absurd deduction game.

The rain pattered down like a waterfall, striking every window frame and roof against the outer wall of the manor, creating a perfect environment for hide-and-seek.

Carlos emerged quietly from a dimly lit corner of a corridor, his steps light and silent, carrying an almost leisurely ease.

He had already received the signal that the paper doll had died a heroic death, and the thought of how furious Fennell would be after being tricked made the smile on his lips impossible to shake off.

Oops~

Shouldn't we send someone to arrest him?

In fact, the restrictions that Fernail set up outside the manor could not trap him at all. For the best magician in the world, "escaping the cage" was a familiar kind of magic. He could even use paper dolls to achieve conceptual abilities such as "escaping will definitely succeed". The reason he stayed in the manor was because he wanted to take this opportunity to confirm some things.

Carlos walked forward along the carpeted corridor, his emerald eyes scanning the surroundings in the dim light, quickly sketching out a map of the vast estate in his mind.

Overwhelmed by his comfort, he even began to hum a tune, the bizarre melody echoing softly, making him seem even more boss-like than the boss himself.

Sudden.

Just as he passed a fork in the road and was about to turn left, a series of slightly chaotic and hurried footsteps came from behind him, rapidly approaching.

There was more than one person in the voices; their footsteps were heavy and purposeful, as if they were searching for something.

"They really came to arrest me, and their reaction was a little faster than I expected," Carlos muttered to himself.

Without even twitching his eyebrows, his body reacted first. With a sway of his body, he deftly slid to the side into a half-open door, gently closing it behind him, leaving only an almost invisible gap.

Inside the door was a stagnant darkness, the air thick with dust, like a long-unused storage room or an abandoned guest room.

Carlos pressed his back against the cold door panel and squatted down, immersing himself completely in the deeper shadow behind the door. He controlled all the subtle sounds that might be produced by his movements against the backdrop of the roaring rain.

Figures began to move back and forth in the corridor.

In the darkness, the last trace of a smile on Carlos's face slowly disappeared. He listened to the sounds outside, his mind blank. In the dim light filtering through the crack in the door and diluted by the corridor wall lamps, his usually somewhat cynical emerald green eyes revealed a subtle texture.

Half of his pupils were illuminated by that faint light, reflecting a cool and clear luster like a cat's eye stone, while the other half was completely submerged in the shadow cast by the hair in front of his eyebrows, so deep that it was unfathomable.

The footsteps grew closer and paused briefly in the corridor outside the door. It seemed that the leader was giving instructions in a low voice, speaking quickly in the local dialect of Yolikev, interspersed with a few indistinct words that sounded like specific terms used within the esoteric sect.

Carlos didn't hear it very clearly, but the words "every room," "thoroughly," and "master's command" still clearly penetrated his ears.

A few strands of his slightly wavy, bluish-gray hair fell loose from his earlier movements, casually draped over his forehead, and trembled slightly with his very soft breathing.

He didn't brush it away, letting the slight itch linger on his skin, remaining motionless and lying dormant, listening to the people outside opening each door along the corridor and searching carefully.

Close, getting closer.

Carlos's body muscles, pressed against the door, were not tense at all; instead, they displayed a strange relaxation. Only his pupils, which were slightly constricted as he stared through the crack in the door, took in all the movements.

Several figures dressed in servants' uniforms quickly passed through the crack in the door, without stopping, and continued searching towards the other end of the corridor.

One of the male servants slowed his pace, glanced in Carlos's direction, and hesitated, "This wall... how come it's so wide? Was it always like this?"

Another person glanced over as well, then picked up a black badge, muttered a strange phrase, and an invisible sense of filth radiated outwards from the badge, but failed to reflect anything.

The man said expressionlessly, "There's nothing unusual here. Let's go. We still have many places to search. Don't keep the lady waiting too long."

The male servant who had stopped first stopped and, seeing this, immediately quickened his pace to catch up with the others.

The footsteps gradually faded into the distance, eventually being swallowed up by the sound of rain.

