Bloody Carnival

Chapter 114: Bouncing the Ball

With the natural instincts of a student, Yu Wen immediately started to ponder seriously after reading the question.

Yang Shu who saw him stare at the question with deeply furrowed brows was confused: “Isn’t our goal to get it wrong?”

Yu Wen: “……Oh, right.”

He brandished his marker and filled in a 100.

For the first time in this life, he could actually write an incorrect answer with so much bravado.

Sali and Shirley who were sprawled across the table looked at Yu Wen several times as if they were looking at an idiot.

There was no need to hesitate this time. A red cross immediately appeared on the paper and Yu Wen immediately crossed out the answer.

The next second, the mirrors started to turn red. All the reflective surfaces such as the dressing table, marble tabletops and glass windows started to ooze thick, red blood.

With the exception of Yu Wen, it was the first time for the others to be faced with this scene.

There was a big difference between personally experiencing it and watching from the sidelines. For a moment, the group wasn’t able to react.

The mirror reflected their faces like an awkward family portrait.

Blood stains greedily crawled across their faces while they stood there motionlessly staring at their own reflections. Their expressions were all frozen and for a moment they looked like there were wearing fake human-faced masks.

Everyone had become trapped by the mirror.

The two children sat on the sofa behind the group of adults. Like a doll, they blinked their eyes and swung their legs in sync with each other. It was as if they were watching something very interesting.

Just as the line of blood was about to move through everyone’s faces, the mirror suddenly moved.

BANG——

BANG——–

BANG———–

BANG————

Shirley: “………”

You call this knocking on the mirror? You’re practically wrestling with the mirror!

It sounded like several punches were thrown, or several kicks were sent.

The cannibalistic mirror was about to crack from all that force.

It was clear that the person inside was in a very bad mood and especially impatient.

Their four short legs stopped swaying.

The two little brats silently inched away and quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa.

Sali held his stomach which was overturning inside and dry retched several times.

As if it had encountered a ghost, the blood stains on the mirror frantically rushed back to the corner of the mirror, lingering along the borders instead.

“Sss———-” The stiff Old Yu could suddenly move.

He touched the bloody patch on his cheek and hissed in pain, “This fucking hurts.”

Everyone else returned to their senses one after another and they quickly moved away from the mirrors before moving one of it to facethe tall mirror.

BANG——-

The hitting abruptly stopped.

The surface of the tall mirror rippled like the surface of a pond. A beautiful, slender hand stretched out to grab the frame, and soon following that was a long leg……

You Huo stepped out from the mirror first and was followed by Chu Yue and finally Qin Jiu.

Sali’s stomach was like a deflated balloon. In an instant, it had collapsed back down.

He let out a long dry retch and sprawled lifelessly across the sofa with a pair of teary eyes.

Wu Li pointed at him and said to Shu Xue in a teaching tone, “Learn from him. Even doctors won’t be able to tell that you’re faking it.”

Shu Xue: “………No thanks.”

With the return of those three, everyone was very happy. They also had a lot of things they wanted to talk about.

“Brother, something terrible happened toda——-”

“Talk later.”

You Huo interrupted Yu Wen’s evening news report.

Without stopping, he went straight for the stairs. His action was so fast, the others could even feel a rush of air when he went past.

With large strides, he went up the stairs three steps at a time. His dark expression and furrowed brows scared Yu Wen so much he didn’t dare breathe.

When he turned around, he saw that Chu Yue’s expression also looked very bad. It was as if someone had come to collect debt money on New Year’s Day.

“W-what’s wrong?” Yu Wen asked with a timid voice.

The others were also confused.

As soon as he finished asking, You Huo had already reached the second floor.

He pushed open the room door, but he seemed to have remembered something, so he came back out. Supporting himself with the railing, he looked down at the others with a cold expression, “Which cabinet has the food?”

Yu Wen: Huh???

The others weren’t able to react in time. Qin Jiu looked up and answered: “The second one to the left of the closet.”

You Huo turned back into the room.

Soon afterwards, he came back down with a large bag.

Before anyone could have the chance to approach, he had already rummaged through the bag and thrown some things over to the sofa.

Qin Jiu caught it in the air and turned to deliver it to Chu Yue.

The dark clouds on Chu Yue’s face faded. She mumbled her thanks, “Thanks. I can finally live again.”

Everyone took a closer look——-Dried biscuits???

“The hell…..” Yu Wen patted his chest, “I thought it was something major. Um…..Brother, what’s going on?”

You Huo placed the large bag on the coffee table and pulled out some beef jerky.

Hearing Yu Wen call out ‘brother’, he made a sound of acknowledgement and looked up only to see that Yu Wen was saying that to Qin Jiu.

You Huo who was chewing on some beef jerky: “?”

Qin Jiu raised an eyebrow.

Yu Wen scratched his head, “My brother looks very hungry, so I won’t bother him with questions. Um….brother—-“

“My surname is not Um.”

Yu Wen struggled for a while before finally managing to remove the prefix, “Brother.”

“…….”

Old Yu’s face hurts.

He wiped away the blood from his face and watched this unfilial brat of his recognise his nephew’s boyfriend as his brother.

You Huo didn’t pay any attention to this. He sat down next to Qin Jiu and busied himself with eating the beef jerky.

Even if he was extremely hungry, he wouldn’t gobble the food down. The beef jerky was a little hard so his cheeks would move a little as he cleanly ate it up.

He and Chu Yue were indeed starving. They didn’t have the energy to talk.

