The mascot of the wishing shop is a cat.

After entering Bai Li's home, Lin Xiyue subconsciously observed it and found it to be a very ordinary family.

The house has very common white walls, and most of the furniture is wood-colored, paired with large white floor tiles, giving it a simple look. Small decorations and children's toys scattered throughout the house show that the parents love their children very much.

There's another wall in their house, presumably for display. It shows photos of the family of three, the couple, the couple with their baby, and Bai Li with the couple. From these photos, it's clear that the couple loved their two children very much—yes, they loved Bai Li and their deceased daughter. They loved both children equally.

A little below the photo wall, there are some certificates of merit. Although they are a bit yellowed, they are not curled at the edges, so they seem to be well taken care of.

"Excuse me, miss, please have a seat. Have some water."

Bai Li's mother invited Lin Xiyue to sit down on the sofa and hurriedly poured her a glass of water.

"Thank you. My name is Lin Xiyue. You can just call me Xiao Lin."

Lin Xiyue took the water glass with both hands, only to realize that she hadn't introduced herself yet, and hurriedly said...

"Okay, okay, Xiaolin, I'm Lili's mother, my name is Feng Yan, you can just call me Aunt Feng. Aunt Feng wants to thank you for bringing Lili back. She suddenly ran away from home before, which worried her father and me so much. I was just about to call the police before you knocked on the door, but thankfully she's back."

As Feng Yan spoke, she seemed to be worried and hugged Bai Li, who was sitting next to her.

"You're welcome, Aunt Feng. Anyone with a conscience would care if they saw a child wandering around outside."

Lin Xiyue comforted Feng Yan, then asked casually, "Is Lili your only child now? I can see that you love her very much, and she loves you very much too."

"Yes, although she was adopted, we have always loved her very much. She is our biological daughter."

Feng Yan looked blissful.

Have you considered having another child or adopting another one? After all, sometimes children do want a younger brother or sister.

Lin Xiyue probed, saying that she could only vaguely see traces of children living in the house, but she wasn't sure how many. After all, according to Bai Li, that monstrous child had also lived in the house for some time, and she didn't believe Bai Li would deliberately lie to her. On the contrary, Feng Yan was more likely to be lying, because adults would be more likely to pretend for some benefit.

"Sigh, to be honest, we did consider adopting another child a few years ago, but we didn't have another baby. My body couldn't handle another childbirth, and my husband and I always felt that scientific parenting was unreliable, so we only considered adoption. However, we later realized that our love wouldn't be enough to take good care of two children. One of them would always feel that we would favor one over the other. For example, if there's a younger one, we would pay more attention to the younger one because they are weaker, but the older child might not understand. Their values ​​aren't fully formed yet, and they could easily do something extreme, which would be bad for us or the child. So we gave up on that idea. And you see, we only have Lili now, and sometimes we can't take good care of her. She sometimes runs away from home instead of communicating with us."

Feng Yan spoke sincerely, and her examples were reasonable, but it was precisely this sincerity and reasonableness that made things even more awkward. Because she genuinely thought that way; she was very rational and loved her family very much.

But Bai Li couldn't possibly lie, after all, they hadn't even met before today.

This isn't right, system, can you give me some feedback? It's stuck. ヽ(●-`Д′-)ノ

Lin Xiyue frantically called the system in her mind, her face showing no flaws, even smiling at Feng Yan and agreeing with her, but inside she was panicking.

[Didn't I tell you to trust your cat? Let him out first! (╬￣皿￣)=○]

The system felt even more excited; if it could hit her, it probably would have punched Lin Xiyue.

Ahem, I... I forgot, wealth and honor aren't called that either. ￣w￣=

After awkwardly replying to the system in her mind, Lin Xiyue said apologetically to Feng Yan, "Aunt Feng, could I let the cat out for a bit? He's very well-behaved. I was worried about leaving him alone at home, so I brought him along. I'm so sorry."

"Wow! A cat? It's okay, let it out. I still really like cats. Oh, that's a cat carrier you're carrying. It's so cute. Your cat hasn't meowed at all; it's so well-behaved."

