Chapter 231: Inside the Mirror

Li Manman's corpse lay flat before me, devoid of breath.

Her expression was frozen in the moment right before her death. The sheer terror made it look as if a surreal nightmare had turned into reality, as if the deepest horror in her memories had suddenly materialized in front of her.

I reached out and felt the stiff muscles of Li Manman's face, helping to close her wide, staring eyes.

Although I didn't know exactly what she had seen, I already had a general idea of who killed her.

Before entering the maze, I had seen the maze designer's profile and photo on the wall's introductory plaque.

The person who built this maze was the owner of the Amusement Park from five years ago. Based on the few words in the introduction, I could roughly gather a few of his traits.

He was shrewd, incredibly wealthy, amiable, fond of children, and had a hobby of dressing up as a Clown.

An introduction meant for the general public definitely wouldn't mention anything negative, but looking past those traits, I noticed something strange: "The Amusement Park owner has a hobby of dressing up as a Clown."

The turning point of this live broadcast started the moment I encountered that Clown, so I paid extra attention to those words.

Socrates Paradox: "Streamer, I feel like the murderer behind the scenes is definitely connected to the Amusement Park owner."

I looked at the stream chat. Socrates Paradox shared my view.

"Tell me your thoughts. Is it because of his hobby of dressing up as a Clown?" I said, holding my phone while crouching beside Li Manman's corpse.

Socrates Paradox: "I once met a very particular criminal in his forties. In the eyes of outsiders, he was the owner of an auto repair shop. He was generous, wealthy, happily married, kind to others, and never lost his temper. But this superficially respected man with a high standard of living was secretly an absolute psychopath!"

"At the time, four child disappearance cases had occurred in his small town. After repeated interviews and investigations, the police finally locked onto a suspect: this auto repair shop owner."

"After his arrest, the police found the children's bodies in his home's underground garage. It was only during interrogation that they discovered this respected owner was actually a psychopath with severe pedophilic tendencies and a communication disorder."

"Everything people saw was a facade he had spent forty years learning to fake. His truly terrifying, filthy heart was buried deep beneath human skin. This kind of double life is actually very painful. When he could no longer maintain the disguise, his long-suppressed negative traits would erupt like a volcano. He would find an unnoticed corner and vent in his own unique way."

"It's worth mentioning that this psychopath also seemed to love mazes. He secretly transformed his underground garage into a complex underground structure. Psychologists later analyzed that people who like to build mazes and hide their secrets deep inside usually have an unknown side to them. Perhaps their souls and minds are already lost in the maze of human nature."

The example Socrates Paradox provided made me even more certain of my guess. Even if the murderer wasn't the maze designer, they definitely had a deep connection to him.

I took out my phone and snapped a picture of Li Manman's corpse, then returned her body to the wooden box and left the room.

"Li Manman and Xiaobei have died one after another, so who will be buried in the third treasure room?"

"Yi Yi? Tie Ningxiang? Someone I know? Or a complete stranger?"

Carrying these questions, I navigated through the mirrors with the map. Under the flashlight's beam, countless versions of myself moved in the mirrors with every step I took. The mirrors folded and reflected, and my reflections stepped out in all directions. Some silhouettes disappeared from the mirrors after taking a step, while others appeared on different mirrors. Some reflections that were originally in profile turned into full-body reflections after just a single step. I couldn't understand the principles behind it; I only found it eerie.

The third treasure spot was located in the dead center of the maze. It took me fifteen minutes to find it. Swinging the iron tongs, I smashed a small pit at the intersection to serve as a marker, then walked up to the third golden doorframe.

Pressing my hand against the mirrored door, I was just about to push it open when a faint, dark shadow suddenly flashed across the glass in front of me.

"Who?!" I whipped my head around to look behind me, but my field of vision was filled with countless versions of myself looking back. Mirrors placed in different positions reflected endless copies of me. They all tilted their heads, their gazes locked tightly onto one another.

