Chapter 22: Betting

After Geng Qinghe and Liao Tong were cautiously inquiring about the conditions of a few houses outside, they came back and looked for someone to find the living room. They saw Lin You and Jian Mingjia sitting firmly on the sofa, one was in a daze, and the other flipped through. The magazine.
Geng Qinghe is okay, but Liao Tong will inevitably be unbalanced.
Although it was necessary to take care of the girls, he couldn't fish. He took two steps forward and spoke uprightly.
"You--I'll go!" He said two words before seeing the thing hanging outside the window, and he was shocked immediately, "What are you doing?!"
"what?"
Lin You was a little bewildered by his call. She turned her head and looked over before remembering, "Oh, I hung up, I almost forgot."
Liao Tong: "..."
He pointed at the half-dangling puppet in horror and his hands were still shaking.
What can I forget? !
The puppet named Billy who had been stuffed into the closet that he had watched with his own eyes was completely wet at this moment, and the trousers were still dripping.
The wooden stick stuck above the balcony passed through the sleeve on one side of it, and went straight to the other side, hanging it horizontally. But there is no support on the neck, let it sag its head, let alone see it in the middle of the night, even if it looks at it during the day, it must be scared to death.
Liao Tong tried to break his head and didn't want to understand what the two of them were doing.
"This," Geng Qinghe also looked dumbfounded, "this is..."
Seeing his eyes cast over, Jian Mingjia, who was still reading the magazine, waved her hand immediately.
"Don't ask me," she tried to straighten her face, not letting herself laugh. "My stomach hurts."
-Laughing.
"Let's do it, let me summarize it."
Lin You thinks she is really sweet.
"Not long after you left, I searched the kitchen with her, and it didn't know how it came out from behind." She said, "Staring at both of us for a long time suddenly made a chuckle. I think I can't let it provoke or To scare people, I grabbed two peppers from the refrigerator—"
Geng Qinghe: "...what did you grab two?"
"chili."
As if unable to see the shock on the faces of the two of them, Lin You said flatly: "Then it was so spicy that he rushed directly to the pool and turned the faucet to the maximum. As a result, I got wet. I waited until it didn’t move. Just hang it out and let it dry."
The tone was so casual as if she was drying a T-shirt instead of a haunted weird puppet.
Liao Tong: "………………"
His game view is about to break.
What magical operation is this? ! And it actually works? !
Liao Tong imagined himself substituting himself into the situation, only thinking that as soon as he turned around, he could not help his scalp tingling when facing a puppet that suddenly appeared in front of him. He looked at Linyou—the girl he felt unlucky at first and was very sympathetic for being chosen by Mary Shaw—and his gaze couldn't help but become more subtle.
There is a little awe in the subtlety.
"I want to know now," he said difficultly. "So puppets can eat too? They don't have tongues?"
"The puppet herself doesn't have it, but Mary Shaw does."
When I think of the scene, Jian Mingjia can't hold back the gloat. At this moment, she can easily stop laughing, she said with a serious face: "Remember that nursery rhyme,'She will tear your mouth and tear your tongue'-Mary · Xiao put all the tongues of the victims in his own mouths, and can use this to imitate their voices."
"When she is attached to the puppet, the puppet has a tongue." Jian Mingjia stretched out her hands, "I guess she can't stand it after drinking cold water. She is directly out of the carrier of Billy, but I don't know whether it will be spicy after going back. ."
"..."
Liao Tong now feels that this world is a bit illusory, and he wants to be quiet.
Standing on the side, Geng Qinghe thought for a while, silently stretched out his hand to pat his shoulder comfortingly. Everyone has gone through this stage, and he still understands this feeling a bit.
The passerby teammates fell into a sluggish state of death, and Lin You had always been accustomed to his own way, and he didn't care much. She took the folder found in the car on the table.
Before the two returned to the house, she and Jian Mingjia took the time to search the upper and lower floors, but unfortunately, they did not find even the slightest evidence. The only one who could barely reach the clues was an old business card with curled edges.
And this business card-Lin You has seen the same in the folder, the only difference is the new one and the old one.
A certain law firm was registered on the business card, and the original owner was obviously a lawyer.
