Chapter 34

"…Isn't the hanger only good for one use?"

A furry tail-tip brushed across her cheek.

Cat: "It's not the hanger. You're still in the dungeon."

Liu Zhiyi thought of how, in the last dungeon, things had shifted with her feelings and thoughts.

"My feelings and thoughts affected the dungeon?"

"They shouldn't be yours." The cat looked at her grandmother in the wheelchair.

Liu Zhiyi looked closely and found this home wasn't quite like the one in her last dungeon.

The living room wasn't piled with things; the dust on the table had been wiped clean, everything bright and tidy.

On the dining table stood a bowl of gardenia branches soaking in water.

Gardenias were a flower both her mother and her grandmother liked.

Cat: "A multiplayer dungeon's scenes aren't fixed; they change with the players who come in. Haven't you felt it — Teacher Yang's kill-intent isn't really that strong."

Liu Zhiyi: "It does seem that way… she keeps letting me go, one way or another. Only that time she laid the pens as a trap did I feel she really wanted me dead."

Cat: "She probably sensed you wanted to bring her son in."

Liu Zhiyi felt helpless — but more than that, angry.

"She knows how to drag a stranger down, but won't put her own family through it!"

She turned to look behind her; after the scene had changed, Teacher Yang hadn't followed.

Liu Zhiyi: "Given up?"

She scanned her surroundings warily, guarding against a ghost's face lunging out, or a hunt, in what might come next.

Cat: "Before you came back into the dungeon, the scene shifted once, and Big Sister Ma and her father went back to their own home."

Liu Zhiyi knew Big Sister Ma; she wasn't the sort to break down over a word or two.

"What happened? Teacher Yang hunted them?"

What kind of trap had Teacher Yang set, to break Big Sister Ma this badly?

The cat shook its head. "Just an ordinary father-and-daughter scene: Big Sister Ma cooking, wiping her father's body — in that scene, Ma Qirong's condition even improved, he could talk."

Liu Zhiyi didn't understand. "Isn't that a good thing?"

Cat: "Right. So Ma Qirong kept going on about his son — that falling at the son's place wasn't all the son's fault, it was his own carelessness walking — and then complained the water Big Sister Ma used to wash his feet was too cold."

Liu Zhiyi: "He's got some nerve — Big Sister Ma's the one who's been caring for him."

Cat: "And these petty, nagging days went on a long while; Big Sister Ma cared for him a long while… and then, one day, when he nagged again, Big Sister Ma snapped. That was a fierce quarrel — father and daughter said terrible things to each other… and then Teacher Yang burst in, and Big Sister Ma let go of the bed she was pushing."

Liu Zhiyi stopped short, not knowing what to say.

Cat: "You see, Teacher Yang doesn't even need some horrible, bloody scene to frighten them. Big Sister Ma and her father will curse and wound each other on their own — and then she lets go."

Hearing this, Liu Zhiyi crouched, without thinking, by her grandmother's hand, and took hold of it.

And just then, her grandmother slowly opened her eyes — only halfway, looking ready to drop off again any moment.

Then her grandmother braced both hands on the wheelchair's arms and, swaying, made to stand up out of it.

Liu Zhiyi hurried to steady her.

Her grandmother took a step forward along her arm, but her whole body tipped and came down against her, and Liu Zhiyi staggered.

Even slumped against her, her body gone soft, her grandmother's hand still reached out and waved, as if to push her off, her mouth muttering under her breath.

"Pee… pee…"

Liu Zhiyi blanked, then quickly helped her grandmother toward the toilet.

Her grandmother tottered forward a few steps, then all at once shoved her away.

Before Liu Zhiyi could react, she saw her grandmother yank her own trousers down with one hand.

—Splash.

Liu Zhiyi froze, staring dumbly at the pale-yellow spreading across the floor.

So this was Teacher Yang's real aim, after all.

Liu Zhiyi looked at her grandmother.

"Why didn't you tell me? Mama."

Her chest began to speak.

Before she'd entered the dungeon, in the gaps while handling her mother's affairs, Liu Zhiyi had sometimes thought of her grandmother, thought about how she'd care for her from now on.

