Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 141 The Terrifying Basement

Miko pushed open the door and pressed the light switch.

Then she saw that Teacher Park was staring at her with a look of surprise and uncertainty.

Zhengyuan followed closely behind, his pajamas still askew and open at the neckline.

"Teacher! What happened?"

Miko noticed that Teacher Park's face was as pale as paper.

"Miko, you..."

Teacher Park stared wide-eyed at the bedside in disbelief.

Following her gaze, I asked, puzzled, "Teacher, what are you looking at?"

"I just saw someone lying here..."

Miko sat down by the bed and said, "Perhaps you were still half asleep and misread it?"

Teacher Park shook her head violently: "No, no, I saw it clearly..."

"Teacher, you need to rest." Miko touched her teacher's forehead with concern. "Did you have a nightmare? Let me pour you a glass of warm milk."

"Yingmin is back!"

Suddenly, Ms. Park grabbed Mi-ja's wrist, her nails digging deep into her flesh.

“I know you think I’m crazy, but I saw him wearing a rabbit mask on that night three years ago—the first birthday I celebrated after Youngmin’s death!”

Zhengyuan and Meizi exchanged a horrified look.

At this moment, the teacher's sunken eye sockets looked like two black holes.

“The world of the living is too bright for him…” the teacher’s voice suddenly became unusually clear, “like a deep-sea fish that struggles to survive once pulled ashore. So, every year on his birthday, I save a piece of cake to guide him here…”

Miko could only gently pat the back of her teacher's hand: "Teacher, I'll take you out tomorrow..."

"Miko, go now!" Teacher Park suddenly shouted, pointing out the window, "Miko, go inside and find Young-min, Jung-won, go to the yard and get the cake! He's been hungry for so long, and he's only had one bite before, my poor child..."

The two were stunned by the sudden order.

The usually kind teacher seemed to have gone mad at this moment!
“I’ll be right here watching you.” Teacher Park’s voice suddenly became eerily gentle. “Miko, remember to call his name, and then he will come out.”

"Okay, okay, teacher, we'll go now."

In the corridor, Zhengyuan pulled Meizi to hide around the corner.

“I feel like Yinqiu wasn’t wrong.” Meizi’s expression grew increasingly serious. “We can’t keep indulging the teacher like this, just going along with her every whim. It’s been four years, and her condition is getting worse and worse. She really believes that Yingmin’s spirit will come back! We should take her to see a psychiatrist tomorrow, or the consequences will be unimaginable!”

“You’re right,” Zheng Yuan nodded. “If it’s good for the teacher’s health, we can accommodate her and pretend to be okay with it, so everyone has been following those rules. But if this makes the teacher’s condition worse, then I don’t think we can continue!”

Just then, a lullaby hummed by Teacher Park drifted from not far away, the off-key melody echoing repeatedly in the corridor.

"I'll pretend to do it anyway," Zheng Yuan decided. "I'll go get the cake to buy some time."

"Fine……"

"Miko, why don't you call Yingmin's name?"

The teacher's voice came.

Left with no other choice, she had to do as she was told.

"Yingmin! Yingmin! Come out here!"

Miko could only call out Emin's name from various parts of the house.

Soon after, she moved to the basement entrance.

Just then, the iron door to the basement entrance suddenly shook violently!

Miko staggered backward, staring wide-eyed at the door in front of her.

impossible……

There couldn't possibly be anyone in the basement, could there?

Meanwhile, Zhengyuan stood in front of the dining table in the courtyard.

The cake left for Youngmin now smelled rotten and was covered in blood.

At the second-floor window, Ms. Park remained motionless. In the moonlight, a strange smile played on her lips.

"Who is it? Who's inside?" Miko's voice echoed in the empty corridor, trembling slightly.

She could see clearly that the basement door had moved!
"Miko!" Zheng Yuan rushed into the yard, his face pale. "The cake in the yard is covered in blood! The blood hasn't even congealed yet! Let's wake everyone up and see what's going on!"

"Zhengyuan, there's someone in the basement! Come with me, I need to go in and take a look!"

"What? Someone's here?" Zheng Yuan's expression changed drastically.

The two realized... Could it be that thugs have broken in?

As she spoke, Miko took out the basement key and inserted it into the lock.

"Don't open the door!"

Xu Yinqiu's scream came from the other end of the corridor, but it was too late.

With a "click," the lock opened.

A pungent, rotten smell wafted from the crack in the door, making Masamoto and Miko almost vomit.

The basement was pitch black, but you could vaguely see many figures below the stairs!

How could so many thugs break into the house?

Miko's fingers trembled as she touched the wall, and the instant she pressed the switch—

"Snapped!"

A blinding white light suddenly shone, illuminating the entire basement.

The next second, Miko's scream ripped through the silence.

In the space beneath the stairs, more than twenty corpses were neatly arranged!