Her name is Casey.
"This Casey has a problem." Lin You said.
Jian Mingjia: "Huh?"
"She has been to this small town and left her business card. It is estimated that she did it alone. She should have notified me of this," Lin You said, "I thought that my relative had passed away for a while. , But now there are traces of someone’s life here a few days ago, how did she know that he was dead?"
Concise and understand.
"She has something to do with Mary Shaw?"
"It's possible," Lin You shrugged, "Anyway, my personal setting is going to change from'relatives who inherited the inheritance' to'unlucky relatives who were tricked into inheriting the inheritance.'"
"Anyway, apart from this, we haven't gained much here."
She turned to Geng Qinghe, "Have you found anything?"
Geng Qinghe: "Uh—"
"We walked half a block," he said frankly, "I knocked it from house to house, and there is not even one person left."
"Then wait till the end..."
Geng Qinghe hesitated, "I saw a lake. The middle of the lake seems to be a puppet theater. It's just that the bridge is broken. If you want to go there, you have to row a boat next to it. We thought about discussing it with you and we returned.
Lin You and Jian Mingjia looked at each other.
"Puppet theater..." she repeated meaningfully.
Eight out of ten
Nine is where Mary Shaw performed.
"It's most efficient to go there directly?" Jian Mingjia took the lead, "I have no objection."
Geng Qinghe: "...Me, me too."
"Then I didn't--" Liao Tong subconsciously followed the crowd at the time of the crash, and he suddenly reacted, "Wait, isn't it possible to hit the Mary Shaw if you come here?"
"Well, that's what I said."
Lin You nodded.
"It's probably her nest there." She said, "But now that there is no clue about the house, we can't check it one by one. Of course, it's the fastest to break into the theater."
During such discussions, Lin You saw Billy who was hanging on the balcony raising his head little by little behind the three of them, and his eyes rolled around.
She gave a friendly smile.
For a moment, remembering the sourness of the two fresh peppers, Billy dropped his head again.
"Remember anyway."
Everyone was puzzled by her smile, and Lin You made a gesture of zipping her mouth, "Don't scream at anything."
"Don't think I can't see it," Jian Mingjia whispered beside her as she walked out the door, "You want to get Mary Shaw's card."
"Hey, don't you tell me through it." Lin You said with a smile.
She was still thinking about the puppet in the shop at first, but after seeing Billy, she instantly changed her mind. Anyway, every puppet is the carrier of Mary Shaw, in that case, why not get the boss directly?
This is also a B-level book, and if it is not complete, it is another SR.
She said solemnly: "I can't wait to meet Mary Shaw."
Concise Jia: "..."
To be reasonable, she felt that the other party probably regretted deceiving such a person.
Geng Qinghe and Liao Tong had been walking before, and the four of them naturally drove faster together. The car stopped on the side of the road, and with the sound of opening the doors one after another, Lin You also came down to a stop and looked not far away.
As Geng Qinghe said, from here you can vaguely see the signs of the building on the island of the lake with words such as "Puppet" and "Theater". The theater is not small in scale, even if it is now dilapidated and the dismantled building materials are piled up on the ground, you can still see the traces of the original glory and the lively.
The iron bridge a few meters away was supposed to be used to go straight to the island, but unfortunately it was badly damaged. The middle section sank into the water. No matter how you looked at it, it was impossible to pass the bridge.
Their only choice was a wooden boat on the shore.
The boat is small, and everyone is unavoidably crowded if you want to sit down. Lin You was the last one to get on the boat, and stepped on it and swayed, even she felt unsafe.
Fortunately, the load-bearing capacity of the small wooden boat was still sufficient. Liao Tong raised the wooden oars to the shore of the lake, and they floated towards the middle of the lake.
The farther from the shore, the heavier the mist on the water. No one spoke, only the sound of the oars beating on the water.
Geng Qinghe was the first to hold an oar while paddling and make up for it.
"I'm so flustered."
He said with a bitter face, "You said that if you are rowing, you have a hand on the boat—"
Concise Jia: "..."
Jian Mingjia: "You shut up!!"
