Chapter 35

But that one step landed on the pee pad, and the pad wasn't non-slip, so her whole body slid to one side.

"Mom!"

Mama cried out and lunged.

Two black shapes tangled together; Liu Zhiyi couldn't tell which one had gone down, only heard a loud thud.

—Bang.

And then.

—Splash.

What came after was a routine Liu Zhiyi knew well too: once Mama had gotten Grandma back onto the bed, she went out of the bedroom and came back with a mop.

Liu Zhiyi trailed close behind Mama's black shape, step for step.

She watched her bustle about — mopping the floor, washing clothes — busy until three in the morning before she climbed back into bed.

As she lay down, Mama rubbed her head, and her mouth suddenly gave a dry heave.

Somehow, Liu Zhiyi's heart gave a hard jump.

She couldn't hold back any longer; she ran to the bedside and reached out toward Mama.

As she'd expected, her fingers passed straight through the black shape again.

She saw Mama lie down, and lay down beside her too.

Not long after, breathing came from the other side.

But soon she heard the rhythm of the breathing change.

At first it grew a little quick, then very heavy, great gulping breaths.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mama! Mama! What's wrong?"

She kept reaching for the black shape.

Mama: "Ugh…"

She saw the shape's head lift, turn toward the edge of the bed, and make the sound of vomiting.

Liu Zhiyi reached out; she wanted to hold Mama's head, but her palm passed through the black shape again and again.

The retching grew louder and louder; Liu Zhiyi saw the shape's limbs seem to shake.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mom! Mom!"

But she couldn't hold her, couldn't grip her.

Liu Zhiyi: "Help! Somebody help!"

She screamed.

"Grandma! Grandma!"

Liu Zhiyi saw the other black shape lying on the bed, and shouted at the top of her voice.

"Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance!"

But the shape on the bed didn't stir, as if it heard nothing at all.

Mama's struggling grew fainter, her breathing heavier.

Liu Zhiyi: "Grandma!"

But the lying shape still didn't move.

"…Ho."

Liu Zhiyi heard that sound again, only this time it came from Mama's mouth.

It was the sound of someone about to suffocate.

"…Huff… ho."

"…Huff… ho."

The breathing died away, bit by bit.

After one last puff of air, it stopped.

Liu Zhiyi: "Grandma… Grandma…"

She opened her mouth, but suddenly couldn't get out a single whole syllable.

A few seconds passed.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mama… say something, say something…"

She could no longer tell what was dungeon and what was memory.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mama… Mama…"

And through her calling, over and over, the body lying on the other side of the bed finally moved.

"…Zhizhi?"

Liu Zhiyi held the black shape of Mama loosely in her arms and lifted her head.

Through the haze of tears in her eyes, she made out, dimly, among the overlapping shapes, Grandma's face.

In that instant her heart began to pound violently.

Her chest: "The night Mama died, why didn't you wake up?"

Grandma: "I… I…"

The color drained from Grandma's face; her words came haltingly.

"I…"

Liu Zhiyi heard the droning again — a ringing in her ears, it must be.

She was battered by wave after wave of feeling; her reason had only just broken the surface, dimly sensing something was off, before another wave dragged it back under.

Her chest: "…Why?"

"I…" Grandma raised her head, her eyes clear, as if she'd come to out of her muddle. "I don't know."

With that, two lines of bloody tears ran down from Grandma's eyes.

"How could I not have woken up?"

Seeing those two lines of tears, Liu Zhiyi startled, and slowly pulled herself free of the whirlpool of feeling.

The cat's voice sounded by her ear.

"Your grandma's starting to mutate."

Liu Zhiyi was full of regret. "…Grandma, I'm sorry, that wasn't me just now…"

"I don't know. I really don't know."

The bloody tears soon gathered into a little stream before Grandma.

"I can't control it, I don't know what I'm doing, every time I close my eyes and open them again I'm somewhere else, sometimes my pants are wet, I can't remember, I can't think…"

—Crack.

A fissure split open across Grandma's head.

"Is my brain broken?"

