Chapter 68: Children (Part 5)

"This feeling is rather disgusting."

Staring at the familiar features on the little girl's face, Zhou Ke could hardly muster a smile.

"It's like an online gaming buddy whom I've only ever played a single duo match with suddenly showing up at my doorstep, insisting she's carrying my biological flesh and blood—when the extent of our relationship was at most sending each other a blowing-kiss emoji."

"Daddy, what are you talking about?" Youyou blinked her large, round eyes.

"Nothing. I'm just wondering if I've ever actually touched your Aunt Wen." Upon careful reflection, Zhou Ke realized he truly hadn't.

From the moment he stepped out of the room until now, they hadn't even shaken hands in greeting, let alone engaged in any intimate skin-to-skin contact.

"Wait, why am I even dwelling on this?"

He suddenly realized something was wrong. While it was an absolute, indisputable fact that Youyou had no blood relation to them, his thoughts kept straying further and further off course.

It was as if he were constantly searching for reasons to convince himself to accept the legitimacy of Youyou as his daughter.

"Has my thinking been influenced?"

Zhou Ke observed Youyou thoughtfully. He watched her with utmost concentration, ready to instantly detect any bizarre movements from her.

Yet—there was precisely none. Not the slightest shred of abnormality.

Youyou sat on the edge of the sofa, innocently swinging her little legs. When Zhou Ke looked at her, she looked back with a goofy, cheerful grin.

Zhou Ke could even discern a profound, dense affection within her crystal-clear eyes.

"That's genuine emotion." Even Mr. Zhou, who had been starved of affection since childhood, couldn't help but draw a definite conclusion.

"Daddy, Youyou wants candy." Youyou drooped slightly, pointing at the White Rabbit milk candies scattered among the pile of shattered glass.

"Alright."

Zhou Ke pondered for half a second, deciding there was no harm in it, and bent down to pick up a milk candy. He thoughtfully peeled off the wrapper and popped the slightly firm piece into Youyou's mouth.

"So sweet! Candies peeled by Daddy's own hands are the sweetest!"

Seeing the radiant, happy smile blooming on Youyou's face, he maintained a calm exterior while remaining inwardly on high alert.

Just moments ago, he had nearly lost his rationality once again, unconsciously giving rise to feelings of doting indulgence.

"We have to play the role of parents while constantly remembering our true identities, otherwise it's far too easy to lose oneself."

Zhou Ke had roughly guessed the pattern of this particular [Door].

Finished dealing with Youyou, he stood up and surveyed the living room.

Behind him and to his right were dark red elongated sofas, with five scatter pillows of different patterns resting upon them, one of which Youyou was currently using as a backrest.

Directly ahead was originally a glass coffee table that held a fruit platter filled with snacks. Now, it was utterly smashed, with the snacks and platter scattered in ruins.

"Huh? Why is a piece of the fruit platter missing?"

Scanning the area, Zhou Ke mentally pieced together the shattered platter, then reached back and pulled a blood-stained ceramic shard from behind him. "Oh, here it is."

Discarding the shard, he looked further ahead.

Consistent with the layout of numerous households, the television sat directly opposite the sofa.

It was housed in a semi-enclosed cabinet with a small bookshelf attached to the side. The books inside were sparse, consisting entirely of children's literature such as *The Adventures of Pinocchio*, *The Little Prince*, and *The Wonderful Wizard of Oz*.

"Strange, why would there be children's books in the living room? And I remember seeing the exact same books on the desk in Youyou's room."

Treading upon the crunching glass shards, Zhou Ke dragged his wounded, bleeding body forward.

He flipped open one of the books and glanced at it, only to find that without exception, the pages were completely blank, devoid of a single word.

"As expected, there's a catch." Zhou Ke stopped browsing through them.

With a sweep of his arm, he shoved the counterfeit books onto the floor, revealing a concealed space hidden directly behind them.

Dusty and neglected, a small photo frame lay alone in the shadows.

Zhou Ke retrieved it, brushed away the layer of dust, and a happy, blissful family portrait was revealed before his eyes.

Yet, this family portrait made him feel deeply unsettled and chilled to the bone.

The background of the photo was this very living room, though it looked much newer, as if taken right when they first moved in.

The little girl Youyou stood dead center, clutching a rabbit plush toy in her hands.

Standing to the right was Wen Xiaoxiao, dressed in a dignified, ruffled long gown.

Standing to the left was Zhou Ke—yes, somehow he was actually in the photo, dressed in a crisp suit, looking utterly out of place.

"If only I could crop out the photo of myself, I wouldn't waste time taking pictures whenever I need ID photos in the future."

While Zhou Ke's thought was pleasant, reality clearly refused to oblige.

Because the version of him in the photo was far too bizarre—no, all three people in the photo were intensely strange.

Their eyes weren't looking at the camera, nor were they looking at each other; instead, their eyes were rolled upward toward the ceiling.

As if something extraordinarily eye-catching were hanging right above them.

Yet Zhou Ke clearly remembered that the space directly above that spot was merely an ornate yet impractical chandelier.

Swish—

At that very moment, directly behind Zhou Ke, precisely where the chandelier hung, a heavy object suddenly dropped.

The heavy object didn't hit the ground; it was suspended by the chandelier, hovering in mid-air, causing the chandelier's ornaments to sway and ring with crisp, tinkling sounds.

"Whoa! Daddy, are you doing magic tricks again?" Youyou let out an exclamation of wonder.

"You've got to be kidding me, again?" Feeling a spine-chilling wave of crisis, Zhou Ke froze for a second without turning back.

Maintaining a poker face, he continued inspecting the photo frame in his hand.

To his shock, the three figures inside the photo actually moved in unison, rolling their upturned eyes even further upward.

Until the black irises vanished entirely, leaving only completely white eyeballs.

"Fine, fine, no need for the prompt; it's not like I didn't know—I was just too lazy to face it."

While keeping his combat readiness primed to draw the [Spirit Key] at any second, Zhou Ke flipped the photo frame over to its back.

Since the danger was triggered here, the solution was bound to be here as well.

The [Door] would never engineer an unwinnable death trap; forcing a magesoul to struggle and sink in agony on the razor-thin edge of life and death was its true intent.

As expected, a line of black text was written on the back of the frame.

[Maintaining a clean and tidy home is the responsibility of every family member.]

"So that's how it is..." Zhou Ke silently took note, casting his gaze toward the pile of blank fake books swept onto the floor beside his feet.

Taking advantage of the fact that whatever lurked beneath the chandelier hadn't closed in yet, he decisively squatted down, picked up the fake books one by one, and neatly placed them back onto the small bookshelf.

As he performed this action, the oppressive resentment behind him gradually receded, and the swaying of the chandelier grew less violent than before.

However, the heavy object still hung there, casting a shadow like a shroud over the ceiling.

After a moment of thought, Zhou Ke walked over to the corner, picked up a broom and dustpan, and began cleaning up the glass shards.

Throughout the process, he kept his head down and refused to look up.

As he swept, the resentment dissipated further.

Dully sweeping the floor, Zhou Ke couldn't help but think: "Am I being tricked into doing free housekeeping here?"