Chapter 37

Liu Zhiyi zoomed the image in, and saw that the walls of the darkened floors were pocked with black dents, with black, slimy, meat-like lumps stuck to them.

And those black shapes.

Liu Zhiyi saw them clearly: they were severed human limbs.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, so her breathing wouldn't give away her feelings.

There weren't many, but they were all shriveled and withered, covered in wrinkles.

Big Sister Ma: "Don't turn out like me, bad-tempered. Good thing my old man's paralyzed, or I'd have had a real fight with him. Speaking of, where's he run off to?"

Liu Zhiyi stopped. She looked at the limbs strewn across the floor in the watch, and stopped.

Only, there was no head.

Big Sister Ma: "What's wrong?"

Liu Zhiyi shook her head and said nothing; she had some idea now.

Then she dug out the headphones and put them on.

With them on, all sound was shut out.

Big Sister Ma looked puzzled, but waited quietly along with her.

The sensor light dimmed.

"…Ho."

Through the headphones came a breath on the edge of giving out.

Liu Zhiyi pressed the headphones and rose on her toes to keep from making a sound and setting off the sensor light.

She turned her arm, following the breathing.

"…Ho."

The breathing came from Big Sister Ma.

In the dark, Big Sister Ma stood expressionless, her two eyes catching the light of the night-vision lens, staring straight at her.

Not on her hands, not on her shoulders.

Liu Zhiyi slowly turned her wrist with the breathing, adjusting bit by bit, and at last lined it up with the back of Big Sister Ma's head.

"…Ho."

A strand of the black curly hair lifted — blown up by the breath.

Liu Zhiyi saw the thing hidden under the hair.

It was a wrinkled face, half of it caved in from being struck.

"…Ho."

"I don't get it…"

Big Sister Ma's voice came from the front of her head.

Her voice had gone hoarse.

"After everything I've done, why does he still think about his son?"

Liu Zhiyi still said nothing; she was a little afraid that Big Sister Ma, in the dark, would start shouting and set the sensor light going — but hearing Big Sister Ma's voice drop low now, she felt that was no good sign either.

And the headphones could only pick up the sounds of ghosts.

Was Big Sister Ma, in her darkened state, a person or a ghost?

Big Sister Ma: "Whatever he wanted to eat, whatever he wanted to drink, I made it and I bought it for him."

Liu Zhiyi kept her eyes on the back of her head; as Big Sister Ma spoke, the breathing behind it quickened too.

Big Sister Ma: "Why is he still thinking about his son?!"

At the worked-up part she shouted again, and the sensor light overhead came on in answer.

The old face at the back of her head vanished.

Liu Zhiyi took another look at the back of Big Sister Ma's head; the face was gone, but a patch of the hair looked smeared with something, matted together.

Big Sister Ma turned her head, a smile on her face.

She opened her mouth and said something, but Liu Zhiyi couldn't hear it.

So Liu Zhiyi took the headphones off.

Big Sister Ma: "…What was I saying just now? My memory's gotten so bad since I came into the dungeon."

Liu Zhiyi: "You were talking about your father."

No wonder Big Sister Ma couldn't find him — he was on the back of her head, and only visible when the lights were off. How could she find him?

Big Sister Ma: "How'd we get onto my old man again? Where on earth has he run off to?"

Liu Zhiyi looked up at the sensor light.

The task was to help Big Sister Ma find her father, but given how Big Sister Ma behaved in the dark, she decided to nudge her gently, so as not to provoke her.

Liu Zhiyi: "Have you ever thought… your father might be right beside you?"

"Beside me?" Big Sister Ma gave a laugh. "Ever since he lost the use of his legs, he really has been by my side the whole time."

Liu Zhiyi looked at the oxygen cylinder in her hand.

"You never resented it?"

"Of course I did. Care for someone long enough and honestly you can't help some resentment — and my old man was pretty much all for sons over daughters, and I only had a girl myself…"

At this Big Sister Ma sighed.

"In his eyes I don't count."

So was that why the face grew on the back of her head?

Liu Zhiyi thought.

How was she to get Big Sister Ma to find her own father?

"Sister." Liu Zhiyi called out. "There's something on your head."

Big Sister Ma: "What is it?"

Liu Zhiyi: "Some dirty thing."

