Married life was exceptionally harmonious, at night and during the day.
The two had already become completely accustomed to one another’s presence. Their compatibility was so high that there was practically no adjustment period at all.
Of course, Song Zang was actually still restraining himself.
He would never expose his full strength all at once, much less allow himself to be provoked into losing his head and satisfying all of Yin Chen’s demands.
Song Zang would not even completely satisfy his own desires.
Until he recovered every missing memory and learned the full truth about his past, Song Zang would never stop hiding himself.
Especially regarding physical strength, he would reveal at most seventy percent and keep the remaining thirty percent concealed.
Besides… Yin Chen was obviously only speaking viciously.
When his legs began trembling faintly, his voice gradually turned sticky and hoarse, his smooth back tightened with subtle shivers, and his flushed phoenix eyes could no longer focus properly…
Song Zang understood even more clearly than Yin Chen himself that he had nearly reached his limit.
More importantly, even after the two had reached the point of complete physical honesty, Yin Chen still held plenty of information Song Zang knew nothing about and refused to discuss it.
In that case, Song Zang would maintain his own reservations too, treating them as deliberately preserved 【rewards】.
Both of them remained tantalized by those rewards… which unexpectedly added a certain charm to their relationship, ensuring they would always possess something to anticipate in the future. After all, novelty was important.
Yin Chen genuinely found it extraordinarily novel too. The stimulation made him repeatedly reconsider exactly what he felt toward Song Zang.
At the beginning, he had simply developed inexplicable symptoms of skin hunger and needed to touch Song Zang every day or become unbearably irritable.
Yin Chen had accepted that easily. At most it could be considered… a secret leftover issue from history. He simply needed to remain stuck to Song Zang, and his conscience was perfectly clear.
Who could have predicted that this natural assumption would gradually become increasingly excessive, strengthening his already unreasonable possessiveness until physical attraction boiled and burned, growing hotter and more intense by the day and approaching pathological distortion?
Yin Chen could not accept anyone else treating him the way Song Zang did, and he likewise could not accept Song Zang having similar intimate contact with anyone else.
Merely imagining it made him prefer killing Song Zang with his own hands.
Unfortunately, Lan Yu Heng had not been matched into this instance. Otherwise, Yin Chen absolutely would have found time to seriously discuss the matter with his reliable subordinate and determine exactly what had gone wrong with him lately.
Since he could not figure out the problem for now, the only option was enjoying himself while he could.
Yin Chen could not determine how Song Zang truly felt about their “marriage.” He only knew he liked it. He was addicted. He especially liked the feeling when Song Zang bit and ground against his carotid artery… that near-death blankness overtaking his mind.
Naturally, Yin Chen had no idea that Song Zang was considering matters far more deeply, and that his thoughts were much more complicated.
Using the terminology of the real world, their nameless relationship could at most be described as friends with benefits.
Under the suspension-bridge effect, many Infinite Game players chose to comfort one another, experience temporary attraction and brief affairs, depend on each other as companions, yet never dared invest genuine emotion.
Because the accidental death rate among players was simply too high.
Players without professional training, lone players lacking the protection of a powerful organization, could die at any moment inside an apparently ordinary instance, vanishing lightly without leaving behind even a corpse or proof they had ever existed.
Song Zang was glad he possessed the ability to protect himself and avoid becoming a burden to anyone else.
Although he had always believed… he would probably die before Yin Chen.
But as long as they remained sufficiently careful and cautious, he and Yin Chen should still possess an extremely long future in which to slowly explore this confusing relationship.
Before that, however, one problem remained impossible to solve.
Why was the Infinite Game specifically targeting him?
How long would this targeted instance matching continue before it finally stopped?
Until Song Zang resolved this life-threatening problem, he could not make promises and could not sincerely tell Yin Chen, “I want to take our relationship one step further.”
Because Song Zang understood extremely well how painful it was to lose an important companion.
Of course, even if their relationship did not immediately progress further, they were already legitimate spouses inside the instance. Their marriage registration had been officially recorded by the county government and was completely legal.
Song Zang thought that cherishing the person in front of him was equally important. He needed to treat Yin Chen even better.
Bullying him, being bullied by him, making him happy, making him hurt…
Every emotion was intense and beautiful, filling Song Zang’s chest completely and making him feel more… alive than ever before.
