Chapter 28

"Teacher Yang!"

Teacher Yang, standing before the ward, didn't turn her head — but a black shape rose up off her body.

It was the tongue.

Liu Zhiyi: "Cat, do me a favor — pass a message to my grandma in a bit."

"Stay safe, then." The backpack on her stirred, and grew a little lighter.

Liu Zhiyi eased inside, but Teacher Yang still stood stock-still at the ward door, as if there were something in the ward that drew her attention more.

There was nothing for it; Liu Zhiyi could only edge closer.

"Teacher Yang, where's your son?"

She thought of the Lingjun that Teacher Yang had cursed earlier.

Sure enough, the moment she said it, Teacher Yang's head turned toward her.

Turned a full hundred and eighty degrees.

Liu Zhiyi gripped her own wrist; her body was shaking beyond her control.

Facing a creature like this for the first time — something between human and ghost — she still couldn't master the fear.

She hadn't been this afraid even facing "mama."

Was that, after all, because deep down she felt her mother would never hurt her?

Liu Zhiyi weighed her words. She didn't know much about Teacher Yang — today was the first time they'd met — and what she knew of Teacher Yang's family she'd only gathered from the cursing.

Liu Zhiyi: "Your son must be very busy with work — hardly comes to see you, just hired a care worker for you."

"Bullshit!"

Teacher Yang roared, and the tongue slammed into the ward door, hard enough to send the handle flying off.

Teacher Yang: "…It's me…"

Teacher Yang shrieked: "It's me who didn't want him to come!"

Liu Zhiyi watched, heart in her throat, and the moment she saw the anger stoked, she turned and ran.

—Fwip.

She bent low, but a beat too slow; her back flared with searing pain — the tongue must have whipped across it.

It hurt far more than "mama's" hits.

Liu Zhiyi staggered a few steps, and then the second blow landed.

Her mind went blank.

And after the heavy hit, her body seized up stiff; she felt she couldn't run anymore.

She really might not get away today.

The thought flashed through Liu Zhiyi's mind.

What was she even doing?

She hadn't lured Teacher Yang off, and now she was about to throw herself away.

Nothing at all like the last dungeon.

Whether or not it was the way a life flashes past at the end, a whole rush of things came pouring into Liu Zhiyi's head.

Her back hurt so much; what would become of her grandmother…

But every thread of thought came back, in the end, to her mother.

She was thinking about how to bury her mother; thinking how she'd meant to take her mother's place and look after her grandmother properly; thinking how good the sweet-and-sour ribs were, and what a pity she'd never eat them again.

Why think so much — why, at a moment like this, did all of it come welling up?

But it hurt so much, Mama.

She wanted to go home.

"Zhizhi, come here."

All at once Liu Zhiyi heard her mother's voice.

She looked ahead in a daze; at the end of the pitch-black hospital corridor, a door had opened.

She smelled the sweet-and-sour ribs.

She saw the scene around her sweeping backward, fast.

In an instant, the dark drew away.

She'd run out of the hospital.

She couldn't stop her feet; she passed the flowing traffic, ran into the complex, and at last started up the stairs, then rushed in through that wide-open security door.

Only once she was inside did Liu Zhiyi stop.

She turned a circle: the first thing to meet her eyes was the couch, then the TV, and last the open master-bedroom door, her mother lying on the bed.

She was home.

Liu Zhiyi was at a loss — and as she turned, the backpack bumped against her waist.

She thought the cat had come back, and pulled the bag's zipper open.

A corner of a hanger showed.

Her grandmother had said the hospital was short on hangers and told her to bring an extra, so she'd brought the prop hanger along — and in the end had forgotten to give it to her grandmother.

Was she out of the dungeon? Why had she run home?

She looked at the watch.

The prop had upgraded.

Two new lines had appeared under the hanger's entry.

[Bullied out there, remember to run home.]

[Don't be afraid, Zhizhi — run home, run fast! The door of home is always wide open for you.]

Liu Zhiyi had thought she was slowly getting used to her mother's leaving, but at the sight of the hanger she couldn't hold back the tears.

Only, the summary of the hanger's upgraded skill wasn't as heart-tugging as those two lines.

[When you most want to go home, carry the hanger and you can go home — but only once a day.]

No wonder she'd charged all the way out of the dungeon and home.

In a way, this counted as a lifesaving prop too.

Liu Zhiyi put the hanger away, dug out the headphones, and stuffed them into the bag.

The dungeons were coming too close together; from now on, it seemed, she'd have to carry the props whenever she went out.

Props stowed, she walked into the bathroom.

The pain in her back was such that she couldn't straighten up fully.

There was a big mirror over the sink; Liu Zhiyi turned so her back faced it.

One glance, and she looked away at once.

A big bloody mess across her back.

Even with such a raw, bloody sight on her own body, Liu Zhiyi couldn't look for long — the way you can't help turning your eyes from a gory scene in a film.

She rummaged around for a while, wanting to find some rubbing alcohol and iodine.

But bending over set blood dripping to the floor, and the wound on her back had stuck to her clothes; one movement tore at it painfully.

There was no help for it; she had to go to the hospital.

She hugged the bag of props tight to her chest, pulled open the bedroom door, glanced at her mother on the bed, and turned to leave.

She couldn't stay long at the hospital either — her grandmother was still in the dungeon, and there was no knowing how she was.

If she had the time and the ability, she'd actually have liked to go looking for Teacher Yang's family.

The clue-information in the dungeon was all too obscure and hard to follow, and a chore to sort through — nothing like asking people directly in reality, quick and to the point.

