Chapter 33.3

“Shut up!” Short and Skinny gave White-collar Woman a hard look.

White-collar Woman accused, “You’re a thief!”

Xiao Tangqiu froze and suddenly remembered that Short and Skinny had held onto his thighs for quite some time. He subconsciously reached for the hemostatic agent in his trouser pocket. Sure enough, it was gone.

“You stole my hemostatic spray?” He glared at Short and Skinny.

Short and Skinny threw out a vicious rebuttal, “Don’t you dare frame me!”

The middle-aged man also instinctively touched his pocket and soon he cried out, “Where’s my wallet? You bastard! Did you steal my wallet?”

When the others saw this, they reacted by checking their pockets as well. One by one, they cried, “Where’s my wallet?”

“My wallet is missing too!”

“That guy must have stolen it!”

“I didn’t! I didn’t!” Short and Skinny turned as red a tomato but the next moment, he was thrown down to the floor by the newbies, as a bunch of items was confiscated from his pockets.

“This is my wallet!”

“My wallet! And my gold chain!”

“Damn thief! Let’s beat him to death!”

Everyone took back their belongings in a rage, repeatedly punching and kicking the man. The louder he shouted, the harder they beat him. Later, even those who didn’t have anything stolen took part in the mob beating. A fist followed by a knee and so on……

Short and Skinny curled up into a ball, still firmly protecting his amputated hand.

After Xiao Tangqiu got back his hemostatic spray, he couldn’t help but frown at the sight before him. “If you continue beating him, he’ll die.”

But the angry mob refused listen to any other opinions, perhaps taking it out on Short and Skinny to vent their anger and fear. They punched and kicked for a while until White-collar Woman screamed, “Ghost! There’s a ghost!”

All of a sudden, as if they had been poured with cold water, the angry mob calmed down and looked at White-collar Woman.

Her trembling finger was pointing at the puppet on the cupboard, “The puppet…… The puppet has moved again…….”

The crowd looked at where White-collar Woman was pointing at and immediately felt a chill run down their backs. God knows when the puppet had moved it hands. It was originally holding the axe in both hands in a relaxed position, but now it was holding the axe up high, just like it was about to hack off something.

And the strangest thing was, the puppet was originally facing the center of the room, but now it had turned slightly to face them, so the raised axe was pointed in their direction.

The crowd immediately dispersed in fear, while Short and Skinny was left alone where the axe was pointed at.

Short and Skinny had been beaten to a half-conscious state. He curled up on feebly on the floor, shaking as he held onto his amputated hand.

Xiao Tangqiu frowned slightly. He wasn’t sure if it was his illusion but he felt as if the corners of the puppet’s lips had curved upwards a little when the crowd had scattered just now.

Its blue eyes also seemed to glow with strange light under the dim candlelight.

This puppet was really too strange, and on top of that, someone had inexplicably lost a hand. From this experience, naturally, no one dared to stay in this room. They looked at each other in silence before someone suddenly said, “Let’s get out of here right now! Anyway, there’s nothing of interest in this room!”

His words were quickly echoed by the others. The middle-aged man spat at Short and Skinny who was still on the floor. “I’ll let you off this time! What a good deal you got! There are so many of us, so the next time you steal, we’ll beat you to death!”

Short and Skinny had blood all over his face. He couldn’t even say a complete sentence and could only whimper in fear. The middle-aged man gave him another hard kick and left with the crowd.

In a blink of an eye, only Xiao Tangqiu, Tang Mianmian and Lu Si’er, as well as Short and Skinny, who couldn’t get up from the floor, was left in the room.

“Shall we go too?” Lu Si’er timidly asked Xiao Tangqiu.

“Let’s search this room first,” Xiao Tangqiu glanced at the puppet. “Don’t touch that thing. Be careful.”

Lu Si’er asked doubtfully, “Didn’t the others already look in here? They said there was nothing in this room.”

Before Xiao Tangqiu could answer, Tang Mianmian snickered, “Too many cooks spoil the broth! When there are so many people in a team, people get lazy and slack off. What can they find with so many of them crowded into one room? Maybe they didn’t look properly at all and were just fooling around, thinking to let someone else look for clues!”

Xiao Tangqiu nodded; he thought the same way. “Those newbies have little experience. Let’s search again, especially at the corners…… Didn’t we find the small wooden box and pocket watch under the bed and in the pillow?”

Lu Si’er nodded, suddenly enlighted, then rolled up her sleeves and rummaged through the room with Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian.

Xiao Tangqiu looked around while he searched. The layout and decoration of the room was similar to Maria’s room. Of course, all the rooms in the castle were similar, but after carefully looking up and down, he couldn’t help but ask the other two, “Do you feel that…… this looks like a child’s room?”

