Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The trouble with role-playing games is this: you have to fully commit to the identity assigned by the system.

Kids couldn’t pull anything clever in front of the nun, so not only did that leg bone from the soup pot end up out of Luo Xi’s hands, but he and Xi Yu were also mercilessly thrown into solitary confinement.

No wonder Luo Xi, who usually preferred striking fast and hard, didn’t like playing this kind of game.

The confinement room was a storage room on the third floor, surrounded by dirty and suspicious junk. Bloodstains still dotted the floor—clearly a spot regularly used to torment children.

Xi Yu didn’t complain. Instead, he found some wire among the clutter and began trying to hook it through the crack in the door to snag the latch.

Luo Xi, who’d taken a few heavy punches from the nun, sat on the floor watching.

Unfortunately, a child’s height was a serious limitation. No matter how hard Xi Yu tried to stretch on his toes, he couldn’t reach the target.

Luo Xi let out a mocking chuckle, finally stood up, and walked over. Without warning, he hoisted Xi Yu onto his shoulders. “Didn’t know you had this skill set.”

Surprised, Xi Yu steadied himself, then focused all his attention. “Let’s try. Doesn’t look like we have another way out. Just… don’t do anything reckless next. We’ll look for the leg near the cafeteria first, then go for the other parts. We’re short on time.”

Luo Xi didn’t respond—he never did like being lectured.

Xi Yu stayed quiet too, inching the latch free bit by bit.

At last, the wooden door creaked open.

Although the orphanage game copy never mentioned a specific year, the near-total absence of electronics and the old-world, vaguely Western-style furniture suggested this was set in a war-torn era of the previous century.

Back in the now-empty cafeteria, Xi Yu let out a sigh. “There were a lot of instances of cannibalism in ancient times, but feeding children with other children is beyond cruel. Even if there was a war going on outside, could it really have gone that far? I really hope this is all just the game writers’ imagination, not based on real events.”

Hearing this, Luo Xi shot him a complicated look. “That’s just what you think. People aren’t all the same.”

Xi Yu paused—right, people aren’t all the same. He was a man-made person. Was it ridiculous for him to care this much?

But the discomfort gnawing at him felt very real.

Silently, Xi Yu entered the back kitchen, frowning. “The pot’s been cleaned. Did we miss our chance?”

“It’s fine. The adults in this place are all in on it together. They won’t go out of their way to guard against kids.” Luo Xi quickly searched the kitchen, then wordlessly pulled on a pair of oversized cooking gloves, grabbed a ladle, and went straight to stir the slop bucket behind the door.

The pungent, fermented stench immediately filled the small room.Xi Yu covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve, sneaking glances with a conflicted expression.

Sure enough, Luo Xi quickly fished out two of the largest bones and muttered, “The feet are all boiled to pieces. What a pain.”

Although clearly disgusted, Xi Yu didn’t shy away from responsibility. Fighting the discomfort throughout his body, he quietly picked up the bones and rinsed them off at the sink.

Taking the opportunity, he stood on tiptoe and peeked out the window, noticing that Fei Ling and Guan Sheng were being chased around the courtyard by a nun. He couldn’t help but worry: “Can we really count on those two? If we don’t collect the whole body, no one benefits. Maybe we should split up to help.”

“If they can’t even handle this, they would’ve been eliminated already,” Luo Xi replied coldly, carefully picking out more bone fragments, seemingly unaffected by the revolting task. He added seriously, “The orphanage’s room layout is the same as the one from last night’s map. Where do you think the frozen heart could be hidden?”

“Refrigerators existed by the early 19th century, but they would’ve been a luxury in a place like this,” Xi Yu said, recalling the diary fragments he’d once found. After briefly explaining, he continued, “If I understood correctly, the adults around this orphanage were all infected with some strange disease, but the children weren’t. Maybe they believed the kids carried something that could cure them, so the heart—being the most vital part of the body—was probably meant for someone powerful here, or is being kept by the doctor.”

“I think so too,” Luo Xi nodded. “Then I’ll check the director’s office. You go to the infirmary. Meet back in half an hour?”

Xi Yu wasn’t afraid of facing challenges alone and nodded without hesitation.

Only then did Luo Xi squat down and count the bone fragments. “Almost there. Let’s hide them first, then move out!”

Xi Yu quickly grabbed the apron the nun had left in the kitchen, carefully wrapped the cleaned leg bone in it, and handed him a small fruit knife. “Just in case.”

Outside, the rain was pouring harder, the roaring water making the silence inside the building feel like deathly stillness.

It seemed all the children had been sent off for a nap. As Xi Yu ran alone down the corridor, he didn’t see a single soul.

Silence often preceded chaos, and a nervous feeling crept in. When he saw the infirmary door, he immediately tiptoed over and leaned in to eavesdrop.