Where was Teacher Yang's family?

Liu Zhiyi cast her mind back over what she'd seen and heard at the hospital.

Teacher Yang's son hadn't come; adding in what she'd said while hunting her, and how, before the dungeon, she'd kept herself so dignified, not even letting the care worker help her to the toilet —

Teacher Yang must be the kind of parent with a strong sense of pride, one who loved her child and didn't want to be a burden to him.

Where would such a person's obsession lie?

Liu Zhiyi didn't go to the hospital where the Ankang Hospital dungeon was, to avoid being pulled straight into the dungeon the moment she arrived.

At the hospital, cleaning the wound ran into trouble.

Doctor: "What happened to your back? Were you whipped?"

Liu Zhiyi was working out how to explain when she saw the doctor scrape a cotton ball across her back with tweezers; when it came away, the cotton was already charred, half eaten through.

Half an hour later, her back bared, Liu Zhiyi sat face to face with a policewoman.

The acid on Teacher Yang's tongue seemed to be some very special substance; hydrogen peroxide, saline, a whole series of solutions — none of it would wash the stuff off.

Policewoman: "My colleague will be here soon. Bear with it a bit; the acid on your back needs a special prop to deal with properly."

Liu Zhiyi was very surprised — then, on second thought, she was police, and it wasn't so surprising after all.

Policewoman: "You should have reported to us right after you got out of the dungeon. Some of these wounds you've let sit a while."

In the Sweet Home dungeon it had all been scrapes; she hadn't expected the wounds from this Ankang Hospital dungeon to be so serious.

Come to think of it, "mama" really had held back.

Liu Zhiyi: "The second dungeon came on too fast, there wasn't time… oh — could you help me? My grandmother's still in the dungeon."

"A multiplayer dungeon." The policewoman frowned. "That's bad."

Liu Zhiyi was about to ask for details when there came a few knocks at the door, and a voice, crisp as running water, came flowing in from outside.

"May I come in?"

Liu Zhiyi thought the voice rather distinctive, and somewhat familiar.

The policewoman glanced at her.

"My colleague — all right if she comes in?"

Liu Zhiyi: "Go ahead, go ahead."

As the words left her, the door was pushed open.

The first thing to come into her view was a hand, its five nails painted five different colors.

Then a block of red rushed into Liu Zhiyi's sight.

"Hello there."

The newcomer put out a hand, the bright, many-colored beads on her wrist shivering.

Liu Zhiyi went still.

"Shen Songyue?"

It wasn't that she knew her — on the building across from the window hung a giant poster, and the face on it was exactly the woman's before her.

Shen Songyue laughed. "Want an autograph?"

Had the disaster at home not happened, she really would have wanted one; as it was, surprised as she was, she couldn't rouse any interest, her whole mind on how to save her grandmother once she was back in the dungeon.

Liu Zhiyi: "My grandmother…"

"Deal with your wounds first, then we'll talk." Shen Songyue laid a hand on her shoulder. "Don't rush."

Liu Zhiyi paused; she found herself gradually calming, her head growing a good deal clearer.

Shen Songyue: "My prop's ability."

That said, Shen Songyue leaned in and looked at her back.

"Pretty badly hurt."

Liu Zhiyi was past feeling the pain; worse, she found her back had gone numb — during the cleaning just now there'd been no pain at all, and some of the flesh the doctor had scraped off was black.

That was no good sign.

Shen Songyue turned, swung the denim satchel off her back around to the front, and fished out a pack of spicy gluten strips, which she handed to Liu Zhiyi.

The packaging was rather crude, much like the kind she'd seen as a child in the snack shops outside school.

Three big characters were printed on it — Tang Monk Meat.

Shen Songyue: "Eat up — eat it and the wounds heal."

Liu Zhiyi looked baffled, but seeing how earnestly Shen Songyue said it, she reached out and took the strips after all.

The instant they were in hand, the watch on her wrist buzzed.

The spicy strips turned out to be a prop as well.

[Tang Monk Meat: legend says that eating the flesh of the Tang Monk grants eternal life. Sadly this product has no meat — starch it does have, so it'll just have to do.]

[After eating this product, all physical wounds heal within two hours (please remember to set any severed limbs back in place), but it can be used only once a day.]

[ps: it is called Tang Monk Meat, after all — so once you've eaten it, your appeal to "ghosts and monsters" shoots right up. Careful you don't end up as meat in a monster's mouth~]

Liu Zhiyi: "…"

Shen Songyue: "This prop only works on physical injuries taken in the dungeon. Hurry and eat — your whole back's gone black."

Liu Zhiyi quickly tore the packet open and stuffed the strips into her mouth.

The prop tasted just like spicy strips.

Not long after she'd finished, Liu Zhiyi felt a sting, then an itch.

Shen Songyue caught both her hands, keeping her from clawing at her back.

After a while, once the itching had eased a good deal, Shen Songyue let go of her hands, took a little mirror out of the denim bag, and held it up behind her.

Shen Songyue: "Look!"

The wounds on her back were gone — but there was a big bruise now.

Shen Songyue: "The bruising doesn't count as a wound."

Liu Zhiyi: "…"

Shen Songyue: "Now tell me about the dungeon."

Because of the prop Shen Songyue carried, Liu Zhiyi stayed calm throughout, and quickly ran through the whole situation at Ankang Hospital.

Shen Songyue: "A real headache of a multiplayer dungeon. Once these dungeons tied to age, illness, and death break out on a large scale, the death toll is enormous."