Chapter 2034: Got You
Qi Cong wasn’t a little girl, so of course he didn’t think it was a ghost. Seeing that the other party had no intention of showing themselves, he assumed someone in the castle had discovered he was deliberately messing with them. Resigned, he stood up and continued climbing the stairs.
At that moment, Yan Jiayu opened her eyes. She glanced toward the door, then rubbed her eyes and got out of bed. Without turning on the light, she picked up a lighting item and walked out.
The light that could usually illuminate dozens of meters now seemed compressed, shrinking to a radius of about three meters around her. Peering into the darkness, her blurry vision caught what looked like a small child passing by the corner of the corridor.
Yan Jiayu carried the lamp and walked in that direction, unexpectedly bumping into Xu Huo, who was standing silently ahead.
“Not asleep yet?” They were three meters apart, with Xu Huo standing right at the boundary between light and shadow. From Yan Jiayu’s angle, she could clearly see his legs, but his upper body became blurry, and his face was even more obscured.
She grinned widely. “Are you guys playing hide-and-seek? Mind if I join?”
Xu Huo was silent for a moment before replying, “Sure.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around and vanished into the darkness.
“Mental Super Evolvers have a big advantage in hide-and-seek.” Yan Jiayu cracked her knuckles. “This makes it more fun!”
She put away the lighting item and began searching the castle based on her instincts and perception.
The castle was certainly large, but for a player, even searching room by room would be quick. Yet after half an hour, Yan Jiayu had never entered the same room twice, as if the castle had magically expanded several times over.
Additionally, although she sensed Qi Cong staying on the stairs the whole time, she passed by the stairs multiple times without finding any trace of him. Whenever she stood on the stairs, her perception of Qi Cong completely disappeared. However, each time she passed by, that shadow figure would brush past her.
“A direct challenge? I like that.” The next time she spotted the shadow, Yan Jiayu moved quickly and reached out to grab its arm. But her hand met no solid touch, and the shadow dissipated the moment she made contact.
“That counts?” She looked at her hand. “Does that not count as catching?”
No one answered, so Yan Jiayu assumed her interpretation was correct. She repeatedly lured the shadow to appear and tried various ways to catch it—grabbing its hand, its leg, bear-hugging it to the ground, or strangling it from behind. But every time she exerted force, the other party turned into a puff of black smoke and vanished, as if deliberately toying with her.
Still, Yan Jiayu didn’t get angry. Instead, she grew more determined, even setting a few traps, though they were mostly ineffective.
Since traps didn’t work, she pulled out various snacks and toys she carried with her to lure the shadow. She hid behind doors or hung from the rafters, lying in ambush.
These items did have an effect—the shadow lingered longer. Once, while it was rummaging through the toys, Yan Jiayu, wearing an invisibility item, pounced from the wall. “Haha! Got you!”
This time, the shadow didn’t disappear. It was pinned face-down on the ground. It didn’t struggle but slowly turned its head, its faceless face looking at Yan Jiayu.
“What, are you going to cheat?” Yan Jiayu’s expression darkened. Then she quickly flipped to her feet, grabbed a manifested blade formed from spiritual power, and instead of retreating, charged forward and slapped the shadow’s head. “You can’t break the rules in a game!”
The shadow’s head turned into a puff of black smoke, but its body remained standing. Sensing the aura it released, Yan Jiayu leaped back several times to create distance and said seriously, “Last round, you set the rules. This round is mine. Do you agree or not?”
The shadow’s head reformed and nodded at her.
“Alright then. Last round was a battle of wits. This round, we’ll have a battle of force.” Yan Jiayu beamed.
The shadow had no objection. Spiritual power spread from under its feet and surged along all four sides of the corridor toward the person ahead. But just as the manifested objects were about to surround Yan Jiayu, she sat cross-legged on the ground, placed a chessboard in front of her, and crooked her finger at the shadow. “Bring it on.”
The shadow looked down at the chess pieces labeled “General,” “Advisor,” “Chariot,” and “Horse,” quickly withdrew its spiritual power, walked over, and sat down opposite Yan Jiayu.
“I learned chess from my master. I haven’t lost since I beat him for the first time. I’ll let you have three moves first! Best of three wins, how about that?” Yan Jiayu was very generous.
The shadow seemed to be touching this kind of chess for the first time. After suffering a crushing defeat in the first round as experience, it managed to checkmate Yan Jiayu in the second and third rounds.
Yan Jiayu scratched her head. “This one doesn’t count. I let you win.”
They reset the pieces and started a proper match, still best of three. Yan Jiayu lost.
“Best of five, okay?” she demanded. “You cheated earlier too.”
The shadow stared at her, then reset the pieces.
But as the games went on, Yan Jiayu lost more and more. Finally, seeing no way to turn things around, she said, “I lost this time. But I won once, you won once—that’s a draw. To settle it completely, we need to play a new game.”
The shadow nodded silently, accepting her words.
Yan Jiayu grinned. “Let’s play hide-and-seek again. But this time, I hide and you seek. I’ll count to ten, and then we start!”
Before she even finished speaking, she shot out from her spot and vanished at the end of the corridor.
Ten seconds later, the shadow personality disappeared from its spot and appeared directly in front of Yan Jiayu, who had just hidden herself in a room!
Dodging its outstretched hand, Yan Jiayu snapped her fingers. At the same moment, all the doors and windows in the castle swung open. She flipped out through a window and laughed loudly, “Come catch me!”
The shadow personality vanished from the room again and blocked the window of the next room first. Just as Yan Jiayu was about to climb up, she spotted it, clung to the castle’s outer wall like a gecko, and jumped into the adjacent room. When the shadow personality phased through the wall to follow, she darted like a monkey into the room across, leaving a trail of laughter behind.
For the next half hour, the shadow personality kept flashing across the castle grounds. It was faster than Yan Jiayu and could easily block her, but she was agile. The moment she was cornered, she would flee without a second’s hesitation. Climbing walls and jumping out of windows were standard moves. She could pull off all kinds of unexpected escape methods. And after all this time, aside from sweat on her forehead, she showed no signs of fatigue or slowing down. Instead, she grew more excited, deliberately leading the shadow personality on a wild chase.
The shadow personality grew angry and tried to trap her in a spiritual realm. But Xu Huo, who had been invisible and interfering, stopped this move. When Yan Jiayu brushed past the shadow again, it opened doors all around her. But as she stepped through one door and reappeared, her foot suddenly met empty air, and she fell straight into another portal—one that Xu Huo had opened.
The shadow personality jumped in after her.
The castle vanished, replaced by a pure white space. The falling Yan Jiayu was gone. Standing in the center was Xu Huo. He caught the descending shadow personality, grasped its hand, and said, “Got you.”