Liu Zhiyi wouldn't go touching the face on the back of her head herself, so she guided Big Sister Ma to feel her own head.

Big Sister Ma: "Did I get it off?"

Sure enough, with the lights on, Big Sister Ma couldn't feel that face.

But she did scrape off some reddish-brown lumps of something.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mm, got it off."

Liu Zhiyi slowed her steps, and once she'd reached the middle of the stairs, some distance from the landings above and below, she stopped.

The sensor lights on the landings were still fairly touchy; she could only pick a spot midway between.

When she stopped, Big Sister Ma stopped too.

Liu Zhiyi counted off a few seconds in her head, and the sensor light overhead went out.

Then she repeated what she'd done before.

"Sister, there's something on your head."

Unlike the Big Sister Ma of a moment ago, once it went dark, Big Sister Ma turned around, her face without expression.

"What's it to you?"

Her personality was completely different with the lights on and off.

The first would listen to her; the second, though it had a face on the back of its head, wouldn't hear a word she said.

A bit of a bother.

But there'd be a few seconds' gap between Big Sister Ma raising her hand and lowering it.

Liu Zhiyi reckoned up how long the sensor light stayed on once it lit.

"Where've you gone and hidden?" Big Sister Ma said, impatient.

With Shen Songyue's coat on, she was invisible to ghosts too.

Liu Zhiyi glanced at Big Sister Ma in the dark, raised her hand, and gave a hard clap.

As the light came on, seeing Big Sister Ma switch back to warm, gentle mode, Liu Zhiyi spoke.

"Didn't get it — there's still some on your hair."

Plan and execution never quite match, but luckily the lit Big Sister Ma was very easy to deal with, and let Liu Zhiyi direct her to grope around the back of her head without getting impatient.

Big Sister Ma: "Aiya, where exactly is this dirty thing you keep on about — why don't you help me…"

At last, the light went out.

Liu Zhiyi rose on her toes and ran up a few steps, opening the distance first, then crouched behind the railing to look down.

Big Sister Ma: "…You old thing! What are you doing here?"

Big Sister Ma's voice was rather loud, and the sensor light came on again.

Liu Zhiyi looked at the lit light, and her heart lurched.

No good — don't tell me she has to do it all over again.

Big Sister Ma: "Dad?"

Hearing Big Sister Ma's voice, Liu Zhiyi let out a breath.

But soon Big Sister Ma's voice dropped.

Hard to describe — as if the pitch had been lowered, and coming with it, a crackle of static.

Big Sister Ma: "…I remember now."

The sensor light flickered.

Big Sister Ma: "You told me to phone my daughter, to call her over."

Liu Zhiyi looked up; she felt the sensor light's glow seemed to have dimmed a little.

Big Sister Ma: "Your prop's really something, Dad — it can even call people in from outside the dungeon."

"Good thing my daughter didn't pick up. Good thing she didn't pick up."

Big Sister Ma muttered to herself.

Liu Zhiyi could no longer see her own shadow; the light wasn't strong enough now to cast it.

Big Sister Ma: "Whatever you did to me is one thing, but how could you do that to your own granddaughter…"

—Bang.

A streak of blood suddenly sprayed onto the wall.

Big Sister Ma had raised the oxygen cylinder and smashed it into the back of her own head.

Big Sister Ma: "…I'm sorry."

—Bang.

"…Ho."

The sensor light went out, and everything around went fully dark.

Cat: "She can't get out anymore."

At the cat's sudden voice, Liu Zhiyi's shoulders jerked.

Liu Zhiyi: "Don't just start talking in my head like that, especially in a scene like this!"

Cat: "Sorry, sorry — I wanted to explain some dungeon lore to you and couldn't hold it in…"

Big Sister Ma was still beating the back of her own head.

Those sprays of blood on the wall had probably come from just this.

Liu Zhiyi: "Big Sister Ma can't leave the dungeon now?"

"Right." The cat lay on her shoulder. "Did you get a good look at the back of her head?"

Liu Zhiyi: "…That old man's face is all caved in from being hammered."

Cat: "Look closer — use the watch."

Liu Zhiyi trained the watch face on the back of Big Sister Ma's head.

Cat: "Turn on the flashlight."

The flashlight's beam gathered to a point.

