Nan Yue moved quickly, returning to her seat before Grandmother could notice anything unusual.
But now she knew—this project was a death trap.
She had heard that qualification exams were usually solo endeavors and quite difficult, designed to filter out qualified scavengers for future work.
As the top graduate of her year, Nan Yue had always scored the highest on every simulation, so she never imagined she would get stuck on a qualification project.
But looking at it now, those so-called simulations were far too conservative, and the teachers' thinking was too limited.
Nan Yue was now a hundred percent certain that Grandmother's strangeness wasn't just the eerie baseline of the Scavenger Project.
Grandmother was already dead.
The person in front of her was a ghost.
No, Grandmother was likely a corpse.
She had a physical form, but she was slowly rotting, developing livor mortis and a foul stench, and her movements were gradually becoming stiff.
Nan Yue analyzed that Grandmother must have been dead for over two days.
She recalled Grandmother's movements yesterday were very strange, as her walk was abnormal, and now it seemed it was because she was still under the influence of rigor mortis.
Normally, a body stiffens after death, a process commonly known as rigor mortis.
It becomes completely stiff within nine to twelve hours, starts to slowly soften after thirty hours, and becomes fully soft after seventy hours.
Yesterday, Grandmother must have been in the process of gradually softening, and now Nan Yue was certain: if she didn't leave by tomorrow at the latest, she would never be able to leave.
Grandmother hadn't done anything to her yet because her body was still very stiff, but once her corpse fully softened tomorrow, she probably wouldn't wait any longer.
No wonder Grandmother said they would see her mother soon.
Amin—the current Nan Yue—was still alive, but not for much longer.
Once she understood this, the questions that had been bothering Nan Yue were solved.
As for why the television became like that, it was likely a paper television burned for the dead, which naturally collapsed when it touched water.
And this food was also burned by the living, and whether Grandmother had requested it in a dream or through some other means, Nan Yue didn't look too deeply into it.
The stories in the Scavenger Project only had a rough background, like a nightmare with a certain logic that one couldn't think about too carefully.
Their goal was simply to clear the project.
That was why the items had no aroma or flavor, because they were just paper.
Under Grandmother's gaze, Nan Yue tore off a leg and ate it in large bites, her heart as calm as still water.
What was wrong with eating paper? It was fine as long as it wasn't something truly bizarre.
Now that Grandmother's malice had surfaced, Nan Yue felt it was more important to keep her stable and not provoke the old woman into acting before the rigor mortis had fully faded.
Seeing Nan Yue eat, Grandmother was clearly satisfied, as she wasn't human and these things actually tasted good to her.
In less than half an hour, the food on the table was completely cleared.
"Grandmother, I'll go wash the dishes. You go watch television first."
Nan Yue no longer held any hope, for even if Grandmother discovered the television was broken, another one could be burned for her tomorrow, and no delivery person would ever appear.
The sound of Grandmother singing opera didn't come from behind her for a long time, so Nan Yue hastily rinsed the bowls and dried her hands.
When she turned around, Grandmother was sitting on the sofa, but she wasn't staring at her, looking out the window instead.
Nan Yue walked over cautiously, knowing that in these stories, characters could be good or bad, but the protagonist's counterpart was always malicious.
What was Grandmother doing now?
Nan Yue sat down beside Grandmother and followed her gaze, but outside was pitch black, and it wasn't the darkness of a night without stars or a moon, but absolute, literal blackness.
It was as if they were inside a box with a black top where nothing could be seen.
"Amin, don't blame Grandmother. Grandmother is doing this for your own good."
Nan Yue listened quietly, for as people who actually existed, they were different from the characters in the projects and had no families, only simple social relationships and missions.
She had never heard anyone say such things to her before.
Strangely, sitting next to a corpse and hearing the old woman say such things in her raspy voice made her feel a sudden surge of irritability.
The most important part of a mission was immersion, as they had their own roles, and only by immersing themselves in the characters could they find more clues.
So, although it hadn't been long, she had truly been experiencing Amin's life for the past two days.
Grandmother's omnipresent surveillance, the strictly controlled life, and those excessively harsh rules and regulations.
Never mind Nan Yue, even the real Amin probably wanted to escape this place.
But unlike Nan Yue, Amin had real feelings for Grandmother, as she had truly been raised by her.
She had no mother, so Grandmother was her mother.
Grandmother's circumstances weren't good, but she had put all her heart and soul into Amin.
This kind of familial love was inextricably tangled with that oppressive discipline.
Nan Yue was an outsider and knew clearly that Grandmother's illness was caused by the death of Amin's mother, and her excessive possessiveness and protective nature were already a sickness.
For example, even in death, Grandmother couldn't stop worrying about her granddaughter, and she was even willing to kill her to take her along rather than let her live alone.
But in Amin's eyes, Grandmother was just sick, and while the old woman's excessive possessiveness made her hate her life, she still had feelings for her.
So all she wanted to do was escape.
Nan Yue found this emotion novel, as it was something she had never experienced before.
For the past twenty-some years, her life and emotions had been stable, and except for that thing inside her body, nothing could make her emotions fluctuate.
But after just two days in this project, she was experiencing complex emotions she had never felt before.
Grandmother was still talking, recounting things from Amin's childhood.
But Nan Yue suspected she might not be talking about this Amin, but about the mother's childhood.
"...It's all my fault. I spoiled you too much, which is why I let you make such a big mistake."
The rambling Grandmother suddenly turned around, her face almost pressed against Nan Yue's, and her face, crisscrossed with livor mortis, emitted a faint stench of decay while her eyes were filled with malice.
"Amin, do you know your mistake?"
Nan Yue was startled by the sudden close-up, but she didn't do anything drastic.
She knew Grandmother was mistaking her for the daughter, or rather, from the moment she gave the granddaughter the same name as the daughter, she had been raising her as the deceased daughter.
She was trying to prevent the daughter from repeating the same mistake, but her method was despairing.
Nan Yue answered calmly, "I know I was wrong. I shouldn't have disobeyed you before."
Grandmother's eyes glared at her intensely, and after a long while, she let out a couple of eerie chuckles.
"I know you resent me. What mother in the world doesn't want the best for her child? But children always resent their mothers."
Grandmother slowly moved her face away. "Don't even think about leaving."
"I let you slip away last time, but you won't get away this time."
"You absolutely won't get away!"
When Nan Yue lay in bed, Grandmother's curse-like words were still echoing in her mind, and she wasn't sleepy as her mind searched for a way out while time ran out.
She rolled over and suddenly froze.
Rate on N.U.
