Panguan

"How big are the dead branches? Where are they?" Xia Qiao's voice trembled.

"Just, just near the bathroom." Zhou Xu pointed somewhere.

When I ran away, I was in such a hurry that no one could care about anything else. Lao Mao didn't know that Zhou Xu had tripped over something, but when he heard what he said, he had a bad association.

The place Zhou Xu mentioned was behind the corner. Everyone turned around, raised their candles and illuminated it, and saw the thing.

It does look like a dead branch, but it has a weird shape, as if several twisted dead trees are stuck together and lying sideways in the bathroom. Part of it is exposed outside the door, which is where Zhou Xu tripped.

They have been here many times and have never seen this thing before. So it is certain that it was brought about by the fire just now.

As we all know, no matter how much normal branches are burned, they will not stick together like this. Instead, there is another way...

When that terrible thought flashed through their minds, Lao Mao, who was bending over to look, happened to see a human face at the end of the "branches".

Those were not branches at all, but hugging people who were curled up and burned to death.

Xia Qiao and the others were so frightened that they backed up and stumbled to the ground. Only Lao Mao frowned and counted over there. After a moment, he turned to the others and said, "Four people."

Those twisted "dead branches" are actually four people.

Sun Siqi "vomited" on the spot, rolled his eyes and almost fainted, but was woken up by Zhou Xu: "Wait a moment!"

Although his personality is not very lovable and he is not very courageous, his mind works very quickly: "You said you dreamed about cooking the mother-in-law, right?"

Sun Siqi vomited twice more and corrected with a pale face: "I dreamed that I was a cook and the fire came down from the second floor. I ran downstairs as hard as I could and even fell."

"Then what?" Zhou Xu asked.

"Then we were pulled up by the housekeeper." Sun Siqi tried to remember. "There were fires everywhere anyway, and there was no place to run, so we said we would go to a place with water. But halfway through, the upstairs burned down, and both sides There was no way. Then I was slapped awake by Old Uncle Mao."

At this point, he was actually a little scared. Because the dream was so real that he was wondering what would have happened to him if he had not been awakened. Would he really be burned to death?

"Okay, so you are the mother-in-law who cooks." Zhou Xu pointed at Sun Siqi and then at Dadong, "You are the wet nurse who has passed away, and Lao Mao corresponds to one of the two little daughters of the Shen family. I was half asleep by myself, first dreaming I saw someone screaming that there was a fire, and then I dreamed that the wet nurse was standing next to me in a shroud, looking at me and saying: Wake up, you slept in the wrong place."

He thought about it for a while, and felt that the scene was still scary, but also felt that if the wet nurse hadn't scared him, he might really be stuck in a dream and unable to wake up.

Zhou Xu swallowed and continued: "I was locked in the girl's room upstairs before, and the wet nurse said so, so I should be one of the two little girls of the Shen family. Then the mouse corresponded to Shen Manyi, Bingyangzi corresponds to Mr. Li, and your brother corresponds to the housekeeper——"

He said, turning to look at Xia Qiao: "——Then the question is, who are you corresponding to?"

"Shen Mansheng?" Xia Qiao replied subconsciously, "I was locked in the young master's room before."

But after he finished speaking, he realized something was wrong.

There were two people in Shen Mansheng's room - the young master himself and Brother Jun.

There are a total of 9 people living in the Shen family's small building, and there are 8 people in their group. Xia Qiao always thought that he corresponded to the young master Shen Mansheng, and the one he was missing was the cage master Ajun.

But now, he suddenly realized a problem.

He is a puppet, so he is not easily bewitched or falls into dreams. But this identity was an accident. What if he was an ordinary person? Like everyone else, he would fall asleep in the bedroom, then dream of the person he corresponded to, and live in the dream as that person.

If he corresponded to the young master of the Shen family, what would he dream about? If he was dreaming about the young master's life, wouldn't the flaw in Ajun's imitation of the young master be even bigger?

If you think about it carefully, there are actually very few things related to Shen Mansheng in this cage.

He is not like Shen Manyi, who laughs and catches people playing with real and fake brides; unlike Mr. Li, who always hears the sound of the hemp rope being tightened; and unlike the nanny, who has a pair of embroidered shoes parked beside the bed. Even now, the cage has been loosened, the fire has burned, and the cook and the others have appeared, but there is still no trace of him.

His sense of existence is really weak, and everything related to him only appeared because of Ajun. Practice paper, group photos, diary...

This in itself reflects the cage owner's subconscious mind - putting himself first while downplaying the person he wants to pretend to be.

In other words, the young master of the Shen family is not in this cage at all and cannot resist or defend, so Ajun will imitate him unscrupulously.

Therefore, although there were 9 people living in the Shen family in the story, the current Shen family actually has only 8 people, corresponding to them one by one.

"I understand, I am not Shen Mansheng, I am Ajun." Xia Qiao said suddenly.

There was deathly silence all around.

"If you are Ajun, then where is your corresponding person...?" Zhou Xu said softly.

Xia Qiao shook his head: "I don't know, but he should have been following us for a long time. At least he must be here now."