absurd deduction game.

Carlos examined the clay figurine shaped like a weeping actor in his hand, feeling its cool touch and delicate texture, yet it exuded an eerie aura.

Hearing Yu Xing say this, he weighed it in his hand for a moment, then casually stuffed the item into the inside pocket of his coat, saying in a relaxed tone, "Alright, I'll keep it for now and study this thing when I have time."

Cang Nong, watching the two's fluid movements and conversation, seemed somewhat at a loss.

He took a deep breath and once again solemnly thanked Yu Xing and Carlos.

"Thank you both for saving me... I'm truly grateful." His gaze fell on Brother Zhao's cold body beside him, his eyes dimming for a moment, tinged with bitterness and sighing. "Alas... Old Zhao... he was just too unlucky, so close..."

Yu Xing's gaze swept lightly over Cang Nong, his deep eyes seemingly seeing through the young man's skin and into his very core in the dark corridor.

He suddenly spoke, his voice calm with a hint of amusement: "What did you find here that provoked that mad dog to attack?"

Upon hearing this, Cang Nong quickly waved his hand, his face showing helplessness and honesty: "We really didn't find anything! We've been squatting in this old archive room for two nights, trying all sorts of detection methods, but to no avail. It's as clean as if the Goddess of Harvest had personally brushed it!"

He pointed to the drag marks on the ground: "This is the only mark left. We were about to give up, thinking that monster must have run away long ago, but who would have thought we'd run into that corrupt line as soon as we stepped outside..."

Upon hearing this, Yu Xing narrowed her eyes slightly, her fingertips unconsciously tapping lightly on the branches wrapped around her arm, producing a soft rustling sound.

Cang Nong watched his movements, hesitated for a moment, and continued, "Actually... this school is blessed by the Mother Goddess. Even if that monster is strong enough to temporarily evade the blessing's detection, there's no need for it to stay in this 'uncomfortable' place after killing people, right? Maybe it really was just passing by..."

Yu Xing didn't answer immediately, but a cryptic smile curved her lips as she turned to Carlos: "What do you think?"

Carlos's emerald eyes darted deftly around his sockets as he surveyed the archives, piled high with old papers and permeated with dust and the grime of history, a knowing smile playing on his lips.

As a real-level magician from the future, and with his tacit understanding with Yu Xing's teammates, he instantly understood what Yu Xing meant.

“I think…” Carlos drawled out, speaking slowly, “that thing…it’s very likely never left.”

Cang Nong: "Huh?"

Carlos walked to a row of filing cabinets, his fingers brushing against the dusty cabinet doors: "Based on my observation, although the people of the Church of the True God are a bit rigid, they are still professionally capable of dealing with monsters. If a monster leaves, they won't leave without even finding a trace of its departure. The monster is most likely still here and has never moved. Only in this way can they avoid being detected by everyone."

Cang Nong asked blankly, "How did you do that?"

"It's probably because they're relying on... blind spots in their thinking."

He tilted his head, looked at Yu Xing, and said with a sly expression, "Right?"

Yu Xing let out a barely audible "hmm" from her nose, which could be considered her approval.

Cang Nong looked completely bewildered, glancing at Yu Xing and then at Carlos: "Wait... what do you two mean by that? The monster didn't leave, so where could it be hiding? We've practically dug three feet into the ground here!"

Yu Xing did not answer him directly. Instead, she manipulated several ethereal tentacles, like nimble fingers, to casually pull out a few yellowed and curled file folders from the filing cabinet beside her and unfold them in mid-air.

The papers rustled, the writing on them mostly blurred and illegible, recording information about faculty and staff, student grades, or meeting minutes from who knows how many years ago.

"Help me find it." Yu Xing said succinctly to Carlos, his gaze quickly sweeping over the old handwriting. Then, as if he had just remembered Cang Nong's presence, he asked casually, "Aren't you leaving yet?"

Cang Nong's cheeks flushed slightly, seemingly a little embarrassed, but his eyes hardened: "I...can I stay and help? I also want to figure out what this monster is; it's already wasted two nights of my time." He paused, then quickly added, "I promise I won't hold you back, and I mean you no harm!"

