As soon as someone appeared at the doorway, a cluster of voices rushed forward, demanding to know what had happened.
Mu Mumu spat her complaint at her teammates like venom. “If it weren’t for that idiot Claire leading us the wrong way, we wouldn’t have stumbled into whatever that room was. The moment we walked in there was that white powder everywhere.”
Claire snapped back without backing down. “Oh please. You acted like a hero until something went wrong — the first one to run off. You tripped the director trying to save your own skin and got him caught. If you hadn’t, you’d be the one still inside.”
“Now that you’re out you get to put on airs?” someone muttered.
Only then did everyone notice: the director — the man carrying the camera — hadn’t come back out. Something in that room had held him. Only one pair of mediums, Ning Yitao’s team, hadn’t entered; the program was at a standstill and only the cameras at the entrance were still rolling.
The production staff tried the big front door and found, to their alarm, that it wouldn’t budge. They called the police and pleaded for the on-site mediums to help.
With no cameraman left, Ning Yitao fished out the little streaming camera Mu Mumu had stuffed into her hand before the shoot and tossed it up. She went live.
Mu Mumu had given her that camera as a precaution — a ridiculous little grip on backup footage. Now it proved useful. They passed it around so everyone could get screen time; more angles meant higher chances the online audience would vote them out less in the next round. The image quality couldn’t match the production gear, but it was better than nothing.
Viewers flocked into Ning’s stream from every corner. International fans even bypassed the geo-blocks to watch.
Eve cradled her Persian cat, but the animal refused to go near the castle. No matter how she coaxed it, the moment they drew close to Glamis Castle the cat bristled and combed desperately for escape from her arms. Eventually Eve had to hand it over to a crew member. The cat pawed at her gowns, as if pleading, and nudged her hand as though to say: stay out.
“Be good,” Eve murmured, stroking the cat. “I’ll come back for you soon.” The cat rubbed its head against her palm like it understood.
Back inside, teams of mediums wrestled with the locked door. They pushed, they kicked — nothing. Suggestions grew heated; someone proposed setting fire to the door.
“You dare burn it and you’ll never see tomorrow’s sunrise,” another snapped. The room snapped into a hush.
“Move,” Ning Yitao said, voice low but carrying to every ear. For some reason the single syllable held weight; the bickering mediums stepped aside and cleared a path without realizing why.
Her teammates followed close. Ning reached out and gave the door a polite push. The same door that everyone had tried and failed to open swung inward as if by trickery.
After all that struggle, it looked absurd that a gentle shove would do it. Mu Mumu’s expression soured; she watched Ning with a resentful curl. “She just wants the spotlight,” Mu Mumu thought.
Ji Wangqiu had picked his moment to approach Mu Mumu. “Miss Mu,” he said, extending a hand, “could you tell me which room the director was left in?”
Seeing Ji, Mu Mumu’s eyes lit up. She grabbed his hand like a starstruck fan. Her face instantly smoothed into flirtatious warmth; who could resist a polite, handsome man? She missed completely the faint irony underneath his words.
She batted at her bangs and coquettishly replied, “On the second floor, right side — the second-to-last room.”
Then her countenance shifted; a pale look swept over her face. “But you mustn’t go to the last room at the end of the hall. That room feels like death. No one dares go near it.”
Ji offered a dry, gentlemanly thanks and fell in with Ning’s group.
He sidled up to her and lowered his voice. “Tao Tao, let’s look for the director on the second floor first. I’ve got a bad feeling about him.”
Ning Yitao nodded and called back, “Let’s move.”
Once they stepped through, the great door closed soundlessly behind them.
Outside, Mu Mumu suddenly felt an unbearable itch crawling over her skin. At first she blamed mosquitoes, but the itch intensified until she clawed herself hysterically, the fragile skin coming away in bloody streaks. She didn’t stop. Ji had tampered with her — but she thought some rival medium had planted the trick. She and Claire immediately broke into a fresh round of shouting at the doorway, each accusing the other.
The main hall turned pitch-black. The wind outside thudded against the windows like fists, raising a cold, pressing unease.
Inside, Ning glanced back at the closed door. The instant she did, the chandelier overhead flared to life. Strangely, the puddles of blood Grace had splattered across the floor had vanished. The grand lights shifted through a spectrum of colors while a piano began to play — Beethoven’s Für Elise. The melody poured into the hall: at once soft, romantic, and horribly at odds with the sinking dread.
The piano’s tempo shifted with the lights. No one dared relax.
Ning’s features tightened. “Watch out,” she warned.
Then, as if provoked by the crowd packed in the room, knives and shards of glass and torn chair legs rose up like a swarm. They weren’t limited to the usual places; edged things came from every direction, slicing toward them.
The others dodged and twisted with desperate agility. Henry managed to avoid a few but took several ugly cuts across his face. To their surprise, none of the thrown blades dared come near Ning Yitao; they veered away from her as if repelled.
Ji gave a small, admiring smile. “As expected. I don’t think I can ever keep up with you.”
Ning gave him a look of amused contempt. Zhao Cai, ever blunt, cut in, “You alright?” — the words doing the asking Ning had wanted.
Suddenly Henry stiffened. His face, already marked with rips, began to ooze a dark, smoky aura from the wounds. He fixed his eyes ahead and started to walk like a man on strings, unresponsive to anyone who tried to stop him.
Grindon and Sarava shoved at him in a panic, but they couldn’t hold him back. The way he moved — the set of his feet, the vacant stare — was the exact same condition Grace and the cameraman had had when they entered the garden.
Eve came to Ning for help, trembling. Ning didn’t physically stop Henry; she merely called out, “Cover your mouth and nose!” and signaled the others to follow him. Ji tore off his shirt and offered it to Ning to use as a mask; she brushed him aside and instead placed it over Henry as his body went rigid.
With a groaning push, Henry opened the garden gate.
The garden beyond looked serene, deceptively so. Roses bloomed in lush swathes, petals so red they might have been stained with blood. Henry walked straight across the path to a lake whose surface was a perfect, glassy mirror. Something invisible pulled at him, drawing him toward the water. It was as if the lake itself wanted him to jump.
Ning didn’t hesitate. She struck Henry hard enough to knock him out and, with Ji’s help, propped him against a tree. They peered into the water. In the lakebed something had been buried.
“The missing Buck is down there,” Ning said, eyes cold.
Nobody volunteered to dive. This castle was too strange; the risk felt unbearable.
Ning read their faces and cut the hesitation. Without a word she performed a quick water ward and plunged in. Ji followed her at once.
Below, the light refracted into a muted, eerie world. They swam down together.
Back on shore, Eve noticed a small patch of roses in the corner of the garden had withered. Her expression hardened. “No — we have to go. Now.”
“Someone’s disturbed the formation,” Sarava said, voice tight. “The things above will wither anything on it. If we don’t leave, we’ll be turned to ash. We’ll become its fertilizer.”
Panic flared. Sarava and Grindon hauled Henry toward the exit with practiced speed.
There was pounding at the door. Eve, frantic, had found a stone and battered the handle until the metal sheared clean. The handle was ruined, but the door stayed shut.
She tucked a vine into the corner and muttered an incantation, eyes squeezed shut. The vine exploded into splinters and splattered the broken doorknob into pieces on the floor. The door itself remained unscathed.
Eve’s brow furrowed, heavy with dread. “It’s no use,” she said. “The door won’t open.”