Chapter 173: The Special Token

"You’re here to watch the parade too? There’s a songstress performing tonight. What a coincidence, running into you here."

Linglan came to a slow stop beside Lin Yun, her gaze drifting lazily toward the approaching float somewhere off in the distance.

Still not entirely sure what Linglan really meant by any of this, Lin Yun offered only a brief, noncommittal reply in response.

For the rest of the time, neither of them said much of anything more. They simply stood together in a quiet, watchful silence, occasionally sliding a glance toward one another.

Before very long, the float carrying Tong Yin finally arrived, and the songstress herself came slowly into view, standing tall atop the platform.

She looked absolutely stunning that particular evening, dressed in an elegant gown with carefully done, flawless makeup. After checking the time, Tong Yin adjusted the microphone and opened her mouth to sing.

The surrounding noise fell away almost instantly at the sound of her voice, the whole crowd settling into an expectant hush as they waited patiently for her to begin.

Tong Yin performed a popular song from China, one that the local indigenous NPCs had clearly never once heard before. Yet the moment the melody began, they responded to it with unmistakable, genuine enthusiasm.

She kept a warm, practiced smile fixed on her face the whole time she sang, but only she herself truly knew just how much pain lay hidden behind that composed expression.

The truth was, she could no longer stand upright entirely on her own anymore. To make it appear otherwise, someone had quietly rigged a hidden support frame beneath the folds of her skirt, but the device left her utterly exhausted, her legs aching constantly beneath the ongoing strain of it all.

As her eyes swept slowly over the crowd of tourists before her, she froze for a moment, catching sight of Linglan standing not far off to one side.

She hadn’t expected to see Linglan here, of all places.

Tong Yin’s expression turned cold at once, and in that same breath she noticed Lin Yun standing beside her.

She had no idea who Lin Yun actually was, but she could tell at a glance this wasn’t a member of the park’s staff.

Was Linglan stirring up trouble again, as always? Why couldn’t the woman simply learn to keep quiet, just this once?

Linglan noticed that Tong Yin had spotted her, but she paid it no mind at all.

"Does she sound good to you?" she asked suddenly.

"Her voice is beautiful," Lin Yun said. "No wonder she’s a songstress, and no wonder so many tourists adore her."

"You must have already seen the puppet show, haven’t you?" Linglan pressed on.

Before Lin Yun could answer, she kept talking. "I’m quite the fool, aren’t I?"

"It was my fault they ended up ruined. My fault that Tong Yin was ruined too."

"She can’t stand on her own anymore. Her leg is broken. She may look like she’s standing right now, but she’s in constant agony, and all of it is because of me."

"Once you finish your task here, leave as quickly as you can. Don’t make contact with anyone in this place, or you’ll end up trapped along with the rest of us."

"And don’t waste your time trying to save anyone here. None of us can ever get out."

Linglan turned to face Lin Yun directly, and as their eyes met, a faint smile crossed her face.

"Honestly, I envy you. But I resent you too, a little."

"You get to leave this place. I never will."

"Don’t worry. The people here have no idea who the outsiders really are. Only we, who were once outsiders ourselves, can tell, because we were once your compatriots too."

"I’ve done a lot of wrong things, and I know none of us can survive entirely on our own here, so I want to give you this."

Linglan reached into her pocket and drew out a small token.

It gleamed gold, catching the light like a fragment of solid gold.

[Host! Quick, take it! This little token is a special reward from a daily quest!]

Lin Yun pressed her lips together, her expression giving nothing away, and accepted the small token.

[I can hardly believe I just got my hands on a special token this easily.]

She tucked it into her backpack, then looked up. "Why are you suddenly telling me all this?"

"Because the moment I found out about the new show added to the puppet theater, I knew you’d end up seeing it for yourself."

"That’s enough questions. Asking too much won’t do you any good."

"Just remember what I’ve told you. After finishing your task, head back as quickly as you can. Don’t linger in this park, and don’t trust anything the staff or NPCs tell you. If you ever run short on meal tickets, come find me at the visitor center."

With that said, Linglan turned on her heel and walked away without so much as a backward glance, leaving before Lin Yun had any real chance to say another word.

Lin Yun blinked slowly. Linglan, of all people.

It was strange, the way she’d suddenly unloaded all of that onto her out of nowhere. What could possibly have prompted it?

She turned it over in her mind but couldn’t make sense of it.

Still, since dwelling on it wasn’t getting her anywhere, she let the thought go rather than torment herself over it.

She looked back toward Tong Yin, still singing in the distance. The tourists remained absorbed in the lively parade, and nothing about the scene seemed out of the ordinary.

After a moment’s thought, Lin Yun decided it was time to head back to the shelter.

If anything happened while she was gone, Song Xizheng would let her know right away.

"Ugh, they all reek."

As Lin Yun made her way back, Sang Biao, who had been perched almost invisibly on her shoulder, suddenly spoke up.

"What do you mean?"

"They all give off a foul smell, kind of like death." Sang Biao sniffed the air again, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

It stank. He didn’t like it one bit.

Lin Yun’s brow furrowed, and she quickened her pace.

By now, the tourists who had once filled the parent-child interaction area had all been drawn away by the parade, leaving the area empty.

Lin Yun glanced around warily once more before slipping back into the shelter.

Sang Biao switched off the cloaking balloon and hopped down from her shoulder.

Earlier, when Linglan had been standing right beside Lin Yun, she hadn’t noticed Sang Biao’s presence at all.

"Sang Biao, were you talking about the smell coming from those tourists?"

"Yes, that smell was coming from them. But the girl who came up to you afterward didn’t have it."

Sang Biao stretched, then sat up straight and curled his tail around his paws.

"She smelled the same way you do, like flowers."

Lin Yun let out a soft, puzzled hiss, not quite following what he meant.

"Sang Biao, I don’t quite understand."

"What exactly does death smell like? Like a corpse?"

But those tourists hadn’t looked dead at all.

"I don’t know how else to explain it. They just smell wrong, like death clings to them. Cats can’t stand that kind of scent."

Lin Yun fell silent for a long moment. Surely all those tourists weren’t already dead?

Things were starting to take a strange turn.

She’d witnessed tourists eating other people right in front of her, the air thick with the unmistakable scent of death.

A shiver ran through her at the thought. This amusement park really was full of hidden surprises, it seemed. Something unsettling seemed to lurk behind every single corner of the place.

The ghosts haunting the haunted house were genuinely real ghosts. The children in the whack-a-mole game could have their heads mended even after taking a direct hit. The puppets in the theater moved entirely on their own.

"Sang Biao, I’ll take you out again tomorrow. You can help me sniff out more scents then, all right?"

Lin Yun stroked his smooth fur gently as she made the suggestion.

"Okay." Sang Biao agreed without much hesitation.

It was already well past nine o’clock by the time Lin Yun finally returned to the shelter. After settling back in and tidying up a little, she received a fresh message from Song Xizheng.

Song Xizheng: "Sister Lin, I’m glad you made it back safely. You really don’t want to know what happened after you left."

Song Xizheng: "Those tourists lost their minds. They actually started attacking and eating each other. It was like something out of the last apocalypse, full of zombies. The whole scene was soaked in blood."

Song Xizheng: "Oh, and unless I’m missing something, it has to be connected to Tong Yin’s singing. There’s really no other explanation for why those tourists suddenly turned on each other like that."