Chapter 18

Zhi-Zhi: Meat. Mama said they slaughter pigs here, there's really fresh meat.

Slaughter pigs? Liu Zhiyi hadn't seen a pig slaughtered in years — let alone at a market inside the city's inner ring.

It didn't square with her memory; in her memory it was still childhood — going back to the countryside with her mother and grandmother at New Year to watch the year-pig killed...

At the thought, Liu Zhiyi looked at the watch. Right beside Zhi-Zhi lay a fallen piece of pork belly — freshly chopped, most likely, from one of the "people" by "mama."

The meat was very fresh — it even twitched.

The red-flesh part rippled as if a wave had passed through it, the meat undulating out in layer after layer.

That was the meat's nerve response; only once she'd grown up did Liu Zhiyi understand why meat twitches.

But the child Liu Zhiyi hadn't known that.

She still remembered the white pig hung on a hook, the grown-ups gathered round; then an uncle drove a knife into the pig's belly and, with one light slide, cut it clean in two.

Then an auntie stepped up, cut a piece of meat from the rib section, and made as if to hand it to her.

How fresh that meat was — still twitching as it was cut off.

And so the child that she was got frightened, and burst out crying — waaah.

A lot of the details — what the uncle and auntie said to her — Liu Zhiyi didn't remember well.

She only remembered the people crowded round the pig, all of them standing stock-still, staring at the killing, and the rope cutting into the pig's leg, and those cut-open slabs of pork belly...

So this was where the market's butcher shop came from — no wonder it felt so terrifying.

Liu Zhiyi felt a dawning realization.

The truth was, her mother hadn't wanted her to watch the slaughter back then — it was too bloody.

But the child had been naughty, and curiosity got the better of her, so she'd slipped off to watch in secret.

She hadn't reckoned on the crowd — not only did she get separated from her mother, in the end the sight of the meat being cut scared her into bawling, and she'd thrown the piece the auntie handed her onto the ground.

Zhi-Zhi: I want to buy fish, too.

Liu Zhiyi pulled herself out of the memory and looked at Zhi-Zhi.

Zhi-Zhi's tears kept welling up, like a little fountain.

Zhi-Zhi: It was me, I got carried away playing and lost mama... I want to buy fish.

The logic of it was a bit odd; children always say whatever comes into their heads.

But once again it stirred up Liu Zhiyi's childhood memory.

After the slaughter had frightened her to tears, Liu Zhiyi had gone about crying, looking for her mother; she didn't find her mother, but she found the little friend she'd newly made in the countryside.

The little friend was a few years older than her, a bit more sensible, and comforted her softly.

Once the fright had passed, Liu Zhiyi grew a little worried.

After all, she'd dodged her mother and climbed out over the wall in secret; if she went back like this, her mother would surely be angry.

So she'd hit on the idea of bringing back something her mother liked — then maybe her mother would cheer up and not scold her.

And so she and the little friend went down to the river to scoop up fish.

Liu Zhiyi laid a hand on Zhi-Zhi's shoulder.

Zhi-Zhi had shed so many tears that they'd soaked through the clothes on her.

In Liu Zhiyi's mind the childhood memory was still playing.

How could small children ever catch a fish? In the end it was the little friend begging her own mother that got them a fish in trade.

Zhi-Zhi drew herself in tight, wrapped her arms around Liu Zhiyi's waist, and at last couldn't hold it any longer — she cried out loud.

"I want to buy mama a fish..."

—Plip.

—Plip.

A little red crucian carp dropped onto the floor, its tail flicking and slapping against the ground, plip-plap, plip-plap.

Liu Zhiyi went blank for a moment, then picked up off the floor this fish that Zhi-Zhi had turned into.

The replay of the childhood memory in her mind hadn't stopped.

The child she'd been took the fish from the little friend's hands and said, grinning:

"Now mama won't be angry."

The watch buzzed; the task bar updated.

[Mama loves fish best of all — and her precious daughter still remembers.]

The task was complete.

So that was it — not only had she to buy the food she liked, but the food her mother liked too.

Thinking of it now — because she disliked the fishy smell, her mother had rarely made fish when they ate together while she was alive.

Liu Zhiyi suddenly felt a hollowness in her chest — blankness in it, and a sour ache too; all sorts of feelings crushed together into one, so that she couldn't say what it tasted of at all.

"Zhizhi..."

Hearing the call, Liu Zhiyi turned her head — "mama" was already standing behind her.

"Mama": "Stay — won't you?"

"Mama's" black bag was full of other food.

There was eggplant, and braised sausage and duck wings.

Liu Zhiyi loved that braised-food shop's sausage — and the eggplant too; her mother never used much oil in her cooking, but she'd stew the eggplant soft and melting, and it was so good...

The bag was full, every bit of it, of the food she loved.

Liu Zhiyi wanted to cry again.

She held out the crucian carp cradled in her arms.

"Let's have red-braised crucian carp today."

It was her mother's favorite dish.

"Zhi—" "Mama" suddenly stuck.

Liu Zhiyi looked at "mama," and found that she was, of all things, a little hopeful.

In her daze it was as if she were back in childhood, cradling the fish the little friend had given her, coming home all on edge — afraid her mother was still angry, and yet hoping that, seeing the fish, her mother might be a little glad...

"Zhi... zhi..."

"Mama" was still glitching.

But Liu Zhiyi felt a change come over "mama."

The look in "mama's" eyes as she gazed at her... was not quite the same.

It was like ice melting, like a spring breeze on the face.

The cold, dreadful things slowly drained from "mama's" face.

