Mu Yingying circled to the back and supported both sides of the rear wheel with her hands.
“Let’s go, Little Bicycle.”
She patted the rear wheel with a grin.
“Auntie Ying will be your porter today. You’re our little princess now~”
White Night huddled in the basket, her Soul Body turning so pink it looked like it might start smoking.
The two women lifted the broken Rusty Bicycle, wobbling as they stepped out of the ruined house.
The morning breeze blew in, carrying the scent of dust, making White Night’s frame feel slightly cool.
She glanced back at the ruined house where they had spent the night. Empty ointment bottles and paper wrappers of Hemostatic Powder still lay in the corner.
Turning back, she saw nothing but endless desolation ahead.
However, there was a path beneath them, and her two aunties were carrying her.
“Thank you, Auntie Frost… thank you, Auntie Ying.”
“No need for thanks,” Su Shuang’er said without looking back. “You’re my bike. Wherever I go, I’m taking you with me.”
Mu Yingying snorted from behind. “Oh, Big Fat Butt finally said something human.”
“Shut up, Loose Woman. Watch the road.”
“Oh~”
After walking for about 30 minutes, Mu Yingying’s mouth began to itch for conversation again.
“Little Bicycle, once you have a physical body, Auntie Ying is going to be the first one to give you a big, hard hug!”
“Keep dreaming,” Su Shuang’er replied coldly.
“I actually did have a wonderful dream…” Mu Yingying sighed with intentional melancholy.
“But then you showed up and punched my butt until it swelled up three times its size. I couldn’t even sit down; I had to lie on my stomach…”
Su Shuang’er’s footsteps came to a sudden halt. “… You dreamed about me punching your butt?”
“Yeah, and it even swelled up… it was tragic. I’m a pure maiden, after all. What would I do if I got broken?~”
Su Shuang’er remained silent for 2 seconds, her voice growing even colder. “The next time you flirt with Little White Night, you won’t have to dream. I’ll just give you a real punch.”
“Oh, my dear Shuang’er, you’re so cruel~”
White Night couldn’t help but find it funny watching the two aunties bicker.
After walking for a while longer, the ground beneath their feet suddenly changed.
The dirt turned into bluestone slabs, with dark green moss growing in the cracks.
The air was thick with the strange scent of tung oil and rotting wood.
The needle on White Night’s Compass Navigator glowed red. After spinning three times, it let out a sharp pop and went completely dark.
The Wilderness ahead vanished, replaced by a narrow Ancient Street.
Half-collapsed wooden buildings lined both sides, their signs blurry with vertical characters.
Some houses were eerily overturned, their roofs embedded in the ground while their foundations pointed toward the sky.
“What kind of ghost place is this…” Mu Yingying whispered.
White Night’s Soul Body turned slightly gray.
“Don’t make a sound,” Su Shuang’er whispered. She immediately shouldered the bike frame and ducked into a nearby narrow alley.
The three of them huddled against the wall.
Soon, a gray-robed Lantern Ghost walked past, carrying a bamboo-framed lantern.
Inside the lantern floated a constantly spinning eyeball.
Its knees were stiff, and its cloth shoes made a monotonous tap, tap sound.
White Night poked half her head out and whispered, “When its eye fixes on one direction, it spaces out for a moment. It does the same when it turns. There’s a tiny gap in between.”
Su Shuang’er nodded. “Mhm. Keep close to the wall.”
They circled through the alley, but at the intersection, they encountered two more Lantern Ghosts. Their eyes were spinning out of sync, completely blocking the path.
“We’re doomed. We can’t get through…” Mu Yingying complained in a low voice.
Su Shuang’er observed for a moment before whispering, “Let’s find a place to hide first and see if they move on their own.”
A shop door by the street was halfway open.
The scent of rust and engine oil drifted out, making it smell like a mechanic’s shop.
Mu Yingying leaned in and sniffed. “It doesn’t have that cold, eerie feeling. It should be safe. Let’s go in.”
The three of them quickly slipped inside and pulled the door partially shut.
A raspy voice drifted from the depths of the shop.
“Have you seen enough?”
“If you’ve seen enough, sit down and rest. Standing there is blocking my light.”
Mu Yingying immediately held her Tang Dao out in front of her.
Su Shuang’er also moved to shield White Night.
In the darkness, a hunched figure slowly shuffled out from behind a rickshaw frame.
She had a bent back and was quite short. Her gray hair was pulled into a small bun, held in place by a black lacquered wooden hairpin.
The wrinkles on her face were deep, but her eyes weren’t cloudy at all; instead, they were surprisingly bright.
She held a small wrench in her hand. Her knuckles were thick, and her fingernails were stained with rust and oil that could never be washed away.
She squinted as her gaze swept over Mu Yingying, then Su Shuang’er, before finally landing on White Night, where it lingered for 3 seconds.
The old woman took two steps forward, tilting her head to inspect White Night from head to toe.
She looked at the frame, the wheels, and the chain before finally looking at the Soul Body floating above the basket.
“Oho.”
She let out an exclamation of surprise, her tone filled with wonder rather than fear.
“A carbon fiber frame bike is rare enough, but a living one? This is a first for me.”
White Night was stunned for a moment, and both Mu Yingying and Su Shuang’er were equally startled.
“You can see me? Do you know what I am?” White Night asked.
Instead of answering, the old woman walked around White Night’s bike frame, clicking her tongue.
“The front fork is broken and the front wheel is scrapped, but the main body is intact…”
She reached out her hand, hovering her fingertips 1 inch above the frame, and closed her eyes as if sensing something.
“The bone is still there; it’s just that the flesh is rotten. It can be fixed.”
Su Shuang’er’s arm remained held out between White Night and the old woman. She didn’t lower it.
“Who are you?”
The old woman tucked the wrench into a cloth pouch at her waist, sat down on a bamboo stool, and took a sip of water from a blue and white porcelain bowl.
“The name’s Qian. Everyone calls me Granny Qian.”
“Are you from around here?”
“From here.” Granny Qian nodded and gestured to their surroundings. “This street, these houses, and these rickshaws were all things from my world.”
“Your world?” Mu Yingying chimed in.
“My world shattered,” Granny Qian spoke flatly. There wasn’t much light in her cloudy eyes; she seemed numbed to it all.
“I don’t know when it started breaking. Anyway, one day the ground cracked, and the sky cracked, too. Huge chunks started falling away.”
“The things that fell were lost, and the things that didn’t fall shattered into pieces. Then they were sucked in by those Rifts and drifted elsewhere.”
She patted the bluestone beneath her feet.
“This street fell out of an Eerie Rift and got stuck to your world.”
White Night was shocked. She hadn’t expected entire territories to fall from an Eerie Rift.
“What about those lanterns… those Weirdnesses?” Mu Yingying asked.
Granny Qian frowned, her expression showing displeasure for the first time.
“Last time, this territory landed next to the World of Paper People. It stayed there for a few days before separating.”
“When it left, it brought along a few Lantern Ghost Weirdnesses. They can’t be driven away or killed. You can only hide from them.”
Mu Yingying’s expression was quite colorful. “Wait a minute. You mean this place has landed in more than one world?”
“Yeah.”
“Landed in different worlds?”
“Yeah.”
“And every time it finishes drifting, it gets stuck with filth from other worlds?”
Granny Qian thought about it. “That’s more or less it.”
Mu Yingying turned to look at White Night and Su Shuang’er. All three of them looked grim.
The world was becoming increasingly dangerous.