Even more terrifying are these corpses...

"No! Impossible!"

Miko almost collapsed to the ground, and Masamoto also gasped.

He stumbled down to the bottom, his eyes wide open like copper bells.

When Xu Yinqiu arrived at the door and saw this scene, she also gasped in shock.

As the former team doctor of the Dawn team, she had seen all kinds of terrifying and bloody scenes. In one horror dungeon, she even saw a person killed by a ghost, whose flesh was cut up and sent back to the past by the ghost through time travel. Then, the person mistakenly thought it was pork, bought it, and ate it!
Even so, the scene before her eyes completely overturned Xu Yinqiu's imagination!

Those twenty-odd corpses, many of them were clearly the same person!

They are: 3 bodies of Mija, 3 bodies of Jungwon, 3 bodies of Dabong, 4 bodies of Seho, 3 bodies of Eunyoung, 4 bodies of Soonhee, and 4 bodies of Myungho!

This sounds completely incomprehensible, but it's a terrifying phenomenon that's happening right before our eyes!
The basement lights illuminated every gruesome detail of each corpse.

Three bodies of Miko were neatly arranged against the wall, like carefully displayed exhibits. The first was wearing a floral nightgown; the second a white bathrobe, water droplets still clinging to her hair; the third wore a casual T-shirt and jeans, her fingernails filled with mud and sand. They were all soaked, their swollen, pale faces barely recognizable, suggesting they had all drowned.

Zheng Yuan's three corpses were arranged in a triangle in the center of the floor. The first was wearing a black T-shirt with a deep wound on his neck; the second was wearing a white shirt, and blood was still slowly seeping from the same wound on his neck; the third was wearing a plaid shirt, and blood from his neck had formed a fresh stream on the floor. The pupils of the three corpses were wide open, as if they could see some unseen, terrifying scene on the ceiling.

Three corpses of Dafeng were suspended in mid-air by iron chains, swaying gently like pieces of meat in a slaughterhouse. The first was wearing a baseball uniform with an MVP badge pinned to his chest; the second was dressed in loose loungewear, his belly covered in layers of fat; the third was shirtless… The skin of all three corpses was smeared with jam. Ants formed a black river, crawling and scurrying across the corpses, some even entering and exiting through their nostrils and ears.

Shihao's four corpses sat upright in four chairs, as if attending some kind of gruesome tea party. Each corpse was dressed in a different suit, down to the exact style of their tie: a double-breasted suit, a single-breasted suit, a gray slim-fit suit, and the suit he was wearing today! Several bags printed with toy patterns and layers of sturdy hemp rope wrapped around their eyes and bodies. Their bodies were covered in knife wounds, and their mouths were sealed shut by two compass-shaped metal legs deeply embedded in their lips and gums. Some of the corpses even had several utility knife blades stuck in their lips!
Eun-young's three corpses were placed face-to-face with Se-ho, as if locked in a final gaze. The first was dressed in an elegant dress, the second in a business suit, and the third in pajamas. Several staples had been forcibly driven into their eyes, each with two streaks of bloody tears that had congealed into black scabs on their chins. The stapler at their feet still contained bloodstained staples, suggesting that the murderer had recently completed his "work."

Soon-hee's four bodies lay in a row along the corner of the wall, their legs twisted at unsettling angles. The first was dressed in an evening gown, the second in sportswear, the third in business attire, and the fourth in pajamas. Their fingers were deeply embedded in the floor, their nails all turned outwards, clearly indicating they had endured extreme pain before death.

Minghao's four corpses were piled in the corner, like rag dolls carelessly discarded. Their eye sockets were all bloody holes, and the remaining eyeball tissue inside had shriveled, yet they were all strangely facing the same direction—a dark corner of the basement.

Zheng Yuan's legs felt weak, but he forced himself to observe the details. He noticed:
The location and angle of the neck wounds on each of the "self" corpses were exactly the same!
And everyone's different styles of clothing were exactly what they wore to the birthday party every year! Especially Se-ho's suit, which he had specifically mentioned when looking at the group photo today, so Jung-won took a few more glances and remembered it clearly!
Moreover, he boldly approached to examine it and was able to confirm that it was a real corpse, not a sculpture or wax figure!

After all, when he was very young, when he was collecting his mother's body, he clearly understood what a person looks like after death. The lividity on the skin, the stench of death, and the rigor mortis of the corpse cannot be faked!
"This...this is impossible..."

Miko slumped to the ground, her fingers digging deep into her hair.

Xu Yinqiu stood at the door, her face ashen.

How can this be?

Time loop?

Death regression?

This phenomenon can only be considered as... a meme phenomenon!
Just then, the sound of a wheelchair sliding came from upstairs, and the lullaby that Teacher Park was humming grew closer:

"Sleep, sleep, my dear baby..."

(End of this chapter)