Chapter 2: On the Verge of Collapse

Hong Xiaoduo tried hard to calm herself down. She had already proven several times that the people in ancient costumes she saw were not actors, and this place was certainly not some film studio. She thought, perhaps if she just followed the script she had chosen, like a movie, once the credits rolled and it ended, she would be able to return to reality.

She remembered the receptionist at the science museum saying that the experience time was ninety minutes, which was equivalent to the runtime of a movie.

She also remembered that when she was selecting her skills and equipment, she seemed to have clicked on "Space."

As soon as the word "space" appeared in her mind, a door actually appeared before her eyes. She really did have a space.

But that wasn't the point. The point was, she had gone inside the space she chose to take a look, and that space was truly, in every sense of the word, "empty." She was incredibly frustrated. Since she knew she had chosen this, why did she forget to add the necessary items to it? The wretched space had been empty and barren from the start—no silver, no grain, just a shell of a room.

She was speechless. What was the point of a space like this? Was it for hiding from the rain?

Or did she need to complete specific tasks for rewards to appear in the space?

Why hadn't she carefully read the detailed notes behind the space option? Now that things had come to this, Hong Xiaoduo could only curse herself in her heart: *Stupid!*

Yes, just plain stupid. Otherwise, she should have sensed something was wrong when the staff member at the science museum got so excited after seeing her ID, and when the old curator came to receive her personally and even asked for her exact birth time.

Yet, she hadn't noticed a thing, and had even been smugly thinking about buying a lottery ticket?

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't all of you put on that 'abandoned' look. No crying! Since I saved you, I will absolutely not leave you to fend for yourselves until I find a proper place to settle you.

I'm talking to you—swallow those golden beans! If anyone dares to cry, I’ll throw them up the mountain to feed the wolves. I hate sniveling the most; whoever cries, I won't want them anymore." Xiaoduo warned them fiercely, too busy to ponder what was going on with the space for the moment.

She didn't want to be so mean, but she had no choice—she really didn't know how to coax children!

When the few little ones who were about to cry heard this, they quickly pursed their lips and tried their hardest to hold back the tears in their eyes.

"That's more like it. Wait here, I'll be back soon." After saying this, Xiaoduo saw that they really hadn't cried, so she let out a sigh of relief and headed toward the nearby woods.

At this time of year, finding some edible wild vegetables or mushrooms would be enough to stave off hunger.

"Mother, we won't cry. We'll be good and wait here for you to come back." A timid voice came from behind, making Xiaoduo stumble and nearly fall. She steadied herself and patted her chest. *Don't be angry, don't be angry.* The trouble she had brought upon herself, she had to endure, even if she had to grit her teeth.

Solutions are made by people; there would surely be a way to solve the problem of these children.

Who was she, anyway? The honorable...? The honorable...?

She should have been able to blurt out her identity, but she hit a wall. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't remember what she originally did or what she was good at. When she tried to think harder, her head throbbed with pain.

She didn't know if her brain had been damaged by the EEG cap in that experience pod, or if that strange old curator had intentionally deleted her past memories.

With the double discomfort of a splitting headache and a hungry stomach, Hong Xiaoduo had no choice but to give up on trying to recall her memories.

She wasn't calm enough to say "what will be, will be." At the very least, she had to fill her stomach before worrying about anything else!

Before stepping into the woods, she turned around and saw that the group of children were all facing her direction.

At this distance, she could clearly see the expression on each child's face. They were all looking at her with eager, anxious eyes. They were clearly terrified, yet didn't dare to follow. Their pitiful appearance made it look as if she had already abandoned them.

Xiaoduo felt as if her heart had been pricked by something. It hurt a little, and she couldn't help but blame herself—was her attitude toward them a bit too harsh? After all, they were just a bunch of little kids!

When she saw them being abused yesterday, she had reminded herself that her current situation was an illusion, and that the events and people she encountered were all virtual. *Don't get too immersed in the role, don't take it seriously.*

However, from the moment she regained consciousness until now, everything she had seen and felt was incredibly real.

To verify it, she had pinched herself hard at the time. It really hurt; her arm was still bruised.

It was precisely because of this that she had intervened and saved these children.

But who was to blame for this?

If it rained, she could have gone back to the hotel. The hotel had a pool, a gym, a cafe, and a bar. If all else failed, she could have gone back to her room to watch TV, binge-watch shows, or play games on her phone!

Why did she have to be a glutton and go looking for food? And even if she did, why did she have to choose to hide from the rain at the entrance of that science experience museum? Why did she listen to that staff member's sweet talk and go inside?

Now, she was an amnesiac who didn't know where she lived, who her family was, or what she originally did for a living.

