After eating her fill, Mo Bai cleaned up the room to aid digestion so that she could eat again sooner.

She cleared away the food Mommy had brought and hid Mommy's body inside the wardrobe.

Because of her limited mobility, housework was normally difficult for her. However, she felt surprisingly light today, so she finished everything quickly.

After propping Mommy's body upright inside the wardrobe, Mo Bai looked down at her own hands in confusion.

"Xiao Qi, I feel like I've gotten a lot stronger."

When she swung the bat earlier to hit the monster, she didn't feel this strong.

Xiao Qi replied, "After leveling up, the Player's attributes will improve accordingly. Personal stats and rewards will be calculated after you clear the beginner stage."

Although Xiao Qi didn't give a direct answer, Mo Bai was certain that her strength had increased.

Not only that. Her five senses had also become sharper. Her sense of smell, in particular, was more sensitive.

Even though she'd sprayed air freshener all over the room, she could still faintly smell the stench of rot seeping from the wardrobe.

But what changed even more than her strength or senses was her appearance.

While testing her physical changes, Mo Bai accidentally caught her reflection in the mirror by the door and discovered that she looked even prettier than before.

Previously, her makeup slightly mismatched with her face. Beautiful, yes, but upon closer look, there had always been a faint sense of artificiality. The more you looked, the faker her face seemed.

Now, there wasn't even the slightest trace of that feeling. Her beauty seemed completely natural, as if she had been born this way.

Her skin was smoother, fairer, and flawless. At the same time, her fragile aura became even stronger.

In the mirror, the girl sitting in the wheelchair looked delicate and beautiful, like a slender stalk of straw that could snap with the slightest touch.

Mo Bai stared at her reflection, almost not recognizing herself. She pinched her arm instinctively.

Her arm looked so thin, but when she pressed down, she could feel the solid, hard muscle beneath, which was dense like iron.

Feeling the strength under her skin, Mo Bai finally sighed in relief.

She had thought she'd truly become as fragile as she looked. If that were the case, how could she possibly deal with Daddy when he returns two days later?

To verify her guess, Mo Bai even rolled onto her personal scale. The reading showed that her body weight had increased by five jin.

"Visually frail but not actually weak… kind of like a concentrated essence type," she muttered. "Xiao Qi, when you guys modify players' appearances, don't you think about consistency? My body's density and muscle mass seem to have gone way beyond normal."

Xiao Qi replied, "Dear Player, please do not compare yourself to normal humans. Normal people don't have supernatural powers. They can't turn a hook into a tungsten-steel fishhook."

"That's true," Mo Bai said with a small laugh. "After dying and coming back to life, I guess science stopped applying to me a long time ago."

After careful observation, Mo Bai realized her appearance was evolving toward that of a sickly, fragile-looking girl.

She asked curiously, "Xiao Qi, what exactly are the Observation Group and the Combat Group? Why are there two types of players? What's the difference between them?"

"Since the Player has not cleared the beginner stage, Xiao Qi's data access is limited. I cannot answer that question. Please explore the answer yourself once you reach Peach Blossom Land."

Mo Bai tried asking a few more questions about the Infinite World, but Xiao Qi still couldn't answer them.

As she chatted with Xiao Qi, she continued tidying up. When she finished cleaning, she stuffed all the trash into a garbage bag. She was about to place it outside the door like usual, but her hand froze on the doorknob.

Leaving the house was troublesome for her, so she often left her trash by the door. The cleaning lady who knew her situation would take it out while cleaning the hallway, and in return, Mo Bai would sometimes give her fruit as thanks.

But now… in this Infinite World stage, what exactly was outside that door? If she put the garbage outside, would someone still come and take it away?

"Xiao Qi," she asked, "what if I open the door and escape? If I hide somewhere outside for three days, can I avoid Daddy?"

"If the Player escapes outside, you will wander endlessly in a void. No matter where you go, you will always end up back in this room. This is not a real world, so there is no path outside."

"I figured as much," Mo Bai said.

It was just like those escape-room mini-games she used to play that only had one map. There were no other areas built into the game. Players either couldn't leave the room at all, or once they opened the door, all they saw was pitch-black emptiness.

NPCs like Mommy and Daddy would only appear at specific times and locations, following their preset behavior patterns.

The only difference was that this was a real game. There was no saving and restarting. If you die, you die for good.

"Mommy's intelligence was higher than that of most game NPCs," Mo Bai noted. "She was even smarter than the zombies or ghosts in horror movies. She could cook, after all. Will the monsters in future stages all have this level of intelligence?"

Xiao Qi said, "Of course not. They are only C-rank NPCs. As the difficulty of the game increases, the NPCs' intelligence will also improve."

Mo Bai: "…"

So Mommy, who had seemed terrifyingly smart, was actually the lowest tier.

Seeing that Xiao Qi could answer game-related questions, Mo Bai pressed on, "Then why will Daddy return exactly two days later? What is he doing right now? Is there a chance he'll come back early?"

"That belongs to in-game plot data. You may search for clues on your own. Xiao Qi cannot provide the answer."

