They immediately split up to take action.
Yu Yezhou and Gu Zhan stayed by the wall, watching as they took away the cardboard box.
The labels inside the box seemed to have a mind of their own, swaying and struggling to leap out.
Whenever they bumped into the edge of the box, the puppets would push them back in.
During the brief pause, Yu Yezhou whispered to Gu Zhan, "I used to think the labels were their way of controlling the puppets, but now it seems that everyone has a label. They've just replaced the original ones... No wonder you couldn’t erase the labels back then, but you could swap them out."
Gu Zhan said, "And the number of tags they have far exceeds our expectations."
"Yeah..." Yu Yezhou sighed. "Humans are inherently complicated. The tags probably aren't fixed either."
Who you meet and what happens to you can change the tags you carry.
No wonder the residents of the town turned into puppets. Taking away their natural tags and replacing them with "good tags" would indeed turn them into puppets controlled by the tags.
"But what does that clown cat really want..." Yu Yezhou spoke, then gave a helpless smile. "Never mind, it's just a cat. What does it understand? As expected, as long as we remove the tags above the townspeople, we should be able to clear this dungeon."
"Yeah." Gu Zhan responded in agreement, thinking the same as Yu Yezhou.
But both of them were well aware that it was easier said than done. If Yang Lin didn't get back his replaced tag... even if they cleared the dungeon, those tags likely wouldn't return.
Physical injuries would heal after leaving the dungeon.
But what about the mental ones?
Yu Yezhou didn't dare gamble on that possibility, and for Gu Zhan, this dungeon was far from over.
He was very curious about that cat, whose mind seemed a bit muddled. There was something familiar about it... a feeling he'd experienced in the previous two dungeons.
Aren't the dungeons supposed to be independent from each other? The settings are different for each one... so why does this feel familiar?
That’s just how Gu Zhan was. He appeared cold, but once his curiosity was piqued, he would never give up.
He might even risk his life to satisfy his curiosity. But so what? He didn’t care about that.
"They're coming."
While the two were chatting, the puppets had already packed up boxes filled with tags and were heading in another direction.
"Hurry, follow them."
Their current small size had both advantages and disadvantages.
They could hide in all sorts of cracks where the puppets couldn’t see them. But at the same time, their short legs made it hard to keep up.
This place was different from any room they'd seen in the factory before. It was more like a space between the surface world and the hidden world.
The puppets here didn’t communicate with each other. They just mechanically repeated their tasks.
Looking up, there wasn’t a single tag on them.
Could they actually wipe all the tags clean?
The two followed along the edge of the corridor, chasing the puppets, watching them enter a room. The door was open, but an ominous feeling emanated from inside.
The puppets went in, and the two stood at the entrance, hesitating.
"Should we go in?"
Having come this far, Gu Zhan was definitely going in.
Yu Yezhou, however, hesitated and stopped him. "I have a bad feeling."
Gu Zhan knew it was his innate sense kicking in.
He whispered, "The boss of the dungeon might be inside, probably the same cat that left Xu Xingzi's house."
"A cat?" Yu Yezhou was confused. "Isn’t the clown cat outside..."
"That’s just a façade. If the world is divided into two sides, then there should be two cats as well." Gu Zhan said. "The number of tags on the puppets has decreased because they've taken away the bad tags. But based on what we’ve observed, those bad tags don’t just disappear. They must be stored somewhere."
"..." Yu Yezhou suddenly understood.
The "good tags" were distributed among different puppets, and naturally, the "bad tags" needed a place to go.
And the most suitable target to bear the "bad tags" would be the clown cat itself.
"Wait!" After realizing this, Yu Yezhou became even more anxious. If humans who had been replaced with good tags became puppets, then what would happen to a cat burdened with the bad tags of an entire town?
Could it turn into some sort of prehistoric Godzilla-like monster?
The final boss of the dungeon... if they encountered it, they might run into serious trouble.
"Maybe we should just go back. We've already figured out how to clear the dungeon... judging from the kids, the tags will grow back if they’re removed. As for Yang Lin..."
Even if he couldn’t get his original tag back, as long as they cleared the dungeon, some time spent recovering in Chun Bai Cheng would surely heal him.
And if not... well, it didn’t matter.
It would still be better than dying here.
Everyone living in this game understood the fact that they wouldn’t come out unscathed.
Even if one day they got an escape ticket and left this cursed place, this experience would leave an indelible mark on their character.
Their standards were low. As long as they survived, it was enough.
But Gu Zhan suddenly pried Yu Yezhou’s hand away and said, "You go back."
"What do you mean?" Yu Yezhou froze. "You’re still going?!"
Gu Zhan was silent. He felt a bit awkward, unsure of how to explain it to Yu Yezhou.
For them, clearing a dungeon and staying alive was enough, but not for him.
He was different from them.
After a moment of hesitation, Gu Zhan said, "Maybe our team should end here."
"What??" Yu Yezhou couldn’t believe his ears.
[Wow, after all those life-and-death situations, they’re parting ways now?]
[This isn’t exactly a betrayal.]
[What is he thinking?]
[From what I know about him, he probably just wants to check out the boss.]
[??? Who voluntarily seeks out the boss?]
