Chapter 4

The Cruel-Humored Mother?

The phrase set a lot of things flashing through Liu Zhiyi's mind.

But she didn't stand there dumbly waiting the way she had before.

She must have been getting used to the place; it lent her a little courage to get on with the task.

She switched the flashlight on, aimed it at the floor, and swept it carefully left and right.

Afraid of seeing something in the dark that would send her heart rate up again, Liu Zhiyi could only distract herself by thinking of her mother.

Which, when she thought about it, was a little funny.

The dungeon's boss was a monster in her mother's shape, and here she was thinking of her mother.

It was too dark all around, and the flashlight's beam reached only so far.

Liu Zhiyi felt her way along, hand wrapped in the blanket, swinging it side to side, thinking as she went.

Actually, "cruel-humored" was pretty accurate. When her mother was alive, she'd sometimes clap her hands to startle Liu Zhiyi while she was on her phone.

And when Liu Zhiyi looked up, cross, ready to argue, her mother would say, quietly:

"You finally come home for once — why are you on your phone the whole time instead of talking to me?"

At that, Liu Zhiyi felt a sudden heat behind her eyes.

The watch's buzzing eased as she remembered.

She knew it was the fear receding, but another feeling, hard to name, a sour ache, spread up from her throat.

She blinked hard, tipped her head back a little to force the ache down, and went on feeling around.

Too dark. The watch-light's beam seemed to shine into a black void, showing only white dust drifting in the shaft of light.

Something felt off to Liu Zhiyi. Her family's flat wasn't big — ninety-one square meters, and that counted the shared floor area.

The living room wasn't big either, and it was cluttered with odds and ends because of her mother's death.

There was no way she could crawl this long without hitting a wall, the flashlight turning up no furniture, no clutter.

Liu Zhiyi swallowed.

She got up slowly from the floor, put out a hand with great care, and turned a full circle where she stood.

Empty.

She remembered the couch and coffee table set close together — how you had to watch your shins — and the cardboard boxes you had to turn sideways for or you'd kick them.

But now all of it was gone. Bare and empty.

Was this even her living room anymore?

Liu Zhiyi's mind went to horror films she'd seen, and the guesses came crowding up.

Was a ghost walling her in?

As she thought it, the watch on her wrist buzzed.

Liu Zhiyi looked down.

[Once you've settled your emotions, please begin observing your surroundings and gathering relevant clues.]

A check mark appeared after the task, then it vanished.

Liu Zhiyi realized that "gathering clues" didn't have to mean finding some object — it could also mean reasoning a conclusion out of the surroundings.

And the task clearing itself was, sideways, a confirmation of her guess.

Liu Zhiyi turned and roughly gauged the distance between herself and the two-faced Buddha.

In the dark she had no real feel for distance; a few glances told her nothing, so she just used the statue as a marker and took several steps forward.

The statue's size didn't change, which meant the distance between them hadn't either.

This is bad, Liu Zhiyi thought.

She tried backing up a few steps; still the statue held its size, as if she were only turning in place.

Liu Zhiyi started to panic — panicking, and frustrated that no way out would come to her.

Her mind was blank; she didn't know how to deal with this.

She clenched her hands, turned back to glance at the statue, and looked down to tap the screen for any prompt.

The novice task still hadn't updated.

She rubbed anxiously at the screen a few times, casting back over what had set off each new task before — it seemed to be after her heart rate settled each time.

So Liu Zhiyi breathed deep, working to calm down, eyes fixed hard on the screen.

The task screen's background was black, and in the weak flashlight, at certain angles, its face was like a black mirror, dimly throwing back her own.

Whether it was a trick of her eyes or a ring of reflected flashlight on the glass, she saw a faint white shadow circling her eyes.

—Bzz.

The watch buzzed.

The novice task updated.

[Observe yourself; gather clues.]

Liu Zhiyi's hands were shaking; she had a bad feeling.