Her head began to swell, swelling until the fissure burst wide open.

Liu Zhiyi threw herself forward. "Grandma!"

Grandma caught her on reflex, blood and tears already streaming down her whole face.

"Zhizhi… that night, how could I not have woken up?"

Liu Zhiyi was sick with regret; she clutched Grandma's hand.

"I didn't mean to blame you, Grandma, you were sick, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"I was sick. I fell."

Grandma lowered her head, the bone at the top already split clean open; then she swayed her head and looked slowly around.

Liu Zhiyi saw Grandma glance at the shape lying on the bed, then look down at her, and wipe her face with one hand.

"It's Grandma who did this to you — did this to all of you…"

Liu Zhiyi: "No, no, no, Grandma!"

Grandma suddenly cried out, wailing: "Rong — oh, my daughter…"

—Pop.

Liu Zhiyi heard something burst apart, and then blood surged out of Grandma's cracked head, washing her off to one side.

By the time she'd struggled back up, Grandma was gone.

"Grandma?" Liu Zhiyi ran forward along the blood, but the living room was all blood, and she couldn't find where the trail led at all.

She searched around the flat, and suddenly heard someone laugh.

"Hee-hee."

Liu Zhiyi stopped. She turned her gaze toward the laughter, tipping her head up, a little at a time.

Teacher Yang was flat against the ceiling above her head, mouth open, tongue stretching out and down until it was right in front of her.

"Hee-hee."

In that instant, all the blood in her body seemed to rush to her head.

Liu Zhiyi pulled the fruit knife from her pocket.

Past a certain pitch of rage, the mind goes empty.

Liu Zhiyi didn't know what she was doing; her body simply drew the knife of its own accord and stabbed forward.

One stroke after another, one stroke after another.

She seemed to hear a scream, seemed to hack a length off the tongue.

But none of it mattered.

She only wanted… only wanted…

Cat: "Zhizhi!"

Liu Zhiyi's vision went black; the cat had jumped onto her face.

Her head snapped back with the impact, and a tongue spurting blood grazed past her cheek.

Then Teacher Yang, dragging her broken tongue, slammed the security door open and fled.

"…Don't go."

Liu Zhiyi reached out, and found her wrist was empty.

She stood dazed, then looked down.

A severed right hand and a length of tongue lay on the floor.

The cat's cry was shrill enough to pierce her eardrums.

"Tang Monk Meat! Quick! Your hand's off!"

Liu Zhiyi's vision started blacking out in waves, and the pain she'd ignored in her fury slowly came alive.

She dropped to the floor.

Cat: "Zhizhi! Zhizhi!"

Can't die… can't die…

The thought filled Liu Zhiyi's whole head.

With the cat's help she got the Tang Monk Meat out; the cat had already picked up the severed hand in its mouth and set it against her forearm.

Almost the moment she swallowed the Tang Monk Meat, it was as if a fire caught at her hand.

She screamed, past all control.

She'd never hurt this much in her life, Liu Zhiyi thought.

She may have blacked out for a moment in that searing pain.

Only once the pain ended, and she'd lain twitching on the floor a few times, did she slowly come back to herself.

Cat: "Don't go charging in headlong like that again. It's only that Teacher Yang hasn't been a boss long and hasn't much fighting experience — that's the only reason you got off with cutting her tongue and losing just a hand. Anyone with a bit more experience, and your head would've been sliced clean off."

Liu Zhiyi pushed herself up and worked her right wrist.

"I lost my head. But right then I really did want to kill Teacher Yang."

She wiped her face, smearing off the blood; cutting the tongue had sprayed it all over her.

"Softer than I thought. I figured it'd be hard to cut through."

Once she'd calmed down, Liu Zhiyi was surprised to find she'd taken cutting off Teacher Yang's tongue quite well — it had even felt a little good.

The cat sighed. "Understandable. I'm not saying hold back from killing — it's just, you've got to plan things out first, keep your feelings a little in check."

