Chapter Forty-Eight: The Symphony of Hell, Part Three of Four

"Where are we going now?" Saeko Busujima asked, unable to help herself as she looked toward Liu Mengchao ahead of her.

"Where?" Liu Mengchao stopped where he was and glanced around at the scenery. The backyard of the Takashiro residence was vast, full of trees, flowers, and grasses; it was, quite simply, the sort of place an assassin would adore.

Yet Liu Mengchao did not hide himself. He merely patted his stomach.

"Of course we're going to eat something good first." When Liu Mengchao smiled, he looked very handsome, a little like an innocent child. Saeko Busujima looked at that smile and found herself smiling as well.

A smile could always, in some unguarded instant, draw two people closer together.

"If you want a good meal, you first need a good cook." Saeko Busujima stepped up before Liu Mengchao and bowed slightly. "I have always done rather well in home economics."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Liu Mengchao took the lead, like a noble guest, nodding politely at the people opposite him from time to time before strolling past with leisurely grace.

"Aren't you nervous at all?"

By the time Saeko Busujima came to herself, Liu Mengchao had already entered the Takashiro estate, the only building standing there. It was a three-story house with at least a hundred rooms inside.

"Very nervous." Liu Mengchao took a few steps forward, then suddenly stopped. "You didn't cheat on your home economics assessment, did you?"

"I did. I can never make anything truly delicious." Saeko Busujima looked at the man before her with a wicked smile. He was unlike anyone she had ever met.

"Don't always keep such a stern face. Life is already dull enough." Liu Mengchao turned sideways and vaulted through the window, then leaned his head back out of it to say to Saeko Busujima outside, "If girls don't smile more, they grow old very quickly."

"I can't help feeling that you should save that advice for Qi Xiaoxiao to hear." Saeko Busujima reached out, braced herself on the window frame, and climbed through after him.

"How did you find this place?"

Saeko Busujima narrowed her eyes at what lay before her.

A kitchen beyond luxury, complete with every ingredient one could ask for.

"Talent." Liu Mengchao sat down gracefully on the floor and looked up at her. "Now I'll have to trouble our domestic expert, Miss Saeko Busujima, to demonstrate her skill for me."

"I won't disappoint you." Saeko Busujima tied up the hair at the back of her head and smiled.

While Liu Mengchao was enjoying exquisite food on one side, the reincarnators on the other had arrived at the main gate of the Takashiro residence.

"Why aren't we going in yet?" Ye Yutian said anxiously. Time was passing, second by second.

"Didn't you read the mission hint?" Li Xin laughed. "Reach the Takashiro residence, then remain inside until dawn."

"And then?" Ye Yutian frowned slightly. "We just rush in at night?"

"That's right." Li Xin touched her arm; the pain from that broken arm had already numbed her. "If we charge in during the day, the target is far too conspicuous. By night, the zombies will naturally be drawn away. By then, I think Liu Mengchao should give us the signal, wouldn't you say so, Qi Xiaoxiao?"

"Mm."

Qi Xiaoxiao closed her eyes and nodded. She only felt that her condition was not quite right; her body was gradually growing weak.

The drug's effect was probably wearing off. Three days really had passed quickly.

Qi Xiaoxiao clenched her fist and felt her palm already damp with fatigue. Her time was running out.

Still, the most important thing now was to wait, to wait for nightfall.

Entering the Takashiro residence in broad daylight would absolutely bring no good end. Especially not when they were still driving that Hummer.

At that thought, Qi Xiaoxiao could not help smiling. She swung herself out of the car and looked up at the clouds on the horizon.

This would probably be the last time she ever looked at the sky.

The things of the past would, like the clouds at the edge of heaven, eventually be scattered by a passing wind and vanish without trace.

The clouds shifted and changed in Qi Xiaoxiao's eyes, gradually taking on different shapes. Some turned into Liu Mengchao's smiling face. To see the person she liked again in her final moments—what a wonderful feeling. Other clouds were not like that; when they gathered and dispersed, they seemed gentler somehow, like a woman. No, it would be more accurate to say they resembled her mother.

Qi Xiaoxiao closed her eyes, as though her mother were standing before her now, smiling at her.

"Sorry, Mom." Qi Xiaoxiao shook her head and said with a sigh, "I'm afraid I won't be able to find Dad and Sister."

Her voice was soft, but the memories behind it were heavy.

She sat on the roof of the vehicle and watched the changing sky. From the clear blue of day all the way to sunset, one flush of crimson after another stained the heavens red.

"The time has come!"

Qi Xiaoxiao suddenly opened her eyes wide, drawing in a sharp breath. Her long ponytail fluttered behind her head like a banner on the battlefield, leading the charge into the final battle.

"We can go now."

Qi Xiaoxiao looked toward the Takashiro residence in the distance and called to the people in the car.

"I'm coming now, Liu Mengchao."

Qi Xiaoxiao said that to herself one last time.

The Hummer roared to life again, and within the Takashiro residence, Liu Mengchao seemed to hear the thunder of its engine as well. He rose from the floor.

Before him stood bottle after bottle, large and small. At the mouth of each bottle was a length of cotton cord, and the alcohol slowly crept along the cords, dripping outside.

"So this is a Molotov cocktail?"

Saeko Busujima looked at the bottle in Liu Mengchao's hand and laughed aloud.

Mengchao nodded and walked out.

"When I was young, I was often taught that good children do not throw things around." As he spoke, Liu Mengchao looked toward the sunset at the edge of the sky and smiled. "So I was rarely praised. Because I always liked to throw things around."

Before the words had even faded, Liu Mengchao ignited the bottle in his hand.

Flame crept slowly up the cotton cord.

Boom!

Liu Mengchao casually hurled the bottle at the wall.

With a sharp crack, the bottle shattered, and the flames spread with the splashing liquor across the carpet on the floor.

"Now, we're going to do something else."

"What is it?"

"Run!"

Fire began to race rapidly up behind Liu Mengchao. But by now, no one in the Takashiro residence was paying attention to that anymore.

They had something far more urgent to fear.

The iron gate had been smashed open by a car.

"This!"

The people standing at the gate stared in terror at what was unfolding before their eyes.

Under the sunset, more and more zombies came slowly surging forward like a tide.

"Zombies... zombies... they're here!"

He turned and fled in panic toward the house, but before he could even take a few steps, a zombie behind him threw itself at him and knocked him down. Great sprays of blood and torn flesh burst from his body like a broken faucet, scattering life everywhere.

"Liu Mengchao! We've arrived!"

Qi Xiaoxiao stood atop the Hummer and looked at everything before her.

The Takashiro residence was in utter chaos. In front of the estate, waves of zombies were pouring in, while behind them the great house had suddenly burst into flames.

The sound of fire, mingled with the cries and screams of the people inside the mansion, all of it together, composed a symphony from hell.

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It feels like this week is finally about to end...

Honestly, it's so hard typing through each day with a headache and a stuffed nose...

Why can my cold last for more than a week, o(>﹏

And this is the third update...

The fourth update will be posted right on time at 10 p.m....

Many thanks to Cold Moon and Ice, Ancient Void Without Dust, BXeroXB, Pencil in Hand, and W of I for their generous rewards~~~~~~

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