Being a yaokai actually has its perks. My boat turned out to be amphibious, capable of traveling across nd, sea, and air.

  In this critical moment, I couldn′t help but poke fun at myself. I really wasn′t afraid of death.

  With the help of my true form and using that card as a medium, entering this half-real, half-illusory Tarot world was effortless. My seemingly simple boat sped swiftly across the stormy sea, yet not a single drop of water touched it. Surrounding the boat was a faint red glow, like a protective barrier that kept everything harmful at bay, ensuring its safety.

  Fortunately, the tower hadn′t colpsed yet. But both the top and bottom of the tower were completely engulfed in fierce fmes.

  My boat smoothly ascended from the bottom of the tower to the top. Only then did I see clearly that the fierce lightning, like a scalpel, had sliced off the arched tower roof, leaving jagged, charred remains exposed to the air. The fmes were roaring, completely engulfing the top floor. Thick smoke billowed upward, obscuring my vision. My boat floated above the roofless room, but I couldn′t see what was happening inside.

  "Hey! You little ghosts! Are you alive?" I shouted, forcing the boat to descend.

  "We′re fine! We′re okay! You′re back? Hurry up and save us!"

  Three faint beams of light, forming a triangle, gradually emerged from the thick smoke. The children′s loud cries that followed made me sigh in relief—I hadn′t arrived too te.

  The fmes, hot enough to turn a person to charcoal, angrily licked at the edges of the triangur seal, unable to penetrate it. Everything here had been swallowed by the fire, except for the ones within the bounds of the triangle. I silently thanked that monkey once more.

  I stretched out my hand and pulled the four unlucky kids onto the boat one by one, just as a massive roar shook the air. The rugged, grand structure before us began to colpse in yers, eventually crumbling like a pile of mud—half falling onto the fire-ravaged ground and half sinking into the violent, churning sea.

  The children were stunned by the scene before them, unable to speak, their hands gripping the boat′s railing so tightly that it felt like they might crush it.

  "Alright, no need to be scared anymore." I sat at the bow of the boat, eyeing the disheveled little ghosts. "We′ll be home soon."

  The chubby kid pouted and nodded vigorously, looking like a little girl, his eyes brimming with tears, unsure whether to let them fall for fear of being ughed at.

  The girl named Ren Xiaocheng pressed her hand against her chest for a while, seeming to calm down a bit. She then looked up at me, timidly asking, "Are you... the god who came to save us? You... you won′t take us to another scary pce, will you?"

  "I'm not a god, but I can still save you," I poked the overly cautious girl on the forehead.

  "Do you think there's anywhere more terrifying than that tower?"

  All four of them shook their heads in unison.

  "That's it. In any case, I'll get you all out of here safely."

  I knew that when I made a promise with such a serious demeanor, it was easy for others to believe and feel reassured. Slowly, the children began to shake off their deep fear and despair and started to anticipate the joy of surviving this ordeal.

  The boat descended slowly from the sky, gliding through an endless wilderness. There was no moon in the sky, just a few broken stars, and the ground below shimmered with an eerie dark blue glow. Thanks to my friend′s gift, my boat had the ability to locate the entrance to the underworld by itself, and we only needed to follow its lead.

  "Alright, tell me how you ended up here. You all went to the shop of that woman from `Sound of Twilight,' didn't you?" I tried to strike up a conversation. I was worried that too much silence might trigger another round of psychological pressure, especially in such an extraordinary environment.

  Hearing the name "Song of Twilight," the children all shuddered in unison, as if they had been bitten by some terrifying beast.

  "It's all your fault!" Pang Er (the chubby boy) muttered, gring at the three girls. "If you hadn′t dragged me along, I wouldn′t have ended up in this horrible pce."

  "Pang Er, you′re the one who insisted on going!" The girl with gsses hit him on the head. "You were the one who said you really wanted to make it into the top three, that you wanted to know what it feels like to be a model student, so your mom would stop calling you useless. That's why we brought you along!"

  "You′re the same!" Pang Er compined, rubbing his head. "You all just wanted to be model students too! If it weren′t for you guys always going to that creepy pce and meeting that old witch, I never would′ve gotten dragged into all this!"

  I didn′t intervene in their quarrel. Listening to their bickering was actually kind of amusing. From their back and forth, I gathered enough to understand the situation.

  The three girls initially came just because the cotton candy sold by `Sound of Twilight′ was so delicious, so they often visited like the other kids. They never expected that one day, the shop owner, Mrs. Mu, would suddenly notice that Ren Xiaocheng seemed troubled. She suggested that Xiaochun should open up and share her concerns, as maybe she could help.

  It turned out that Xiaocheng's father had lost an important contract, and if it wasn′t found soon, they would face a wsuit. So, Mrs. Mu used her Tarot cards to do a reading and told Xiaocheng that the contract was in her father′s colleague′s drawer. When they checked, they found the contract exactly where the reading had indicated. From that moment on, the "legend" of Mrs. Mu′s tarot reading spread among the students, and many came to her seeking advice.

  Mrs. Mu didn't turn anyone away, but she was especially kind to Ren Xiaocheng. Whenever she came by, she was the first to try out the new fvors of cotton candy, and Mrs. Mu never charged her for it. Xiaocheng, feeling grateful and trusting of this kind and beautiful woman, developed a deep affection for her.

  On Xiaocheng's birthday, Mrs. Mu told her she would give her a special gift: a wish.

  She could make any wish, and Mrs. Mu would help make it come true. Xiaocheng, naive and trusting, told Mrs. Mu that not only did she want her wish fulfilled, but so did her two best friends. Their biggest wish was to change their current lives, to experience what it felt like to be top students, to stop facing the disappointed gazes of their parents and the helpless sighs of their teachers. They wanted to become those enviable people—those who lived in the spotlight, constantly praised and admired. Mrs. Mu agreed to help, but she insisted that this had to remain a secret and allowed Xiaocheng to bring her friends along.

  As for Pang Er, who was in a different css but overheard their conversation, he stubbornly demanded to be part of it. He threatened that if they didn′t let him in, he′d spread the secret to the entire school. And so, despite not being part of the original pn, he ended up joining them.

  So, when they followed Mu's instructions and pced their fingers on the "Tower" card, something terrifying happened—they were "sucked" into another world, where neither heaven nor earth responded. They didn't even know when they entered this world. By the time I found them, so much time had passed. They said there was no day or night there; time seemed to freeze; they didn't feel hungry, only endless fear.

  Poor, foolish children.

  "Remember, wishes are things to hold in your heart and achieve through real effort. The evil forces in this world are the best at exploiting people's desire for shortcuts, using your wishes to cause harm." I said seriously to Ren Xiaocheng and the others, "Also, you are the only one in the world. Don′t let yourself become a copy of someone else because of envy or other emotions. It′s meaningless. Life is precious precisely because it is irrepceable."

  The children exchanged gnces but didn′t say anything, silently lowering their heads.

  The boat glided smoothly over the rough terrain, making no sound at all, as light as a feather floating through the sky, carrying us toward a dark, hidden passage.

  After a moment, Pang Er suddenly looked at me awkwardly, fidgeting, wanting to say something but hesitating.

  “What′s wrong?” I noticed his strange gaze.

  “I... I need to pee... I've been holding it for a long time.”

  “Always such a troublemaker!” His companions rolled their eyes at him.

  “People have their urgent needs, you know!”

  I had no choice but to stop and Pang Er get off, reminding him not to go more than a meter away from us. We, the few girls, would just turn around.

  Pang Er nodded vigorously and rushed off the boat.