Chu Fu didn’t have the heart to tell the little girl the truth. Seeing her not say a word, Bai Yan instead, heaved a sigh.
If Chu Fu was loudmouthed enough to mention the truth about the death of the girl’s mom, this small child that showed a brave front would inevitably cry endlessly or even make a big fuss, which could inconvenience their ongoing investigation.
Although the app said that it added a halo of mental handicapness among the NPCs, the NPCs would indefinitely trust the players. But, if you told them that their beloved family member had died without any shred of evidence, even if the NPCs believed that they were detectives, they nevertheless won’t cooperate with their plans.
Of fear of being dragged down from Chu Fu saying something surprising.
Bai Yan took the coin resting on the girl’s tiny palm, bowing his head as he asked, “Where did your mother go missing? Did you encounter anything strange yesterday?”
“Sorry… I don’t remember…” Cai Yu raised her head to take a better look at Bai Yan, puffing her cheeks and thinking hard, “I’m not sure when I couldn’t see mommy anymore, but I know that she disappeared in the supermarket!”
“The supermarket?”
“Yes, it’s below the building!” Cai Yu repeatedly nodded her head with vigor.
“En… I’ll tell, but you guys must help me find mommy.”
Cai Yu vigorously nodded her head, saying as she swayed her head, “Yesterday was Sunday. In the morning, mommy mopped the floor and cooked food while I was doing my homework. By noon, mommy and I ate lunch then we took a nap. In the afternoon, mommy brought me to the supermarket to do some shopping…”
“…En, I was shopping with mommy inside the supermarket and then she suddenly disappeared!”
Telling the story up until this point made Cai Yu feel broken-hearted, “I said I wanted to drink yogurt. I asked mommy to wait for me, so I could get the yogurt myself, but when I got back, mommy got lost… Where did mommy go?”
“Wait a minute, your mom got lost inside the supermarket?”
“The yogurt section!” Cai Yu said assuredly, “That place has lots of yogurt and a lot of cold things. It’s cold there and that’s where mommy disappeared.”
When Cai Yu finished, Bai Yan got a general idea about the place where the little girl’s mom had disappeared.
A cold place… that has yogurt, this place ought to be near the supermarket’s refrigerated area.
Despite already experiencing five levels in this game, Bai Yan still couldn’t understand how the supermarket, which had many people coming and going, could be haunted by ghosts.
However, strangeness was all around in this game’s world. If it was your time to die, then you don’t have a choice but to die. So, he didn’t delve deeper into it and continued to ask Cai Yu more questions.
“After your mom disappeared, what did you do? What did you do last night?”
“When I couldn’t find mommy anymore, I went outside the supermarket to look for mommy, but I still couldn’t find her. I was so scared, so I called daddy. Daddy then brought me home…” Cai Yu tried her best to remember yesterday’s events, “After we got home, daddy ordered food for me to eat. And at night, he went out to look for mommy and told me to look after the house. I then slept on the bed all by myself…”
Cai Yu stammered at her words. Her storytelling until here took ages to finish, leading Bai Yan to think that this little girl couldn’t remember many details.
Who would have thought that when he was about to bring Cai Yu inside the mall, she suddenly said something by surprise, “Oh right! Last night, I dreamt of mommy. Mommy was lying behind me, saying that she was super cold. That’s why I need to quickly go to the supermarket and save her!”
Upon hearing this, Chu Fu’s expression drastically changed.
Since she has carelessly lived until the sixth level, she still understood a lot of things.
About the ghosts in this game, maybe they were all first class and good people when they were alive, but after their deaths, the first thing they would do was to find their loved ones during their lifetimes and kill them so that they could be dead together!
Cai Yu’s mom made her go to the supermarket. Perhaps it wasn’t so that the young girl could save her, rather, it was because her mother wanted to kill this girl with her own two hands!
For a second, Chu Fu wanted to open her mouth and block Cai Yu’s path, preventing her from going to the supermarket.
In… In any case, weren’t there other NPCs later. This child was far too young, so it’s better to not take her there.
But, before she could open her mouth to say something, she saw Bai Yan lead Cai Yu to the mall, and after a few seconds, he led Cai Yu out.
Seeing this, she was stunned, “What are you doing?”
“…” Shooting a glance at Chu Fu, Bai Yan was somewhat disinclined to explain everything, but of fear that she would cause trouble, he said without thinking it through, “I’m trying to see if doing this would be counted as a finished task. But the app’s loopholes aren’t easy to exploit, so we may need to wait for the NPC to run into danger first before it’s counted as them leaving the mall.”
Cai Yu had a question mark written across her face as she looked between the two people, not understanding what big brother and sister were talking about.
But, Cai Yu was quickly unconcerned about this as she raised her head and looked up for a while. Thinking that Chu Fu was friendlier, she then lightly tugged on Chu Fu’s clothes, asking in a small voice, “Sister, are you done talking? Can you go with me to find mommy now?”
