stonecrandall Page 21
Page 21
As soon as Tsurumi looked up and finished speaking, she met Chen Xiao's smiling eyes. Those eyes, illuminated by the campfire, resembled amber, yet their depths held unfathomable undercurrents.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be going now!" As dusk fell, the campfire illuminated Chen Xiao's sharply defined profile.
He deliberately turned away in front of Rumi Tsurumi, but his steps were extremely slow. Three steps later, he heard a faint rustling sound of fabric behind him—the stubborn little girl was indeed peeking.
"What?" Chen Xiao suddenly turned around, just in time to catch Tsurumi hurriedly lowering her head. The undisguised disappointment in her eyes made him smile slightly. "You don't want me to leave?"
"Who, who can't bear to part with them!" Tsurumi slammed the buttons on the game console. "You should go find your girlfriends!"
Chen Xiao chuckled lightly, "You'd better not fall for me!"
This time he was truly gone. He didn't need to turn around to know that the eyes hidden under the red hat were still following his retreating figure. Children's minds are so easy to understand; the more indifferent they seem, the more they care.
Chapter Thirty-Two: My woman is not someone you can confess your love to?
As they reached the edge of the camp, Ebina was already waiting there.
The night breeze lifted her skirt, revealing her slender calves.
Chen Xiao wrapped his arms around her from behind, embracing Hai Laoming's alluring body.
"Has the letter been delivered?" His lips almost touched her earlobe.
Ebina nodded, a strand of hair brushing against Chen Xiao's cheek: "As you said... arrange to meet him at the old warehouse at eight o'clock." She hesitated for a moment, "Brother Chen Xiao, you don't really want to......"
"Shh—" Chen Xiao pressed his index finger to her lips. "Tonight, all you have to do is enjoy the haunted house game." He slid his fingertip down, gently stroking the delicate skin of her collarbone. "Leave the rest to me."
From afar came Yumiko Miura's voice: "Chen Xiao! Are you going to come and help set up the haunted house or not? It was clearly your idea that came up to us all." She stood there with her hands on her hips, her long golden hair shining in the firelight, but she couldn't hide the unnatural blush on her face.
Chen Xiao released Hai Laoming and walked towards Miura: "Yumiko is unusually enthusiastic today." He deliberately leaned closer and sniffed, "Your perfume smells really good."
"What nonsense are you talking about!" Miura Yumiko said, bristling like a cat. "I just... I just thought the haunted house should be a little scary... so I put on a strong perfume scent to scare the kids."
Chen Xiao burst out laughing, too lazy to see through Yumiko's act, thinking to himself, "Yumiko must be trying to get men's attention, that's why she's wearing such attractive perfume."
"That's perfect." Chen Xiao magically produced a pale white ghost mask. "How about we form a group?"
Yumiko Miura's heart was pounding. Even when she was with someone as handsome as Chen Xiao, she sometimes found herself unconsciously developing feelings for him.
She didn't understand why she had difficulty breathing whenever she saw Chen Xiao lately, even though she used to hate philandering guys like him.
But when he looked at me with those smiling eyes, all my principles became utterly ineffective.
The haunted house was set up in a sparse cedar forest. Chen Xiao and Miura were in charge of the scariest scene, the "zombie bride."
As Miura clumsily hung the white gauze on the tree, Chen Xiao walked up from behind.
"Hang it like this." His chest pressed against her back, his arm around Miura Yumiko's slender waist, "so that the gauze curtains can flutter."
Yumiko Miura froze, the white gauze in her hands slipping to the ground. She should have pushed this frivolous man away, but her body betrayed her will, leaning back instead—
"Ah!" A shrill scream suddenly rang out. Yumiko Miura startled herself, tripped, and fell backward.
Chen Xiao caught her steadily.
Under the moonlight, the two were in an extremely ambiguous position: Miura Yumiko's blonde hair was scattered in his arms, and her lips were slightly open in fright; Chen Xiao had one arm around her waist and the other hand on the tree trunk next to her ear.
"Why are you so eager to get close to me?" he teased softly, his gaze lingering on her lips.
Yumiko Miura's mind went blank. She should be angry, she should slap him, but her body was paralyzed as if possessed.
Then Chen Xiao suddenly glanced at his watch and said, "It's 7:50. I'm going to the restroom."