And now, she had to drag along a string of little ones. The youngest was only four or five years old; she couldn't even walk fast if she wanted to.

She had originally thought that it didn't matter if she took them with her—if they wanted to call her "Mother," let them. It wasn't real anyway. In any case, once this experience trip ended, it would all be over.

But when the old curator's eerie smile flashed through her mind, Hong Xiaoduo felt very uneasy. She feared that the strange things she was experiencing wouldn't be as simple as ending when the ninety minutes were up.

No, she had to find a safe place to settle these children as soon as possible. The plot hadn't followed her settings at all; heaven knows what would happen next. She absolutely could not keep these children with her.

After walking a bit further, she could no longer see the children's pitiful expressions or hear that terrifying "Mother." As the mountain breeze blew, Hong Xiaoduo felt her restless heart calm down slightly.

Her hand touched the sword at her waist again. Thinking back to the scene of saving them yesterday, it had been truly thrilling.

The man who abused the children had a burn scar on his left cheek. Just looking at the intact right half of his face, he didn't look like a good person.

At the time, the man was sitting at the base of the city wall, a wine pot in one hand and a chicken in the other. He was eating and drinking, making two children pound his back and knead his legs, while the rest of the children knelt to the side, shivering.

The man was not only picky about the two children serving him, complaining that their back-pounding was too light, but he also turned around and slapped one of them. The child's face swelled up immediately, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Then he scolded the one kneading his legs for being too rough! He kicked out, and the child was knocked over, taking a long while to recover.

The other children kneeling nearby wanted to step forward out of concern, but they looked at the man with fear.

The two children who had been beaten and kicked didn't dare to cry out in pain and continued to serve him. It looked like this happened often.

The man cursed and spat bones onto the ground, shouting at the children nearby to crawl over and gnaw on the bones, and to bark like dogs while they crawled. He laughed heartily.

Passersby on the road just shook their heads, looked at the children with sympathy, and sighed as they walked away.

Hong Xiaoduo, who had just regained her senses, kept chanting in her heart, *Don't be impulsive. It's fake, it's all fake. It's just a plot, don't take it seriously,* to remind herself.

However, the man seemed bored with the children gnawing on bones. He turned back and shouted at the other children to go up and snatch the bone, saying that whoever got it wouldn't be punished.

Hong Xiaoduo imagined the cruel scene about to unfold and wanted to just walk away. But to her surprise, none of the kneeling children listened to the man's orders to get up and fight their companion for the bone.

Although they were all terrified of the man, they simply refused to do as he said.

Seeing that they wouldn't obey his orders, the man flew into a rage and rushed toward the children.

As he raised his foot to kick, the two children who had been pounding his back and kneading his legs hurriedly knelt down and hugged his legs, begging him to spare their companions. The man became even more annoyed. He swung the wine pot in his hand down onto the head of one of them. The pot was porcelain; it shattered against the child's forehead, and blood immediately began to flow.

Even then, the man didn't intend to stop. He gripped the broken neck of the pot and was about to stab it into the face of the child on the other side.

In her anxiety, Hong Xiaoduo threw a stone she had been holding in her hand at the man.

In that situation, shouting for him to stop would have been useless. When she threw the stone, she had indeed thought that it would be great if it hit the man's face. If it hit his body, he was thick-skinned and wouldn't feel it. She really hadn't expected her throw to be accurate.

She even started to regret it after the stone left her hand—what if she hit the child instead?

But heaven knows, that egg-sized stone hit the man right in the face.

The man let out a scream, clutching his nose. He stumbled backward, the two children let go of his legs, and the man fell flat on his back.

Hong Xiaoduo's mouth hung wide open. *My aim is that good? And that much force?*

The children looked equally surprised. They looked at the man on the ground, then at her.

For that moment, time seemed to stand still. After a long while, she and the children realized that the man on the ground hadn't moved at all.

"What are you standing there for? Run!" Hong Xiaoduo gave up on the idea of checking if the man was alive. She felt like she had caused trouble, but she didn't just run off on her own.

Then, the group of children looked at the oldest one, and under his lead, they followed Hong Xiaoduo and ran.

One adult and seven children, all afraid the man would chase them. Whenever they couldn't keep up, they would stop to rest, and once they had rested enough, they would continue to flee. Yes, flee. And that was how they ended up here.

"Is it a coincidence, or is it because of my 'heroine' character setting that I really have the martial arts skills to hit whatever I aim at?" Hong Xiaoduo muttered to herself, looking at her hands as she walked into the woods.

Whether it was real or fake, she would just have to test it and see!

So, she bent down, picked up a small stone, weighed it in her hand, and looked toward the front...

(End of chapter)