Chapter 1986: Kids Fall Asleep Instantly

Little Taotie wriggled like a slippery mud loach; before Hua Jinyan could resist, her small hand had already fumbled into his pocket.

"Eh? What’s this?"

Little Taotie’s tiny hand pinched a crumpled ball of paper.

"Don’t move."

Hua Jinyan shouted, but Little Taotie had already taken the paper ball out.

"Heh heh, the more you don’t let me look, the more I want to see what it is!"

"You can’t look!"

"I’m gonna look!"

"Don’t—"

Little Taotie had already unfolded the paper ball, revealing its true face.

Little Taotie was puzzled: "Are they practicing partner yoga? The poses they’re doing are so weird!"

Hua Jinyan pressed his lips together, looking very serious, and reached out to snatch back the opened paper, crumpling it up again.

This time he didn’t stuff it back into his pocket, but threw it straight out the window.

Little Taotie reached out to grab it, but missed; the paper ball hit the surface of the sea and quickly soaked through.

"What are you doing, I was just about to take a picture and post it in my Moments to ask everyone—maybe there’s a treasure secret hidden in it!"

"There’s no treasure."

"How do you know? What if there’s something hidden on this cruise ship and it’s all in that picture? We haven’t seen a single valuable thing so far!"

"That was an improper drawing." Hua Jinyan covered his face with his small hand.

Little Taotie was muddle‑headed and confused; she blinked, not quite understanding, her big eyes full of bafflement: "Improper? Isn’t it just two people training together?"

"Forget it, let’s drop it." Hua Jinyan lowered his hand, exhaled, and looked completely helpless.

"Hmph!" Little Taotie turned her back to him and muttered, "I thought it was something good, but it’s just a training Map! What a waste of my treasure‑hunting time!"

"...Go hurry up and look for your treasure."

The two of them left that cabin and headed for other ones, but searching all the way, they found nothing more valuable than the cruise ship itself.

Little Taotie scratched her head, utterly puzzled: "Could Secretary Big Brother have lied to me? But Secretary Big Brother is dead, and aren’t people all saying that the dead don’t lie?"

"Let’s keep looking."

"I’m tired." Little Taotie picked a sofa and flopped down on it, the little girl sprawled bonelessly like a puddle of mush giving up on life.

Hua Jinyan was both amused and annoyed: "Then you rest, I’ll keep searching."

Little Taotie shut her eyes and went straight to sleep.

They had snuck out in the dead of night, sacrificing their sleep, and now was the drowsiest time. As soon as Little Taotie closed her eyes, she slipped right into a dream.

In the dream, she saw an Ice Coffin standing in the vast white snow, and above the Ice Coffin loomed a gigantic phantom.

The little girl sighed softly, her voice milky and tender: "Why are you fading again? I clearly haven’t done anything bad."

She had always been doing good deeds to accumulate Merit, hoping to make the phantom more solid, but the phantom was like a balloon with a leak—when she pumped in lots of air it did become more substantial, yet before long it would leak again and grow faint.

"When will you finally become real?" Little Taotie stretched out her small hand and lightly touched the vast thing in the void.

The phantom shuddered a little, as if it really had been touched by her.

Little Taotie giggled: "Sometimes I feel like you can understand what I’m saying, but other times, you really do seem like just a shadow that doesn’t know anything."

Little Taotie leaned against the Ice Coffin, curling her tiny body into a ball: "I can’t feel the cold, but when I see you, my heart feels so cold and so sad. Why are you lying in the Ice Coffin? When the phantom finally solidifies, will you really wake up?"