"Come on, there is nothing to be afraid of." Liao Tong said in his mouth, and the speed of rowing on his hand has obviously increased a lot.
"What are the oars in your hands for?" Lin You was the one who was really not panicked. She leaned her arm against the side of the boat, and said coolly, "If something is on it, just knock it up."
... is a ruthless man! !
Perhaps it was because she had witnessed her feat of drying the puppets, and Liao Tong always felt that this was particularly convincing when she said it from the other side.
Obviously she is a young girl, he thought to himself, why he has a sense of awe inexplicably...
Fortunately, Geng Qinghe is not a crow's mouth, they rowed smoothly all the way to the island. When disembarking, Jian Mingjia clearly heard Fa Xiaoji sigh inaudibly.
You are really sorry to dare to love you? !
Lin You is a little frustrated. The SR card is rare, but the R card is not bad—one more is for children to choose. Of course, adults want them all!
But her attention quickly shifted to other places. The puppet theater where Mary Shaw once performed was demolished, but it was limited to the interior, and the door was locked properly.
"How to get in now," Lin You asked, "bang the door? Turn the window? Is there another entrance?"
Liao Tong coughed.
"Let me do it."
He said: "I am in this profession."
Jian Mingjia said "Huh", and Liao Tong explained a few more words as if to justify himself.
"Maybe because the rookie picked the lock and stole a key during the test," he said, "it was judged to be a thief-in fact, I was interested in researching when I was a child, and this is about to be tested."
"Understanding." Jian Ming Jiaren smiled.
Liao Tong stood in front of the theater gate, but couldn't see how he played tricks. Within five seconds, only a crisp sound was heard, and the heavy lock hung on the door fell into his hand.
"Okay," he breathed a sigh of relief, "opened."
The ticket office is located outside the door, and rows of seats are when you enter the door. No one has cleaned this place for many years, and layers of spider webs have formed in the corners and even on the cushions. Lin You saw a spider hanging upside down from one of them.
She took a step aside.
Liao Tong picked up an emergency light from the side and tried it and found that it was still working.
As soon as the light shone, the shadows of hundreds of soft chairs were completely black, and the stage was empty again, and the huge theater was so quiet that people got goose bumps.
The four of them passed through a dozen rows of seats in silence, and Liao Tong shook the emergency light over there, and nothing was wrong.
Geng Qinghe was at the end, his vision was limited, and he accidentally stumbled himself.
"Fuck!" He slammed his head heavily on the armrest, and immediately covered his forehead in pain. He was about to prop up on the cushion, and his hand stuck in the gap suddenly felt something, "Hey? What is this? Toothbrush?"
"Why did anyone bring this to the theater..."
He flipped the thing in his hand with the light in front and saw a line of words engraved on it.
"English?'The best toothbrush in the world'... this kind of ad slogan is popular now?" Geng Qinghe muttered, "'Toothbrush' is actually spelled wrong."
Lin You, who was a few steps ahead of him, turned her head back.
"You said a toothbrush?"
"Ah, yes," he said blankly, "what's wrong with Pomelo?"
"You can," Lin You joked, taking the toothbrush he handed over, "I'm lucky."
Geng Qinghe: "???"
Seeing that they stopped, the other two also stopped confused.
Lin You remembered the system prompt she heard when she first started in the cooperative mode-"Items other than special items cannot be brought out of the copy", which means that special items can be taken away by the player or even used in another copy.
But in these days of public beta, very few people get such props. She has seen some wind in a few posts, and it is said that it is useless to find it, you have to recognize it.
"Have you heard of the SCP Foundation?" she asked.
"...What foundation?"
"SCP," Lin You repeated, "a series of works commissioned by governments of various countries to specifically control organizations that contain supernatural phenomena or individuals."
"This is one of the items, numbered SCP-063."
As soon as she finished speaking, a layer of light flashed across the toothbrush.
The transparent window popped up right in front of my eyes.
Geng Qinghe was stunned.
[Name: SCP-063 "The best toothbrush in the world"]
[Description: A light blue toothbrush. Although it has been proved by experiments that it is only made of ordinary plastic, it has the ability to pass through any dead or inorganic objects effortlessly, and objects that touch the bristles will disappear completely without leaving any traces. 】
【Available times: 3】
Lin Youxin said that this painting style is much more serious than her illustrated book.
