Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂
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She didn’t need to keep her focus on the crab car constantly.
The Thought Silk acted as a medium. By channeling her spiritual power through it to issue commands to the crab cars, she could retract the silk and leave them to their tasks.
Ning Ge clung to the Clown’s shoulder, scanning the ground for markings.
Owen watched her for a moment, impressed. “You don’t even need to concentrate to control it?”
“No,” Ning Ge replied.
The crab car was indeed working on its own, drawing the circles and crosses with perfect precision.
It had become the most obedient soldier, fully under Ning Ge’s control. Whatever she commanded, it did without hesitation.
Iris smiled. “Now that’s my Viscountess.”
The words “my Viscountess” earned him a serious glance from Pei Han.
Owen rolled his eyes toward the sky.
He muttered, “First, he was competing with a girl in the last dungeon. Now he’s sparring with a wooden puppet. This top-tier Alpha is really growing.”
They hadn’t been in the maze for long when another crab car approached from ahead. The Clown on that car had sharp eyes and immediately spotted Ning Ge and her group. It raised its massive pincers and charged toward them, waving them wildly.
Social Bro was thrilled. “Come on, let’s fight it! We’ll see who wins!”
Before he could finish speaking, they saw the opposing car lower its massive pincers and obediently turn around.
Ning Ge incorporated it into her group.
“It’s not good to let them run around freely,” Ning Ge explained. “They’ll trample all our markers.”
As they navigated the maze, the single crab car quickly grew into a long convoy, lining up in a neat row.
Ning Ge steered the orderly convoy through the towering walls of trees, continuously marking their path on the ground.
The maze was far larger than they had anticipated.
Engineer Zheng, riding on the Clown, pounded his leg and sighed. “Thank goodness we have these cars. We’d be dead from exhaustion if we had to walk this.”
Not only would they be exhausted, but they’d also waste precious time. The two-hour countdown was ticking away second by second.
The crab cars’ wheels were far faster than legs, and their strategy of marking their path proved effective. Before long, they spotted the exit.
Ning Ge successfully led the convoy out of the thorny walls.
Still no sunlight.
This time, it was fog—a thick, gray-white mist that permeated everything. Through the fog, a faint structure seemed to loom in the distance.
Ning Ge suddenly exclaimed, “Huh?”
“What’s wrong?” Pei Han asked.
The crab cars were no longer under Ning Ge’s control. They retracted their large pincers into their chassis, and the lead vehicle turned the entire fleet around, automatically driving forward.
“I’m not controlling them. Someone must have previously issued a command to drive out of the maze and leave,” Ning Ge said. “Should we try to seize control?”
“Don’t worry about them. We’re already out,” Pei Han replied.
With the situation unclear, Pei Han signaled for everyone to disembark. They quietly slipped off the crab cars one by one.
Owen was curious. “These Wooden Puppet cars moving on their own means someone must have controlled them using Thought Silk and spiritual power. Who could it be? The owner of the Hidden House?”
Social Bro scoffed. “Why overthink it? The System just throws these obstacles in our way during missions.”
The crab cars lined up in neat rows, one after another, accelerating as they vanished into the thick fog.
After separating from the vehicles, the group quietly approached the building shrouded in mist.
The Delivery Guy whispered, “Is this the Hidden House?”
No one knew for sure. Their only option was to investigate.
The closer they got, the clearer the view became. It was a wooden house with a black, sloped roof and white horizontal siding. From the outside, it looked quite spacious, but the windows were all dusty and gray, making it impossible to see inside.
Beyond the house, the fog thickened into an endless expanse, with no sign of trees or other buildings.
Given Little Husky’s earlier remark that the Hidden House was built by a lake, this was likely the lake itself.
The house had only one door: an old white wooden door with a brass handle.
What was peculiar was the upper half of a puppet, wearing a felt hat and a vest, nailed to the door.
As soon as it saw Ning Ge and the others approach, it spoke in a cheerful tone:
“Hello, dearest guests of the Hidden House! How are you doing?”
