Chapter 7

Liu Zhiyi didn't dare move a muscle.

She didn't know what was holding her — a small little thing, yet able to lace its fingers through hers.

And it was neither cold nor warm; to the touch it felt like flesh, and yet not like flesh…

A human hand? But was a human hand this small?

Her mind was starting up again.

Don't think, don't think — just walk on, and see if she could shake the hand loose as she went, fling the thing off as though by accident.

Liu Zhiyi set herself a small goal to steady her nerves, and to keep from darting around like a headless fly.

With that in mind she took two steps forward, then lifted her hand.

"—Waaah!!!"

An ear-splitting child's wail burst out.

Liu Zhiyi's ears just rang.

Was it a child she'd been holding hands with?

Before she could react, she felt a wind blow up.

Liu Zhiyi straightened and slowly turned her head to look ahead.

The edge of her sight caught, without meaning to, on a wisp of the bangs by her face; they were drifting back, and far.

The wind seemed to be picking up.

Then the bangs drifted forward again, from behind.

There was wind at her back too.

The voices vanished all at once; nothing was left in the whole market but the child's wailing.

The child cried a few more times, then, perhaps having let it out, whimpered a little and gradually went quiet.

And so there was not a sound left in the market.

No — there was still another sound.

She heard breathing.

—Huff.

—Huff.

Not only hers.

Ahead of her, behind her, on every side.

A thought sprang up in Liu Zhiyi's head.

Was she surrounded?

Don't think, don't think.

Liu Zhiyi lowered her head and stared at the tips of her feet.

She saw the shadow stretching out from under them reach all the way to the butcher's.

Where the butcher's purple light met the market's white ceiling lights, there was a blurred mass of shadow — rounded shapes of different heights crushed together — looking exactly like a crowd packed close.

And those shadows pressed right up against hers, hemming her own in among them.

Liu Zhiyi snatched her eyes back, her scalp prickling again.

What to do in a case like this? Just walk straight through?

—Bzz.

The watch's buzz was like the music of heaven; Liu Zhiyi quickly raised her arm.

Thank goodness the ghost child was holding her other hand.

But — hadn't the ghost child bumped her right hand a moment ago?

Liu Zhiyi stared at the kids' watch on her right wrist.

Bumped the right hand, yet it was her left hand being held.

A little strange.

But something stranger had turned up.

Liu Zhiyi saw the little envelope icon on the watch — the messaging app — showing one unread message.

She opened it, and a friend request popped up on the screen.

[Zhi-Zhi wants to add you as a friend.]

The request had come five minutes ago.

Liu Zhiyi hesitated a few seconds. To be honest, hemmed in now by a crowd of unseen "people," compared with charging at those "people," this Zhi-Zhi in the watch was of unknown origin too — but of two harms she'd take the lighter; otherwise she really didn't know what else she could do next.

If only I were a little sharper, or smarter.

Reading horror novels before, she'd never thought much of it when the heroes gathered clues and sized up their situation — it had seemed like they could glance at a thing and know at once where the crux lay.

Now that something like it was happening to her, never mind clues — most of the time she didn't even know what she was supposed to do, what wouldn't turn out to be a mistake…

She could only take it one step at a time.

She accepted the friend request.

Liu Zhiyi half-worried a ghost picture would jump out once she did.

But Zhi-Zhi's avatar turned out to be a little goldfish — normal enough.

While she waited, Liu Zhiyi watched her surroundings.

Her eyes flicked toward the butcher's, and once she'd made sure the shadows beside her hadn't gone, she resigned herself and looked back at the watch screen.

Cat: "Have you made your choice already?"

The cat's head speaking up so suddenly startled her.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mm. Are you feeling okay?"

She still remembered the cat saying, at the start, that it couldn't hold out long — and now it had been torn down to just a head.

Cat: "Seeing you through the novice stage won't be a problem."

As it spoke, the static came again.

"You'd better stop talking — save your strength and just keep me company."

Alone in a horror game like this, having something living alongside her made all the difference, and the cat knew a great deal besides; Liu Zhiyi wanted it to last a while longer.

Cat: "I've got to give you a little encouragement when it's called for — good spirits help you finish the tasks."

And having said that, it didn't forget to keep up the praise.

"You can even think things through and make a choice now — that's really something. Getting used to the feel of the game, aren't you? Still scared?"

This was how a person's threshold crept up, bit by bit.

She was still scared now, but not as scared.

Liu Zhiyi: "You sound like you're handling a kindergartner."

But it did make her feel a good deal better.

Liu Zhiyi: "Not as scared as at the start… thank you."

The static faded away, and the cat went quiet again.

At the same time her watch buzzed, and Liu Zhiyi looked down.

The little-goldfish avatar had sent a voice message.

It wasn't long, just two seconds.

Liu Zhiyi hesitated a moment, glanced at the shadows, and played it.

"Mama!"

A cry with tears in it came out of the watch.

Liu Zhiyi blanked — what mama? she thought.

