绝代双骄 林志颖

In the next second, the warm touch swept over his lips and the other party’s casual voice exploded in his mind— the impact brought by those simple words was no less than an earth-shaking tsunami. His sober mind was instantly overwhelmed, and all the previous thoughts in his mind had scattered away, floating on a pure ocean of bliss.

Before he could react, the other party backed away and the door closed again.

“Wait…” The man caught the closing door quickly with swift hands. Although he didn’t need to breathe, his chest was heaving unsteadily. He stared at the young man standing behind the door with burning eyes, his voice a bit unsteady as he said hoarsely: “One more.”

Ge Xiu narrowed his eyes and smiled.

As long as he wanted to, he could use his natural facial features to the fullest.

The other party was slightly dazed.

“Good night.”

Ge Xiu blinked, showed a sly complacent smile, then proceed to slam the door shut before the other party recovered.

The door panel and the door frame collided with a “bang”, echoing in the dead silent and dark corridor.

The man stared fixedly at the closed door in front of him, with stormwaves surging deep in his dark eyes.

After a long time, he raised his hand and gently rubbed his cold fingers against his pale lower lip.

The human body temperature was too hot for him, a touch warmth and softness seemed to still remain on the lips, travelling from the skin that was touched all the way to the chest cavity, still burning hot until now.

He lowered his eyes and smiled softly:

“…good night.”

In the next second, there was a rippling fluctuation in the air, as the man’s figure slowly dissipated in mid-air like smoke, without any shadow remaining .

·

The next day.

The pendulum from the mechanical clock broke the silence, resounding throughout the huge building, echoing in the narrow and dark corridors and stairwells.

The lifeless villa seemed to come alive suddenly, all the lights were turned on again and the darkness was completely dispelled from the building. The footsteps of the butler, housekeeper and the maids resounded everywhere in the villa, the lowered whispers and the collision of dishes filled the air, as if this place had suddenly changed from the grave to the living world full of vitality.

Ge Xiu opened his eyes and yawned slowly.

“Morning.” The man sat on an armchair not far away, showing a smile at Ge Xiu when he looked over.

——He seemed not at all prepared to hide the fact that he had been staring at the other for a long time.

Ge Xiu: “…”

He took a deep breath: “Do you insist on greeting me in this way?”

The man blinked: “Don’t you like it?”

Ge Xiu: “…not at all.”

The other party nodded as if noting down his opinion seriously, he said solemnly: “Then I will try another method next time.”

“…” Ge Xiu suddenly had an ominous premonition: “…no need.”

The other party laughed, stood up from the armchair, then picked up the tray on the side table and walked over, to put it on the small cabinet next to the bed: “Here, the butler brought it just now.”

Ge Xiu swept a look at the contents of the plate.

Baked brown toast, refreshments, fruits and vegetables, fried eggs with butter.

Balanced and matched in colour, looking quite refined.

He raised his eyebrows: “This instance is still in charge of food?”

“Of course. But the content of everyone’s food is closely related to their identity.” The man took out the contents of the tray in a slow and elegant manner.

“Don’t worry, this is real food.” He winked at Ge Xiu: “I checked.”

Ge Xiu glanced at him: “Have you met the housekeeper?”

“Yes.” The man smiled slightly: “I handled it very cleanly.”

Ge Xiu frowned, a little annoyed:

“I’m not caring about you.”

“Okay, okay.” The smile on the other side’s lips deepened: “I’m being self-indulgent.”

Ge Xiu: “…”

He lowered his eyes and poked the food in front of him with a silver fork expressionlessly.

——[he] in this world was becoming more and more difficult to handle.

At this moment, a hand suddenly stretched out in front of his eyes.

Fingers spread out slowly.

He saw a candy lying in the palm of the other party, the candy wrapper surrounding the candy was shining under the light, as if faintly spreading some kind of sweet and secret temptation.

Ge Xiu’s eyes lit up slightly.

He restrained his shining eyes, and with a serious face, he solemnly reached out to take the candy from the palm of the other party. Ge Xiu raised his eyes and glanced at the man standing in front of him, and said reluctantly:

“…Thanks.”

The curve of the man’s lips deepened: “It is my honor to serve you.”

.

When Ge Xiu came downstairs, the atmosphere in the hall was very strange.

The hostess—according to the information collected last night, her name was Elizabeth Wright—was sitting in the middle of the sofa and the other players were standing aside tremblingly. There was a broken teacup lying on the ground and tea leaves from the pot were scattered all over the ground, half of a bloody finger and an eyeball connected to a nerve fell in the middle of the water stains.

Mrs. Wright’s face looked particularly strange.

Although there were traces of time on her face, it was still extraordinarily beautiful, as stiff as a mask, with a certain strangeness in the corner of her eyebrows and eyes. Her face was like a piece of skin that had been separated from the bones, just hanging loosely on a mannequin. Her dark and menacing eyes were fixed on a player standing beside her, vicious and evil, as if the strong malice hidden under this skin was about to turn into black mucus and flow out of her seven orifices.

All the other NPCs in the room were the same.

The maids and the butler remained motionless, staring at the player who made the mistake with the same eyes.