It had always been her mother out front looking after her grandmother, and her mother had barely said much about it on the phone.

On the phone her mother would only say:

"Zhizhi, Grandma drank a whole big bowl of lotus-root soup, and had a big bowl of noodles this morning."

"Zhizhi, Grandma walked thirteen minutes today — two more than yesterday."

"Zhizhi, you work hard now. There's money enough at home, don't worry — Mama can manage on her own."

She didn't know. She'd known nothing.

Liu Zhiyi had only known that after the brain hemorrhage, her grandmother had gone a little muddled.

She hadn't known her grandmother couldn't even walk steadily now; hadn't known a sick person's body could be so heavy, so quick to swing from mood to mood.

Hadn't known, either, that a person could become… unrecognizable.

Liu Zhiyi stood where she was a few seconds, her lips parting.

But in the end she said nothing, and stepped up to steady her grandmother's arm.

Her grandmother was clearly muddled.

Once she was upright she gave a few "ah"s, her trousers not even pulled up, her head swinging side to side as if looking for something.

Seeing her about to walk forward, Liu Zhiyi caught hold of her at once.

Grandmother: "Rong… Rong…"

Liu Zhiyi softened her voice, pulling the trousers up while she coaxed.

"Mama's not home. Let's get your trousers on first, all right?"

Her grandmother turned her head, her face blank; there was no telling whether any of it had gone in, but at least she'd quieted down.

Liu Zhiyi steadied her with one hand and reached for the tissues on the table with the other.

While she was wiping her, Liu Zhiyi saw the adult diaper.

In that moment, a tangle of feelings rose in her.

Her grandmother was quiet a while, then began again: "Rong… Rong…"

Liu Zhiyi patted her grandmother's hand and repeated the coaxing, over and over, without impatience.

"Mama's not home. Trousers on first."

Her grandmother seemed caught in some loop; she was forever dim to the world around her, the memory-system in her head gone wrong, sending out the same call to Liu Zhiyi without stop.

"Rong… Rong…"

Liu Zhiyi fought hard against the dark feelings in her heart.

She fretted about Teacher Yang lurking somewhere, watching for her chance, and had to give her whole attention to listening to her grandmother, and then work out how to soothe her.

But her grandmother didn't understand; she seemed to have forgotten, clean, even where she was and what she was facing.

She only called, over and over again:

"Rong… Rong…"

Liu Zhiyi didn't want to admit it, but it was, truly, truly wearing.

She'd only just gotten the trousers on when her grandmother began tugging at the adult diaper again.

Liu Zhiyi: "What's wrong?"

Her grandmother said nothing, only kept tugging.

Liu Zhiyi didn't know how to handle it; she could only watch, and ask.

"Are you uncomfortable?"

Her grandmother ignored her still, tugging away on her own, on the verge of pulling the trousers off.

Liu Zhiyi hurried to help; her grandmother got the trousers off, yanked the diaper loose and threw it on the floor, then turned, unsteady, and headed for the bedroom.

Liu Zhiyi grabbed the trousers and hurried after her.

She finally got her grandmother onto the bed — who then wouldn't put the trousers on no matter what, so Liu Zhiyi could only wrap her legs in the quilt to keep off the chill.

Liu Zhiyi sat at the bedside a while, and once she'd made sure her grandmother was asleep, and that Shen Songyue's coat was still on her, she tiptoed to the toilet to look for a mop.

Cleaning up in a dungeon meant little — but with such a big puddle of urine in the living room, and no telling whether her grandmother might get up muddled and walk about out there, a fall would be a poor trade.

Her chest: "So tired…"

Liu Zhiyi pressed a hand over it.

"Done?" The cat sat facing the security door, its back to the living room.

"Done." Liu Zhiyi bent and went on mopping. "Why are you facing away?"

The cat turned around. "One doesn't look at what's improper. And your grandma, in a state like that — she probably wouldn't want an outsider seeing."

Liu Zhiyi said nothing, and put her head down and worked.

"Talk to me," the cat said, with a low purr. "Getting a few things off your chest eases the pressure a lot — so your chest doesn't start blurting things out later."

