Sure enough, in the next second, another wave of puppets rushed into the room – it was the housekeeper and the maids they had seen in the castle before.

The housekeeper, Rosetta, looked at them coldly. It was the only servant with a name in the whole castle, and it was also the puppet which most resembled a human being.

The housekeeper stood expressionless at the door, followed by a large army of stiff-faced maid puppets.

“Guests, this isn’t a place where you should be.”

“We’re sorry, we’re sorry. We went the wrong way. We’ll leave right now…” Tang Mianmian laughed dryly in an attempt to make a joke, but at this time, obviously no one found it funny.

“Since you’re here, then you might as well stay.” The housekeeper looked at them coldly. At its command, the puppet army descended upon them.

The puppet army, coupled with four vanguard soldiers, looked menacing. All of a sudden, they were surrounded. Shen Yuan and the others didn’t dare to damage the puppet and found it hard to fight them. Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian, these two battle slags, were doing their best not to drag everyone else’s feet.

Tang Mianmian was still fine. After all, he had good physical stamina and great strength but Xiao Tangqiu was struggling to cope.

He was originally a weak geek and a useless fighter. On top of that, his physical strength wasn’t very good. He was soon out of breath.

He dodged left and right for a bit, but was suddenly bundled into a rice dumpling by a mass of hair and hung upside down in mid-air.

Xiao Tangqiu, “……”

Why him?!

Why him again!

Xiao Tangqiu floundered in the air a few times, looked up, and saw that it was the long-haired monster.

The monster was lying on the ceiling in a strange posture. Although half of its puppet body had been exposed, it still had half of its hair left. Using all its hair, it finally managed to catch Xiao Tangqiu again.

It looked at Xiao Tangqiu bitterly and seemed to want to tear Xiao Tangqiu violently into pieces. Xiao Tangqiu struggled, but his efforts were in vain.

Duan Hongzhen raised his head and tutted, “Why is it you again?”

Xiao Tangqiu, “……I would like to know why as well!”

Duan Hongzhen raised his hand to shoot out a flying knife but he didn’t dare to damage the puppet directly, so he deliberately aimed it a little askew. But when the flying knife brushed the long-haired monster’s body and plunged into the ceiling, the monster didn’t loosen its prey. Instead, it gave Xiao Tangqiu a resentful look and suddenly dragged him towards the studio at the other end of the room.

“Qiuqiu!”

While Tang Mianmian was still screaming repeatedly, the monster crashed violently into the mirror in the studio, and Xiao Tangqiu subconsciously closed his eyes.

Behind the mirror in the secret chamber was another secret passage!

This was a dark and damp passage, so long that it seemed to have no end. The long-haired monster crawled along the ceiling of the secret passage in a weird posture, dragging Xiao Tangqiu, who was still dangling mid-air, towards the front. 

The monster was just like a giant spider. After catching its prey with spider silk, it was going back to its nest.

Did spiders have nests?

Xiao Tangqiu didn’t know the answer to that, but he knew that the monster was taking him to his lair right now. That place was definitely hell for him and he would most likely die there.

He struggled violently, almost exhausting all his strength. He knew that if he didn’t escape now, he probably wouldn’t have a chance to return alive again.

However, the hair, which looked like ordinary human hair, was actually as tough as a steel wire. Xiao Tangqiu’s violent struggle had no effect but only served to further infuriate the monster.

It screamed angrily at Xiao Tangqiu, dragging him along the wall of the secret passage. As Xiao Tangqiu’s head suddenly hit the wall, his vision turned blurry and he started to see stars.

But the monster didn’t seem satisfied with just that. It continued to smash its prey against the wall several times.

The poor prey finally blacked out.

When Xiao Tangqiu woke up and opened his eyes again, he suddenly found a huge serpent in front of him. The serpent was many times larger than a human being. Its huge head was like a hill, which made anyone who looked at it break out in cold sweat. It looked at him from a high position. The peculiar vertical pupils of the snake stared at him coldly and ruthlessly. It seemed to be filled with killing intent that was directed at its prey but also appeared to look down on everything else with condescension.

The serpent’s mouth was biting its own tail. Its huge body stretched for thousands of miles, coiled like a mountain, while Xiao Tangqiu stood in the space where its body twisted and turned, like a grain of sand in the desert or a drop of water in the ocean.

Was this the serpent of the world, Ouroboros?

Xiao Tangqiu’s heart was filled with fear and horror, but he felt uncontrollably attracted to the huge and mysterious serpent. This giant undying serpent, which symbolized immortality, was so mysterious, so powerful and full of deadly beauty…

However, in an instant, Xiao Tangqiu suddenly lost consciousness again, and the giant serpent’s figure gradually blurred in front of his eyes.

He finally woke up from his dream.

When he woke up and opened his eyes once more, he found that everything was just a dream. He didn’t really see any giant serpent of the world, he was still inside and he had never left the instance. He didn’t know why but his heart was empty and he felt somewhat lost.

The surrounding environment seemed familiar. Xiao Tangqiu looked around and soon remembered where this was. The once colorful but now faded glass windows, the empty benches full of dust, and the huge statue of Lily Marlene ahead… This was clearly the church in Daemon Town.

