CNC: Chapter 71

Mosaic School (22)

Where would the younger brother’s head be hidden?

Chi Nan could only confirm that it would appear in Apartment Building 229. He couldn’t accurately determine where it was.

Judging from the previous plots that increased favorability, the younger brother liked to play hide and seek, he liked to take photos, and he had green eyes like the paradise fish.

This personally explained the madam’s behavior of hating green-eyed creatures and children. It was because she personally sent her deformed child to death and the other person temporarily cursed her before his death. She could never gain peace for the rest of her life.

There were also plots like the tragic death of her husband who had his head cut off and the paradise fish soup at the dinner table. These were obviously full of metaphors and hints in retrospect.

However, these inferences didn’t seem to help them in finding the younger brother’s head. The two of them searched almost the entire Apartment Building 229 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but they couldn’t find any clues about the head.

In the afternoon, the air was unusually hot and the sky outside the window at the entrance of the stairs was cloudy. The radio announced that a huge storm was about to hit Gongcheng.

The gloomy and oppressive weather made the entire atmosphere even more eerie, and constantly added pressure to the two people without any clues.

“Tomorrow will be the seventh day after the master’s death. I have a premonition that we must find the head and clear this game before tomorrow comes…” Tang Yu wiped the sweat from her forehead and bit her lip in a confused manner. “Otherwise, something terrible is likely to happen.”

Chi Nan said, “We aren’t far from clearing the game once we find the head.”

As he spoke, he instinctively touched his left shoulder. He could feel the uneven texture of the stitches after the wound had healed even through his shirt.

It was only now that he really felt what the old lady meant by ‘he grew up with you.’

A subtle and unfamiliar emotion flowed in his heart and didn’t disappear with the end of the projection. Instead, it became more intense and turbulent.

Chi Nan thought this strange emotion was probably what people called sadness.

“We can’t just search blindly like this…”

Tang Yu was worried. Then Chi Nan seemed to think about something and suddenly said, “We might have to go to the madam to ask.”

“The madam?” Tang Yu was a bit confused. “Are you saying that her room hasn’t been searched? However, she is the murderer of the younger brother. She is so afraid of the younger brother that she wouldn’t hide his head in her room, right?”

“It isn’t necessarily that she hid it herself.” Chi Nan paused thoughtfully. “Rather, it isn’t necessarily in her room.”

Tang Yu became even more confused. “I don’t understand…”

“However, the clue must be related to her.”

He couldn’t forget the last scene. The younger brother had smiled on the operating table as he looked at the madam and told her that he would definitely come back.

Yes, he was looking at the madam when saying this.

The moment they reached the stairs to the fifth floor of the apartment building, the two of them were frightened by the sound of objects being continuously smashed in the apartment.

The madam’s frantic scream came from the door that was mixed in with the continuous rumbling of thunder. “Call Dr. Mo! Immediately! Call me a car to take me to Dr. Mo’s clinic!”

“Madam, you might need to wait. There is a storm and now all of Gongcheng is in a frozen state. We can’t move an inch,” the maid’s voice had no fluctuations as she explained.

The madam suddenly sneered and her words became even crazier. “I can’t wait! Don’t you see it? I am pregnant! Open your eyes and look at my belly! Look! Aren’t I about to give birth…?”

“Madam, please calm down. You aren’t pregnant.” The maid seemed surprised by her madness. “Have you forgotten? You can never get pregnant again. Rest assured.”

“What do you know?” the madam suddenly shouted with dissatisfaction. The maid could only stand quietly and purse her lips.

The madam didn’t get a response, so she had to nervously talk to herself. “That little demon threatened to come back to me. He can do anything.”

Chi Nan and Tang Yu exchanged looks outside the door. Then Chi Nan took out the key that the maid had given him and opened the door. “Mother, what’s wrong? Are you uncomfortable?”

After obtaining the plot from the lost memory, Chi Nan was more immersed in the role than before.

As Chi Nan talked, his and Tang Yu’s eyes fell on the flat belly of the madam. This crazy woman showed no signs of pregnancy at all.

The madam screamed when she saw Chi Nan and retreated with fear on her face, as if she had seen an extremely terrifying monster. It was only when she couldn’t retreat any further that she trembled and supported herself using the wall. Her face was covered with tears. “You—how did you come back? Who allowed you to come back? How dare you come back? You monster!”

The maid couldn’t take it anymore and brought out the usual mental stabilization medicine. She poured a glass of alcohol and handed it to the madam who was in a corner, calmly saying, “Madam, what are you talking about? This is your favorite young master. He came back to attend Sir’s funeral and to send his father on his last journey.”

“He and the demon are in the same group…” The madam pointed wildly at Chi Nan. “He provoked that demon less than a day after he came back. I shouldn’t have let him come back!”

“Look at my belly. I am pregnant. The demon is hiding in my belly,” the madam whispered in a tone of horror as she pointed to her flat belly, “I can’t let him out.”