The numb black-and-white world had suddenly become brilliantly colorful.
Song Zang was simply better than Yin Chen at hiding his emotions.
Truthfully, he wanted desperately to kiss Yin Chen to death.
Being kissed to death by Yin Chen would also be acceptable.
＊
Because he was in an excellent mood, Yin Chen woke early the next morning and carried out their agreed “pregnancy” plan.
Song Zang watched the entire process. Originally, he had intended to secretly learn the method himself, only to discover… that this particular form of “pregnancy” was probably something only Yin Chen could accomplish anywhere in the world.
Yin Chen made the trembling stone spirit return to its true form, played briefly with the utterly ordinary little stone, then swallowed it whole.
No chewing required.
“All right. Now I’m pregnant.”
Yin Chen curved his lips and theatrically stroked his lower abdomen.
Song Zang stared in disbelief, pulled up Yin Chen’s hand, and checked his pulse through the wrist.
Smooth and rolling like pearls across a jade plate. A textbook slippery pulse!
Elio’s Note: In traditional Chinese medicine, a slippery pulse (滑脉) is classically associated with pregnancy, though it can appear for other reasons as well. Yin Chen has somehow speedrun his way directly into the diagnostic sign. 😭
“That fast? You’re already pregnant?”
“If you didn’t like the stone so much, I originally planned to swallow the luminous pearl. Imagine going outside at midnight with a belly glowing like moonlight… How interesting would that be?” Yin Chen sounded genuinely regretful and pinched Song Zang’s waist as though taking revenge. “Come on. We’re dealing with the ancient formation.”
Song Zang could not resist imagining the scene either. His lips twitched as he hugged Yin Chen’s arm. “Watch your step. I’ll support you.”
“I’m pregnant, not severely disabled.”
He said that, but Yin Chen made absolutely no attempt to remove his arm.
He rather enjoyed the quiet sensation of strolling hand in hand with Song Zang and deliberately walked slowly.
Occasionally, weak spirits appeared to be hiding among the branches and treetops to peek at him, but they quickly shrank back into the forest.
The luminous pearl was still concealing its radiance. It had grown several times larger than when they first discovered it and was now roughly the width of a human head. Yet its glazed surface remained completely ordinary, its glow weak, with even a few uneven pits.
Yin Chen stroked his stomach and communicated effortlessly with the little stone for a moment. Several traces of understanding appeared in his expression.
He raised the pearl, aimed at a damp crevice near the summit of Cangmu Mountain, and hurled it with the force of a baseball pitch.
Golden radiance instantly flowed through the narrow crevice. It vibrated strangely and widened by half a chi, releasing a torrent of mountain spring water that had been stored for who knew how long and swallowing the spinning pearl whole.
RUMBLE.
Bright silver-white radiance exploded outward and intertwined with the ancient formation’s golden light. The two resembled intertwined yin-and-yang dragons responding to each other as they erected a brilliant, mystical barrier.
The stone crevice attempted to close again, only to be blocked by the rapidly expanding luminous pearl, which had swollen until it resembled a full moon.
The spring water that had been building pressure was no longer obstructed by the mountain stone. It gathered into large transparent streams and surged violently downward from every side of Cangmu Mountain, destroying several abandoned thatched huts.
Fields cracked into hard chunks by the drought were completely soaked by the “heaven-sent” streams. Village wells that had nearly dried from the lack of rain also refilled in the blink of an eye.
Confused villagers immediately began cheering in delight and spreading the news.
Even Song Zang had not expected reinforcing the ancient formation with the pearl to somehow reduce the lethal effects of the drought.
Or perhaps… worsening the drought had itself been one component of the mountain spirits’ mission?
After all, if the mountain spring remained dry for a long period while drought intensified and the soil became infertile, the surrounding fields would eventually produce nothing. Famine could descend again at any moment.
At that point, the Song family genuinely might starve to death or become targeted as “fat meat” by desperate, starving fugitives who surrounded their home, attacked them, robbed them, and burned everything…
The possible consequences were horrifying.
Fortunately, the little stone knew exactly where the formation was. They had resolved this dangerous hidden problem early.
Beginning that very day, the series of deaths that had erupted throughout the villages surrounding Cangmu Mountain abruptly stopped.
The Zhang family infant whose head had been half-eaten by a wolf still had not awakened, but aside from him, no one else died.