He released her swiftly and decisively, as if the previous intimacy had never existed.
Yumiko Miura stood frozen in place, watching Chen Xiao's tall figure disappear into the darkness, a strange sense of loss welling up in her chest.
Chen Xiao quickened her pace after leaving Miura's sight.
The moonlight cast his shadow long, like a drawn sword. At the entrance of the old warehouse, Tobu Sho paced nervously back and forth.
"Ebina, are you there? You're the one who asked me out, hehe, you know what? I've always liked you, but that Chen Xiao is so annoying. I've been under a lot of pressure just to confess to you." Hobu Sho muttered to himself with his back to the sound of footsteps.
But no one responded.
Hu Buxiang turned around expectantly, only to be met with a pair of icy eyes. "Chen... Chen Xiao?!"
"Surprised?" Chen Xiao's smile looked particularly eerie in the moonlight. He slowly took off his watch, which he used to tell time, and put it in his pocket to prevent it from being stained with blood later.
Do you know why I'm looking for you?
Tobe Sho took a few steps back, his back against the cold wall: "I...I don't know...Hime-chan asked me out..."
"Don't you know Ebina is my woman? You dare to touch my woman?" Chen Xiao approached step by step.
"So what!" Tobu Sho forced a calm expression. "I like Ebina, and that's it. Even if she has a boyfriend, I'll still pursue her! What is Chen Xiao? Just a pretty boy, nowhere near as good as Hayama!"
"Hayama Hayato?" Chen Xiao chuckled, then suddenly grabbed Tobe Sho by the neck and lifted him off the ground. "What is Hayama Hayato? Does he even dare to compare himself to me?"
"You! Put me down right now!" Tobu Sho kicked wildly, his feet leaving the ground, and a gurgling sound came from his throat. Chen Xiao's fingers tightened like iron clamps as he admired the other's face, which had turned a deep purplish-red.
"You like Ebina?" Chen Xiao's voice was terrifyingly soft. "You piece of trash don't even deserve it?"
He slammed Tobe Sho to the ground. Tobe Sho curled up, coughing, his face covered in snot and tears, but he still stubbornly insisted, "A pretty boy like you doesn't deserve to be with Ebina. Ebina belongs to me."
Chen Xiao squatted down and pulled out a scalpel that he had prepared for a long time from his shoe.
Moonlight streamed across the blade, illuminating his smiling eyes: "Do you know what kind of knife this is? It's used by the medical school to dissect corpses... It's exceptionally sharp, and besides surgery, it's also very useful for killing."
The tip of the knife lightly grazed the button on Tobu Sho's school uniform, and the plastic button silently split in two.
"Wait, wait!" Tobe Sho finally panicked. "I can apologize! I promise I'll never—"
"Shh..." Chen Xiao pressed the tip of his knife against his neck, moving it up and down his collarbone. "The first cut should be slow."
The sensation of the blade piercing his skin made Chen Xiao squint his eyes in pleasure. Tobe Sho's scream was cut short – Chen Xiao, prepared in advance, stuffed a wad of cloth into his mouth.
"This strike is for Ebina." Chen Xiao twirled the hilt of the knife, making a sticky sound as he churned through the flesh. "You dare confess your love to my woman? Do you deserve it?"
Blood gushed from the stab wound, soaking the front of his school uniform. Tobe Sho's eyes bulged, and he let out a non-human whimper.
"The second cut..." Chen Xiao pulled out the knife and wiped the blood on Hu Buxiang's face, "It's for your recklessness."
This time, he aimed for the femoral artery and precisely made a cut. Blood splattered onto the wall like an abstract painting.
"You bastard!!! Ahhh, Hayama knows I went to confess to Ebina today. If I die, he'll definitely suspect you!" Tobe Sho spat out the cloth ball, threatening weakly, "You're dead, Chen Xiao!!"
Chen Xiao suddenly burst into laughter, the sound echoing in the empty warehouse. He grabbed Hu Buxiang's hair, forcing the other man to look him in the eye: "Do you know why I chose this warehouse?"
He pointed to several plastic buckets emitting white smoke in the corner: "Concentrated sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide... In three hours, you won't even be able to find your teeth."