The door was slightly ajar, and inside, two women’s voices could be faintly heard.

The older one sighed, “There aren’t many children left. If we don’t come up with something soon, the director will eat them all…”

Xi Yu furrowed his brow tightly.

The younger woman’s voice trembled as she asked, “Is he really going to get better? I can’t live like this anymore! Every night… I can hear the children crying…”

“You don’t know how lucky you are! If it weren’t for the director, the military wouldn’t even protect this orphanage! If those refugees flood in, disease and starvation will wipe us all out!” the older woman retorted. “That American doctor in town already explained it—this disease only infects adults. Children have antibodies! So this is the only way!”

The younger woman sobbed, “…At this rate, the orphanage won’t have any kids left by next month.”

The older one ordered, “That’s why you need to go to the refugee district in town tonight. See if there are any orphans whose parents have already died. Find a way to bring them back.”“I—I’m not going! That place is full of sick people!” the younger woman said, increasingly terrified.

Furious, Xi Yu realized the conversation wasn’t over yet and suddenly darted to a nearby spot, deliberately making footsteps and even letting out a cough.

The voices inside abruptly stopped.

Two seconds later, an elderly nun opened the door, putting on a kind facade and asked, “Xiao Yu, what’s wrong?”

Xi Yu scrunched up his adorable face. “My tummy really hurts…”

“Come in, I’ll make you some medicine. Probably indigestion,” the old nun said, helping him into the infirmary.

The younger woman muttered, “Stop feeding them that stuff already.”

Xi Yu’s eyes looked innocently toward the younger nun, whose eyes were brimming with tears behind the older woman.

She avoided eye contact with the child, furrowed her brows, then immediately picked up a strange metal box and hurriedly walked out the door.

Condensation covered the outside of the box—it seemed very cold!

Xi Yu’s eyes widened, and the moment the old nun turned around to rummage for herbal medicine, he slipped out and followed the younger woman!

Based on the conversation between the two nuns, it was clear that the orphanage’s director had unfortunately contracted the epidemic and believed, superstitiously, that consuming children could cure it. Naturally, that made the other adults in the orphanage his executioners.

If his guess was correct, the woman was holding the frozen heart, and it was about to be delivered for the patient to consume!

Xi Yu’s heart was racing. On one hand, he was physically too small and weak to knock her down. On the other, the system had already warned that violence was strictly forbidden. So what could he do to trick her into giving up something so important?

……

……

As he followed her, troubled, Xi Yu suddenly caught a glimpse of Luo Xi slipping by and immediately called out in a sweet, childlike voice, “Xiao Kui!”

The nun carrying the metal box flinched and turned back to look at him. “What nonsense are you yelling? Weren’t you going to drink your medicine?”

Xi Yu smiled. “Teacher, so Xiao Kui is with you! I was wondering where she went.”

He remembered the system had mentioned that tragic girl’s name when announcing the rules. As expected, the nun’s expression turned grim. She dryly said, “Xiao Kui was adopted. Be good, don’t talk nonsense. Go drink your medicine.”Xi Yu put on a confused expression and circled around the iron box in her hands. “Isn’t Xiao Kui right here? She’s holding the teacher’s hand! Xiao Kui, I missed you!”

The nun had already shown unease to the elderly woman earlier. Now, hearing a child speak so innocently sent chills down her spine. She stepped back and shook her head. “Shut up! You’re dreaming nonsense!”

Xi Yu didn’t respond, just kept staring at her hands and nodded repeatedly.

That made the nun even more nervous. She swallowed hard and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Teacher…” Xi Yu blinked his big eyes. “Xiao Kui says her head is deep underwater and she can’t breathe, her body hurts from the pressure, and her legs feel like they’re burning hot… and, and her heart is too cold! So cold that she—”

“Ah!” the nun screamed, cutting him off in panic. She bent down and snapped, “Stop talking nonsense! Go back and rest right now or I’ll lock you in the dark room!”

Xi Yu looked aggrieved but softly continued, “Teacher… Xiao Kui said when you cut her, it hurt so much! She’ll follow you forever, always…”

“I didn’t cut her, it wasn’t me!” the nun screamed, dropping the box and grabbing Xi Yu’s shoulders in a frenzy. “Don’t say another word! And don’t tell anyone else these ghost stories!”

Having been watching secretly the whole time, Luo Xi silently approached, snatched up the box, and ran off.

Almost simultaneously, Xi Yu let out a loud, terrified wail, throwing the already unhinged nun into total disarray.

She slapped Xi Yu hard several times, but when she turned back—the crucial metal box had vanished.

“Not bad. Good acting. You’ve earned a little red flower.”

Luo Xi regrouped with Xi Yu in a nearby storage room, speaking as he pried open the sealed metal box.

