The walk from the apartment building to the parking lot, Rina felt like a piece of rice cake placed on a grill. It was too hot.
So hot that she started seriously pondering a philosophical question…
Freedom and air conditioning, which one mattered more.
The answer was, right now she only wanted to get into an air-conditioned room.
The kidnapper held her hand and led her to a car.
“Get in.”
Hisaki pulled open the car door, stepping aside to clear the way.
Rina bent down, her butt just touching the seat…
“Hot!”
Hisaki paused for a moment, but she graciously didn’t laugh out loud, simply reaching out to insert the key into the ignition and starting the engine.
The car’s air conditioner let out a low hum, cold air surging from the vents, and within seconds it pressed down the searing heat on the seat surface.
“Now it’s fine.”
Rina carefully sat back down.
She took the sun hat off Hisaki’s head and held it in her arms, her silver-white hair flattened a bit by the hat, a few stray strands sticking to her forehead.
Standing outside the car, Hisaki bent down, leaning her upper body into the cabin.
Little White hadn’t even processed what she was about to do when she saw Hisaki’s hand reach out, pulling the seatbelt across her body, and then with a “click,” the buckle slid precisely into the slot.
Hisaki straightened up, closed the door for her, then walked around to the driver’s side, opened the door, and sat down.
She took off that ridiculously oversized sun hat, placed it in the back seat, and her black hair slid down her shoulders, spreading over her dark gray house shirt.
“We’re off.”
Hisaki placed her hands on the steering wheel.
“What song does Little White want to hear?”
Rina’s eyes lit up.
She remembered that song she’d been obsessed with after scrolling through videos on her app recently.
“I want to hear [Big Dog Barks].”
Hisaki’s hands paused on the steering wheel.
She tilted her head, glancing at Little White, a hint of confusion flickering through those dark red eyes.
“Big Dog Barks?”
“It’s that one, ‘Hey! Big dog, da-da-da-da-da…'”
Hisaki was silent for a second.
Rina hummed a couple of lines…
Then she pulled out her phone and typed a few characters into the search bar of her music app.
A cheerful electronic intro came through the car speakers.
“Hey! Big dog! Da-da-da-da-da! I wanna call the big dog! Call call call! Da-da-da-da-da, watch the big dog chew chew…”
Rina instantly tensed up in the passenger seat.
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes!
This is it!
She snuck a glance at the kidnapper.
Her expression was perfectly calm.
Rina’s mouth twitched even harder.
“Hahaha~”
Rina broke.
She leaned toward the car door, shoulders shaking, trembling with laughter.
She covered her mouth with her hand, but the laughter leaked through her fingers…
“Hahahahaha~ This! This is too catchy!”
Hisaki kept that calm expression, glancing at Little White from the corner of her eye.
After Rina laughed enough, she wiped the corner of her eye and sat back up properly in her seat.
She looked at Hisaki’s unruffled face and suddenly felt a bit unconvinced.
“The kidnapper’s humor bar is way too high!”
The car drove for about twenty minutes.
The scenery outside the window went from tall buildings to tree-lined avenues, then to some enormous parking lot.
Rina pressed her face against the car window, looking out.
Then she saw a massive archway.
On the archway were several colorful characters, the colors so saturated they seemed to want to splash every pigment they had, sparkling under the scorching sun at over thirty degrees.
Happy Valley Amusement Park.
Rina turned her head, staring at the kidnapper in disbelief.
“…An amusement park?!”
“You brought me to an amusement park?”
“That’s right.”
Hisaki parked the car, turned off the engine, pulled out the key, the whole set of movements as composed as always.
“Didn’t Little White say she wanted to go out and play?”
Rina was silent for a moment.
Then she raised one eyebrow and spoke in her signature disdainful tone.
“You really do treat me like a kid, huh.”
Hisaki looked at her, then nodded seriously and affirmatively.
She opened her mouth, ready to snap back, but her gaze had already unconsciously drifted toward the car window.
