Yan Qingwen was silent for a moment, then gave a light smile.

“Right.” He nodded. “It’s only the second round. The game isn’t truly cleared until autumn passes as well.”

Li Li rallied everyone’s spirits: “Summer was this hard and we still made it through — why be afraid of autumn!”

Lu Ang nodded in agreement: “Even if the third round is tough, we’ve made it through spring and summer. We have experience now. When we face autumn, I’m sure we won’t be without ideas.”

The crystal ball sat quietly on the tansu cabinet, watching them discuss their plans for what lay ahead.

Shen Mo walked over and wound the music box’s spring. That nursery rhyme, familiar beyond words, drifted through the room with the sound of music:

Spring — the bear woke up,

Oh how anxious, it lost two children;

Summer — the rain poured down,

Pitch black, nowhere to see where the treasure lay;

Autumn — who has come?

Look, the Nail-Tooth Beast opened its mouth — where have its teeth gone?

Winter, winter has finally arrived ~

Which child will be the one to see the snowflakes fall?

Shen Mo leaned against the window frame. Through the half-open glass pane he could faintly make out the shadow of the guest standing at the door. He said calmly: “So it really is the Nail-Tooth Beast… ‘Autumn — who has come? Look, the Nail-Tooth Beast opened its mouth — where have its teeth gone.’ Just as the nursery rhyme says.”

Everyone hurried to the window to see what the outside guest looked like.

The window and the door ran along the same parallel line, but the door columns and other obstructions on both sides blocked the direct view. They could only use the reflection of the glass window to expand their field of vision.

The autumn guest, in terms of body size, was smaller than the bear and the anglerfish.

Its appearance was somewhat like an upright-walking shark — except it had no fins and no tail. It had smooth, blue-grey skin, powerful hind limbs, and small stubby claws, topped by an enormous head —

It stood at the doorway with its mouth wide open, revealing a sparse scattering of pointed teeth — roughly seven or eight in all.

The teeth looked like they were made of nails.

Shen Mo looked at the others: “In this round, our task seems to be finding nails.”

Yan Qingwen examined the image reflected in the glass window carefully and slowly nodded. “And… the number of nails we’ll need to find probably isn’t small.”

Li Li, still shaken from the previous round, looked uncertainly at the two veterans and asked:

“Are you sure? Is it really just nails? What if it’s something else…?”

He turned to Bai Youwei: “Do you also think it’s nails?”

Bai Youwei gave him an expressionless look. “Whatever it is, the one-minute berserk phase in the first round is unavoidable.”

Whether it was the bear or the anglerfish — without making real contact with them first, it was hard to discover their true needs based on nursery rhyme clues alone.

Nearby, Su Man listened and yanked impatiently at her skirt.

She was so tired of this game. Being dressed like this seriously hampered her performance, but if she didn’t wear it, the guest would attack her.

Zhu Shu asked: “If it really is nails, how many do we need to find?”

“Its mouth is gaping wide…” Yan Qingwen narrowed his eyes slightly. “Just looking at it this way, the upper jaw looks like about 26 and the lower jaw about 24. There are six nails in its mouth already, so 44 remain.”

Bai Youwei shook her head gently. “The game won’t be that simple. We can’t rule out the possibility of double-layered or multiple-layered teeth.”

Shen Mo looked away and surveyed the furnishings inside the room. “If it’s double-layered, that’s 100 nails. Three layers, 150. Four layers, 200… In other words, the more nails we can find, the better.”

Li Li’s scalp tingled listening to those numbers.

“That’s outrageous — we’ve already turned this entire house upside down! Aside from maybe a dozen nails in the storage room, there are none anywhere else!”

Tan Xiao clapped one hand on his shoulder, and with the other thumped his own chest, wearing a solemn expression: “You’ve got to search with your heart! As they say, there is nothing too difficult in the world for those who set their minds to it! We must persevere unto death!”

Li Li snapped back: “The saying is ‘persevere with unwavering resolve’!”

Who the hell wants to persevere unto death with you?! Get lost!!!