When the others saw these two unfamiliar boys, they were all a bit taken aback.
“They must be NPCs,” Yu Renwan whispered, analyzing, “but that boy in pink looks so much like Jiang Jiang as a child—same style, long hair, expensive clothes…like he walked out of an ancient painting.”
The boy in pink cast his gaze around, quickly settling on Jiang Yan.
In no time, he blinked and sauntered over, sleeves fluttering. “I want to go with you.”
With that, he glanced at the boy in black, who stood there speechless, clearly too nervous to speak. The boy in pink just grinned wider.
“Big sister, I’m prettier than him,” he held his head high to Jiang Yan. “Let’s not take the little mute, okay?”
Jiang Yan lowered her eyes. “You should go to whoever you belong with.”
The boy in pink snorted. The boy in black hesitantly shuffled over, gaze silent as he stared at Jiang Yan’s hand, clearly weighing whether he dared try to hold it.
At this, Shen Huanhuan’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“Jiang Yan-jie, do they…know you?”
She paused, then seriously added, “I think I’ve seen that face somewhere lately.”
It was probably from the recent livestreams, where Mu Wang had shown his face—Shen Huanhuan must have recognized him from one of those.
Jiang Yan nodded.
“We know each other. He’s a friend.”
“He must have used some item to suddenly enter the field; these two boys are with him.”
With the conversation this far, Jiang Yan glanced furtively toward the trees.
Mu Wang was currently peeking out from behind a trunk. As a plant spirit, whose kin had been chopped down by humans for generations, he was instinctively wary of people. Now, overwhelmed by a cacophony of children’s laughter, his whole body was locked up in a stiff, defensive posture.
The boy in pink looked over, too, his expression mocking.
“Tsk tsk, what a disgrace.”
After half a minute, Mu Wang finally came out from behind the tree. Zhao Kepu gasped the moment he saw him; then Shen Huanhuan’s confusion cleared into realization.
Zhao Kepu: “You’re—you’re—ranked third!”
Mu Wang nodded.
If only his trembling hands weren’t hidden behind his back, the look he wore would be far more dignified and imposing.
Without waiting for questions, Mu Wang rattled off the explanation Jiang Yan had given him, as if repeating lines from memory:
“I was sent by higher-ups for an emergency; I used a special item to get in and just found you.”
Jiang Yan: “Mm.”
She played along. “I see. Then let’s go together.”
Yu Renwan, seeing Jiang Yan approve, nodded her assent as well.
Zhao Kepu clapped a few times, but when no one else joined in, awkwardly put his hands down. “Haha, that’s great!”
Embarrassed, he added, “I was just thinking, I’d be too scared to sleep alone tonight, but now you’re here, haha!”
“So did the higher-ups say what’s going on? Why are you here suddenly, man? With your ranking, is this place extra dangerous?”
Zhao Kepu, naturally sociable, grinned and wiped sweat from his brow with nervous anticipation.
The twins and Yu Renwan also looked to Mu Wang.
Mu Wang pressed his colorless lips together. He couldn’t exactly say he’d overslept, but couldn’t think of another excuse, so in a low voice, he said, “It’s confidential.”
This drew more worried looks all around.
“So it really is dangerous?”
Mu Wang thought, then added, “It’s not; not with Smart Sister around…”
—“Ahem.”
Jiang Yan’s cough cut him off. He quickly deleted his last words and corrected: “Not very dangerous.”
He then briefly reintroduced himself and went to claim his “children.”
Little Mu Wang in black obediently let him take his hand, but pink-dressed little Mu Wang looked dismissive, tucking his own hands behind his back and mimicking Mu Wang’s trembling wrists.
Mu Wang: “……”
Ignoring the pink-suited one, he turned to take little Jiang Yan’s hand, but little Yu Renwan cut in loudly, blocking little Jiang Yan.
“You already have two kids, why are you taking mine?!” she demanded.
Little Jiang Yan’s voice was cool. “How dare you?”
“I’m not your kid—you’re too noisy, I don’t want to play with you.”
With that, she turned her back and marched over to Jiang Yan, thrusting her hand into Jiang Yan’s. “Chase her off for me.”
She demanded, “Are you just going to let her bug me?”
Little Yu Renwan, heartbroken, made a wild lunge, but adult Yu Renwan quickly intercepted her.
The two of them huddled together exchanging whispers for a long while before little Yu Renwan sulkily turned away.