Feng Yan looked at Lin Xiyue with a face full of surprise and anticipation, muttering to herself, as if she couldn't wait to hug the cat.

Lin Xiyue held the cat carrier in her arms and carefully opened it. A black cat head quickly popped out, and the next second, Fugui jumped out of the carrier.

"Meow~"

Fugui gave a small shout and then began to survey the territory.

"Hey--"

Lin Xiyue wanted to stop Fugui, since this wasn't her home and it wasn't good for him to wander around. But thankfully, Fugui wasn't an ordinary cat; he probably wouldn't accidentally damage anything. Perhaps?

"It's okay, it's okay. We don't keep anything that's easy to break at home because we have kids. Don't worry, if something falls, just pick it up."

Seeing Lin Xiyue's worried expression, Feng Yan kindly comforted her.

"Okay, alright. Thank you, Aunt Feng."

"It's alright, it's alright. It's so late, Xiaolin, why don't you have dinner at my place? I'll cook, so please don't refuse. After all, you helped me find Lili, and we would have been so worried if it weren't for you."

Feng Yan checked the time and insisted that Lin Xiyue have dinner at her home. In order to find out what was going on, Lin Xiyue reluctantly agreed.

After Feng Yan went to the kitchen, Bai Li approached Lin Xiyue and whispered an explanation to her.

"Sister Lin, I really didn't lie to you! But I really don't know why that little sister disappeared after we came back!"

Bai Li was somewhat anxious and looked around, trying to find something to prove that she wasn't lying.

"Okay, I believe you, don't worry. Fugui went to help find evidence, so don't fret. If you're really worried, we can look for it together, okay?"

Lin Xiyue carefully comforted Bai Li, knowing that if something were to go wrong, Bai Li would easily be noticed. The fact that it wasn't discovered at first was likely because Feng Yan's main attention was on Lin Xiyue.

"it is good."

They went to Bai Li's room first, so that even if they were caught, they could say they were taking Lin Xiyue there.

"Sister, that naughty kid used to sleep in the same room as me. Since there weren't any extra rooms in the house, she said she would sleep in the same room as me when she first arrived. Because the room wasn't very big to begin with, we moved this closet to the attic, and her bed was put here."

As Bai Li spoke, she pointed to the spot where a small cabinet was now placed.

The small cabinet was against the wall, not very tall, and was a stylish white European-style cabinet, usually used as a dressing table. Judging from Bai Li's tone, this cabinet had always been there; it was her dressing table.

However, after the "little sister" arrived, the cabinet was moved to the attic and a small bed was placed there for her.

Upon closer inspection, the cabinet appears to have been bumped or knocked over, with dents and scratches on the edges and corners.

Lin Xiyue walked over and took a closer look, also examining the surrounding walls, and discovered a problem.

"Look, there's some bloodstain here in this corner. It's dark red, so it should be blood, not paint or anything like that."

She pointed to a small, dark red mark hidden by a cabinet in the corner of the wall and said to Bai Li.

Bai Li also came over and took a closer look. She excitedly said to Lin Xiyue, "Sister! I didn't lie! I told you I didn't! What do we do next?"

"Don't worry, this mark indicates that your mother is probably lying, or she may have been deceived. Think back, has that child seen any outsiders during this period, that is, people other than the two of you?"

Lin Xiyue comforted Bai Li and then raised a new question.

"Hmm... I don't think so. Her father carried her home on the first day. She was asleep at the time, and it was quite late when they got home, so no one else should have seen her."

"After we came back, because it was summer vacation and it was especially hot, we didn't go out. I usually stayed home with her. Before I discovered any problems, I still liked her very much, and I shared everything with her."

“In this situation, I suspect it’s hypnosis. That child might not actually be human. Its abilities are limited, and it can only hypnotize a few people.”

Lin Xiyue analyzed the existing intelligence.

"Dong dong dong."

"Girls, it's time to come out and eat."

A knock came at the door; it was Feng Yan calling them out for dinner.

"Okay, Mom, I'll be right there."

Bai Li answered instinctively.