In the darkness, Carlos's lips curved into a faint, cold smile, and the light and shadow in his emerald eyes shifted, regaining some of their usual liveliness, yet also carrying an indescribable, subtle sense of oppression, like that of a lurking beast.

He gently moved his fingers, pulled out a small paper figure that was rapidly turning black and decaying from his sleeve, and with a flick of his wrist, the paper figure spontaneously combusted in mid-air, completely erasing the curse power that the esoteric emblem had been pointing at him.

too weak.

Fennell's original form was a monster, but at such close range, Carlos could sense that these servants were just humans who had undergone some mutation and modification after joining the cult.

So he simply set up a decoy, hiding the door to this rarely used room from the space, making it appear as a flat wall, so that the esoteric servants wouldn't notice.

With this level of expertise, did Fernail really expect them to be able to find an investigator who even she had failed to find?
Carlos knew that Fernail's real intentions were probably not what they seemed. Her servants were pretending to hunt him down, but rather to create disturbances and cover up some secrets that he might discover.

So, where is he going next?
Carlos stood up, pondered for a moment, and then suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

If there really is such a secret place, and Fernail is worried that he will find out after he runs away, then he will probably have to send everyone away and go to check it out alone. Otherwise, he can quietly go around to the back and follow Fernail in reverse.

But if Fernal were to be cautious, she wouldn't go immediately.

Alright then, he'll go check on the injured Anthony first, and see if that unfortunate university professor is still alive.

Having made his decision, Carlos moved toward Anthony's position as if it were his own backyard.

Anthony was caught in the act of adultery in his own room, and later his mistress suddenly fell ill there, causing chaos. He and Yu Xing were both present at the time and heard with their own ears that Fernail had the family doctor take Anthony to the medical room.

Medical room, medical room...

Ten minutes later, Carlos found his way to the door of the medical room. This room was located near the center of the manor, close to the small living room, but probably no one expected that he would not hide in a secluded place, but instead swagger back to the original spot, so now the room was empty.

Through the gap at the bottom of the door, he could see the lights were on in the medical room.

Carlos stopped outside the door but did not push it open immediately.

He turned his head and gently pressed one ear against the cold, heavy wooden door. As he concentrated, all the other chaotic background noises receded like a tide, and the world on the other side of the door gradually became clear.

It was very quiet inside.

There was only one sound of breathing.

The breathing was shallow, with an unnatural, deliberately suppressed frequency. Each inhalation was short and labored, while the exhalation was long and drawn out, trembling uncontrollably. It must have been caused by pain, and a persistent, intense pain at that.

Carlos thought that the owner of the breathing sound seemed to have exhausted the strength to struggle, leaving only instinctive, painful gasps.

Besides that, he heard nothing—no rustling of the family doctor moving around or tidying up equipment, no whispered conversations, not even a second breath.

This was not unexpected.

Carlos straightened up, gripped the doorknob, and silently pressed it down. Then, very slowly and gently, he pushed the door open a crack just big enough for him to squeeze in. He slid in with a swift movement and then silently closed the door behind him.

The air inside the door immediately changed.

A strong, pungent smell of blood mixed with disinfectant, alcohol, and some kind of old herbal medicine wafted towards him, much stronger than he had expected.

There was indeed no one inside. He looked around and saw that the medical room was not large, about 20 square meters, a typical upper-middle-class family configuration in the Victorian era.

Against the wall was a row of cabinets made of dark walnut wood, behind which were neatly stacked glass bottles and jars of various sizes, containing liquids of questionable color or medicinal specimens.

A long table covered with white linen served as the operating table, on which were scattered several silver surgical instruments—scalpels, tweezers, and probes—that had been wiped clean but still bore dark red marks, reflecting a cold, hard light under the dim yellow glow of the gas lamp in the center of the room.

On the other side of the wall stood a brass bracket with a huge kerosene lamp with a spherical glass dome, one of the light sources in the room. In the corner were several locked tin boxes with blurry medical symbols printed on them.

