Rules-related weird stories: 4016

"On the wall…" Lin Yi tried hard to recall, "There seems to be a painting on the wall, but it's mostly covered by the curtains…"

"That's the bedroom!" The Night Watchman was visibly excited. "Do you remember where it is?"

Lin Yi shook his head bitterly: "I can't remember at all…"

"It's not my fault…"

"Those things appear with the flickering of the vision. I feel like I'm sitting on a roller coaster, being pushed forward to browse. Whenever a scene appears, I stop to look at it for a while, and after I'm done, I immediately switch to the next place…"

The Night Watchman nodded in agreement: "You're right… So you continue to build the dream. The surge of the 'Sanctum' is only the most brutal in the first wave. The subsequent waves are gentler. Find a way to help me find the location of that bedroom, and I'll take care of the rest."

"Huh? Continue?" Lin Yi opened his mouth in confusion.

After a brief contact, the Night Watchman seemed to know how to handle Lin Yi, so he didn't talk about any grand righteousness or interests, but simply asked a rhetorical question: "What about the 'final payment'… ?"

"Hahaha, let's talk nicely!" Lin Yi slapped his forehead and decisively sat down again, starting to accept the infusion of the surge, while also curiously asking: "What exactly is that bedroom?"

The Night Watchman's voice suddenly became extremely solemn: "The bedroom is just the scene you see. Its essence is actually the most heavily guarded prison in the Black Moon Outpost… Its depths imprison the most vicious criminals in the history of the Black Moon Outpost."

"Believe me, you don't want to know its story."

Lin Yi pursed his lips, and suddenly the power of dog hair possessed him: "But '02', whenever you say that line, it only makes me more curious about the secrets of that bedroom, doesn't it?"

"And… the owner of that bedroom seems like a little girl. You're saying that the so-called criminal you're talking about is just a little girl…"

When Lin Yi said this, he suddenly remembered the little girl holding 'Amon's Music Box' in his mind…

That eerie little girl… wearing a cute but dirty Lolita dress, her body clean in some places and filthy in others, with snow-white lace socks and square-toed leather shoes still flowing with a viscous, oily liquid…

"Could it be… ?!"

"Wait… I seem to… '02'! I! I!" Lin Yi suddenly became anxious, and stuttered because his tone was too hurried. "I seem to have seen a little girl in a vision! She was wearing cute, dirty clothes, holding a music box in her hand. I suspect what she's holding is…"

"Shut up! Shut up! !" The Night Watchman's words were followed by law, and Lin Yi lost his voice before he could react. He calmed down after a few seconds.

The Night Watchman looked at him with some reproach: "Why didn't you say such an important thing earlier?"

"Huh? I said it… I said, could it be 'Amon's Music Box'…"

"This has nothing to do with 'Amon's Music Box'. I'm saying, that…" The Night Watchman's voice lowered a little, unusually. "That little girl… why didn't you mention her to me?"

"I… I told Lao Mo…" Lin Yi was immediately a little aggrieved. "I even suspected that she was the artifact spirit of Amon's left-behind Eyes Music Box or something… but Lao Mo said it wasn't important."

"She's not, of course she's not… How could she be that kind of artifact spirit or something?" The Night Watchman repeatedly denied. "Also, what does Mo know? Can he tell the importance of anything?"

Lao Mo, not far away, changed his expression slightly, and his eyes were immediately filled with resentment.

"Mo, can you tell the repeater kid something useful next time?" The Night Watchman said, glaring at Lao Mo with dissatisfaction.

Lao Mo was immediately covered in sweat… He now wanted to rush to Lin Yi, press him down hard, and say, you kid have some understanding, don't act like you're familiar with everyone, the one in front of you is the Night Watchman—an existence that would directly crush us if he released some of his domain!

