The onlookers in the restaurant backed off upon seeing this scene, none of them daring to act with any ulterior motives under Anya's threatening gaze.
"Well done, Anya."
"Anya...will protect Xiaoyou...prove value."
Seeing Anya say these words so gravely, Xu Xiaoyou furrowed her brow a bit.
What was going on here? How could a child suddenly say such things about proving value? Had someone instilled some strange thoughts into her?
But seeing Anya's serious little face, Xu Xiaoyou didn't think much of it and proceeded forward along her own way.
After eating, she planned to wash her face and followed the directions on the wall towards a corridor.
The corridor ahead was dimly lit, with the outline of a flickering corner illuminated by an indicator light at the end. The restroom was at the end of this hallway, glowing with white light. The cooling unit above, sensing her approach, began to operate, thick dust-covered fans slowly opening. A cold draft blew past her, giving her the eerie feeling of being watched from the shadows, making her uncomfortable.
She glanced around but didn't find anything suspicious until her gaze followed the inky darkness upward. She saw rows of bloody handprints on the walls!
It seemed like the air was also suffused with a faintly metallic scent. Looking back, the restaurant's main hall wasn't far off, where she could vaguely make out diners' silhouettes, their chatter faintly audible.
Just a few steps away from where diners were eating, there was a place resembling a crime scene.
There was no mistake; her long life in the landfill had sharpened her sense of smell. That faintly metallic scent in the air was the smell of blood.
Xu Xiaoyou became watchful.
Suddenly, Anya became wary, staring intently at a certain spot.
Looking in the little girl's direction, there was a rusty iron door resembling those in prison cells. A square hole was left at the top, uncomfortably conspicuous there, not knowing how long it hadn't been opened. Many such doors lined both sides of the corridor.
Xu Xiaoyou cautiously approached.
Peering through the hole into the dim interior, she could vaguely discern the room's outline. The walls, tinged yellow, were covered with bloody handprints, and the ground was stained with bright red liquid like a fungal mat...
A woman with a face full of blood suddenly appeared!
Xu Xiaoyou's pupils contracted as she quickly stepped back.
In the dim light, the woman's blood-red eyes fiercely stared through the square hole at her, as if having found some intriguing new prey, grinning eerily.
The woman had been fixated on her ever since she entered this corridor. That gaze was as if a girl had found her beloved doll, giving Xu Xiaoyou the creeps.
"Have you come to play with me?"
"I'm a bit hungry... hehe..."
The woman seemed mad, muttering strange words constantly.
Just as Xu Xiaoyou intended to leave this unsettling place quickly, someone tapped her shoulder.
"Hey!" A girl's voice came.
Xu Xiaoyou remained calm, discerning the newcomer in the faint light.
A petite girl stood there, her skin pale and sickly as if having recovered from a long illness. With short hair and a cat face mask, the ears on the mask twitched slightly, a long tail dragging behind her, softly tapping the ground.
Xu Xiaoyou felt uneasy; the girl's skin was stitched everywhere with needlework, like a doll continually torn and resewn, the skin on her forearm even stapled together.
"That's odd. Are you lost? How did you end up here?"
The girl moved closer, her tone filled with curiosity as she looked up at Xu Xiaoyou. The eyeholes of the cat face mask were as hollow as eye sockets.
"This is a storeroom passageway for the restaurant, a place where the ingredients are kept on both sides, guests shouldn't be here!"
"Oh dear, why are all the guests so careless? They don't look at the warning signs! Guests prohibited!"
As Catwoman spoke, she turned towards the passage entrance, looking as though she'd just realized something:
"Hey, has someone removed the warning sign? Why is it missing?"
Xu Xiaoyou frowned tightly.
She found it strange. She clearly remembered not seeing any warning signs since entering this corridor; she merely intended to use the restroom and somehow wandered into this place by mistake.
The girl had just said this area was for storing the restaurant's ingredients...
Without a change in expression, Xu Xiaoyou glanced at the woman still staring at her from behind the square hole.
Someone intentionally removed the warning sign earlier.
Was someone trying to harm her, or was it just a cruel joke?
"Oh dear, it's quite distressing... A guest coming here violates the rules, what should I do?"
The Catwoman in front of her displayed a troubled, puzzled expression, her tone innocent and sweet. Yet, the sharp fingertips poked numerous bloody holes into her arm, and the oozing blood was horrifying.
A lunatic, this Catwoman was another lunatic.
She couldn't comprehend Catwoman's strength, but Anya's wary stance indicated that Catwoman's power was definitely not simple.
Xu Xiaoyou kept her eyes on the cat face mask's hollows while Anya assumed a vigilant posture.
Finally, Catwoman sighed:
"Oh well, I do love cute girls the most; ordinarily, a guest entering this area must be dealt with."
"But seeing as how you're so adorable and came here by accident, I'll let it go. You'd better leave quickly."
Xu Xiaoyou nodded quietly, hurriedly leaving with Anya. Just then, the woman's face behind the iron door twisted into a hideous expression, and she began pounding the door, her voice screeching hoarsely:
"Don't leave, don't leave! Take me away from here, take me away!"
The rusty iron door reverberated with bangs under her assault, her thin filthy arms expelling a strength not her own, with so much commotion that diners from afar turned their attention this way.
She seemed to regain momentary sanity, her bloodshot eyes flickering with slight lucidity as she screamed desperately:
"They're all lunatics, a bunch of lunatics! Please, take me away! I'm wealthy, I'll give you as much money as you want if you just take me away! I'm begging you!"
"Ah ah ah!" Catwoman urgently waved her hand, rushing to the iron door, "No, no, you can't do that, you can't be disobedient."
The Catwoman took out keys and unlocked the iron door. Seeing her intrusion, the woman showed extreme terror, retreating to a corner and crazily muttering with her head clutched.
Under the light, Xu Xiaoyou finally saw the room's interior clearly: the floor was littered with dismembered limbs and a decaying figure, white maggots crawling in and out of eye sockets.
"Good girl, good girl~ Only obedient girls are cute and endearing."
Catwoman pranced and skipped to her side, crouching down to embrace the woman's head, her fingers caressing through her dry greasy hair, her reassurances gentle, like a little girl tending to her favorite toy.
The previously agitated woman surprisingly calmed down gradually, Xu Xiaoyou noticed the despair in her hollow eyes and the tear marks on her face...
The woman's spirit had long collapsed. Even if rescued, she would only wander aimlessly in city streets and alleys like a lost soul.
A shiver ran through Xu Xiaoyou from the depths of her heart, prompting her to hasten her steps out without looking back at the woman's direction.
Xu Xiaoyou didn't notice.
Behind the cat face mask, a pair of crimson eyes fixedly stared at her leaving figure.
The noises receded in the distance, the scene of Catwoman and the woman in the room shrinking like a painting until it froze in the darkness.