Several yellowed anatomical diagrams were pasted on the wall, their lines stiff and conveying an outdated sense of seriousness.

Overall, the room was less suited for meticulous treatment and more for emergency procedures and operations that required less sophisticated conditions.

Perhaps tantric practitioners use this place when processing materials for live rituals? Carlos thought to himself as he stepped inside.

At this moment, the only sign of life in the room came from the hospital bed in the corner, completely hidden by a heavy curtain.

The curtains hung from the ceiling, enclosing the bed in a private and enclosed space, which was also the core source of the strong smell of blood.

Carlos's gaze lingered for a moment on the control panel littered with bloodstained instruments, then swept across the empty room before finally settling on the curtain.

Without hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the edge of the curtain, pulling it open to the side in a flash.

The sight before him caused Carlos to twitch his eyebrows almost imperceptibly.

Professor Anthony was bound to the hospital bed in a "T" shape, with his wrists and ankles firmly secured to the bed rails with strong leather straps.

The clothes he should have been wearing were gone; he was only covered by a thin linen sheet that was already mostly soaked in blood.

His abdomen—or rather, the place that used to be his abdomen—is now a shocking, brutally dissected, enormous wound.

The incision was deep and long, almost running across the entire upper abdomen, with jagged edges. It didn't look like the result of delicate surgery, but rather like it was forcibly cut open with brute force or some kind of dull tool.

The skin and flesh were rolled up, revealing the outline of dark red and pinkish-white organs underneath. Fresh blood soaked the sheets beneath him and was still dripping down the edge of the bed onto the floor, pooling into a small, sticky, dark red puddle.

What's most unsettling is that Anthony was still conscious.

His head was tilted limply to one side, his face was deathly pale, his forehead was covered with cold sweat, his glasses were nowhere to be seen, and his once refined eyes, now completely swallowed by pain and despair, were staring blankly at the ceiling, his pupils dilated, only the occasional violent twitching could prove that he was still alive.

His lips moved, emitting extremely faint, intermittent groans.

When Carlos drew back the curtain, the change in light and shadow seemed to excite him.

Anthony's eyes moved extremely slowly, and he painstakingly focused on Carlos's face.

He seemed to recognize the person who had come, and a strange light suddenly burst forth in his unfocused pupils—it wasn't a cry for help, but a plea.

A series of gasping sounds came from his throat as he used the last of his strength to finally squeeze out a few words that were so indistinct they were almost unintelligible:

"It hurts..."

"Kill...kill me..."

"Please...you..."

Every word seemed to be squeezed out from a broken bellows, filled with unspeakable pain and utter collapse, long since devoid of any will to live.

Carlos clicked his tongue softly, the sound particularly clear in the silent medical room.

“It’s worse than I thought, Professor.” He spoke as if to himself, or perhaps to thin air, his tone devoid of much sympathy. “I thought that once Fernel had squeezed the last drop of value out of you and found a new ‘lover’ to play with, she would have the family doctor kill you to eliminate any future trouble.”

He tilted his head slightly, his blue-gray hair swaying gently with the movement.

"I never expected that I would arrange such a 'surgery' for you."

Carlos refocused his gaze on the mangled abdominal cavity, carefully examining the shape of the wound edges and the exposed internal organs. After a moment, he raised his hand, pointed in that direction with his chin, and asked Anthony in a friendly manner, "Did the family doctor just pull something out of your stomach?"

"What did you give birth to? An alien?"

This scene is so similar to what you see in the movies.

Aliens were not part of Mrs. Yorick's worldview, and they couldn't possibly know what Carlos was talking about, but Anthony seemed to understand the gist of it.

His unfocused pupils suddenly contracted, and a more violent "hoarse" sound came from his throat. His body began to spasm uncontrollably, pulling on the wound in his abdomen, causing more blood and fluid to gush out, bringing a new round of excruciating pain.

"baby……"

He tried to make his words clearer: "Two...heads..."

"They...the cult...took them away..." (End of Chapter)