So, while they quietly ate, Qin Jiu helped explain in their stead.

“Strictly speaking, it’s normal to be hungry after not eating for such a long time.” Wu Li put forward her thoughts, “But that doesn’t rule out other possibilities.”

Everyone looked over at Sali.

In this exam, the thing that left the strongest impression on them was Sali’s stomach.

This brat would always swing between a state of two extremes; “almost bursting from overeating” and “almost dying from starvation”. For example, now that the mirror was empty, Sali’s stomach had also deflated. With his lips flattened into a straight line, he had a look of wanting to eat but not daring to eat.

“You can’t possibly have become assimilated with that brat?” Yu Wen was a little flustered.

“It’s possible.” Chu Yu who had eaten three biscuits was able to relieve some of her extreme hunger, “We also considered this possibility when we were in the mirror. It might actually be an issue of assimilation.”

“But why?”

“Because we are also considered as ‘someone inside the mirror’.” Qin Jiu said, “To be able to live in the mirror and come out of it, it’s very similar to what these two brats can do.”

Everyone’s expression turned for the worse. The atmosphere in the room turned tense.

Becoming assimilated with Sali wasn’t a good thing.

“But it also might not be the case.” Qin Jiu continued, “Afterall, the three of us in the mirror experienced the same things but only those two were hungry and I felt nothing.”

“Mm…….” Everyone present exchanged looks. Their expressions turned a little strange.

You Huo swallowed his last bite and went to the kitchen to get some water before returning and asking Yu Wen, “What’s with that expression of yours?”

“Couldn’t you see us from inside the mirror?” Yu Wen asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, why?”

“Then the things we discussed here in the morning; you don’t know about it?”

You Huo paused and took a sip of water, “Got up later and didn’t pay attention. What is it?”

Yu Wen was a little hesitant to speak. In the end, Yang Shu was the one who spoke up, “I sleepwalked last night and was standing at the door bouncing a ball.”

You Huo: “Bouncing what?”

“A rubber ball.”

Yang Shu pointed at Shu Xue and said, “Doesn’t it sound ridiculous? I didn’t believe it at first, but Xiao Xue managed to get it on video. I then noticed that my fingers were a little dusty, so….”

Her face fell, “I also agree with your speculations. It’s probably a case of assimilation.”

Wu Li quickly added, “I originally didn’t want to mention it because there might’ve been subjective factors influencing it, but I have also been a little hungry the whole day today. It’s even after having eaten something.”

Whenever she encountered something, she liked to try and find a pattern or trend to it.

“I personally think that anyone who has entered the mirror will be more or less affected by assimilation, but it is to different extents and this might due to physical differences. The impact probably increases the longer you stay in there; whoever stays inside the mirror longest would probably be affected the most.”

Compared to Wu Li who only felt a little hungry, You Huo and Chu Yue who had stayed in the mirror for a whole night had become so hungry, they even had the urge to eat anyone who appears before them.

“These two siblings behave differently so our assimilation is also a little different. I was assimilated by Sali so I would become hungry. Xiao Yang was assimilated by Shirley so she started to bounce the ball.”

“The three of you have stayed in there the longest so becoming assimilated is inevitable.” Wu Li looked at Qin Jiu, “If you haven’t felt any hungry then you’re likely……..”

Likely going to be bouncing rubber balls.

Qin Jiu: “…….”

The expression on this great master’s face was too terrifying. The others who were faced with this look didn’t dare move.

Only You Huo was able to calmly tear open a bar of chocolate. As he slowly tore off the wrapper, he suddenly let out a laugh.

He broke a piece off and handed it to the person next to him. The small smile at his lips was still there, “Here, for comfort.”

Qin Jiu looked at the hooked corners of his lips and received the chocolate in exasperation, “Forget it. It’s not a loss if it managed to make you laugh.”

But those were only speculations. They have not yet been confirmed.

They placed a few fully charged phones in various corners of the house to see if they could record something more clearly.

At 9pm, the biological clock in the examination centre once again started and everyone soon fell asleep in their respective rooms.

Yu Wen who had grown used to staying up all night was a standard night owl.

In the exams here, his biological clock would sometimes work and sometimes malfunction. If he was lucky, he would be able to sleep all the way until dawn but if he was unlucky…..The moment he wakes up, he would become more and more awake. Being able to fall asleep again would no longer be a possibility for him

Tonight, his luck was very bad.

At around 3am, he heard a steady rhythmic sound in his half-asleep state.

His first thought was that the basketball team had once again started their training. From the sound of the dribbling, it must be their captain.

The captain’s dribbling gradually got closer and closer until it became a little deafening.

Yu Wen mumbled a “I’ll go on court later” and turned over.

A few seconds later, he reacted and immediately opened his eyes.

What training?!

Captain my ass!

He then saw someone standing next to his bed. The sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and the muscular lines of the forearm was particularly prominent as the wrist moved with each bounce.

From outside the window, light from the lamp in the backyard filtered in. With half his face under the light and half his face obscured by shadows, that person looked down at him from above.

Yu Wen sat there petrified.

Qin Jiu was standing before him bouncing a rubber ball…..

Three thoughts instantly flashed through his mind—–

Looks like he’s playing basketball.

So handsome.

I’m gonna die.

Yu Wen immediately jumped up and sprinted up to the second floor with the fastest speed possible. He cried out desperately: “Brother———Help!!!”

KK has something to say:

Thank you everyone for your patience during my short break. I’m back now~