“Mama…kakaka…Mama, does my princess dress look pretty?”

Her daughter’s mouth stretched open wider and wider, wriggling maggots oozing out alongside sticky, black-red fluid, the reek of rot permeating the air.

“You look beautiful—Mama’s precious little princess,” Ye Shu praised, her expression still as calm water.

The girl stood rooted to the spot, clutching her head uncertainly, as if shocked. For the first time, Mama had called her pretty…

Lin Yue carefully set her head back onto her neck. Her swollen face faded to its usual look as she managed a bashful, almost innocent smile. “Mama, you’re beautiful too. Will you always stay with Yueyue?”

Ye Shu gently patted her daughter’s hair, her tone deep and earnest. “My dear, no one in this world can truly stay at your side forever. You’ll eventually need to learn to grow on your own. The world outside is far more wonderful than you imagine.”

The rules were clear: a player must not reject the child outright. Ye Shu knew that if she agreed to her daughter’s request, she might be trapped in this replica world forever. So, she gave an answer that was neither yes nor no—ambiguous and noncommittal.

To her relief, the little girl didn’t transform back into that monstrous shape. She nodded, as if half-understanding. “Okay, Mama. I know.”

With her picture book and bunny doll in hand, her daughter skipped cheerfully out of the bedroom.

Ye Shu’s gaze turned to Da Piaoliang, the cat upon her shoulder. “Lin Yue…is she a guǐyì?”

But there was something different about this girl, compared to all the other guǐyì she’d encountered before…

The black cat shook her head, then nodded, “Miaomiao…She’s half. When the pollution gets bad enough, a human can become a guǐyì.”

Meanwhile, the other players trapped in this copy faced a crisis. The newbies who hadn’t immediately found the hidden rules in the false Ye’s desk got themselves exposed once the little girl entered their rooms—instantly polluted and assimilated.

Pang Pangzi managed to unearth the rules, but before he could breathe easy, the daughter burst into his room. She’d already torn off her own head and was bouncing it on the rug like a basketball, asking if he wanted to play along.

Paralyzed with terror, Pang Pangzi dared not move a muscle, let alone answer.

By sheer luck, the girl didn’t push further. Seeing his lack of response, she simply carried her severed head out with her.

Once sure she was gone, Pang Pangzi slammed the door and locked it. According to the rules, his room was safe.

Desperate, he hammered the chat panel in the HUD, but the forum had gone silent—servers locked, private messages blocked. No signal could break the isolation of this replica. Every player was truly alone and cut off from help.

Despair thickened in the virtual world. In every previous scenario, the forum had always been open for advice. Now, reality slapped them cruelly hard.

Ye Wanwan hid the paper rules on her chest, forced a smile at the little girl, and no matter what she did, wore that same stiff mask. Luckily, the act fooled the daughter, though if the girl looked closely she’d spot the forced upturn of Ye Wanwan’s lips, the pale complexion, the trembling limbs.

“Damn it, wood-type powers are useless in this scenario!”

“And I can’t contact my brother or anyone in the team…”

She kicked the desk leg in frustration and tried to find further clues in the room.

Unfortunately, beyond the slip of paper with the rules, there was nothing helpful at all.

…………

Ye Shu ransacked the bedroom from top to bottom. Leaning on her cane, she edged toward the door. When she opened it, her daughter’s eerie, fevered grin was already waiting on the other side.

So, the girl hadn’t left. She'd simply stood vigil at the threshold.

Ye Shu continued her act, groping forward with her cane as if blind, moving past her daughter like she was no more than a shadow.

The house was a five-bedroom apartment. Besides the master suite, two rooms belonged to the daughter and son. One door had a basketball hoop hanging on it—undoubtedly the son’s room. The other stood ajar, pink princess bedding in plain sight; no surprise, it was the daughter's.

Above the living-room couch, a family portrait hung on the wall. The man’s face had been smeared over, obliterated. The mother, daughter, and son, on the other hand, all sported enormous, dazzling grins.

Chill crept over Ye Shu’s skin. She didn’t turn around. She just kept walking forward. Had she looked back, she’d have seen the faces in the family portrait watching her intently, eyes glowing a baleful red.

Beyond lay the kitchen. She could hear angry chopping sounds and an impatient woman’s voice. On closer listening, she realized the so-called nanny was actually a burly man with a woman’s voice—musclebound, flat-topped, looming in the cramped space.

He poked his head from behind the door, flashing a gruesome smile. “Xiao Ye, will you help me cook? I just bought the freshest pork.” As he spoke, he shoved a chunk of bloody raw meat into his maw and chewed.

The kitchen was flagged as dangerous. She could not enter. Ye Shu shook her head and pointed to her sunglasses. “I’d love to help, but I can’t see. I’ll only make a mess.”

The nanny seemed to realize something, nodding vigorously. “That’s right, you’re blind—a burden…kakaka…can’t cook…only eat.”

Ye Shu: “…………” Now that was a little offensive.

The nanny, hacking away at a pile of bloody meat, let red drip thickly down his cleaver. His eyes were blank, his speech looping: “Eat, eat…just know how to eat…kakakaka…cook, cook…”

Cane in hand, Ye Shu circled the apartment once more. Still nothing useful turned up.

She opened her HUD. At some point, her Stamina had dropped to 98. Only now did she note: exactly two hours had passed since her arrival in the replica.

Could there be a correlation between Stamina and the passage of time?

Another hour ticked by. Sure enough, Ye Shu saw her Stamina had dropped by one point again.

A bang came from outside the bedroom, along with the nanny’s disgruntled voice: “Dinner & kakaka…dinner.”

The dining table was spread with four dishes and a soup. The daughter and son gobbled their food happily, while the nanny stood watch, eyes fixed with hungry longing.

The little boy saw Ye Shu hesitate and an excited flush crept over his face. “Mama, the chicken foot is nice and plump. You always loved it best.”

Ye Shu stared at the human hand dropped in her bowl, struggling not to grimace.

Eat it? Out of the question.

She quickly covered. “Xiao Bao, Mama doesn’t care for meat that much—children should eat plenty so they grow strong!” She moved the hand into her daughter’s bowl.

Joy spread across the son’s face. He stood up and black cracks split his cheeks, revealing jagged, sharklike teeth, his gaze greedy as he peered across the table. “Mama, are your eyes better now? Can you see again?”

Ye Shu didn’t flinch, feigning blindness as she addressed the empty air.

“Xiao Bao, if Mama could see, would she need a cane? Are you saying you don’t love me anymore?”

“I carried you in my womb, I raised you, and now you scorn Mama…”

Just as the boy was about to leap toward her, Da Piaoliang the black cat sprang in front of him, blocking the attack.

“No, Mama is my good Mama! Xiao Bao will always love Mama.”

The little boy glared at Da Piaoliang, venom flickering in his eyes, but turned back to gnawing on the human hand. The white knuckles cracked between his jaws.

Ye Shu took a single mouthful of rice, inwardly remarking that these things wouldn’t dare to hurt the players without violating the rules. Giving food to her daughter didn’t count as wasting food.

Moreover, Da Piaoliang had once been a high-level guǐyì—blocking a minor monster like this posed no problem. Using the peachwood sword recklessly before figuring out the task would be a grave mistake.