Their efforts weren’t in vain. Inside, nestled in a bed of ice chips, was a small heart.

It still retained its bright red color, though its owner had long since passed away.

Xi Yu was so angry his hands trembled. In the end, he turned away. “You hold it.”

Luo Xi sighed. “Don’t get too into the role. It won’t help.”

Xi Yu took several deep breaths, then said, “Putting aside the grim backstory, the game’s simpler than I thought. We’re just missing two hands now.”

“Hands that can’t move at all…” Luo Xi, holding the heart in one hand and flexing his fingers with the other, looked at Xi Yu in confusion. “Could they be frozen too? In another freezer?”

Xi Yu shook his head. “Frozen hands can’t move, that’s true—but if that’s the setup, it’d overlap too much with the heart’s situation. So probably not.”Luo Xi wrapped the heart in the apron and sat cross-legged across from him. “So what kind of shackle would be shaped like hands and actually trap hands inside?”

Xi Yu brainstormed rapidly, then suddenly punched Luo Xi. “!”

Luo Xi: “……”

Xi Yu stood up and said, “There isn’t such a shackle—but you can make one! Any shape you want!”

For once, Luo Xi didn’t figure it out on his own.

Xi Yu grew anxious. “Plaster! The kind used for art!”

“……” Luo Xi went silent for a moment, then took a sharp breath and said, “If that’s true, then I’ve got to say the game developers are messed up. Eating children to survive is one thing, but killing someone and turning them into a plaster sculpture for display? That’s just beyond me.”

Xi Yu frowned. “That method’s from a Japanese mystery novel. Are we sure the game devs didn’t plagiarize it?”

He sighed helplessly. “The company should investigate seriously. Plagiarism is shameful—and illegal.”

Luo Xi almost blurted out, …Are you sure this isn’t just personal revenge on the cursed devs?

According to Luo Xi’s investigation, the so-called director was an American missionary. The orphanage had survived in the chaos thanks to that bit of American influence.

With Western culture as a backdrop, having an art room inside the church was definitely plausible.

Luo Xi left Xi Yu in the storage room to guard the body parts and searched the classrooms on his own. After a long hunt, he finally found some dusty easels at the back of a multipurpose room—and sure enough, a row of various small plaster hand models sat on the windowsill!

He furrowed his brows and quickly walked toward them.

But just as he was about to succeed, a nun entered with five or six recently-awoken children. She spotted him and yelled angrily, “Luo Xi! Weren’t you supposed to be in the confinement room reflecting?!”

Luo Xi instantly got a headache—it was the same battle-axe nun from the cafeteria at lunchtime.

Thankfully, he thought fast and muttered, “One of the moms lost a metal box, so they let us out to look for it, but I couldn’t find anything…”

The nun frowned. “Metal box?”

Luo Xi nodded. “Yeah, she said it was full of ice, meant to be sent to Director Papa. If he eats the medicine inside, he’ll get better!”

“…Was that nonsense from Xiao Qiu again?” the nun asked, her anger tinged with confusion. Then her expression changed, and she forced a smile. “You don’t have to help her anymore. Just stay here and play with everyone, okay?”As she spoke, she impatiently stormed out of the classroom.

Luo Xi let out a sigh of relief. Ignoring the innocent little kids completely, he immediately ran over to the windowsill.

Unfortunately, things were harder than he’d imagined: the row of small plaster hand models all emitted a faint yet unmistakable stench—corpse rot!

So besides Xiao Kui, were there hands from other children here too?

Now he couldn’t even accurately recall what that little girl looked like. How was he supposed to tell which pair of hands belonged to her?

He couldn’t just take all ten-plus plaster casts, could he?

No matter how dumb the NPCs were, the game surely wouldn’t let them pass by being so careless.

Just as Luo Xi was deep in thought, a little boy ran over. “Big brother, wanna play Rubik’s Cube?”

Luo Xi’s eyelid twitched—traumatized by Rubik’s Cubes before—and when he glanced sideways, sure enough, it was that brat who needed a good smack.

Forcing a smile, he asked in a low voice, “Where’d you get that Rubik’s Cube?”

The boy’s cheerful expression vanished at once. “I-I picked it up…”

Luo Xi vaguely remembered: during the first Rubik’s Cube game, this boy had said he’d stolen the teacher’s cube, which got his hand chopped off. Could it be that the orphanage really housed some dark pervert with a fetish for hands? Was the quest heading in a different direction?

The boy fidgeted with the cube randomly.

Luo Xi narrowed his eyes. “Do you even know how to solve it?”

The little boy shook his head.

Luo Xi said, “I’ll teach you how to play if you help me with something. Deal?”

The boy hesitated, then nodded cluelessly.