She thought for a few seconds, backed out of the task screen, and swiped to the camera icon.

She lifted a finger, hovered a few seconds, and pressed.

The camera opened, and a screen popped up.

It startled her — then, looking closer, she found it was only the camera's how-to guide.

The watch was fairly high-end: a camera front and back, and the face could stand upright to shoot, just like Conan flipping his watch up in Detective Conan.

By default it opened on the rear camera.

The rear camera was pitch black, catching nothing.

Liu Zhiyi looked at the icon in the lower right for switching cameras, hesitated a moment, and pressed it after all.

As the camera flipped to the front, a blurry face appeared on the screen.

Liu Zhiyi narrowed her eyes and drew her head back from the watch.

As the lens focused, the face came clear.

Liu Zhiyi saw her own face.

And a pair of ashen hands, fingers spread, resting ever so lightly over her eyes.

Liu Zhiyi clapped a hand over the screen.

Her hand shook so hard her whole arm shook with it.

Control your heart rate, control your heart rate.

She breathed in and out without stop, and all at once her eyes felt a little itchy — but she didn't dare reach up to touch them.

—Bzz.

Eyes shut, Liu Zhiyi swiped wildly across the face, then, covering the dial, inched her palm aside bit by bit to steal a look at whether it had left the camera.

Her random tapping had backed it out to the home screen; seeing that, Liu Zhiyi finally let out a breath.

It was burying her head in the sand, but at least out of sight, out of mind.

She opened the task screen.

The crying-child icon flashed, and below it two new lines had appeared.

[Congratulations — you've found the little surprise your mother left you.]

[From now on, your mother is going to play a little game with you.]

The instant Liu Zhiyi made out those words, the skin around her eyes itched, and at the same time —

she saw four dark shapes rise in front of her, like four fingers, closing together from above and below.

As if someone behind her had cupped her eyes shut.

Now Liu Zhiyi could see nothing at all.

—Clap.

A single handclap rang out in the dark.

Liu Zhiyi's body jerked.

She didn't dare move; with her sight gone, panic took her again.

She could feel herself sweating, her heart slamming so fast it might leap out of her chest the next second.

Liu Zhiyi knew, in her head, that she mustn't let this happen, but she simply couldn't stop it.

Even when the faint electric sting came again at her wrist, she still couldn't rein it in.

The stinging jolts seemed to come more and more often.

Liu Zhiyi slapped herself hard across the face — not the best way to cope, but it was all she could think of to press the fear down.

She slapped until her head rang and the pain slowly won out over the fear.

Only then did she steady a little.

Feeling the hot sting on her cheek, Liu Zhiyi thought, with grim humor, that this was worse than being half-asleep — at least not fully awake she wouldn't feel fear this sharp.

—Clap-clap.

She heard the clapping again.

Liu Zhiyi didn't know what it meant, but her mind, mercifully, seemed to be growing used to the scares; instead of going blank, it worked at the link between the clapping and her mother.

And then Liu Zhiyi remembered a conversation she'd once had with her.

It was on the subway with her mother; they'd happened to see another mother and daughter, the girl clinging to her mom like a little sticky rice cake, calling Mom, Mom.

And each time she called, her mother would answer with a gentle mm.

Seeing it, Liu Zhiyi hadn't been able to help herself, and turned to ask her mother something.

"Was I this clingy with you when I was little?"

Mom: "Of course. I answered you till my voice went hoarse — especially when you couldn't see me, then you'd just keep calling, and cry on top of it."

Liu Zhiyi: "And then?"

Mom: "I couldn't be bothered to keep answering, so I'd just clap, and you'd come toward the sound."

Her mother's clap had a sound all its own — she'd arch the backs of her hands so it came out loud.

Like this…

—Clap-clap.

The clapping again, behind her to the right.

Liu Zhiyi still felt the fear, but inside it her throat went sour.

She couldn't name what she felt now — only that she was frightened and grieved at once.

She'd remembered where the clapping came from.

