When the Wild Beast is Trapped in the Nightmare Cycle (BL)
Chapter 153: Time Condition

Chapter 153: Time Condition

Jin Jiuchi stood before the wall with fragments of broken mirror scattered around his feet. He was staring at his clenched fist with an almost bloodthirsty grin on his face, and if Shen Nianzu had to elaborate, he looked just like a predator who finally sniffed out his prey after a long period of starvation.

Shen Nianzu’s heart skipped a beat, and he subconsciously called out to the man, "J–Jin Jiuchi...?"

Jin Jiuchi turned and flashed him a bright and cheerful smile, as if the bloodlust Shen Nianzu perceived earlier was nothing but an illusion. "Nian’er, look at this!" He showed his fist, and Shen Nianzu belatedly realized that the man was holding onto something in his palm. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a shard of glass. The sharp edge sank deeply into his palm, tearing open the skin and causing him to bleed profusely.

Witnessing the crimson liquid trickling down Jin Jiuchi’s wrist, Shen Nianzu gasped and hurriedly rushed forward. "Why the hell are you holding it so tightly?! Can’t you see that you’re..." His words trailed off as he noticed something - or to be exact, someone - reflected on the bloody mirror’s surface.

It was a creature with extremely pale skin, almost blue in color. Its hair, a dull ginger hue, clung to its face in half-dried strands, while peculiar extensions resembling fish gills emerged from both sides of his head. The creature was pounding on the mirror with an extremely panicked look on its face.

Shen Nianzu stood dumbfounded. "This... is a nightmare creature?" It had not even been ten minutes yet since he entered the shower, so how did Jin Jiuchi manage to catch this creature, inside the mirror to boot?

"Hmm?" Jin Jiuchi peered into the mirror on his palm, and upon seeing the creature’s appearance, he became infuriated. "Why do you look like this now?! Weren’t you my twin just moments ago? Turn back! How can I show you to Nian’er if you’re so ugly?!"

Jin Jiuchi’s arm muscles bulged, as though he intended to crush the mirror to dust. The terrified creature’s eyes reflected sheer horror, and driven by its survival instinct, it swiftly used its ability – which should have been used to ensnare his prey – and changed its appearance to resemble Jin Jiuchi’s. After that, it showed a flattering smile to Shen Nianzu, but it looked so twisted as if it was going to burst into tears at any moment.

Jin Jiuchi scrunched his nose in disgust. "Ugly... so ugly! Didn’t you imitate me very well earlier?!"

The nightmare creature buried its face into its hands, its shoulders shaking violently. It seemed on the verge of mental breakdown. If it had a white flag in its hand, it would have waved it to express its desire to surrender.

Shen Nianzu: "..."

What... the hell was going on here?

He had just opened his mouth to say something when a loud crack reverberated from the wall beside him. The two of them turned in unison to witness a spiderweb crack spreading wider and wider from the spot where Jin Jiuchi had punched. In the next second, the wall crumbled and a hole around one meter wide appeared, revealing Gu Luoxin’s dumbfounded face on the other side.

Gu Luoxin: "..."

Shen Nianzu: "..."

Jin Jiuchi: 0.0

Startled by the loud noise, Noir and Lucius were jolted awake.

Noir’s raspy voice broke the silence, "What’s going on?" He pushed himself up into a sitting position, and raised his head to find a hole forming on the head of the bed. Even with his usual indifference, he couldn’t help but be taken aback this time.

For one suspended moment, the four of them froze in place as an awkward atmosphere hung in the air.

In the end, it was Gu Luoxin who recovered from his shock first, as he caught sight of Jin Jiuchi’s bloody palm. He glanced back and forth between his two teammates, his voice trembling as he asked, "Were you two... fighting?"

They were indeed worthy of their status as godly players in his heart. Even their fight managed to make a hole in the wall! How intense!

"We weren’t," Shen Nianzu explained with a sigh as he massaged his aching temple. "Da Shen just captured a nightmare creature."

"He— what?!" Gu Luoxin exclaimed in shock. He peered through the hole into the neighboring room but found no signs of chaos or a struggle. "W-W-Where is it?"

"Ta-da!" Jin Jiuchi showed the shard of the mirror to him, causing the creature inside to cower in shame, trying to hide as far away from the mirror’s surface as possible.

Gu Luoxin’s expression turned strange. "It looked so..." He trailed off, unable to find the right words. In his mind, nightmare creatures were always fearsome and terrifying, regardless of their size. But this one appeared so... "...docile. What have you done to it, Da Shen?" He couldn’t help but cast a suspicious glance at Jin Jiuchi.

"What do you mean by that?" Jin Jiuchi protested, feeling wronged. "I did nothing! It was the one who wanted to do something to me!"

Gu Luoxin’s face turned weirder. "...What did it want to do to you?"

To prevent the conversation from veering to a wayward path, Shen Nianzu spoke up, "Check your room first and see if there are any suspicious mirrors. Cover them with a cloth or lock them in a drawer. Be careful, there might be a nightmare creature inside."

"Oh, oh!" Gu Luoxin nodded and started to work.

Jin Jiuchi’s gaze shifted to Noir, and he offered the mirror in his palm. "Do you want to have a look?" His demeanor was akin to a child who wanted to show off his newest toy.

"Mn," Noir unexpectedly stood up and accepted the mirror, turning it back and forth in his hand. His emerald eyes remained indifferent, betraying no hint of his thoughts. "When did it appear?"

"Huh?" Jin Jiuchi was confused by this sudden question that appeared out of nowhere, but Shen Nianzu seamlessly answered,

"Around five minutes ago... so it should be ten pm."

Noir nodded and returned the mirror to Jin Jiuchi, "It seems we have found the time condition."

"Time condition?" Gu Luoxin, who had just dealt with the mirrors in the room, returned just in time to hear Noir’s words. "What does that mean?"

"The Cycle always has rules and conditions for the nightmare creature to appear," Shen Nianzu explained to him. "More often than not, Cycles will have a fixed time for the nightmare creatures to come out. Simply put, it’s an invisible curfew. In this Cycle, the time condition appears to be ten pm. This means..."

He shifted his gaze to the closed door and concluded, "The space outside has been filled with hidden nightmare creatures, and we must be cautious not to trigger the death condition."

Gu Luoxin pondered over his words carefully, but in the end he still could not figure out one thing. "But what about Da Shen? Why would the nightmare creature choose to attack him?" he asked in confusion. "Da Shen, did you do something to violate the death condition?"

Jin Jiuchi shook his head, equally puzzled.

"It shouldn’t be..." Shen Nianzu lowered his gaze in thought. "The three of us have always acted together. If Da Shen triggered the death condition, it should have affected all of us. But so far, I haven’t encountered anything." Gu Luoxin shook his head, indicating that he had also remained safe and sound thus far.

Noir stood by the sidelines, quietly listening to their conversation. His sense of presence was so low that the trio almost forgot him.

"Well, I can only think of one thing Da Shen has done..." Shen Nianzu muttered, and when all eyes turned to him, he glared at Jin Jiuchi and spat out, "The bus officer."

Gu Luoxin blinked, taken aback, before his gaze returned to the nightmare creature in the mirror. Now that Shen Nianzu said it, he came to realize the uncanny resemblance between this creature and the bus officer. "Damn it, Da Shen," he clicked his tongue in the mixture of astonishment and schadenfreude. "This creature can’t be the officer’s sibling, can it? Has he come to take revenge on you?"

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Mini theater

Jin Jiuchi: I–I didn’t do anything! Look at my innocent eyes QAQ