“All right. But you said you’d help me make a good friend.”
The children here were rowdy, but the twins were the picture of quiet.
Shen Huanhuan bent down to talk to her younger self, who tugged nervously at her dress and whispered softly in her ear; when she finished, Shen Huanhuan patted her on the head.
Shen Xiaoxiao’s case was stranger.
She stood beside the wheelchair, glaring at her younger self, whose face was twisted in mockery. After a moment, little Xiaoxiao tossed her bunny doll at Shen Xiaoxiao’s face.
“Looks like you two are getting along great,” she sneered. “What a hypocrite.”
Shen Xiaoxiao touched her face, bent to pick up the now-dirty bunny, and tossed it into the trash.
“You’re quite an actress yourself,” she replied.
Little Xiaoxiao glanced at the discarded bunny, fingers twitching ever so slightly, before her head drooped back down, returning to her earlier lifeless state.
Shen Xiaoxiao ignored her, moving instead to squat beside little Huanhuan, hugging her for a long while before taking her wheelchair.
“I’ll push you.”
“A kid like your sister just needs a couple of beatings. She’s got no conscience.” Shen Xiaoxiao pointed to little Xiaoxiao. “You can just hit her. She can barely walk two steps without panting—she can’t fight back. Next chance I get, I’ll boot her into a gutter for you!”
Little Huanhuan opened her mouth, gently placing her fingers on the armrest. “Don’t bully her.”
Shen Xiaoxiao’s grip on the wheelchair tightened.
A few minutes later, everyone gathered with their “children.” Mu Wang, with two in tow, stood out quite a bit.
Shen Huanhuan asked, “That’s…”
Mu Wang parroted Jiang Yan’s story at lightning speed: “I had a car accident when I was eight and lost my memory for several years; my entire personality changed. So these two kids are a bug created by the ghost’s limits—it split my pre- and post-amnesia personalities into two bodies.”
Though it was technically a lie, there was some truth.
The pink-dressed Mu Wang had never really existed.
Up until his death, Mu Wang never took human form; he was just a talking peach blossom. Back then, though, his personality was flamboyant and arrogant, stringing feathers and pearls on his petals like a peacock.
After being struck down, Jiang Yan reanimated him with corpse oil in the imperial mausoleum. The thunder damage to his divine sense caused his personality to flip—he became docile and slow.
Now, both versions were here together, as though two separate beings.
But in reality, they came from the same source.
Mu Wang’s soul and memory never changed; his circumstances were more like a critically wounded yao suffering amnesia for three centuries, then awakening with a new temperament—ultimately, still the same person.
Thus, Jiang Yan surveyed the children around her.
For the ghost to display both hers and Mu Wang’s memories, its abilities were formidable. But with Mu Wang’s extremes, it seemed unable to process such complexity, so it simply split his personalities into two bodies—a misjudgment.
So, the ghost was powerful, but probably not overwhelming.
And this ability to read memories…
Jiang Yan suspected the ghost must have been a particularly gifted psychic, one with a top-level tracing ability. Otherwise, her own memories should have been inaccessible.
After weighing the situation, Jiang Yan turned to the little girl holding her hand.
“What should I call you?”
The little girl answered seriously, “Little Jiang Yan.”
Jiang Yan raised a brow. “Don’t want another name?”
The girl shook her head. “I like this name. If not for you, people would call me Jiang Yan. I hope you clear this field quickly, so you can give me my name back.”
Jiang Yan bent slightly. “If I die, you can use this name again.”
Expressionless, the little girl replied, “No, I’ve thought it over. If you die, there’ll be no one left to protect me here.”
“Trust is the most important thing between us. Don’t try to fool me anymore.”
Jiang Yan laughed.
Straightening, she said, “I’m not fooling you, I’m teasing you.”
The little girl’s expression cooled, but she spoke up anyway: “Do you have any other questions?”
Jiang Yan thought for a moment, then asked, “What were you doing before you came here?”
She needed to know if this child knew she was an NPC, or if she believed she was a real person.
“I was in the underground palace,” said little Jiang Yan.
“Listening to my consort-mother tell stories. Then, suddenly, I was snatched away. A voice said I had to play a game with you, and only after clearing the field could I return to the story.”
The ghost had made the narrative quite complete.
A lot of care had gone into this.