"This means..." Geng Qinghe stared at the little "3", "It will be automatically recovered after using it three times?"
"should."
She stuffed the toothbrush into his hand, turned around and followed the two people in front, "Otherwise, it would be too much to reuse."
"Hey, Sister Pomelo."
Geng Qinghe hurriedly stopped her: "Sister Pomelo, don't you want it?"
"What am I doing?" Lin You gave him a strange look. "If you find it, keep it yourself."
"But you recognized it..." Otherwise he couldn't take it out, but seeing that she really didn't intend to take it, Geng Qinghe had to stuff things into the backpack, "Well, if you want to use it, just tell me."
"This is a coincidence."
Liao Tong watched how this is going to be true. At this moment, he couldn't help but envy and hate, "I also want to pick up a special item."
But think about it seriously, if he finds it, he won't recognize it, so he has to give it up.
Passing through the first row of seats, they watched separately for a while and found a side door.
Pushing the door and stepping into the backstage of the theater, the decadent breath that has accumulated over the years is almost instantaneous, and it is also mixed with a vague stench, which makes people instinctively uncomfortable.
Jian Mingjia pinched her nose and stopped at the table.
"Youyou," she said, "look at this."
...?
Lin You walked over and saw a book of drawings laid out on the table.
Various puppet parts were painted on the drawings, and she turned a few pages back until she finally saw a line of comments.
-"Be a perfect puppet".
She remembered that when Mary Shaw kidnapped the little boy, she wanted to use him to make a perfect puppet, but the result was far from what she expected. In the movie, Mary Shaw succeeded after death, and used her perfect puppet to fool the protagonist to the last minute.
I don't know how to set here, whether she has completed her final work.
She closed Mary Shaw's drawing book and turned her head to see Liao Tong looking at a huge curtain.
He noticed that there was a rope hanging on the side, tangled for a long time, seeing that the others did not object, he cruelly grabbed the rope and pulled it off.
With a "swipe pull", the curtain fell.
The moment he saw the scene behind the curtain, Liao Tong's scalp almost exploded.
"Grass," he murmured.
From floor to ceiling, the glass cabinets are densely displayed with old-fashioned puppets. The cheeks are raised, the lips are bright red, and the round eyes made of plastic are colorful.
The positions of the puppets are different, but they all look in the same direction.
In other words, even if it’s just separated by a huge curtain--
They have been watching them.
Bathed in the sight of hundreds of puppets, Liao Tong only felt that the nape of his neck was swishy.
What's more, their loose wooden jaws are also falling downward, and they look like a smile.
As if the screwed wood was turning abruptly, accompanied by a soft "crack", the puppet at the top left slowly turned his head to the left. It rolled its eyes, made a sharp "squeak", and leaned in the same direction with a weird smile.
The puppet next to it made the same action, followed by the second and third--
"Are you playing dominoes?" Lin You asked abruptly.
Liao Tong: "..."
He clearly saw the next puppet froze.
The horror atmosphere was completely extinguished by her words, but in the next second, I wonder if it was because of remembering all the previous things, the puppet suddenly burst out with a scream of anger.
Its facial features began to twist, pulling into a woman's face attached to it.
—Mary Shaw.
Oh, bad.
Lin You quickly observed her side, and she was so good that no one had weapons.
"What are you doing in a daze," she greeted, "Sleep!"
The glass behind him shattered to the ground one by one, and he didn't care how many puppets were chasing after him. Lin You directly slammed the door that she had just brought with her shoulder, and when she saw that there were many puppets pouring out of the corridor, she couldn't help but curse.
More than puppets.
Some of them may have turned out to be residents of small towns. The decayed, wrinkled, "puppet" corpses now look like they were before they were born.
Jian Mingjia pressed her mouth tightly, and Geng Qinghe gritted her teeth and turned her gaze away.
This situation...is fine.
Lin You thought.
If she really had no support, she would not dare to break into Mary Shaw's puppet theater.
The palm of her hand turned, and a dark shadow rose from behind.
