Chapter 53 - 51: Three-Inch Golden Lotuses, Blood-Red Embroidered Shoes

Chapter 53: Chapter 51: Three-Inch Golden Lotuses, Blood-Red Embroidered Shoes

"The Mist of Rules!"

Xia Yu’s pupils contracted slightly, her eyes wide with astonishment.

An area shrouded by the Mist of Rules shouldn’t change under normal circumstances. The mist forms a special, relatively stable space.

But now...

What was happening?

She had never seen anything like this before.

"Yu, what’s going on?"

Xie Shaokun took an involuntary step back as he noticed the white mist pouring in through the doorway.

Just then...

TAP TAP TAP.

The soft sound of footsteps echoed.

It was faint, yet distinct.

The others paid it no mind, but Xia Yu’s expression grew grim.

’Those are cloth shoes hitting the ground.’

’Logically, that kind of sole shouldn’t make such a loud noise, especially not on tile. And with all the chaos around us, it’s impossible for it to be this clear.’

’This sound... it’s echoing in my mind!’

She searched for the source of the footsteps, and in the next instant, her pupils shrank abruptly.

A pair of three-inch, red embroidered shoes was walking out of the darkness, step by step. The terrifying part was... no one was wearing them!

They were just... walking over.

Under the piercing glare of the flashlights, the red embroidered shoes looked even more vivid, as if they had been soaked in fresh blood.

"What the hell is that thing!"

"Does anyone know what’s happening? *Sob*... I’m so scared."

"Help! Can anyone outside hear us!"

...

Everyone’s face turned pale with horror.

They tried to back away instinctively, only to discover in terror that their feet were completely immobile.

Yet, the rest of their bodies could still move.

This bizarre situation sent everyone into a panic.

TAP TAP TAP.

The red embroidered shoes came to a stop in front of a woman wearing heavy makeup.

"Stay away."

"*Sob...*"

The heavily made-up woman collapsed to the floor, crying so hard her makeup started to run. She struggled to get away, but her feet felt as if they were welded to the ground, unmoving.

"Don’t be afraid, miss. It’s probably just looking for a suitable pair of feet. Your feet are so big, so..."

The man with the flat-top haircut next to her suppressed his own terror and tried to comfort her. "You’ll be fine."

The heavily made-up woman trembled, desperately hoping the man was right.

A few seconds later,

The red embroidered shoes remained motionless, and nothing unusual happened.

Just as everyone thought the stalemate would continue, the woman’s foot moved against her will.

"Ah!"

The woman panicked. She struggled desperately, screaming in terror, "There’s a hand grabbing my foot!"

"Help! Help me!"

A ghost?!

A sudden shock ran through the crowd, sending a chill down their spines.

Three seconds later,

The woman’s bloodcurdling scream tore through the air.

CRACK.

The over-the-knee boot on her right foot was brutally ripped off, accompanied by the distinct sound of a bone breaking.

Once the boot was off, the crowd saw that the woman’s toes were now touching her heel.

Her entire right foot had been folded in half.

It was a bloody mess.

Unspeakably grotesque.

Everyone gasped in unison, a skin-crawling sensation washing over them.

Then, something even more horrifying happened: the woman’s right foot was forced, bit by bit, into one of the three-inch red embroidered shoes...

A perfect fit.

"AHHH!"

The sound of cracking bones and a piercing scream rang out once more.

The woman fainted from the excruciating pain.

"!!!"

Xie Shaokun’s face was a mask of terror. His voice trembled as he said, "Yu, that shoe... it seems to be getting redder."

Xia Yu nodded grimly. She had also noticed that as the woman’s foot was ’stuffed’ into the shoe, the red embroidered shoe itself hadn’t deformed in the slightest!

It was as if it were forged from a metal alloy.

This was the direct cause of the secondary fracture in the woman’s right foot.

But it was supposed to be just a cloth shoe with a multi-layered sole.

"AHHH!"

The same process was repeated on the woman’s left foot. The sheer pain jolted her awake, and she screamed until her voice grew raw and hoarse, a sound that made one’s blood run cold.

The more timid members of the group had already fainted from fear, and some had even lost control of their bladders on the spot.

What would happen next?

Countless flashlight beams were fixed on the pair of red embroidered shoes and the heavily made-up woman now wearing them.

Everyone was incredibly tense.

The next moment,

The woman’s face turned visibly pale and her consciousness began to fade. She mumbled, "Help me... save me..."

"What are you feeling right now?"

Xia Yu suddenly asked.

Everyone: "???"

Zhao Xianghe spoke up. "Xia Yu, she’s in this state, isn’t it too cruel to ask her that?"

Wang Lin, who was beside him, also frowned and added, "Exactly! Is that something a human being would say?"

It had been Xie Shaokun who killed the Mutant on the first floor. Combined with the power outage and the deep darkness, not just Zhao Xianghe, but many people were unaware of how capable Xia Yu was.

Because of this,

most of the people present felt that Xia Yu was too cruel, lacking both compassion and emotional intelligence.

