"I should have answered that child back then and told him not to run around."
"...All I could think about was my daughter going missing..."
"I didn't even know when that child disappeared..."
"I'm really sorry."
The woman's lips moved a few times.
"It's not your fault."
The man spoke on the woman's behalf. "You don't need to apologize."
"Your child is missing too."
"We just heard from the staff that Xiao Yi probably ran into the haunted house because he heard Nini was missing."
"He was trying to find Nini, right?"
The man smiled. "Maybe those two children are together now."
The girl's mother also smiled faintly. "That would be wonderful."
"They'll be fine."
The woman spoke with certainty, but beneath it lay a trace of weakness.
Twice in just two days, her child had gone missing. She was becoming utterly exhausted.
The police checked the surveillance footage again.
But just like with the girl, none of the cameras had caught the boy.
Those two children had vanished into thin air.
The children's parents refused to give up, watching the surveillance footage over and over.
The girl's parents had been watching it before they arrived, too.
Because she didn't know what else she could do.
She couldn't let herself sit idle. That would only make her imagine all sorts of things and grow more afraid.
Xiao Xiao stood behind the crowd, his lowered eyelids concealing his thoughtful gaze.
He had sensed the presence of a yōkai in the haunted house just now, along with... the scent of blood.
Both had been faint.
In a little while, those scents would disappear completely.
He wasn't sure whether they had anything to do with the two children's disappearance.
But at least, they gave him a direction to follow.