Tricked 120: This Is a Return

After speaking, the little girl gave a slight wiggle, and Jiang Yan got the message—she bent down and let her out of her arms and onto the ground.

Once little Jiang Yan had found her balance, her expression returned to calm.

She patted the folds of her dress, smoothing them out slowly and deliberately, before patting the dust from her knees, maintaining a composure of pure equanimity.

Jiang Yan understood the little girl would need a while to savor her triumph, so she let her be, turning her attention to the other children.

Their reactions varied. Little Huanhuan and little Xiaoxiao were both shaken, clinging together without realizing when they’d started holding hands—now sniffling like relay runners. Little Zhao Kepu was sprawled inelegantly on the ground, guzzling water straight from the bottle. Little Yu Renwan seemed better off; instead of worrying about herself, she was clearly more concerned about little Jiang Yan, pacing back and forth and craning her neck, though the rules holding Yu Renwan in place kept her from running over.

Pink Taotao was even more at ease, gesticulating enthusiastically as he chatted with Mu Wang, his pink robe sleeves waving as he talked. Black Taotao lay quietly on Mu Wang’s shoulder, occasionally nodding along.

“That’s how it was…”

“Mhm, that’s how it was…”

After two minutes, Jiang Yan turned away.

She guessed the little girl had finished savoring her victory, and was ready to talk. Jiang Yan started in on the matters she’d instructed her about.

“When did Ding Fuya start having trouble controlling her limbs? Can you recall more details—how severe was the numbness?”

Little Jiang Yan recalled, “Even though it felt like three hours, we were in there for four days.”

“The first day was Ding Fuya’s birthday party. She was perfectly normal, running around giving us cake.”

“On the second day, we all went to class together. That morning, Ding Fuya seemed off—her walking was a bit stiff, though not too bad. But it got worse during PE.”

“The PE lesson was jump rope. She was slow to lift her leg, her arms a bit twisted. After just a couple jumps, she tripped and scraped her knee. Her friends were shocked—Ding Fuya was usually so good at this. The teacher told her to go rest.”

“She looked very pale. I went to ask what was wrong, and she told me that strange, out-of-the-blue line—she was ashamed to be her father’s daughter, and needed to think about what to do.”

“On the third day, the school collapsed. We were napping—maybe the main spirit protected us, but all the other kids in the school died, and we ran out.”

“The fourth day was the heavy rain. Pink Taotao and I saw the chief sneaking out in the storm, so we slipped into his house and found those documents under the bedroom floorboards.”

When she finished, Jiang Yan nodded in understanding.

She moved to her second key question: “Was Ding Fuya a child her parents had long wished for?”

Little Jiang Yan answered firmly, “Yes.”

“I overheard the teachers gossiping in the office—the chief drank too much when he was young and hurt his body. No matter what, he and his wife couldn’t have children. They tried all sorts of folk remedies, and finally she got pregnant. Being an old man with a late child, he treasured Ding Fuya.”

“—But from what I saw, not that much. Even when his daughter was still in school, he dared to cut corners, and the school collapsed in the end.”

Both questions confirmed.

Jiang Yan turned to the most important, the third: “Did Ding Fuya have any psychic talent, like retrospection?”

Before her question was even finished, a flurry of 【???】 swept through the livestream chat.

【???】
【Huh???】
【Retrospection? What retrospection? Isn’t the main spirit’s ability retrospection—the little swallow yao? Huh???】
【Don’t ask me, I’m lost too. Why would Jiang Yan think Ding Fuya is a top-level psychic with retrospection ability??】
【Right? The scenario belongs to the main spirit, and everyone’s memories have been read—it’s clear the main spirit’s power is retrospection, isn’t it?】
【Hmm… Is it possible that the swallow yao has another ability, and the retrospection actually came from one of the kids it pulled in, who then helped build the energy field alongside it?】
【…Hey, that’s entirely possible!】

Jiang Yan kept her eyes on the little girl, but the response disappointed her.

“She didn’t,” little Jiang Yan said. “I really don’t think so.”

Jiang Yan trusted the little girl’s judgment.

If Ding Fuya didn’t have the power of retrospection, Jiang Yan’s earlier theory would have to be scrapped, and the answer to the sixth event slipped from her grasp again.

Just as her gaze grew heavier and her thoughts tangled once more, the little girl suddenly spoke.