And then two tears ran down from those two holes... from her eyes.

A stab of pain went through Liu Zhiyi's heart, and for a moment she couldn't hold back.

"Mama!"

But "mama," as if startled awake by that cry, flicked back a great step.

Seeing the movement, she realized only then that "mama" could blink-move too.

Before Liu Zhiyi could even react, her vision blurred, her arms went abruptly empty — "mama" and the crucian carp had both vanished.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mama?"

She turned a full circle where she stood and saw a patch of wet on the floor — dripped from the fish, no doubt — the trail of it running all the way to the market entrance.

Had "mama" run off?

So she ran toward the market entrance.

"Meow!"

The cat's cry cut her short.

The cat: "Don't chase her."

Still dazed, Liu Zhiyi stumbled a few steps forward.

The cat: "That's not your mother..."

Liu Zhiyi stopped.

Of course she knew this "mama" wasn't her mother.

"...But 'mama' cried."

The cat: "Maybe because you were hoping she would. A dungeon comes out of a person's obsession, after all."

Liu Zhiyi opened her mouth to argue back, but in her heart she knew it too: she had been hoping.

"I miss my mother so much."

She covered her face and crouched down.

"So much..."

The cat made a soft mewling breath mixed with a purr.

"Cry, then, cry. You'll feel better for letting it out."

"Why me?"

Liu Zhiyi buried her head in her arms.

"Why did I get pulled into a horror game like this?"

The cat: "Not just you. Many people like you."

"Many people like me?" Liu Zhiyi lifted her head; the tears drying on her face felt like a smeared layer of glue.

The cat: "What do you think the point of this game is?"

Perhaps feeling its words hadn't been exact enough, it added:

"The point of the game's boss."

This game's boss was "mama."

Liu Zhiyi thought about it; "mama's" aim was clear enough.

"To kill me? Or... to make me stay?"

The cat: "More or less that. A single-player dungeon's boss usually leans toward keeping you; a multiplayer one, toward killing you."

Liu Zhiyi: "There are multiplayer dungeons too?"

The cat: "Sure. Though for a newbie like you, the first dungeon's always single-player, and comes with a novice tutorial — you felt that, didn't you."

Liu Zhiyi nodded.

The cat: "A novice dungeon's really like the tutorial part of some big single-player game — mostly it's to get the player used to how the game plays and give a rough sense of the setting, and the difficulty's a lot lower too."

Liu Zhiyi wiped her face and glanced down at her arms; there were no big wounds, but between the fall from the building and all the climbing, her arms were covered in little cuts, and even scabbed over they looked raw and bloody.

Liu Zhiyi sighed mournfully: "And this counts as low difficulty?"

The cat: "It's only that the lethal danger aimed at the player is dialed way down. But for some people, breaking their own obsession is far harder than fighting off some inexplicable ghosts."

Come to think of it — seeing "mama" blink out of the market just now, "mama" clearly wasn't slow; but early on she'd never shown that kind of speed, or she'd have caught her back in the living room long ago.

So was this what "weakened lethal danger" meant?

There seemed to be no shortage of such handicaps — whether it was that she and the "people" in the market couldn't see one another, or that while she was choosing food "mama" was fixed in place, unable to move.

Liu Zhiyi: "You say a novice dungeon leans toward keeping me, but I can feel that sometimes 'mama' just wants to kill me — and yet she cried too..."

Liu Zhiyi couldn't put the contradiction into words — as if "mama" both loved her and hated her.

The cat: "Did you and your mother have any great falling-out?"

It put it delicately, but Liu Zhiyi caught its meaning at once.

Liu Zhiyi: "The ordinary little family squabbles, yes — but the kind of hatred that's you-die-or-I-die, no."

She could be sure she and her mother had got on well; yet she couldn't understand why the "mama" born of her own obsession would want to kill her.

Liu Zhiyi couldn't reason it out; she tried hard to think, and yet didn't dare think too deeply.

"Why? Could it be that deep down, out of guilt, I want to die? Is that why 'mama' wants to kill me? Or am I the one hating? But my mother was good to me, and we never had any great quarrel..."

"Zhizhi."

The cat called.

"Relax. Breathe."

Liu Zhiyi started, and only then realized she'd been holding her breath; it was a long moment before she drew one, and then the tears streamed down unchecked.

"Why? I... I don't hate my mother."

The cat sighed, a meow trailing off the end of it.

"About the way a dungeon boss acts against itself like that, there are a lot of different theories. Plenty of people think the way you do — that it's the subconscious showing through, hate and love mingled, so it's tender one moment and terrible the next."

The cat: "But I don't think so."

Liu Zhiyi felt the cat's head stir in her pocket, and took it out.

"Everyone's just an ordinary person. Where would they get so much deep hatred and grievance that in a dungeon they'd turn into a villain boss out to kill you dead?"

The cat blinked slowly up at her and rubbed its head lightly against her palm.

The cat: "Still more a dungeon born from the obsession of losing a loved one. Facing a dead loved one, it's normal to be afraid — but longing and guilt make up the greater part by far; there's not even time enough to love them, so how could there be any wish to kill?"

The cat: "So I think there must be some thing making mischief behind it all. The uncanny awakening, and the inexplicable kill-intent of those bosses in the dungeons — all of it is the malice of that damnable thing."

Liu Zhiyi sniffed.

The cat: "Then again — you asked why it was you."

The cat brooded a few seconds, its two pointed ears flattening against its head.

"Probably it's that people who've lost a loved one, whose homes have been struck by sudden upheaval, are always especially fragile in spirit — easy to get trapped in a dungeon and unable to get out..."