Chapter 55

They were all connected to the ribbon-cords drifting out of her — and besides the cord from her body, another cord, brighter in color and fleshy like the first, joined these people too.

On this flesh-and-blood cord Liu Zhiyi caught a familiar smell.

She couldn't describe it, but it was the smell of her mother.

She walked out of the brick house and followed the thickest cord onward.

The suona horn suddenly climbed a note, and the people standing outside the door reached out their hands, like water plants swaying in a current, twining toward her.

Yu Xiao: "Leaving now, leaving now."

Yindi: "Hurry home, don't stay here any longer."

Liu Zhiyi raised the scissors and swept aside these clinging "water plants."

That thick cord was like the plants' stalk.

She crossed the courtyard quickly; the band inside was still playing, "Only Mama Is Best in All the World" sung no telling how many times over.

And Liu Zhiyi saw the cord stretch all the way into the main room behind the band.

She walked in.

"Grandma": "You're just like that stubborn mother of yours — told not to ask, and still you have to dig to the root of it."

Following the direction of the voice, Liu Zhiyi looked ahead.

A mosquito net hung in the very center of the room.

The net's curtain was drawn up halfway, revealing a small stretch of a coffin's face.

A strange pairing — a mosquito net over a coffin.

Liu Zhiyi drew near; though the net was half-transparent, it blocked the scene inside completely, and only once she'd stepped close could she see, through the drawn-up part, what was within.

"Grandma" was lying over the coffin.

Unlike the young Yindi outside, this "Grandma" had gray hair and wore the clothes she'd had on before entering the dungeon.

"Grandma" rose from the coffin; that thick cord was joined to her belly, and out of the belly again, clinging fast to the coffin.

"I told you over and over to hurry off — why won't you listen?"

Liu Zhiyi noticed the cord drifting from her own body clung tight to the coffin too.

The scene was a little funny, even — she and "Grandma."

One old, one young, both grown cords in mutation, joined to this one coffin.

Liu Zhiyi looked at the coffin. "Is it Mama?"

"Grandma": "And what if it is? Do you want to come keep her company?"

Liu Zhiyi looked at "Grandma."

"Are you the Auntie Yuedi they talk about?"

"Grandma" gave an "mm," but her face was quite impatient.

"Vexing. Your grandmother split apart the moment she entered the dungeon, and still you had to look back and follow her in to make trouble."

After she fell ill, her grandmother's temperament would sometimes change utterly, as if she'd become another person — like a split mind.

And now, entering the dungeon, she really had split.

Liu Zhiyi: "Yindi is the longing for home, Yu Xiao is regret, Teacher Yang is not wanting to burden me… and you? Which part of Grandma are you, split off?"

"Grandma" on the coffin laughed.

"The malicious side, of course. You didn't think your grandmother had not the least resentment toward you all, did you?"

"Grandma": "When I was young, I raised your mother by hand through every mess, and finally got her into the city where life was a bit better — and your mother talks of free love, finds a man whose family's in poor shape, has you, and dies young besides…"

"Grandma": "Here I am, near fifty, and I still have to help my daughter raise a child. Finally I wait for you to grow up, thinking I'll enjoy a little ease."

As she spoke she clapped her two hands together.

"And then you have to run off to work away from home, so far, and when your mother and I fell ill there wasn't a single soul to lend a hand…"

"I can't sit, I can't stand, I can't even control my own water." "Grandma" slapped the coffin's face. "I told you I didn't want to live, told you to leave me be — why wouldn't you listen, why did you have to keep managing me?"

"And now look how it's turned out."

"Grandma" forced out a smile, but the tears ran down from her eyes.

"Your mother wore herself sick, didn't she, and now she's dead too…"

"Grandma": "You blame me, everyone blames me — at my age I've gone and killed my own child, white hair sending off black…"

"Right now… I just want to find somewhere comfortable to die, and even that you have to come following after."

"Grandma" glared at her fiercely.

"You still want to follow me, still want to manage me…"

"I hate you. I hate you all."

Even knowing that, often enough, love and resentment live side by side —

that she herself had felt resentment once —

hearing her grandmother say this, Liu Zhiyi still felt heartache and anger.

"I didn't mean to manage you — but did you ever think of me? You die and it's all over for you, and what do I do?"

"Grandma" gave a cold, tearful laugh.

"Do you really need me?"

The question left Liu Zhiyi at a loss.

"Of course I need you. Mama's already gone, we…"

"You don't need me." "Grandma" cut her off. "With my body, I can't even walk in a dungeon, I can only sit in a wheelchair — don't tell me that in a new dungeon you'll push a wheelchair and run, the way you did at Ankang Hospital?"

Liu Zhiyi: "Why not? Props are tied to a person's thoughts… maybe by then I'll even get a wheelchair prop."

"Grandma" didn't answer, her face without much expression, the corners of her mouth drooping, and looked at her a few times.

Seeing "Grandma" wear this expression, Liu Zhiyi pulled her neck in on reflex.

"Grandma" was angry.

"Grandma" knit her brows. "I'm talking to you about something serious. Don't make jokes."

Liu Zhiyi was a little surprised to hear "Grandma" say this.

She'd been thinking this malice split off from her grandmother spoke rather harshly, and had felt a bit uneasy.

But hearing "Grandma" scold her this way, she set her heart at ease again.

