Rules of Horror: Survival Begins in the Haunted Harem - Chapter 40

Xie Nuange’s breath caught. She immediately turned and faced the wall in a guarded stance.

Moonlight filtered through the canopy and reflected across its surface.

What appeared there was neither a ghost nor the shadow of the leaves.

It was… a picture.

Xie Nuange observed it from a distance. Only after sensing no danger did she approach the wall.

The image had fully formed.

Shadow and moonlight had drawn a simple scene across the plaster.

She could make out a man lying on the ground. Wounds covered his body, and his limbs bent at unnatural angles. He was probably dead.

Two owls perched on his face.

One used its razor-sharp beak to peck at his left eye.

The other tilted its head, studying the right eye as though deciding how best to eat it.

Something leaked from the ruptured left socket and ran down the man’s cheek.

Xie Nuange lowered her gaze.

A jade pendant hung from his waist.

She leaned closer, trying to see its design.

The moonlight shifted. The pattern flashed past.

She failed to see all of it, but she caught its outline.

That shape…

Her pupils contracted.

Xie Nuange removed the wooden token at her waist, turned it over, and compared its design with the one on the wall.

They seemed… identical.

And that jade pendant…

Could it be the same one she had glimpsed inside the main hall that noon?

When Xie Nuange went outside earlier, Su Ye had been trapped in the room.

Had she seen a picture on the wall too?

And if so, what had hers shown?

Wang Yun’s partner was an exceptionally cautious palace candidate.

She had gone outside for the noon sunlight and now went out again for the moonlight.

Wang Yun did not mind.

She wanted to search for clues, and they had already confirmed that sunlight itself was harmless.

Their group’s Faith Points were already very high.

After watching the others bask in the moonlight, Wang Yun decided not to remain in it.

She chose a spot close to the banyan tree and stepped beneath the canopy’s shadow.

Moonlight could not reach her there.

The tree’s shade covered her instead.

When she saw her Faith Points begin to fall, Wang Yun’s eyes lit up.

The clue they had found today was right.

As she rejoiced, a voice spoke.

“Why have you forsaken the deity?”

It was calm and unhurried, filled with compassion.

Like a bodhisattva in a temple questioning someone who had lost her way.

“Faithless believer.”

Wang Yun went rigid and remembered the banyan’s second rule.

[Rule Two: If the tree speaks to you, leave immediately and spit at it. The deity does not like you approaching this tree.]

She ran away from the banyan at once.

“Alas…”

A sigh sounded.

Then came the crisp crack of breaking bone.

Wang Yun collapsed. Agony tore through her left leg.

“Aah!”

Xie Nuange was still studying the picture when a scream erupted outside.

She hurried to the window just in time to see Wang Yun sprawled on the ground.

Wang Yun activated a ghost item, healed herself, and sprinted toward the moonlit area.

Crack.

Another bone broke.

Thud.

Wang Yun fell again. Tears and sweat covered her face as she dragged herself forward inch by inch.

Rustle…

The banyan canopy abruptly shook, as though trembling in a wind no one else could feel.

A leaf spiraled down and landed beside Wang Yun.

She did not look at it. She had already moved some distance away.

Xie Nuange and everyone outside watched her.

[Rule Three: It is the guardian deity of Great Qian’s people. You may stand beneath its shadow, and it will protect every one of its subjects. But if it begins to rustle, leave at once.]

Then came one sharp crack after another.

An unseen force was breaking Wang Yun’s body section by section.

She looked down at her arm.

It was still attached, but white bone had punched through the skin, slick with blood.

Bloody foam filled her mouth. Some shattered bone had already pierced her organs.

“Help… me…”

She tried to beg, looking hopefully toward the people standing in the moonlight.

But when she opened her mouth, blood and pieces of organs spilled out together.

She tried to crawl back into the light.

She was violating a rule.

But it was too late.

Wang Yun lay with her cheek against the cold stones, eyes fixed on the moonlight ahead.

It was only three steps away.

So close that she felt she could reach it by extending a hand.

She tried.

Her arm was broken, but her fingers still moved. Her nails scraped the stones with a shrill screech.

They split apart, exposing raw flesh.

She dragged herself one step forward.

The moonlight was right there.

A little farther. Just a little farther, and it would touch her.

Her fingertips entered the light.

Warm.

As warm as the blazing sun at noon.

But the rest of her body remained in shadow.

Wang Yun stared at the moonlight. Sudden agony struck her chest.

Her pupils dilated. Her mouth opened helplessly as she fought for air.

She could no longer move.

Even her fingers went still. Her face remained pressed to the stones, eyes fixed on the light.

It illuminated only her fingertips.

She could not advance another inch.

Xie Nuange swallowed.

Every sound from outside carried clearly into the room.

She heard the bones in Wang Yun’s body shatter. She heard exposed bone scrape across the paving stones. She heard the violent cracks tearing through her flesh.

Xie Nuange’s entire body seemed to ache in sympathy.

The door opened, and she went outside.

Quite a few people were already in the courtyard, with more emerging from their rooms.

Xie Nuange walked to Su Ye and glanced at the body.

“What happened?”

A long streak of blood stretched from beneath the banyan to the front of the main hall.

“I don’t know. She was under the tree, and then suddenly…”

Su Ye’s face had gone pale. Watching someone be tortured to death before her eyes had been horrifying.

Xie Nuange approached Wang Yun’s body, then followed the bloody trail backward.

She found the fallen leaf.

Xie Nuange picked it up and checked.

It was an entirely ordinary leaf.

“What are you looking at?” Su Ye asked as she came over.

Xie Nuange shook her head and placed the leaf on the stone ledge around the roots.

“Nothing.”

Perhaps this particular leaf had never carried writing.

Or perhaps it had fallen for Wang Yun, which meant Xie Nuange could not read it.

A crowd gathered around the body.

Eunuchs soon arrived to carry Wang Yun away.

The moment they lifted her, everyone drew a sharp breath.

Her body hung limp as a strand of noodles.

Every bone inside her had been pulverized.