He was taken to the church by that long-haired monster? But then again, they had indeed found a secret passage to the castle’s underground chamber underneath the church before.

Just then, he suddenly found something wrong with himself. He looked down and immediately discovered that the clothing given to him by Shen Yuan had disappeared God knows when and was replaced by… a white tulle dress!

Xiao Tangqiu jumped in shock. He didn’t know who had changed his clothes while he was passed out. And even worse, that person had dressed him in a beautiful woman’s dress. Although the white tulle dress that swept the floor was very beautiful, it was clearly a bride’s wedding dress that was supposed to be worn by a woman on her wedding day!

No, the main point was, why dress him, a big, grown MAN, in a woman’s dress?!

He quickly got up from the cold floor of the church and stretched out his hands to tear off the dress. But just then, a voice sounded.

“Those pesky guests have ruined my plan. I can only choose, in advance, a suitable woman from the suitors to be my wife. Darling, today is our wedding day.”

Lippinobert slowly stepped out from behind the huge sculpture. Although he called out the word “Darling,” his tone was very grim and cold. He didn’t sound as if he was talking to his future bride at all, but rather to some stranger he was extremely disgusted with.

Woman? Wife?

Wait! Was there something wrong with Lippinobert’s eyes? Can’t he tell that he’s a man?

Xiao Tangqiu was about to refute, but when he carefully observed Lippinobert, he found that he couldn’t say anything. Right now, Lippinobert was covered in makeup, wearing a white wedding dress and a wig. At first glance, he almost thought Lily Marlene had come out of the painting.

Lippinobert, the “groom”, was more like a bride than his “bride”!

A wedding where two big men put on wedding dresses at the same time… What a strange cross-dressing wedding this was!

Although Lippinobert was middle-aged, Xiao Tangqiu didn’t feel like there was anything off about how he looked when he put on a wedding dress and wig. In fact, he looked exactly like Lily Marlene in the paintings.

It wasn’t until this moment that Xiao Tangqiu realized that neither Maria nor Veronika resembled Lily Marlene herself, because all this time, Lily Marlene was really Lippinobert!

Xiao Tangqiu forced himself to calm down and asked Lippinobert, “What do you really want?”

Since Lily Marlene never existed and had always been a fantasy of Lippinobert, what did Lippinobert really want after killing so many people, including his mother, wife, daughter, and even the entire town of Daemon?

Lippinobert looked at him grimly, “Darling, after becoming my wife, you will have everything I have. Of course, you will also be a part of me…”

Clearly, the words “you will be a part of me” was an extremely romantic phrase, but it sounded awfully strange and creepy coming from Lippinobert’s lips, making Xiao Tangqiu’s back turn cold.

Xiao Tangqiu didn’t think that those words were meant as a romantic remark… He thought that Lippinobert meant exactly as he said – he wasn’t going to become a part of Lippinobert symbolically, but rather, literally. 

Xiao Tangqiu suddenly understood something and felt uneasy all over. At this moment, he heard Lippinobert sneer, “Darling, we will definitely be the most beautiful brides tonight. Look, so many people have come to our wedding…”

We will definitely be the most beautiful brides tonight …

We…

The more he thought about it, the more frightened he grew, but he couldn’t help turning around. The originally empty church was filled with people since God knows when. They were sitting on the dusty benches, and many more were walking into the church.

Naturally, those “people” weren’t really people, but a large group of puppets with stiff expressions and slow movements. These poor residents of Daemon Town probably never committed anything really bad in their lives, but because of their ignorant ancestors from hundreds of years ago, they were turned into live puppets by the cruel owner of the castle. From living human beings, they were turned into puppets without any consciousness.

The puppets sat stiffly on the church benches, as if they were really guests attending a wedding. Apart from some which had complete bodies, there were many puppets with broken arms, legs, rotting skin and some were just skeletons. Xiao Tangqiu guessed that these bodies, which probably had been dug up from the cemetery in Daemon Town by Lippinobert, might have been the ones who burned Lili Marlene hundreds of years ago.

Soon, the originally empty church was occupied by puppets who came to attend the wedding. However, Xiao Tangqiu couldn’t feel any warmth at all in such a “lively” wedding. He only felt a chill crawl up his spine.

The puppets had stiff expressions and empty eyes, which didn’t make him feel like he was attending a grand wedding, but rather a funeral in a graveyard.

It was also most likely his own funeral.

At this time, Lippinobert suddenly took out a very thick book with a black cover and mysterious golden patterns.

Xiao Tangqiu instantly recognized this as the same book Shen Yuan had read in front of him several times. He suddenly froze. Did Lippinobert steal the book from Shen Yuan?

Because Lippinobert was standing right in front of him, Xiao Tangqiu managed to see the patterns on the cover of the book for the first time at close range. The golden patterns had a strange but familiar feeling. Soon, he recognized them – the golden patterns were clearly a large group of intertwined serpents biting their own tails!

The serpent of the world, Ouroboros.

Again, Ouroboros.

~~~

P.S. Sorry for missing last night’s update. Just a reminder, I can’t be sure exactly when my work schedule eases up. So, for the moment, I may miss certain days but will be sure to make it up on the next day or the weekend (so you still get 7 releases a week). ❤