Chapter 283: Sent Back to the Ticket Area
The child above seemed startled, then tumbled down from the edge of the broken stone wall.
Yan Jiayu quickly reached out to catch her. The child fell into her arms, crying in fear, a foul smell seeping through her pants.
"Was this kid dragged into the instance?" Yan Jiayu patted the child's head. "Don't cry. Big sister will give you some candy."
Xu Huo turned to Peng Ru. "Aren't you a preschool teacher?"
Peng Ru walked over to Yan Jiayu and extended her hands. "Let me hold her."
Just as Yan Jiayu was about to speak, the little girl actively lunged toward Peng Ru.
Feeling the unevenly stained fabric of the girl's pants, Peng Ru's expression flickered for an instant, but she quickly masked it. She touched the girl's face. "The child must be scared."
Yan Jiayu gave the child some candy and asked her, "Did you see any other kids?"
The little girl held the candy in her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes, clutching her doll tightly, but refused to speak.
"What could such a young child know?" Tang Xiao said. "She's probably terrified. Anyway, there's only one of her, so let's just bring her along."
The others naturally had no objections. Just as they were about to move forward, Peng Ru's head suddenly jerked back. She frowned at the child in her arms. "Little one, could you please not pull on auntie's hair?"
The little girl's tears welled up again, and she shrank back in fear.
Seeing this, Yan Jiayu said, "She might have grabbed it by accident. Give her to me. I've taken care of kids before."
Peng Ru certainly wanted to hand her over, but the little girl seemed fixated on her. When she saw Yan Jiayu reaching out, she buried her face directly into Peng Ru's shoulder.
Yan Jiayu scratched her head. "She doesn't like me."
"There's nothing over there. I think we should go back," Peng Ru said, her expression sour.
"Since we're already here, we have to at least take a look." Xu Huo reached out and lifted the child from her arms, stuffing a handful of candy into the girl's hands. "Don't cry. Cry again, and I'll put you back. No candy either."
The child indeed stopped crying.
The four crossed the broken bridge and entered the ancient castle structure behind it. Once inside, they discovered the building was split in two by a crack running down the middle, with flowing lake water beneath their feet.
"There's nothing here." Tang Xiao said, slightly disappointed.
Xu Huo walked to the crack, grabbed the child under her armpits, and suspended her over the gap. Looking into her eyes, he asked, "Little one, can you give uncle your hat?"
"What are you doing?" Tang Xiao was stunned by his actions. Just as he was about to step forward, he saw the little girl, neither crying nor fussing, chewing her candy as she said, "I have lots of hats. Which one does uncle want?"
The three present were startled to hear her speak and couldn't help but search the little girl. She had two small hat-shaped hair clips in her hair, small hats on her hair ties, a child's straw hat hanging behind her neck, and the doll in her arms also wore a hat, even its buttons were little pink hats.
Yan Jiayu and the others instinctively closed in, surrounding Xu Huo and the child.
"The one needed to clear the instance," Xu Huo said, lowering the child a bit.
The child kept chewing, but the pitiful fear was gone from her eyes. She pointed behind her. "The big sister who brought me in said all the little hats are over there..."
Xu Huo and the other three instinctively looked up, but the stone beneath their feet suddenly cracked, and darkness surged from behind, causing the stone bridge to collapse as well!
The four reflexively jumped over the crack, but darkness also attacked from the front, along with countless dolls brandishing knives and charging at them ferociously!
With no retreat behind them, the four needed a place to land after leaping the crack, so they had to knock the dolls away. But to their utter surprise, the dolls were as brittle as paper, breaking apart with a single kick or punch. This time, no little hats popped out, and Tang Xiao, who had struck first, vanished instantly!
As darkness engulfed the castle structure, Yan Jiayu and Peng Ru disappeared one after another. Xu Huo had thrown the child away at the first moment, using his strings to leap over the doll encirclement. However, when he landed, a doll fell at his feet. He instinctively lifted his foot, but the next second, his vision blurred, and he was transported from the darkness to a wide-open space.
[Player Passerby A has violated the rules. Returning to the ticket area to repurchase a ticket and accept punishment. Note: This punishment is only effective within the current instance.]
"Find, find, find a friend. Find a good friend. Poke the eyes, cut the tongue. No screaming makes a good friend..."
"Find, find, find a friend. Find a good friend. Plug the ears, block the nose. No causing trouble makes a good friend..."
"Find, find, find a friend. Find a good friend. Snip the hands, snip the feet. No running away makes a good friend..."
The nursery rhyme heard before entering the amusement park played in a severely distorted tone. Xu Huo opened his eyes to see a nose almost pressed against his face and quickly retreated.
In front of him was a massive clown head placed on the ground. Its eyes blinked, its mouth opening and closing as it sang the nursery rhyme, then let out a strange laugh. It tilted its head, glaring at Xu Huo with one eye. "Hee hee, you broke the rules! Guests who break the rules must return to the ticket area to buy a new ticket and accept punishment!"
Xu Huo frowned. How had he broken the rules? He hadn't stepped on that doll.
The clown head clearly didn't care about that. It moved back a little. "Poke the eyes, cut the tongue. No screaming!"
"Plug the ears, block the nose. No causing trouble!"
"Snip the hands, snip the feet. No running away!"
With that, it spat out three differently colored bubbles from its mouth.
Xu Huo turned and ran, but one of the bubbles suddenly blocked his path, expanding rapidly before bursting. He instinctively raised his hand to shield his face, but the next second, he felt something drill into his ears and nose. He tried to pull it out, but the substance seemed to solidify, completely lodged in his nostrils and ear canals.
He went deaf.
His nostrils were also blocked, preventing him from breathing.
The clown head leaped into the air and dissolved into colored paper, and the scene before him turned back into the amusement park entrance.
Yan Jiayu and Tang Xiao were standing up ahead.
"Xu Huo!" Seeing him, Yan Jiayu quickly waved.
Xu Huo could read her lips but couldn't hear a thing. He took out his phone to communicate with them. "I can't hear. Peng Ru didn't come out?"
"She went back to the instance first," Yan Jiayu typed out a line, then added, "She's deaf too. We all broke the rules. You and she lost your hearing. Tang Xiao and I each have one hand and one foot that won't work."
Xu Huo checked their condition. Yan Jiayu's left hand and right leg were useless. Tang Xiao's situation was the opposite, but worse for him since he was right-handed.
"I made two crutches." Yan Jiayu pointed to the half of a large pair of scissors she had dismantled beside her. "Didn't think I'd need them so soon."
Tang Xiao, also leaning on half a pair of scissors, was far less optimistic. His face dark, he said, "Going into an instance without combat capability is just asking to die."