But the ghost couldn’t snatch people out of their real pasts; it could only implant a fully convincing set of memories into the NPC, making each one seem like their true childhood self.
“I have no more questions,” said Jiang Yan at last.
“My turn, then.” Little Jiang Yan seemed to have waited a long time to say this.
“Hurry up and get rid of that dirty, noisy kid,” she grumbled. “At the very least, keep her away from me. She’s always trying to hug me—she isn’t scary at all, it’s just annoying.”
“I can even guess what she’s thinking: If she isn’t loud, nobody notices her. She runs wild during the day, acting fierce but hiding her nerves, then turns anxious and moody at night, needing someone to comfort her!”
Jiang Yan did not agree.
“I can’t get rid of her—her ability is useful. She can make certain people unlucky.”
Little Jiang Yan considered this, breath evening out.
After thinking for a while, she relented: “All right, I’ll put up with her for now.”
“But my patience has limits.”
Jiang Yan smiled. “And if you reach your limit?”
“Then you have to buy me that.”
She quickly pointed to a cotton candy stand.
“And that.”
Then to the balloon boy.
“And…”
Jiang Yan took her hand. “Let’s start playing games.”
*
Since Mu Wang hadn’t been at the ticket counter to get stamped cards, his were brought by the pink-dressed little Mu Wang—one card for each boy. Mu Wang now had the added difficulty of entertaining two kids.
Before starting the games, the group split up for half an hour in the leisure zone to gather intel.
They regrouped to review the clues.
“Some games in the games area can be played multiple times,” Shen Huanhuan said, “so we could play them ourselves first, then show the kids how to clear them. Let the children use those methods to win when it’s their turn. Still, it’s best to clear games together, since if adults play alone, the kids should be handed over to staff—for safety—but that costs five fingers… I mean, game tokens.”
Yu Renwan added, “Only adults can go through the haunted house. If we win, the kids win too. But some activities in the cartoon zone are for kids only; if they clear them, we adults do, too.”
“So should we skip the cartoon zone?” she asked. “Win all our stamps elsewhere?”
Shen Huanhuan shook her head gently. “I don’t think so.”
“In the game zone, some games force you to pick one of two paths. Even if we do everything else, we’ll still be short some stamps. I think we’ll have to go to the cartoon zone.”
Zhao Kepu’s focus was on missing persons.
“I told the cotton candy grandpa about the missing couple, described what they looked like. He said he saw them—went to the games zone, saw a 5D movie. They’re likely still in the game zone, either on the carousel or the giant blade ride.”
“I didn’t get anywhere with the other missing folks.”
After a pause, Jiang Yan asked, “Anyone figure out how to get the fingers?”
Shen Huanhuan replied, “All the NPCs say we’ll know in due time; they all say the same thing.”
Nothing to be done about that.
“Let’s go,” Jiang Yan said.
The games zone was right next to the leisure area and they arrived promptly.
First up was the carousel, stationed at the gates. The music was all upbeat, and six or seven kids clung to rainbow horses, rising and falling with the tune. A ring of parents took photos, flashbulbs twinkling like stars.
Yu Renwan stared, unblinking, at the carousel. Her little self beside her grew impatient, twisting to try and catch a glimpse of little Jiang Yan.
Little Jiang Yan saw her chance for an ally, so she flashed an instrumental smile.
“Want to be best friends?”
Little Yu Renwan’s face immediately flushed as if she’d caught fire.
She could barely hear anything else around her!
Three minutes later, the music began to slow. The carousel’s spin grew sluggish. As it finally stopped, a deafening explosion rang out, making her flinch.
Little Yu Renwan clapped her hands over her ears, and looked over in confusion.
The joyful scene was gone. A little boy, in a burst like fireworks, had exploded on the carousel. Half a bloody foot dangled from a horse, the rest of him shattered, viscera and gore spattered everywhere like a mix of red bean paste and chili broth.
With a click, the barricade was opened, and the adults swarmed in.
They moved like insects drawn by the scent of flesh, rifling through the child’s remains—not searching, precisely; more scrupulously, they were grinding his flesh between their fingers, as if loathe to miss anything valuable.
At length, one man leaped up with a triumphant shout.
The others hushed, rising themselves as they wiped blood clean on their clothes.
The man raised a half-hand aloft, crowing:
“Three fingers left—three fingers!!”
“Come here, son!” he waved to a boy outside the carousel. “I’ve got your game tokens—go take another ride for dad!”