Liu Zhiyi shook her wrist, sweeping the beam upward from below.

Just then Big Sister Ma pushed the hair aside from the back of her head.

Wherever the beam passed, the old face vanished, and Liu Zhiyi saw a raw, bloody wound.

The back of Big Sister Ma's head had been beaten into a big hole; Liu Zhiyi didn't want to think about it, but something soft, like curds of bean dregs, really did spill out of the hole.

Liu Zhiyi: "Tang Monk Meat!"

She pulled open her backpack.

Cat: "That stuff only works on wounds made by the ghosts in the dungeon. The one on Big Sister Ma's head — she made that herself."

Liu Zhiyi froze.

Cat: "Did you ever look at Big Sister Ma's body?"

Liu Zhiyi: "…I did. Didn't see any wounds."

Liu Zhiyi seemed to grasp why the cat had had her study Big Sister Ma.

"Ma Qirong didn't attack her?"

She'd nearly been strangled to death by Ma Qirong's oxygen tube.

Cat: "Looks like this Ma Qirong isn't completely out of his mind after all — he didn't turn deadly on his daughter."

Hearing this, Liu Zhiyi's feelings churned.

"Then why couldn't he treat his own daughter a little better in life?"

The cat sighed. "People are complicated things. I think Ma Qirong did love his daughter — but nowhere near as much as his son."

"Really, the moment she beat in the back of her own head, she was already dead." The plush cat's head nuzzled her cheek. "If anything, it was Ma Qirong melting his head into hers that saved her life."

Cat: "So now, the instant she leaves the dungeon, Big Sister Ma will die."

"Ma Qirong, you old undying thing." Big Sister Ma cried out again, one hand yanking her own hair, the other pounding the back of her head. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you!"

As she screamed she broke into loud weeping.

"Fine, you're dead, so you're dead — but then you crawl into me, you won't even let me have peace in your death!"

Liu Zhiyi watched quietly for a few seconds.

"In a case like this, whose obsession is it — Big Sister Ma's or Ma Qirong's?"

Cat: "There's no obsession."

Liu Zhiyi didn't follow. "Didn't you say a dungeon is born from a person's obsession? Big Sister Ma's fused with her father now — whose obsession does this count as?"

Cat: "Exactly — only the living have obsessions. What obsession does a dead person have left?"

Liu Zhiyi: "What?"

Cat: "Big Sister Ma has dismembered her father and beaten in her own head. They're both dead."

Liu Zhiyi looked at the still-moving Big Sister Ma. "You call that dead?"

"This brings up another piece of lore," the cat said. "I don't think we've ever talked about people who die inside a dungeon."

That was true; though Liu Zhiyi thought a dungeon's aim was to keep people, that didn't mean its bosses wouldn't kill, or that no one died inside.

Liu Zhiyi: "Where do the dead go?"

Cat: "They become part of the dungeon — like Big Sister Ma, turned into a full ghost."

Liu Zhiyi: "How's that different from mutating?"

Cat: "Of course it's different. A mutated person can still change back and return to reality; the dead can't get back to reality at all."

Liu Zhiyi: "…So Big Sister Ma's and her father's obsession has no effect on the dungeon, and now, as long as my grandma comes to terms with things and I kill Teacher Yang, the dungeon can be cleared?"

The cat gave a "meow," and by the rising note of its tail it sounded quite surprised.

Liu Zhiyi: "What?"

Cat: "You caught the key point nicely there."

Liu Zhiyi: "…I'm not stupid."

Cat: "Seems, then, it's only over things to do with your mama and grandma that you lose your head and slip up."

"I suppose the onlooker sees clearest." Liu Zhiyi lowered her eyes to the weeping, head-pounding Big Sister Ma. "I can understand why Big Sister Ma's gone mad, but I also think a lot of what she's done is very foolish."

Cat: "So what's your next move? In the state Big Sister Ma's in, it won't be easy to talk to her."

"Find the phone." Liu Zhiyi glanced at the watch screen. "The task shows complete."

A new task updated.

[Find the phone and call Grandma.]

Liu Zhiyi: "Big Sister Ma mentioned a phone a lot of times."

She adjusted the watch face, turned off the flashlight, and aimed it at the back of Big Sister Ma's head.

