Circus of Horrors (14)
Chen Li sat in the VIP seat, head lowered as he looked at the few people below.
They stood there nervously, terrified that Joker might call on them. The looming sense of death was enough to drive anyone mad.
Joker let out a wicked whistle but said nothing about who would perform, his gaze cutting across them like a slow, torturous blade.
One of the more emotionally fragile female dancers couldn’t help but cover her mouth and let out a quiet sob.
But that only drew even more malicious mockery from Joker.
Chen Li couldn’t watch any longer. He cleared his throat, and only when everyone turned to look at him did he speak: “What’s the performance today?”
Upon hearing the question, Joker immediately reined in his malice and stopped teasing: “Today’s performance is a puppet show.”
The players who had escaped being chosen let out a collective sigh of relief.
They glanced toward the puppeteer in her extravagant dress with looks of pity—tinged with a sense of shared fate.
The magician beside her looked worried: “Xiao Fang?”
She was badly injured and had been given special permission to rest in her room yesterday, but today, she was required to be present. She sat in the farthest corner, unable to come any closer.
The puppeteer casually curled one of her twin ponytails around her finger and smiled at the magician: “I’m fine.”
Her eyes were calm, showing none of the fear or panic that Joker had hoped to see.
Joker sounded a bit bored: “Are you ready?”
The puppeteer didn’t plan on wasting any time. She picked up the puppet beside her and asked: “You want me to perform with this?”
The puppet had been with her from the beginning—it was the first item she received upon entering this instance, just like the darts to the dart thrower or the whip to the beast tamer. From the moment she got it, she’d been studying it, looking for even the slightest chance of survival.
Joker feigned surprise: “Correct!”
Chen Li leaned in and quietly asked the person next to him: “Can she survive this?”
Fu Moyang’s dark eyes swept over her, then quickly shifted away: “Anyone who can casually pull out a Heart Guild invitation card is at least a veteran player.”
Someone like that wouldn’t be eliminated so easily.
But when he saw how long Chen Li’s gaze lingered on her, he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.
The puppeteer carried the puppet to the center of the stage.
Chen Li watched nervously. He didn’t see any strings on the puppet—but if it was a puppet show, how could it be controlled without strings?
Suddenly, a faint glimmer passed over the puppeteer’s wrist.
Was that just his imagination?
Chen Li leaned in for a closer look.
Just then, he felt a sudden warmth near his ear—a man leaned in and whispered: “Like what you see?”
Startled, Chen Li instinctively widened his eyes, looking like a frightened hamster.
Fu Moyang, far from apologetic, actually found it amusing. He reached out, trying to brush Chen Li’s long lashes, but before he could, Chen Li slapped his hand away.
Chen Li snapped: “Don’t block my view.”
Fu Moyang reluctantly pulled his hand back, his voice tinged with jealousy: “Whose performance is better—hers, or mine yesterday?”
Chen Li looked confused. “She hasn’t even started yet…”
Before he could finish, something changed on stage.
The puppet, which had previously been limp in the puppeteer’s arms, suddenly moved. It stood up and bowed twice—once to the general audience, and once to the VIP section. Its bright red boots tapped playfully on the floor.
One of the female dancers couldn’t help but ask: “How is she doing that?”
None of them had seen the puppeteer make any movements.
The puppeteer’s expression darkened: “I’m not the one controlling it.”
A sudden pain shot through her hand. She looked down to see a faint line of pressure around her wrist.
Invisible strings!
Chen Li narrowed his eyes. So he hadn’t been seeing things—thin, transparent threads had appeared on the puppeteer’s hands and feet.
It was hard to tell the difference without looking closely.
The puppeteer curled her lips into a faint smile: “So that’s how it is.”
She swiftly drew the blade strapped beneath her skirt and slashed it across her wrist. With a sharp snap, one of the transparent strings broke.
“Mama!!”
The puppet suddenly spoke, its round little face contorted with panic: “Mama, don’t cut our connection!”
Its once-agile right hand instantly went limp, drooping as the string attached to the puppeteer’s right hand was severed.
