Chapter 5

Liu Zhiyi stood frozen where she was.

She'd fallen back into that lost, helpless state, staring dumbly as the statue split apart, as the cracks spread from it onto the walls and the floor.

All at once she didn't know what to do; feeling, past a certain pitch, had made her lock up, and she could only listen to the footsteps behind her drawing nearer.

"Meow!!!"

A cat's cry burst by her ear, human words tangled in the mrow.

"Run!"

She was still dazed, but her locked-up body finally began to move.

Her head and body seemed to split into two: her body, at that one word, ran stumbling and scrambling forward, while inside her head all was still a blank white haze.

The only time she thought at all was when, having passed the statue, she faced the two bedroom doors on the wall.

Liu Zhiyi chose the right-hand one.

She still remembered a bedroom should be behind it — but when she pushed the door open:

The flickering tube light on the wall, the leather couch, the coat rack, and the cardboard boxes stacked into a little hill.

Behind the door was the living room.

Cat: "Keep running!"

Liu Zhiyi was like a robot that could only act on orders.

She ran through the door, crossed the living room, and opened the right-hand door again.

The living room again — like a Russian nesting doll.

Cat: "Don't stop!"

Liu Zhiyi ran on, and heard a sound following close behind.

—Pat.

—Pat.

It was the sound of bare feet on tile.

In summer, when she was alive, her mother had liked to pad barefoot around the living room too.

Don't think! Don't think!

Think and she'd cry, and once she started she couldn't stop.

She couldn't even tell whether it was nerves or fear.

After a long run, a needling pain spread out from her side, as if a pocket of air had been forced in.

It hurt so much Liu Zhiyi couldn't even draw breath.

The worst thing had happened.

She'd got a stitch.

Her own breathing slowly drowned out the footsteps; Liu Zhiyi found her vision darkening — probably a physical reaction.

She could barely keep running.

Why had it come to this? Why was it her this happened to?

Why… why was it her mother who had died?

Cat: "Stop!"

Liu Zhiyi reflexively halted the hand reaching for the bedroom door.

She felt a gust rush past her ear with a whoosh.

Then —

—Thunk.

A kitchen cleaver had lodged in the door handle, its hilt still faintly quivering.

That jolted Liu Zhiyi partway out of the anguish.

She didn't dare open the door now, and turned to run to the right.

The boxes stacked in the living room could serve as cover, and since she'd arranged them herself, she had a fair sense of where they were.

Liu Zhiyi skirted the box by the coat rack, holding her eyes back from the writing on the boxes so the sight wouldn't wound her again.

Once she ducked into the stack of boxes, the patting bare feet close behind her slowed noticeably.

Liu Zhiyi glanced from the corner of her eye, fixed the boss-"mom's" position, and pulled her gaze back fast.

Cat: "You don't dare look at her."

Hearing the cat, Liu Zhiyi started.

She didn't know why the cat kept vanishing and reappearing, but she knew now wasn't the time for answers.

"If I see her face right now, I'll cry."

Liu Zhiyi answered the cat in her mind.

Even she found it strange — when her mother had just died she'd been numb, barely feeling a thing, and now, two days on, why was she suddenly this grieved?

Could a person's feelings run on a delay too?

The cat sighed.

"Then you probably can't get away now."

As its voice fell, with a bang several of the boxes suddenly flew up.

They'd been struck away.

Liu Zhiyi looked up, and among the tumbling boxes saw the silk scarf spilling out of one, and the coat knocked flying off the rack.

And last, she saw the flying instant-noodle curls.

The moment her eyes touched them, she pulled her gaze back.

In that instant Liu Zhiyi suddenly didn't dare look.

She was afraid of never seeing her mother again, and afraid of seeing the dungeon's frightening "mom."

Without a thought she turned her head and ran ahead.

But ahead was the balcony.

She wasn't going to have to jump off it, was she?

Old complex or not, her place was still six floors up.

But there was no use agonizing over it — she couldn't get away.

Liu Zhiyi staggered, yanked back a step, and looked down at whatever had hold of her.

An ashen hand was clamped around her wrist.

Before she could react, a dark shape flashed past her eyes — furry, like some little fuzzy animal.

"Meow!"

The cat let out a piercing cry.

Liu Zhiyi turned her head: the black ball of fur was wrapped over "mom's" face, all four paws dragging bloody lines down it.

And the next second, blinded, "mom" lunged forward.

The lunge drove Liu Zhiyi stumbling backward into the balcony railing.

She tipped back, her gaze sweeping the ceiling, then the night sky.

Only then did Liu Zhiyi realize she must have gone over the balcony, and was falling.

Wind poured howling into her ears.

Everything now was as if someone had pressed slow-motion.

She saw the cat torn apart, its cotton stuffing bursting out and drifting everywhere, leaving only a toy cat's head.

Liu Zhiyi wanted to cry again.

And the culprit that had shredded the cat plushie seized her shoulder.

She saw beads of blood float up from it; she saw "mom's" face.

This monster had torn open her shoulder, hurting her past bearing, and had ripped the cat apart —

and still she missed her mother so much.

Liu Zhiyi: "…Mom."

—Thud.

She hit the ground.

---

Liu Zhiyi heard a cat crying.

Faint, as if through a cover laid over it, now far, now near.

She opened her eyes — though she couldn't tell whether she had.

Because everything before her was pitch black, and her ears were ringing.

