Chapter 176: Not Eating Children? Then Who Ate Them All Yesterday?

Lin Yun overslept badly again the next morning.

Without even pausing to brush her teeth, she hastily crammed a steamed bun into her mouth, scooped up an equally groggy Sang Biao, and bolted straight out the door.

Tuan Tuan was left behind entirely, blinking in blank, wide-eyed confusion at the sudden chaos.

Round and round: "...?"

06:59:47.

Lin Yun let out a shaky breath of relief. Damn, that nearly gave me a heart attack. The cotton had done its job a little too well — she’d slept clean through half the alarms and nearly ended up late for the day’s tasks.

Sang Biao yawned sleepily and curled up in a tight little ball on top of her backpack.

Lin Yun grabbed a hat from somewhere and jammed it onto her head, hurrying off toward the pirate ship to track down Song Xizheng.

The moment she found him, he looked her over carefully and asked, somewhat cautiously, "Sister Lin... did you oversleep?"

"Mm-hm." Lin Yun answered with a faint note of exhaustion in her voice.

"Come on, then — carousel, puppet theater, and the roller coaster, in that order."

Song Xizheng didn’t put up any fuss about it. He rarely bothered thinking too hard about these things anyway, and since Lin Yun already had a plan mapped out, he was perfectly content to just tag along and follow her lead.

The moment they arrived at the carousel, the little girl there caught sight of the familiar pair and immediately leapt off her horse, already bracing herself to make a run for it.

Monsters! Every single one of these people are monsters!

Why do I keep running into people who insist on threatening me with weapons of all things?

Just let me leave already, would you? Can’t I just quietly disappear?

If you can’t afford to cross them, the least you could do is avoid them entirely! Stupid adults! I hate every last one of you!

Among the weapon-wielding culprits in question: Song Zhenzhen, Xiong Qi, and George.

That list also happened to include a fair number of other survivors who’d already caught wind of the little girl’s particular weakness.

Lin Yun spotted the girl attempting her escape and immediately lunged forward, catching her firmly with both hands before she could get away.

"What are you doing?! I was literally in the middle of running away, why are you grabbing me now?!" the little girl shrieked in absolute terror.

"Why are you even running? I don’t eat people, you know."

"You don’t eat people, sure, but you’re still carrying weapons!" The girl remained thoroughly unconvinced and terrified all the same.

"Okay, okay, my mistake, truly my mistake. Please just let me go. I’ll come right back the second you two leave, I promise!"

Lin Yun simply shook her head and refused outright, then, right in front of the horrified girl in the green vest, hoisted the little girl up onto the carousel anyway. "Don’t be scared. I don’t eat children, I promise."

"Wait, what? You don’t eat children? Then what exactly were you doing yesterday, eating them one after another like that...?"

Song Xizheng’s voice drifted quietly in from somewhere behind them.

The little girl’s terror spiked immediately. "Master! There’s actually someone here who eats children! And she does it one after the other, without stopping!"

Lin Yun, once again: "..."

Of course. Leave it to Song Xizheng.

The little girl clung tightly to the carousel horse, panic flooding through her all at once. She’d suddenly realized — of course the human hadn’t killed her outright last time, because she’d clearly been saving her up to eat later instead!

She’d known this human was scheming something all along! And she’d been right the entire time!

Humans truly were the most terrifying creatures in existence, no question about it.

Lin Yun rolled her eyes hard, wondering privately who exactly had decided it was a good idea to terrify a child half to death on a carousel of all places.

Once seated on her own rocking horse, Lin Yun simply ignored the little girl entirely, figuring she wouldn’t try anything foolish under the circumstances.

Sure enough, the girl kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut the entire ride, terrified that making eye contact with Lin Yun might somehow trigger being devoured on the spot.

Once they’d finally left the carousel behind, the little girl cautiously peeked back over her shoulder, only allowing herself to relax once she was certain the two of them had drifted safely far away.

Phew. The child-eating adults are finally gone. That was absolutely terrifying.

Yay! I don’t have to get eaten after all!

"Sister Lin, that was hilarious! I genuinely didn’t expect you to just march right up and grab her like that."

Song Xizheng couldn’t stop chuckling every time he pictured the little girl’s petrified expression afterward.

Lin Yun simply shrugged in response. Honestly, she hadn’t planned on catching the girl at all — maybe it had just been an instinctive reaction to watching someone flee like that.