Still a part of Grandma after all — even the bad side.

Liu Zhiyi: "I'm not joking."

"Grandma" let out a long breath.

"Sometimes I really don't know what to do with you two."

Liu Zhiyi: "I know what you mean, but family — family is meant to be a trouble to each other. Leave with me, all right?"

"You've mutated. Can you even leave?"

"Grandma" suddenly shouted, and as she spoke she began to cry.

"I told you not to look back — not to look back!"

Liu Zhiyi touched her own navel; her cord was still faint, flickering in and out of sight.

But Liu Zhiyi just had a feeling — she couldn't say why, but she had this presentiment.

She felt she could cut this cord, and could leave this dungeon too.

Maybe it was from knowing herself, or maybe it was that she had little attachment to this village, her grandmother's home.

Liu Zhiyi: "I can leave."

She hooked the cord with the scissors and bore down.

It was like cutting a sheet of paper.

—Snip.

A small nick was cut in the cord.

And as the nick opened, Liu Zhiyi saw the scenery around her drop a stretch — she'd grown taller.

Liu Zhiyi went still.

She looked down at her own palm.

Still a child's hand, but a size bigger.

Then she looked at the watch.

An downward arrow had appeared after the row in the task bar showing her mutation status.

The degree of mutation was going backward.

Liu Zhiyi ran at once to "Grandma."

"See, I can change back."

"Grandma" paused first, tear-tracks on her face, her expression still fixed on anger — but after a glance at Liu Zhiyi, she suddenly began to smile.

"Good… good, good, good."

Liu Zhiyi: "I can get out, and so can you. Getting out of a dungeon is really simple — it's a matter of a single thought. Once you've come to terms, you can leave…"

Liu Zhiyi wanted to go on and analyze "Grandma's" state of mind for her.

But she felt a coolness at her cheek — "Grandma" had laid a palm to her face, and said, with something like relief.

"You can let go."

Liu Zhiyi: "What?"

"Grandma" pointed a finger at the dark cord on her own belly.

"In this dungeon, the cord stands for a person's obsession."

"Grandma": "The darker the color, the less able to let go."

Liu Zhiyi looked at her own nearly transparent cord.

"…How can that be?"

One pale cord and one dark crossed, clinging and twining round the coffin.

"Grandma": "When I was young, what wind and waves hadn't I seen? Pregnant before marriage, the village's idle gossip could have drowned a person; then coming from the country into the city, unable to understand what city folk said, what scorn hadn't I heard…"

As she spoke, "Grandma" smiled again.

"None of that mattered to me. When my mom and dad died, I cried till the sky went dark, and then I got through it… because I had to raise your mother, and I had a livelihood to fight for. My life couldn't stop there…"

"When I was young I always thought — can't stop, have to keep walking forward. My life's only just begun, how could I stop."

"Grandma" cupped Liu Zhiyi's face.

"That's how you think now too, isn't it?"

Liu Zhiyi stood dumbstruck, but thinking it over, she felt "Grandma" wasn't wrong.

"Are you really content, then? To have come through all that wind and wave, and now be broken here in this dungeon?"

"Grandma": "But people get tired, Zhizhi."

Liu Zhiyi: "It's normal to be tired, but that doesn't mean giving up on yourself."

Liu Zhiyi slowed her words and urged her.

"If you want to rest, rest once we're out of the dungeon. We went through the Ankang Hospital dungeon — you should know what a multiplayer dungeon turns into if it isn't held in check and goes on evolving."

"Grandma" shook her head. "I have it in check."

"Check on what?" Liu Zhiyi asked.

"Grandma" said nothing, and reached a hand out to her.

Liu Zhiyi hesitated a second, but still walked over.

Seeing her do this, "Grandma" grew a little angry again.

"How can you just come when I wave you over, without the least caution?"

Liu Zhiyi was blank. "You're a part of my grandmother. Grandma wouldn't harm me."

"Grandma" paused, then gave a small smile.

"You two — mother and daughter — this is just how you handle me."

Liu Zhiyi walked up to "Grandma" and took her hand.

"So don't you dare cast me off."

"Grandma" smiled and let the mosquito net down.

The instant the net fell, the sound of the suona and gongs vanished.

Not only that — she found the net had turned transparent, and she could see out from inside.

Liu Zhiyi: "A prop?"

"Grandma": "Mm. I remember when you were little you told me, mosquito nets are amazing — once they're up, not even a mosquito can get in."

Yes; as a child she'd loved a small, closed-off space — the quilt wrapped tight, the mosquito net small too.

Only that way did she feel safe.

Liu Zhiyi opened the watch.

[Mosquito Net: mosquitoes and outside dangers can never get in again~]

[This is a mosquito net that can wall off reality from the dungeon.]

All at once Liu Zhiyi understood her grandmother's plan.

"You can't—"

"Grandma" cut her off outright.

"A dungeon really is a marvelous thing — truly want something, and the dungeon will produce it… I had it planned from the start: I'd stay here, and then wall the dungeon off from reality, so no one outside would come in and it wouldn't turn multiplayer…"

Liu Zhiyi: "You can't do this to me!"

"Listen to me, Zhizhi!"

"Grandma's" voice rose, almost a shout.

"The truth is I didn't want to see you — you, like your mother, would shake my resolve…"

Liu Zhiyi: "Then just—"