Heart of Laughter and Tears

In an instant, two floor tiles under the dining table vanished into thin air, revealing a hole just large enough for one person to pass through.

Below the opening, a narrow stone corridor extended straight down, with roughly polished small steps leading into bottomless darkness.

What was on the other side of the hole?

Would it connect directly to some monster gathering place in the Carnival Paradise?

The Carnival Paradise had indeed granted him the privilege to enter and exit freely without being harmed, but since it was his first time entering and he couldn't gauge the attitudes of those terrifying creatures, it was better to be careful.

Just in case, Zhu Yan pulled the Demon cloak out of his ring, put it on, and cautiously pulled up the hood.

With a meow, the cat jumped onto his shoulder, its claws firmly gripping the cloak.

Zhu Yan gently held his breath and stepped onto the first stone step.

...

Just as Zhu Yan left silently, the woman who had come to inspect the apartment also went downstairs.

She turned her head and looked; at the intersection in the opposite direction of the soup dumpling shop, another police car was parked.

This car was much larger, and two police officers in white protective suits stood in front of it.

One of them nodded at the woman and made an OK gesture.

"Mission accomplished."

The man said after the woman walked up to them.

He pointed to the police car, signaling her to get in.

"Don't take off the audio equipment yet, it's not convenient to take off your clothes here. There's a lot of plague in the city right now, so it's not safe to eat or drink. Let's get in the car first."

The woman's tone was completely different from when she was in the hallway earlier.

"Is the audio still clear?"

She asked seriously, "Are you sure? Is it really him? Also, what on earth happened to Anwu City?"

"Positive." The man smiled. "Don't worry. No one can escape human behavioral science and psychological analysis."

The woman nodded, pointing at the soup dumpling shop with lingering fear. "You told me to keep it a secret all the way here, and as soon as I arrived, I saw this."

"What exactly are these things? Why is there no record of them in the synchronized data on my end?"

The two got into the car. The man turned his head to look at the vehicle full of equipment and several staff members, and sighed softly.

"These just appeared in the last two days," he said. "You don't have the data because an entire building of people at the police station got infected with this disease, and more than half died during on-site quarantine."

The woman was startled. "An entire building?! More than half?!"

"Yes." The man nodded. "It happened in the middle of the night yesterday, and the situation was tragic. Only those who had absolutely no contact with the virus carriers survived."

"These people didn't dare to leave their offices either. We only found out about this because of a young man named Guan En."

The woman nodded. "I've heard of him too. He's a player who has cleared two instances at a high frequency recently, one of our people."

The man made a motion to reach into his pocket, as if wanting to light a cigarette.

But he held back and instead instructed the others in the car to keep a close eye on the monitors.

"It's three instances now," he said. "According to him, he wasn't infected because he took a leave of absence, but on the night of the incident, he was pulled into an instance."

"The objective was to obtain a potion from a terrifying creature that, once drunk, could cure or prevent the plague."

The woman pondered for a moment.

"If this disease was spread by that mysterious player, why wasn't Guan En, who went through two instances with him, infected?"

She sharply pointed out the issue. "Have you investigated Guan En?"

The man smiled, reassuring her once again.

"After our people took over, we checked his hotel surveillance, the old town surveillance, and his phone and text records overnight. Everything you could think of."

"Completely clean?" the woman asked.

"Yes," the man said. "Nothing at all. He never went out, nor did he contact anyone else."

"It's a pity that in order to head to the police station as soon as possible, he drank all the potion."

The woman gave a nod.

"The sniper says he closed the curtains," a police officer suddenly said. "We can't lock onto the target. We need to execute the mission at close range."

The woman stood up immediately. "I'll take a team. Same old plan: get him to open the door, and shoot to kill instantly."

If Zhu Yan could hear this, he would definitely scoff at their operation and guess that Guan En had received some sort of special reward.

But at this moment, Zhu Yan had no mind to pay attention to affairs in the real world.

He had already reached the end of the long corridor.

At the end of the darkness was an old, rough wooden door, hastily bolted.

The surface of the wood had been stained by various filth until it was greasy, and it even felt slightly sticky to the touch.

Zhu Yan adjusted his cloak, carefully slid the bolt open, and pushed the door outward.

Instantly, the world brightened.

A somewhat dim yellow light filled his entire field of vision, and the sudden stimulation of the light made Zhu Yan reflexively squint.

A cacophony of noise washed over Zhu Yan like a tide. He realized he was in a bustling, crowded place, perhaps a tavern or something similar, because the stifling air was filled with a floral scent so thick it was nauseating.

Someone bumped into his shoulder, shoving him aside.

"Make way, Mr. Demon!" The voice was so sweet it was cloying. "Oh, what a beautiful cat! You must be quite the beauty yourself."

In a few seconds, Zhu Yan's vision gradually cleared.

The place looked like an old department store, with square little spaces sectioned off by glass counters.

Watermelon-sized chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The carved glass lampshades were shaped like human heads, and the light shone through their mouths and eye sockets.

Behind each glass counter stood terrifying creatures of varying appearances, while the customers browsing and picking out items all seemed to be Witches.

The one who bumped into him was also a Witch. Although its appearance was different from the one he had killed, they shared the exact same voice.

This Witch looked a bit more holy, but the cat in its arms was just as disgustingly ugly.

Zhu Yan didn't mind its frivolous words; he just pulled on his hood, ensuring his face was completely hidden in the shadows.

"Where is this?" he asked. "I didn't look carefully when I came in."

The Witch let out a string of crisp laughter.

"The Witch Department Store," it said. "You should go to the Demon Department Store next door; this place is exclusively for witches."

With that, it walked away with light steps.

Zhu Yan wasn't in a hurry to leave, but instead curiously mingled among the monsters and started browsing.

Some counters displayed herbs and bones he couldn't recognize, while others sold different styles of voices and body odors. The strong scent Zhu Yan had smelled earlier came from these counters.

Most of them were strange altering agents, various types of white clay, scrapers, and paints, as well as a kind of transparent mannequin with a surface texture like flowing water.

"Do you need this too?" a mannequin-like creature in charge of sales asked him in surprise. "These are used for Witches to sculpt their bodies and appearances."

Zhu Yan told a lie.

"I have a witch friend," he said. "She asked me to take a look for her."

"Oh, oh, oh," the faux-human nodded stiffly. "We only sell human molds, white clay, and paints suitable for Level 7 to 14 Witches."

"If your friend is only Level 4 like you, please make your way to the lower-tier counters..."

A Witch, whose face and body were already cracking apart, happened to squeeze her way over. The faux-human immediately rushed to pitch its wares to her.

"Oh my, you look like you are about to shatter! Hurry up and buy our latest model of human mold to reshape yourself!"

"I guarantee you, not only is the face the newest design, but it is also the absolute perfect vessel to temporarily store your Heart of Smiles and Tears..."

Heart of Smiles and Tears?

It was a new term Zhuyan had never heard before.

He committed the pronunciation to memory and squeezed his way out of the shop, pushing against the tide of monsters.

Since he was already here, Zhuyan really wanted to drop by the Demon Department Store next door.

After all, Demons were entities capable of conjuring Plague Potions.

Could it be possible that the items hidden beneath their cloaks were also store-bought?