Chapter 175#
Hunt 26#
Who could this “crazy loli” be, dressed in an ornate gown with wildly exaggerated tone and gestures, and a bizarre trail of countless monsters?
Definitely not a stranger—the word “family” still echoed across the city.
If an acquaintance, it wouldn’t be Jielü or Aga; those two were serious types.
Nor would it be one of the roaming gods they’d called in as hired muscle; their ailments hadn’t reached this level yet.
So, only one answer remained.
Murphy couldn’t help but recall the day before, when he divined the situation of the gatekeeper, Clarose, and had inexplicably drawn a purple princess card he couldn’t make sense of.
Now, everything made sense.
Murphy felt he had been wrong.
Wrong from the very start.
What he should have brought wasn’t the prophecy deck, but the Arrow of Truth.
Murphy took a deep breath, his figure already beginning to wobble.
Xina sighed softly, pulling down the brim of her witch hat to distance herself from the impending chaos up ahead.
An Fei stood still in the wind.
For some reason, that all-too-familiar sense of things going awry surfaced once again.
He said, “Is this also one of my subjects?”
Yu Feichen: “I’m afraid so.”
“…”
An Fei suddenly felt that being a monarch wasn’t worth it after all.
The crazy loli with the parasol rose and fell repeatedly among the buildings, drawing closer and closer.
From the high platform, everyone could see more clearly the little boots adorned with bows, the tiny crown on her twin tails, the crystal pendants on her parasol, and the decorative chain around her neck.
“—Family—I’m coming—”
“They—are so scary—ah—”
With that last exaggerated “ah—”, the crazy loli suddenly leaped to a height far greater than before, bouncing directly over the circus, then slowly descended from midair with her parasol.
She landed right in the center of the high platform.
“Long time no see, family!” the crazy loli greeted everyone in a crisp voice.
But the high platform fell into dead silence.
Xina pulled down her hat brim. An Fei was staring at the sky. Yu Feichen seemed lost in thought. Murphy was questioning his life.
Windsor muttered quietly from the corner: “The weirder the outfit…”
Bai Song: “The more twisted the person.”
Only one person reacted to her arrival.
“Hello,” the Doctor said, holding his wires, asking gently, “How long has this been going on?”
“Oh my,” the crazy loli said, “If it isn’t the Doctor! Long time no see!”
Doctor: “…?”
“Could it be that everyone doesn’t recognize me anymore?” the crazy loli hopped past everyone, finally stopping in front of Murphy, her voice syrupy: “Wow, big brother, haven’t you been sleeping lately? Could it be you’ve missed me too much?”
“I’ve been busy with work, big brother—you won’t be angry, will you?”
“If big brother is angry, you won’t pretend not to know me, right?”
When she said “busy with work,” she deliberately turned toward An Fei before swiveling back to Murphy.
Murphy’s gaze was cold, his words clipped: “What’s your surname?”
“Big brother, I’m Rose!”
With that, the crazy loli bounced over to the railing and looked down at the prey rescued by the circus.
Now, the circus had nearly four or five hundred prey.
Mist City had three conditions for prey: blonde hair, green eyes, youth.
At a glance, very few had green eyes—only about one in twenty—about a third had blonde hair, and the rest were all kinds of youths and maidens.
It didn’t make sense for someone who had made it to the key stage in the Eternal Night to be only ten or so years old.
“Heehee,” the crazy loli said. “Everyone… really likes to pretend to be young.”
On the high platform, the Fate Goddess in the form of a young girl looked coldly downward. In her crystal ball, fate lines twisted, and a cold, ethereal voice rang out: “He can’t speak.”
“Unlike me—” The crazy loli, who had just drawn out her tone, suddenly choked as if something stuck in her throat, and could no longer utter a word.
The world fell silent, with only a mute loli carrying a parasol hopping anxiously around the high platform.
In that brief moment, the crowd chasing the crazy loli had rumbled through several blocks and was drawing closer and closer to the circus.
When they saw that the crazy loli was fleeing toward the circus, they did hesitate for a moment.
But after that moment’s hesitation, they chose to keep chasing.
Because there were simply too many of them—maybe not a thousand, but at least eight hundred.
Some had originally been roaming by the canal bridge, spotted the crazy loli’s trail, and given chase. Others were attracted by the commotion of the pursuit and joined in the hunt.
After all, there were very few solitary prey left now. Relying on oneself alone, who knew when they’d nab one? Better to join the crowd—if the crazy loli fell into their hands, that would be perfect.
The rest were hunters from other districts, shocked by the massive movement toward the circus, thinking that the siege of the circus had finally converged for a last-ditch effort.
Naturally, they had to join in.
And so, here they were.
The leading figures had already begun throwing道具 at the circus. An Fei looked at the innocent mute loli.
“What are you doing?”
The crazy loli held up a note with a string of pre-written calligraphic words, filled with ornate, showy flourishes.
“If I alone attract the attention of many hunters, then they won’t have time to chase others, and they won’t come to attack the circus.”
“Family, praise me!”
No one responded.
—There are no family members here.
Murphy hadn’t spoken to Yu Feichen in two days.
But now, he asked Yu Feichen a question.
“Do you have a knife?”
Yu Feichen had a knife. He wouldn’t mind if Clarose got stabbed either.
But he didn’t give it to Murphy.
Ever since the crazy loli landed on the high platform with her parasol, his gaze had been fixed on her right hand.
That hand had never left the little parasol.
The Gothic religious patterns painted on the parasol matched the style and motifs on her ruffled skirt hem.
Item: Ordinary Pebble.
Function: Seems to have no effect other than throwing.
Features: Just how poor a guest brought this to Mist City? That in itself is a kind of specialness.
Grade: Low.
A plain gray little pebble materialized in Yu Feichen’s hand. He weighed it briefly to gauge its heft, then precisely struck the crazy loli’s right wrist—the one holding the parasol.
The crazy loli let out a silent: “Ah!”
Beneath the deep purple gauze netting, a red mark appeared on her pale, slender wrist.
At the same time, her wrist joint was struck at a specific angle, the bones and muscles of her fingers twitching instinctively. Her right hand loosened, and the ornate lace parasol fell to the ground.
In that instant, a gray-purple mist suddenly enveloped the small body in the elaborate dress.
The moment the parasol left her, the crazy loli’s body disintegrated, and another silhouette emerged within the mist.
The linguistic shackles were lifted. A voice with a weird tone came out of the gray-purple mist: “Xiao Yu, how could you be like this. Don’t hit someone on their umbrella—you’re going to get a grudge kept against you…”
The texture of the voice gradually shifted from a loli’s pitch to a young man’s, though the affectation didn’t fade one bit.
After the mist cleared, the fallen parasol lay alone on the ground. Standing next to it was a figure dressed entirely in black.
A black raincoat covered his whole body, its brim pulled low, revealing only the lower half of his face, which wore a ghostly, sinister smile.
The gatekeeper still looked just as mysterious and dangerous.
“Good evening, everyone.”
The Doctor seemed to understand something, his gaze deep as he adjusted his glasses. “Didn’t I say so? He really needs treatment.”