"When you go out later, just pretend you didn't notice anything and go along with your mother, okay? That's safer."

Lin Xiyue gave Bai Li some instructions.

"Ok."

Upon arriving at the restaurant, they discovered that Feng Yan had prepared three dishes and a soup in a short period of time. Although these were quick and easy dishes, they were still delicious and visually appealing.

"Thank you for your hard work, Aunt Feng. These dishes look delicious."

Lin Xiyue glanced at the dishes, smiled sweetly at Feng Yan, and spoke sweetly as well.

"Oh my, Kobayashi, you're so good with words. Come on, eat your food, and have as much as you like."

Feng Yan was overjoyed to hear this and quickly called everyone to come and eat.

"it is good."

For a time, everyone at the dinner table was in high spirits.

……

On the other side, after Fugui came out of the cat carrier, it began to look around. It could sense that something was wrong with the house, but because the aura was too weak, it couldn't find out what was wrong for a while.

Fu Gui first went to the curtains in the living room. Outside was the balcony where clothes were drying, and the curtains diligently blocked the scorching afternoon sun.

In the corner, Fugui first noticed the problem: there were strange residues in the flowerpots of the green plants in the corner. He smelled them and found a masked fishy smell.

Fugui used his claws to dig away the topsoil and found a pile of unidentified entrails inside.

Next, Fugui went to check Bai Li and her father's room, but found nothing. He then checked the kitchen, but found nothing there either.

It was as if everything in that flowerpot in the living room was fake.

Afterwards, Fugui went to the toilet.

The toilet seemed normal at first glance, but something felt off. Fugui blinked, focusing his energy on his pupils, and looked at the chandelier in the toilet. The black square chandelier had changed, and the surrounding pure white walls and tiles had also changed color.

The chandelier, which originally had a black square lampshade, has been transformed into a large lump of meat wrapped in a black mesh, with a huge eye shining from beneath the mesh.

Connecting the chandelier were thin, dark red veins that extended all the way to the ceiling.

In the center of the ceiling was a gigantic baby. It could only be described as resembling a baby, because its head was the size of a basketball, covered in pustules. Its body was like a mass of rotting flesh, clinging to the ceiling, with its navel connected to blood vessels.

The "baby" was surrounded by a black, net-like structure that covered the entire ceiling and parts of the walls. From the ends of the net, a dark reddish-black liquid oozed out, staining the originally white walls and tiles with uneven patches of color.

"Meow~"

Seeing this scene, Fugui felt a little nauseous, but it held it in and left the toilet as if nothing had happened.

Now that we've discovered this thing is moving on the ceiling, we can explain why we didn't notice the problem before.

Sure enough, after leaving the toilet, Fugui could see black and red marks all he had to do to look up. They were constantly intersecting and almost covered the entire white ceiling.

This also reveals that the "baby" frequents Bai Li's room, suggesting that Bai Li is its primary target.

When Fugui came out and arrived in the living room, Lin Xiyue and the others were already eating.

"Fugui, you're back! Are you hungry? I brought you some food, let's go eat. Aunt Feng, I've almost finished eating too, I'll go feed Fugui first."

When Lin Xiyue saw Fugui return, she hurriedly left the dining table under the pretext of feeding Fugui.

"Okay, go ahead. Lili, go help Sister Lin too."

"it is good."

Lin Xiyue and Bai Li went to the other side of the living room. She took out some homemade cat treats from a corner of the cat carrier and fed them to Fugui.

"Tell me, what did you find?"

"Meow~ Meow~ Meow~ Meow meow meow~"

“This place has become its lair. I suggest we save the lives of ordinary people first, find a way to get them away, and then deal with this problem.”

The translator dutifully translated Fugui's words, and even humanely adjusted its volume to match Fugui's.

"Okay, but we can't convince Aunt Feng to believe us right now, she's already been hypnotized."

Lin Xiyue said, "It's a bit difficult."

"What should we do!"

Bai Li was getting a little anxious.

"I've got it! Let's do it like this..."

Lin Xiyue suddenly had a flash of inspiration and told Bai Li her idea.

……