Chapter 41.3

Xiao Tangqiu instantly understood everything, but Tang Mianmian rushed up to ask, “How is it? What did you find?”

Xiao Tangqiu handed Tang Mianmian the pocket watch. Tang Mianmian soon discovered the meaning behind the front and back inscriptions on the pocket watch. “…Lippinobert is Lily Marlene? Lily Marlene is Lippinobert?”

Xiao Tangqiu nodded, “To be exact, the ‘Lily Marlene’ in the castle is Lippinobert. All the portraits of Lily Marlene, including the statue of the Virgin Spring… should have been created by Lippinobert according to his own appearance.” All the portraits in the castle must have been painted by him in front of a mirror.

Tang Mianmian didn’t know what to say. “Isn’t this guy a little too narcissistic?”

Xiao Tangqiu smiled. “Maybe the person he loves isn’t himself, but the’ Lily Marlene’ he saw in the mirror. He really regards this ‘Lily Marlene’ as a living person. He fell in love with her and pursued her all his life…”

“So the two wives he later married were actually his own body double?” Tang Mianmian pursed his lips. “I love you but you only love yourself. I thought I was your first love’s body double, but in fact I am your own body double?”

“In the end, Lily Marlene doesn’t exist at all. He has always loved the woman in his fantasy. He has painted so many pictures for the Lily Marlene in his fantasy. For her, he turned his mother, wife and daughter into puppets. He even turned all the residents of Daemon Town… But now, we find out that Lily Marlene doesn’t exist at all?”

Xiao Tangqiu was about to say something when a shrill scream suddenly sounded.

He immediately covered his ears. Looking at the direction where the scream came from, he saw the dwarf puppet again! God knows when it had quietly appeared here, staring them down with bitterness.

In the next second, it began to beat its drum. As soon as the strange drum sounded, Xiao Tangqiu lost control of his own body and ran uncontrollably towards Tang Mianmian. He grabbed Tang Mianmian’s neck while the latter grabbed his neck.

Although the two of them struggled with a face full of reluctance, they showed no mercy in their actions. Right when Xiao tangqiu was almost strangled to death by Tang Mianmian and vice versa, Duan Hongzhen finally made his move. He threw a flying knife at the dwarf puppet.

The flying knife grazed its head and although he didn’t directly damage the puppet, it was forced to stop because of his flying knife.

Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian had a hard time getting respite and immediately separated from each other. Just then, the pocket watch in Tang Mianmian’s hand fell to the ground with a clink.

At the sight of the pocket watch, the dwarf puppet suddenly became angry. It screamed at Tang Mianmian, who didn’t have time to cover his ears. He was shocked by sound waves and his eardrums started bleeding, blood flowing down his earlobes.

Xiao Tangqiu instantly understood something. Ignoring the shrieks of the dwarf puppet, he rushed towards the pocket watch, picked it up, raised it high above his head, and was about to drop it to the ground. “If you scream again, I’ll break it!”

The dwarf puppet seemed to understand what he said and actually stopped screaming. He just looked at him with anger and resentment.

Before Xiao Tangqiu could breathe a sigh of relief, he suddenly saw a large group of fire birds – to be exact, a large group of puppet birds alight in flames – coming at him angrily in a surging momentum that devoured everything.

Everywhere they went, even the air itself seemed to burn. Xiao Tangqiu immediately pushed Tang Mianmian away and rolled to the side.

Although Xiao Tangqiu hid in time, he was burned several times by the sparks from the puppet birds, and several small holes had burned through his clothes. Before he could lament about the state of the clothes that Shen Yuan had given him, the puppet birds quickly turned mid-air and descended upon him.

Despite guessing that all this was due to the pocket watch, Xiao Tangqiu couldn’t help crying inside. Why did this group of puppet birds target him alone? Was it because he looked the easiest to bully?! In this world, even birds knew how to bully the weak and choose the soft persimmon.

Xiao Tangqiu miserably jumped up from side to side, but there were too many puppet birds. He couldn’t hide from them at all. Soon, he had retreated into a corner. There was nowhere left to hide or retreat to, and the puppet birds stormed towards him head-on.

Just when he had despaired and was about to close his eyes, a figure suddenly stood in front of him.

Xiao Tangqiu instantly stared in disbelief. Shen Yuan had suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking the blow of the large group of puppet birds for him.

When the group of burning puppet birds hit Shen Yuan, something magical happened. Shen Yuan was not only unharmed by the flames on the puppet birds, the flame on the puppet bird instantly went out instead!

The flames disappeared as if they had been swallowed by something.

At the same time, Shen Yuan’s neck was covered with mysterious black tattoos.

When the flames on the puppet birds went out, they instantly fell to the ground as if they had lost their lives, although they weren’t alive to begin with.

As the puppet birds dropped to the ground, one after another, Shen Yuan’s black tattoo became more and more conspicuous. Xiao Tangqiu saw the mysterious black tattoo on Shen Yuan at close range for the first time – a symbol of the undying serpent, Ouroboros.

Powerful and mysterious, strange yet beautiful.

While Xiao Tangqiu was staring at Shen Yuan’s tattoo, the latter suddenly turned around and said faintly, “Give me the pocket watch.”

