Chapter 719: Two Boys

'Could the Mirror Fragment the Live Show wants me to find be this thing?' I looked at the mirror behind the bedroom door and quickly dismissed the guess. 'The optional task says to find a Mirror Fragment, and this is clearly a complete mirror.'

The Live Show's broadcast task was incredibly vague. It only mentioned finding a Mirror Fragment, but didn't give me a single clue related to mirrors.

'A similar item once appeared in the livestream product catalog called the Reincarnation Mirror Fragment, priced at one hundred points.'

I suddenly thought of the Mirror Fragment I had brought out from the Deep Dream Layer. There had to be some kind of connection between the three.

'Having gone through so many broadcasts, I can be sure the Live Show doesn't hand out optional tasks randomly. Thinking about it this way...' Connecting the previous broadcasts with my experiences in the Deep Dream Layer, I was eighty percent certain that the Mirror Fragment the Live Show wanted me to find was the same kind I had found on the No-Lights Road in the Deep Dream Layer.

Only I could distinguish this special type of glass. In form and function, they were identical to ordinary mirrors, yet they alone refused to reflect my image.

Looking at the mirror behind the bedroom door, I saw that although the glass was blurry, both the boy's reflection and my own were clearly visible. This obviously wasn't what I was looking for.

"I knew it wouldn't be that easy. The Live Show's optional tasks are all hellish in difficulty." I said no more and silently watched the boy.

After arranging the apples, he knelt before the mirror, his eyes fixed intently on the glass as if someone inside was about to step out.

A few minutes passed, and the mirror didn't change at all. The dim room contained only me and the little boy, and the mirror reflected no third person.

'Is this kid sick with longing, possessed? Are his parents really in this room? Could his family be the "pigs" Zhu Li mentioned?' Just thinking about that lunatic who sewed pigskin onto his own body made me sick. He had definitely hidden something crucial from me; deep down, he never intended to let me leave the Red Building alive.

While lost in thought, I casually glanced at the mirror and was surprised to find the little boy's reflection secretly watching me.

He knelt on the floor with his back to me, his head lowered, while his beady eyes stealthily observed me through the glass.

Whether from paranoia or sheer tension, I actually caught a faint trace of hatred in the boy's eyes.

'I have no grudges against him, so why would he hate me? No, he doesn't hate me—it's just a simple hostility toward outsiders.'

That look had already put me on guard, but I didn't show it. Instead, I pretended to notice nothing and took the initiative to close the distance between us.

I bent down and squatted beside him. "Are you waiting for your mom and dad?"

The little boy stared at the mirror without saying a word. I could only guess based on the changes in his expression.

"Why put fruit in front of the mirror? Are your parents inside it? Or... can the mirror only reflect what they look like?" At my last question, the boy's lips twitched as if he wanted to speak, but he forced it down.

From this tiny detail on his face, I had already guessed a few things, though I couldn't verify them just yet.

"Do you want to see your mom and dad? How about you take me to find them?" I kept my voice soft and coaxed him a while longer, but the boy never answered. Just as I was about to give up and leave to check the other rooms, a very weak cry for help suddenly echoed from somewhere in the bedroom.

"Mmph..."

"What was that?" With my sharp senses, I quickly pinpointed the source of the noise and locked my eyes on the wooden bed. "It came from under the bed."

I was just about to head over when the boy kneeling before the mirror suddenly reached out and grabbed my pant leg. "What is it?"

He didn't say a word, just shook his head at me. His purplish lips were pulled tight, marked with several small cuts.

Opening his mouth, he pointed under the bed, shaking his head and waving his hands to signal me not to go over there.

The boy's abnormal behavior only made me more curious. What was under that bed to make someone who had been so cold suddenly change his attitude?

I gently pulled his hand away and slowly approached the wooden bed, my fingers brushing against the Ghost Ring.

"Ah, ah..." As I passed him, he suddenly scrambled up from the floor and hugged my leg, letting out strange sounds like a startled sparrow.

"It's fine." I tried to pull him off a few times but found his grip iron-tight; he was doing everything in his power to stop me. 'The sound from under the bed was obviously human. For him to be so insistent on keeping me away—could it not be a person down there? Is it something terrifying?'

Having braced myself mentally, I dragged my leg forward, pulling the boy along until I reached the bed.

The bedding was damp and smelled of mildew. The boy's wooden bed was very low, leaving little space underneath, which was why I hadn't searched it initially.

My pants were gripped tightly. I looked down to see the boy's bony fingers twisting into the fabric like iron hooks. His body trembled as he clung to my calf like a water monkey.