Then the voice messages popped up one after another.

"Mama!"

"Mama!"

"Mama!"

The breathing around her grew louder, and she saw the shadows drawing nearer.

Liu Zhiyi's mind went blank.

What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?

Had she made the wrong choice?

Liu Zhiyi felt the regret rise, and just then a new voice message popped up.

"Mama, where are you?"

Hearing it, she crouched on reflex and, going by feel, made a loose gathering-in motion toward her left.

In her memory this was how her mother used to soothe her little niece — crouch, bend, gather the child in.

Copying her mother's old motion, Liu Zhiyi swung her arm up and down, and as it came down she gathered in something solid.

The instant she touched it, the watch spat out new voice messages like mad.

"Mama!"

"Mama!"

"I want my mama!"

The crying was shrill as needles in her skull, throbbing her sight black in waves.

And with it Liu Zhiyi's head was ready to burst; she couldn't spare even a thought for fear, wanting only for the crying to stop.

"Don't cry, don't cry." Liu Zhiyi soothed under her breath.

The crying went on.

Crying on one side, the watch spitting crying voice messages without pause on the other.

It was a double dose of the sound boring straight through her ears.

Liu Zhiyi soothed and soothed, listening to the watch's messages wail on and on that mama was gone, and out of the corner of her eye she felt the light around her dim a few degrees, the wind picking up a good deal too; dimly she sensed the shadows had drawn closer.

Liu Zhiyi thought for a few seconds.

"I'll help you find your mama."

She didn't know whether accepting the friend request had been right, but for now she could only keep going.

And once she said she'd help find mama, the crying stopped.

The vanished market voices, as if someone had hit play again, came surging back in from every side like a tide.

Looking at the market returned to its clamor, Liu Zhiyi let out a breath.

The watch gave off a faint static; Liu Zhiyi looked down at it.

The novice task had updated — she saw the task icon flashing.

So taking the initiative could set off a new task too?

Liu Zhiyi opened the task screen.

The newly updated task had a little-goldfish icon at its head.

[Little Zhi-Zhi can't find their mommy. Parents get very anxious when they can't find their child — mind the time.]

And it was a timed task, no less!

Liu Zhiyi asked at once, "Zhi-Zhi, do you know where your mama lives?"

The transparent child gathered in her left arm let out a whimpering cry, with some unclear mumbling under it.

Liu Zhiyi turned her ear and listened hard for a while, and simply couldn't make out what they were saying.

She only felt the watch buzz again, a new voice message in.

Zhi-Zhi: "The watch has location."

It seemed she'd have to go through the watch to understand what they were saying.

Liu Zhiyi spoke low. She'd never used a kids' watch before, but she'd heard of the feature — parents could check the location on the watch to know where their child was.

She just hadn't expected that even inside a horror game, it would still keep a bit of logic.

Liu Zhiyi: "Then turn the location on, and let your mama come find you?"

The air in her arms gave a snuffling sob.

Zhi-Zhi: "No response…"

Then how did they send the friend request to my watch just now, Liu Zhiyi thought, and, keeping her patience, talked with them a while longer.

She learned they'd seen her using the same model of kids' watch and had run over wanting to add her as a friend — and lost their mama in the doing.

As for why they were so set on adding her:

because at school there were too few classmates with the same watch model, so they couldn't add any friends at all.

That knock to Liu Zhiyi's left hand earlier had been little Zhi-Zhi using the tap-to-add-friend function — just a touch too hard by accident.

Liu Zhiyi: "…"

Liu Zhiyi really couldn't follow the way these little kids' minds worked, but time truly was short.

Liu Zhiyi: "So what do we do now? Do you know how to reach your mama?"

Zhi-Zhi couldn't get out a complete phone number for the life of them.

Liu Zhiyi was so anxious she was about to break out in a sweat.

Zhi-Zhi: "I can use your watch!"

Liu Zhiyi let out an "Ah" — but of course she couldn't let them use her starting item.

Her arms went empty, though; she only felt a fast-moving pocket of air circle around her, and she grabbed at the air a few times on instinct, catching nothing, her other hand clapped over the watch.

Then she heard a tiny click.

Something had been slotted into the watch on her wrist.

Liu Zhiyi swore under her breath, angry. "What are you doing?"

Zhi-Zhi: "Putting in the SIM card — your watch didn't even have one."

That blanked her; past the anger, it struck her as strange too — her starting item could take a SIM card?

Zhi-Zhi: "The location's on now~ Mama will be able to find me any second."

She looked down and saw a new screen on the watch.

The location screen.

And on it, a line of instructions was shown.

[With location on, you can see your parents' position — and, just the same, they can see yours.]

Below the instructions was a line of small print, telling her to tap the screen to switch views.

Liu Zhiyi tapped it, and the screen changed to a map.

On the little map were two red dots — one inside the market, one outside it and closing fast.

Something suddenly occurred to Liu Zhiyi.

Besides this Zhi-Zhi having a mama…

she seemed to have a "mama" too.