"I…"

Liu Zhiyi gripped the mop handle.

"Grandma wasn't like this before."

"When I was little, Mama loved taking me to Grandma's — because there she didn't have to cook, she got ready-made meals."

Even now Liu Zhiyi remembered the look on her mother's face then: eyes bright, head craning in toward the iron gate — not knocking, just calling out sweetly.

"Ma!"

And then Grandma would answer, "Eh!", coming out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, trotting over to open the gate, muttering a few words as she came.

"Timed it right for dinner, didn't you."

She said it, but the smile on Grandma's face couldn't be hidden even through the gate.

Then she'd push the gate open, and the smell of sweet-and-sour ribs mixed with soy-braised bream would rush at her.

"My grandma's sweet-and-sour ribs are good too — a bit sweeter than my mom's — but the soy-braised bream is a secret recipe, you can't get that taste in any restaurant. Even I, who don't like fish, would eat a lot of it; the skin's crisp, but the meat's marinated right through, tender, just a bit salty — so good with rice."

Talking of her grandmother's fish, Liu Zhiyi felt her mouth water.

Unlike eating with her mother, whose table always had the eggplant and ribs she loved, her grandmother's table always, without fail, had fish.

Most likely because a mother always favors her own daughter a little more.

Liu Zhiyi: "Even after I went to work out of town, I'd come home once a month, and then go with Mama to see Grandma, and we'd all eat a meal together."

She'd thought those days would go on like that forever.

No riches, no splendor, but sweet-and-sour ribs and rice-friendly soy-braised bream.

Liu Zhiyi: "Just… just a month ago, I ate Grandma's fish. How could one fall… change everything?"

She didn't understand.

Why her mother? Why her grandmother?

Her chest: "Why me?!!"

Liu Zhiyi pressed down hard on her chest, shaking with the shout.

After a long while, the shouting chest gradually went quiet.

Liu Zhiyi leaned on the mop and let out a long breath, then glanced at the watch.

Liu Zhiyi: "Heart rate's a bit high — so the chest talking is tied to heart rate too."

Cat: "Feel any better?"

Her heart rate had been high just now, but after letting the feelings out, it slowly came down, and the chest that had been buzzing to speak settled too.

Liu Zhiyi: "Much better. You old hands really do have the experience."

Cat: "Crying or cursing, neither's a bad thing. When you've got feelings, let them out — especially in a dungeon like this, where feelings shape the place every moment."

Liu Zhiyi nodded, filed it away quietly, and sped up her cleaning.

Done, she tried pushing the security door; it wouldn't budge.

Then she took a turn around the room.

Liu Zhiyi: "This isn't quite like the home in my memory."

After her mother had brought her grandmother home to care for her, she'd told Liu Zhiyi to come back less often, because there wasn't room for everyone.

Even when she did come, she spent most of the day helping her mother at the hospital.

In that stretch, Liu Zhiyi hadn't been home much, and home had always been full of the smell of detergent.

Cat: "Of course — this scene is built from your grandma's memory."

Liu Zhiyi sniffed; there had been, all along, a faint, hard-to-name sour reek in the air, thin, pressed down under the smell of detergent — she could only tell it apart now, after having dealt with her grandmother's urine.

At first Liu Zhiyi had thought she just hadn't cleaned it up well, but the smell wasn't only in the living room; it was in the bedroom, on the dining table, on the couch too…

"Put the diaper on."

At that voice Liu Zhiyi shot up; she circled the living room in spite of herself, hunting for where it came from.

Her mother's voice — how could she not know it?

Cat: "It's only a memory playing back."

Liu Zhiyi stopped her search.

Cat: "This scene plays back some of your grandma's memories, to provoke you."

Having said that, it paused.

"It's what shook Big Sister Ma so badly."

So what memory would it be, that could provoke her?

Liu Zhiyi thought of a great many things.

—Creak.

The middle of the couch sank, as if someone had sat down on it.

In the folded dip of the couch, Liu Zhiyi saw a black shape.

The black shape: "I know the diaper's uncomfortable, but you can't hold your water."

That was her mother's shadow.

Liu Zhiyi couldn't stop herself; she moved toward the black shape.

