Chapter 8: Map

Adeline woke from sleep with her consciousness still hazy.

She hadn’t gone to bed early last night, her mind tossing and turning over the Puzzle Box and that card.

She wasn’t even sure what time she had fallen asleep.

But clarity came quickly.

The first thing Adeline did upon opening her eyes was to look sideways at the table.

The card was still lying there, quietly leaning against the wooden Puzzle Box.

The oil lamp had gone out, a small crust of charred black residue forming on the wick.

Everything looked exactly the same as it had before she fell asleep.

She pushed herself up and reached for the card, then froze.

Something was on the table under the card.

Adeline blinked, thinking she wasn’t fully awake yet.

She picked up the card and leaned closer to look.

The tabletop was gone.

More precisely, the walnut grain of the tabletop had vanished, replaced by a hand-drawn map covering the entire surface.

Black ink had spread outward in all directions from where the card had been placed, the lines fine and uniform, like the work of a patient artist who had spent the whole night finishing it.

Low, cramped houses huddled together, with crooked alleys winding between them, narrow enough for only one person to pass.

In some places, the buildings were so dense they seemed like a deliberate maze; in others, the space opened up into small blank areas that resembled plazas or courtyards.

The ink was meticulous, even the roof tile patterns and cracks in the walls were traced stroke by stroke.

Adeline was so startled she nearly dropped the card.

She instinctively shrank back, her back pressing against the soft cushion at the head of the bed.

Her eyes locked onto the tabletop, her heart pounding.

‘What’s going on?’

There had been absolutely nothing like this on the table before she went to sleep.

The oil lamp, the wooden box, the card—just those three items.

She remembered clearly.

Now this map covered the entire table, so vast and dense with lines that it couldn’t possibly have been drawn in such a short time.

Moreover, there was no one else in the room.

Lina had gone out after cleaning up the dishes last night and hadn’t come back in.

Adeline steadied herself and turned her attention back to the ink lines on the table.

The more she studied them, the more something felt off.

Those lines didn’t look like they were drawn on the table.

She reached out and lightly touched the nearest ink mark with her fingertip.

The sensation was strange—the surface beneath her finger still felt like smooth walnut, with no bumps or dampness of ink.

It was as if the ink had grown into the wood grain, becoming part of the table itself.

She rubbed hard.

The mark didn’t budge—no fading, no smudging, as if it had been there from the start.

Adeline pulled her hand back and stared at her clean fingers for two seconds.

No ink residue.

This thing wasn’t painted on.

It had grown into the table.

The realization sent a chill down her spine.

She suppressed the unease rising in her chest and shifted her focus back to the card in her hand.

The card was still the same card.

On the front was the silhouette and name of Lane Colin; on the back, the symbol of the double-ringed cross.

She flipped it over and examined it carefully.

No change in appearance.

Then she noticed it.

Below the name, there had originally been only one status:

[Health].

Now there were two.

[Health] [Fatigue]

Adeline stared at the newly added [Fatigue] status, her brow slowly furrowing.

What caused this?

Had Lane Colin—if he really existed—done something yesterday that led to fatigue?

Or had the card itself undergone some change?

She couldn’t figure it out.

The information she had was too scant, too little to support any guess without it feeling like pure fabrication.

She sighed, deciding to study the map first.

But when she turned her head, she froze completely.

The map on the table was gone.

A moment ago it had been a dense mass of houses and streets; now the tabletop had returned to its original walnut grain, smooth and warm, without a trace of anything.

Adeline stared at the table for several seconds, then reached out and touched it.

The wood felt the same as always—no residue, no anomaly.

As if the map had never existed.

Her heart beat a little faster.

Her gaze darted from the table to the card in her hand, then back to the table, back and forth.

An idea formed in her mind.

She picked up the card and placed it back on the table.

Then she pulled her hand away, leaned against the headboard, and waited patiently.

Five seconds.

The table didn’t change.

The walnut grain glowed softly in the morning light.

Ten seconds.

Still no change.

Adeline’s fingers unconsciously tightened on the blanket.

Fifteen seconds.

She began to doubt whether she had been overthinking it.

Maybe the map’s appearance and disappearance had nothing to do with where the card was placed—maybe it was just some random, uncontrollable anomaly.

Maybe she should look for other clues instead of staring at a table like an idiot.

Just as she was about to give up—

Suddenly, a change occurred.

With the card at the center, the color of the table began to deepen.

At first it was very faint, like a slight shift in the light angle darkening the wood grain by a shade.

But then the dark color started spreading outward, faster and faster.

Like someone had spilled a bottle of ink.

Black liquid marks seeped out from under the card, flowing along the wood grain in all directions.

But if you looked closely, you’d see it wasn’t actually liquid—no gloss, no wetness, none of the physical properties of ink.

The black was simply growing on the wood surface, like a living thing using the grain as soil, taking root, sprouting, spreading.

Adeline held her breath, her eyes fixed on what was happening before her.

The ink grew quickly.

Within seconds, it had covered a quarter of the table.

The outlines of houses emerged from the lines—first the slanted roofs, then the vertical walls, then the small rectangles of doors and windows.

The alleys wound between the houses, narrow and curved, like the corridors of a maze.

The exact same map as before.

The whole process took about ten seconds.

When the last ink stroke stopped spreading, a full hand-drawn map once again covered the tabletop.

Adeline let out a long breath.

Excitement.

That was the only feeling she had right now.

She was sick of days spent cooped up in her room doing nothing.

And this map—appearing out of thin air—was the first truly inexplicable thing she had encountered since crossing over.

Not heat-sensitive paper, not invisible ink, not any trick she could explain with knowledge from her past life.

This thing was alive.

Or rather, the logic it followed belonged to no system she had ever known.