At the mention of Du Lai, Bai Youwei instinctively glanced toward the door. “…Du Lai has been gone a while now. Why isn’t he back yet?”

“The sky is dark outside — finding the Bone-Carrying Woman safely won’t necessarily be easy,” Shen Mo said. He looked at the two women. “Can you still hear the opera singing right now?”

Bai Youwei and Fu Miaoxue both nodded at the same time.

“The sound isn’t as loud as before, but I can still hear it quite clearly,” Bai Youwei said, furrowing her brow slightly. In a low voice she added, “If only we could figure out what she’s singing…”

After coming out of the dollhouse, she had become sensitive to dolls in the game.

After coming out of the game of hide-and-seek, she had become sensitive to sounds in the game — she always felt there might be some critical clue hidden within them.

But she couldn’t even understand Peking opera, so how could she possibly understand Fujianese opera?

Bai Youwei looked at Fu Miaoxue and asked, “Can you understand what she’s singing?”

“That… should be lyrics from *The Bone-Carrying Woman*,” Fu Miaoxue said after a moment of recollection. “I don’t remember it all that clearly, but hearing her sing that melody brings back a few lines…”

Fu Miaoxue cleared her throat and, following the mournful singing drifting in through the rain, began to hum softly:

“In an instant—

In an instant, cold air rushes in; dark clouds spread across the sky.

This servant can only straighten my embroidered slippers and dare not pause.

Out in the desolate wilderness, there is no place to shelter.

Wave after wave—

Wave after wave of bitter cold wind and rain soaks through my garments.

Oh — alas —

O Heaven, O Heaven, I am a frail and helpless soul, not yet far from home.

All for the sake of my husband’s remains, I have crossed mountains and rivers, enduring great hardships.

A sudden gust of wind and rain — thunder and lightning do not cease.

How it frightens me, shattering my heart and guts, trembling without end.

Shattering my heart and guts, trembling without end…

Alas…”

Fu Miaoxue’s voice was clear and sweet, far more pleasing to the ear than the wailing woman’s voice in the distance.

She rendered the lyrics into Mandarin pronunciation, singing them out word by word for Bai Youwei and Shen Mo to hear. Then she added, “There are several more large sections of *The Bone-Carrying Woman* after that, but the voice outside hasn’t moved on to them — she keeps repeating just this section I sang. Looking at the lyrics alone, there doesn’t seem to be anything suspicious.”

Bai Youwei couldn’t spot anything either.

She focused her thoughts, then rummaged through her canvas bag and pulled out paper and a pen, deciding to write down Fu Miaoxue’s lyrics.

“Sing it again — I’ll write it down.”

Fu Miaoxue marveled, “Your bag really does have everything in it — you even came prepared with paper and a pen…”

She had heard Du Lai mention it before — to be wary of Bai Youwei, and that there was something uncanny about her.

Could Bai Youwei be like a certain cartoon character, with a bottomless pocket full of anything she might need?

Fu Miaoxue reached out and felt the canvas bag.

…The texture was ordinary. Just a completely normal canvas bag. No information surfaced in her mind.

That meant the canvas bag was not a game item.

“Sing already,” Bai Youwei said, slightly bewildered, staring at her wide-eyed. “Write down the lyrics so we can look for clues together.”

Fu Miaoxue gave a distracted “oh.”

Without Du Lai around, she had no motivation for much of anything.

She was just about to open her mouth to sing when she caught sight of a human silhouette cast onto the window — and her heart immediately leapt with joy. “My boyfriend is back!”

Shen Mo and Bai Youwei both looked over. Sure enough, a figure had appeared on the window at some point — judging by height and build, it resembled Du Lai.

Fu Miaoxue went cheerfully to open the door.

But she stopped as she reached it, suddenly feeling that something was off.

The figure on the window stood completely still.

Not a word spoken, not a single movement to be heard.

Fu Miaoxue was silent for a few seconds. Somehow, she took two steps back, and said quietly to Shen Mo and Bai Youwei, “Du Lai left through the south wall — the direction this figure came from… looks like it’s from the east corridor…”

—