Chapter 218 - 217: Creepy Bedtime Story

Chapter 218: Chapter 217: Creepy Bedtime Story

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"What did you find?"

Seeing Bone Ash in such a rush, Gu Su couldn’t help but ask.

Bone Ash was normally so composed. Whatever had him rushing back like this had to be something out of the ordinary.

Bone Ash said nothing, simply taking out a book with great care. He held it in both hands and presented it to Gu Su.

The book wasn’t large, about as wide as a man’s palm, but it was surprisingly thick.

The cover was made of some kind of dark brown hardback material. Its corners were heavily worn, frayed in places to reveal the yellowed cardboard beneath.

A picture was drawn on the cover. Gu Su took the book casually, but his hand froze the moment he made out the image.

It was a drawing of the entrance to the Inverted Tower in the distance.

The art style was far from refined—crude, even. The lines were crooked, and the colors were applied unevenly.

But that distorted silhouette of the entrance, the rift that gashed the earth like a torn scar, the jagged stone spikes surrounding it... Gu Su recognized it in an instant. It was an exact match for the entrance to the Inverted Tower he’d seen in the distance when the Graveyard Demon descended.

He looked up and waved Bone Ash off. "Carry on."

Bone Ash nodded, turned, and hopped into the pickup. A swirl of Black Fog later, he was gone.

Gu Su clutched the book and walked over to the Deceitful Tree. He sat down beside its bare trunk, opened the cover, and began to read from the first page.

The book’s pages were yellowed and brittle, their edges curled. Water stains and fingerprints marked some of the pages.

The spine was cracked, with several pages held together by nothing more than a single cotton thread. He had to turn them with extreme care, lest the whole thing fall apart in his hands.

A label was stuck to the back cover, the book’s title scrawled on it in crooked letters: Koba District Bedtime Story Collection.

’Bedtime stories?’

’So it really was a book of bedtime stories. No wonder it was so worn; this was the kind of book someone kept at their bedside to read every night.’

But as Gu Su began to flip through its pages, his expression became utterly transfixed.

’He had only one thought: if you used this book to lull a child to sleep, they’d probably end up more awake than ever.’

’These weren’t bedtime stories for lulling children to sleep. They were clearly twisted tales designed to frighten them, to keep them awake all night!’

Every story in the book radiated a bone-chilling, uncanny cold. There was the Mill Flayer, who hid by day and hunted by night, skinning people alive. There was the tale of a child killed during a "pig slaughter" game with his playmates. There was a bizarre scarecrow lurking in the fields, feeding on the living. There was even a nursery rhyme about ten rabbits, its strange melody concealing a deadly code. The details of every story were so sinister they made his scalp crawl and a chill run down his spine.

As Gu Su read on, waves of cold washed over his back.

The stories were short, only two or three pages each, but every one of them emanated an indescribable malevolence. It wasn’t the horror of gore and violence, but something deeper, something that sent a chill seeping out from the very marrow of his bones.

And as Gu Su read, he could feel strange things begin to manifest around him.

He glanced around. The Deceitful Tree stood right behind him, its bare trunk emitting a ghostly glow beneath the gloomy sky.

Though its canopy was gone, leaving only a few bare branches, its aura—the one that suppressed eerie forces—was still present. Most importantly, the Altar remained. It wasn’t currently suppressing any entity, but Gu Su had done plenty to prepare it.

The stone lion placed before the Altar was more than capable of handling things.

Whenever an eerie presence manifested near Gu Su, the Altar would flash with red light and devour it.

In fact, stimulated by these eerie presences, the canopy of the Deceitful Tree was even beginning to show signs of life.

’He wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, but Gu Su knew one thing for certain: if he’d tried reading this book anywhere else, he would’ve had to flee before he could finish.’

Gu Su steadied himself and continued reading.

Most of the stories in the book were standalone and unrelated. But as he got to the second half, he noticed a name that appeared again and again.

Wisconsin.

In the story of the Mill Flayer, the creature ultimately vanished in the direction of Wisconsin.

In the story of the child slaughtered like a pig, the knife was engraved with the word "Piglet." On the back, a line of small text read: "Wisconsin Adult Gift Shop."

In the tale of the scarecrow in the field, the seeds given by the sorcerer had been brought back from Wisconsin.

And at the end of the "Ten Rabbits" nursery rhyme, the last rabbit finished its song while standing on a Tombstone, then turned and headed in the direction of Wisconsin.

...

Wisconsin.

Aside from a few scattered, uncanny tales, it seemed almost every Chapter, every legend in the book, mentioned the name Wisconsin in some capacity. Yet nowhere did the book explain what, or who, Wisconsin was.

Gu Su searched the entire book, but found no answer.

Piecing together clues from between the lines, he gathered that Wisconsin might be a place, or perhaps the name of a lord.

This entity ruled over most of the territory in this barren land, controlling countless manors scattered like stars. It was even said to possess a legendary river that flowed with milk. It was mysterious and powerful.

What was more frightening was that all who set foot on this land would be influenced by the Power of Wisconsin, eventually surrendering willingly at its feet, becoming a part of it, forever unable to escape.

If these were just ordinary stories, Gu Su wouldn’t have believed a word of it.

But the uncanny events that occurred while he read the book made him inclined to believe.

He closed the book and leaned back against the trunk of the Deceitful Tree, his gaze lost in the direction of the distant entrance to the Inverted Tower.

’Perhaps Wisconsin is over there.’

But something still felt off to Gu Su.

’After all, what kind of sane person would tell these stories to a child?’

’And the stories themselves felt... almost AI-generated. The plots were terribly crude, yet the details were incredibly thorough.’

Take the story of the child slaughtered like a pig, for example.

The plot was really just three lines.

A few children were playing house, and they decided to imitate a butcher slaughtering a pig.

One child played the part of the pig.

Another was the butcher, while the rest held the "pig" down.

The child playing the butcher was a disturbingly good actor. Most importantly, he was holding a real, stolen tool.

From there, the rest of the story was dedicated entirely to the details: the details of the knife, the details of preparing the basin to catch the blood, the details of boiling water to scald the carcass, the details of butchering and dividing the meat...

’In short, by the end of the story, you’d have a perfect instruction manual on how to slaughter a pig.’

’Assuming, of course, that the story hadn’t driven you mad first.’

’Or made you start seeing ordinary children as piglets.’