Lu Si’er said hesitantly, “But there aren’t any children in this castle! And if Lippinobert had children, how could there be no pictures of his children at all?”

“There isn’t a picture of Maria in the castle either,” Tang Mianmian disagreed. “Maybe he never even cared for Maria. Aside from Lily Marlene, no other woman matters to him.”

Lu Si’er paused for moment, and had to admit that Tang Mianmian might be right. Lippinobert married three wives in total, but the castle was only filled with pictures of Lily Marlene and there wasn’t a single portrait of the other two women.

Xiao Tangqiu pointed to the cupboard in the corner. “It looks like there are some children’s toys over there, which is why I figured this is a kids’ room…… But this room should have been vacant for a long time, just like Maria’s”

Tang Mianmian climbed out from under the bed and casually lifted the pillow and quilt but he found nothing. He was feeling disappointed but got excited by what Xiao Tangqiu just said, “Leave it to me! I’ll look at it!”

“There’s nothing in the bedside drawers,” Lu Si’er said, turning over the other furniture in the room. “This room is so empty. No wonder they didn’t find anything.”

Tang Mianmian moved a stool over and reached for the items on top of the cupboard. He brought them down to take a look but found that they weren’t of any importance. There was a teddy bear, an old musical box, a faded haircomb and some dried flowers.

“These look worthless, no wonder nothing wasn’t stolen,” Tang Mianmian muttered. “A pile of junk…… but for a child, these may be precious treasures.”

Xiao Tangqiu stared at the teddy bear and suddenly said, “I have a bold idea.”

Tang Mianmian understood what he meant immediately. “The Hello Kitty Murder case of hiding the body? Do you tear open this stuffed toy?”

Xiao Tangqiu nodded, “But…….”

“But this stuffed toy could also be considered as a doll or a puppet.” Tang Mianmian raised an eyebrow, “What if it’s also part of the puppets that Lippinobert said we can’t damage?”

“Yeah,” Xiao Tangqiu sighed. “I just thought about it too.”

Tang Mianmian picked up the stuffed toy, shook it and patted it. “But this teddy bear is quite small and doesn’t look like it can hide anything.”

Xiao Tangqiu turned his attention to the musical box. He opened it and looked inside. “It seems to be broken.”

The lid of the musical box was covered in dust. There was a little girl in red leather shoes inside but the music didn’t play and the little girl didn’t dance.

It suddenly occurred to him that Meng Xinghe had also sent him a musical box a long time ago. When it was opened, it would play “Für Elise”and a little girl in a ballet dress would twirl around slowly.

At that time, he had particularly disliked this gift, thinking that a musical box was a gift for girls.

Tang Mianmian picked it up shook it. “This thing doesn’t look like it can hide anything…….”

“It seems that this room is really empty,” Xiao Tangqiu said with a helpless smile on his face. “Forget it. It’s almost midnight. Let’s go back to our rooms.”

Tang Mianmian was about to say something, but Xiao Tangqiu quietly blinked at him. He immediately caught on and nodded slightly.

“It’s late now, so let’s go back and get some rest. We’ll continue looking tomorrow.” Xiao Tangqiu turned to Lu Si’er. “Go to bed early and don’t come out if you hear anything.”

Lu Si’er nodded at once.

Seeing that they were about to leave, Short and Skinny immediately struggled to get up, but he was beaten so badly that he couldn’t stand at all. He could only move forward bit by bit, wriggling on the floor as he whimpered, as if begging them to take him with them.

Xiao Tangqiu hesitated for a moment. He wasn’t a kind or good person, but he couldn’t bear to watch this man die here. “We can take you to the second floor, but I don’t think they’ll let you into their room. I don’t trust you either, so you can only stay in a room by yourself.”

It was better to stay alone than die in this strange room. Short and Skinny nodded desperately. Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian helped him out of the room.

Lu Si’er frowned faintly and seemed to disapprove of Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian’s actions. However, she didn’t say anything until all four of them left the room. Suddenly, her expression turned ugly. “The puppet…… it moved again!”

Xiao Tangqiu turned to look, and sure enough, the puppet had turned to face in their direction. Its axe was pointed to the door where they were.

Lu Si’er immediately backed away from them. “You shouldn’t have taken him away. The housekeeper said that whoever damages the puppet will be punished!”

Xiao Tangqiu flattened his lips. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll go back to my room first,” Lu Si’er said, shaking her head. She couldn’t understand why Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian were helping a thief. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian looked at each other and nodded. They were holding up Short and Skinny and were about to walk away when the door behind them suddenly slammed shut.

Xiao Tangqiu froze. The next second, a faint melody suddenly sounded from the room behind him.

That was a melody he was familiar with.

It was Für Elise.

The mellow, ethereal melody of the musical box softly echoed throughout the silent and gloomy castle.