Tobe Sho's pupils contracted sharply. He finally realized that the always smiling man in front of him was not a student at all, but a devil in human skin.
"please……"
"The last blow," Chen Xiao said, pressing the tip of his knife against Hu Buxiang's pounding heart, "is for my own amusement."
As the blade completely penetrated his chest cavity, Tobe Sho's heel left a long trail of blood on the ground.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Manipulating Yumiko Miura
After Hubu Xiang died.
Chen Xiao swiftly drew his knife, severed off Hu Buxiang's hand to use as a prop in a horror game, and put it in his backpack.
He glanced at his watch—8:15, just five minutes into the haunted house event, a perfect alibi.
Chen Xiao took out a mint from his pocket and put it in his mouth; the refreshing taste diluted the smell of blood.
As he passed the chemical vat, he casually tossed his bloodstained scalpel in. The hissing sound of melting metal was like the chuckle of a demon. The chemicals, along with the scalpel, were meticulously sprinkled onto Tobe Sho's corpse.
The body will dissolve into blood over time.
After Chen Xiao made a perfect exit from the scene.
The moonlight was like water, and Miura Yumiko leaned lazily against an ancient tree, her white gauze dress fluttering gently in the night breeze.
"Ten minutes have passed..." She tapped her slender fingers on the tree trunk, her voice tinged with feigned impatience, "Did you fall into the toilet?"
Chen Xiao slowly emerged from the shadows, a playful smile playing on his lips: "So eager to see me? It seems Yumiko cares about me more than I thought."
"What nonsense are you talking about!" Miura Yumiko turned her face away, but couldn't hide the blush rising at the tips of her ears. "I'm just... worried about messing up the mission!"
"Worried? Or... are you actually looking forward to spending time alone with me?"
Yumiko Miura's breathing became noticeably erratic.
She instinctively stepped back, but her back bumped against the rough tree trunk. "Don't flatter yourself!" she said, trying to appear calm, raising her chin. "If it weren't for cooperating with you, I wouldn't bother being alone with you..."
"Is that really all?" Chen Xiao's fingers gently brushed across her cheek, while his other hand rested on her slightly heaving abdomen. "Then why is your heart beating so fast?"
"You...!" Miura Yumiko angrily slapped his hand away, but recoiled as if she had been electrocuted the moment she touched him.
She hastily changed the subject: "Those kids aren't afraid of ghosts at all! I heard it all just now, Yukinoshita and the others completely failed!"
Chen Xiao chuckled softly and slowly put his mask back on: "So, Yumiko wants to prove to me that she's better than Yukinoshita?"
"No, that's not it!" Miura Yumiko snapped, turning away defiantly, her white dress tracing a graceful arc. "I just... I just don't want to lose to anyone!"
Chen Xiao suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back towards him with a slight force. His eyes behind the mask were as deep as a pool: "Including losing to me?"
The two were so close they could feel each other's breath.
Yumiko Miura stared wide-eyed as he slowly leaned down, but suddenly stopped just before touching him.
“It’s time for you to take the stage, my ‘ghost’ lady.” Chen Xiao’s teasing voice, warm with his breath, brushed past her ear. “Let’s give the children an…unforgettable night.”
As night deepened, the sound of children's playful footsteps echoed along the forest path.
A group of elementary school students walked over hand in hand, skipping and hopping, their faces full of disdain and smugness.
"This is supposed to be a haunted house game? It's not scary at all!" the little girl laughed.
"Exactly!" the boy next to him chimed in, making an exaggerated face. "These high schoolers are so childish!"
Among the excited children, Rumi Tsurumi lagged behind, the game console screen in her hand emitting a faint blue light, as if an invisible wall had been erected, separating her from this bustling world.
In the distance, under the shadows of the trees, Yui Yuigahama kicked at a small pebble in frustration: "It's not working at all..." After saying that, she turned to Yukino Yukinoshita beside her, "Did we mess this up?"
Yukino Yukinoshita gazed at the end of the mountain path: "Now, it's time to see Chen Xiao's performance."
Just then, a sinister laugh suddenly came from the woods.
The children's laughter and noise stopped abruptly, and a white-clad "female ghost" floated out from behind the tree—it was none other than Miura Yumiko, dressed up in a meticulously crafted manner.