Players, Please Board the Train-Chapter 283: Returning to the Ticket Area

The child above seemed startled and then fell from the edge of the broken stone wall.
Yan Jiayu quickly reached out to catch her. The moment the child landed in her arms, she started crying fearfully, and a foul smell emanated from her pants.
"Is this a child who got pulled into the dungeon?" Yan Jiayu patted the child's head. "Don't cry, big sister will give you some candy."
Xu Huo turned to Peng Ru. "Aren't you a kindergarten teacher?"
Peng Ru walked over to Yan Jiayu and reached out. "Let me hold her."
Just as Yan Jiayu was about to speak, the little girl actively threw herself toward Peng Ru.
Feeling the little girl's discolored pants, Peng Ru's expression shifted momentarily, but she quickly concealed it. She touched the girl's face. "The child must have been frightened."
Yan Jiayu gave the child some candy and asked her, "Did you see any other children?"
The little girl held the candy in her mouth, tears welling in her eyes, tightly clutching the doll in her arms, but refused to speak.
"Such a small child couldn't possibly know anything," Tang Xiao said. "She's probably scared out of her wits. Since there's only one, we might as well bring her along."
The others naturally had no objections. Just as they were about to continue forward, Peng Ru suddenly jerked her head backward. She frowned at the child in her arms. "Little one, please don't pull auntie's hair, okay?"
Tears welled up in the little girl's eyes again as she fearfully shrank back.
Seeing this, Yan Jiayu said, "She probably grabbed it accidentally. Give her to me, I've taken care of children before."
Peng Ru certainly wanted to hand her over, but the little girl seemed to have latched onto her. When she saw Yan Jiayu reaching out, she directly buried her face in Peng Ru's shoulder.
Yan Jiayu scratched her head. "She doesn't like me."
"There's nothing over there. I think we should go back," Peng Ru said with an unpleasant expression.
"Since we've come all this way, we should at least take a look," Xu Huo said as he reached out and took the child from her arms. He stuffed a handful of candy into the child's hand. "Stop crying. If you keep crying, I'll put you back and you won't get any candy."
The child indeed stopped crying.
The four of them crossed the broken bridge and entered the ancient castle structure behind it. Once inside, they discovered the building was split in two by a fissure running down the middle, with flowing lake water right beneath their feet.
"Nothing here," Tang Xiao said with slight disappointment.
Xu Huo walked to the edge of the fissure, holding the child under her arms and suspending her over the gap while looking into her eyes. "Little one, can you give uncle your hat?"
"What are you doing?" Tang Xiao was shocked by his actions. Just as he was about to step forward, he saw the little girl neither crying nor making a fuss. While chewing her candy, she said, "I have lots of hats. Which one does uncle want?"
The three people present suddenly hearing her speak couldn't help but search the little girl's body. She had two small hat hair clips in her hair, small hats on her hair ties, a child's straw hat hanging behind her neck, and the doll in her arms also wore a hat, with even its buttons being small pink hats.
Yan Jiayu and the others unconsciously moved closer, surrounding Xu Huo and the child.
"The one needed to clear the stage," Xu Huo said, lowering the child a bit further.
The child kept chewing, but the previous pitifulness and fear had vanished from her eyes. She raised her hand and pointed behind them. "The big sister who brought me in said all the small hats are over there..."
Xu Huo and the other three instinctively looked up, but the stone beneath their feet suddenly cracked. Darkness abruptly surged from behind, causing the stone bridge to break along with it!
The four reflexively jumped across the fissure, but darkness was also invading from ahead, along with countless puppets brandishing swords and knives, ferociously charging toward them!
With no retreat behind them, and having jumped across the fissure needing landing spots, they could only choose to fight off the puppets. But completely unexpectedly, those puppets were as fragile as paper, breaking with just a kick or punch. This time, no small hats dropped out. Tang Xiao, who attacked first, directly disappeared!
As darkness enveloped the ancient castle structure, Yan Jiayu and Peng Ru disappeared one after another. Xu Huo had thrown the child away at the first moment. Using his piano wire, he vaulted over the puppet encirclement in one move. However, as he landed, a doll fell at his feet. He subconsciously lifted his foot, but the next second, his vision blurred as he was transported from the darkness to an open clearing.
[Player Extra has violated the rules and will be returned to the ticket area to repurchase tickets and accept punishment. Note: This punishment is only effective during this dungeon instance.]
"Searching, searching, searching for friends, found one good friend, poke the eyes, cut the tongue, no screaming makes a good friend..."
"Searching, searching, searching for friends, found one good friend, stuff the ears, block the nostrils, no mischief makes a good friend..."
"Searching, searching, searching for friends, found one good friend, snip snip hands, snip snip feet, no escaping makes a good friend..."
The nursery rhyme music heard before entering the amusement park was severely distorted. Xu Huo opened his eyes to see a nose almost touching his face and quickly retreated backward.
Positioned in front of him was a giant clown head placed directly on the ground. Its eyeballs blinked, its mouth opened and closed while singing the nursery rhyme, then it let out a weird laugh. It tilted its head, glaring at Xu Huo with one eye. "Heehee, you broke the rules! Guests who break the rules must return to the ticket area to buy new tickets and accept punishment!"
Xu Huo frowned. How did he break the rules? He hadn't stepped on that doll.
The clown head obviously didn't care about that. It shifted backward a bit. "Poke the eyes, cut the tongue, no screaming!"
"Stuff the ears, block the nostrils, no mischief!"
"Snip snip hands, snip snip feet, no escaping!"
After speaking, it spat out three bubbles of different colors from its mouth.
Xu Huo turned and ran, but unexpectedly, one of the bubbles abruptly blocked his path. It rapidly expanded and burst. He instinctively raised his arms to shield his face, but the next second, he felt something forcing its way into his ears and nostrils. He tried to dig the things out, but they seemed to have solidified, completely stuck in his nostrils and ear canals.
He had gone deaf.
His nostrils were naturally blocked too, preventing breathing.
The clown head leaped into the air and transformed into colored paper. The scene before him once again became the amusement park's entrance gate.
Yan Jiayu and Tang Xiao were standing ahead.
"Xu Huo!" Seeing him, Yan Jiayu quickly waved in greeting.
Xu Huo could read her lips but couldn't hear any sound at all. He took out his phone to communicate with them. "I've gone deaf. Peng Ru didn't make it out?"
"She went back into the dungeon first," Yan Jiayu typed a line of text and said, "She's deaf too. We all broke the rules. You and her are deaf, while Tang Xiao and I have one arm and one leg that won't work properly."
Xu Huo checked their conditions. Yan Jiayu couldn't use her left hand and right leg, while Tang Xiao had the opposite situation. However, Tang Xiao's situation was worse because he was right-handed.
"I made two crutches," Yan Jiayu pointed to the half of a large scissors dismantled and at her side. "Didn't expect them to come in handy so quickly."
Tang Xiao, also leaning on half a large scissors as a crutch, wasn't as optimistic. His expression was grim as he said, "Entering the dungeon with lost combat ability is equivalent to seeking death."