Chapter 83
Chapter 83
The entire tent began to quiver, shaking faster and faster. At the same time, the sense of danger Yu Lingling had felt ever since stepping inside abruptly vanished.
Yu Lingling had brought a total of four Anomaly Dolls out of the Auspicious Village instance. However, it was only after she became a Full-fledged Player that Princess Dollhouse truly became a part of her, rather than remaining a mere item as it had been before.
For example, when entering this instance, Yu Lingling could store Princess Dollhouse directly inside her body whenever she wished.
Yu Lingling had specifically searched the forums for similar cases but found nothing. Special items obtained by players inside instances normally had to be stored in the System Inventory.
Becoming a Full-fledged Player unlocked the Shop and System Inventory, though only at their most basic levels. Expanding the capacity of the System Inventory cost Game Coins. Once it reached a certain size, any further expansion required specific items and materials as well.
Some special items could be bound to their owners. If the player died, their bound special items would disappear with them. Such items could not be seized and could only be transferred.
Yu Lingling thought that claim – that they couldn’t be seized, only transferred – was nothing more than a fig leaf. Wasn’t a forced transfer just another form of seizure?
Still, after reading about it and filing the information away, she stopped paying it much mind. What concerned her more was that she hadn’t found a single case similar to Princess Dollhouse.
Yu Lingling wasn’t conceited enough to believe hers was one of a kind. Similar items might exist, but the people who obtained them would never tell anyone else.
Living inside Princess Dollhouse were the Four Dolls. The youngest and weakest was Mianmian, a little girl who loved puffy dresses. Ah Qi, the female ghost who had cut open her own stomach, usually stayed by her side.
The little boy who liked wearing suits was called Suisui. He had come from a wealthy family. After being kidnapped, he managed to escape on his own, only to be caught again by the human traffickers in Auspicious Village. He liked hiding in shadows, and his own shadow was formed from Ghost Infant and Ghost Child spirits who had also died tragically in Auspicious Village.
The other players assumed Yu Lingling controlled the Ghost Infant spirits under her command, but Suisui was actually the one controlling them. Among the four Anomaly Dolls, Suisui ranked third.
Second was An’an, a little boy who liked wearing sunglasses. No one knew what An’an had gone through, but he was hostile toward both anomalies and players. He only showed affection toward the other three. Even Yu Lingling could rarely get so much as a pleasant look from him.
Yiyi, the oldest little girl, dressed casually and had all the bearing of an eldest sister. She took good care of the other three little anomalies. Her parents had been police officers. After they offended someone, that person retaliated by having Yiyi abducted and sold to human traffickers. She was the strongest of the four.
Unlike before, when only Suisui came out with the Ghost Infant spirits, all four of them had emerged this time. At Yu Lingling’s command, they began searching in every direction.
Suisui had all the bearing of a young master. He stood beside Yu Lingling with his arms folded, directing the Ghost Infant spirits to spread out and search the surrounding area.
After searching for a while, Mianmian seemed to discover how fun the shaking was. She lay down on the soft floor and let herself be tossed about, letting out shrill peals of laughter.
It wasn’t just Mianmian. Yu Lingling noticed that the other three dolls were secretly playing too.
Yu Lingling glanced at them but paid it no mind. She lowered her center of gravity as well, barely managing to keep herself from being bounced around and sent rolling across the floor.
The Back Scratcher’s effect had a time limit. Once Yu Lingling was certain that Ghost Doll and the others had thoroughly searched the tent and found only a few odds and ends, she took out the second item she had obtained from Happy Family: the Nearly Bald Feather Duster. It could randomly locate one item hidden inside a room and could be used three times per instance.
Yu Lingling had never needed to use it in any of the previous instances, but now she activated it immediately.
A brooch appeared in her hand.
The moment the brooch appeared, the tent, which had still been shaking, abruptly fell silent.
Yu Lingling knew something was wrong. Without the slightest hesitation, she activated her Exclusive Skill, Snack Street.
The skill itself had no offensive power, but it did have certain underlying rules.
Snack Street could accommodate employees, food, and customers.
Those three categories also had their own hierarchy, with food ranking lowest.
Originally, Yu Lingling had only planned to take Suisui and the others into Snack Street to weather the Red Tent’s initial attack.
But the instant they entered, inspiration struck. Yu Lingling directly classified the tent as an ingredient.
And what kind of ingredient was it?
Without hesitation, Yu Lingling announced her judgment: “A stomach!”
The entire tent began convulsing violently, as if unwilling to submit, yet unable to stop struggling. In the end, it vanished from the spot along with Yu Lingling.
Yu Lingling had only meant to give it a try. Even she hadn’t expected it to actually work.
Snack Street had taken the tent into containment.
Inside Happy Circus, Ah Bu felt the tremor and immediately carried her oil lamp to the tent entrance to look outside.
One glance was all it took to leave her frozen in place. She even rubbed her eyes with her free hand.
The Circus had originally contained one Red Tent and one Black Tent. Now, only the Black Tent remained. The Red Tent had disappeared entirely.
Yet the spot it had occupied wasn’t empty. Ah Bu could vaguely make out something there, but it was too dark, and none of them dared approach the area, so she couldn’t see it clearly.
The animal trainers also emerged with oil lamps in hand. They stared at the changes in the Circus, dumbfounded, before turning toward Ah Bu.
Ah Bu gripped her oil lamp tightly. It felt as though one of the restraints inside her body had snapped.
Yu Lingling, Yiyi, and the others were all crouched before a red object that stood a full two meters tall.
Once inside Snack Street, the thing had been appraised.
Or rather, the appraisal had only revealed half the answer.
As the owner of Snack Street, Yu Lingling naturally knew what it said: “XXX’s stomach. Can be passed off as beef tripe. Suitable for stewing, soy-braising, slow-braising, stir-frying over high heat, and more. Friendly reminder: Do not sell to players.”
Well, would you look at that.
Even Yu Lingling had to marvel. An anomaly classified as an ingredient could actually be used this way. If she couldn’t sell it to players, did that mean she could sell it to other anomalies?
From the looks of things, her Exclusive Skill, Snack Street, had higher authority than anomalies when it came to classification rules. Or perhaps it exerted a suppressive effect on certain types of anomalies.
Still, what she had before her was only an incomplete anomaly – or rather, part of one. What if she encountered a complete anomaly, such as an octopus-type one? Which would take precedence then, the anomaly or her skill?
Though she couldn’t be certain yet, the corners of Yu Lingling’s lips curled upward. She was only F-rank, yet she could already classify and contain a mini-boss from a D-rank instance. What would happen once she reached S-rank?
Yu Lingling didn’t have any grand ambitions. She merely wanted to classify and contain a few S-rank anomalies, then toss them into the countries that had dared plot against her brother.
As if sensing something, Yiyi tilted her head and looked at Yu Lingling.
Yu Lingling, however, had already drawn her dagger and plunged it viciously into the stomach.
The dagger looked mottled with rust, yet it could slice through iron like butter. Even so, it couldn’t leave so much as a scratch on the stomach.
Yu Lingling frowned slightly. She could even sense a wave of disdain coming from it.
Just then, the kitten that had remained motionless in Yu Lingling’s arms suddenly sprang out and pounced straight at the ingredient Snack Street had determined could pass for beef tripe, whatever species of anomaly it had come from.
The kitten was tiny, but the moment it landed on the stomach, the still-living organ began to swell and contract violently.
Yu Lingling sensed fear coming from the stomach.