"Was the person cut from the photo the girl's father?" Bai Mu held the group picture, speculating about the story behind it.
Only the mother and daughter's shoes remained in the house, and the father's image had been deliberately cropped out of the photos. It looked as though the couple had divorced, and the court had awarded custody of the child to the woman.
Before the divorce, the conflict between the couple must have been severe. Otherwise, it would not have escalated to cutting the man out of their family portraits. Their relationship had clearly fractured beyond repair.
Despite the absence of a man, the home's furniture and decor remained impeccably arranged.
Bai Mu had already searched the secondary bedroom, which belonged to the girl. Inside her wardrobe were plenty of clothes: short sleeves and skirts for summer, woolen coats and down jackets for winter, ribboned hats, and more. Everything she could possibly need was there, and a pile of plush toys sat on the bed.
The woman loved her child very much, at least providing for her exceptionally well in terms of material needs.
In that case, the woman and her husband likely had not separated over financial issues. Perhaps it was infidelity, alcoholism, or drug abuse. Whatever it was, the man had done something utterly unforgivable; otherwise, the split would not have been so absolute.
Bai Mu pieced together the fragments of information in his mind, slowly reconstructing the story behind Witch.
There was no helping it. The quest objective only stated "Search the house" without a single extra hint. It appeared to be a puzzle-solving task rather than a combat mission.
While Bai Mu was deep in thought, Yan Yu turned on her flashlight, illuminating the room.
The house had been thoroughly searched and was completely safe.
She finally relaxed and switched on her light.
"How is it? Any luck?" Yan Yu asked as she stowed away her scalpel, feeling much more at ease.
She figured she could get a good night's sleep tonight. She really liked this large bed. Even though it had been abandoned for a month, the doors and windows were tightly sealed, and the owners had thoroughly cleaned the house before leaving. As a result, everything remained neat and tidy.
"Nothing yet," Bai Mu replied. "It is fine, I will keep looking around on my own. Why don't you go tell Brother Great Wilderness and the others to pull the car in? There is a garage in the backyard, which is perfect for parking. We will rest inside the house tonight."
"Alright," Yan Yu nodded. "I just found some boxed tomato spaghetti and a frozen pizza in the fridge. They should still be edible. I will go find them and break down a stool for firewood so we can cook our dinner."
"Borrow this flashlight for now." Yan Yu tossed the flashlight onto the bed.
After speaking, she happily headed downstairs to get the others. She felt that victory in this Script was already in the bag, putting her in a fantastic mood.
As for that Side Quest, if Bai Mu could solve the puzzle, that was his own skill. If he could not, it did not matter. It had little to do with her anyway.
Bai Mu flashed an OK gesture, removed the photo from its frame, shoved it into his pocket, and continued searching the bedroom.
He opened every cabinet and drawer. Aside from the woman's underwear and everyday clothes, he found a good amount of cash in the master bedroom's drawers. The first drawer of the nightstand had a hidden compartment. He initially thought he had hit the jackpot, but upon prying it open, he found an indescribable adult toy, leaving him greatly disappointed.
In the second drawer, he discovered some receipts, the house deed, auto loan documents, and a thick photo album.
The album was filled entirely with photos of the girl, documenting her life from infancy as she grew up. A number marked each passing year. It seemed the girl was nine years old and in the middle of losing her baby teeth; in the final photo, a canine tooth was conspicuously missing from her beaming smile.
A single name was written on the album's cover: "Lucy." It had to be the girl's name.
Bai Mu spent quite a while turning the master bedroom upside down, but unfortunately, he found nothing of real value. In a world where order had collapsed, cash was just scrap paper that could not buy a single thing.
As for the props and miscellaneous items in the Script, his experience from completing two previous Scripts told him that the vast majority could not be taken away. Anything that could be brought back would have a special prompt. For instance, when he completed Dave's Side Quest, the reward prompt specifically told him he could choose three items from the secret arsenal to take out of the Script. Because of this, he had absolutely zero interest in useless junk.
'I should check the secondary bedroom,' Bai Mu thought. Since Witch, or rather Lucy, was the actual quest giver, the crucial information was much more likely to be hidden in her room.
Just as he was relocating, the rumble of an engine echoed outside. Bai Mu looked out the window and saw Great Northern Wilderness driving the car into the garage. It was a garage with a rolling shutter door. Likely to prevent any Zombies from wandering inside during the night, Great Northern Wilderness and his brother worked together to pull the metal shutter down.
Afterward, the two brothers and Yan Yu entered through the front door, using the key to lock it securely from the inside.
"Brother Bai, lend me your axe for a bit! We need to chop some wood for a fire and whip up some food." Walking through the door, Great Northern Wilderness spotted Bai Mu in the second-floor hallway and headed up the stairs.
Bai Mu nodded, pulled the Fire Axe from his backpack, and handed it over.
What followed was the crisp crack and splintering of wood. Relying on sheer brute force, Great Northern Wilderness violently dismantled the cozy walnut dining table in the living room.
"Little bro, go grab a pot from the kitchen! I am going to make a massive portion of fried noodles!"
Great Northern Wilderness bustled about with blazing enthusiasm, looking every bit the part of a head chef.
Bai Mu's stomach was actually starting to rumble as well. Chopping down Zombies was manual labor; even though he made it look easy, it still drained a significant amount of stamina.
According to his interface panel, his stamina had already dropped by twenty-eight percent.
With teammates handling the cooking, he did not need to worry about it. He could focus entirely on solving the puzzle and hunting for clues.
Arriving in the secondary bedroom, he resumed rummaging through the drawers and cabinets. Lucy's belongings were much simpler than her mother's. Aside from clothes, there were only toys—normal children's toys, like dolls and model trains.
After a thorough search, he finally found something peculiar sitting on the desk.
[Name: Lucy's Diary]
[Type: Item]
[Quality: Normal]
[Note: So many times she poured her heart out to her mother, but her mother only cried in response. Thus, she learned to write her inner thoughts on paper, talking only to herself.]
Bai Mu flipped the diary open. The words were scrawled in crooked handwriting, consisting of common, simple vocabulary. Bai Mu's English proficiency was more than enough to understand it.
The diary entries were filled with mundane, everyday things. For example: "Mommy brought me cake. It was strawberry-flavored." "I miss Daddy, but Mommy won't let me think about Daddy. I feel sad." "Mommy said she can't play with me tomorrow, but she will take me to the amusement park."...
A little girl's inner world was not complex. When she was happy, she used crayons to draw smiley faces and suns. When she was upset, she scribbled distorted lines across the paper with a pencil.
Fearful of missing any critical information, Bai Mu carefully turned the pages one by one.
Near the end of the diary, he noticed that two pages had been torn out.
Immediately after the torn section, a new sentence had been written.
"I had a fight with Mommy. She said I am not a good child."
The childish strokes formed a depressed, crying face.
Several spots on the paper were crinkled—the telltale signs of water that had soaked in and dried. It was highly likely that the girl's tears had fallen onto the page.
On the page following the crying face, a mess of chaotic, tangled lines was drawn.
When Bai Mu flipped to the diary's final page, the notification from Paradise chimed once more.
[Side Quest "Fruitless Waiting" has been updated.]
[Quest Objective Changed: Solve the puzzle in the diary.]