In the end, Mu Anqi found the key to the room in the pocket of a coat on the bed. She put the key into her backpack and was about to head out holding the candy cane when, as soon as she opened the door, she saw a small black shadow standing in the darkness. It was holding something in its arms that reflected a strange light when Mu Anqi opened the door—
"You finally came out, huh."
Ah, it was Xia Fenghua.
Mu Anqi quietly let out a sigh of relief. Calming herself and looking again, where was the shadow? It was clearly a cute little girl. And the eerie light in her arms—was just the eyes of a doll. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't see you when I entered the game, I thought something had happened, so I tried to find some clues in the room, but only found the room key."
"It's okay~ I'm happy to wait for pretty sister~" Xia Fenghua smiled, revealing two little dimples. "You have a room… and even a key? Xiaohua doesn't have anything, so if we need to rest tonight, can Xiaohua stay in the same room with sister?"
"Of course." Mu Anqi nodded. Although she figured this ghost must be quite old, since Nirvana Space showed an "age at death" based on age when alive… being called "sister" was actually accurate.
"Then, can sister tell me what hint information Nirvana Space gave?" Xia Fenghua asked with a smile, hugging her doll.
"…Silent Serenade?" Mu Anqi hesitated for a moment and answered. Hmm, since the mirror creature isn't a player, it can't receive the dungeon name? Makes sense—after all, the dungeon name itself can reveal some information, but this time…
Little Xia Fenghua fell silent. She looked at Mu Anqi expectantly, hoping this player sister would explain the meaning behind the name.
Mu Anqi met her gaze for two seconds, then silently looked away and changed the topic: "So, uh… we should probably explore this vortex, right? What kind of structure is this black mirror vortex? I wonder if the ghosts inside have self-awareness, or if they're just pure malicious thoughts!"
Xia Fenghua: "…"
The human and the ghost didn't bring up the black mirror vortex hint again and tacitly began exploring this black mirror vortex.
This time, the black mirror vortex scene seemed to be inside a residential building. Mu Anqi even saw an elevator here.
"So dark." Mu Anqi stomped her feet hard a few times. There were clearly voice-activated lights in the stairwell, but no matter what, they wouldn't turn on. With this kind of malfunction… Mu Anqi didn't really dare take the elevator anymore.
"Xia Fenghua, don't you think this place is really strange? Look at the moon outside—why is it so big? But with such a huge, round moon… why is the stairwell still this dark?" Mu Anqi wondered aloud. "Why hasn't a single ghost appeared in this black mirror vortex?"
The pitch-black stairwell looked calm and ordinary, but since this was the black mirror vortex, everything felt especially eerie. Outside the window was a full moon, but it wasn't like the ones Mu Anqi usually saw—it was too large, almost as if it were extremely close to the building, creating a sense of pressure, even suffocation.
It was too quiet.
Mu Anqi kept talking to Xia Fenghua, which gave her a bit of a sense of security. Unfortunately, Xia Fenghua wasn't responding at all—
The girl hugging the doll suddenly stopped in her tracks. She turned back, head lowered, so Mu Anqi couldn't see her facial expression. Just as Mu Anqi was about to ask, "What's wrong?", Xia Fenghua suddenly looked up. The faint, deathly pale moonlight fell on her face, revealing two streams of blood tears and an extremely eerie smile: "Who said… there's not a single ghost?"
"I—I wish you prosperity as vast as the East Sea, great fortune, and longevity like the Southern Mountains, congratulations on getting rich!" Mu Anqi didn't collapse in fear, didn't even have time to scream. After that choked-out "I" sound, she blurted out a string of blessings and hurled them at Xia Fenghua.
Before the little girl holding the doll could flash a mischievous "got you" smile, her body stiffened and she was forced into a "takeoff" pose.
Takeoff, finger hearts, handstands, and… a backflip.
"Wait, don't cast again! I was just… just trying to scare you a little…" Xiaohua really regretted it. This prank wasn't funny at all. Although Mu Anqi was indeed scared, Xia Fenghua felt even more embarrassed herself.
Mu Anqi: "…"
"I was… scared too. Just a reflex…"
The human and the ghost continued exploring the building in silence. Neither of them thought they were very funny anymore.
"There should be some food in the rooms people used to live in. You can make something yourself." They had walked through the entire floor without encountering anything strange. So they decided to head downstairs, and along the way, Xia Fenghua remembered Mu Anqi needed to eat and spoke.
"Mm, there is some food in the fridge." Mu Anqi nodded. That one-bedroom apartment felt very warm and ordinary, just like the kind of place a regular office worker would rent. Mu Anqi thought, if she successfully claimed the lottery prize, she'd probably rent a one-bedroom near campus too.
Hmm, with three hundred million, buying a house wouldn't be a problem either.
"Can we leave this building?" Mu Anqi asked. She looked at the enormous moon outside and felt increasingly uncomfortable the more she stared at it. That sense of pressure and suffocation made her feel awful. She could still breathe normally, move around just fine, but every time she saw that eerie moon outside, she felt distressed.