Village Chief Tian’s death was also easy to hide. Yin Wu Xue replaced him with a paper effigy, and no one noticed anything unusual for the time being.
No murder, no accidents, no ghosts or monsters making trouble. Everything became unbelievably peaceful. Even the reputation of Song Zang and Yin Chen, the newly married couple, somehow improved among their neighbors.
…As rumors spread, the story gradually transformed into a successful case of marrying someone to “counteract bad luck.” Supposedly Miss Yin possessed such a powerful fate that she had driven away the drought itself. Wonderful news.
Elio’s Note: 冲喜 refers to arranging a marriage in hopes that the auspicious event will counteract illness, bad fortune, or impending disaster. Here the villagers have retroactively decided Yin Chen’s marriage cured the weather. 😂
Song Zang found it hilarious and deliberately refused to correct anyone. He spent every day remaining sweetly attached to Yin Chen and even staged several rounds of “a beauty tending fragrance beside a scholar” at school.
Elio’s Note: 红袖添香, literally “a red sleeve adding fragrance,” is a classical romantic image of a beautiful companion tending incense while a scholar reads. Song Zang and Yin Chen are enthusiastically weaponizing scholarly domestic aesthetics.
The players finally received a rare opportunity to rest and split up to handle their personal missions.
While Song Zang and Yin Chen enjoyed their honeymoon, Yin Wu Xue marketed herself as a “Daoist Immortal Lord descended to save the people.” Her reputation exploded. Ning Yan, who invested in her clinic, earned money hand over fist and aggressively expanded the Ning family businesses.
Ning Ran… quietly burned paper offerings to his dead birth mother while behaving dark and isolated, deliberately allowing servants to catch him several times and spreading increasingly eerie ghost stories throughout the residence.
That was right. The Ghost Festival was approaching, and it was clearly a critical turning point.
On the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the ghost gates opened. The Lin Dynasty possessed countless taboos surrounding the date.
Curfew began one shichen early. Night watchmen collectively took the evening off. Going outside after dark was strictly forbidden, as was swimming or approaching ponds and rivers. Chamber pots had to be prepared before sleeping, and even latrines were supposed to remain closed…
Soldiers inside military camps had even fewer chances of escaping the customs. Most had taken human lives before and feared ghosts and spirits intensely, terrified that vengeful dead might come looking for them during the Ghost Festival.
For safety, military camps forcibly observed every taboo. Soldiers burned incense and spirit paper, performed group memorial rituals, ate their communal dinner early, and extinguished all lights before sunset.
This was a perfect opportunity for rebellion.
The Northern Pacification Army had already mobilized. After a long march, they planned to reach the outskirts of the capital on the Ghost Festival and launch a nighttime surprise attack.
Because their popular reputation was excellent and they held the tiger tally, the march toward the capital proceeded much more smoothly than expected.
Plenty of prefectural and county officials genuinely believed the imperial city had been seized by wicked Daoist demons and Emperor Yongjia was in mortal danger. Terrified, they opened the city gates, supplied excellent meat and wine, and urged the army to hurry onward.
Naturally, several officials who valued their lives were probably deliberately pretending to be foolish incompetents… but so what?
They could not defeat the Northern Pacification Army anyway. Better to pretend ignorance and leave the army with a favorable impression in advance, avoiding future retaliation.
The most important task was intercepting messengers.
Secret guards from the princess’s estate and paper soldiers personally created by Yin Wu Xue handled comprehensive interception, preventing news of the “rebellion” from reaching the capital.
To prepare for emergencies, Yin Wu Xue even left the Northern Pacification General a special pouch containing the art of scattering beans into soldiers.
At a critical moment, it could summon one hundred Yellow-Turban Strongmen, each comparable to two elite heavy-armored soldiers and capable of defeating thousands or even tens of thousands of ordinary troops.
Elio’s Note: 撒豆成兵, “scatter beans and they become soldiers,” is a classic Daoist-magical motif. 黄巾力士, Yellow-Turban Strongmen, are supernatural guardian warriors summoned or commanded through ritual, not historical Yellow Turban rebels.
The Northern Pacification Army therefore advanced almost without obstruction, overwhelmingly powerful while carrying only the righteous banner of “cleansing the ruler’s side” and overthrowing the wicked Imperial Preceptor.
