I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood
Chapter 309: Rumors? The Truth?

After a brief discussion, the five decided to split up to improve the efficiency of the exploration. The mansion was sizeable. If they all crowded together in one group, they’d be lucky to cover even half of it by midnight.

The young couple volunteered to explore the music room on the mansion’s east wing, first floor. The journalist Elliot and the veteran Milo decided to investigate the study and master bedroom upstairs—the places most likely to have left behind written records or clues. As for Elsa, she chose to remain alone in the main foyer on the first floor.

“Don’t worry about me,” Elsa said flatly, snapping her notebook shut. When Elliot had hesitated, voicing his objections, she’d simply continued, “If any of you encounter… anomalous phenomena, or a situation you cannot handle, call for me. Loudly. I will provide support as best I can.”

She spoke as naturally as a security supervisor reassuring her subordinates. But no one really took the statement to heart.

Only the young woman clutching the tarot deck, the one somewhat obsessed with the paranormal, lingered for a moment as she turned to leave. She shot Elsa an extra glance, a flicker of curious inquiry in her eyes.

Soon enough, in the study upstairs, Elliot and Milo made a major discovery.

The study was spacious. Against the walls stood rows of towering oak bookshelves crammed with hefty, leather-bound tomes, most of them veiled in dust. At the room’s center loomed a massive mahogany desk, its drawers unlocked.

In the uppermost drawer, Elliot found a leather-bound journal. He slipped on a pair of white gloves and carefully opened it.

The diary belonged to the mansion’s original owner. That very same father rumored to have sacrificed his own daughter in pursuit of eternal youth. But the diary revealed something else entirely.

The earliest pages were penned in a neat, strong hand, brimming with joy and expectation at his daughter’s birth.

“It’s ███’s birthday today. When she smiles, it’s exactly like the morning sun.”

“She’s always asking me, ‘Papa, why is the sky blue?’ How I wish I could answer her questions forever.”

Then the handwriting began to turn hasty, steeped in anxiety.

“Something’s wrong… ███’s cough won’t go away. The doctors say it’s just a common cold, but I know it’s not…”

“She’s started seeing… things that aren’t there. Speaking to the air. Running through empty corridors. The doctors recommend we send her to a sanatorium.”

“No! I will never send my little ███ to a place like that!”

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Between the lines was a father’s desperate worry. An almost obsessive love.

Further in, the handwriting became increasingly frantic. Ink bled deep and shallow, sometimes so violent it tore through the paper.

“…Tried every doctor. Every treatment. Even those… forbidden remedies. Nothing worked.”

“‘It’ is watching her. I can feel it. From within the walls. From under the floorboards…”

“…The old manuscript… the ritual it describes… the risk is immense, but it’s the last hope. I must try. For ███.”

In the diary’s final pages, the script had dissolved into near dream-babble. Logic fractured.

“‘It’ breathes from beyond the walls. Sings from beneath the floor…”

“…Life here is nothing but a ribbon to be folded at will. Fragile and… heartbreakingly beautiful.”

The very last page suddenly snapped back to composure. To cold rationality. Only a single line was written, the ink dark, the strokes so heavy they bit into the paper:

“Tonight, I shall serve my family an eternal dinner. We shall become the heartbeat of this house. Never fading. Never ending.”

Elliot set the journal down and let out a long breath. His glasses reflected the dim, murky light.

“So… the rumors were false,” he murmured, his tone complicated.

Milo had stood by in silence, listening as Elliot read out the key passages. Now his brow was deeply furrowed, his rugged features etched with thought.

“A tragedy,” the veteran rumbled. “But… not an evil story.” He paused, then added, “Still… there’s something in these lines. Feels wrong.”

“Wrong how?” Elliot pressed.

Milo shook his head. His vocabulary wasn’t enough to capture the feeling precisely. “Hard to say. It’s like… something was deliberately twisted. Or… left out.”

Just then—

CLANG! BANG! CRASH!!!

A hideous, cacophonous, utterly chaotic blast of piano music erupted from downstairs! It wasn’t music. It was the sound of a rabid beast clawing at the keys in blind fury!

Elliot and Milo exchanged a single, sharp look and bolted from the study. They rushed down the stairs and back into the main foyer.

The door to the music room was open. In the doorway stood the young couple, faces white as sheets, gasping for air as if they’d just barely escaped with their lives.

Elsa stood beside them, her head tilted ever so slightly, as if listening to something. The leather notebook and pen were still in her hands. While exchanging brief words with the two still shell-shocked youths, her pen flew rapidly across the page.

“What just happened?!” Elliot rushed up, breathing hard, his camera already raised out of pure instinct.

The young man—the one who’d been so dismissive, so fearless up until now—had no blood left in his face. His lips were trembling, his eyes unfocused. “In… in there…” he rasped, jabbing a shaking finger toward the music room’s open door. “The piano… the piano played by itself!”

“I swear! When we went in, the lid was closed! We didn’t touch a thing!” His voice was crawling out of his throat. “It opened… by itself! And then it just… just… erupted!”

His girlfriend, the girl with the tarot cards, was in even worse shape. Her entire body was shaking violently. Her eyes were wide with a terror beyond anything she’d ever known. She was gripping her boyfriend’s arm so hard her nails were nearly drawing blood.

“We saw… we saw!” She was incoherent, her voice high and shrill. “A father… and his daughter… sitting at the piano!”

“But the father… his back… his back had split open into a huge hole!”

Her breath came in ragged gasps, tears spilling uncontrollably. “Inside… inside was this giant… tumor! And it was moving! And inside the tumor… there was… there was another figure… struggling! Staring at us!”

“Wait—what are you talking about?” Her boyfriend turned to stare at her, completely bewildered. Confusion was written raw all over his face. “What father? What tumor? I… I didn’t see anything like that?”

“You were standing right next to me!” The girl practically shrieked, her control snapping as she seized his shoulders. “How could you not see it?! That thing… that thing even turned around and smiled at us!”