"Are you scared?" Not daring to take this lightly, I grew tense as well and cautiously lifted the bedsheet.

"Mmph, mmph!"

The scene that met my eyes left me stunned.

A six- or seven-year-old boy lay tied up under the bed. A wad of rags was stuffed in his mouth, and his eyes were wide with terror.

'What's going on? Where did this kid come from? If the one under the bed is the boy Zhu Li said lived on the sixth floor, then what the hell is clinging to my leg right now?' Feeling an unprecedented surge of malice, I looked down and made eye contact with the skeletal boy.

To my surprise, he didn't show panic or fly into a rage; instead, exhibiting a deep sense of fear, he hid his head behind my thigh.

'What is this kid so afraid of?' The boy beneath the bed had delicate features. Although his face was deathly pale, his clothing and build suggested he had never suffered much hardship. Even if he wasn't from a wealthy family, he had at least lived a carefree life.

I forcefully flipped the bedboard over and untied his ropes. "Don't be afraid. Take a deep breath. Keep your voice down and just relax."

Stepping back to give the child enough space, I waited for him to calm down before asking, "What's your name? Have you been living here this whole time?"

Before I could even finish, tears welled up in the boy's eyes as if he were about to burst into wails the next second. I quickly stepped forward and clamped a hand over his mouth.

It took a full ten minutes before the boy settled down. With red eyes, he dropped a bombshell on me.

His name was Li Ming. He lived in Guanwai Baogang District and had been abducted and brought to the Red Building.

As I pressed for more details, I realized this was the restaurant owner's son's classmate—the very child who had been attacked by the Black Umbrella Woman!

After being rescued, Li Ming's emotions fluctuated wildly. Like a startled bird, he grew incredibly tense at the slightest rustle.

I also asked him a few questions about the Black Umbrella Woman, but he hemmed and hawed, unable to explain clearly. All his memories concerning her were a blur. However, when I asked why he had gone mad and run deep into the alley, his answer caught me somewhat off guard.

His soul hadn't been stolen, nor had he lost his mind. Instead, he had seen his mother in the alley, waving for him to hurry over.

According to him, when he had turned around, he found that the person standing next to him wasn't his mother, but a stranger holding a black umbrella. That was why he had done something so ridiculous.

As for what happened after he was abducted by the Black Umbrella Woman, and how he ended up in the Red Building, he had no idea.

Despite talking for so long, this six- or seven-year-old child only provided me with one useful clue: when he was abducted, he had groggily smelled the aroma of cooked meat.

Aside from that, Li Ming couldn't offer anything else of value. Instead, it was his attitude toward the other little boy that struck me as odd.

He was absolutely terrified of the boy hiding behind my leg, treating him like some kind of savage beast.

This created a very delicate situation. The two children feared each other and refused to get close, acting as if they would be eaten if they came too near.

Their bizarre behavior reminded me of an old story I'd once heard.

A father took his child out to play in the suburbs, and they spent the night in a lifeless, gloomy hotel. In the middle of the night, the father heard his child crying on the bed, claiming there was a monster underneath. When the father pulled back the sheets and crawled under the bed, he discovered his child huddled down there, clutching a pillow and crying that a ghost had entered the room.

Figuring out who to trust was always an incredibly difficult problem. I looked at Li Ming and the skeletal little boy, memorizing every single movement they made. It was all I could do for now.

"You two stick with me for now. I'll take you out of the Red Building." I had intended to take them both away, but the moment the boy clinging to my calf heard those words, he immediately let go. Scrambling backward desperately, he ducked into the bathroom alone and locked the door.

Unsure which of my words had struck a nerve, I chased him to the bathroom door, wanting to explain myself, but he absolutely refused to open it.

The corridor was fraught with danger, and breaking the door down would create a racket. Afraid of drawing the attention of those monsters, I had no choice but to give up on taking him with me.

'The situation is getting as tangled and confusing as running hares now. From the adults to the children, none of the tenants in the Red Building can be underestimated.' I sighed and prepared to go to the door to scout out the hallway, but when I turned my head, I happened to catch Li Ming standing behind the bedroom door, making a very eerie expression at the mirror.

It looked like mockery, or perhaps showing off—either way, it was completely at odds with the terror he had shown earlier.

Seeming to notice my gaze, Li Ming turned his head, his face instantly reverting to its previous terrified look in the blink of an eye. It made me wonder if I had hallucinated the whole thing.

'His clothes don't look like they belong to someone from the Red Building, and he really was tied up under the bed initially. But why do I get the feeling now that he isn't a victim at all?'