"I know all that." Liu Zhiyi picked up the coat that had fallen to one side; even as she left, Grandma had somehow remembered to strip off Shen Songyue's coat and toss it aside. "But it's only because it wasn't me it was happening to."

"I don't know why, but anything to do with my mama, I just can't stay calm. I know it's a trap and I jump in anyway." Liu Zhiyi hugged the coat and began to breathe deep. "I can't help it… I really can't."

Liu Zhiyi: "My mom went so suddenly. On the high-speed train back I kept thinking — how does someone who looks perfectly healthy suddenly have a brain hemorrhage? She died lying right next to Grandma, how could it… how could it…"

She didn't want to lay blame; she knew, rationally, that Grandma was sick, that she could barely look after herself.

"But I just can't help it…"

Liu Zhiyi: "It's me too — I worked away from home all that time and never made much money, and when Grandma got sick it still had to be my mom, a woman in her fifties, looking after her, without even one person to lend a hand."

She slapped herself hard across the face, and as she went on slapping, she started to cry.

"How can I be this useless! Blaming Grandma at a time like this… how can I be this useless…"

Liu Zhiyi wept with her head down for a while, then remembered with a jolt that Grandma was gone; she pulled the coat on in a rush and ran, still crying, for the security door.

Once she was through it, everything went abruptly black.

She was back in the dim, empty hospital corridor.

Liu Zhiyi turned; behind her was a treatment room, two words hanging on the door: Hypnotherapy.

The cat remarked, "The beginnings of a multiplayer dungeon."

Liu Zhiyi: "…Would a general hospital have a hypnotherapy room? This looks more like something you'd find in a mental hospital."

Cat: "Looks like Teacher Yang's been to a mental hospital before."

Liu Zhiyi thought of the way Teacher Yang cursed people at night; in a sense it really did look like something was wrong with her mind.

Liu Zhiyi: "What do you mean, the beginnings?"

While she looked for Grandma, she wanted to learn a little more about how dungeons worked, so nothing would catch her flat-footed later.

Cat: "Generally, a multiplayer dungeon that's been running a while has certain regularities to it. Ever heard of rule-based ghost stories?"

Liu Zhiyi: "A little. Now that you say it, it is strange… this Ankang Hospital feels empty. By rights a hospital should have medical staff."

Cat: "That's why I said it's only the beginnings. Usually a hospital would have treatment programs — like the hypnosis room you and your grandma went into. Once this dungeon fills out, players who come in later will have to do that treatment, and then their memories get played back."

Hearing this, Liu Zhiyi felt a chill crawl up her spine.

Cat: "There's something I think I'd better tell you. This multiplayer dungeon is being eaten away fast — your grandma's already starting to mutate. From what I know of Shen Songyue, they're probably about to seal it."

Liu Zhiyi paused, then forced out a smile.

"Now I understand why you egged me on to kill Teacher Yang at the start…"

Cat: "What are you going to do now?"

"Take it a step at a time." Liu Zhiyi felt weary in body and mind. "Find Grandma first…"

She stopped for a few seconds.

"She's mutated… is there any chance she could change back?"

Cat: "Of course. But first you'd have to resolve your grandma's obsession — the knot in her heart."

Liu Zhiyi knew what the knot in Grandma's heart was.

But truthfully, she couldn't let go of her own mother's death, let alone Grandma's.

"I probably can't undo this knot… and if it really comes to that, then I'll stay and keep Grandma company."

Cat: "That's fine too. Then I'll stay and keep you company."

At the cat's answer, Liu Zhiyi was taken aback; she'd always wondered about the cat's attitude toward her.

"You don't have to keep me company… why are you so good to me?"

The cat jumped onto her head.

"…Ever since you tied me to that toy prop, I can't help wanting to stay with you, to help you; when you're sad, I hurt too… and I've been thinking, maybe this counts as a kind of extension of your mama's love?"

Liu Zhiyi froze.

Cat: "So don't give up on yourself. I can feel it — your mama loves you all very much."

Liu Zhiyi wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Thank you."