Yu Xing glanced at him indifferently, which was taken as tacit approval. Carlos patted Cang Nong on the shoulder with a grin: "Alright, then come and look through the files with me~"

Seeing Cangnong join in, Yu Xing then divided his "perspective" into countless parts, quickly flipping through the files pulled out by the tentacles, while calmly explaining. His voice was exceptionally clear in the empty and silent archive room:
"Everyone examined the environment, the traces, and even every inch of the floor and walls, but they overlooked the files themselves."

"The monsters in Yolikef are all kinds of strange and varied. Not all monsters have to be physical entities or spiritual beings." His gaze swept over the densely packed writing. "They can also be other forms of existence. For example... concepts, or written records."

The message that Qu Xianqing transmitted through the paper doll in the afternoon came to mind—the Red-Robed High Priest's mention of the former principal, Finkin, suffering a mental breakdown due to exposure to "forbidden knowledge."

That incident itself may not be relevant to the present moment, but it confirms a key point: knowledge itself, written records, can also be subject to pollution and danger.

"Did those three students sneak in here late at night really to track down a 'shadow'?" Yu Xing's voice carried a cold, detached tone. "Perhaps, like the previous investigators, they initially found nothing. But driven by curiosity, they may have opened a... special file."

"And that monster is lurking within these dense texts or drawings." His tentacles didn't stop moving as he spoke, quickly sweeping across rows of files and opening all the cabinet doors. "When it finishes its killing, it only needs to close the pages again—that concept of 'closing' and 'storing' itself constitutes the most perfect concealment, enough to deceive most detection methods and even deceive the Mother Goddess's blessing."

While Cang Nong carefully flipped through the files within reach, mimicking their actions, he couldn't help but frequently glance at the eerie branches at Yu Xing's feet that seemed to be wriggling and flipping through the files as if they were alive. Upon hearing this, his face showed an expression of extreme shock.

“Text…text? Hidden in books?” This idea was completely beyond his comprehension. He stammered, “Boss…how did you come up with this?”

Yu Xing didn't even look up. One of her tentacles ran over to Carlos and whispered something in his ear, but it was barely noticeable among the other tentacles. She replied, "After eliminating all the impossibilities, the remaining answer, no matter how incredible, will be the truth, won't it?"

The branches weren't searching blindly, but rather consciously focusing their search on the bookshelf area around the starting point of the three drag marks, where the piles of files were particularly chaotic and ancient.

As soon as he finished speaking, a slender twig seemed to touch something unusual.

It carefully pulled out a small, hand-drawn book from between two heavy kraft paper file folders... the size of a palm, with a cardboard cover.

This notebook is very thin, standing out from the thick archives around it. It is hidden very well, with no words on the cover, only some blurry, childlike colored crayon marks.

Haha! It has to be someone as meticulous as me!

Excited sounds came from the branches, while several other branches as thick as tree stumps nearby creaked and groaned in protest.

Instead of looking at it itself, it handed this strange hand-drawn book to Yu Xing. [Main Brain, come and see!]

The fact that a hand-drawn book had sneaked into the archives was already quite strange. Cang Nong and Carlos stopped what they were doing and looked at Yu Xing's hand through the rapidly growing physical branches in the room.

He accepted the offering of branches and gently lifted the cover with his slender fingers.

The hand-drawn book has only a few pages, and the contents are somewhat childish picture stories drawn with colored crayons.

On the first page, a small figure wearing shiny armor and holding a long sword stands in front of a gloomy and terrifying cave with the word "Hero" on his head. Above the cave are crooked words: "Dragon's Nest".

Next to the hero's name was written: "Brave Karl is going to rescue Princess Emily, who has been captured by the evil dragon!"

On the second page, the little hero enters a cave filled with skulls and spiderwebs, creating a terrifying atmosphere. The accompanying text reads: "The cave is pitch black and scary! But Karl isn't afraid!"