Big Sister Ma kept pounding the back of her head, her movements fast.

Liu Zhiyi's eyes weren't good at tracking motion, and she couldn't make out some of the details back there.

Liu Zhiyi: "Big Sister Ma said it was Ma Qirong who made the call, so I'm guessing the phone's with Ma Qirong… can you see it?"

The cat's night vision was far better than hers.

The cat narrowed its eyes and jumped onto her head.

"A little lower."

Liu Zhiyi braced her head and bent down.

Cat: "…There's a black square, at the back of Big Sister Ma's head, over on the right, near the neck."

Liu Zhiyi: "About what I guessed."

The black cat's tail dangled down from the top of her head.

Cat: "Impressive. How'd you guess the phone was on the back of her head too?"

Liu Zhiyi: "In the state Big Sister Ma's in she'd even kill her own father; her brother would be dead the moment he came in. Put yourself in Ma Qirong's place — if I were him, I'd definitely find a way to hide my son, all the more with a phone in hand that can call people in from outside the dungeon."

Liu Zhiyi: "He hid on the back of his daughter's head all this time without being found, so I figured… the phone might be hidden there too."

The cat's tail swished by her cheek, and it said, gratified, "Zhizhi's amazing!"

Liu Zhiyi was a little embarrassed by the praise.

"Can you do me a favor?" Liu Zhiyi reached up and stroked the cat on her head.

"What favor?" The cat butted her palm with its head, then lifted its chin for a scratch. "Go ahead."

"It's like in the last dungeon." The cat had always been so good to her, and Liu Zhiyi could hardly lift her head as she laid out the plan. "When the safe room had just collapsed, you pounced on 'mama's' face and held her off for me."

Cat: "You want me to hold off Big Sister Ma?"

Liu Zhiyi: "…Can you get away?"

Cat: "No problem. Running away's my specialty — tell me the plan."

Hearing it agree so readily, Liu Zhiyi felt a pang of guilt.

The plan was simple: Liu Zhiyi would drink the cough syrup and, at speed, snatch the phone from the back of Big Sister Ma's head.

But to be safe she needed someone else to draw Big Sister Ma's attention; there was an oxygen cylinder in her hand, and one swing of it was more than Liu Zhiyi could take.

The cat was more gratified still.

"You've got a plan — excellent!"

Liu Zhiyi: "…Has that toy prop gotten to you a bit much?"

But the cat was thrilled, like a parent whose child had come home with top marks.

"Come on, come on, I'll back you up."

Liu Zhiyi had a plan, but she had no real confidence in it.

She had plenty of experience dodging ghosts, but this was her first time snatching something like this, and there was no knowing whether it might go wrong…

But seeing the cat kneading its paws on the railing —

Liu Zhiyi drank the cough syrup.

The instant it went down, she felt her body fill with strength.

She ran downstairs.

In fact her own speed hadn't picked up; it was the speed of everything around her that had slowed.

Liu Zhiyi opened the watch's flashlight, and heard a long, drawn-out "meow."

And with that meow, Big Sister Ma stopped pounding her head and turned around, bit by bit.

Liu Zhiyi ran a few steps to the left, skirting her front.

This slowed-surroundings state couldn't last long; Liu Zhiyi felt like a balloon puffed full but steadily leaking air.

So the instant she got close, she reached for the back of Big Sister Ma's head.

"…Ho."

She heard that dying breath again, with a bubble-bursting noise mixed in.

This was the first time Liu Zhiyi had looked at this old face from so close.

His face was all uneven, the bridge of the nose hammered in, the mouth…

The mouth was hidden behind the hair; Liu Zhiyi could only push the hair aside.

Then she saw, gripped in the mouth twisted crooked into a hole, a phone.

Liu Zhiyi grabbed for it, but the bite was tight, and all she could do was punch it.

The feel of hard object mixed into that slick, soft flesh made her scalp prickle.

Luckily he let go — but in the instant the mouth opened,

Liu Zhiyi heard a cry laced with an air-sound.

"…Qiao."

She dimly remembered Qiao was Big Sister Ma's pet name, and on the watch screen she saw two lines of tears run down the old face.

Liu Zhiyi startled, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Big Sister Ma whip her head around at the call.

So she retreated at once and ran downstairs.