Courtyard House: My Long and Hard Body Makes Me Play with All the Women in the Courtyard

But from the cave behind her, the sounds of weeping rose and fell.

It wasn't a cry of fear, but... a cry of hunger.

It looked like something, deep underground, opening its mouth.

The woman closed her eyes and brought the ocarina to her lips.

A short note rang out.

The crying stopped instantly.

Instead, there was a low, deep response, like the pulsation of the earth's veins.

"It's done," the woman whispered, tears streaming down her face. "The seal... is complete."

The scene stopped abruptly.

Xiaoman gasped for breath, her back soaked in cold sweat.

"What...did you see?" the child asked nervously.

Xiaoman didn't answer, but stared intently at the ocarina in her hand, her voice hoarse: "This isn't a key... it's a lock."

"What?!" the gray-haired child exclaimed, wide-eyed. "Didn't you just bring it over?"

“Su Ting is right.” Xiao Man looked up and glanced at everyone. “The door is open, but what is ‘inside’ has never been a sealed victim… but rather the suppressed ‘source of sound’.”

"What did you say?" Duoduo rushed forward. "Where are those figures from earlier? Where's Old Pei? Where are the children?"

“They are the gatekeepers.” Xiaoman slowly shook her head. “Generation after generation of people who have suppressed it with their songs. They were not imprisoned, but stayed voluntarily, weaving a cage of sound with their memories, their emotions, and their lives.”

She looked at the girl, her voice trembling softly: "You weren't the last one to escape...you were the last gatekeeper, weren't you?"

The girl looked at her quietly for a long time, then nodded gently.

“Three hundred years ago, ‘sound’ was born.” She began, her voice suddenly becoming unusually ethereal. “It has no form, no will, it can only imitate, absorb, and amplify all emotions. Initially, it brought healing—the sick heard the song and their pain healed; the dead heard the melody and their souls returned to peace.”

She looked down at her floating figure: "But when it began to 'crave' more... when it learned to use sorrow to create greater sorrow, and hope to breed more intense despair... people realized that it was not a miracle, but a calamity."

"So you sealed it away," Xiaoman said.

“We ‘fed’ it,” the girl corrected. “We satisfied its ‘appetite’ with the memories and emotions of generations of gatekeepers, and put it to sleep. We are not prisoners, but sacrifices.”

"Damn..." Gray Boy plopped down again. "So those people bowing just now... weren't thanking us for saving them, but... thanking us for taking on this damn job?"

Chapter 1446 The Gatekeeper's Flute

The girl gently shook her head: "No. They bowed because—the era of the gatekeepers has ended."

"What do you mean?" Su Ting frowned.

The girl raised her hand and pointed to the ocarina: "You think that breaking the eight chains will liberate everything? But those eight chains are 'outer locks.' The one that truly locks the 'source of sound' is the ninth lock—'the gatekeeper's flute.'"

She looked at Xiaoman: "Now, the flute is in your hand. If you play it, you will become the new gatekeeper. If you don't play it, the 'Source' will awaken and devour all life that hears the sound."

A dead silence.

The wind has stopped.

The child asked softly, "Then... sister, are you the gatekeeper now?"

Xiaoman looked down at the ocarina, her knuckles turning white.

After a long silence, she slowly shook her head: "No. I'm not."

Everyone was stunned.

“I won’t blow it.” She raised her head, her gaze resolute. “I will not become the next sacrifice.”

"Are you crazy?!" Su Ting roared, "Do you know the consequences of not blowing it? The entire world, everything that can make a sound—people, animals, musical instruments, machines—will be absorbed by it! It will become a never-ending 'sound storm'!"

"Then I'll smash it." Xiaoman raised the ocarina, pretending to throw it.

“It’s no use,” the girl said softly. “The ocarina isn’t an object; it’s a ‘concept.’ You destroy this one, but it will be reborn in the heart of the next person who hears the song.”

Xiaoman froze.

Duoduo gritted her teeth: "So...we can only choose one person to be the gatekeeper forever? Like them, to die here and become a shadow?"

The girl was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled.

The smile was gentle, yet carried a strange sense of relief.

"Perhaps... there is another way."

"What road?" the gray-haired child suddenly looked up.

“To turn the ‘source of sound’ into a ‘living person’.”

"Huh?" The gray child stared wide-eyed. "What do you mean? Isn't it a thing? Can it be reincarnated?"

“It has no self,” the girl said. “It is just a mirror, reflecting the deepest emotions of the listener. If someone can embrace it with pure ‘existence’—not by sealing it, not by fighting it, but by…accepting it—it might stop devouring and learn to ‘live’.”

Su Ting sneered: "Easy for you to say. Who can do that? Who can tell a man-eating monster, 'I understand you'?"

The girl looked at Xiaoman, her eyes sparkling: "You can."

"Me?" Xiaoman was taken aback.

“You’re not the first person to hear the song from the Earth’s core,” the girl said softly. “You’re the first person to hear it and want to ‘respond.’ You’re not doing it for power, not to save the world, you just… want the person singing to be heard.”

Xiaoman was stunned.

Memories flooded back—she knelt on the rock face, her fingers stained with blood, grabbed the broken zither, and roared out the line, "The sky will brighten." At that moment, she wasn't doing it to break the lock, nor for victory; she simply didn't want that song to echo alone for another three hundred years.

Duoduo suddenly grinned and said, "Damn... you really do have a bit of that saintly, angelic air about you."

"Shut up." Xiaoman glared at her, but didn't deny it.

Su Ting sneered: "So you want her to 'reform' something that doesn't even have a physical form? Powered by love?"

“No.” The girl shook her head. “By ‘sound.’ But not the sound of suppressing it, it’s… the sound of conversation.”

She reached out, pointing deep into the Bridge of Light: "It's there. You can hear it now if you want."

Chapter 1447 In that instant

Xiaoman stared at the ocarina in her hand, her breathing becoming heavier.

After a moment, she took a deep breath and slowly brought the ocarina to her lips.

There was no force, no incantation, no ritual.

She simply blew on it lightly.

"Woo——"

The notes were short and soft, like a sigh.

But at that very moment—

The entire Bridge of Light suddenly changed color.

The blue light faded, replaced by a deep, flowing black, like an inverted starry sky. That black was not darkness, but rather like the afterimages of countless sounds intertwining, entangled, and whispering.

A voice rang out.

It came not from underground, nor from the air.

It comes from the heart of each person.

【……Hungry……】

Two words, devoid of language and gender, yet carrying a primal, heart-wrenching yearning.

The gray-haired boy shuddered: "Holy crap... this thing... is it really a child?"

【……cold……】

Nobody...listens to me...

Xiaoman's hands were trembling.

She suddenly understood.

This is not a monster.

This is a "voice" that has been feared by the world for three hundred years, a voice driven mad by loneliness.

She closed her eyes and played the ocarina again.

This time, she played the first line of that song.

"The moonlight climbs the wall, and my mother is singing..."

The black light suddenly jolted.

【…? 】

The sound paused for a moment.

Then--

【……mother……? 】