmly state his attitude when faced with a matter of principle.

 

 

Julie’s entire body froze in place as she looked at Angus, whose expression in front of her was becoming increasingly icy.

 

 

She couldn’t figure out why Angus suddenly changed his expression just because of the so-called monster title.

 

 

“But, what I said is true! He is indeed a monster! Just now, just now his shadow became terrifying! It almost killed me! Doesn’t that prove it!” Julie explained incoherently.

 

 

Although it was only the first time they met, Julie really didn’t want Angus to misunderstand her or continue to be compelled by that monster, the old count.

 

 

Yes, compulsion.

 

It must be the old count that monster who made a deal with the devil and compelled Angus, otherwise how could Angus be so close to the old count.

 

 

“……”

 

 

Jiu Shu’s blue eyes looked at Julie lightly, his voice still calm, “You didn’t die, did you?”

 

 

“!”

 

 

Julie looked at the slender and beautiful Angus in front of her in shock, simply unable to believe that he would actually say such heartless words.

 

“I… I ……”

 

 

Julie was inexplicably a little afraid when she met his blue eyes that she couldn’t see any emotions in, and she couldn’t help but take a step back, not daring to meet his eyes.

 

 

She really couldn’t produce any evidence right now.

 

 

Jiu Shu watched this performance of the heroine, his expression didn’t change much, and he only once again inquired about the exact location where the object of punishment had last appeared.

 

Although Julie didn’t want to answer, for some reason, the words of this youth in front of her seemed to be extremely mesmerising as if they were impossible to refuse, and she involuntarily answered.

 

“…… he’s right next to the storage room.” Julie replied lost in thought, she really didn’t know why things had turned out the way they had.

 

 

Why Angus was so partial to that monster, the old count.

 

 

After receiving the answer, Jiu Shu turned around and then walked towards the direction Julie had come from, his platinum blonde silky hair spreading out slightly at his shoulders with the movement, showing off the pale skin on the side of his ears.

 

 

Even incredibly cold, Angus had a mesmerizing beauty about him.

 

Julie watched Angus, who had turned to leave, with a feeling of disappointment.

 

 

She pursed her lips uneasily, still unable to bear to watch Angus go to the old count.

 

 

Because that horrible monster would definitely devour Angus into his stomach, not even the dregs would be left.

 

 

Julie actually didn’t care about Angus’s indifference just now, because she knew that the old count must have compelled him, and Angus was innocent.

 

 

So she must save him!

 

 

Thinking like this, Julie hurriedly caught up with Jiu Shu and reached out her hand to try to tug on him.

 

“Angus, listen to me-”

 

Jiu Shu glanced at the heroine and easily avoided it.

 

 

The smell of the sea was getting heavier and heavier, and the disturbed magnetic field nearby made it impossible for him to find the exact location of the object of the punishment, and even on the system panel, it could only show a constantly blinking red dot covering the location of the entire manor.

 

 

There was no time to waste here, he had to find the object of discipline quickly.

 

 

Snapping–

 

 

Grabbing air, Julie accidentally touched the damp wall, and her previously unwiped palm came into contact with the slippery mold spots on the wall.

 

 

Rustling-

 

 

Almost at the moment of contact, it was as if some kind of unnamable behemoth sensed something from the other end of the wall, and wriggled its body that was aimlessly searching for something and stuck to the wall.

 

 

 

Then as if swimming in seawater, the bloated form merged into the wall at an incredibly soft angle, sending up circles of ripples.

 

 

“……”

 

 

Jiu Shu looked at Julie, who had fallen to the carpet, and felt that this world’s heroine’s IQ wasn’t quite right.

 

 

He frowned slightly and was just about to say something when Julie suddenly looked at the wall behind him with a horrified expression.

 

 

“Watch out! Angus!!!”

 

 

Bang-!!!

 

Some kind of huge shadow emerged from within the wall, and He seemed to have lost His mind, only knowing how to charge across the room, trying to retrieve His lost precious gift.

 

 

And rushing straight out, He instantly cast a huge shadow in the corridor, like a giant whale swimming under a ship in the deep sea, it was impossible to see the whole picture, only rustling strange noises came from it.

 

 

Jiu Shu’s pupils shrunk slightly, and before he could react, the next moment he was wrapped up in a mass of mollusk-like slippery touch.

 

 

“?”

 

 

The smell of moist seawater lingered in the nostrils, and Jiu Shu’s entire being was wrapped in a mass of amorphous semi-solid liquid, and in a rare moment, his eyes widened in some surprise.

 

The huge figure that was charging across the room also stopped moving the moment Jiu Shu was wrapped up, and its original expanding and contracting body shape was fixed in place, with a posture that could even be described as stiff.

 

 

---

TN:

I wanna punch Julie