A Judge in Escape Game Chapter 5

Ethan Qi was thinking intently while pinching his nails when he suddenly heard a scream behind him. His hand shook and the nail fell directly into the pool.

"Ah---don't come over here, don't come over here!"

He looked back and saw a man in chef's uniform half-sitting on the ground outside the kitchen door, moving backwards with a look of fear on his face.

Ethan Qi could only see the man's face from his direction. It was the strange uncle who served food yesterday.

There seemed to be something in front of the uncle, which made him terrified.

This extreme feeling of fear made the sturdy middle-aged man's legs so weak that he couldn't even stand up. He could only move backwards relying on the strength of his elbows.

He screamed and retreated into the kitchen in panic.

The thing in front of the cafeteria uncle slowly appeared in Ethan Qi's sight.

It was a pair of hands, slender, with pointed fingers, and red nail polish making the white hands as perfect as a work of art.

If this hand was on a young girl, many people would definitely be unable to take their eyes off it.

In the current situation, these perfect hands only bring fear to people.

The reason is simple. There is nothing there except the hands.

The hands were crawling on the ground at a slow speed, and their nails made a sharp sound on the tile floor that made one's teeth ache.

The cafeteria uncle's back hit the wall. He had no way to retreat. Fear made him unable to think. He couldn't run to other places again. He just stared blankly at the hand crawling closer and closer.

Ethan Qi watched the hands climb up the cafeteria uncle's trouser legs, then slowly climb up his arms, and to his horror, his hands were cut off.

"Aaaaaahhhh!"

The uncle in the cafeteria looked at his hands that were broken at the wrists, and he did nothing but scream. Blood gushed out from the wounds, instantly staining the ground red.

This is not the end, it's just the beginning.

The white hand moved again, making another stroke at the elbow, then the shoulder, then the foot, the thigh, and finally the head.

As the head fell to the ground, the kitchen returned to silence. After doing all this, the hands slowly crawled out the door.

"Your turn is almost here..."

When the hand disappeared at the door, a faint sigh was heard in the air.

Ethan Qi, who watched the entire dismemberment, had only one thought in his mind.

It seems that the girl took revenge herself, so the conditions for escape are not about helping her take revenge or anything like that.

Things were a bit difficult to deal with, and Ethan Qi suddenly had various methods of exorcising evil spirits in his mind. As if instinctively, these methods poured out like a torrent of water.

However, these methods don’t seem to be suitable, as the role played by Ethan Qi is just an ordinary person.

Ordinary people don't have the ability to fight against evil spirits.

Fortunately, this evil ghost should still be in its primary form and cannot directly touch Ethan Qi for the time being, so she disappeared silently after recreating the dismemberment scene, instead of directly cutting Ethan Qi into pieces.

But Ethan Qi knew that it might not be so easy to escape next time.

The dismemberment show just now affected him visually, auditorily, and even olfactorily. Although Ethan Qi did not show it, he still felt a little uncomfortable in his heart.

It seems that he has been haunted by the evil spirit for so long that he is now possessed by evil spirits.

Thinking of this, Ethan Qi touched his shoulder and felt that the flame burning on it might have dimmed a lot.

The situation was urgent. No matter how lazy he was, Ethan Qi didn't want to die as miserably as the uncle in the cafeteria just now.

He urgently needed to do something to calm the turbulent emotions in his heart, otherwise when the discomfort turned into fear, it would be the perfect time for the evil spirit to attack.

After Ethan Qi finished the work at hand, he took his sketchbook and pen and took a detour to the lake.

Drawing was always the quickest way to calm him down, and now was no exception.

On the way to the cafeteria, he saw the lake from afar. There was an artificial island in the center of the lake, and there were large areas of lotus flowers on the lake. The scenery was very suitable for sketching.

He had just walked to a position with an excellent angle and was about to choose a shady place to sit down and paint, but he saw a familiar person on the bench.

Liam Duan.

He sat there, looking at the lake intently.

Ethan Qi didn't want to disturb others' solitude, and was about to step back and move to another place when he heard Liam Duan's voice.

"You came."

"?"

Ethan Qi was confused, wondering what was going on with this tone of voice that sounded like they had made an appointment with him.

However, the other party had already spoken, and he couldn't just pretend he didn't hear anything and walk away, so Ethan Qi walked over and sat down.

Liam Duan's gaze remained on the lake, without moving at all.

In midsummer, lotus flowers are in full bloom, and the large, brilliant pink flowers create a unique scene against the green waves of lotus leaves.

Ethan Qi did not say anything, and just watched everything in front of him in silence.

The breeze blew on his temples, as gentle as a girl's slender fingertips.

As soon as this thought came to his mind, Ethan Qi suddenly realized that the lotus leaf about four or five meters away from him moved, as if there was something hidden underneath.

It's probably fish. It's normal to have fish in a lotus pond.

"These past two days, I've been thinking about what you said to me by the lake."

Liam Duan spoke, but Ethan Qi's thoughts remained on the lotus leaf. He replied absentmindedly: "What?"

The lotus leaves moved again. The sunlight was a little dazzling. The lake surface was shimmering, making it difficult for Ethan Qi to see clearly what was under the lotus leaves.

The water in the lake where lotus flowers are planted is not very clear. There is silt at the bottom, and the water is turbid.

Ethan Qi vaguely saw dense black threads spreading out. Was it a school of fish? Was it loach?

Or, hair.

Ethan Qi was studying it carefully when a loud thunderclap exploded in his ears, completely pulling his attention away from the unknown object under the lotus leaf.