Liu Zhiyi kept thinking; stop working her head and the fear would fill it again.

She still remembered the black cat saying the dungeon came from her obsession, and the watch saying her mother would play scary little games with her.

On some level, even a game had to follow rules.

And in life her mother's clapping had been to help Liu Zhiyi find her — a small child always got scared when she couldn't see her mom.

Did that mean she was supposed to walk toward the clapping?

But the dungeon's "mom" frightened her badly.

She truly couldn't understand why the "mom" born of her own obsession would be so terrifying.

Liu Zhiyi's eyes went hot; all at once she wanted to cry.

She wanted to reach up and wipe them, but thinking of the thing over her eyes, she didn't dare.

Carefully she stepped back once toward the clapping, to test her guess.

Her raised leg hadn't gone far before her shin bumped something.

Liu Zhiyi turned her head to look on reflex, but there was only pitch black.

So she crouched — one knee down, the other leg braced forward so she could bolt if she had to — and twisted slowly at the waist to feel for it.

She found a cardboard box.

Once it turned out to be nothing strange, her taut nerves eased a little.

Their living room was stacked with boxes; after her mother died, she'd packed the belongings away into them.

Liu Zhiyi felt up along the box, searching for its opening.

Not being able to see did a great deal to her sense of touch — it magnified whatever her hands met, and her mind, beyond controlling, ran with it.

Liu Zhiyi sped her hands up; she needed to fix where she was.

The quiet had settled back at some point, and Liu Zhiyi kept blinking.

She still wasn't used to being blind, and blinked on reflex, willing her sight to return.

—Skrrk.

The sound of the box opening made her heart stutter a few extra beats.

Liu Zhiyi reached inside.

She worked to keep her mind empty, not imagining, until her hand met something soft and silken.

It was her mother's silk scarf.

When her mother was alive she couldn't take a draft on her neck, so she'd tie a scarf there — pretty and warm — and sometimes, when a mall had the AC up high, she'd spread the scarf out and drape it over Liu Zhiyi.

Mom: "Put more on — look, you're hunching your shoulders."

Her eyes went hot again, the sour ache surging back.

All at once Liu Zhiyi dreaded the quiet; it made her remember so many, many things.

She found scenes of life with her mother surfacing beyond her control, and the space around her — a moment ago so wide she couldn't find its edges — suddenly closed in narrow.

She was back in that living room stacked with boxes.

—Clap-clap.

The clapping was ahead of her.

Liu Zhiyi took a step forward.

She found a coat rack.

She'd bought it back when she lived in the work dorm; one caster had broken and she'd meant to toss it, but her mother had taken it back and stood it in a corner to hang coats on.

Mom: "It's perfectly good — what a waste to throw it out."

Liu Zhiyi tipped her head up. She didn't know why so much was welling up in her — it hadn't been like this even right after her mother died, so why now, the moment she touched these things, did all of it come pouring out.

She hadn't been this sad before, hadn't wanted to cry like this.

—Clap-clap.

The clapping was on her left.

Liu Zhiyi put out her hand.

She found a picture frame.

It was her mother's memorial portrait.

In that moment, Liu Zhiyi finally broke into tears.

All at once she missed her mother so much.

The dark fingers shadowing her eyes opened, and an orange-yellow light fell across the black-and-white portrait.

Just as she remembered — the instant-noodle perm, the soft eyes, smiling at her.

—Crack.

A split burst open across the face of the statue behind the portrait.

Along with a faint fzzt of the watch's shock, more and more cracks ran over the statue.

Liu Zhiyi, in tears, reached out and touched the portrait, crying until she couldn't breathe, and the edge of her sight caught the watch face.

—Heart rate 201.

[Please note: fear isn't the only thing that raises your heart rate!]

The crack-covered Buddha head finally gave under the strain and dropped off.

Liu Zhiyi heard "Mom's" voice.

"Zhizhi, Mommy's coming to catch you~"