She didn't know why she was like this — only that hearing the familiar voice she couldn't help wanting to draw near, and seeing the familiar shadow she wanted to rush over and hold it.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mama, Mama."

She put out her arms and gathered at the black shape.

But she gathered up empty air, and the momentum rolled her off the couch.

Cat: "It's only a stretch of memory playing back. Your mother isn't here."

"I know, I know."

Liu Zhiyi braced herself up off the floor, and her eyes, which she'd thought were dry, began to leak again.

"…But I just can't help it."

The mother on the couch went on speaking.

"Can't you cut me a bit of slack? I'm over fifty myself. You pee all over the place and don't care, and I still have to mop it clean, afraid you'll slip getting up in the night; yesterday I stayed up the whole night mopping and wiping… doing this day after day, I really can't hold up."

"You just think I'm a nuisance."

The words came, wistful, from behind Liu Zhiyi.

She heard her grandmother's voice and turned, thinking her grandmother had gotten up from the bed — until she saw another black shape rise in the living room and remembered that this too was part of the memory playing back.

Mother: "If I thought you were a nuisance, I wouldn't have brought you here to look after you."

Grandmother said nothing.

But Liu Zhiyi heard a rasping sound, the same as the sound of her grandmother worrying at the diaper earlier.

After a long while, her grandmother's black shape said one thing.

"I'm old. I can't even pee right anymore."

—Creak.

The mother on the couch stood up.

"You say that to twist the knife in me, don't you?"

Seeing the two black shapes squaring up for a quarrel, Liu Zhiyi's body moved, without thinking, to stand between them.

Before she could speak, her mother changed the subject.

Mother: "It's getting late. Let's have a wash and turn in early."

Her grandmother gave an "mm," and said no more.

The shadow on the couch rose, but before it steadied it staggered forward a few steps.

Liu Zhiyi rushed up to catch her — but her arm passed straight through the shadow.

Her grandmother cried out, as if startled.

"Rong?"

Mother: "It's nothing, just a bit light-headed. It's fine."

Liu Zhiyi followed close behind the shadow, and the edge of her eye caught the digital clock on the dining table.

23:45.

And in the lower-right corner of the clock's screen, the date showed too.

September 25.

The day before her mother died.

Her mind went blank, and then came a buzz in her ears.

And then, by the time she came to, her body had already rushed of its own accord into the bedroom.

She saw her grandmother's shadow being helped onto the bed by her mother's shadow, until it overlapped with the grandmother sleeping there.

For an instant, the memory and the present slowly overlapped.

And her mother's shadow lay down beside her grandmother.

Liu Zhiyi took a few steps forward, staring uneasily at the shadows on the bed.

It was this very night that her mother had died of the brain hemorrhage.

She fumbled at herself, wanting to find her phone to call for an ambulance — but when her hand met the watch on her wrist, she remembered she was inside the dungeon, watching a memory.

For a moment she felt a hollow loss, and a pain past words.

Slowly, Liu Zhiyi came to see Teacher Yang's intent.

Was it to make her watch the scene of her mother's last moments? To provoke her this way?

"What a rotten thing."

Liu Zhiyi cursed under her breath, her hand on the fruit knife in her pocket.

"Really not a decent thing at all!"

But rationally she knew all of it, and knew the best thing now was to leave.

And yet Liu Zhiyi couldn't lift her feet.

Her mother had died too suddenly; so many things had been left unsaid, unsettled.

She wanted to know whether her mother had said anything when she died; wanted to know whether, when she died… it had hurt.

Liu Zhiyi stood there a long time, long enough that her calves began to ache, before the shadow on the bed finally moved.

It was her grandmother's.

The shadow braced itself up from the bed, trembling — and as it rose, her mother's shadow pressed up against it from behind.

Her grandmother slapped her mother's hand away with the back of hers, twisting to keep her mother from touching her.

Then Liu Zhiyi heard the rasp of the diaper being worried at.

Her mother seemed to give up, and said, low:

"Sigh… go on and pee, then. I've laid down a pad."

Her grandmother, like a child finally given leave, even gave a laugh, and rolled down off the bed.