"What's this again?!" Liao Tong collapsed. His worldview was really broken into scum this time—the kind that even the wind blows.
The "what" in his mouth quietly looked at it, and he couldn't say even a word.
"Help me destroy those puppets," Lin You said quickly, "as much as possible."
The guy she summoned didn't move. The suit he was wearing was still neat and tidy. It turned out that the tie was washed and tied around his neck. The blank face looked at Lin You without any emotion, and stared at her.
...That is not accurate, because he has no eyes.
Lin You: "..."
"Please?" she tentatively asked.
She seemed to hear a certain SR humming lukewarmly.
The lanky ghost used only tentacles to move backwards, breaking all the puppets to the ground. The sharp screams of the women rang out, but then the next batch of puppets swarmed.
"He can only help us drag for a minute!" Lin You turned the corner and hurriedly exhorted as he ran, "This road is blocked from the gate just now, but there should be a safe exit nearby—"
Running a long way from the fork road just now, Lin You finally found time to look back.
She stared at the three of them for a moment.
"Where is Liao Tong?"

Liao Tong was not scared away by the elongated ghost.
He can distinguish well, obviously it was something his teammates made, and he would put all the doubts in his stomach no matter what.
But he didn't look up, he ran forward with his head stuffed, and when he reached the fork, he subconsciously turned in the opposite direction. But the puppet possessed by Mary Shaw was still screaming at the back, so that no one could hear anyone's footsteps.
When he finally noticed the error and raised his head, he found that he was separated.
Yu Guang saw hordes of puppets catching up behind him, and Liao Tong pushed the nearest door in a panic.
Really let him push away.
Dumping into the door, Liao Tong turned around and pressed his back against the door, breathing heavily.
He looked up again, and his whole body suddenly became cold.
Someone was here earlier than him.
The back of the woman standing by the window with her back to him was so straight that she couldn't see anything unusual at first glance. However, his heart is clear, it is strange to have normal talents in this theater.
"Want to know how to get out of here?" He heard the guy ask.
Of course.
Liao Tong did not dare to speak out.
"Come here," she said, "Come over and I'll tell you."
Liao Tong realized that he was stupid in the past, he tried desperately to twist the doorknob. But at this moment, the door that was easily opened before seemed to be someone holding the handle outside and not letting him open it. He understood his situation.
He looked up in despair.
The woman in front of the window turned around at this moment. Her face was wrinkled and wrinkled across the scars, her eyeballs were black, and her jaws, like a puppet, moved incessantly.
The face was familiar, he had seen it when the puppet was deformed.
It's Mary Shaw herself.
She faced Liao Tong and opened her tongue from which her tongue had been removed.

"Wow ah ah ah ah -!"
Geng Qinghe stopped abruptly as he was about to rush to find someone.
All three knew it was too late.
He didn't hold back the scream, it is probably cold now.
"We can only run by ourselves," Lin You made a decisive decision. "Can I light the theater with a torch?"
Geng Qinghe always feels that this development is a bit familiar-if it happens again this time, they are afraid that they will not be the arsonists of three instances in a row.
It really carried out her phrase "add more gasoline if the fire is not enough".
"It's useless!"
This time it was rejected by Jian Mingjia.
"You forgot that there are any more in town? And there must be more than the two we've seen!"
This is true.
The immediate priority is to escape, and the away game is still so narrow and certainly not dominant.
They went around all the way, and the emergency exit was right in front of them. But the puppets that had been missed from the elongated ghost shadow also chased up, and if Lin You felt right, most of them came for her.
She caused most of the hatred by herself!
Yes, Lin You can still understand her thoughts. If someone puts chili in her mouth, she can't hold a grudge.
However, there were a lot of puppets. She had just escaped an attack by one, and in the next second, the other jumped up and hugged her calf.
This strength was not small, and a few flutters caused her to fall to the ground. Lin You didn't care about the glass that had knocked her arm to some place, so she only tried to push it away with her head against the puppet.
"Sister Pomelo," she heard Geng Qinghe shout, "Catch it!"
Lin You grabbed what was thrown to her ear, and the next second, Mary Xiao's puppet saw her smile suddenly.