No one knew that this elite army, powerful enough to crush the Xiongnu and other northern enemies, was secretly advancing rapidly toward the capital.
Even if Imperial Preceptor Xu learned about the march through unusual means, he possessed no concrete evidence and could not completely control the imperial court.
There would always be genuine loyalists who desperately urged Emperor Yongjia to remain calm rather than blindly trust the word of one Daoist family.
The continuing failure to locate the “posthumous son” genuinely placed Imperial Preceptor Xu in an awkward position and reduced his credibility before Emperor Yongjia.
Beneath the Lin Dynasty’s seemingly calm surface, undercurrents surged everywhere.
＊
One month later, the Ghost Festival approached.
A village physician officially diagnosed Yin Chen as “pregnant.” Calculating the timing, the child had been conceived immediately after the wedding.
Great-Grandfather Song was beside himself with joy and even more impatient than Song Zang. He immediately declared that he would fulfill his promise.
Taking advantage of Tian Yue Xiang and the others being away from home, Great-Grandfather Song brought Song Zang and Yin Chen into the ancestral house and first made both of them burn three sticks of incense for the Song ancestors as a sign of respect.
Afterward, Great-Grandfather pulled over a chair and sat down. His cloudy eyes gazed into the distance through the rising incense smoke.
“Inside the imperial palace, within the Cold Palace, there is a peerless secret treasure capable of granting ordinary mortals immortality, eternal youth, instant enlightenment, and ascension in broad daylight… turning them into true immortals in Heaven.
“This old man doesn’t know what the secret treasure looks like either. The only thing preserved in our ancestors’ final instructions is the method for opening it. Erlang, listen carefully.
“Gather descendants of the Lin Dynasty’s four founding meritorious families. Blood relation does not matter, only formal inheritance of the surname. Use imperial blood as the fuse and the life-souls of the four surname heirs as the foundation. Then the secret treasure can be obtained, allowing ascension to immortality.”
Great-Grandfather paused, then listed the four founding surnames: He, Zhang, Song, and Ning…
Those founding noble houses had long since been suppressed almost to suffocation by generations of emperors. Through wars, famines, and disasters, they successively lost their influence, scattered among the common people, and became difficult to find.
Song Zang became thoughtful and abruptly realized that all four surnames corresponded perfectly to people they already knew.
Aside from himself, there were the Ning brothers, the Zhang family infant mauled by the wolf, and the xiucai from the impoverished collateral branch of an old aristocratic family, He Wen Bin.
Too many coincidences stopped being coincidences.
“Great-Grandfather, can you tell me what unforgivable crime those founding nobles committed back then that caused them to suffer like this?” Song Zang tested carefully.
“A fabricated… hh… fabricated crime!”
Great-Grandfather’s throat tightened until he almost stopped breathing, but he forced the answer out through clenched teeth.
Song Zang supported his muscular arm with visible concern, but the pale-lipped old man waved him away. “Don’t be frightened. This old man practices martial arts every day. My yang energy is strong. Even ghosts and gods attacking me don’t matter.”
After recovering slightly, he continued hoarsely, “Erlang, do you know the legend of the Seven Fairies?”
“Of course.”
What followed was a gender-swapped version of the immortal-descends-to-earth folktale, packed with melodrama and practically qualifying as an epic tragic romance.
A Divine Lord descended from Heaven in mortal flesh and wandered across the world, searching for the wife he had wronged during a previous mortal reincarnation.
Searching proved difficult. He built a small thatched hut in the mountains and settled there.
One day, while the Divine Lord meditated quietly in a mountain hot spring, a hunter’s daughter from below chased a pheasant deep into the forest.
She happened to stumble upon a beautiful man bathing. Curious, the young woman threw aside her bow and slowly approached…
Their eyes met. Heaven and Earth fell silent. The Divine Lord suddenly erupted in joy.
The hunter’s daughter was the very wife he had searched desperately for, somehow already standing before him!
They renewed their old relationship and successfully married. Unfortunately, the previous dynasty’s government was brutal, leaving ordinary farmers starving and miserable.
To give the wife he had once wronged a better life, the Divine Lord decided to raise troops and rebel.
Although he possessed a mortal body, he still had extraordinary charisma and determination, understood military strategy, and possessed a broad perspective. Using all of these advantages, he successfully conquered most of the realm while spending every day and night embracing his wife and desperately compensating for his past-life failures.
