Chapter 8

The hair on Liu Zhiyi's body stood on end.

Her first instinct was to turn off the location, but the function was as if locked — no matter what she pressed, it wouldn't switch off.

What do I do, what do I do?

Her mind went blank again.

"Have you seen my mama?"

Zhi-Zhi pressed her.

She glanced at the map on the watch and saw the dot inside the market had started moving too.

The strange thing was, the dot was clearly inside the market, and by eye not far from the two of them, yet Zhi-Zhi acted as if she couldn't see it…

Liu Zhiyi: "You can't see your mama?"

The words were barely out when the air-child at her side began to cry.

Zhi-Zhi: "So many people, I can't see mama…"

…So many people?

Liu Zhiyi lifted her head and looked around: the market was empty — what people?

But soon a realization came to her.

Just because she couldn't see ghosts didn't mean ghosts couldn't see each other…

"Zhi-Zhi."

Liu Zhiyi lowered her head and bent down.

The market had stalls for laying out produce, but they weren't tall; even crouched, her head would show above them.

Liu Zhiyi raised her hand and pointed toward the market's entrance.

"Can you see the front gate?"

Zhi-Zhi mumbled a few times.

"So many people — can't see it at all."

Liu Zhiyi let out a breath; that counted as good news, at least.

At least her own "mama" wouldn't spot her at a glance when she charged into the market.

So what next?

Liu Zhiyi thought of the cat's "follow your heart," and of its saying that thoughts and feelings both shaped how the dungeon unfolded.

Should she try actively thinking of something?

Liu Zhiyi wanted to try taking the initiative.

Find Zhi-Zhi's mama first — maybe later she could even use Zhi-Zhi's ghost-mama to hold off her own "mama."

Liu Zhiyi turned the thought over in her mind several times.

Then she reached out to the air beside her.

"Come on, hold my hand, I'll take you to find your mama."

Once she'd said it, Liu Zhiyi felt a little uneasy inside.

Gathering a ghost in during the earlier panic, there'd been no time to dwell on it; now, calm, deliberately offering her hand for a ghost to take felt entirely different.

She stared at her palm and saw it dent slightly inward, faintly pressed by several short, thick, oblong shapes — looking just like a child's fingers.

She still couldn't get used to it.

Liu Zhiyi tugged her sleeve down to cover the gooseflesh on her arm, and forced out a smile as she spoke to Zhi-Zhi.

"Can you do big sister a favor?"

She couldn't see the ghosts; she could only turn to Zhi-Zhi for help.

At least Zhi-Zhi could be talked to.

"Okay." Zhi-Zhi agreed at once. "Big sister, is it that you can't see people?"

Liu Zhiyi froze.

Her arm twitched of its own accord, an instinct to fling off the hand it held — but reason reined the fear back in.

Liu Zhiyi kept the smile up. "Big sister's eyes aren't very good."

She felt the grip in her hand tighten, as if it gave a tug.

Zhi-Zhi: "You just can't see people — I know it!"

The voice message burst out of the watch, a child's scream along with it, ringing her ears again.

Just now, Liu Zhiyi found herself with a little admiration for parents who raised children.

She fumbled to pat Zhi-Zhi's back, meaning at first to talk her way out of it.

But the scream was like needles, stabbing into her head without pause, until she couldn't focus at all, couldn't get her mind to work.

Listen to it long enough and it felt like a mass of caustic gas had been forced into her skull, about to blow.

Liu Zhiyi clapped a hand over one ear; she truly couldn't take it, and could only plead: "I can't see, I can't see."

Only then did the screaming subside.

God, it was killing her.

She felt a heat at her nose and wiped it with the back of her hand.

Liu Zhiyi looked at the blood smeared on her fingertip and let out a long sigh inside.

It seemed she couldn't keep letting this ghost-kid scream.

With a burst of childish yowling —

Zhi-Zhi: "Don't fob me off!"

Liu Zhiyi's head was still ringing, but hearing that, images surfaced in her mind beyond her control.

Her mother again — her mother from when she was alive.

Mom: "You were a clever little imp when you were small — I could trick you once but never twice, or you'd cry your head off and yell that I was fobbing you off…"

Another extension of her own past, then.

Liu Zhiyi wiped the blood from under her nose, then the corner of her eye.

Some things she hadn't been able to make sense of at first, but as the clues piled up, she was starting to notice a few.

—Zhi-Zhi?

She read the little name over in her mind.

—Zhizhi.

Was it a projection of her younger self?

Was another flashback gut-punch about to start?

Liu Zhiyi remembered some horror-game playthrough videos she'd watched: the main plot was always either uncovering the story of the haunted house's owner, or uncovering the story behind the game's protagonist…

The child was either a tool to push the clues along, or a projection of the protagonist's childhood memories.

She counted as the protagonist here, didn't she?

And what this kind of game had the most of was the flashback gut-punch.

Liu Zhiyi had never been afraid of looking back before. Her life was like any ordinary person's — work and home, the odd call to her family to say she was fine and catch up.

Nothing brilliant or startling about it, nothing tragic either.

Ordinary and dull.

Until now — her mother gone.

Liu Zhiyi had never thought of herself as someone who clung stubbornly to the past, but every time her mind reached this point, grief welled up and she couldn't pull free.

Can't think about it. Don't want to think about it anymore.

One hand pressed to her head, she led Zhi-Zhi by the hand toward the red dot.

Something must have happened with the red dot outside the market — maybe ghosts saw things differently than she did — because it circled the outside a few times without finding a way in.

There was still time.

Liu Zhiyi: "Zhi-Zhi, big sister can't see people — help point the way."

She'd been seen through anyway, so she wasn't going to keep hiding it.

"Hehe."

A child's laugh rang out all at once, echoing through the empty market.

Liu Zhiyi had noticed earlier that this ghost-child's speech was muffled and unclear; only through the voice messages the kids' watch sent could she make the words out.

She just hadn't dwelt on it before; now she put it together.

Just as she finished thinking it through, the watch buzzed again, a small window popping down from the top.

The way it popped up was a lot like an app notification, or an ad.

But the screen was so small that Liu Zhiyi only caught the words "System Notice."

So she pulled the pop-up down and opened it.

[System Notice: Translation Function]

Below the heading was a line of small-print explanation.

[Not all ghosts can communicate normally — for instance, a small child whose speech is unclear.]

Liu Zhiyi thought of the location function from before.

Strange as it was to think it —

if this was a game, it was rather like a novice tutorial, using real situations to walk the player, bit by bit, into getting familiar with the controls.

And for her, the controls were how to use this kids' watch.

Almost the moment the thought crossed her mind, a message popped up on the watch.

[Yiling City Mental Health Center]

Liu Zhiyi went still at the very start of it.

[Dear Ms. Liu Zhiyi, you have made an initial discovery of how the game operates. Please continue to control your heart rate.]

Liu Zhiyi: "…?"