Time: Third class period, afternoon.
Location: School building.
Characters: A group of dumbfounded onlookers and one monster currently “shedding its skin.”
Fu Changxun was still in a state of stunned disbelief, practically turning into a human “shocked.jpg.”
Xiao Xiao continued diligently scraping away—yet none of the shards of glass cut her at all. It was as if they deliberately avoided her, until every single piece had fallen away.
The true form of the “monster” finally emerged.
It was a woman. Her facial features bore a certain resemblance to Xiao Xiao’s. She looked young, probably in her early twenties.
Softly, Xiao Xiao asked, “Mama?”
The woman stood stark naked in a pile of broken glass, her head slowly tilting to the side.
She didn’t seem to understand Xiao Xiao’s words, but her hostility had completely vanished. She simply stared silently at the girl.
Xiao Xiao took a step forward, but Qiu Yi quickly intervened. “Xiao Xiao, wait. Don’t go over there. What if she just looks like your mom? What if she isn’t?”
“She is my mom,” Xiao Xiao insisted stubbornly. “I just know. She’s my mom!”
Qiu Yi hesitated, then fell silent.
Fu Changxun stepped forward two paces. “Alright, alright. Xiao Xiao, don’t rush. Just tell me—how can you be so sure she’s your mom? Have you seen her before?”
Xiao Xiao had lost her father during her very first instance. Since then, she’d stuck with Fu Changxun and Dong Zi—but the two of them were grown men, and there were inevitably things they couldn’t manage when it came to taking care of a young girl.
Xiao Xiao had been forced to learn how to fend for herself, doing everything on her own, trying her best to take good care of herself.
Wounds like hers couldn’t be healed by therapy alone. They needed time, and a lot of it, to slowly scab over.
Fu Changxun understood this better than anyone, which was why he never tried to force a “we’re one family” atmosphere—and he’d never brought up her parents or her past.
But this time, there was no avoiding it.
Even so, Xiao Xiao wasn’t overly emotional. She just said again, firmly, “I’ve seen her. My dad showed me pictures of her!”
“She looks just like in the photo?”
“Yes!!”
Fu Changxun still didn’t dare let down his guard. “Has she recognized you yet?”
Xiao Xiao’s overly excited emotions began to cool. She looked up at the woman again, called out to her with hope—but the woman just kept tilting her head silently.
Then at last, it seemed like a flicker of recognition passed through her eyes. She slowly squatted down, though the motion was sluggish and jerky—years of nonstop sprinting had clearly worn away her muscles’ capacity for normal movement. It took a while for her to lower herself to eye level with Xiao Xiao.
“You…” Her voice was barely a breath. Years of disuse had damaged her vocal cords, and now all she could manage was a faint hiss of air.
Xiao Xiao stumbled over her words: “Mama, I’m Xiao Xiao. Papa said… you’re the one who picked my name… I’m ten now. Why are you here?”
The little girl’s questions seemed to stir something in the woman’s memory. She shook her head slowly, struggling to recall—but it was no use. The memories wouldn’t come.
And just as she was about to force out a word or two, the shrill sound of the school bell suddenly pierced the air.
Ding—
Xiao Xiao’s expression changed in an instant.
The monsters were always absent during break periods… which meant her mother—what about her mother?
The woman gently patted Xiao Xiao’s head—then disappeared with the ringing of the bell.
She truly could only appear during “class hours.”
That lined up perfectly with everyone’s earlier theory—not a second more, not a second less.
Xiao Xiao stood there, blankly staring at the empty air. It took her a few moments to realize what had just happened. Her eyes instantly brimmed with tears.
“She’s gone… Mama left me again… She doesn’t want me anymore…”
Fu Changxun rushed over in just a few strides, pulling the sobbing girl into his arms.
“She didn’t abandon you. There’s definitely a rule in this instance that restricts her. She’s just been forced to hide for now. Give it a little time—she’ll be back.”
He gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. “She’ll be back very soon.”
“Really?” Xiao Xiao asked, her voice trembling.
She was painfully fragile right now. Having already lost her father once, the thought of losing her mother—just after finding her again—was devastating.
Fu Changxun only comforted her for about a minute before standing up abruptly and addressing the others. “The long break period is starting—we’re supposed to go out and run laps. Are we doing that or not?”
“Run laps?”
Qiu Yi was stunned for a beat. “Huh? Running again this afternoon… Oh, right. It is break time.”
Spending a thirty-minute break period on laps was a massive waste.
Everyone shook their heads in unison, refusing to go.
“Alright then, let’s head to the blackboard and sign our names.”
Neither Huang Yue nor Xiao Xiao had known about this trick before. When they walked up to the blackboard, they were both surprised.
“Whoa, this is such a neat trick!” Huang Yue exclaimed.
Using the same piece of chalk from earlier, Fu Changxun wrote his own name, then Qiu Yi’s and Xu Xiao’s.
When he got to Huang Yue, she finally interrupted. “Wait… um, I lied to you guys. My real name is actually Huang Yueran.” The female player looked sheepish. “I was scared you might try to track me down in the real world. Someone did that to me in the last instance, and it really freaked me out. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’ll fix it.” Fu Changxun nodded understandingly.