The handle of the brush passed through the chest, and while the entire toothbrush pierced through the puppet, it seemed to be swallowed by something suddenly, disappearing without a trace.
This time even the screams didn't have time to stay.
SCP-063 is really easy to use.
The thought only lingered in Lin Yu's mind for two seconds. She jumped up from the ground, kicked another puppet away, and rushed out of the theater together with Jian Mingjia who worked hard to open the exit door.
As soon as they left the door, they saw the dismantled debris piled next to them, and they dragged a few to block the door.
The puppets inside ruined most of them, and the remaining strength was the strength that could not be smashed, and the three of them relaxed.
"Come here," Jian Mingjia slumped on the ground, beckoning to Linyou, "help you bandage your arm."
Lin You realized that the cut area was still ticking blood, and even his physical strength dropped a little.
She walked over and sat down. "What I said before is fulfilled."
"It's okay to stand FLAG on yourself."
Concise Jialiang said, she dragged out the first aid kit that came with the profession, "But my level can only eliminate your bleeding state now, and can't recover your physical strength, so I put on a bandage and pretends."
She moved swiftly and solved this little problem in twos or twos.
"right now……"
Seeing them finish, Geng Qinghe hesitated and asked, "Where to go?"
He was used to soliciting Lin You's opinion, but Lin You didn't think about it.
In the story she knew, Mary Shaw commissioned someone to make her body into a puppet after her death. In order to keep her quiet, the residents of the town buried her with her puppets.
Facts have proved that this has no effect. Those puppets will soon disappear and appear in every corner to murder the townspeople, so it is impossible to rest in peace.
Only hard?
"I don't have a clue either." Lin You raised her voice, "Does the one standing there have any ideas?"
... Fuck? !
Both Geng Qinghe and Jian Mingjia were unconsciously immersed in the joy of the rest of their lives, only then were they surprised that there was one standing under the shade of a tree not far away.
The person in the shadow came out slowly, with no corrupt skin, no forced puppet chin, and a very normal looking beauty with outstanding looks.
Her shoulder-length blond hair hung loosely on both sides, looking at the three people leisurely.
"Originally, I thought about the excuse of'come to help you with the formalities, come over and see the situation when you see your car parked here,' seems to be unnecessary."
"It's not necessary."
Lin You nodded in agreement, "After all, I have already guessed your identity."
"Kathy"-no, Mary Shaw, who was attached to "Kathy", sneered.
She realized that Casey was related to Mary Shaw early in the morning, and when she saw the drawing of the perfect puppet, she became more sure of her guess.
Mary Shaw in this copy also completed her perfect puppet decades after her death, and named it "Kathy". After she wiped out all the people in the town for some reason, she used the perfect puppet to lure their offspring and relatives to come and kill.
"But I still don't quite understand," Lin You said, "Why did you kill the whole town?"
"Because they deserve it."
At this time, what came out of the opponent's mouth was not "Kathy", but Mary Shaw's hoarse voice.
"Since they want my theater to disappear, I will let them disappear."
Lin You glanced at the piles of construction waste and got it.
It may be that some people do not believe in the evil of the nursery rhyme, or it may be that the residents of the small town who have been afraid of Mary Shaw finally cannot bear the disappearances or murders from time to time. In short, they stand up and want to completely demolish this unknown theater .
Unfortunately, when it was halfway through, Mary Shaw slammed it down.
"It's not just them."
Mary Shaw hissed and laughed, "And their offspring, and their relatives, I want them and you all to disappear."
So you lied to her too?
"But I haven't disappeared." Lin You pretended to be worried.
It is really a headache that the conditions for killing have not been met.
Mary Shaw: "…………………………"
This person was stuffing peppers and destroying her puppet. The old hatred of her father and the new account made her look at Linyou a little more red.
"Let's do it." The latter, unconsciously, still proposed friendlyly, "Let’s make a bet, within 24 hours, as long as you scare me, even if you make a sound, I will take the initiative to meet the conditions at your disposal ."
"Of course, the other way around, if I win—"
"It doesn't matter."
Mary Shaw sneered.
Anyway, she will win.