Her eyes widened and tears streamed down. They were tears of fear, not sadness or repentance.

Chi Nan found it a bit strange. He usually had a hard time reading human emotions, but he could actually distinguish the emotions expressed by human tears.

“Madam, you aren’t pregnant. It is just your suspicion due to being ill. I suggest you take some medicine to calm down.” The maid had served the madam for many years and knew better than anyone that it was impossible for the madam to be pregnant. She also knew that the madam had a sick heart due to her years of doing bad things. At this moment, the maid was calm and determined as she looked at the dark sky and violent rain outside the window. “Now there is no doctor that will go out and we won’t be able to call a car. Madam, you have to calm yourself down.”

“Yes, I have to calm down.” The madam listened to the maid and took the medicine, swallowing it with the alcohol. “Once the rainstorm stops, I will go to the doctor and remove this demon from my body. I have to be calm and prevent him from taking advantage of this…”

The maid turned to Chi Nan. “Young Master, Miss Tang, don’t worry. Madam’s mental state has been very unstable after Sir’s death, but she can always get over it.”

Chi Nan looked at the madam’s face with ruined makeup. “Yes, I believe she can overcome her fear.”

At this moment, thunder flashed in the sky and the light illuminated the side of Chi Nan’s face. For some reason, Tang Yu stood next to Chi Nan and felt an overwhelming terror.

The electrical system in the room kept making noises. Soon, there was a ‘click’ sound and the entire Apartment Building 229 was plunged into darkness.

The madam, who hadn’t easily calmed down, started to cry again, “He is coming! He is coming!”

As Chi Nan continued to increase the favorability, his younger brother’s soul was released and the madam became crazy. At this moment, she was already a bit incoherent. One moment, she felt that the demon was in her belly. The next moment, she felt he was hiding in the darkness, waiting for an opportunity.

“Don’t worry. It should be the lightning just now that broke the cable. Once the rainstorm passes, there will be workers who come to repair it.” The maid said while groping for a candle in the drawer. However, it was dark and she couldn’t find a lighter to light the candle.

She remembered that there was a lighter on the coffee table not far away. The madam had been using it. She took a while to grope around in the darkness and find it.

There was a power outage in the entire city. Chi Nan thought it should be the manipulator behind the scenes who wanted a closed environment for them. He created conditions and the right atmosphere for the ending of the story.

Due to the power outage, the ceiling fan finally stopped spinning and the rumbling sound of the freezer also disappeared.

In the silence and darkness, the sound of the rain hitting the window was amplified infinitely. The chaotic and dense rhythm was unsettling.

The end of the world seemed to have come to this air tight, pitch black apartment.

Tang Yu’s heartbeat continued to accelerate. She already knew the beginning and end of the entire story, but this didn’t prevent her nervous legs from becoming weak.

She wanted to ask Chi Nan if his younger brother’s head was really hidden in the madam’s stomach or if she was just crazy. However, it was too quiet right now and she would surely be heard if she spoke.

Tang Yu was hesitating when the madam’s voice filled with trepidation was heard.

“Mother Chen, doesn’t this apartment have any backup electricity? The freezer can’t be stopped. My husband is still lying in there. The temperature is so high right now that I’m worried he will melt.”

The maid responded while looking for the lighter, “I’m sorry, Madam. There is no backup electricity here. Nevertheless, I believe the rain will soon stop and the order of Gongcheng will be restored quickly. The ice in the freezer should last until the evening.”

The darkness made it difficult for people to move, but in the darkness caused by the storm, Chi Nan heard familiar footsteps again.

The footsteps seemed to be stepping on puddles of water and making a sound. It was like in a game of hide and seek, when someone deliberately stomps their feet to attract the blindfolded player.

“W-Who is there?” The madam became even more uneasy. It was just that she couldn’t move in the darkness, so she could only cling to the wall to find a sense of security.

Chi Nan had been blind for many years and his ability to adapt to darkness was much stronger than that of ordinary people.

He quickly identified the direction of the footsteps. It was next to the large freezer that had stopped working. At almost the moment he identified it, he had a bold experimental idea in his mind.

“Where are you going?” In the darkness, Tang Yu felt Chi Nan moving and she asked uneasily in a low voice.

Chi Nan replied, “I’m going to do an experiment.”

Tang Yu: “……?”

She might be puzzled, but she gritted her teeth and asked boldly, “Is there anything I can help with?”

“Thank you, I don’t need it for the time being. You just have to wait here.”

Tang Yu: “……” She was becoming a bit accustomed to Chi Nan’s silent way of doing things. It was quite convenient after she adapted to it.

Chi Nan groped around in the darkness and moved in the direction of the footsteps.

He found that he had been ignoring one point of information in the background of the story—his father’s funeral.

