Bai Youwei came out of the maze.

No reward whatsoever.

Because one moment her body had still been in freefall, and so it felt to her as though she hadn’t even steadied herself on her feet before she was already out of the maze.

Fu Miaoxue dashed past with extraordinary liveliness, launching herself into the arms of the person waiting for her, crying out: “Du Lai! Look at me! Look at me!”

Shen Mo steadied Bai Youwei and asked with concern: “Did it go smoothly?”

Bai Youwei let out a breath and closed her eyes, leaning into his arms. “…Nothing actually dangerous happened. It’s just that the whole process was… far too complicated to describe in a few words.”

She lifted her head and looked over at Fu Miaoxue.

Fu Miaoxue was throwing her arms around Du Lai and bouncing up and down gleefully. Not that her excitement was surprising—after leveling up through the maze, Fu Miaoxue had grown ever more indistinguishable from a living human. Now, unless you examined her up close, there was no way to tell she was a doll.

“Just one more maze and I’ll become a real person through and through!” Fu Miaoxue exclaimed excitedly.

Another one?

Bai Youwei silently rolled her eyes.

“Bai Youwei.” Du Lai called her name and tossed something over.

Shen Mo raised a hand and caught it—it was a fragment of Du Lai’s magic crystal.

“The item I promised you.” Du Lai said, holding Fu Miaoxue. “It’s yours now.”

Shen Mo placed it in Bai Youwei’s hand. “There’s one use left.”

Bai Youwei gently closed her fingers around the crystal fragment and was silent for a moment. “Let’s head back for now.”

She wasn’t ready yet…

Did she really want to look? When would she look? If her mother was dead, what then? And if she was alive, would she go looking for her?

Bai Youwei felt lost inside.

Du Lai and Fu Miaoxue had already left the lounge together, arm in arm.

Shen Mo gently ran a hand over Bai Youwei’s hair and said quietly: “Let’s go back and rest too. There are only a few days left before the next battle—you need to get yourself into the right state of mind as quickly as possible.”

Bai Youwei came back to herself. “How many days was I in there?”

“Four days.” Shen Mo paused, then continued, “Du Lai and I were nearly convinced you and Fu Miaoxue weren’t going to make it out. Chu Huaijin put out a call across the entire city for items similar to the friend’s invitation card, trying to find a way to send us in to rescue you.”

Bai Youwei laughed softly. “Of course he was worried—if I had gotten trapped in there too, the entire base really would have been left without a single king.”

As she spoke, she lowered her eyes to the crystal fragment in her hand, with a faint note of feeling: “Still, even I didn’t expect to be in there for that long…”

“At least you came out safely.” Shen Mo also looked at the fragment, his voice quiet. “Otherwise, for something as small as this—I’m not sure it would have been worth it.”

Bai Youwei was slightly taken aback. She raised her head to look at him. “You don’t want me to find my mother?”

Shen Mo didn’t answer directly, but said to her: “I want you to have no regrets.”

Having spent so long together, he naturally knew that the relationship between Bai Youwei and her mother had been quite cold and distant. Whether finding Wang Jingxian back again was necessary—he had no opinion, and had no intention of interfering. He only thought, from a rational perspective, that the likelihood of Wang Jingxian still being alive was not very high.

The doll game spared nothing and no one. The chance of that ship making it all the way to the Arctic without incident was virtually impossible.

Since the person she was looking for was quite possibly dead, Bai Youwei’s journey into the maze seemed a very poor bargain.

It was fortunate she had come back safe.

As the thought crossed his mind, Shen Mo held her close once more.

*He truly hoped he could stay by her side forever. Even if they faced danger—facing death together would be better than being separated in different worlds.*

The thought drifted through his mind, and Shen Mo suddenly understood the feeling that had driven Du Lai.

There was nothing worse than being apart from her. Nothing at all.

—