So this was indeed the Hidden House.
Owen responded enthusiastically, “We’re doing great! The car ride was a blast. How about you? How are you doing?”
The half-puppet replied, “I’m not doing so well. I’m stuck on this door all day, unable to move. I’m dying of boredom!”
This puppet was unlike any Ning Ge had seen before. It wasn’t made of wood; instead, it seemed to be crafted from some dark, pitch-black material.
Ning Ge couldn’t resist reaching out and touching it.
Her hand met a hard, cool surface, very much like metal—perhaps iron.
The half-puppet’s round, dark eyes rolled downward to glance at Ning Ge’s hand, then shifted to a stern tone. “Private property. Please refrain from touching. Guests, please conduct yourselves appropriately.”
Ning Ge silently withdrew her hand.
The half-puppet seemed satisfied and resumed its cheerful tone, its mouth opening and closing. “I’m so bored, dear guests. Let’s play a game.”
I knew it wouldn’t be that easy to get in, Ning Ge thought.
“What kind of game?” she asked.
“Guess whether I’ll let you in,” the half-puppet replied. “If you guess correctly, I’ll open the door. If you guess wrong, I won’t open it for you today.”
Ning Ge knew the answer to this riddle.
“I guess you won’t open the door for us,” she said.
If she guessed correctly, the half-puppet should open the door. But if it opened the door, it would contradict its own words, proving her guess wrong.
Conversely, if she guessed incorrectly, it wouldn’t open the door. But if it didn’t open the door, it would precisely prove her guess correct.
In short, no matter what they did, the half-puppet was wrong.
It froze for a moment, its black eyes began to dart left and right, spinning faster and faster until they suddenly stopped. The puppet lowered its head and remained motionless.
It had frozen.
Ning Ge stepped forward and turned the brass handle. As expected, it twisted open easily.
The fact that the half-puppet’s question had no proper answer, and that forcing it to “die” was the correct way to open the door, should have been the key.
Iris couldn’t help but glance again at the half-puppet hanging motionless by the door, its head bowed.
Ning Ge whispered to comfort him, “Don’t worry. It’ll come back to life in a little while. This is just how it guards the door.”
Iris obediently replied, “Yes.”
Though the door was open, Ning Ge lingered at the threshold for another second or two, still holding the handle.
Pei Han guessed her intention and asked, “You can’t control this puppet?”
Ning Ge nodded and hummed in affirmation.
She had tried using Thought Silk as soon as she approached the door, but it had failed to control the puppet that was clearly guarding it.
If she could control it, she would have opened the door long ago and never bothered answering its question.
“It’s different from the Wooden Puppets. Thought Silk can’t connect to it,” Ning Ge explained.
Pei Han guessed, “Perhaps the materials are different, so the control methods must be different. It’s okay, let’s take our time.”
Ning Ge opened the door, and everyone quietly filed in.
The house was utterly silent.
This legendary haunted house didn’t look abandoned at all. Not only was it fully furnished, but it was also spotlessly clean, as if someone had been cleaning and tidying it up regularly.
The cleaner seemed to have a germaphobia, as everything was polished to a dazzling shine, without a speck of dust.
The excessive quiet in the house made everyone instinctively tiptoe and hold their breath.
They searched the entire house but didn’t see a single soul.
“How do we find the Silver Medal? Should we search room by room?” the cross-dressing guy asked.
Ning Ge glanced at the countdown on her bracelet.
One hour and twelve minutes remained.
They had lost time earlier in the maze because they were chased by the crab car at the beginning.
Ning Ge assigned tasks. “Let’s hurry. Pair up, with each pair responsible for one room. Iris, you take the kitchen.”
Engineer Zheng, ever meticulous, asked, “I noticed a stable outside earlier. Should we search that place too?”
He was right. The stable should also be part of the Hidden House, so Ning Ge sent Social Bro and him to investigate.
Everyone took their positions. Ning Ge and Pei Han were assigned to one of the bedrooms.