Grandma had run fast; luckily, mutating had taken her beyond the bounds of a human being, or with the amount her head was bleeding she'd have dropped to the ground on the spot.

Liu Zhiyi followed the blood along the floor; the trail came and went, and with the dark all around, sometimes she had to crouch to see it at all.

This hospital dungeon had a good deal more in it than when she'd first come in.

Beside the nurses' station stood a new white thing, like a bulletin board.

As she passed she snapped a picture of it.

She didn't know whether Grandma was still moving, but she really hadn't the time or the effort to study the changes in her surroundings — she could only photograph it and look later.

The deeper she went, the more she caught light coming through the corridor windows from outside — not much, though.

Was it getting light out? Did it get light inside a dungeon too?

But at the same time, the ground began to tremble, like an earthquake.

Liu Zhiyi broke into a run; she couldn't spare a thought for much else, calling for Grandma as she went.

Along with the shaking, Liu Zhiyi saw the light coming through the windows grow weaker and weaker, until the already faint light went fully black.

Cat: "The dungeon's about to close."

Liu Zhiyi stopped. She looked out the window, and could just make out, on the horizon not far off, a rift, with light coming through it.

Cat: "Before it closes, a gap opens between the dungeon and reality — because they have to pry the dungeon off the edge of reality and cover it over…"

At the word gap, Liu Zhiyi's spirits jumped. "If real light can come through the gap, does that mean I could get out too?"

She still had the cough syrup on her; once she found Grandma, they could each take a swig, make a run for it, and maybe get out through the gap.

The cat shook its head. "First, your grandma can't get out — someone who's already mutated can't live in reality. Second, the rift's very small; a person squeezing through would be torn to shreds."

Liu Zhiyi: "By the sound of it, someone's tried before?"

At this the cat's voice dropped low.

"Every piece of common knowledge about the dungeons was bought with people's lives."

Liu Zhiyi went still, and looked long at the rift.

"Maybe I should have listened to you from the start and killed Teacher Yang. At least it wouldn't have come to this."

The cat gave a meow. "Forget it. With your temperament you couldn't have done a thing like that at the start."

And that was exactly it; Liu Zhiyi hung her head low and quickened her steps, running on after the blood.

Cat: "You grew up in peacetime. It'd be strange if you took to killing easily right off the bat. Holding you to a veteran player's standard — that was my own fault."

"Oh, right." The cat tapped lightly on the top of her head. "If you ever run into a newcomer in a dungeon carrying a prop that can hurt people — a knife, that kind of thing — be on your guard with them."

Cat: "By sheer numbers, most players are ordinary people like you. And most ordinary people don't have anything that aggressive buried in their subconscious."

That was true enough — none of Liu Zhiyi's props had any attacking power.

Cat: "So a player who starts out with an aggressive prop like that — given the mind and the subconscious it takes — probably isn't a good person."

Liu Zhiyi nodded. "I understand."

But would she even have a "later"? The light outside the window had almost completely vanished.

And just then, she suddenly felt the trembling under her feet stop.

Cat: "Oh? The sealing's stopped. Did Teacher Yang die, or Big Sister Ma's father?"

Liu Zhiyi didn't follow.

"What do you mean?"

"Sealing a dungeon is a last resort," the cat explained. "Once it's sealed, after a while that patch of reality where the dungeon was will get hit by some disaster too — natural or man-made… for instance, if your Sweet Home dungeon had been sealed, then after a while your real home, that flat, might catch fire."

Liu Zhiyi: "…Why?"

Cat: "The officials haven't figured that one out yet, but I have a guess."

It stood its tail up, the fluffy thing pointing upward.

Cat: "That mastermind behind it all — the dungeons' final aim is to draw more people in and keep them there. And what use is a dungeon that's already been cut off from reality and sealed?"

She hadn't much energy or attention to spare just now for the mastermind.

"I'm really worried about Grandma."

It was because the mutation was moving too fast that Shen Songyue's side had gone to seal the dungeon; now that the sealing had paused, it meant that of the three who'd mutated, one had either died — or come to terms with things.