Chapter 85
Chapter 85
But the moment Yu Lingling obtained the box, her entities outside – who had still been able to hold their own against those unknown entities – began losing ground.
Fortunately, after gaining control of the Princess Dollhouse, Yu Lingling had established a rule: if Yiyi and the others suffered life-threatening injuries, they would be sent straight back to the Princess Dollhouse instead of remaining outside until they died like the entities controlled by other players.
In most players’ eyes, while entities were difficult to control, they were not worth getting hurt to protect. Like items, entities were consumables. They were simply more valuable ones.
Yu Lingling’s decision had less to do with kindness and more to do with Yu Huan constantly drilling it into her.
Yiyi and the other three were all children, as were the members of the Ghost Infant brood. Ah Qi was also a pregnant woman – even if she was the kind who had cut open her own belly to kill the accursed spawn inside her.
Yu Lingling had planned ahead. The pit she was standing in was extremely deep, and without assistance, there was no way she could climb out anytime soon. She was like a rabbit trapped in its burrow by an entity blocking the entrance.
But once all her entities had been recalled, a key appeared in Yu Lingling’s hand, and an ancient-looking wooden door materialized before her.
It was the key to the Westernmost Unit on the fourth floor of the tenement building, which Yu Lingling had obtained in the Happy Family instance. She unlocked the wooden door and stepped through. Just before it closed, she reached one hand back through the gap.
She was holding a button. She casually pressed it, tossed it outside, and the door slammed shut with a bang.
The instant it closed, Yu Lingling heard an explosion. The blast was powerful enough to make the wooden door shudder.
She had not kept the Ghost Infant brood outside merely to gather information.
Yu Lingling had discovered that although the Ghost Infant brood was weak, it possessed a unique ability: its members could hide objects smaller than their bodies inside themselves. Unless someone deliberately searched them, the hidden objects would never be discovered.
The Ghost Infant brood could not fly, but it could burrow underground. All its members had to do was carry the small explosive charges to the locations Yu Lingling specified, take them out, and then leave.
The Ghost Infant brood was not very bright, but even its members could manage something that simple.
Yu Lingling got away in time and felt nothing apart from hearing the noise. The entities and players throughout Happy Circus, however, were startled by the succession of explosions. Even the ground began to shake.
Ah Bu stared dumbfounded at the tent that had been blown to shreds and shrieked, “Yu Lingling!”
That tent had been made from the skin flayed off her while she was still alive. Yu Lingling had said she could take care of the problem, but Ah Bu had never imagined this was how she would do it.
Meanwhile, Tongyu, Zhao Peng, and Sun Yao, who were hiding inside the tent and guarding the tiny oil lamp, were also badly startled.
Zhao Peng and Sun Yao exchanged looks. “Yu Lingling?”
Tongyu: “…”
He had not expected the false name to be exposed this way.
Clutching his puppy, Tongyu forced himself to remain calm and pretended he was not only blind but deaf as well.
Zhao Peng and Sun Yao understood immediately. Whatever Chacha was, it definitely was not her real name.
As for the commotion outside, even without anyone telling them, they knew it could only be Yu Lingling’s work.
Zhao Peng asked directly, “With a commotion that big, do we need to go take a look?”
Unable to ignore their kind offer, Tongyu instinctively answered, “No need.” Then he realized that his response seemed to confirm that Yu Lingling really was responsible and hurriedly added, “My sister didn’t do it.”
Since Tongyu had said there was no need, Zhao Peng did not press him. At the moment, it was his and Sun Yao’s blood fueling the lamp.
Earlier, Zhao Peng, Sun Yao, and Tongyu had each used their blood as lamp oil. They discovered that, for the same amount of blood, Zhao Peng’s burned longer than Sun Yao’s. It was obviously because he was stronger than her.
Tongyu’s blood burned out even faster.
Even so, they couldn’t keep taking blood from Zhao Peng alone. The lamp was consuming oil much faster than it had the previous night. As for Tongyu, there was no need to use his blood for the time being.
Sitting on the ground, Zhao Peng said, “Aside from the three of us and your sister, the only people who could’ve done this are Wang Hao, Xu Chao, Zhou Ming, Wu Bin, Li Na, and Sun Jian. But if any of them were capable of something like this, would they have ended up in their current situation?”
Zhao Peng and Sun Yao had trusted Tongyu’s judgment earlier, and sure enough, it had led them back to their tent.
Without the oil lamp at night, they lost all sense of direction. Trying to follow a memorized route would only put them in danger instead.
Zhao Peng had no idea how Wang Hao and the others were faring now, but the screams outside had never stopped. He couldn’t say how many of them would still be alive by daybreak.
Still, Zhao Peng figured they could judge how dangerous the night had been from the number of survivors and the severity of their injuries.
After hearing Zhao Peng out, Tongyu thought it over and realized he really couldn’t refute him.
Zhao Peng looked at Tongyu. “Your sister offended that monster. I’m afraid she might be in danger.”
Although Tongyu was worried, he remained firm. “She said that no matter what happens tonight, we’re not to leave the tent. For the first three days, this tent counts as a safe zone.”
Sun Yao caught something in his wording. “The first three days? What about the fourth day?”
Tongyu considered it for a moment. “The monsters won’t hurt us, but the players might.”
Yu Lingling, still unaware that her name had been exposed, sat inside the utterly bare room. The key could only be used once per instance, and the room would only remain accessible for fifteen minutes.
Although the explosions outside had stopped, Yu Lingling didn’t want to waste the time she had left. She took out a bottle of cola and began drinking, ignoring the wounds covering her body as though she had been burned by some corrosive liquid. Then she took out the small box she had retrieved from the hole.
The box looked completely ordinary, and shaking it produced no sound.
Yu Lingling inspected it from every angle but found nothing.
Her eyes could deceive her, though, so she carefully felt along its surface with her fingers instead.
The box was only palm-sized, and Yu Lingling soon discovered a faint mark on what might have been either its top or bottom. After a moment’s thought, she took out the brooch she had previously found inside the tent her Exclusive Skill had marked as something that could pass for a cow’s stomach.
Yu Lingling had already traced the box’s design in her mind. Despite her skin being eaten away and riddled with pits, her hand remained perfectly steady as she placed the brooch precisely over the design.
The brooch melted straight into the box, which transformed in Yu Lingling’s hands into a tiny Music Box.
After winding it several times, Yu Lingling heard a familiar song.
As the melody of “Happy Birthday to You” began to play, a little girl in a dress rose from inside the box and spun atop a small platform.
Yu Lingling was about to examine it further when her time in the room ran out. She put everything away, finished the last sip of her cola, then opened the door and stepped outside.
This item always returned its user to the exact spot where they had entered.
However, the deep pit that had been there before could now only be called a shallow crater, since Yu Lingling had blown up everything around it.