chapter 21
The garden held no other clues. Ignoring Zhao Liang, still unconscious beside the fence, the others returned indoors together.
After their voices receded, Zhao Liang, lying outside, quietly opened his eyes and struggled upright.
He drew a ragged breath. Agony made several veins bulge across his forehead. “Hah… That woman’s ridiculously lucky. She even found a healing Item!”
Greed and envy mingled in his narrow eyes. Supporting his heavy body with one hand, he staggered to his feet. He stopped every few steps but eventually reached the mound.
He had heard clearly that blood was the key. Bitterly, he wished he had used that woman Tong Qian to water the garden. Then he would not have lost an arm for nothing.
Clenching his teeth, eyes bloodshot and bulging, Zhao Liang repeatedly squeezed the stump. Blood poured down like a waterfall and vanished entirely into the soil.
Once he judged it sufficient, he crouched and dug furiously with his single hand. Pain and madness contorted his entire body. “Nothing… How can there be nothing? Come out… Come out!”
The hole grew deeper and wider, but the plump white ginseng never appeared…
Inside, the four others sat beneath the desk to rest. In a few sentences, Bai Jiang explained Cheng Miao’s theory about the time limit and tasks to Tong Qian and Qi Jiajia.
Qi Jiajia frowned and said coldly, “This instance is so devious. It gives us a pile of tasks, then swaps the real objective out from under us!”
Cheng Miao rarely laughed, but the remark amused her. “You know that expression?”
Qi Jiajia looked embarrassed for once and did not reply.
Cheng Miao stopped teasing her, cleared her throat, and continued. “We don’t have much time. Before dawn, we must decipher the hint and find a way out.”
Everyone pulled themselves together and joined the analysis.
“We understand the clue about Papa Bear loving fish,” Tong Qian said. “As Miss Cheng suggested, fish can distract him when he goes berserk. Mama Bear loving to knit should work the same way.”
The small amount of ginseng had restored much of Tong Qian’s energy. Leaning lightly against the wall, she kept her words clear.
Bai Jiang nodded and picked up the thread. “The sewing basket was placed in plain sight on the table, but it contained only yarn and no needle. The key must be finding the needle.”
“And what happens after we find it?” Qi Jiajia tugged at the bow on her skirt. “Do you know whether Mama Bear or Baby Bear will go berserk next?”
The instance had not lasted long, but its intensity was extreme. Qi Jiajia, physically the weakest, was visibly wilting.
“Maybe washing the dishes was a mistake,” Tong Qian said softly with some regret. “That’s usually the mother’s chore. If we’d left them dirty, could we have guaranteed Mama Bear would wake?”
Cheng Miao told her not to overthink it. “The schedule never specified a subject, so we can’t rely on assumptions. Besides, didn’t you notice that Zhao Liang breaking a bowl wasn’t what enraged Papa Bear?”
“My porridge… Someone touched my porridge…” With her excellent memory, Qi Jiajia repeated what Papa Bear had said before attacking.
“He said someone ‘touched’ it, not that someone broke it,” Cheng Miao confirmed.
“But to identify which bowl belongs to Papa Bear, we would have to touch them, even before figuring out how to tell them apart.” Tong Qian’s delicate brows knitted in confusion.
“If the operation is unavoidable, then its consequences can only be a clue the instance intentionally provides to its players.”
Bai Jiang remembered the veteran who had guided him mentioning this possibility. If an action could not be avoided, then regardless of its consequences, it had to be an instance clue.
Cheng Miao glanced at him and nodded. “So I know which story forms the background of this Game.”
The other three brightened. If an instance had a known story behind it, its rules became much easier to identify. Events might not unfold exactly as they did in the original, but the story would at least provide a direction instead of leaving them completely blind.
“Have you heard the story of the three bears?”
“Three… bears? What’s that?” Bai Jiang looked baffled and turned toward Tong Qian and Qi Jiajia.
Tong Qian seemed equally confused. “I’ve heard that song about Mama Bear and Papa Bear. Is that it? I think it’s Korean. How did it go again?”
Cheng Miao shook her head. “Not the song. A fairy tale.”
“A fairy tale?” Bai Jiang and Tong Qian were both adults. Their memories of fairy tales extended no further than Snow White and Cinderella.
“You mean Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Qi Jiajia curled her lip. “It isn’t a good story. Goldilocks doesn’t even get caught in the end.”
Cheng Miao’s mouth twitched. She chose not to comment on Qi Jiajia’s twisted tastes.
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a famous children’s bedtime story. A golden-haired girl trespasses into a family of brown bears’ home in the forest.”
“The three bears happen to be away. Goldilocks goes inside and sees three bowls of porridge on the table. She tries the largest bowl, but the porridge is too hot, and she spits it out after one bite.”
“Then she tastes the medium and small bowls. The medium one is too cold, while the smallest is just right. After finishing the porridge, she tries the bears’ three chairs. The large chair is too hard, the medium chair too soft, and the small chair just right, but she breaks the smallest chair.”
“Finally, she tries their three beds and falls asleep. When the bears return, they discover someone has eaten their porridge and sat in their chairs. Just before they catch her, Goldilocks escapes.”
“The moral is that children shouldn’t touch other people’s belongings without permission.”
Everyone stared at her. Feeling pleased with yourself for that little flourish?
Cheng Miao returned to business. “The chairs in the bedroom and bowls in the kitchen reminded me of the story, but I didn’t become certain until Papa Bear said those words.”
Excitement ignited in Bai Jiang’s eyes. “So once we find the needle, we sit in Mama Bear’s medium-sized chair to enrage her, then use it to capture her attention. The remaining bear must be Baby Bear!”
“Wait…” Remembering something, Bai Jiang turned stiffly toward the three identical chairs. “There is no large, medium, and small. They’re all the same size!”
Cheng Miao shrugged. “An instance wouldn’t make clearance that easy.”
“However…” Her tone shifted as she retrieved an object from her ring and displayed it. “I found Mama Bear’s knitting needle.”
Everyone’s gaze stuck to Cheng Miao’s hand as though glued there.
A stark-white fishbone gleamed in the moonlight. Only the central spine remained; all the smaller bones along its sides had been eaten clean.
Its point was extremely sharp. At a glance, it truly resembled an enormous sewing needle.
It was the fish skeleton Papa Bear had discarded.