Xu Huo walked past the places the tour guide had explained, eating bread as he went. Along the way, he passed several little shops bearing Suolan's emblem and stopped in at each one.
The locals shared amusing stories about Suolan's childhood. Whether or not they embellished the details, the stories painted her as a precocious, thoughtful girl with a mind of her own. Even as a child, she was hard to sway and had an unwavering belief in herself.
This had once been a retirement town, and great care had gone into its layout. The houses were painted in colors meant to lift people's spirits. Suolan's teenage habit of writing and drawing had naturally earned her plenty of scoldings, but those incidents seemed trivial now. When people remembered them, they thought of how she would apologetically help restore a wall after being caught, her cheeks red as a tomato. They also recalled, with a mix of fondness and exasperation, how neighbors had taken pity on her and pitched in with the work—only to realize they were actually helping her prepare for her next drawing session.
There weren't many young people or children in town. With directions from the locals, Xu Huo made his way to Suolan's former residence.
The house was now enclosed by a barrier, so visitors could only view it from outside. Holographic projections filled in some of the furnishings that couldn't be seen.
By the time he arrived, three other Players were already circling the house. One long-haired man used an item to test whether he could open the barrier, and received a warning for his trouble.
The nearby residents were used to scenes like this. For more than a decade, people searching for the painting had tried to get inside, so the barrier around the house