Chapter 163: The Castle Beyond the Map

After firing off his message, Song Xizheng leaned against the window, keeping a close eye on whatever was happening outside.

The floats crept slowly through the amusement park, eventually making their way toward a towering castle.

Song Xizheng’s eyes widened slightly at the sight.

Where had this castle even come from? Were there castles hidden somewhere in this amusement park all along?

He quickly pulled up the map the system had provided, only to discover that his own coordinates had shifted entirely — he was now positioned outside the map’s boundaries altogether!

He was no longer anywhere within the officially recognized amusement park area at all.

Song Xizheng swallowed hard, nerves prickling. Good heavens, where on earth had this come from?

Wasn’t there supposed to be some rule against ever leaving the park grounds? What rotten luck — his own shelter just happened to have been mounted onto one of the floats.

Thankfully, though, whatever Song Xizheng had been dreading never actually came to pass.

The float eventually rolled to a stop somewhere within the castle grounds, and a man in a black vest climbed down to drag the captured survivors off along with him.

The survivors, already unconscious, showed no response whatsoever to the rough handling they received at the hands of the black-vested men.

The men hauled them away quickly, disappearing from view.

A short while later, they reappeared, climbed back onto the float, and departed the area entirely.

Song Xizheng quickly activated the camera function on his personal panel and snapped a photo of the castle itself. Then, with some urgency, he switched over to video mode and began recording the entire route leading back toward the amusement park proper.

Just in case, he reasoned — if he ever somehow got swept up and dragged out here again someday, at least he’d have some way of finding his way back afterward.

The float eventually returned to its original spot, and the women in black vests climbed down.

"Boss, was there really no one else out there?"

"That’s plenty for now. You know how slippery these people can be. Rounding up a dozen or so is already a solid haul — enough to hold us over for a while. That’ll do."

"Sing my foot. She only performs whenever her master feels like letting her out, not before."

"Fine, fine, enough questions. Get moving and search wherever those people were staying. We absolutely need to find those items."

"Understood."

...

Staring at the photo Song Xizheng had sent, Lin Yun found herself equally baffled. Was there really a castle hidden somewhere on the amusement park’s map?

Then Song Xizheng sent along the video as well.

Lin Yun opened it, watched for a while, and finally sent back nothing but three question marks.

Song Xizheng: "? What’s wrong, Sister Lin? That’s the route from the castle back to the park. I forgot to record the way there, sadly — I only managed to capture the trip back."

Lin Yun replied, "Have you actually watched this video yourself? Aside from a short bit at the beginning and the end, the whole middle section is just blank. There’s no route in there at all — nothing like what you’re describing."

Confused, Song Xizheng pulled the video back up himself, dragged the progress bar to the middle, and discovered she was completely right.

None of the footage he distinctly remembered filming actually appeared anywhere in the recording.

No matter how far he scrubbed through the timeline, the screen stayed a blank, featureless white the entire way — save for those brief snippets right at the start and the very end.

That was seriously strange. Everything had seemed to be recording just fine while he was actually filming it.

Song Xizheng scratched his head, utterly at a loss to explain what had happened.

Still, with the video ruined beyond use, all he could really do was pass along the conversation he’d overheard to Lin Yun in text form instead.

Song Xizheng: "Please, somebody make that singing stop. I nearly fell to my death last night because of it."

Song Xizheng: "Also, their explanation back there was pretty strange, honestly. Who exactly is this ’little master’ everyone keeps mentioning? I’ve heard that term thrown around more than once now."

Lin Yun replied, "Not entirely sure myself, but from what I can tell, he’s essentially the one controlling all the staff and NPCs throughout the entire park."

Song Xizheng: "Well, whatever. I’m heading to bed. I’ve been running on pure adrenaline ever since that near-fall last night, and now that things have finally calmed down, the exhaustion’s catching up to me fast."

Reading his message, Lin Yun couldn’t help but let out a yawn of her own.

