14: Chapter 14 Bad Kids Around Us

Pei Duo took a deep breath and turned to the first page.

The handwriting was elegant and ornate, written in Old English, but under the translation mechanism of this Thriller Game, it was directly converted into text Pei Duo could understand.

【October 3rd, Cloudy.】

【Today, I captured a "little deer" from the East. Her skin was a healthy wheat color, but it lacked elasticity when peeled. That idiotic butler actually didn't let her relax her muscles before skinning, causing cracks in the dermis. That is a blasphemy against art! I fed that defective piece to the dogs.】

【October 15th, Rainy.】

【Did you hear that? That is the sound of silk tearing, the ultimate echo of a soul shedding its shell. Perfect skinning requires the subject to be fully conscious and in a state of extreme fear, or extreme pleasure. Only then will the pores open, and the sebum secrete that enchanting luster...】

Pei Duo read until her fingertips turned cold.

This was not a diary at all.

Every page recorded a victim, describing everything from skin texture and elasticity to the feel during peeling, detailed to the extreme, elegantly repulsive.

Pei Duo suppressed her discomfort and quickly flipped to the newest page.

【November 11th.】

【I must send an invitation to the devout followers of the great 'Xipe Totec'. Although the mansion has many supplies, none of them can be called a 'masterpiece'.】

【I need a perfect skin. No scars, no blemishes, pure as a newborn baby, and it must shed naturally while in the most relaxed and most cherished state...】

Xu Mo also walked over to examine the Count's diary at this moment.

Simultaneously, the barrage area in the live stream room exploded as if a depth charge had been thrown in.

【(IP: Mexico) ¡Dios mío! My God! You people don't even know Xipe Totec?】

【(IP: USA) The encyclopedia expert is here! That is the 'Lord of Skinning' from Aztec mythology! He is also the God of Spring! This god’s favorite form of sacrifice was to peel the skin off living people and wear it himself, symbolizing rebirth like corn shedding its husk!】

【(IP: Dragon Country) Holy crap! That heavy-handed? Is this Count a cultist?】

【(IP: Japan) Wait, the diary said... perfect skin, in the most relaxed and most cherished state?】

【(IP: Dragon Country) It's over... Thinking about it makes one shudder! There is only one person here who is being cherished...】

Xu Mo had clearly reached the same conclusion.

His hand, which was pushing up his glasses, froze mid-air, and his gaze behind the lenses instantly locked onto Pei Duo by the desk.

Everyone present.

The Lean Tall Man and his group were covered in scars, filthy, and smelly.

He and Lin Sa were also covered in wounds and highly tense.

Only Pei Duo.

She had been protected all along, treated as an honored guest by the butler, eating top-grade Wagyu, sleeping on a velvet bed, and even her bathwater was temperature-controlled.

Her skin was smooth as jade, without a single blemish.

Because of that jade pendant, she was also the only person in this haunted place who could maintain a relatively 'relaxed' state.

The dozens of candles in the study were extinguished simultaneously without any warning at that very second.

The world instantly plunged into absolute darkness.

"Don't move!!"

Lin Sa's sharp shout exploded in the darkness: "Back to back! Whoever moves, I kill!"

"Sss... sss..."

A faint sound, so subtle it almost sounded like an auditory hallucination, arose.

It was the sound of some kind of sharp metal tool being lightly scraped against a rough whetstone.

Or perhaps... something wet and slippery rapidly crawling across the floor.

Pei Duo froze in place, her mind blank.

She could clearly hear the loud thumping of her own heart against her ribs.

"Thump, thump, thump."

That sound... that sound of sharpening.

It was right behind her.

Less than half a meter away.

A cold breath, carrying the scent of rust, gently sprayed onto the back of her neck.

It was like an invisible ghost, pressed against her ear, assessing the value of a piece of art.

Pei Duo desperately clutched the jade pendant in her hand, her fingernails digging into her flesh.

"Brother..."

She cried out desperately in her heart.

The ten seconds in the darkness felt as long as a century.

Suddenly, that cold breath disappeared.

It was followed by a series of hurried and chaotic footsteps, accompanied by the sound of clothes rubbing violently, and a dull thud of a body colliding.

"Ah..."

An extremely brief, bubble-like sound, as if someone's throat had been choked, rang out from the doorway.

"Snap!"

Lin Sa finally struck a match again.

A faint flame lit up in the darkness, then ignited a candle nearby.

Light once again pulled back the curtain of darkness.

Xu Mo immediately looked toward the desk.

Pei Duo was still standing there, her face as pale as paper, but completely unharmed.

Xu Mo let out a long sigh of relief and was just about to speak.

"Drip."

"Drip."

The sound of viscous liquid dripping onto the floor was exceptionally clear in the dead silence of the study.

Everyone's movements froze, and they slowly turned their heads to look at the doorway.

Zhao Qiang, who had been guarding the door, was the most suspicious and kept tightly clutching the bronze vase, was still standing there.

But he could no longer speak.

He maintained a defensive posture with his hands protecting his chest, his eyes wide open with terror.

It was just... those eyes were unprotected by eyelids.

Starting from his hairline down to just below his nose.

His entire facial skin had been neatly and smoothly peeled downwards, as if turning a page, by a blade moving with extreme speed.

The bloody human skin hung down near his chin, slightly swaying with his rapid breaths.

And beneath that human skin.

The bright red frontal muscles, the pale brow bones, and two huge, completely exposed eyeballs were frantically and helplessly rotating.

He wasn't completely dead yet.

A 'gurgling' bubble sound came from his throat; it was the sound of blood foam pouring back into his trachea.

In those ten seconds of darkness, the killer had elegantly, precisely, and extremely calmly completed half of the 'artistic creation'.

Then... he stopped.

It was as if a discerning artist had peeled halfway, found the underlying material too inferior and full of flaws, and thus disdainfully tossed aside the half-finished product in his hand.

That skinning devil hiding in the shadows.

Just now, it was right beside them.