A little while passed — or maybe a long time.

She saw a yellow light, then blurred shapes, like a lens focusing, the picture coming clear bit by bit.

Liu Zhiyi saw a streetlight, saw a wall.

Cat: "You're finally awake… Move your arms and legs first, see if there's any feeling in them."

She tried to lift her hands. The left moved. The right…

Liu Zhiyi: "…Sss."

The cat gave a little mrow-hum, as if in relief.

"Good that you can feel pain."

She was surprised herself, honestly.

To fall from the sixth floor and not die, still able to move — that counted as fairly lucky.

Liu Zhiyi: "…Where's 'Mom'?"

She hadn't been crippled by the fall, but she'd been out for a while — and now that monster "mom" was nowhere in sight.

"I led her off, I think. Lucky I've got a rag-doll body — head and body can part ways." The cat made a purring sound. "I clawed her eyes up. You mind?"

Liu Zhiyi started and went to turn her head, but the movement was too much; it pulled at her wounds and she hissed in a sharp breath.

She didn't dare move much — she hurt too badly, and not knowing which part of her had gone wrong, she was afraid moving would do more harm.

So little by little, carefully, she turned her head, following the cat's voice to find it.

And then she saw a cat plushie's head — just the head.

Seeing it, Liu Zhiyi began to cry. "…I'm sorry."

She simply couldn't rein her feelings in now, a grief past words.

Cat: "What are you apologizing for?"

Liu Zhiyi: "Am I really stupid?"

She had a dim sense that, since the game began, she'd made a lot of wrong calls.

Liu Zhiyi: "I'm slow at the tasks, dragging them out till there's no choice left, I can't reason out some of the clues, and then I dragged you into it too…"

The cat's head bounced on the ground, rolled to her side, and nuzzled against her cheek.

"It's all right. Anyone ordinary would be all thumbs meeting something like this — you flinch, you get scared."

Liu Zhiyi: "I'm sorry. I know I'm supposed to keep my emotions in check, not let my heart race, but I really… really can't. The moment I see Mom's face it hurts and I want to cry."

"That's the frightening part of this game." The cat's head heaved a long sigh. "It stirs up your feelings."

"And then it breaks you."

Liu Zhiyi was still crying; she could already feel how much damage that stir-up-your-feelings design could do.

Reason and feeling pulling apart — she couldn't control it at all.

Cat: "Don't overthink it. Can you still move? We need to get going, fast."

Liu Zhiyi fought the grief down. She knew this was no time to rest; even if "mom" had been drawn away, there was no telling how soon she'd be back.

She tried working her joints. She ached all over, but her hands and feet still moved, luckily, with none of that stab of pain at every motion — probably nothing broken.

Cat: "We have to pick up the pace. You need to work out the obsession in your heart, and then settle it."

Her obsession?

Liu Zhiyi knew her obsession had to do with her mother, but pinned down to a single point, she couldn't work out what it was she actually wanted.

Liu Zhiyi pushed herself up, both arms shaking like a fever, and with effort propped herself upright to sit.

"I'm sorry, I don't know…"

"That's normal." The cat's head rolled a circle by her palm. "Plenty of people go to their graves never figuring out what they lived for. Not knowing your obsession is normal enough."

Liu Zhiyi thought about it. The cat seemed very familiar with the game, like a veteran player.

"Do you have any advice?"

"Me?" The cat's head gave a meow. "No. Honestly, even if the authorities showed up, they wouldn't give you much advice either."

Liu Zhiyi drew a deep breath and, bearing the ache in her muscles, slowly stood up.

"Why not?"

Cat: "Because this dungeon came out of you. Your thoughts and your feelings both shape how it unfolds."

Having said that, it closed its mouth, unwilling to say more.

Liu Zhiyi paused.

Casting back over everything since she'd entered the dungeon — the scary little games "mom" played, the memories dredged up when the ghost blinded her —

all of it tied to her own past memories and feelings.

That brought her, bit by bit, to see why the cat, and the government notice on the watch, spoke so guardedly, unwilling to spell much out.

Liu Zhiyi: "If you all say too much, it influences my thoughts, and then changes the dungeon — is that it?"

The cat nodded. It seemed to weigh its words a long while, speaking far more slowly, thinking a few seconds before each sentence.

"There've been cases like that. They didn't end well. But you haven't cleared the dungeon yet, so I can't tell you — once you've cleared it I will, or you can go look on the official site."

That killed Liu Zhiyi's urge to ask the cat about its past.

Cat: "Just treat it as a game — you look for clues and piece the story together little by little. Don't overthink it."

It said that "don't overthink it" again.

Liu Zhiyi tried to empty her mind.

Which was hard, honestly — the grim, empty surroundings, the dull ache of her body, and the ordinary days she'd shared with her mother replaying in her head like a film…

She limped along, one hand on the wall, weeping quietly.

Crying at the least thing might read as weakness in the everyday world, but for letting feeling out it worked well.

Liu Zhiyi felt a little better for it — and crying blanked her mind too, so she stopped thinking so much.

The kids' watch on her wrist buzzed.

Through swollen, cried-out eyes Liu Zhiyi looked down, and noticed this as well: only when her mood was fairly steady did the watch hand out a new task.

[Novice Task 2: Darling daughter works so hard out of town and hardly ever gets home; Mommy wants to cook a big meal but can't settle on the dishes. Can darling daughter help Mommy?]