Soon, all four names were listed neatly on the absence sheet.
He was about to put the chalk back in its tray out of habit, but just then, a half-used piece left on a nearby desk suddenly shifted.
Fu Changxun froze, held his breath, and stared at it.
It rolled. Once. Twice.
“You saw that, right?” He pointed at the chalk. “It moved. On its own.”
Qiu Yi looked from the chalk to him, still not following.
Fu Changxun quickly opened the Game Shop and bought a [Paranormal Entity Detector]—but the tool returned nothing.
Which only confirmed his suspicions.
“I think… this school isn’t the full scope of the instance.”
Huang Yueran tilted her head, confused. “But we can’t leave the school. We’ve already tried. You get blocked if you try to climb the fence or wall.”
“I’m not talking about the physical boundaries.” Fu Changxun gripped the chalk tray tightly. “What I mean is—there are two parallel and overlapping timelines.” he said urgently. “There are thirteen players total—seven on our side, which means the remaining six must be in the other space. We can’t see or touch them—but we can affect certain objects. Like this one!”
That piece of chalk had rolled despite no wind, no external force, and no slope on the desk.
Xiao Xiao was still too young to grasp what parallel timelines meant, especially after reuniting with her mother. Her emotions hadn’t yet settled. She looked blankly at gege.
The other players also looked confused.
Fu Changxun explained, “We’re all inside this instance, but it’s actually two identical schools, stacked on top of each other. Maybe time flows slightly differently between them. Or maybe time is exactly the same.”
“So, if someone in the other space moves the chalk, it moves here too.”
Parallel dimensions might be fantasy in the real world, but in an instance like this—anything was possible. And since the tool confirmed there were no ghosts, his theory held up.
Qiu Yi asked, “So the reason we can’t find Lulu and the others is… they’re not in this one?”
“Exactly,” Fu Changxun replied. “Even if we dig through the entire school, tear the place apart, we won’t find them. Because they’re in the parallel dimension.”
What he didn’t know was that, at that exact moment, he was standing in the same spot as Dong Zi.
In different dimensions, at the same time, the two stood in precisely the same place.
If a higher-dimensional being were to peel back the fold separating the two spaces, they’d see that the two overlapped down to the smallest fraction—heartbeats beating in near-perfect sync.
Huang Yueran had been silently listening to their conversation the whole time. Now, everything finally clicked into place.
Suddenly enlightened, she suggested, “Maybe the only way to merge the two timelines or break the barrier is to resolve the ghost stories?”
And just like that, the discussion circled back to solving the mystery surrounding the ghost tales.
Starting with Xiao Xiao’s… mother.
“If—and I mean if—we could win over that thing that looks like Xiao Xiao’s mom, maybe we could clear the instance faster?” Huang Yueran offered hesitantly.
In her view, monster or not, mother or not—nothing was more important than clearing the game.
Fu Changxun replied, “Even if we can win her over—what then? We don’t even know if she really is Xiao Xiao’s mother, or what she went through to end up as an NPC in this instance.”
He hesitated. If he couldn’t guarantee Xiao Xiao’s safety, he wouldn’t go through with it.
“I think… it’s worth a try,” Qiu Yi said. He disagreed with Fu Changxun. “We can protect Xiao Xiao. Doctor Fu, don’t you trust yourself? We’re strong enough now. Even without Xiao Dong and Lulu here, the three of us can handle it.”
Fu Changxun froze.
He honestly hadn’t thought about that.
He’d spent so much time half-playing, half-hiding, stuck in survival mode, that he hadn’t realized how much he’d grown.
He wasn’t some newbie needing protection anymore—he was a seasoned player now. One capable of protecting others.
“…You’re right.” He fell silent for a long while before sitting on a stool in the corner. “I’ve been too cautious… stuck in old habits. Undervaluing myself. I should’ve trusted you all sooner. Xiao Xiao, we’ll go find your mother together in a bit.”
Xiao Xiao’s eyes lit up with joy. “Okay!”
Since they were preparing to meet an NPC of unknown threat level—one that might actually become an ally—they needed to at least establish basic defenses, and try to mentally prepare the child.
Fu Changxun took Xiao Xiao outside for a private five-minute talk. When they returned, the little girl was noticeably calmer.
Meanwhile, Qiu Yi had already come up with a plan—how to neutralize the NPC without harming her.
After hearing it in full, Fu Changxun nodded. “Alright. I believe in us now.”
Huang Yueran brightened. “That’s great! Thank you for trusting me—I promise I won’t let you down. The three of us are more than enough to protect Xiao Xiao!”
Fu Changxun finally looked up. “Ah… You’re still here? Sorry, I completely forgot about you.”
“No… I think you misunderstood,” Qiu Yi added, twisting the knife. “When I said ‘the three of us,’ I meant me, Doctor Fu, and Xiao Xiao.”
Huang Yueran: “…”
Thanks. Truly.
