Deity Investigation Report

Chapter 22 They are monsters
Inside the castle, in the hall directly opposite the door, there is an exaggeratedly large oval table covered with a thick purple tablecloth. On both sides of the table, all sorts of people, or rather, monsters, are now seated.

At that moment, they both turned to look at the door, each with a smile on their face.

The children's eyes were glazed over, unable to react to the bizarre and shocking scene, while Han Su in the crowd was equally numb.

He had been "welcomed" by these monsters many times and had long since become desensitized. Instead, as he walked towards the castle amidst the crowd, he only habitually observed any details around him.

I first looked at the rose wall in the northwest corner and saw that behind the weeds, there were many wooden planks nailed in horizontal and vertical directions.

There was a hole there, just big enough for a small child to squeeze through.

That was the path he took when he first escaped, but the hole had been repaired after he was kidnapped from the future for the second time.

Similar repairs have been done many times. Originally, this dilapidated bunker was full of gaps destroyed by time or some other force, and there were many places where children could crawl in and out.

He had used these loopholes to escape many times, but each time he was kidnapped and brought back, the loopholes from his previous escape were usually blocked, as if an invisible force was constantly fixing the bugs in the castle.

But strangely, the monsters here seem unaware that they have escaped from here countless times; they don't remember escaping before.

While pondering, Han Su had already entered the castle hall with the children whose eyes were glazed over. The monsters sitting around the oval table slowly turned their heads.

Han Su had counted them countless times and secretly observed them countless times.

Their shapes vary, and they bear some resemblance to the sketches made during the Song and Chu periods, but the sense of life, mystery, and terror they evoke is far beyond what the original sketches could ever capture.

There were seven of them, scattered around the oval table. There were many empty seats around it, and in front of each seat were tableware, chairs, and some even had half a glass of wine. This surprised Han Su. Could there be other monsters that hadn't come over?

Unfortunately, during all his escapes, he never encountered any other monsters.

Turning to the corner of the stairs, there stood a solitary candlestick, made of brass, over a meter tall, with intricate patterns all over it, but without a candle, only a sharp spike.

Like the rose bushes, the candles on them have been removed.

However, when his gaze fell upon the pale, bloated monster in a tight-fitting suit beside the long table, he noticed a brass key on his waist.

This relieved him slightly: 'Thankfully, the key is still on the pale giant.'

'This means the door is on that floor too, which means I just need to replicate the route I took last time as closely as possible to escape…'

"Clap"

The butler clapped his hands lightly twice, the sound crisp and elegant.

Just as the children's eyes suddenly became glazed and they forgot to make noise after the clapping, this time the clapping was like a switch being turned on again, and all the children were suddenly awakened.

They raised their little heads, looked around at their surroundings, and gradually expressions of fear appeared on their faces.

In particular, when someone saw a monk covered in insects and dressed in black robes on the dining table, they were so frightened that they burst into tears.

"These are the lucky ones chosen by our great emperor..."

The pale-faced butler smiled, clasped his two white-gloved hands together, looked at the many monsters around the dining table, and said with a smile, "Gentlemen, I hope this will suit your tastes."

"Hiss!"

As the butler spoke, or rather, as the children came to their senses and showed expressions of human fear, the monsters around the dining table suddenly began to smile. They whispered among themselves, their eyes sweeping over the children.

Their voices were strange, unlike any voice Han Su had ever heard in reality. They sounded like the language of another species, carrying a mysterious and eerie feeling.

Han Su had no recollection of this sound before, but hearing it now, he was slightly moved:
'The language style is somewhat similar to fishermen's chants…'

'The sounds playing from inside the Disaster Management Bureau confirm that they are one of the languages ​​spoken by these monsters, only they weren't as clear as they are now.'

'What the Disaster Management Bureau was playing sounded more like an old recording, containing both monster language and a lot of background noise... as if the monster's words had been accidentally recorded.'

'...'

Subconsciously, he wanted to carefully distinguish their language and try his best to memorize it.

But soon he realized the difficulty. He found it very easy to listen to the fishermen's chants on the recorder, and he could easily memorize them and repeat them accurately.

But when faced with these monsters, he lost that sense of ease, feeling only a blur and having no memory whatsoever.

"uncle……"

In this eerie and oppressive environment, a child wearing a blue suit suddenly raised his hand boldly.

He looked up at the butler beside him, mustering his courage: "Is this...is this the science museum?" The butler turned to look at him, but did not answer, only smiled at him.

His expression was kind and approachable, but stiff, maintaining that curved smile. Even though he was standing there motionless, his smile seemed to magnify in the children's eyes.

It felt like it was about to touch my face.

The child who asked the question began to tremble. He was so frightened that he lowered his hand, looked away, and his body was shaking uncontrollably.

At that moment, a monster slowly rose from the dining table.

This action immediately drew everyone's attention; it was the monk dressed in black robes.

When he was sitting, wriggling worms would occasionally crawl around his collar, cuffs, and trouser legs.

However, his expression was calm and rigid. He slowly walked out from beside the dining table, his priestly robe sleeves hanging down, his expression solemn, looking as if he were a compassionate monk walking among the ruins of the world in the last century.

He walked straight toward a little boy in the crowd.

The little boy was chubby, wearing shiny leather shoes, and his hair was slicked back with hair oil and tightly combed up. He watched fearfully as the monk approached him.

The children around him became frightened and scurried away from him.

Suddenly, he became frightened, his eyes snapped shut, his legs trembled, and large water stains began to appear on his white trousers.

The moment the stench of urine began to fill the air, the black-robed monk stopped abruptly. The worms that had been crawling in and out of every pore on his body seemed to curl up in disgust.

After a while, the monks suddenly changed direction slightly.

He looked directly at a girl in the crowd and slowly extended his hand to her.

The palm had holes in rotting flesh and blood, with worms crawling in and out, emitting a strong stench.

The little girl in the crowd, who was already clenching her lips in fear, finally couldn't help but cry when the monk reached out his hand to her. But she didn't even cry out loud, nor did she dare to move; she just stood there blankly.

The monk took her hand, a rotting palm, but his movements were gentle. He slowly led her toward the spiral staircase. Insects kept crawling out from her arms and wrists, up her sleeves, and into her collar.

The terrified little girl could only follow him blankly.

"Let her go..."

All the children were terrified and could only look on with pity and confusion as the little girl was taken away by the monks.

But at that moment, a girl with a ponytail suddenly rushed out from the crowd, grabbed the stiff little girl's hand, and shouted loudly.

She appeared to be a head taller than the other children, making her seem older, but in reality, she was only the same age as them. While grabbing the little girl, she used her other hand to pick up a candlestick from the corner of the stairs.

"She's scared, she doesn't want to go with you..."

She shouted at the worm-covered monk, and at the other monsters, "We, we want to go back to school, we..."

"Police officer, the police officer will come for us..."

"..."

The other children were so stunned by the girl with the ponytail's actions that they even forgot to cry.

In the crowd, Han Su's heart sank for a moment.

No wonder Song Chushi gave up his comfortable life for her, wandered the world, and searched for her for a full ten years.

Every time, it's this girl who's the first to step forward.

She would protect the weak children.

Even the first time she was able to escape was because of her.

At that moment, on the candlestick she had picked up, there was a large tallow candle. It was while she was waving the candlestick that she lit the carpet and attracted the monster's attention. She then seized the opportunity to run out through the still-open door and slip out of the flower bushes.

Unfortunately, such opportunities and loopholes for escape are becoming increasingly rare. Without that door, it's very difficult to escape.

The only variable is whether the spell I brought this time will work.

(End of this chapter)