Xia Yu had no time for compassion or emotional intelligence. She was about to ask the woman something else when she realized the woman was no longer breathing, her face a frightening shade of white.

’She’s dead?’

’Was her blood drained?’

TAP TAP TAP.

The red embroidered shoes slipped off on their own and moved to the flat-topped man standing next to the woman’s body.

As for the heavily made-up woman, she was motionless, clearly dead through and through.

"Those are for women! I’m a man, I’m not wearing those."

The flat-topped man panicked.

The other men panicked as well.

The red embroidered shoes remained still.

The seconds ticked by.

The entire Treasure House was terrifyingly silent, so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The flat-topped man was sweating profusely with fear.

At a certain moment,

his right foot was forcibly lifted into the air. It paused for three seconds before his sneaker was brutally ripped off.

Because his shoe was a little larger than his foot and was a mid-top, it wasn’t as painful when it was removed.

But as he watched his foot move uncontrollably toward the red embroidered shoes, the thought of his large, size 43 foot being shoved into a three-inch shoe made the flat-topped man panic completely.

"Screw you!"

In a fit of desperate rage, the man grabbed a nearby stool and swung it twice above the red embroidered shoes, hitting nothing but air, before finally smashing it down hard onto them.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

He smashed the shoes seven or eight times.

They still didn’t deform.

No matter how the flat-topped man struggled, it was useless.

"I was wrong."

"Please, I’m begging you, let me go."

He even started kowtowing and begging for mercy, though his posture was strange. But it still couldn’t stop his large foot from being stuffed into the shoe.

CRACK.

"AHHH!"

The sound of cracking bones and a horrifying scream rang out again.

Blood gushed out, yet none of it ever touched the floor.

Soon,

both of the flat-topped man’s feet were forced into the shoes.

A grown man wearing three-inch, red embroidered lotus shoes was an image both bizarre and terrifying, no matter how you looked at it.

"A ghost."

"This is a ghost, a ghost wearing red embroidered shoes! Help me!"

"I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die."

...

Panic spread through the group.

More and more people were breaking down mentally.

’His face is turning pale so fast.’

’The red embroidered shoes are sucking his blood.’

’This is how it kills: by draining a person’s blood!’

’The process of forcibly removing and putting on the shoes, while torturous and excruciatingly painful, isn’t what kills them.’

’If the shoes can’t drain your blood, can you survive?’

Xia Yu’s eyes lit up as a possibility occurred to her: if there were no wounds on the feet, no bleeding, would the red embroidered shoes be unable to suck the blood?

Soon,

the flat-topped man was drained of his blood and died, his face contorted in agony.

The red embroidered shoes became even more vibrant, looking as if they were about to drip blood.

Seeing this,

the three people next to the man’s corpse tried desperately to back away, but their feet were still rooted to the spot, immobile.

"Stay away."

"Don’t pick me."

...

The three of them cried out in desperation.

The red embroidered shoes slipped off the dead man’s feet bit by bit. Without any hesitation, they chose a young man wearing British-style, high-top combat boots.

He was about twenty years old, wore glasses, and looked like a university student.

"No."

His face was filled with despair, and he was completely panicking.

How could he possibly remain rational?

Let alone analyze the situation.

The red embroidered shoes stopped in front of him and became still once more.

"Take off your shoes!"

"Quickly!"

Xia Yu suddenly shouted, her tone leaving no room for doubt.

The university student looked skeptical. He remembered how Xia Yu had asked the heavily made-up woman ’what are you feeling,’ and he felt an aversion to her, so he didn’t immediately obey her command.

The others also looked doubtful, and someone even said, "You can’t just order people around. What if you get him killed?"

Xie Shaokun roared, "If you don’t want to die, listen to her!"

A jolt went through the university student, and he hurriedly complied.

At that moment, he realized: it was better to take a gamble than to just wait for death.

Unfortunately, he had delayed for too long, and his boots were too difficult to take off. It was too late.

"AHH!"

A piercing scream echoed.

His feet were mangled and bloody.

The university student, unsurprisingly, died.

"Serves him right,"

Xie Shaokun cursed.

No one had the energy to argue with him. All eyes were fixed on the red embroidered shoes, terrified of being chosen next.

Then,

the red embroidered shoes moved in front of a petite young girl.

Everyone else breathed a sigh of relief.

Before Xia Yu or Xie Shaokun could say a word, the little girl, without hesitation, immediately undid her shoelaces.

Her foot was lifted.

It paused in mid-air.

With lightning-fast hands, she pulled her shoe off.

Her foot wasn’t bent or broken, just guided by the mysterious force toward the red embroidered shoe.

Everyone’s eyes lit up.

’It worked?’

"Big Sister, what do I do now?"

The little girl asked, looking at Xia Yu with a face full of hope and fear.

"What’s your shoe size?"

"Size 21."

Xia Yu thought, ’A foot that small... if it’s forced into a three-inch shoe, it probably won’t bleed, right?’