“But…”

Jiang Yan’s eyes shot up.

Little Jiang Yan’s eyes arched into mischievous crescents as she beamed: “I think her dead mom did.”

Jiang Yan, exasperated, rapped her gently on the forehead. “Stop being so dramatic.”

Little Jiang Yan covered her forehead, pouting.

After a moment, she muttered, “You’re just taking advantage of how much I let you get away with!”

Jiang Yan: “Of course, of course.”

Little Jiang Yan turned away, but a few breaths later continued, “That’s what black Taotao heard: the chief used to be an ordinary villager—barely literate, loved drinking with pals. But he got lucky and saved his future wife, Ding Fuya’s mom, from a disused bear trap. The two soon married.”

“Ding Fuya’s mom had a few years of schooling, was good-looking and sweet-mouthed, well-liked since childhood. Villagers said she always knew just what to say, gave the perfect gifts, whatever people needed. Her parents died young, so the whole village acted as her foster family. Whenever officials came to inspect, she took amazing care of them—even knew all their allergies. So thorough.”

“The officials all liked to stay at their house. The chief kept getting noticed by the leaders, and eventually he got more responsibilities. In those villages, chiefs are elected—he’d done enough for everyone to win the job.”

“So I figure,” little Jiang Yan drew out her words, “if someone in the fifth event had the power of retrospection, it could only be Ding Fuya’s mom. She never left that little village—how else did she know all the officials’ quirks?”

“But she died young, from illness. Ding Fuya had just turned two, and the chief hadn’t done anything bad yet.”

At that, Jiang Yan had no more questions.

They found a bench and sat together. The rest of the group was recovering now; the kids perked up and went to the adults for snacks.

Crunching noises filled the air.

The kids were content once more, but the adults only looked more troubled.

Shen Xiaoxiao’s face was a picture of pure confusion; Zhao Kepu was even more glum, dabbing sweat from his face with a handkerchief as if he wanted to wipe away all life’s troubles in his final hours.

Seeing that the time was right, Jiang Yan went to the others.

“I’ve found the link between the five stories. Let’s discuss the sixth event.”

The words hadn’t left her lips before the very air seemed to freeze for a moment.

Shen Xiaoxiao stared at Jiang Yan in astonishment as Jiang Yan drew closer to them.

“You…you found it?” she could barely believe it.

“Mm,” Jiang Yan replied. “The main spirit used some narrative tricks, to create a false impression and conceal the clues.”

She calmly took out all the documents they’d collected so far, laying them neatly on the chairs in order. Everyone else got up and circled around her.

“First: all five children were prayed for,” Jiang Yan said seriously. “Their parents didn’t just wait calmly for children the ordinary way—they were obsessed, clinging to folk remedies, even praying for divine intervention.”

To prove her point, Jiang Yan pointed to Meng Jinru’s file.

Among the dense lines of her story slip was a particular sentence:

‘Mother said I was her treasure prayed for at the temple. She doesn’t want me to suffer misery. From now on, I’d share Sister Xiaoyu’s lucky fate—she’d get rich because of me.’

Next, Jiang Yan flipped open Jiang Suisui’s file.

‘My mother was childless for five years after marriage. People in the village didn’t say anything outright, but there was plenty of gossip behind her back.’

“In a village like that,” Jiang Yan said, “her mother must have longed for a child.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Then, Jiang Yan spoke of Liu Yitian: “You should all remember the Songzi Guanyin in Liu Zhengxing’s study.”

“Liu Yitian was also prayed for—Liu Zhengxing prayed for him.”

“And in the fifth event, Ding Fuya’s father had trouble making his wife pregnant, and after countless folk remedies, finally had a child.”

Shen Huanhuan picked it up: “And for An’an, his mother was diagnosed infertile. If she and her husband went so far as to adopt, she must have loved children—and probably had dreamed of one before her diagnosis.”

Jiang Yan smiled. “So all the children were wished into being.”

“That’s the first connection. The second, the main spirit hid it through clever storytelling.”

She continued, “Each child, before death, lost some control over their limbs.”

“Or more precisely, after discovering they weren’t as loved—or even loved at all—they developed this numbness.”

Shen Huanhuan immediately thought of Liu Yitian. In Tiantian’s Haunted House, Liu Yitian developed mental illness from ages six to eight—he’d lose contact between his brain and limbs, often unable to move them.