On the third page, the brave little man walked deep into the cave, where there were piles of abstractly drawn, glittering gems and gold coins. But strangely, there was no dragon.

The caption reads: "The dragon isn't home? Great! Karl must find the princess!"

On page four, the little hero stopped in front of the innermost wall of the cave.

He looked up, his face filled with horror, staring at the wall, where... a human figure was embedded.

That was Princess Emily. She was wearing a beautiful dress, but her body seemed to have blended into the cave rocks, and her skin had turned grayish-white, like plaster.

Her expression was no longer one of terror at being abducted, but a hollow smile; her eyes were painted large and black with no pupils, and the corners of her mouth were stretched into an unnatural arc.

Her hair turned into countless twisting, thin black lines, like living shadows, and her limbs were contorted at bizarre angles.

The caption reads: "Karl found the princess! But the princess... has become part of the lair? How could this be?"

On the fifth and last page, the little hero retreats in terror, his sword falling to the ground. On the wall, the princess's distorted face, with its huge, pupil-less black eyes, is "looking" at the hero, her smile growing increasingly eerie.

The surrounding gold coins and gems seemed to have transformed into the shape of eyes, all watching the little hero. This page had no accompanying text, only a large question mark drawn in red crayon.

The story ends abruptly.

Yu Xing quickly flipped through the pages, raising an eyebrow.

He noticed that although the style of the drawings on these pages deliberately imitated the naivety of children, the lines and the layout of the pictures revealed an undeniable stability and skill, which could not have been drawn by a real child.

This is more like a "child's drawing" carefully disguised by someone who has received some art training.

When he turned to the last page—the terrifying image of the princess blending into her lair and sporting a sinister smile—

"Giggle..."

A clear, crisp, yet endlessly cold girl's laughter suddenly rang out in the deathly silent old archives room!

The laughter seemed to come from all directions, and seemed to resound directly in everyone's mind, filled with a contradictory sense of innocence and evil, which was chilling.

Cang Nong shivered violently, instantly adopting a defensive stance and nervously looking around: "Who?!"

The eerie sketchbook in Yu Xing's hand was open. He raised his head, his dark blue eyes sweeping over every shadowy corner of the archives, while a cold smile, like that of someone who had spotted prey, slowly curled up at the corner of his mouth.

"It seems... we've found 'it'."

The ethereal yet eerie laughter of the young girl echoed in the archives, like invisible ice needles piercing everyone's eardrums. Dust danced wildly in the pale moonlight streaming through the windows, as if stirred by an invisible current.

Immediately afterwards, the air above the sketchbook in Yu Xing's hand began to distort and condense.

A blurry figure, about 1.2 meters tall, gradually emerged.

It depicts the silhouette of a little girl wearing a simple crayon-style princess dress, with crooked yellow lines for her hair, two large black dots representing her eyes, and an exaggerated smile drawn with red crayon.

It had no physical form, floating in mid-air like a clumsy projection. Its black dot eyes "looked" at Yu Xing, then at Carlos and Cang Nong, both innocent and malicious.

"This is...?" Cang Nong swallowed nervously, subconsciously taking a half step back, his body steaming silently.

"Looks like a... mini princess." Carlos joked, but his fingertips were already flashing with magical light.

The little "fantasy" princess seemed to have heard Carlos's words, and its laughter suddenly turned shrill!

It suddenly spread its arms, and the sketchbook suddenly flew up automatically, hovering behind it, flipping through its pages frantically.

The childish drawings in the sketchbook came to life, their colors distorted and flowing, exuding a strong sense of spiritual pollution.

At the same time, throughout the entire old archive room, on the surface of all the files, documents, and dossiers on the bookshelves—regardless of their age or content—one after another, huge, bloodshot, and constantly moving eyes began to appear!

Thousands upon thousands of eyes opened simultaneously, densely packed, filling every inch of visible space, their cold, numb gazes, filled with a sense of voyeurism, focused on them. The air instantly became thick and heavy, an indescribable pollution pressing down like a tangible force! (End of Chapter)