“Most likely,” Du Lai said coolly. “I recall the intelligence the base provided mentioned a game involving ghost fire.”

He paused, then wrinkled his nose in distaste. “But that was a maze-loop game, not this… this, uh, what was it again? ‘The Bone-Carrying…’ something?”

“The Bone-Carrying Woman,” his girlfriend supplied. “The *Bone-Carrying Woman* is a song from the Minnan opera repertoire.”

Du Lai seemed displeased at having his girlfriend draw attention to herself in front of these two, and he secretly pinched her palm.

But she was determined to defy him and raised her voice: “What are you doing?! Now I’m not even allowed to speak?! Then why did you bother saving me? You might as well have let me die!”

Du Lai: “……”

Shen Mo looked the black-robed woman over, then turned to Du Lai. “I believe Minnan opera is a traditional form of opera from the Fuzhou area — I’m not very familiar with it myself. Now that we’re in a game, if we’re going to act together, shouldn’t we share some information?”

“Exactly~” Bai Youwei added. “And if you’d rather not act together, you’re welcome to get out of the car right now.”

“Fine, we’ll get out — who needs you anyway!” The black-robed woman had a fierce temper, fiercer than even Bai Youwei’s.

She was reaching for the door handle when Du Lai pulled her back sharply. “Wait a moment…”

The girlfriend said, displeased, in dialect: “What on earth are you doing?!”

The dialect was sudden and jarring.

Du Lai kept her hand firmly in his and spoke to Shen Mo: “It’s obviously safer to act together. I’ve heard you two are highly experienced at clearing games. If you find any clues, I trust you won’t hide them from us?”

Shen Mo gave a slight nod. “As long as we’re in alliance, information and resources should be shared.”

“Agreed.” Du Lai nodded and turned to his girlfriend. “We’ll get out of the car together and find the arbitrator to clarify the rules. If the game is not a competitive format, I’m willing to form an alliance. Any intelligence we have about the game, we’ll share freely and without reserve.”

He said this, then looked at Bai Youwei with a smile. “How does that sound? Is that enough goodwill?”

Bai Youwei gave him a cool, indifferent smile in return and said nothing.

Shen Mo took Bai Youwei’s hand. “Let’s all get out together.”

……

Fine rain fell, persistent and thin.

A cold wind moaned through the dark.

The moment the car doors opened, the ball of pale blue ghost fire outside swayed and burned even more fiercely, the ghostly face within the flames growing ever more abstract and unsettling.

All four got out of the car.

The ghost fire swayed and drifted toward them, drawing close — so close it nearly touched their skin, and yet none of them felt any warmth from it at all.

“Welcome… to the… Doll Game…”

The voice carried no gender, clear and unhurried, like a spirit’s chant rising from deep within an ancient tomb —

“The rules of the game… are as follows… A woman surnamed Li, who carries bones from the east of the village to the west… then from the west back to the east… day after day without ceasing… if you can make her stop, you shall prevail.”

Bai Youwei listened with a deep frown, then said, impatiently: “Speak plainly!”

The ghost fire: “……”

Du Lai’s girlfriend: “Ha ha ha ha ha, it’s not a person — how can it possibly ‘speak plainly’?!”

Bai Youwei looked irritated. “I don’t understand. Say the rules again!”

The ghost fire gazed at Bai Youwei silently.

It recognized her.

She had obtained “one-tenth of me” from the Rabbit-Head Being, the “dollhouse” from the Sphere, and had recently acquired several additional components — so much so that the comic-book man had suspected the Rabbit-Head Being of showing favoritism. The reason was simply that this player had far too many unpredictable variables, and everyone found her exceedingly difficult to deal with.

It had not expected to encounter her in its own game…

Still, its game, at least, should not be something she could exploit for loopholes, right?

After all, among all the doll games, its game was considered the most conservative, the most airtight, and the most impervious to interference — the number of times its loopholes had needed patching was nearly zero.

—