The puppet lunged at her, face twisted with rage, and shrieked in a chilling childlike voice: “Mama! Mama! Mama!”
The puppeteer kicked it away and immediately turned the blade toward her left hand. She skillfully lifted another nearly invisible string with pinpoint precision.
The puppet began crying even louder: “Mama!”
Without even a furrow in her brow, the puppeteer sliced through her left wrist.
The puppet’s left hand drooped as well.
Watching from the sidelines, Joker suddenly smiled: “Only one puppet in the show? That’s too dull. Let me help spice things up a bit.”
With a snap of his fingers, five tattered cotton teddy bears shuffled forward in unison. They raised their heads and stared at her with eyeless, hollow sockets.
Their stitched-on red smiles looked grotesque and crude.
“We’ll help you,” they said.
“Get away from me!” the puppeteer screamed.
The tattered cotton teddy bears swarmed her. Though their bodies were soft, touching them felt like being pricked by needles.
Thrown off by the sudden pain, her next move faltered. Her blade pressed a little too hard and sliced into her ankle. Blood instantly soaked through her white socks, though it didn’t spread further.
The blood was absorbed by the unbroken string.
Or more accurately—by the puppet.
The once-transparent string suddenly turned into a vivid, blood-red line, like a lit fuse, connecting the puppeteer’s ankle directly to the puppet’s.
The puppet froze in place.
“What’s it doing?” Chen Li asked, unable to hold back.
Fu Moyang replied: “Absorbing. Transforming.”
“Transforming?”
Only then did Chen Li notice the puppet—previously stiff and obviously wooden—had begun to subtly change.
Its texture was turning soft. Its color gradually approached human skin tone.
“Is it… getting bigger?” Chen Li asked uncertainly.
Soon, he realized it wasn’t just his imagination. As more blood flowed through the red string, the puppet’s growth became increasingly obvious.
The puppeteer was highly skilled, but even she couldn’t fend off five attackers at once. The five tattered cotton teddy bears clung to her, chattering nonstop, making it impossible for her to sever the last string.
She missed the perfect moment to break the connection.
By then, the puppet had already grown to three meters tall.
The last tattered cotton teddy bear was finally slashed open, its stomach torn completely, all the cotton pulled out—only then did it collapse, unable to stand anymore.
The Puppeteer turned around to face the massive doll.
In that instant, their roles were reversed.
Compared to its three-meter height, her 1.6-meter frame now seemed tiny—she had gone from controller to controlled, from puppet master to puppet.
The Puppeteer didn’t dare to move rashly. She quickly looked down and cut the two threads tied to her ankles. It was surprisingly easy—almost too easy.
Sure enough, the doll gave a cruel smile: “Mommy, you’re too late.”
The Puppeteer’s eyes filled with disgust: “I don’t have a doll as ugly as you.”
She resolved to throw away every single doll in her house once she got back.
The doll’s mouth, shaped like a trapezoid, opened and closed as it spoke: “Mommy, let’s play a game.”
It ignored her words entirely, clapping its hands in delight. Its eyes—each almost as big as a ball—stared fixedly at the Puppeteer.
“Game! Game! Let’s play dolls!”
Dozens of red blood-like threads suddenly shot out from its body like venomous snakes, darting toward the Puppeteer.
The Magician almost screamed: “Watch out!”
The Puppeteer rolled across the floor, dodging most of the blood threads, but one of them wrapped tightly around her neck.
She froze instantly, carefully tilting her head upward.
That razor-sharp thread could easily slice her head off.
The doll’s childish voice, now bloated and distorted, sounded rough and hoarse—like a child going through puberty using a cheap voice changer: “Play dolls. Me and Mommy play dolls together.”
The Puppeteer’s eyes grew cold. She was now both the “Mommy” and the “Doll.”
The blood threads she had just dodged slithered back like leeches, quickly winding around her limbs until over a dozen of them had her arms and legs tightly bound.
The doll giggled—a sound completely devoid of innocence, full of cruelty—and said: “Doll, dance.”
Then it suddenly plopped down on its butt in the center of the stage and began playing with its doll with full concentration.
