After this latest diagnosis, the doctor didn't even bother to write down any "recommendations." That said enough—he had completely given up on Egger's condition.
It had gotten to the point where she needed to be avoided altogether.
Xie Mingchi flipped to the next file. Another medical record.
This one was from a burn hospital.
As with the others, the treatments had cost a small fortune. This time, there were also photos of Egger's wounds attached.
Xie Mingchi winced.
It was brutal.
Some unknown accident had completely burned her face. Not a single spot was spared.
And it was only her face.
According to the medical file, Egger had undergone an enormous number of surgeries and skin grafts to recover. The costs were astronomical, but somehow, she'd managed to pay them and get through it all.
And she did recover, technically speaking.
There were also a few photos at the back of the file. Xie Mingchi looked through them—the faces in the pictures barely resembled the Egger he knew now. They were likely from before the accident.
There was no denying it: before the burns, Egger had been stunning.
She was still beautiful now, but the difference was stark. What she had lost was something few could get back.
Xie Mingchi imagined himself in her place and shivered. If it had been him…
As someone who cared deeply about looks, having his face destroyed would've been like a death sentence.
He continued flipping through the file until his fingers froze.
He'd come across something different.
A group photo.
Probably from a high school graduation—the students were all wearing uniforms and beaming with joy.
But someone had drawn a massive red X over the picture with something thick and angry.
Xie Mingchi squinted, searching carefully—Egger wasn't in it.
Neither the face she had now, nor the one she'd had before.
Had she chosen not to attend? Or had her classmates excluded her?
There was no way to know.
And these medical records—shouldn't they have been stored at the hospital? Xie Mingchi couldn't figure out why Egger had them in her possession.
Unless… this world was shaped by Egger's imagination. That would explain it.
Still, one thing had become clear: Egger was not Bloody Mary.
At least, not the real one.
From what he'd seen, Egger might have had Western ancestry, but in life, she was just a rich girl whose face had been disfigured in an accident. She spiraled into depression afterward.
Xie Mingchi suspected she'd also been a victim of bullying. That would explain her absence from the class photo—and why it was marked with a giant X.
During her treatment for depression, Egger became obsessed with fantasy. She lost herself in her own world, refused further treatment, and eventually got so bad that even her doctors avoided her.
She imagined herself as Bloody Mary—perhaps believing that becoming something inhuman would give her the power to punish everyone who had wronged her.
And that fantasy carried over into her existence as a ghost puppet. Her obsession with Bloody Mary shaped the world she created.
But certain inconsistencies in the castle revealed the cracks in her illusion—like the castle being tilted sideways, or the fact that the "mirrors" and "candles" she ate were probably just candy.
Xie Mingchi figured he'd confirm that after checking the kitchen, but he was pretty sure already.
As for the mirrors in the bedrooms… even though ghost puppets possessed monstrous abilities, the puppet world still operated under certain human rules.
For example, a corpse might undergo unnatural changes, but it wouldn't just vanish without a trace.
The puppet world still adhered to basic laws of reality.
Which meant—he was close to understanding Egger's story. As for the mirrors in their rooms, he'd have to discuss them with Wan Wuqiu to confirm his suspicions.
With that in mind, Xie Mingchi prepared to leave the ninth floor. He glanced at the surveillance monitor—
His pupils shrank.
Egger was gone from the kitchen!
Crap. Crapcrapcrap.
Panic exploded in his chest as he frantically searched for her across the surveillance feeds. Finally, he spotted her on one of the screens.
She was on the fourth floor.
Heading for the fifth!
A million curses galloped through Xie Mingchi's mind. He scrambled to return all the files to their original places, shut the closet, and bolted for the stairs.
There was only one staircase. If he didn't move fast enough, he'd run right into Egger.
He raced down the steps—going down was faster than climbing up—but if she caught him anywhere near the eighth or ninth floor, it would be game over.
Eighth floor… seventh floor…
Just as he reached the sixth, Xie Mingchi suddenly slammed to a halt.
Nope. He couldn't risk bumping into her on the stairs.
He'd noticed something in her hand while watching the monitors, but only now did it hit him—
It was a shard of a mirror!
He thought of Xia Zhi's brutal death that morning and instantly pulled back from the stairwell.
He couldn't get hurt. He couldn't bleed. The stairwell was too narrow—there'd be no room to escape if she cornered him.
With no time to spare, Xie Mingchi turned and stepped onto the seventh floor hallway, pretending to be out for a casual walk.
