Chapter 2699: Upright

The Girl in the painting doesn’t think she’s unreliable; she pushes others aside and strides up to Yan Jiayu, raising her hand high.

"What are you doing!" Qi Cong is a bit agitated, "Little Yu’er is already hurt, and you still want to hit her?"

The Girl in the painting doesn’t waste words with him, she backhands him, sending him flying, and then lifts Yan Jiayu, slapping her kangaroo-like head repeatedly.

The others also wanted to see if it really could awaken someone, so they didn’t try to stop her.

Yan Jiayu woke up, but not from being hit. She had a brief lapse of consciousness when injured by the "Sealing Door," losing her primary awareness and nearly being assimilated by the prop. When she was pulled from the wall, she couldn’t move, but her mind had started functioning again.

"Stop hitting." Her mouth recovered faster than her limbs, she stopped the Girl in the painting, saying with some helplessness, "I’m inside the prop; if you hit me, I won’t feel any pain."

So external attacks couldn’t wake her, and they might even cause further assimilation by the prop due to serious injuries.

"But you’re able to talk now." The Girl in the painting thought her method was effective, emphasizing, "I helped."

"Thank you." Yan Jiayu earnestly thanked her, "I’ll treat you to something nice when we get back."

The Girl in the painting nodded, took off the donkey headgear, threw it aside, planning to have a meal before seeking out the upright.

Xu Huo mentioned the matter of the upright to the others, but unfortunately, Zhu Bo and Dai He also hadn’t seen the upright.

"Looks like we’ll have to search carefully." Zhu Bo said, "The situation inside the castle might differ from Circus City; by daylight, the puppets and active props might start moving."

"Rest for ten minutes before proceeding." Xu Huo felt fatigue, checked his body, and found the toxin hadn’t been completely cleared, instead worsening over time.

Yan Jiayu couldn’t eat, and others weren’t in the mood to eat, so they merely replenished some water, only the Girl in the painting cheerfully flipped through her backpack, taking out pre-prepared snacks.

"Is that an instance authorization document?" Hongxi saw the scroll encased in a transparent box.

The Girl in the painting quickly grabbed it and stuffed it into her backpack, saying to Xu Huo, "It’s mine."

"I know." That was to stop the fake instance authorization document; initially, he bought authorization prop from Mr. Xi, but the old man insisted on making the authorization more perfect, ended up pondering without any solution, simply sheathed a disposable item box over it, pretending to solve the problem.

In the end, he was too embarrassed to hand it to Xu Huo, secretly gave it to the Girl in the painting, fulfilling his promise.

The Girl in the painting treated the prop as a gift, always keeping it in her backpack.

"Just a prop, bought for fun." Xu Huo glanced at it then retracted his gaze, tiredly sipping water.

"Your condition isn’t right." Yan Jiayu watched him for a while, "It’s worsening; do you have antitoxin?"

Xu Huo nodded, "Already used."

The antitoxins he carried were diluted; if the King Fungus’s effect was insufficient, a couple of antitoxins wouldn’t suffice either.

"I still have two antitoxins." Zhu Bo took out a finger-thick box.

Xu Huo accepted it but didn’t intend to use it immediately, as potions might conflict seriously, avoiding risks here. His condition wasn’t too severe, could afford to wait until they got outside.

"Didn’t you guys get poisoned?" Yan Jiayu asked them and Qi Cong.

Zhu Bo and Dai He had Spatial Evolutionary Power as a fallback; when passing the Big Skeleton Monster, they only assisted from the side without close combat, so no big issues.

While Xu Huo had no idea when he got poisoned, couldn’t confirm close combat was only due to the black smoke; there may be other avenues, Zhu Bo, Dai He, and Qi Cong being unharmed was normal.

As for Yan Jiayu and others, there was even less chance.

Ten minutes passed swiftly; Xu Huo and the others prepared to look for the upright. With insufficient manpower, they called back the Jiji Bird and Peacock midway, unexpectedly finding Dai He was also alive, and he had seen the upright.

Dai He was severely injured, half of his body’s bones were crushed. When Xu Huo and others found him, he was lying breathlessly in a tank pretending to be a fish. After retrieving him, they learned Xu Huo was dragged by the stilt man, and very soon Dai He and the Jiji Bird pair ran astray, accidentally stumbling into a storeroom.

That storeroom was full of uprights of various sizes.

Without discovering live props, he thought to hide inside for a while, wait for the stilt man to leave before exiting, but for some reason, after hiding for a while, he felt drowsy, nearly falling asleep when suddenly awoken with a shock; looking ahead, those uprights transformed into colossal objects and the room’s space instantly expanded many times, he found himself akin to a trivial ant in there, soon crushed by the upright.

His luck was remarkable; those uprights initially meant to crush him to death, yet unexpectedly a bird call was heard, causing the upright positioned centrally in the room not to roll toward him, instead jumping up and running toward the door.

After that upright left, the room returned to normal, allowing Dai He to narrowly escape death, but by the time he exited, the upright was already gone, and the source of the bird call wasn’t found. He ultimately crawled into the fish tank, surfacing for air occasionally.

Xu Huo glanced at the Girl in the painting; they hadn’t heard any bird call previously.

The Girl in the painting pondered seriously; she’d seen both real and fake birds, but not a single bird would make a call.

Dai He mimicked the sound, and the Girl in the painting understood, "It’s not a bird call, but a urinal whistle."

There’s a room beside the tower on the first floor, with a large water tank above inside that room, yet the tank isn’t connected to the castle’s pipes; when the puppet whistles, water from above gets released. Last time she came, the person guiding her said it was a urinal whistle.

The Girl in the painting didn’t find any issue with it, so she continued to use this term.

The sound of the water tank releasing water attracted the upright away, indicating something happened in the tower over there.

After resting, they descended to the first floor, intending to leave the main building and head to the tower to investigate.

On the first floor, many puppets were active, even the Girl in the painting could be easily spotted; Zhu Bo and others tossed a communicator upstairs, playing music on a timer to draw the puppets.

But it only drew the patrolling puppets away; the rest engaged in work remained, standing idle as if inanimate after finishing tasks.

They could only find work for them.

Xu Huo knocked down several trees and poured oil in the staircase hallway, smearing paint on several glass panes to engage the puppets, thus enabling him to open the Mental Portal.

Perhaps because of the castle’s diverse active props, the interior lacked the multitude of interference and detection devices present outside, so when they went to open the door, it didn’t trigger any alarm.

Yan Jiayu used force to twist open the room aligned with the water tank, a gush of long-closed, fermented stench spilled out!