— What to do?

Shen Fei and Yu Yaqing instinctively looked toward Yan Qingwen.

He always had many plans.

But now, he couldn’t come up with a single one. He sat silently against the wall, his head deeply bowed, both hands trembling slightly.

Bai Youwei had never seen Yan Qingwen like this before — crushed to the very depths of despair…

Shen Mo swept his gaze across the room, then let it come to rest on Yan Qingwen. He asked: “Did Lu Ang have a puzzle piece?”

Yan Qingwen closed his eyes. He answered in a hoarse voice: “…He did.”

Lu Ang had one puzzle piece — he just hadn’t had the chance to use it before he…

The thought of it sent that suffocating, choking sensation closing around his throat again, like slow torture. He was in such agony he couldn’t say another word.

Shen Mo remained completely calm. He turned to Yu Yaqing and asked: “Do you have a puzzle piece?”

Yu Yaqing shook her head lightly.

Shen Mo considered for a moment, then said: “We need to plan for the worst case. If we still can’t clear the game, we need to figure out how to get out. Right now I, Yan Qingwen, Bai Youwei, and Tan Xiao all have puzzle pieces. Tomorrow find an opportunity to recover Lu Ang’s piece and give it to Yu Yaqing. I’ll find another way to get a piece for my brother.”

Bai Youwei blinked, and looked at him.

Shen Mo met her eyes too. He said calmly: “This time we’ll have to inconvenience Xiaoxin — borrow it as an emergency measure, and make it up to him the next time we clear a maze.”

Pan Xiaoxin had received a puzzle piece inside the snake maze.

It was a bit of an imposition, but there was truly no other option right now. Shen Mo couldn’t just stand by and watch his brother die.

Yan Qingwen’s voice came out rough and low: “Take my puzzle piece. I’m not going.”

Shen Mo frowned at that and asked: “Do you know what you’re saying?”

Shen Fei hesitated for a few seconds and said softly: “Senior Yan… we understand, you might not be able to accept this yet… but if Lu Ang were alive, he definitely wouldn’t want to see you throw your life away in a game.”

Yan Qingwen slowly shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

He raised his head and looked at them, his gaze as calm as a pool of still water with nothing in it.

“If I leave here, everything that happened today will stay frozen in this place — forever, never moving past it. I can’t move past it. Do you understand what I mean?”

Even if he went outside, he was already dead. Killed by the slow, agonizing torture of watching Lu Ang die over and over in his mind!

Everyone was silent. Not a sound.

To lose a companion who had faced death alongside you — that pain was something everyone understood to varying degrees. There were no comforting words to offer, no way to console.

After a while, Shen Mo said: “Then let’s try one more time.”

Everyone looked at him.

Shen Fei hesitated: “But… cutting off her head didn’t work, did it?”

“Even though it won’t cause Mary to die immediately, it does impede her mobility.” Shen Mo said evenly. “If we can cut her head off once, we can do it a second time. At that point we can find a way to hide the head, eliminate the immediate threat, and then slowly work out the method to clear the game.”

As he spoke, his gaze settled on Yan Qingwen, who sat silent with his head bowed. “For now — rest well.”

Yan Qingwen didn’t answer. He only sat with his head bowed deeply. A faint trace of remaining light outside cast his shadow on the wall — still, desolate, and lonely…

…

There was little daylight left.

Very soon, night came again.

Lights blazed on. Music started up. Outside became bustling, noisy, raucous.

As if in deliberate mockery, their spirits had already sunk to their lowest ebb — yet the amusement park insisted on manufacturing an atmosphere of boundless festivity.

All they felt was the noise.

Shen Mo went outside once, then returned to tell everyone: “Mary has gathered more plush dolls and is sewing the cloth cat.”

That meant they were safe tonight.

It also meant…

Once Mary finished sewing the cat, the following night — what awaited them would be an even more brutal game of… hide-and-seek.

—