Sure enough, a few moments later, Egger appeared at the stairwell.
Xie Mingchi took a closer look. She was holding that mirror shard.
She glanced in his direction—and this time, there was no friendly smile, only a shadowy scowl.
Xie Mingchi swallowed hard and forced a stiff smile. "...Hey, Egger."
Egger started toward him.
He instinctively stepped back. "Mary! Mary! Wait a second!"
The name seemed to hit the right nerve. She stopped.
Thinking quickly, Xie Mingchi blurted out, "Actually… I've had it rough too. Really. Back in high school, no one liked me. They all said I was weird because I could see strange things. Then they bullied me, constantly. Even now, at work, I'm just a corporate drone—everyone pushes me around and disrespects my efforts…"
Egger's expression shifted—from indifference to a flicker of recognition, then to sympathetic sorrow.
Xie Mingchi went in for the kill, eyes wide with sincerity. "Sometimes I really want them to suffer, but… I don't know how. I'm too scared."
"My friend, you don't need to feel conflicted!" Egger's face lit up with warmth as she reached toward him. "They made you suffer. We must make them pay!"
She took two steps closer and paused. "You remember what I told you—you can make a wish."
"Just wish into a mirror where you can't see your reflection, and I will appear. Bloody Mary will grant your every desire!"
Xie Mingchi nodded like a devout believer. "Really? You'll really make my wish come true?"
Egger smiled. "Yes, I will. But the ritual must be done at night. Bloody Mary doesn't come out during the day."
"Got it! Got it!" Xie Mingchi bowed at a perfect ninety-degree angle. "Thank you, Mary! I'll definitely try it tonight!"
Satisfied with his reaction, Egger gave a nod and continued up the stairs.
Only when her footsteps faded did Xie Mingchi finally relax and take a step forward—
Damn it, he'd been tense so long his legs had gone numb.
Five minutes later, Wan Wuqiu opened the door to find Xie Mingchi limping in, legs like jelly.
Wan Wuqiu blinked. "Did you hurt yourself?"
Xie Mingchi shook his head. "Nope. Just leg cramps. And nerves."
Then he dragged Wan Wuqiu into the bathroom, lowered his voice, and relayed everything he'd discovered on the ninth floor—along with what had just happened on the seventh.
"I think my story really got to her," Xie Mingchi concluded. "It lines up with what we suspected about her past."
Wan Wuqiu nodded slowly. "Agreed. And based on what I just saw with the mirrors, she's clearly faking the supernatural part."
"Are there any cameras near the mirrors?" he asked.
Xie Mingchi shook his head. "Nope. Every room's surveillance is limited to the bedroom."
"Good," Wan Wuqiu said. "Then watch this."
He brought Xie Mingchi to the bathroom mirror and pressed his finger against it at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
Xie Mingchi recognized the trick—if your fingertip touches its reflection with no gap in between, then the mirror is two-way. That's because the back of a two-way mirror is hollow, leaving no visual separation.
Sure enough, Wan Wuqiu's finger made contact without a gap. Then he tapped the glass.
Knock, knock, knock.
The sound was hollow.
Xie Mingchi's eyes widened. "It's a two-way mirror?!"
Wan Wuqiu's expression turned serious. "Not just that. Let me ask you something."
"Huh?"
"Have you ever closely examined the reflections in these no-shadow mirrors?"
Xie Mingchi thought for a second. "I guess? They just show the room, like normal."
"No, they don't," Wan Wuqiu said firmly.
"What do you mean?"
Wan Wuqiu motioned for him to stand in the far corner of the bathroom. Then he walked over to the sink. "Can you see the candle holder next to the mirror?"
"Yeah."
Wan Wuqiu reached out and took one of the candles, turning to ask, "And now?"
Xie Mingchi's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
In the reflection, the candle was still there. Sitting neatly in the holder. Unchanged. As if nothing had happened.
To make his point clearer, Wan Wuqiu dragged him out to the bedroom, stopped at the mirror behind the door, then climbed onto the bed and dramatically yanked the blanket off, tossing it to the floor.
Xie Mingchi knew he was performing for Egger, who might be watching through the cameras.
Then he turned back to the mirror.
The reflection showed the blanket still neatly spread across the bed, perfectly untouched.
For safety, they returned to the bathroom. Wan Wuqiu looked him in the eye. "Do you get it now?"
Xie Mingchi nodded solemnly. "I get it."
"These mirrors—the ones that don't show our reflections—they're not mirrors at all."