But he didn't dare to say it, because when Lin Yi mentioned the bedroom and the little girl, it was obvious that the guy who had become familiar, slowly changed from Lin Yi to the Night Watchman…

"Your guess is correct…" The Night Watchman said, "Actually, that is that little girl's bedroom…"

"The little girl's bedroom is used to imprison your so-called criminals, and then the little girl who lost her bedroom wandered around in the art building?" Lin Yi guessed.

The Night Watchman was silent for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth: "Is there a possibility… I mean, a possibility, that the prisoner imprisoned in that bedroom is that little girl?"

Lin Yi's body shuddered violently, and a chill crept up his spine, as if someone had coated it with liquid nitrogen and repeatedly stroked it…

"Then she… escaped from inside?!" Lin Yi was immediately terrified, sitting on pins and needles. "No… she, I, that, that… I heard her calling me several times, and she even sang me some black nursery rhymes…"

Lin Yi's voice suddenly stalled, not because he didn't want to continue, but because he felt a subtle change in the atmosphere, like the instructor in the passenger seat stepping on the brakes.

So he glanced at the Night Watchman, but there was nothing unusual on the Night Watchman's resolute face, only his eyes, also quite tacitly, glanced at him…

"She… sang… to you… a… song?"

The Night Watchman's reaction made Lin Yi, who was already under great pressure, sweat profusely. He scratched his ears and cheeks, and the feeling of sitting on pins and needles turned into his butt being covered with thorns: "No… '02', don't react like this, this… this is making me so flustered…"

"I'm also a little flustered…" The Night Watchman made a gesture of wiping sweat. "She… what did she sing? Did you hear any iconic lyrics?"

"It seems like… something about hide-and-seek…" Lin Yi's tone was a little hesitant, not because he didn't hear it clearly, on the contrary, he heard it very clearly, but the problem was that the Night Watchman's reaction was too great.

Please, don't be like this!

Can you restore your dignified and aloof cold demeanor, you like this… I feel like I'm going to die!

"It's over, you're done…" The Night Watchman sighed.

"It's not you… I… I, damn…" Lin Yi was about to be driven to tears by the Night Watchman's mysterious appearance. He simply stuck out his tongue, looking like a "yaxiete lei".

"You feel this way, why don't you tell me? The so-called people who are about to die speak kindly…"

"You're the one who's dying, not me. I'm going to speak kindly my ass…" The Night Watchman was stunned by Lin Yi's optimistic appearance, but of course he also knew that Lin Yi was actually "ignorant and fearless."

He sighed, "I'll tell you as you search, consider it a send-off for you..."

"..." Lin Yi pursed his lips, "If you can't say auspicious words, can you at least keep the unlucky ones to yourself?"

"Sorry, sorry..." The night watchman's tone was noticeably more polite, tinged with a 'respect for the dead' sentiment, "In all my years here, I've never been qualified to hear the 'Dirge'... You're truly remarkable."

Lin Yi: "..."

"I..." Just as he was about to speak, the subsequent surge of energy from the Sanctum rushed in, flooding his body.

With a 'boom,' he felt his consciousness 'ascend'...

This time was better than the last; it didn't tear his consciousness apart so violently. Instead, it was much gentler, and his consciousness quickly appeared in that distorted world woven with white lines filled with golden energy...

He began to traverse this world again, and the scenes he had seen before, of the art students confronting the strange entities in the gray fog, began to appear before his eyes once more...

This time, the night watchman's voice was noticeably more normal, shifting away from the soothing background music.

"These near-static scenes you're seeing aren't truly static, but because the surge of energy passes in an instant, they appear unchanging..."

"In reality, they're constantly fighting."

"You asked me earlier what that bedroom was, and what was in that deep well... I can tell you now."

"That deep well buries a portion of the remains of a certain Apostle..."

"[Little children, hide-and-seek, one, two, hide away...]"

"[Little courtyard, such a nice place ~ brothers and sisters hide themselves...]"

"What...? This nursery rhyme?!" Lin Yi was horrified. These two lines were spoken softly by the night watchman, and although the tone was different from the little girl's, the lyrics were the same.

It seemed the night watchman had never heard this nursery rhyme, but somehow knew some of the lyrics.

