Chapter 27

As her view turned, the first thing she saw on the watch screen was an arm hanging down.

Was Teacher Yang standing beside the hospital bed?

As long as it wasn't a face lunging at her — Liu Zhiyi lifted her hand off the screen.

Teacher Yang: "Die, die…"

The doubled voice again — only this time it came from under her arm.

This trick again…

Liu Zhiyi closed her eyes and turned the watch downward.

A tongue lay spread out under her arm.

Normally, a tongue can't make a sound on its own.

But Teacher Yang's tongue was plainly no ordinary tongue.

There were mouths growing along it — not obvious ones, more like the grain of the tongue itself; only when it cursed would they open a slit, like the gills fluttering on a swimming fish.

As the cursing sounded, she saw another slit split open on the tongue.

An unseen sound wave spread out.

And as the wave passed through her, Liu Zhiyi felt her own chest tremble along with it.

Then.

"…Die."

Liu Zhiyi lowered her head; she seemed to hear an echo.

Teacher Yang: "Die, die…"

Her chest vibrated, giving off a faint sound.

"…Die."

The layered voice had gained one more.

Liu Zhiyi clapped a hand over her mouth, but the sound didn't stop.

The tongue spread on the floor raised its tip, like a cobra lifting its head.

It edged slowly toward Liu Zhiyi.

A slit split open at the tip.

"Die…"

The sound wave rang under the hospital bed, and Liu Zhiyi's eyes went wide.

She seemed to see the sound reflected — the floating motes of dust shivering, scattering and gathering again into line after dotted line.

The dotted lines were the outlines of the clutter under the bed, and Liu Zhiyi found her own hand had become part of them.

It was hard to describe — like a bat sending out ultrasound, the scene made visible in the sound's reflection.

And she, too, was made visible.

She could clearly see the tongue-tip swaying toward her, and then the tongue seemed to smile.

It was hard to put into words; the split at the tip had only curved, but it was as if it were smiling.

"…Die."

The voice sounding from her chest suddenly climbed in pitch, turning her chest into a speaker, the sound echoing round and round inside it.

"Die die die die."

The tongue: "Hehe."

Liu Zhiyi pressed a hand to her chest, and at the laugh she stared at the tongue in alarm.

But the tongue drew away, retracting.

With low, muttered curses of "die," Teacher Yang walked off.

What did that mean?

Liu Zhiyi undid the buttons of her top and checked her chest, up and down.

No wound, and no strange organ grown there; after Teacher Yang left, the resonance-like sound faded away too.

But Liu Zhiyi felt something was very wrong.

Calling for the cat in her head, she backed out of the camera and paged through the task and prop tabs.

The task and prop tabs hadn't changed, but a negative-status warning had appeared on the watch's home screen.

[Saying One Thing, Meaning Another: many people can't help speaking against what they feel.]

This negative status was described just as vaguely; she couldn't tell whether its effect on her was that she could only speak falsely, or only speak the truth.

It seemed she still didn't understand this multiplayer dungeon.

By the time she'd finished reading the notice on the watch, the cat's reply came, late.

Cat: "I think some of the traits on this Teacher Yang might be catching."

Liu Zhiyi: "The cursing?"

She secretly tried opening her mouth; her speech was still under her control, and her chest seemed back to normal too.

Cat: "It's not that simple. Teacher Yang let you go — which suggests her aim probably isn't to kill you."

Liu Zhiyi: "Don't tell me she's spreading some trait or virus through me?"

If that were really it, she couldn't be near her grandmother anymore; she was still young, and even if it were a virus her body could hold out a while, but her grandmother's might not.

Cat: "No use dithering over it. In an environment like this hospital, and with the range of Teacher Yang's sound waves, your grandma can't dodge it."

The cat could always guess what she was thinking.

Cat: "Go find your grandma first, get her into the safe room, and worry about the rest after. Otherwise, if you run head-on into Teacher Yang later, your grandma may not get away either — the lesser of two evils."

Liu Zhiyi thought it over and realized that, given her grandmother's body, unless she moved her out of the ward herself, she really might not be able to run at all.

A fierce anger rose in her.

"If you've got a problem, come at me…"

The cat answered calmly, as if it were long used to this, its composure gone numb.

"A dungeon has none of those fine morals. There'll be no shortage of this kind of thing from now on."

But Liu Zhiyi felt its manner was a little different from the last dungeon — and yet there was an eerie familiarity to it.

"…Are you angry?"

This going cold and offhand with her the moment it was angry was a bit like the way her mother behaved when she was cross.

The cat denied it at once. "No."

That quick denial made it more like her mother still.

Liu Zhiyi said nothing and crawled out from under the hospital bed, head down.

The cursing had stopped.

She looked around and found Teacher Yang standing at the doorway of a ward.

Liu Zhiyi's scalp prickled.

That ward was very close to the nurses' station.

And she remembered her grandmother's ward was rather close to the nurses' station.

She couldn't be entirely sure it was her grandmother's ward, but Liu Zhiyi's body had already moved before her mind.

She drew the fruit knife, leveled it at Teacher Yang, and let out a shout.