[You guys haven’t seen his past streams! This is just how he is! It’s like he’s not here to clear the dungeon but to die, and yet somehow, he never dies!]
Gu Zhan seemed conflicted.
He hadn’t had much deep interaction with others, and he didn’t know how to explain himself.
Yu Ye Zhou quickly responded, "You want to go in alone?"
Gu Zhan nodded and said, "Your goals are different from mine, and so are the circumstances... There's no need for you to come with me."
"..." Although that made sense, letting Gu Zhan go down alone would feel like abandoning a teammate.
But, on the other hand, their situations were different. Who could say that going down together would be a help and not a hindrance?
Seeing the calm yet slightly puzzled expression on Gu Zhan's face, Yu Ye Zhou suddenly understood why Gu Zhan had been reluctant to join their team from the start.
Gu Zhan's difference meant that ordinary interactions between people were indeed a burden to him.
When others were around, he had to explain his thoughts to them, and sometimes even seek their approval.
Yu Ye Zhou's original intention was not to restrict Gu Zhan.
Yu Ye Zhou said, "Who said anything about quitting the team? You're not quitting. If you want to go, go. I'll head back and find Yang Lin."
"Huh?" This response completely surprised Gu Zhan. Based on his past experiences, whenever he acted in ways others didn't understand, the typical response was to criticize him for being "abnormal" and then try to correct him.
The kinder ones would say something like, "Your choice is dangerous, don’t do that."
Agreeing with him and leaving without argument?
That was something he had never seen before. Quite a novelty.
Without giving Gu Zhan a chance to refuse, Yu Ye Zhou left immediately.
In fact, if he didn't have to change his ideas or actions, Gu Zhan didn't necessarily want to quit the team either.
After all, going into a dungeon with people he knew was much better than doing it alone, at least there wouldn't be random troublemakers around.
Since that was the case, he decided not to quit the team for now.
Gu Zhan quickly gathered his thoughts and turned to face the door ahead.
No matter what, he had to go in and take a look.
The closer he got to the door, the stronger the oppressive feeling became. Inside the door, black fog shrouded everything, with scattered delivery boxes lying on the ground. In the center of the room, there was a huge black hole. The hole seemed bottomless, or rather, perhaps "depth" wasn’t the right word.
It was pulsating, as if connected to another world.
The black fog was emanating from the black hole, and apart from that, there were many scattered tags, all bearing negative labels.
"Pain," "Sorrow," "Sadness," "Impulsiveness," "Violence," "Enjoys causing conflict," and so on... These tags seemed to be drawn towards something, piling up at the bottom of the black hole, densely covering almost the entire hole.
But there were too many tags, and the black hole's pull wasn't strong enough to hold them all. Occasionally, some tags escaped, only to be pulled back by the mist from the hole.
However, some escaped too quickly, flying into unknown corners outside the room before they could be stopped.
Gu Zhan watched the escaping tags. Did each one represent another puppet "having an issue" and needing to be reworked?
As he approached the black hole, he could hear deep snoring sounds from below.
[Holy crap, is this the boss of this dungeon?]
[I’ve never been to this place! Back then, I noticed my tag had been altered, so I went straight to the machine and removed the townspeople's tags to clear the dungeon.]
[By the way... have you ever thought about this? Our tags were probably all swapped... so, for those who removed the town residents' tags and left the dungeon, wouldn’t they be missing one?]
[No joke, my friends told me I was acting weird for a few days after I left the dungeon, but it got better over time.]
[Is it really that it got better over time, or did your friends just get used to the new you?]
[...Stop, bro, this is getting creepy.]
[No wonder the dungeon felt easy back then... so the "S" in this S-rank dungeon comes from this!]
Amidst the chilling discussions in the bullet chat, Gu Zhan approached the black hole.
The black hole had a natural suction power, but it was also leaking something.
This situation... was more like an object with natural suction that, once it reached its limit, started losing control and releasing things.
It was dangerous, and could explode at any moment.
As he got closer to the black hole, he heard a weak meowing from within. It sounded like the cat was in pain, almost as if it was calling for help.
He reached out his hand, and the black fog wrapped around his wrist. Suddenly, a force pulled him downward, causing him to stumble and fall into the depths of the black hole.
[He really went for it!]
[Holy crap, he fell in!]
As Gu Zhan fell, he felt something pass through his body. In that instant, countless emotions surged from the depths of his heart... anger, resentment, sorrow, confusion... even a violent urge to destroy everything!
But just as quickly, those emotions left him, leaving behind an empty shell.
No anger, no joy...
Everything faded, and it felt as though he had returned to the warmth of a mother's womb.
The silence lasted a long time before Gu Zhan slowly opened his eyes. He found himself still in a small form, standing in front of a trash can... and compared to him, the trash can seemed enormous and insurmountable.
Something was happening inside the trash can. The can was shaking, and after a moment, a piercing cat scream sounded. A black cat darted out of the can and ran towards the other end of the street.
From inside the can, a triumphant orange cat stuck its head out.
It spotted Gu Zhan standing outside the trash can and hissed at him.
A surge of fear rose in Gu Zhan’s heart, making him want to run away.
As he ran, he noticed something was wrong—he had four legs... No, these were paws, and they were cat paws.
It seemed he had turned into a little cat.
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