Orphanage

When he opened his eyes again, he was still in the security booth.

Whenever day and night changed in this scenario, it seemed to switch him back to the security booth. Zhou You turned to look at the clock.

—The time seemed to be fixed, too.

Just like last time, the security booth was still empty, and he was wearing the same brand-new security guard uniform. The only difference was that the place was much messier than before.

Or rather... a lot messier.

The tables and chairs had all been overturned and shoved aside. Logs and files were scattered everywhere, and even the TV—which had been broken for ages—had been knocked to the floor, its screen smashed to pieces.

Zhou You searched through the mess, then muttered to himself,

"Looks like... this wasn't an intruder breaking in to rob the place. Someone was looking for something in the security booth. Whether they found it or not..."

Zhou You turned his head and glanced at the two vases beside him, which had clearly been smashed out of spite.

"Judging by the looks of it, they didn't. But that raises another question: what could there be in this lousy security booth that someone would search it so thoroughly?"

Zhou You searched carefully as well, but just like the intruder, he found no clues. The little security booth was easy to take in at a glance, and neither its thin walls nor its floor seemed to have anywhere to hide anything. In the end, all he could do was shake his head and leave.

—After all, daytime was limited, and he had to make the most of it.

The scenery outside was much the same as the day before. The only thing worth mentioning was that the fog had thickened. If he'd been able to make out the pedestrians before, now all he could see were a few blurry figures.

"—But it doesn't matter much. It's not like I can communicate with them anyway."

Zhou You followed his familiar patrol route through the milky-white fog. Perhaps because he'd cleared two stages in a row the night before, the area he could explore during the day had expanded considerably. The fog no longer blocked Yuan Shun Intersection, and he easily passed the spot where the vendor had set up shop before, arriving at the alley where he'd played the "game."

But here, he stopped.

Unlike the scenery that had all blended together during the night, a strange building had appeared beside the pitch-black alley, as if it had materialized out of thin air.

It was a detached building, neither especially small nor large, with a floor area of roughly two or three hundred square meters. The brick-and-stone structure had two stories, and a battered sign hung from the roof.

"Angel's Home."

But now the building looked as if it had been through a fire. It was blackened all over, with many sections visibly collapsed. Perhaps to keep idle passersby from wandering in and getting hurt, a ring of iron railings had been erected around it.

"This thing... must be the orphanage from the kid's rhyme, right?" Zhou You glanced around, figuring there was nothing useful here. He'd already cleared the game, after all, so he didn't need to look for more clues. He was about to leave when, suddenly, something felt off.

The next moment, he slowly crouched and scooped up a handful of dirt from beneath the railing, gently rubbing it between his fingers.

—The dampness beneath the surface hadn't dried yet. Judging by how wet the soil was, the railings had been put up less than half a day ago... no, just a few hours ago.

A look of interest spread across Zhou You's face.

"But why would they only think to put up a barrier around a long-abandoned, fire-damaged building now?"

"Did something just happen?"

"Or could it be... a side effect of what I did in the alley last night?"

The thought only made Zhou You more curious. He didn't want to waste time, but now he was intrigued.

He backed up a few steps, then lightly vaulted over the railing with a running start. He crossed the bare path and reached the orphanage, then gently pushed on the iron gate, which was still mostly intact.

...It wasn't locked.

The gate creaked open, releasing a cloud of stale, choking dust. From the looks of it, outsiders had simply put a fence around the building, but no one had been inside for a long time.

Zhou You coughed a couple of times and walked in through the dust-filled air. The interior looked just like the aftermath of an ordinary fire: charred furniture and dark ash everywhere. He casually looked around in the light filtering through the windows, but didn't spot anything unusual.

"Once you enter through the front door, you're in the lobby. Normally, there wouldn't be any clues here. No one would carelessly leave private things in a place where people are constantly coming and going. So..."

He casually grabbed the handle of the door leading farther in and pulled it open.

The room beyond appeared to be a cafeteria. It was just as ruined and desolate, with only a pile of leftover tables. Zhou You rummaged around, but found only a few burnt potatoes. Keen Observation popped up at just the right moment to remind him it existed, but unfortunately, everything it turned up was junk.

He still hadn't found a thing.

But he didn't look worried. He was already inside, after all. Worst-case scenario, he could spend a Resurrection Coin to reset the daytime timer. He headed straight for the next area.

But when he opened another door, his eyes suddenly narrowed instinctively.

The abrupt change in brightness had startled him.

Just one doorway separated the two rooms, yet the environment had turned extremely dark in an instant. Unlike the lobby and cafeteria, the innermost room had no windows at all. The only light came faintly through gaps left by the fire.

But unlike its dark, cramped surroundings, the small room was crammed with more than a dozen iron bunk beds. They filled every corner so tightly that there was barely any room to step.

"Looks like... this was the orphans' bedroom." Zhou You estimated the room's size and realized that each bunk could barely fit one child. "And it was a truly awful place to live. The orphanage's management really knew how to make the most of their space. They'd crammed this many people into the space of an ordinary dormitory."

He picked up a toy that hadn't been burned, dusted it off, and examined it briefly before shaking his head and putting it back.

"...The toy's shoddily made, too. It's made from cheap fabric, and the stuffing is probably the cheapest toxic cotton they could find. There wasn't any decent food in the kitchen either. Looks like the children here... were being shortchanged in every possible way."

Zhou You had heard of places like this back in the real world: orphanages that took in more children than they could handle to swindle government subsidies. In the eyes of those directors, the children were nothing but tools for making money. They skimped on everything they could, and there had even been reports of children freezing or starving to death.

But that had all happened a long time ago. Now that he was seeing something like it with his own eyes, even he—an oddball who enjoyed watching chaos unfold—felt a little uneasy.

With a soft sigh, Zhou You decided there probably weren't any clues here either. He was just about to check the second floor when he turned around—and suddenly froze.

The reason was simple. Right in front of him, in the shadow of the cafeteria doorway,

stood a child.

The child was burned all over, with no eyes or mouth left. It stared at him through hollow sockets, like a vengeful ghost...