Chapter 62
Chapter 62
Now that Xu Chao had decided to cooperate, he took the initiative and invited Chen Xue. “Want to look around outside with me and gather some intel?”
Chen Xue hesitated. Xu Chao had offended Wang Hao and his two companions. If Wang Hao saw the two of them together, would he take his anger out on her too? But Wang Hao’s group clearly thought little of her, while Xu Chao was also a D-rank player.
“Okay.”
Although she had weighed her options, it had taken only an instant. From Xu Chao’s perspective, she had agreed immediately. It had never even occurred to him that Chen Xue might turn him down.
Xu Chao reminded her, “Bring your goat.”
Chen Xue would have brought it even without the reminder, but she still replied, “Thanks, Brother Xu.”
Xu Chao rose and looked at Yu Lingling and Tongyu, who were huddled in a corner. “If you keep hiding in here, we won’t share any intel with you. We’re not here to carry deadweight.”
His words were meant not only for Yu Lingling and Tongyu, but also for Sun Jian and Li Na.
The two of them were right by the tent entrance, so they naturally heard him.
However, they were in a difficult position. The others’ animals were small enough to conceal, but there was no hiding their black bear and elephant. The slightest movement would create enough commotion for everyone nearby to notice.
Sun Jian couldn’t help glancing at Yu Lingling’s and Tongyu’s animals, but when he saw how half-dead they looked, he quickly looked away.
Yu Lingling seemed cowed by Xu Chao’s warning. After wavering several times, she lowered her voice and said, “Little Fish, let’s go take a look outside too.”
Tongyu nodded. He wrapped the dog in a piece of clothing and stood up, while Yu Lingling similarly bundled up the kitten. Together, they left the tent.
Sun Jian and Li Na exchanged a glance, then looked at their own animals. Their resentment grew, and other ideas gradually began to take root.
The Circus wasn’t particularly large, and it didn’t have many staff members. When the staff saw Yu Lingling and Tongyu, greed flashed in their eyes, but none of them tried to stop the pair.
Once they reached a deserted spot, their shadows shifted beneath the sunlight. A little boy in overalls emerged from Tongyu’s shadow.
Yu Lingling said softly, “Suisui, stand guard for me.”
Suisui snorted, his face full of reluctance, but he obediently left with the Ghost Infant concealed in the shadows.
Yu Lingling took what she needed from the Princess Dollhouse and summoned the only adult female ghost. “Ah Qi, I’ll leave that puppy to you.”
Ah Qi knelt on the ground. Unable to speak, she couldn’t offer Tongyu any words of comfort, so she simply gave his arm a firm pat before carefully helping him dress the wounds covering the badly burned dog.
Tongyu made the most of their limited time. “When the countdown to the dungeon’s start reached zero, I saw countless pairs of eyes staring at us.”
That was the real reason Tongyu had been so frightened.
Even the memory of those eyes put a trace of fear into his voice. “They weren’t human eyes, and they weren’t animal eyes either.”
Yu Lingling had no way to see them. “Got it. What game prompt did you receive? Did it tell you the conditions for clearing the dungeon?”
“No,” Tongyu replied. “The prompt was: ‘Be a person who brings happiness.’ The dungeon is called Happy Circus.”
Yu Lingling was tending to the kitten’s wounds. She also took out some water and meat, mashed the meat into a paste, and fed it directly to the kitten, but its condition showed no improvement.
“The dungeon’s name and the game prompt make it easy to assume we’re supposed to bring happiness to the audience,” she said. “But neither of them actually specifies who we’re supposed to make happy.”
The idea of happiness had been emphasized twice, so players would instinctively assume happiness was the key. This was Happy Circus, after all.
Yu Lingling frowned. “If the goal were simply to bring happiness to the audience, there’d be no need to phrase the prompt that way. I think the real key is the word ‘person.’ Strip away everything about happiness, and the message becomes: be a person.”
After hearing her out, Tongyu asked, “Why do all these animals have so many injuries? Could it be connected?”
“I think it is.” Yu Lingling relied on more than brute force to clear instances; she used her head too. “Protect your animal. I need to confirm something.”
Tongyu looked puzzled.
Yu Lingling didn’t keep him in suspense. They might not get another chance to speak in private. “If the performers in the Circus win the audience’s favor tonight by hurting their animals or making them perform dangerous stunts, remember this: even if it means being punished, don’t copy them.”
Tongyu quickly agreed. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt the weak, either.
Yu Lingling fell silent for a moment. “If that isn’t what happens, then something about my theory is wrong. That local said the strongest would be the ones allowed to stay in the end… I have a feeling staying might not be a good thing.”
Tongyu had always relied on his intuition. “I don’t think we should stay.”
The burns covering the dog’s body had been thoroughly cleaned and treated with medicine. After being fed meat paste and water, it looked much better. The kitten in Yu Lingling’s arms, however, kept trying its hardest to eat, yet it was growing weaker by the minute.
Although Tongyu couldn’t see, he could sense the kitten’s fading vitality. “Do you want me to take its injuries-”
“No.”
Yu Lingling knew what he meant and cut him off. She gazed at the kitten struggling to eat, fighting desperately to survive. Her brother had left her very few things, and this kitten was one of them. No one had told her what to do, yet she instinctively knew what it needed.
Under Ah Qi’s startled gaze, Yu Lingling took a syringe out of the Princess Dollhouse and drew blood directly from the inside of her left elbow.
She used a large-bore needle, drawing ten milliliters at a time. She mixed the first syringe of blood evenly into the meat paste, then fed it to the kitten.
This time, the kitten practically crawled into the bowl. Once it finished eating, its wounds began healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Yu Lingling drew another four syringes and fed the kitten a total of fifty milliliters before stopping.
A standard blood donation was usually two hundred or four hundred milliliters. Yu Lingling had only drawn fifty, yet her face was already deathly pale and her entire body was drenched in cold sweat. Her hands were trembling slightly as she opened a bottle of milk.
Tongyu helped press down on the needle puncture. “Use my blood next time.”
Yu Lingling looked at the kitten’s now-round belly and its eyes, which could finally open a sliver. She had a feeling Tongyu’s blood wouldn’t work. “We’ll try after we get out.”
Tongyu hesitated before asking, “Can we take them with us?”
Yu Lingling was determined to take the kitten out. “If your dog is willing, I’ll find a way.”
Tongyu gently stroked the dog’s head. Now that it had eaten and drunk its fill and its treated wounds no longer hurt, it had fallen asleep. “I’ll ask.”
Only after she and Tongyu had eaten something as well did Yu Lingling call Suisui back.
As she rose to her feet, she noticed the stunning woman in the distance staring in their direction. Suisui told her that the woman had only just arrived. She hadn’t heard their conversation or seen Ah Qi.
Yu Lingling calmly met the woman’s gaze.
The woman looked at the kitten bundled in Yu Lingling’s clothes, then finally at Yu Lingling’s face. Without saying anything, she turned and walked away.
As if nothing had happened, Yu Lingling took Tongyu around to assess the layout of the Circus while rapidly absorbing the information relayed by the Ghost Infant entities.
Despite several days of online classes, the Ghost Infant entities hadn’t improved at all. The information they sent was still a complete jumble.
Fortunately, Yu Lingling had learned from her previous experience and didn’t freeze up this time. She constructed a floor plan of the Circus in her mind.
According to the information brought back by the Ghost Infant entities, there were two tents in the Circus, one red and one black. They had sensed danger from both and hadn’t dared approach them.