The player that was the target of these stares stood stiffly on the spot, his complexion pale as paper, sweat resembling melting wax flowed down his forehead, his whole body trembled like sieves, standing unsteady on his feet—even if Ge Xiu didn’t know it he could see that this player’s chance had been used up.

He continued to walk down calmly.

When Ge Xiu stepped on the last step, the scene that was still stagnant before suddenly returned to flow.

Mrs. Wright’s face returned to its previous normal and delicate beauty and the butler and maids continued to do the work at hand as if nothing had happened—sweeping the dust and waiting for orders.

It felt as if the weird scene just now was simply a hallucination.

Mrs. Wright, as if not seeing the eyeball and finger mixed in it, pointed to the tea and debris scattered on the ground in disgust, and ordered: “Sweep these away, there are still guests at home, what does it look like to leave this mess at floor.”

The players woke up abruptly and hurriedly began to clean up the debris on the ground.

The player who messed up seemed to have gotten through a great hurdle and joined in tremblingly.

Ge Xiu walked down the steps.

Mrs. Wright seemed to notice him just now and walked over quickly with her dress held up as she took Ge Xiu’s hand: “My darling, why are you coming down now?”

Ge Xiu said expressionlessly, “I overslept.”

The players around all took a breath— they just saw clearly how the player just now was easily caught making a mistake and lost a chance, but now the other person so carelessly went astray from character design. The answer… They held their breath, feeling that the NPC in front of them was about to tear off that hypocritical mask in the next second, revealing a ferocious face.

But unexpectedly, Mrs. Wright just frowned and complained:

“How many times have I warned you? Why do you never change?”

“There are so many guests at home, don’t be self-willed.” She raised her hand to call for the maid standing at the side while pushing and shoving Ge Xiu: “Take miss to the dressing room, the tailor is already waiting for her.”

The maid at the side came over and curtseyed to Ge Xiu: “Miss, please come with me.”

Ge Xiu glanced at the trembling players not far away, then retracted his gaze, and followed behind the maid in front of him.

After passing through several dimly lit side halls and winding corridors, the maid stopped in front of one of the doors and bowed to Ge Xiu: “Miss, we’re here.”

Ge Xiu raised his hand and pushed open the door.

A pungent smell of blood rushed to the face in an instant, the thick rusty taste seemed almost tangible in the air, the metallic taste covering the tongue and refusing to dissipate.

It was a huge room with a high ceiling. All kinds of clothing and long dresses were hung on the shelves in the room and in the special wooden wardrobes. In the room, there were two servants standing in the corner, bending over to carefully arrange the ready semi-finished clothes, in the silent room, only the rustling sound of friction between the cloth’s fabric could be heard.

The window was open and through the window, the dark and sticky sky outside the house was clearly visible. Compared with yesterday’s color, it was slightly lighter, just like turbulent gray clouds. It could only be seen from the slightly brighter shade of the sky than last night, that it was daytime.

A bust of a model stood in the center of the room, while a tall, thin tailor stood aside with a tape measure and scissors, bending over as if working on small trims to the clothes the model was wearing.

It was wearing a long dress.

The fabric of the dress was sewn with thick pieces of human ski, and the stitches meticulously fixed the upturned skin into shape, the white bones were propping up the huge dress into a wide shape.

Through the bloody epidermis, one could vaguely see the looming capillaries and the remaining flesh and blood.

Blood dripped drop by drop from the lower end of the dress, penetrated into the thick carpet, and was absorbed in an instant.

The tailor with the scissors turned around, the blades of the scissors in his hands were still stained with half-dried blood, like dark rust on the sharp blades, he looked forty or fifty years old, dressed in a well-tailored suit on his thin body.

The tailor looked natural, greeted Ge Xiu with a smile,

“Miss, you are finally here.”

Ge Xiu walked into the room without changing his expression and stopped in front of the dress.

The smell of blood became stronger.

He raised his eyes and carefully looked at the bust in front of him dressed in a blood-colored human leather dress— the mannequin in the dress was not made of wood, but made from a real person. It was hard to tell whether it was a male or a female, because the skin on their body had been completely stripped off, leaving only a layer of neatly arranged muscles over the bones, the pair of eyeballs that had lost their eyelids seemed to be covered with a foggy shadow, staring dully in the empty space in the front.

The tailor walked over with a smile on his face, raised his hand towards the lace of the dress behind the model, and said as he was untying it,

“Miss, are you ready to try on your wedding dress?”

More blood dripped from the tailor’s fingers as they moved dexterously, staining his palms and cuffs scarlet.

Ge Xiu looked away, and replied calmly:

“No.”

“This…” The smile on the tailor’s face froze: “May I ask why this is…”

He asked: “Is it because you are dissatisfied with the style? Or the fabric…”

The servants standing in the corner stopped what they were doing and looked over in unison, with their eyes glued to Ge Xiu’s body, as if anticipating something.

Suddenly, without any warning, Ge Xiu raised his foot and kicked down the mangled corpse in a human skin dress.

The tailor who was still rambling was caught off guard and rolled to the floor with the corpse with an “ouch”, the clean and tidy suit on his body was instantly stained with sticky blood.

Ge Xiu looked at him condescendingly, and smiled slightly:

“Miss is not willing.”

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The author has something to say:

Xiu Xiu: Arrogant