“Youwei, did you hear something?”

Tan Xiao couldn’t help glancing out toward the distance.

“It sounded like someone cried out.”

They were now on a pirate ship on Adventure Island, nestled against the lake, so the terrain here was lower, and they could only see lush greenery and the rolling rises and dips of the roller coaster tracks.

“Hurry up and get inside — never mind all that!” Bai Youwei said irritably. “Just now you knocked over that huge pirate flag — Mali might already be riding the cat this way!”

Tan Xiao immediately deflected the blame: “It was Yan Qingwen and Lu Ang who dismantled everything on this ship in a complete mess, so when I just barely nudged the flag, it toppled over!”

Bai Youwei said: “Could you not have just not touched it?”

Tan Xiao replied: “I thought it was about to fall, so I poked it to see if it would. Who’d have thought it would actually fall?”

________________________________________

Bai Youwei closed her eyes briefly. “For the next ten minutes, I don’t want to hear another word out of you!”

Tan Xiao: “…”

Bai Youwei leaned on the railing and made her way below deck.

Tan Xiao scratched his head and followed after her again. “Youwei, I’ve noticed you seem to be able to walk fine without your crutch — just slowly…”

Bai Youwei turned around and said coldly and firmly: “Ten minutes!”

Tan Xiao quietly touched his own nose.

……

Bai Youwei arrived on the lower deck.

This space had been arranged to recreate some scenes of pirate life — treasure maps nailed to wooden planks, a crew member’s diary placed inside the cabin, some rooms piled with gold and silver jewelry, all very fitting for tourist photographs.

For Bai Youwei, however, the greatest advantage of this place was that the entrances and exits were narrow enough that the cat couldn’t get in.

Shen Fei was leaning against the wall of the corridor, his face pale as he breathed slowly and steadily.

He heard the voices of Bai Youwei and Tan Xiao, turned his eyes toward them, and asked in a weak voice: “Is it safe here?”

“Should be.” Bai Youwei leaned on the railing as she descended, without much energy herself. Her legs ached, her head ached — her whole body ached.

“According to what the inspector said before, all the buildings and facilities in this amusement park are very sturdy — there’s no danger of collapse. And the cat can’t get in for now, so we should be safe.”

— If the structures weren’t sturdy enough, Mali would only need to have the cat destroy every building one by one, leaving players with nowhere to hide — and the game would be as good as won. That would be an enormous unfairness.

Shen Fei listened, gave a slow nod, then closed his eyes.

Bai Youwei didn’t want to see him close his eyes — though she knew it was because he was exhausted and injured, something about it made him look like he was dying.

She really did not want Shen Mo’s little brother to die.

At least not in front of her.

“Have you ever been through a maze?” Bai Youwei asked him.

Shen Fei lifted his eyelids slightly and looked at her. “I have…”

“How many times?” she asked again.

Shen Fei thought for a moment. “Once… In Shanghai. When I got trapped in the maze, I thought I wasn’t going to make it… Afterward, Professor Song and the special operations team broke through the maze and led the others out together. There were more than a hundred of them — these people later became the main members of the organization.”

Bai Youwei smiled slightly. “The Shanghai maze really was a blessing to humanity.”

It had enhanced the physical abilities of more than a hundred people.

“You’re quite fortunate — if you hadn’t been through the maze, even with the mud treatment, it would be very difficult to recover from injuries like this.” Bai Youwei relaxed with a relieved sigh, her tone becoming light and neutral. “Rest well. You’ll recover soon.”

Shen Fei looked at her, moved his lips, wanting to say thank you.

But Bai Youwei had already closed her eyes, as though resting quietly.

He didn’t know what to say anymore. Somehow it felt like it would disturb her. In the end, he stared blankly at her for a moment, then closed his own eyes as well.

A few seconds later —

The hull of the ship jolted violently!

“What was that?!” Tan Xiao was startled and leaped to his feet, immediately turning to bolt outside!