“So you mean, every child suffered from mental illness?” Shen Huanhuan asked.

“No,” Jiang Yan said. “It has nothing to do with mental illness.”

“It’s a kind of return.”

Shen Huanhuan looked confused.

Jiang Yan explained: “As we know, you can reach a conclusion in many ways—you can get A from X, or from M, but whatever the method, you get A.”

“But we often get so caught up in a narrative’s twists and logic that we forget the few simple words at the heart of it.”

“That’s the trick the main spirit used to hide the clues.”

“All the children lost control of their limbs for perfectly good reasons—but the main spirit gave us lots of explanations that all seemed plausible—and in a way, they are.”

“When An’an tumbled down the hill, chased by traffickers and his father, what explanation was given?”

Yu Renwan quickly flipped to that slip.

She read: “An’an was too small, his body uncoordinated, running and tripping over a stone halfway down, rolling down the slope.”

“And Meng Jinru?” Jiang Yan asked.

Shen Xiaoxiao found the relevant line: “An uncle used a knife to carve three lines on my hand from Sister Xiaoyu’s photo. The wounds hurt so much, I couldn’t clench my hand again.”

Jiang Yan said, “Everything seems causally reasonable.”

“But what really kept Meng Jinru from being able to close her hand may not have been just the knife wound.”

Everyone suddenly understood Jiang Yan’s logic.

In Suisui at Duck Cinema, the note read: “She crammed duck meat into her mouth again and again, the bloody semi-raw meat and splintered bones twisting her face with spasms, and after several rounds of vomiting she started coughing blood.”

Liu Yitian was most obvious—diagnosed with that ‘mental illness,’ his limbs numb, unable to control them.

As for Ding Fuya, if little Jiang Yan hadn’t known what to expect, what she’d have seen was just this: Ding Fuya discovered her father’s corruption, couldn’t accept it, lost her composure, and so in jump rope froze her leg, moved slowly, and fell.

There were always plausible explanations.

Jiang Yan said, “Each child’s limb trouble had a valid cause.”

“But because each cause was different, we overlooked the outcome—which is: they all developed these symptoms only after realizing a parent didn’t love them—or even hated them.”

“And why did that happen?”

She didn’t wait for someone to reply, but produced Yangzhou’s death report, describing his body shattered in pieces.

She then took out the hotel welcome slip.

“According to the death report, Yangzhou was thrown from the roller coaster and landed on scaffolding and slicing machinery, so his body was broken apart.”

“But if that wasn’t the case?”

“What if, even without the scaffolding, his body would have ended up in pieces?”

“The last line of the hotel’s welcome is: ‘Pick me up, Mom and Dad.’”

“That line is for all the children, for each of them. We thought it was just a metaphor—asking parents to pick up their broken souls. But what if it’s literal?”

“What if all the children’s bodies really broke into pieces after death—what turned them into that?”

Her barrage of questions left everyone dazed.

Zhao Kepu stared at her, then, after several breaths, managed to say, voice dry, “I really wasn’t meant for the energy field…”

Jiang Yan’s expression didn’t change.

After a pause, she summarized: “The children seem like dolls granted to their parents by something. Their parents wanted them so badly that this being blessed them.”

“But to become truly human, the children had to receive sincere love. Not having it, they began returning to being dolls.”

“Dolls are fragile—a broken doll in pieces looks just like a body in fragments, doesn’t it?”

With that, Jiang Yan picked up An’an’s mother’s infertility report once again.

“We never found an adoption paper for An’an. That, we inferred from the infertility diagnosis.”

“So maybe An’an really was her biological child—she only got him thanks to a blessing.”

“And as for who gave the blessing—since the swallow appeared at both Yangzhou’s birth and his death, it has to be that swallow yao, the main spirit of this energy field.”

Jiang Yan concluded, “That’s the main spirit’s true talent.”

“So the children weren’t pulled into the energy field forcefully—they were returning.”

“The swallow took back the dolls who didn’t receive love.”

At that, Shen Xiaoxiao suddenly looked like she’d remembered something, turning uncertain.

She stammered, “This story kind of reminds me… of that foreign one, with the wood… the wood something…”

Yu Renwan finished for her: “Pinocchio.”