A maze, by definition, is a structure full of complex passages — once inside, the exit is nearly impossible to find.

But right now they were adrift at sea, and they didn’t even know where the entrance was. How could they begin to talk about an exit?

Bai Youwei thought for a moment, then turned to Pan Xiaoxin beside her. “Xiaoxin, take out the items and see if there’s anything we can use.”

Pan Xiaoxin had a small backpack with some miscellaneous everyday supplies, as well as items he had won during the preliminary rounds.

Normally, one should keep items hidden from others.

But seeing Bai Youwei take out her own items, he let his guard down and unzipped his backpack—

“These are all the items we have. Before entering the Maze, I promised each of you could take one item.” Bai Youwei said. “Now that we’re all in the Maze together, danger is unavoidable. On the condition that no one’s interests are harmed, I hope everyone can cooperate as fully as possible and trust one another.”

Laying all the items out in the open was the fastest way to put others at ease.

Heartfelt persuasion could work too, but Bai Youwei didn’t have the time for it, and she was too tired to bother with lengthy words.

She sorted through Pan Xiaoxin’s items and pulled out a dull, grayish stone. “This is a Lucky Stone — when worn on the body, it gives a 25% chance of evading an attack. Xiaoxin is the youngest and has no defensive ability, so this item should stay with him. The rest of you can pick whatever you like.”

A’Long and A’Qing both looked to Ashalina.

Ashalina smiled — a clean, decisive smile. “Then we won’t stand on courtesy. Let’s cooperate well from here on!”

Aside from the Rabbit and the golden key to the dollhouse, Bai Youwei laid out all of her other items. Including the six items she had won during the preliminary rounds, there were twelve in total: a starting pistol, improved flower seeds, a friend invitation card, a snowflake, a plastic hair clip, Miss Liu’s perfumed balm, a white conch shell, a large pea, the last straw, a firefly, an Easter egg, and swan meat.

None of these items had any obvious offensive or defensive properties. Most were support-type.

Ashalina and her two underlings looked them over, and were somewhat at a loss. They had hoped to find something useful for the Maze, but nothing seemed quite right — though this also confirmed what Bai Youwei had said earlier: she really didn’t have any defensive items.

In the end, Ashalina took the last straw.

A’Long took the Easter egg.

A’Qing took the swan meat.

As for the other items, they were genuinely hard to put to use in this particular Maze.

Take the white conch shell — the name sounded like it might be water-related, but it was actually a long-range communication device. The friend invitation card’s purpose was baffling from start to finish. Miss Liu’s perfumed balm was even more useless here — it required a burner to work. Then there was the large pea: it could grow into an enormous beanstalk the moment it touched the ground — but they were at sea!

Pan Xiaoxin still had four items of his own. Ashalina hadn’t touched them — probably feeling it would be embarrassing to take things from a kid.

Once they’d finished choosing, Bai Youwei kept her word and gave each of the three two puzzle pieces, six pieces in total.

Her generosity actually made Ashalina a little flustered. She pushed back, saying: “This — let’s just settle up when we get out. It’s not an official battle, so there’s no actual requirement to hold puzzle pieces inside the Maze.”

“That works too.” Bai Youwei withdrew her hand.

Pan Xiaoxin pressed himself against the window, and suddenly said: “Weiwei sis — there seems to be a cave up ahead!”

Bai Youwei followed his gaze.

Their ship had drawn very close to the island.

To call it an island was perhaps generous — it was more like a mountain, with no place to dock at all. On the churning black swells, there were only sheer, jagged volcanic rocks and stone faces.

And directly ahead of the ship: a pitch-dark cave mouth.

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