A boisterous stage —

Music surging, lights converging, cartoon puppets performing their routines on the stage.

Below the stage was a hidden area, typically used as a concealed passageway for performers to make unexpected entrances and exits.

This was a place the audience could not see — and a place even the puppets performing on stage could not see.

Right now, gathered here were the current survivors of the game: Shen Mo, Bai Youwei, Tan Xiao, Shen Fei, Yan Qingwen, Lu Ang, and Yu Yaqing.

Their operation had not produced the desired results. The expression on every face was tense.

Yan Qingwen counted heads and said: “Seven left.”

He paused briefly, sweeping his gaze over the unconscious Shen Fei and the injured Yu Yaqing, and added: “Two of the seven are injured.”

Bai Youwei felt this person had an obsession with numbers. It was obvious at a glance that a few people were missing from the original ten — yet he still had to state it explicitly.

Yu Yaqing pressed her hand over the wound on her abdomen and looked up. “My injury isn’t serious. With a few hours of rest I’ll recover quickly.”

Lu Ang, on the other hand, was irritated. “This game is pretty twisted, isn’t it? We burned Mary and the cat down to a metal frame, and they still won’t die! What, was all of that for nothing?!”

“It wasn’t entirely useless.” Shen Mo said calmly. “At least now we all know that Mary and the cat aren’t afraid of fire — their weakness must lie elsewhere.”

Yan Qingwen nodded slightly. “That’s right. We’ve tried knives, electricity, and fire. Mary and the cat both sustained damage but ultimately recovered completely. Now faced with these two metal skeletons, we need to think in a different direction — what part have we been overlooking…”

“A knife doesn’t work?” Tan Xiao asked, looking at everyone with hesitation, puzzled. “Didn’t Mo-ge cut off that Mary’s arm with a sword? How could it not work?”

Yan Qingwen paused slightly, then asked Tan Xiao: “When you saw Mary, what was her arm like?”

Tan Xiao shook his head. “Her arm had turned into a triangular blade. But surely she can’t just transform whatever part gets chopped — unless she’s some kind of transformer.”

Yan Qingwen pondered this thoughtfully. “In other words, even though we cannot inflict damage on the metal skeleton, the joint positions can be disassembled… and after disassembly, Mary’s form changes correspondingly.”

“Does mere disassembly count as ‘killing’ them?” Yu Yaqing frowned. “The game’s completion condition is to ‘kill’ Mary or the cat — just chopping off an arm still isn’t enough.”

Lu Ang let out a heavy snort. “I refuse to believe it — chop off her head and let’s see if she can still be alive!”

“Big Beard, stop boasting~” Tan Xiao fired back from the sidelines. “We can’t even get close to them right now. Are we supposed to kill them from across the room?”

“It’s not that we can’t get close…” Yan Qingwen pondered, his expression composed. He spoke slowly: “If we could get that doll off Mary’s body… perhaps we could succeed.”

He spoke, then looked at everyone: “We’ve all overlooked the cloth doll on Mary’s body. All the puppet dolls in the amusement park are equivalent to Mary’s eyes. When I climbed onto the carousel, the cloth doll saw me — that’s why the surprise attack failed. If we want to succeed next time, we must first find a way to deal with the cloth doll.”

Yu Yaqing suddenly understood: “What you mean is… if we don’t deal with Mary’s cloth doll, it’s as if… they’re sleeping with their eyes open?”

“Yes.” Yan Qingwen said. “The game period is divided into day and night — there must be a reason for that. Just as you said earlier: since they’re invincible at night, they must have a weakness during the day.”

Yu Yaqing thought it over with a furrowed brow, then looked toward Bai Youwei with uncertainty: “Youwei, what do you think?”

—