Xiao Tangqiu’s brain hadn’t even reacted but his body had already subconsciously handed Shen Yuan the pocket watch in his hand. He didn’t regain his senses until Shen Yuan took the pocket watch.

“They attacked me because of the pocket watch?”

Shen Yuan looked at his pocket watch in his hand and muttered, “Mmm.”

Before this, the puppet birds had appeared just before the appearance of the long-haired monster, which was most likely Lippinobert’s mother, Laura according to their speculations. To be exact, it was Laura, who had been turned into a puppet by her son. Sure enough, in the next second, the long-haired monster also appeared and rushed at Shen Yuan angrily, its hair flying out like spider silk.

“Be careful!” Xiao Tangqiu blurted out subconsciously.

Shen Yuan didn’t panic. He gave the long-haired monster a cold look, the black tattoos on his body multiplied and grew clearer and clearer.

At the same time, its long hair that was wrapped around Shen Yuan’s body unexpectedly disappeared like the puppet birds’ flames. The monster let out a scream and immediately hid back but it was too late.

As its long hair disappeared little by little, the parts of its body that resembled a human being also faded away, gradually revealing its moving joints and a body made of wood.

But Shen Yuan didn’t look like he planned to turn it back into a puppet completely like those puppet birds.

When the black tattoo almost covered his entire neck, he stopped.

At this time, the monster had become half human, half puppet.

It suddenly got very angry, but it was obviously afraid of Shen Yuan’s ability, and could only bitterly stare at Shen Yuan, too afraid to come any closer.

Just then, Tang Mianmian suddenly cried out, “Fuck!”

He dropped to the ground and started rolling away. At the same time, an axe fell out of nowhere, and was deeply embedded into the place where he had been standing.

Soon, the axe was pulled out and another puppet appeared.

It had two braids and wore a red dress and small red leather shoes. Although its body was only the size of a normal puppet, it was holding a human-sized axe in its hand.

The axe was too big for its body but it didn’t have any difficulty wielding it. It lifted the axe easily. For some reason, it first attacked the little boy who was hiding behind them. The little boy let out a scream, turned and ran towards the door.

“Don’t go out! It’s more dangerous outside!” Xiao Tangqiu shouted at once.

However, the little boy didn’t listen, running straight out of the room.

The puppet didn’t continue to chase after him, but changed its target and began to attack Tang Mianmian.

Tang Mianmian, who was unarmed, could only run away miserably. Xiao Tangqiu quickly looked for weapons around the room. Soon, he found a rather tough-looking iron candlestick. He had just reached out his hand, but it was suddenly entangled in a mass of hair.

He jumped in fright. In the next second, more and more hair poured out towards him, binding him tightly and dragging him towards the door.

When he was dragged past the bed, he quickly grabbed the foot of the bed, but the hair seemed to have an inhuman strength and almost dragged the whole bed with him.

Duan Hongzhen was closest to Xiao Tangqiu but he didn’t rush to rescue him. He was still playing with the flying knife in his hand.

He grinned as he asked, “If I cut off the hair, will I be damaging the puppets in the castle?”

Shen Yuan glanced at him and said softly, “I’ll do it.”

Yu Fuling, the aloof woman, tried to stop him, “Older brother Shen, in this instance you’ve already… don’t keep…”

“It’s fine.”

Shen Yuan’s expression was calm. He walked towards Xiao Tangqiu and reached for the hair.

Although the hair didn’t immediately disappear when he touched it like before, it fell to the ground, strand after strand. Not far away, came an angry scream. In the next second, another puppet appeared in front of them.

Xiao Tangqiu looked up and recognized it as the poorly made, ugly doll they had seen in Maria’s room before. It looked even worse off than Laura. It was already ugly but now that it had lost all its hair, it was so hideous that he couldn’t bear to look at it.

Even Tang Mianmian, who was still being chased, couldn’t help but exclaim, “Is this the legendary bald attack?”

“…That’s not right! Why isn’t anyone coming to help me? Save me ah! I’m going to be hacked to death!”

Xiao Tangqiu turned to ask Shen Yuan, “Please save Tang Mianmian!”

Shen Yuan glanced at him, then called Duan Hongzhen.

“Tsk, okay then. I was hoping to watch the show. How funny does that kid look, being chased like that?” Duan Hongzhen sighed ruefully, but still made his move eventually.

In an instant, a flying knife shot out and the axe in the puppet’s hands immediately tilted to one side. Tang Mianmian finally took a breather, quickly running toward Xiao tangqiu.

He glared at Duan Hongzhen, obviously dissatisfied with the latter’s behavior of taking pleasure in seeing him make a fool of himself. But then again, Duan Hongzhen had also saved him, and he wasn’t strong enough to go against him, so he could only hide behind Xiao Tangqiu, looking rather aggrieved. “What should we do now?”

Right now, all the puppets that they come across in the castle were gathered in this room. Their purpose was obvious – to take back the pocket watch in Shen Yuan’s hand, the pocket watch belonging to Lippinobert.

“All the puppets? Wait! That’s not right… “

Xiao Tangqiu suddenly remembered that there were other puppets in this castle!