But just as he prepared to replace the dynasty and personally ascend the throne… the future founding emperor of the Lin Dynasty joined forces with four powerful followers, framed the Divine Lord’s wife, and ultimately killed them in a pit deep beneath the imperial city before seizing power himself.
The Lin emperor genuinely had obtained the throne illegitimately.
Having offended a heavenly immortal this viciously, the emperor and his followers were naturally cursed and punished. Unless their descendants recovered the secret treasure and transcended mortality, every generation would remain trapped in disaster. Taken to its extreme, perhaps every commoner loyal to the Lin sovereign counted as guilty in the eyes of those immortals.
That was why, once Great-Grandfather learned these secrets and war began spreading everywhere, the former military officer immediately abandoned everything, gathered his family, fled into the countryside, concealed his identity, and became a prosperous middle farmer.
After finishing the tragic story, Great-Grandfather Song released a long sigh.
Indignation flashed through his cloudy eyes as he became increasingly emotional. “I know the Song ancestors wronged the Divine Lord. But our land possesses an ancient history. Since time immemorial, we have revered the Human Sovereign, not some Son of Heaven!
“As a Divine Lord, he had no right to interfere with the succession of mortal imperial power, much less personally ascend the throne and marry a human woman!
“Such behavior reverses proper order and violates the laws governing all things. It would create endless instability, disaster, and danger for humanity’s future!
“That bastard Divine Lord knew perfectly well. He knew it better than anyone! He was the one who got drunk and accidentally let details about heavenly life slip while bragging, causing the others to decide he had to die!”
Elio’s Note: Great-Grandfather is drawing a deliberate ideological line between the Human Sovereign (人皇), whose authority belongs to humanity itself, and the Son of Heaven (天子), whose legitimacy is framed as granted by Heaven. His argument is basically: human beings should govern themselves, not be ruled by an actual god.
Song Zang became thoughtful. “You mean the four founding officials betrayed their lord and seized the throne because… they were protecting humanity and preventing a Divine Lord from becoming Human Sovereign?”
The instant the words fell, a system notification appeared.
【Clearance Requirement: Expose the secrets the mountain village elders are desperately hiding (2/3)】
At last, the main mission progressed. Song Zang relaxed and looked toward the panting Great-Grandfather Song.
The old man had only just finished furiously cursing a Divine Lord in Heaven. He nodded vigorously at Song Zang, his expression already showing complete willingness to die.
Song Zang could not help smiling. “Great-Grandfather, aren’t you still perfectly alive?”
Great-Grandfather froze, equally confused. “That’s right. Why am I not dead?”
“You’re a fortunate elder. You should remain at home playing with your descendants and enjoying family happiness,” Yin Chen said with a smile. “Leave everything else to us younger people.”
“Good, good…”
Having unexpectedly survived the calamity he had assumed would kill him, Great-Grandfather’s wrinkled face blossomed like a chrysanthemum. “Granddaughter-in-law, I know perfectly well you’re no ordinary woman. Erlang was lucky to marry you.
“If the two of you genuinely recover the secret treasure someday, you must bring this old man along to admire it. Ascending to immortality in broad daylight… What a magnificent sight that must be!”
“We’ll follow your wishes.”
Yin Chen smiled faintly and discreetly pressed one hand over his abdomen, forcefully suppressing the stone spirit’s protesting movements.
Song Zang was easier to negotiate with when it came to children, but Yin Chen was not.
If the secret treasure was genuinely useful, Yin Chen absolutely intended to steal it and play with it himself.
＊
Two days later, everyone gathered at the Ning residence to prepare for the approaching Ghost Festival.
They helped Ning Ran decorate the estate with frightening Ghost Festival arrangements, learned to make all kinds of unusual glutinous-rice cakes and five-colored sticky rice, and prepared the most classic dish of all, drunken duck.
The Ning residence’s head chef taught them everything. A large fat duck was first braised, then fried, and spoonful after spoonful of scorching oil poured over the skin until it became golden and irresistibly crisp.
One bite released hot oil. The tender duck meat was soft and delicate, carrying subtle spices and the mellow intoxication of osmanthus wine without the slightest gamey odor.
Song Zang loved it. He seriously memorized the recipe and planned to cook it himself someday.