Chu Fu slowly lowered her head to look at Cai Yu, her cute gaze filled with expectation. The little girl was truly cruel deep down.
Chu Fu was full of sympathy towards Cai Yu. Bai Yan, on the other hand, completely didn’t feel this way.
‘If Cai Yu didn’t go into the mall, how could they accomplish the task?’
‘On top of that, if Cai Yu wasn’t in front of them, when they come across Cai Yu’s mom, what should they do? Are you up yet, Chu Fu? Family members could even lay their hands on their own daughters, even more so towards someone they didn’t know very well.’
If Chu Fu wanted to take initiative and court death, Bai Yan would surely love to sit back and watch it.
However, Chu Fu couldn’t be counted on, so Bai Yan naturally wanted to bring Cai Yu to find her dear mother.
‘The daughter is already impatient and wanted to see her mother badly, so don’t you dare stand in the way of a mother-daughter reunion.’
Seeing that Cai Yu wasn’t letting go of Chu Fu’s clothes, Bai Yan whispered that they’ll go in and investigate. Cai Yu hesitated a bit but finally let go of her hold on Chu Fu’s clothes, taking small quick steps as she ran behind Bai Yan going in.
Seeing this scene in front of her, Chu Fu clenched her teeth and also went inside.
She couldn’t just stand there and watch this small child die. If she watched her attentively, maybe she could save her down the road.
Of course, Chu Fu was also scared, but after going through numerous levels, she felt that the app’s games weren’t that difficult. Although her previous games were all dangerous, she managed to overcome them, so maybe during this level, she could also turn peril into safety.
…
After entering the mall, Bai Yan first found the floorplan, keeping in mind the mall’s arrangements.
After he was finished looking at the floor plan, he brought Cai Yu over to the escalator, bringing them to the floor below.
The supermarket was located below the first floor.
And when they arrived there, Bai Yan pondered for a bit and let go of Cai Yu’s hand.
He let Cai Yu lead the way, falling behind her by two steps, to avoid implicating an innocent bystander if the female ghost will send her daughter on a journey.
After walking for a while, Cai Yu had soon led them to the refrigerated area.
She stood at the place where she grabbed some yogurt yesterday, pointing to it and saying, “This is where I discovered that mommy was missing. After I got the yogurt, I looked back and found out that mommy had suddenly disappeared!”
Bai Yan was standing in the middle of the aisle, walking away from the refrigerated section to avoid any concealed ghosts in the refrigerators and being killed.
He swept a glance across the open refrigerators, they featured every kind of cheeses, drinks, and yogurts. Among the densely packed goods on the shelves, he still didn’t see even half of a ghost’s shadow.
“Cai Yu was standing here, so her mom must have encountered the tragedy somewhere else.”
Along the way, Bai Yan carefully avoided the chilled items. It could be said that he was especially prudent.
He looked at Chu Fu, who was following him from behind, immediately becoming speechless——
Without any notice, Chu Fu was pushing a shopping cart and inside it was a large pile of snacks. Not to mention, they were conducting an investigation right now. This was simply not the time to do some grocery shopping. And, most importantly, do you have money inside the game?
As it turned out, Chu Fu truly had money, or else she wouldn’t have grabbed a bunch of items.
Bai Yan had nothing left to say to this girl. He had already decided in the beginning to play this level as if it were a single-player game. Even with or without her, it would still be the same.
What made him feel annoyed was that even if she was busy pushing the cart, Chu Fu also didn’t forget Cai Yu.
Chu Fu constantly reminded Cai Yu to not go near the fridges, causing trouble for his ongoing investigation.
Fortunately, Cai Yu was a little girl who wholeheartedly wanted to find her missing mother.
With two quiet yet deceit-filled words from Bai Yan, Cai Yu would act according to his wishes.
The refrigerators seemed nothing out of the ordinary, and Cai Yu patiently stood in front of one of the fridges for a long time, not finding anything out.
So, Bai Yan said, “Do you know where your mom was standing before she disappeared? Could you bring us there to look?”
Cai Yu nodded her small head, taking strides with her short legs and running towards the front of a big freezer.
Unlike the other refrigerators they saw, this freezer was closed off, containing ice cream and other frozen treats inside.
Seeing this freezer, Cai Yu suddenly thought of something. She remembered that at that time, she also wanted to eat ice cream, so her mom was waiting for her here while choosing what ice cream she wanted.
As she recalled this, Cai Yu immediately told Bai Yan about this.
Bai Yan thought about this for a while and then walked in front of the freezer, looking inside through the thick glass.
All kinds of frozen treats and ice cream were piled up inside the storage unit, making it more difficult to know what was inside.
However, this was the real place where Cai Yu’s mom went missing, so he couldn’t be too cautious.
Just now, Bai Yan wanted to ask Cai Yu to open the freezer, but he saw Chu Fu moving forward, crowding beside Cai Yu, and opening the freezer.
T/N: Wow, CHU FU WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING???? HOW DID YOU SURVIVE UNTIL THE SIXTH LEVEL?????
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