"Okay! We'll always be friends!" said a little girl with pigtails, her face full of hope.
She bit into a candied hawthorn skewer.
The sweet candy made her eyes narrow with delight.
Then her face seemed to melt, and her eyes squeezed shut so tightly they could no longer open.
The other children each ate a candied hawthorn too.
Sweet smiles spread across their faces, and their bodies slowly stiffened.
A closer look revealed a layer of sugar on their skin. No one knew when it had appeared.
The girl holding the skewer let out an eerie giggle, then turned and vanished into the dark alley.
In a gambling house, an old man wore a broad smile.
Every time he wagered the gold ingot in his hand, he picked the winning side.
Countless gamblers had crowded around him. They breathed heavily, their eyes bloodshot.
"High! High! High!"
The cries rang out without pause, drawing everyone in.
At the gambling table, the dealer frowned, cold sweat pouring off him.
The old man had already won a hundred thousand taels of silver here. Now everyone in the gambling house had gathered around.
A maddening force gathered in the room, whipping them all into a frenzy.
That unnatural aura had seized everyone. Their reason had crumbled.
When the dealer lifted the dice cup, everyone saw three sixes.
"Won! We won!" countless voices shouted.
"I won! I'm rich..."
"Hahaha... I won..."
Everyone there seemed to have lost their minds.
The old man smiled too. Around him, people danced and flailed as madness crept into their minds.
Then he slipped away, leaving the frenzied gamblers to scream and howl, lost in their fantasies.
Their bodies began to change bit by bit, becoming less and less human.
Their limbs even joined and fused together, turning the