The comic-panel man heard this and nodded thoughtfully: “Very possible. This place isn’t large and we’ve already gone through everywhere we could search, but what if that item is hidden inside something? There are quite a few filled sandwich biscuits here, as well as cream-filled cakes and pies.”

“In that case…… let’s start searching inside things?” the yarn ball muttered, then transformed into a large, heavy iron ball — dark grey and dense. Everywhere it rolled, things were crushed and flattened open.

Bai Youwei moved around as well, trying to see if she might find something different.

She walked over to the collapsed sofa and picked up half a table leg. Its surface was sticky and tacky, the chocolate on the outside melting to reveal the chocolate bar beneath, with visible teeth marks.

She only picked it up to look at it for a moment, and her hand was already covered in chocolate.

Bai Youwei’s face was a picture of disgust.

“Did you find something?”

A voice came from behind her. Bai Youwei turned around to see the tall comic-panel man standing directly behind her, staring at her with a guarded expression.

Being looked down upon from such a height didn’t feel pleasant at all. Bai Youwei raised an eyebrow slightly and lifted the half table leg in her hand to hold it out to him.

“A table leg covered in saliva — do you want it?” she said coolly. “Take it then.”

The chocolate table leg was tossed in front of the comic-panel man with a splat, splitting into two pieces.

The comic-panel man: “……”

He gave Bai Youwei a quiet look, straightened up, and turned away to search elsewhere.

Bai Youwei let out a dismissive snort.

Beside her, the ball suddenly seemed to go berserk and came rolling over!

It rolled straight over the half table leg, then with a bounce — crashed out through the door!

Boom!!

A violent arc of lightning, accompanied by a tremendous sound, came striking down! In an instant it swallowed the ball completely!

A few seconds later, the light faded, leaving only a blackened ball on the ground.

Though it had always been black, it now gave off the impression of having been charred. It seemed to be, perhaps, still smoking……

“What was it trying to do?” Bai Youwei stared in astonishment. “Was it trying to…… take its own life???”

The ball’s voice came from outside, faint as a dying breath: “I thought…… saliva should count as…… something that doesn’t belong to the Candy House……”

Bai Youwei was rendered speechless. After a long moment, she slowly nodded: “That reasoning…… is not exactly wrong.”

But it still got struck by lightning.

So, saliva was not the correct answer.

The marionette said: “Jack! So it turns out we really are correct! The thing that truly doesn’t belong to the Candy House — is us!”

The puppeteer nodded repeatedly: “That’s right, that’s right. Even if saliva doesn’t belong to the Candy House, once it’s mixed with the chocolate, what you have is ‘chocolate touched by saliva’ — not ‘saliva with chocolate on it.’ When it comes down to it, what was brought out was the chocolate from the Candy House~”

The marionette: “It was wrong~ it was wrong~ spectacularly, utterly wrong!”

The comic-panel man said: “That reasoning doesn’t hold up. If anything that gets candy or chocolate from the Candy House on it counts as belonging to the Candy House, then all of us have picked up at least some sugar syrup on the soles of our shoes by now — which would mean we all count as items belonging to the Candy House. In that case, if we who are coated in sugar syrup find the true answer to the riddle and carry it out of the Candy House — would that count as a violation or not?”

The marionette grumbled: “Just try it and you’ll know, won’t you? Whoever leaves first gets to claim the reward.”

The comic-panel man continued thinking carefully and said slowly: “The task we’ve been given is to find the item that does not belong to the Candy House. Actually, that sentence can be interpreted in two ways.

The first interpretation: we are to find a specific item hidden inside the Candy House, whose defining characteristic is that it does not belong to the Candy House.

The second interpretation: we are to find, within the Candy House, any item — any item that satisfies the condition of not belonging to the Candy House will do.

Saliva satisfies the second interpretation, yet it didn’t pass. We should start considering the first interpretation.”