In the distance, a massive Ferris wheel turned slowly under the blue sky and white clouds, the roller coaster track coiled like a giant silver serpent in the center of the park, screams drifting over, muffled and distant.
“But… not bad after all.”
She muttered softly, then pushed open the car door and hopped out.
The wave of heat hit her face again.
But this time Rina didn’t complain.
She stood on the cement ground of the parking lot, looking up at that garish archway, her silver-white hair gently swaying in the hot wind.
An amusement park.
In her past life, she’d only ever seen amusement parks in videos.
Through her phone screen, she’d watched those experience videos of these rides over and over again.
But she’d never actually been.
Her body couldn’t even manage a walk to the hospital garden unless the weather was nice, let alone riding a roller coaster.
And now, she was standing at the entrance of a real amusement park.
Rina felt her heartbeat start to quicken.
How to put it, excitement!
Then her heartbeat quickened a little more.
This time for a different reason.
Amusement park.
Large crowds.
Complex environment.
Many exits.
A perfect escape spot.
She stood by the car, looking at the archway on the surface, but in her head, gears were already spinning at full speed.
If she slipped away while the kidnapper waited in line to buy tickets, if she ran off while Hisaki went to the bathroom, if she blended into the crowd and then…
Wait.
She didn’t have a single penny on her.
To be precise, she didn’t even have a single paper bill on her.
All her payment ability was tied to Hisaki’s account, and every transaction on that phone sent her real-time location to Hisaki’s phone.
So if she ran, then what?
Sleep under a bridge?
Last time she’d stayed under a bridge for a month, but that was because she had system missions to keep her going, and back then she hadn’t yet experienced what a constant 23-degree air conditioner felt like.
She looked down at herself.
Clean clothes, freshly washed hair, the faint scent of body wash still lingering on her skin.
Then she imagined a bridge underpass in her mind.
A stuffy, humid, mosquito-infested bridge underpass.
She’d wake up from the heat in the middle of the night, it would take five minutes to walk to a public restroom, and a shower?
There was no hot water shower to be had.
No way.
Bridge underpass was out.
Absolutely couldn’t go back to a bridge underpass.
Then let’s think differently.
First, get some cash.
Cash can’t be tracked, won’t reveal your location, it’s the passport to freedom.
With cash, she could take a taxi anywhere, stay in cheap motels, buy food.
Then lay low for a while, and once the system judged the “escape” as successful, she’d have one hundred million cash in hand and a healthy body…
Perfect.
Rina mentally applauded her own cleverness.
Then she turned around and ran toward the kidnapper.
She slammed to a stop in front of her, planted her feet, and looked up.
Those sky-blue eyes were wide open…
“Give me money!”
Hisaki looked down at this Little White who had suddenly rushed over demanding money.
“Little White,”
Her voice carried a hint of puzzled amusement.
“Isn’t my account already linked to your phone? Just swipe my card.”
Rina shook her head.
The motion was big, the frequency fast, her hat almost flying off.
“I want cash!”
“Cash?”
Hisaki tilted her head slightly.
“What do you need cash for?”
Here it comes.
The fatal question.
“What if I run too far and the hotspot disconnects, and I can’t use my phone?”
She said it with eleven-tenths of self-righteousness in her tone.
“Then wouldn’t I have no money to buy things? Cash is more convenient!”
The kidnapper looked at her.
Silence.
Two seconds.
Rina’s big eyes kept blinking.
Hisaki simply smiled.
She bent down.
The distance between her face and Little White’s face shrank from one meter to less than twenty centimeters.
Her black hair slid off her shoulders, hanging in the air between them, the brim of the sun hat casting a small shadow over Rina’s face.
Those dark red pupils were especially clear at this distance.
Then she reached out, her index finger lightly tapping her own right cheek.
Her voice was soft and gentle…
“If Little White gives me a kiss right here, I’ll give Little White cash, how about it?”
“One hundred per kiss.”
Hisaki leaned her face in just a little closer.
“Pretty good deal, right?”
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