The night watchman specifically mentioned the deep well here. Could it be that the Apostle's remains buried in the deep well are related to that little girl?!

He suddenly recalled more details: that eerie black nursery rhyme, the shovel and huge saw beside the little girl...

"But she actually had the ability to kill an Apostle... Then wouldn't she be...?"

The night watchman said, "That's right... But what I didn't say is that the Apostle buried in the deep well isn't ordinary, but one of the 'First Apostles'..."

"That's the remains of one of those great beings..."

Lin Yi's pupils constricted: "Wouldn't that mean... she also, no, she's at least an existence like the 'First Apostles'? Could she be the spirit of an 'Angel' imprisoned here?!"

The night watchman gave a helpless, bitter laugh: "You've actually already guessed it, you just didn't dare to guess in that direction, right?"

"That little girl... she... is also one of the 'First Apostles'..."

"In the art building, I was worried about bringing you trouble, so I didn't say her true name... But I can tell you her title—her former title..."

"The Lawmaker..."

The moment he heard these three words, Lin Yi felt his scalp tingle, because it wasn't the night watchman's voice.

His consciousness felt a cold wind, an aura with a slight bloody scent, as if it had permeated the Sanctum's energy and wanted to be etched into his consciousness.

He heard the 'ding-dong' sounds of the music box again, and also seemed to hear the childish voices of some black nursery rhymes.

He knew the little girl had appeared...

This eerie permeation was like the Dream Architect's soul permeating time, descending in the form of a grinning angel from a dimensionally unknown layer, appearing beside him.

However, the little girl's existence, her level, seemed to far surpass those Dream Architects...

Lin Yi felt as if he were hard-locked in place, even the energy surge seemed to freeze.

He looked at the watch on his wrist. The time was now 2:26:33, and it was also frozen at 33 seconds.

That hand seemed to have exhausted all its strength to move to 34 seconds, but it was as if it were being pulled back by an invisible force field, completely unable to move.

At this moment, the layer was like a film wrapped around Lin Yi, and then a rolling pin repeatedly rolled over this layer, Lin Yi was kneaded into various shapes, his head was buzzing, and all that was left in his ears was a kind of disordered noise...

"[Lin Yi, Lin Yi, Lin Yi (reverberating echo, becoming clearer and clearer)... you've come, you've come, you've come...]"

"[Lawmaker, Lawmaker, Lawmaker... maker...]"

"[Lin Yi, Lin Yi, Lin Yi... you've come, you've come...]"

"[Lawmaker, Lawmaker...]"

"[Lin Yi, Lin Yi, Lin Yi...]"

"[I just, I just, I just... know, know... know...]"

The black nursery rhyme played non-stop, long, obscure, clearly just simple tunes, yet they seemed to be eerie notes permeating from the cracks of time...

In this strange, collapsing world, a road seemed to be slowly opening, and at the end of the road... was a rusty door.

There was a sign on the door, engraved with several incomprehensible and incomplete strange symbols, like numbers, or some other kind of numbering...

He knew the little girl was pointing to the location of her bedroom...

The vision twisted again, becoming bizarre and grotesque, even direct viewing was impossible.

But the energy surge seemed to flow, and those disordered, harsh noises that made his head dizzy finally faded away slowly.

"The Lawmaker..."

This time, it was the night watchman's voice that appeared in his ear.

Time became normal again, and the night watchman's voice finally reached Lin Yi's ears at this moment.

He glanced down at his watch. The hands on the watch moved with extreme difficulty from 2:26:33 to 2:26:34, like a warrior who had fought countless battles on the battlefield...

"Everything just now... only happened in... one second of 'time'?"

"No, time is just the scale I see. Just now... there's no way to know what was going on..."

Lin Yi felt a slight daze in his mind. His brain was still a little dizzy, and his consciousness was a little chaotic, as if he were 'jet-lagged.' It's just that he himself didn't know whether his jet lag had a problem, or how to adjust back...