"I kind of regret rejecting your confession that day." Liam Duan said, "Although more than half a month has passed, does it still count?"

"ah?"

Ethan Qi turned his head suddenly and looked over with wide eyes.

Confession?

Is this guy so fierce? Where is the young man who was supposed to be inferior because of his birth and S3xual orientation? He actually confessed his love to his tall, rich and handsome roommate after a disagreement. Isn't this plot a bit wrong?

But if you calculate the time, the missing pages in the diary probably record the confession incident.

It turns out that this pit was waiting for me here. This kind of critical event is definitely not as simple as happily falling in love.

Ethan Qi opened his mouth, completely lost for words, and his instinct, which had always worked, completely stopped working at this moment.

Fortunately, Liam Duan seemed to take his surprise as something else and didn't think anything was wrong. Instead, he gave him a soothing smile.

This was the first time Ethan Qi saw Liam Duan smile. Liam Duan was a man with a very fierce appearance, and he didn't like to laugh, which made him seem even more distant.

Even now when he smiled, his eyes still looked like they were frozen, only a few degrees warmer than the icy eyes when he wasn't smiling.

Ethan Qi grabbed a handful of his hair, which was not very neat to begin with, and finally found his tongue that was taken away by the cat.

"You, me. You don't mean what I think you mean?"

Ethan Qi blinked, hoping that Liam Duan would be understanding and understand what he meant.

He has already started to come out of the hopeless love, so there is no need to force himself for the sake of roommate friendship! Look at my sincere eyes, I am fine now, really!

Liam Duan ignored the desperate hint in his eyes, nodded and said, "I think maybe I can give it a try."

"Try...try?"

"You asked me here before if I could always be with you."

Liam Duan's expression became very strange, and he was too focused. His pupils were very dark, so dark that it seemed that there was no light at all. Coupled with his concentration at the moment, Ethan Qi felt a little depressed.

Ethan Qi felt a little breathless, and his intuition told him that he could neither nod nor refuse at this moment.

He turned his head, laughed dryly, and said, "I am a little overwhelmed by your sudden words."

The atmosphere suddenly changed and was no longer as stiff as before.

"I understand that you are always overthinking. You can think about it carefully before answering me."

After Liam Duan finished speaking, he stood up and left. After walking a few steps, he stopped again.

"My promise is always there."

Ethan Qi waited for a moment before looking back. By this time, Liam Duan's figure had completely disappeared.

He stared at that place for a long time until he felt an itch on his neck.

Something silky and soft brushed against his neck, giving him goose bumps.

This feeling is somewhat familiar, and it comes from when Ethan Qi was in high school.

He was an art student and spent most of his high school time in the studio.

The studio was small, and the girl who sat back to back with him had very long hair. Even though she had her hair tied in a ponytail, when she turned her head, her hair would brush against Ethan Qi's neck.

This was the feeling when the girl's hair brushed against Ethan Qi's neck.

But he was sitting alone by the lake, and there was no way a girl's long hair would touch his neck.

Ethan Qi took a deep breath, then looked up.

What came into view was not a female ghost hanging upside down in the air, but a sea of   green.

The bench was under a willow tree, and what had just brushed his neck were merely the leaves of the willow tree.

Being interrupted by the willow tree, Ethan Qi was able to break away from the shock brought by Liam Duan and remembered his original plan of coming to the lake.

He came here to sketch.

Although the process was delayed because of Liam Duan, Ethan Qi was not ready to give up.

He opened his sketchbook and began to draw.

Large lotus leaves quickly took shape under his hands, but unlike the scenery in front of him, what Ethan Qi painted was a lotus pond under the moon.

There was a crescent moon in the sky, as thin as a willow eyebrow, and under the moon were endless lotus leaves. Everything seemed unlike the scenery of the human world.

Ethan Qi was painting seriously and completely immersed in his own thoughts, and he didn't even notice the willow tree behind the bench.

The willow trees are moving.

It is normal for willow trees to sway. When the wind blows, the graceful swaying of their drooping willow branches is always a beautiful sight.

But it is different now. What is moving is not the willow branches, but the trunk of the willow tree.

The trunk of the willow tree twisted and struggled, as if it was experiencing some pain. As the trunk twisted more violently, a pair of white hands stretched out from the trunk.

Her fingers are slender and her nail polish is bright.

This time, what appeared was not just the hands. Above the wrists were the beautifully shaped arms, and then the shoulders.

When the girl in the skirt emerged from the tree trunk, her long hair was a little messy and covered her face.

She came out, but did not go forward. Instead, she stayed where she was and combed her long hair.

As her messy long hair was carefully tucked behind her ears, the girl's face was finally exposed.

She has curved eyebrows and slightly upturned eyes, which are very beautiful classical phoenix eyes. Her nose is straight and her nose tip is small and slightly upturned.

Everything fits the definition of beauty, past or present.

Except for her lips.

Her lips may have been beautiful once, but now their shape is completely unclear.

From the philtrum to the chin, it was densely stitched with black lines. These black lines twisted and tangled like scars, covering the girl's lips tightly.

She took a step forward and placed her fair hands on the shoulders of the man in front of her. Her scarlet nails were as sharp as gold and were about to cut into the skin on the back of the neck.

In another second, this person's head would fall to the ground and maybe even roll back into the lake to become nutrients for the lotus flowers.

By then, the lotus will surely bloom more beautifully.

The girl looked towards the beautiful scene. She wanted to smile, but her lips were held by the stitches.

In the end, only a ferocious expression appeared on her face.