The blood threads tugged at her limbs, forcing them into strange, jerky movements. The Puppeteer could no longer control her own muscles. A sharp crack rang out—she was being puppeted into twisting her left arm behind her back in a grotesque, unnatural pose.
She screamed in agony, cold sweat pouring down her face. But her right hand stubbornly clutched the blade, even as the edge cut deep into her palm.
The doll grew more excited. It twitched a finger, and the thread tied around her leg responded. The blood thread pulled her leg straight, and sharp pain radiated through her nerves.
The more it hurt, the tighter the Puppeteer gripped the blade. She lifted her head in defiance.
She knew—she knew the damned doll’s weakness…
Another sharp crack. This time, her right shin was twisted and broken.
The Magician’s face turned deathly pale. If this continued, the grotesque giant doll would torture her friend to death!
She didn’t want to watch her partner die helplessly—but what could she do?
She could do nothing. She was utterly useless…
The Puppeteer’s screams of pain continued to echo. She didn’t relax for a moment, focused solely on exploiting that weakness. But the massive doll never gave her a chance to escape.
As the Puppeteer’s screams grew weaker, the Magician became increasingly distressed. She reached up and grabbed the front of her shirt—intending to steady her breath—but instead, her hand brushed against something unusual.
A wooden beak… with a hook on the end—it was the wooden parrot!
The Magician’s eyes suddenly lit up. She quickly pulled out the wooden parrot and yanked off its head.
The head of the wooden parrot cried out: “Help! Help! Help!”
The voice and tone were identical to the Puppeteer’s.
The doll froze, its hands pausing mid-play, its hollow gaze fixed directly on the parrot head in the Magician’s hand.
Startled, the Magician quickly tossed the parrot away. The doll’s gaze followed it, and shockingly, it abandoned its “doll” and began crawling toward the wooden parrot with both hands and feet.
That brief moment of distraction was all the Puppeteer needed. With a surge of survival instinct, she dragged her ruined leg and mangled arm and lunged at the doll.
The Knife Thrower’s assistant shouted: “Is she crazy?! Cut the threads first!”
But Chen Li didn’t agree. Cutting the blood threads would only buy temporary relief. As long as she remained in the circus and bore the identity of the Puppeteer, she would always be under its control. It was better to take this one chance, while the prop still worked, and go all in.
Who would’ve thought—this wooden parrot, originally a gift from the Puppeteer to the Magician, would end up being used to save her.
The Puppeteer clawed her way up, climbing onto the doll’s back.
The doll remained oblivious, still calling out, “Mommy,” as it picked up the parrot head from the floor.
The parrot’s mechanical voice repeated: “Help! Help!”
System 001 spoke up in explanation: [This is the Echo Parrot prop. Using it can redirect a ghost’s or monster’s aggression for five minutes. The Puppeteer must have figured out the doll’s weakness.]
She didn’t disappoint. The Puppeteer suddenly raised her blade and drove it into the back of the doll’s neck.
Hidden beneath its yellow hair was a small, easily overlooked recess.
As the blade pierced it, the doll collapsed like a toy whose batteries had just been yanked out.
“Cough—cough—!” The Puppeteer was buried beneath it, covered in dust and dirt.
“Xiaofang!” The Magician cried as she rushed over.
The two girls hugged tightly, overwhelmed with relief after surviving the ordeal.
At last, the Puppeteer let herself break down like a girl her age should—tears fell in heavy, uncontrollable drops.
The entire scene was intense and heart-pounding. Even though it wasn’t as bloody as some of the previous performances, Chen Li was so tense he nearly forgot to breathe.
Once he saw she was safe, the first thing he did was take deep gulps of fresh air.
Only two performances remained.
Once they were done, he could finally leave this cursed castle… right?
Just as Chen Li relaxed, his whole body suddenly went limp—and then someone grabbed his waist.
Chen Li: ???
He looked over with a questioning stare that said: “Fu Moyang, do you mind explaining what you’re doing?”
Fu Moyang spoke coldly: “Young Master, whose performance was more impressive—hers, or mine?”
Author’s note:
Li Bao: Is this ever going to end?