"Sigh, I got bullied by a different little girl just yesterday, so I suppose it’s only fair I take it out on this one instead, right?"

"Pfft — you think we’ll actually run into her again if we head back to the puppet theater?"

Speaking of which, Song Xizheng genuinely found himself wondering just who exactly that unsettling little girl from the puppet theater actually was.

Lin Yun had no idea either, but given how often they’d already crossed paths with her purely by visiting the puppet theater, the odds of running into her again seemed fairly high, didn’t they?

Stepping inside the puppet theater, they spotted the very same baby-faced girl in the green vest from the day before.

She greeted them warmly the instant she caught sight of them.

"Oh, it’s you two again! Back so soon! Our shows here must really be that good, huh? I just knew you two would end up loving it!"

"Since this makes your third visit today, I’ll throw in two free servings of popcorn for you. Want some cola to go with that? I can grab that too, no problem!"

Lin Yun rubbed her stomach absently. "Really? Thank you so much. I honestly didn’t eat enough this morning before rushing out."

The girl giggled softly and quickly set down two servings of popcorn along with two cups of cola. "Here you go, enjoy!"

"Oh, by the way — what show were you two hoping to catch today? Just so you know, ’Red Sleeve Pavilion’ has actually been pulled from the lineup entirely. Can’t watch that one anymore, unfortunately."

Pulled from the lineup? Why on earth would they pull that one specifically?

"The puppet playing Xiao He ended up damaged somehow, and her little master couldn’t manage to fix her properly, so we just decided to pull it altogether," the baby-faced attendant explained with an easy grin.

Lin Yun and Song Xizheng exchanged a brief glance but chose not to press the matter any further.

They looked over the notebook the attendant handed them, scanning through the current lineup of available shows.

Red Shadow, Climbing the Mountain, The Grieving Mother, The Puppet’s Lament, Amusement Park, Good Friends, Castle.

"So, which one should we go with?" Song Xizheng asked.

Lin Yun mulled it over carefully. Ever since watching two of these performances herself, she’d started developing a growing, nagging suspicion — that every single show put on at this theater was, in fact, a real story from real events, simply reenacted through puppets instead.

Every last one of them, she suspected, depicted genuine occurrences that had actually taken place somewhere within this world.

What she couldn’t quite figure out, though, was why exactly these true events needed to be portrayed through puppets specifically, of all possible mediums.

Were they worried the survivors might never otherwise stumble onto the truth? Or were they simply that confident, that utterly fearless about it all?

Lin Yun genuinely couldn’t work out the reasoning behind it.

I still don’t fully understand what this puppet theater is actually meant to accomplish, in the end.

Still, it hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things — the theater already existed regardless, and whatever purpose it truly served was ultimately something for the amusement park itself to worry about, not her.

"Let’s go with Castle."

That particular castle, after all, had never once appeared anywhere on the map their system had provided them.

Naturally, she wanted to find out exactly what that mysterious castle actually was.

"Sure thing, though Castle doesn’t start until nine o’clock sharp. Feel free to wander around outside for a bit, or just wait over here instead."

The attendant gestured toward the small waiting area set up beside the counter.

Too lazy to bother heading back out, the two of them simply grabbed their popcorn and cola, found a quiet corner to settle into, and waited it out together.

Sang Biao tugged gently at Lin Yun’s sleeve, clearly angling for a taste of the popcorn himself.

Never tried anything like this before. Curious what it tastes like.

Lin Yun, remembering the popcorn could double nicely as cover for the concealment balloons, grabbed a couple of pieces and tucked them discreetly near her shoulder for him.

The instant it touched his lips, Sang Biao’s eyes lit up with pure delight. What an incredible thing this was! Sweet, fragrant, absolutely wonderful!

Once we get back home, I’m definitely going to have a word with the corn plant — tell it I want popcorn-flavored corn from now on!

Mutant corn plant: ...?

Standing nearby, Song Xizheng noticed Lin Yun’s slightly odd behavior and shot her a knowing wink.

Song Xizheng: What exactly are you doing there, kitty?

Lin Yun simply nodded back. "Mm-hm."

Song Xizheng’s eyes lit up at once. Where is he? Let me get a look!

Lin Yun, utterly speechless: Can you seriously not see him already?

Song Xizheng’s fingers twitched eagerly. Oh, there he is! I honestly didn’t even notice him until I looked closely — he was right there on your shoulder the whole time! Since when did this little cat get so good at blending in like that?