This scene made my scalp tingle. Without being here in person, it was impossible to imagine the sheer terror of this moment. I was certain that the dark shadow wasn't an afterimage caused by the lighting—something had indeed slipped into the maze.

I didn't know what it was. It was highly likely that it was hiding somewhere right now, secretly watching me.

"Trying to silently kill me too?" Gripping the iron tongs tightly, I pushed open the golden mirror.

The third treasure room was a bit different from the first two. Aside from the wooden treasure box in the middle of the room, there was also a massive floor-to-ceiling mirror.

The floor-to-ceiling mirror was positioned directly behind the treasure box, facing the door and reflecting my entire body.

"Why is there an extra mirror in this room?" I murmured. The maze's theme was 'Inexplicable', and now I was seeing another mirror in its center. Did these things have some sort of special meaning?

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I looked somewhat disheveled, and there was a faint mark of violent death on the bridge of my nose.

"A face can be faked, but this mark of violent death isn't something you can casually forge."

The air in the room was circulating well, with no smell of rotting flesh or blood. I walked over to the wooden treasure box and opened it.

I leaned in to look. There was no corpse inside, only a round mirror the size of a large bowl.

It was placed face down at the bottom of the box.

"What does this mean?" Puzzled, I took out the round mirror and found a sentence written on the frosted area on its back—"Guess who I am?"

A sense of déjà vu struck me. I felt like I had seen this handwriting before. In the Basement Where Lu Xing Imprisoned Xiaofeng, a note had been left on that mourning garment.

"The handwriting is the same, and the strokes are nearly identical."

Holding the mirror, I fell into deep thought.

If the person who left the note was the same individual, then he had clearly guessed I would appear here. That meant that while it seemed like I was constantly solving puzzles and edging closer to the truth step by step, he was actually luring me in, intentionally leading me to this spot.

"Could there really be someone this terrifying?" my voice was a bit dry as I quickly organized my thoughts.

The person who left the writing on the back of the mirror should be the maze's builder—the murderer who killed Li Manman and Xiaobei.

The person who left the note in the basement where Xiaofeng was imprisoned might be Lu Xing's accomplice, a follower of the Two-Faced Buddha.

Assuming these two were the same person, then their goal in kidnapping Tie Ningxiang was very easy to figure out. They did it to obtain the General Star Divine Fiends.

But if it was purely to get the general star, their goal would have already been achieved when the parade ended. Why go through so much trouble to kill Xiaobei and Li Manman and lure me to the center of the maze?

'Could it be to get rid of me? To eliminate this outsider who has repeatedly interfered with their plans?' I remembered the Black Octagonal Token I always carried with me. The three corners of Tianyi, Yuanchen, and Guiren on it had already lit up. Setting the Heavenly Doctor Divine Fiends and Primal Destiny Divine Fiends aside for now, the heavenly yi noble fate pattern should be something the Two-Faced Buddha desperately yearned for. It made perfect sense for them to intentionally set a trap to deal with me.

'Looks like I fell for their trap. Compared to Tie Ningxiang, I'm the one they want to kill more...' Now I could understand why Li Manman had initially wanted me to go to the maze; she might have received instructions from someone. And then there was Xiaobei, whom I met in the Haunted House. He had been fully armed with a sharpened axe. He hadn't been looking for someone at all—he was clearly preparing to strike a lethal blow.

'It's too late for regrets. I need to hurry and escape.' Midnight hadn't yet arrived, but I was already feeling a trace of exhaustion. The opponents in this live broadcast were probably not limited to just one or two.

My palm rubbed against the writing on the back of the round mirror. When I flipped it over, I suddenly discovered a completely unfamiliar face in the reflection.

It was a girl with hair draped messily over her eyes, strangle marks on her neck, and a face entirely covered in blood and grime.

She was around the same age as Yi Yi, and she was silently staring at me from inside the mirror.

Crash! I released my grip. The round mirror fell to the ground and shattered.

But before I could react, my vision suddenly went dark, as if my eyes had been covered by a pair of small hands.

Darkness descended, and a girl's voice came from behind me:

"Guess who I am?"