Chapter 66: Parents (Part 3)

Page (1/3)

As their topic drifted further and further away, the two of them chatted with increasing abandon, pushing past the boundaries of censorship until they reached a point where it could no longer be broadcast.

However, judging by the process itself, Zhou Ke had thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

"Alright, let's pause," he said, catching his breath. "Let's call a truce for now. If we keep going any further, this won't pass the review."

"Not pass the review?" The female neighbor didn't quite understand what the phrase meant, but she agreed that they shouldn't continue wasting precious time.

"Speaking of which, I still don't know what to call you." She took the initiative to steer the conversation back on track.

"Ah, my surname is Zhou. You can call me Mr. Zhou, or just Zhou Ke is fine." Zhou Ke introduced himself with casual indifference.

The female neighbor's curiosity toward the man before her grew a fraction more—why on earth would this guy put his real name after a placeholder title?

She paused for a moment and introduced herself with even less style: "My name is Wen Xiaoxiao. You can just call me Wen."

"That name clashes severely with your temperament," Zhou Ke mused, pondering this bit-player name that was at best a background character number five.

No matter how he looked at it, it had not the slightest connection to the female neighbor's striking exterior.

"Hmph, perhaps my parents didn't expect I would grow up to look so ruined," Wen Xiaoxiao said casually.

Ruined? No, no, no, you must have some severe misconception about the word "ruined."

Hearing this, Zhou Ke involuntarily glanced at Wen Xiaoxiao.

Who would have thought that the other party would instantly catch this trace of a gaze, seizing the opportunity to let out a cold snort:

"Men really are greedy creatures. First you want to know what I'm called, and then you want to know how I'm called."

"Hey, hey, hey, if you keep talking like that, this really won't pass the review, and I, the protagonist, will end up ruined along with it," Zhou Ke muttered with narrowed eyes.

"Daddy, Mommy, what are you doing?"

Right at this moment—somewhere between leisurely and busy—a perfectly round little head poked up from the top of the corridor stairs.

It was a little girl with small tufts of hair tied up on both sides, held by cherry-shaped hair ties that set off her rosy, plump little cheeks, making her so cute it defied description.

Noticing the little girl's sparkling, innocent eyes looking right at them, Zhou Ke drew in a sharp breath. "Hiss, I never expected someone as young as you to already have a kid?"

"Are you selectively deaf or something? Didn't you hear her call you Daddy too?" Wen Xiaoxiao snapped back with a displeased reproach.

The little girl crawled onto the stairs using both hands and feet, looking at the purplish-red bruising on Zhou Ke's and Wen Xiaoxiao's necks, her big eyes blinking with curiosity.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

"Were you guys playing games in Youyou's room again?"

"Youyou's room?" Hearing this, Zhou Ke glanced back at the room they had just come out of. At some unknown point, the original two rooms had merged into one.

"It seems Wen Xiaoxiao's fake room has vanished. That being said, the owner of this room must be this little girl. The puzzles that follow will most likely be closely tied to her."

He thought of many things in his mind, but outwardly he said unceremoniously, "We weren't playing it *that* big."

Wen Xiaoxiao immediately kicked him in the knee. "Stop corrupting children."

Following that, she half-crouched down so the little girl wouldn't have to tilt her head up too high, and asked with a gentleness that was worlds apart from how she treated Zhou Ke:

"Little one, is this your house? Where are your mommy and daddy? Why did you call big sister and uncle 'Mom and Dad'?"

The little girl looked about six years old—not an age where one would easily mistake their parents.

"So she's a big sister, while I—being roughly the same age—am an uncle? Heh." Zhou Ke couldn't help but smack his lips.

While Wen Xiaoxiao was talking, he had already quietly retreated behind her.

Judging by intuition, before figuring out the other party's identity, asking questions at random would in all probability trigger a bad outcome.

Anyway, Mr. Zhou was a cautious and petty man, though he didn't care to force his own standards onto others.

He figured he might as well hide first; if anything went wrong, someone else would be there to take the brunt of it at the front.

Yes, that was what Zhou Ke had originally thought.

Yet just as he ducked behind Wen Xiaoxiao, he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Looking back, a hollow-eyed skeletal evil spirit was stepping right out of the wall at the end of the corridor.

It radiated a resentment so thick it was nauseating, far more terrifying than the doorbell ghost!

These still weren't the main point; the most critical issue was that Zhou Ke was now standing directly in the path of the evil spirit's charge toward Wen Xiaoxiao.

"No, why are you coming out from *there*?"

Facing the skeletal evil spirit hurtling straight at him, it was too late to dodge, and Zhou Ke hastily summoned his Truth Key.

Clang—!

Searing white bones and a pitch-black blade violently collided, sending out sparks. The sheer shockwave generated was enough to force Wen Xiaoxiao several steps back.

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

"So heavy..."

Zhou Ke gripped the hilt tightly with one hand and pressed his palm against the back of the blade, struggling with all his might to withstand the skeletal evil spirit's charge.

Before he could even formulate a countermeasure, the resentment enveloping the skeletal evil spirit surged wildly. In an instant, it shattered the deadlock, pressing down against his blade and knocking him flying into mid-air!

With a deafening crash, Zhou Ke fell backward from the second floor to the first, smashing a glass coffee table into smithereens.

Countless glass shards bounced about, lacerating his skin, while the wounds on his arm burst open from the impact. Blood splattered everywhere in a battle scene of brutal carnage.

"This is bad..." Zhou Ke's arms trembled as he braced the blade.

The Truth Key struck the skeletal evil spirit's white bones, leaving behind only a shallow scratch.

These bones were harder than alloy, colder than steel.

"And..." Zhou Ke wanted to activate the Truth Key's ability to reinforce the doorframe, but he found the progress agonizingly slow, growing slower by the second.

"My Truth is being sealed? This skeletal evil spirit shares similarities with that steel cable." Zhou Ke's arms bent further under the pressure, the blade pushing downward until it was nearly touching his throat.

"Zhou Ke!"

The sudden turn of events occurred in the flash of a spark. It wasn't until Zhou Ke crashed down to the lower floor that Wen Xiaoxiao finally snapped to her senses.

She decisively summoned her Truth—a book shrouded in mist, its reality obscured, though thousands of eyes faintly glimmered within its pages.

Swish—

Three octopus-like tentacles extended from the opened pages, stretching toward the skeletal evil spirit at a speed neither slow nor fast.

Yet at that very moment, the skeletal evil spirit seemed to perceive an unprecedented and immense threat, shuddering all over.

The entire house began to transform along with it; walls, floors, and ceilings were covered in spreading black scars.

Countless skeletal arms wriggled and climbed out, filling every field of vision in a dense, swarming mass where individual finger bones looked like writhing maggots.

The house was instantly left without a single patch of solid ground. Caught within the affected area, Wen Xiaoxiao could also feel her Truth being suppressed, her tentacles freezing mid-air.

"Damn it..." She couldn't help biting her lower lip, realizing that her rash action had plunged them both into a desperate predicament.

Page (3/3)