After entering the apartment, the madam had repeatedly stressed that he should find time to chat with his father. He just hadn’t taken it to heart at the time.

However, he knew Ye Chang… Or, he knew 229. This person could never design a warm plot line. This sentence might hide a useful clue, just like the footsteps guiding him…

Chi Nan quickly approached the freezer. He opened the door of the freezer as the madam had done before and whispered, “Father, I’m home.”

His ritualistic movements and words seemed to press a start button. The moment the words ended, there was a ‘creaking’ sound similar to the movement of human bones and joints from inside the freezer. Chi Nan kept the freezer door open and returned to his original position.

“W-What is that sound?” The madam’s voice became shrill with uneasiness. Her entire body was pressed against the wall. The temperature in the room plummeted, and the sweltering heat of this tropical city was replaced by a sudden chill.

Just then, the maid found the lighter. She quickly lit the candlestick in her hand and turned around, only to be startled by the sight in front of her!

The candlelight illuminated the room and the madam and maid screamed together. Tang Yu felt terrified when she recovered her vision, but she quickly covered her hands with her mouth before she could scream. She took a step back while trembling.

The corpse of the man who had been lying in the freezer was now standing upright in front of the madam. His gray eyes faced the terrified lady.

He exuded a cold air from all over his body and the stitching of his cut neck and head was a bit rough. The man tilted his head and the corners of his cracked lips curled into a stiff and solemn smile. “Dear, why did you cut off my head while I was asleep?”

The madam collapsed to the ground and trembled in front of her husband’s corpse. “I’m sorry… I-I was sleepwalking… It wasn’t my intention… It was an accident…”

Sure enough, it was as Tang Yu had expected. The ceiling fan cutting off the husband’s head was just a lie. The man’s head had actually been cut off by the madam while she was sleepwalking.

Tang Yu had seen the terrifying appearance of the madam carrying a knife in the middle of the night so she didn’t suspect the male ghost’s words at all.

“I don’t believe your lies.” The man twisted his neck in a creaky manner. After turning it half a circle, the stitches at his neck showed signs of loosening slightly and pulled at his frozen gray flesh. “Aren’t you addicted to cutting off people’s heads? Dear, I’ve known you for so many years.”

“Don’t come here, don’t…”

“You cut off our son’s head back then, right?”

“He wasn’t our son. He was a demon… He shouldn’t exist in this world. He would only embarrass me…!”

The sudden horror scene in the room made people too frightened to think. Chi Nan was the only one who calmly watched the scene in front of him, not letting go of any clues that might allow him to find his younger brother’s head.

Could it be that his younger brother’s head returned to her stomach as the madam said herself?

If the younger brother was being played by 229, then Chi Nan thought 229 wouldn’t design such a plot for himself.

Based on what he knew about 229, this arrogant and clean guy would never put himself into the stomach of the woman who killed him.

The madam’s lines were likely to be a distraction from the progression of the story.

If the students in the acting class believed this and rashly cut open the madam’s belly, it might trigger a more dangerous storyline.

“Brother Nan, are we just…going to wait like this?” Tang Yu finally couldn’t help asking, “What should we do if the newly unlocked item is really in the madam’s belly?”

“I think it won’t be in her belly. Most likely…” Chi Nan paused halfway.

There was a flash of thunder and the madam’s originally crazy and helpless face suddenly became vicious and terrifying. It was unknown when she grabbed it, but she was holding a sharp knife in her hand. At this moment, she accurately and unmistakably slashed at the man’s neck.

The moment the knife fell, the stitches were instantly cut. The corpse that had been frozen for six days became lifeless, so the knife couldn’t cause a scarlet blood mist to splash out again.

“You are right. I just like to cut off people’s heads. I can guarantee that you only need to feel this once to become addicted to it. Unfortunately, you…”

The madam’s words abruptly stopped. It was because the head of her husband, which had fallen from his neck, jumped out in an unbelievable arc. At some point, the sharpened teeth plunged deep into the madam’s throat, cutting off all her arrogance and cruelty.

The blood that splashed from the aorta splattered all over the wall and completely merged with the red floral pattern of the wallpaper. The madam twitched violently for a moment before her body fell to the ground. She could no longer make a sound.

“This…” Tang Yu covered her mouth with disbelief. The changes came too quickly and she couldn’t react at all.

The thing that caught them even more off guard was that the system updated the information.

[Congratulations to the two students for obtaining the important nourishment that can nourish the important item ‘Younger Brother’s head.’ Favorability has increased by 10 and the accumulated favorability is now 70 points.]

[At present, the three groups of ‘joy, anger, and happiness’ are unable to pass the acting class due to the emotional loss of control and failure to correctly shape their characters. They have failed the subject.]

[There are six minutes left until the end of the class. The performance time is equivalent to one hour. The two students of this theme should complete the course task as soon as possible and carry out the final sublimation of the theme.]

Proofreader: Kat