“You called all of us here early. Did you find new clues?”
At the dining table, Yin Chen was the first to ask about serious business.
Ning Ran nodded solemnly and rubbed his forehead. “My birth mother… seems to have been a palace spy secretly assigned to monitor the Ning household. Also, I’m actually her illegitimate child and have no blood relationship with Ning Yan.
“The old servants say that after my mother died, she vomited out a pile of centipedes and other bugs. It was terrifying. Master Ning saw them and turned white, but still ordered the servants to bury her properly… and tripled my household allowance afterward. Yet from childhood until now, he has never voluntarily visited me.”
Ning Yan gnawed on a duck leg and added indistinctly, “Our Ning family is definitely descended from one of the founding officials too. My father secretly worships the Divine Lord inside the ancestral hall. He’s burned several apology letters.”
“When did Emperor Yongjia begin valuing Imperial Preceptor Xu?”
Ning Ran answered meaningfully, “Before I was born. He was already one of Emperor Yongjia’s advisers.”
The facts were becoming clear. Ning Ran’s mother’s death probably had little to do with the Ning household itself. The unexplained activation of gu poison was the greatest likely cause.
The identity of Ning Ran’s biological father remained unresolved.
As for the identical corpse markings on the two bodies, the brothers had discovered another unexpected clue.
Two days earlier, Madam Ning had ordered the beating death of a servant suspected of stealing silver and coercing a maid.
Because the servant had no parents, wife, or descendants, and because of the taboos surrounding the approaching Ghost Festival… the body was temporarily left inside the Ning residence’s cold-storage cellar rather than discarded at the mass grave, in case the legendary phenomenon of “corpse transformation” occurred.
Ning Yan inspected the cold-storage cellar every night and quickly discovered something wrong.
As the servant decomposed, the corpse markings gradually appearing across the body were almost identical to Grandfather Song’s!
The brothers connected this to a terrifying possibility and directly contacted County Magistrate Li Zhi, carefully examining every coroner’s record of bodies processed by the government across the past several decades.
Excluding records where the coroner’s drawing ability was poor, bodies whose skin had been too mangled to identify patterns, pages accidentally damaged by improper storage, and faded ink that made comparison impossible…
The shape of the livor mortis and the patterns of decomposing blood vessels on almost every corpse were nearly identical! It looked almost as though a single corpse had been copied and pasted repeatedly, then given a few crude differences afterward. The overall pattern was genuinely the same.
The implications behind that discovery were horrifying.
Yin Chen immediately stopped eating, turned around, and sent County Magistrate Li Zhi a message by pigeon. He asked Li Zhi to execute two death-row prisoners guilty of extreme crimes, then expose both bodies beneath the blazing sun at the same time and compare the development of their corpse markings.
The results proved nearly identical.
Even the vaguely heart-shaped green patch on each corpse’s buttocks differed only by a tiny degree in curvature.
“If every person dies in exactly the same state and decomposes from exactly the same locations, that means genetics and living environment have absolutely no effect.”
Ning Ran spoke slowly, his expression becoming serious again. “I suspect the births and deaths of Lin Dynasty humans may have been fixed in advance, configured in batches. Humanity’s final destination after death may also be impossible to change.”
Ning Yan pulled at his hair. “You mean we’re living inside a world that was preconfigured?”
“We already are. This is a game instance.” Ning Ran rolled his eyes and continued thinking seriously. “But the biggest problem is that, theoretically, game instances should be extremely realistic worlds with extraordinary freedom.
“We’ve all experienced that freedom, right? NPC behavior and choices are incredibly flexible. They follow the NPC’s life experience and psychological state and can change at any moment because of unpredictable new experiences…
“They should die in all kinds of different ways just like humans in the real world, and their corpses should decompose with countless different patterns. But this time it’s genuinely strange. Far too strange.”
Yin Wu Xue slapped her thigh. “No wonder! No wonder formal inheritance of the four surnames is the key to opening the secret treasure, and genetics or blood relationships don’t matter at all. I kept thinking that made absolutely no worldly sense… So that’s it. This is another preconfigured absurd rule.
“Case solved. I seriously suspect we’re inside a world inside a world inside another world!”
Ning Yan listened until his head spun and nearly tore out all his hair.
“Huh? What? Girl, are you nesting dolls now?”