Chapter 29

As she spoke, she glanced at Liu Zhiyi, then met the policewoman's eyes; neither said anything, and the policewoman, as if catching her meaning, got up and left first.

Shen Songyue: "I'll have my colleague look into Teacher Yang's family first. Don't be in a hurry to go back into the dungeon — going back now would be as good as throwing your life away."

Liu Zhiyi understood her own situation well enough.

"Will you be sending people in, then?"

With officials to fall back on, she'd feel a lot easier.

"Listen to me." Shen Songyue pressed a hand to her shoulder. "A multiplayer dungeon isn't one you can just walk into."

Liu Zhiyi went still.

Shen Songyue: "A dungeon only lets in people who share its trait. It won't let people like us in — because suffering isn't shared. Even if I feel for what you've been through, I can't feel it as my own; a dungeon like this can't break me open."

Liu Zhiyi grew frantic; she made to stand, but Shen Songyue pressed her back down.

"Then what am I supposed to do? My grandmother's nearly eighty — you're telling me to leave her in there alone?"

Shen Songyue took Liu Zhiyi's hand.

"I'm not telling you to leave her — I'm telling you to be ready before you go."

Listening to her voice, that frantic unease slowly settled again.

Shen Songyue: "It's Liu Zhiyi, isn't it? Here — look at me."

Listening to her voice, Liu Zhiyi turned her head without meaning to, her gaze drawn to her as if by a magnet.

Shen Songyue: "Your eyes are all bloodshot. You need to rest."

Liu Zhiyi's mind was still going — Grandma, Grandma… she couldn't rest now.

But somehow her eyes grew heavier and heavier.

Shen Songyue: "Time runs at different speeds in the dungeon and in reality — in a multiplayer dungeon, much slower. Sleep. Sleep for an hour."

Liu Zhiyi's eyes opened a crack, but her lids only lifted once before falling shut.

She slept deeply; when she opened her eyes again, she couldn't quite tell day from night.

"Awake?"

A woman's voice sounded by her ear.

Liu Zhiyi shot up off the bed at once and turned her head.

Shen Songyue sat at the bedside, fingers swiping quickly across a phone screen.

"That Ankang Hospital dungeon — we sent people over. They can't get in…"

Shen Songyue: "We've dug up Teacher Yang's records too. Her stroke brought on dementia, and she's been shuffled through several hospitals for treatment. At first her son and daughter-in-law would come to look after her, and take her home in the gaps between stays."

"But over the last few years her memory's gotten worse and worse, and she curses at night. Lucid, she's reasonable and won't let her son come care for her; not lucid, she rails at heaven and earth and everyone, turns on her own son and curses him for having no conscience — that part you'll have seen."

Liu Zhiyi nodded; that part had shown in the dungeon too, but hearing Shen Songyue lay it out in the real world made it a good deal plainer.

Shen Songyue: "My guess is her obsession is either wanting her son to come and see her, or wanting to die."

To die?

Liu Zhiyi stared at her, disbelieving.

Shen Songyue smiled.

"For someone with a strong sense of pride, watching yourself lose the ability to care for yourself, bit by bit — turning crude and repulsive — is an agonizing thing."

"But some children are devoted; even with no quality of life left, they'll insist on keeping their parents alive."

Liu Zhiyi suddenly thought of Big Sister Ma — of her father, paralyzed in bed, needing an oxygen mask.

Shen Songyue: "Sometimes, for people like that, death is a release."

Liu Zhiyi wavered. "So… I might have to kill Teacher Yang?"

"Not kill." Shen Songyue patted the back of her hand. "Help Teacher Yang find release."

"Though as fit as you are now, just staying alive in a multiplayer dungeon will be hard — a multiplayer boss won't go easy on you." Shen Songyue's words weren't gentle.

But it was the truth; ever since she'd found work after graduating, apart from the walk to and from the office, Liu Zhiyi had been a stranger to exercise.

"We'll give you a few props."

Shen Songyue set a small backpack on the table in front of her.

"Take stock of them. If you can't make sense of a description, ask me."

Liu Zhiyi: "…At this stage, is it just me going in?"

Shen Songyue: "No, one other — Teacher Yang's son. Besides him, we'll keep trying to send people in, but this Ankang Hospital dungeon… the same-trait people are a special case; we can hardly send seventy- and eighty-year-olds in."

Liu Zhiyi: "Teacher Yang's son?"

Shen Songyue: "Besides people with the same trait, the family of the one who made the dungeon might be able to get in. This dungeon business is contrary; I can't say for sure."

"By my own view, you going in is most likely a death sentence — I don't think there's much point to it. But your grandmother's inside, so you're not going to listen to me." Shen Songyue sighed. "So let me make a few things clear."

Shen Songyue: "Our Uncanny Special Operations department will keep trying to break into the dungeon. But a multiplayer dungeon develops fast, and if it looks set to grow, then to lessen the impact on the area around it, we'll seal it off."

At that, she looked quietly at Liu Zhiyi.

"Once it's sealed, you won't be able to get out."

Shen Songyue: "I feel for what you've been through, truly, but we still have to think of more people's safety. I'm sorry."

Liu Zhiyi hugged the backpack; hearing this, she felt a small pang of dismay, but she could understand it too.

"What are you apologizing for — I'm the one making trouble for you…"

Shen Songyue said, surprised, "How is that trouble? Dealing with this is our job."

She rose and sat down beside Liu Zhiyi, a trace of melancholy entering her voice.

"Honestly, we're the ones who owe you an apology. The uncanny awakening is spreading too fast, and a lot of things…"

At that point, she paused.