"Let's try." Xia Fenghua said thoughtfully. She stared at the moon outside for a while, and the yin energy around her started fluctuating strongly.
Before entering the instance, or even at the beginning, Xia Fenghua still had the mood to act cute, joke around, and even prank Mu Anqi. But as time went on, she too seemed to be affected.
Xia Fenghua still wore her sweet smile, but now that smile was spine-chilling.
When they reached the first floor, they discovered that they couldn't leave the residential building at all. An invisible wall of air blocked them from the outside world.
"The instance's range… is it limited to this building? Silent Serenade…" Silent—this building was indeed unnaturally silent, eerily so. As if there weren't any people… no, not even any ghosts living or dwelling in it. As for the serenade…
On this night, there was no eerie music playing, not even a single sound.
With nothing new discovered, Mu Anqi and the others had no choice but to go back upstairs again. Mu Anqi even felt like she wasn't traversing a Black Mirror Vortex at all, but just doing physical training inside a dungeon.
"Let's go back to sister's room," Xia Fenghua said. "Sister can eat something and rest for now. There's no need to rush on the first day inside the Black Mirror Vortex—we can wait and see how things are tomorrow."
"Oh right, time flows differently in the Black Mirror Vortex compared to the Shattered Mirror Continent. Ten days inside the vortex is equal to just one day outside in the continent."
"I see." Mu Anqi nodded. No wonder when she returned from the trial instance, all three of her friends were still in the game. If they hadn't been recruited, they'd be playing the Shattered Mirror Continent game, where time flows differently—since Mu Anqi had finished her run, it made sense that they were still in the game.
She used the key to open the door to the room. There were even cup noodles inside. Mu Anqi wasn't too confident in her cooking skills, so she happily boiled a kettle of water and decided to eat instant noodles for dinner tonight! "Do you want some noodles?"
While Mu Anqi busied herself, Xia Fenghua wandered around the room a few times, seemingly looking for clues. "No."
Just as Mu Anqi finished preparing the noodles and was waiting for them to soak, Xia Fenghua pulled open the curtains. "The moon… seems even closer now."
"Does that have any symbolic meaning?" Mu Anqi asked, puzzled. That moon—aside from causing a bit of mental pressure—didn't seem to have any other negative effects. No monsters had appeared, no attack waves or anything. It was just getting bigger? Or maybe getting closer to this building?
Xia Fenghua didn't know either. Just seeing the moon irritated her, so she yanked the curtains shut again. "Did you check the wardrobe and under the bed?"
"Yeah. I checked as soon as I arrived."
"Then I'll take another look—maybe there's some yin energy." Xia Fenghua said this as she moved, since Mu Anqi was a player and she was a ghost. There might be clues or traces in the Black Mirror Vortex that Mu Anqi couldn't detect.
Mu Anqi hugged the instant noodle cup to warm her hands. She suddenly remembered there seemed to be a pack of sausages in the fridge—maybe… she could add one? With that thought, she got up, opened the fridge, and pulled out a sausage.
At that moment, she heard Xia Fenghua's calm voice: "Mu Anqi, come here."
Mu Anqi: "?"
Holding the sausage, Mu Anqi walked over and saw Xia Fenghua standing silently in front of the wardrobe, staring inside. "Stop pranking me—I won't fall for it twice… What the hell?!"
Why was there suddenly a little girl inside the wardrobe!?
In the corner of the wardrobe, where there had only been clothes before, there was now a girl about eight or nine years old. She was pale and delicate, looking extremely frightened, with long, thick eyelashes still wet with tears. She curled herself into the corner of the wardrobe, hugging her knees, looking pitiful and helpless.
The child wore a pretty pink dress with a big, cute bow on her head, along with a pair of white stockings and red leather shoes. She looked just like a little princess straight out of a fairy tale.
Beautiful, delicate, adorable.
Mu Anqi cautiously glanced at Xia Fenghua, afraid that this equally "cute-style" ghost would suddenly ask her, "Who's cuter, Xiaohua or this little girl?" That would be way too hard to answer!
Thankfully, Xia Fenghua didn't ask that kind of question. "Sister, you checked the wardrobe earlier and didn't see her?"
"…No," Mu Anqi replied. "Look at the clothes in the wardrobe, the shoes by the door, even the setup of the bathroom—everything points to only one person living in this one-bedroom unit. How could there suddenly be a child here?"
"Did she sneak in?" Mu Anqi wondered aloud. She looked at the child—clearly the wardrobe was open, and both of them were standing right in front of her, but the child neither cried out nor screamed. It was as if she couldn't see them. She just held herself tightly and silently shed tears. The little girl seemed absolutely terrified, as if hiding from someone, her tiny body curled into the corner of the wardrobe like she wished she could make herself even smaller. "Is someone after her?"