She was feeling pretty drained herself, if she was being honest.

After clearing off the table and grabbing a small bite to settle her stomach, Lin Yun simply lay back down and drifted off to sleep once more.

Surely nothing else would go wrong during the daylight hours, right?

Lin Yun stared blankly up at the ceiling for a moment before rolling out of bed and wandering over to peek out the window.

Sure enough — the little green vests were already out and about again, combing through every corner of the grounds in search of something.

She sighed, picked the leather scroll up off the shelf by the door, and turned it over thoughtfully in her hands. What exactly was this thing for? Why were they so desperate to track it down?

She tried pulling up the item’s detailed stats, but no matter how she examined it, no further information ever seemed to surface.

Was it really nothing more than an ordinary scrap of leather, then?

But if that were true, why would the entire amusement park go to such extraordinary lengths just to recover it?

Worried there might be some hidden trick she hadn’t yet accounted for, Lin Yun mulled it over briefly before deciding to simply tuck the item away safely inside her own backpack — that, at least, would put her mind somewhat at ease.

After stuffing a couple of cotton balls firmly into her ears, she ignored the world outside and settled back down to sleep.

That lullaby’s bound to come back again tonight, she figured. Better to get whatever rest she could manage now while there was still time.

At night.

Just as she’d anticipated, the ballad drifted back into the air once more.

The melody itself had shifted yet again — gentler this time than either of the two versions before it.

But Lin Yun had already gotten her fill of sleep during the day, and now, wide awake, the ballad had absolutely no hold over her whatsoever.

Outside, the green vests and the black creature carried on their search with heads bowed low, working in near-total silence, the only sound the steady rhythm of their footsteps against the wet ground.

Tong Yin glanced over at Linglan, who sat there keeping watch over her, and finally let her singing trail off. "Are you really that worried I might do something?"

"This is simply the master’s order — it has nothing to do with whether I trust you or not." Linglan sat across from her, entirely unmoved by Tong Yin’s evident displeasure.

Tong Yin let out a cold snort, picked up the cup of water beside her, took a couple of sips, and then, as though some idea had just struck her, flicked the remaining water straight at Linglan.

"Lan Ruoling, you really are disgusting, you know that? So perfectly content playing someone else’s obedient little lackey."

"Tong Yin, before you go pointing fingers at me, maybe take a proper look at yourself first. Aren’t you a lackey too? If you weren’t, would you even be here singing for them in the first place?"

Linglan let out a cold snort of her own. "And another thing — don’t call me Lan Ruoling. My name is Linglan."

Watching Linglan’s calm indifference only seemed to enrage Tong Yin further. If there was one thing she truly couldn’t stand, it was that unbothered, dismissive attitude of hers.

"I’m only here because you people forced me into it, weren’t I?"

"Yes — in order to survive, I had no choice but to come here under your coercion, using my own abilities to sing these ballads and control my own countrymen against their will."

"But even so, that’s still better than you, isn’t it? You’re not just someone’s lackey — you’ve abandoned your very own roots entirely."

"You’re so utterly shameless that you even threw away your birth name, Lan Ruoling, without a second thought."

Linglan simply stared back at the increasingly unhinged Tong Yin, her expression utterly blank, devoid of any real emotion at all.

She paid the outburst no mind. "Say whatever you like. We’ll pick this back up once you’ve rested a while longer."

Tong Yin was so furious her lips trembled visibly. She raised a finger, pointing accusingly at Lily of the Valley for a long moment, but no words managed to come out at all.

"Tong Yin. I’d rather not have to remind you of this a second time."

Those words alone drained the color straight out of Tong Yin’s face. The memory of everything she’d endured down in that dungeon came rushing back all at once, and as her eyes met Linglan’s — met that same cold, unfeeling indifference — something inside her finally gave way.

She closed her eyes slowly. Right. She was nothing more than a prisoner here. What right did she possibly have to bargain with anyone at all?