Mo Bai had no choice but to go through both her own and Mommy's phones again, checking every text, photo, and video multiple times. Finally, she found something useful.

Among the spam messages on her phone was an ad: 'Horror Valley 3-Day, 2-Night Tour! 50% off, only 998 points for two!'

The same promotional message appeared on Mommy's phone as well.

If both she and Mommy received it, then Daddy likely received it too.

In one of Mommy's videos, where she was fighting with Daddy, Mommy cursed at him while attacking, yelling that Daddy had a mistress and never came home, and demanded to know where the thousand points had gone.

The date on that video was last night.

From these small details, Mo Bai pieced it together: Daddy had taken the family's points, essentially their money, and gone on a three-day, two-night vacation with his mistress to a place called Horror Valley. He would only return on the final night, which was two days away.

That was why Daddy wasn't home right now, and why the time limit for her beginner stage was three days.

"The plot is way too realistic," Mo Bai muttered. "Even the reason he's gone makes perfect sense."

She carefully rechecked the text messages, just in case she missed something important.

But there was nothing else. At least, nothing that seemed related to the Playing House game.

"No matter what, I can confirm that Daddy won't come back early. Putting the trash outside won't trigger him to return early just because of his sharp sense of smell," Mo Bai said.

Satisfied, she opened the door and placed the garbage bag outside as usual. The bag stank terribly, so she didn't want it inside her room any longer.

At that moment, Xiao Qi informed, "Player, you are very thorough. Most players would not think through so many details."

Mo Bai smiled faintly. "I used to be careless too. But after my accident, with my health and living alone, I had to be attentive. Maybe I'm being too cautious?"

"In this beginner stage, perhaps a little. But if you survive and enter higher-level stages, caution will become one of your greatest strengths."

Having Xiao Qi to talk to made time pass quickly. Before she knew it, Mo Bai was hungry again.

She checked the time. It was already 2 a.m.

She made herself a late-night meal and ate four bowls of rice in one sitting, even more than she had at dinner.

Strangely, her stomach didn't feel full at all. She even felt that she could eat two more bowls.

Looking at the half-empty bag of rice left in the kitchen, Mo Bai started wondering if she would have enough to last three days.

"Am I eating too much?" she asked.

"The energy gained from food is very limited, far less than that of a basic nutrient serum. Among all players, your appetite is below the 90th percentile."

"That's fine, then. It turns out most eat even more than I," Mo Bai said with relief.

"However, your intake is higher than 95% of Observation Group players. Eating too much will lower your observation value. Please try to act more like a fairy who only drinks dew."

Mo Bai ignored the comment but caught the numbers in Xiao Qi's response. "So, my appetite is smaller than 90% of players, but higher than 95% of Observation Group players. That means the ratio between the Observation Group and the Combat Group is around 1 to 10, right? The difference in population is that big?"

"Player, you are truly very observant. Please refrain from asking about this topic."

"Alright, I won't." Mo Bai replied lightly.

Even though Xiao Qi didn't answer directly, that was already a confirmation.

She also noticed that Xiao Qi's intelligence was truly advanced. Genuinely smart AI, and not the clumsy kind she'd known in her old world.

To her disappointment, Mo Bai discovered that her recovery time hadn't shortened much after eating. It only doubled her recovery speed at best.

Feeling tired, she reclined her wheelchair and slept for a few uncomfortable hours.

When she woke up at 8 a.m., she saw that her mental energy bar was full. It had taken only twelve hours to completely recover.

"Looks like both eating and sleeping help with recovery," she murmured.

Immediately, she began testing her ability. After some painful experimentation that left her with a splitting headache again, Mo Bai finally understood the full details of her environment optimization ability.

Currently, her ability's effective range is a radius of ten meters. Anything beyond that was out of her control. Within that range, she could only alter a space of one cubic decimeter, which was about one liter, and roughly the size of two water bottles.

She could modify three types of properties in the environment.

The first were physical quantities, which included things like position and distance. For now, she could make an object no larger than one liter teleport for ten centimeters. However, she couldn't move herself, only small objects within the environment. Each teleport consumed a third of her energy, meaning she could do it three times in a row at most.

The second was physical state, which pertained to the form of an object, like solid, liquid, or gas. She could turn a bottle of water into steam or ice, but the temperature range was limited: no higher than 40°C and no lower than -20°C. Because of that, temperature changes weren't really usable for attacks. She couldn't melt iron into liquid metal, but she could turn a kitchen knife into a solid metal block. Each use of this kind consumed half of her energy, so she could only do it twice.

The third was chemical property where she could alter the substance itself on a molecular level. For instance, she could strengthen a metal hook into tungsten steel, essentially changing its composition. However, this came with heavy restrictions: the target had to be extremely close, and she could only make realistic transformations. She could reinforce iron into steel, but not turn stone into gold.

Changing chemical properties consumed almost all of her energy in a single use.

And all changes had to stay within the limits of her knowledge. She couldn't transform something into a made-up or imaginary object.

After two days of practice, Mo Bai mastered her ability and prepared thoroughly for what was to come.

At 11 p.m. on the second night, a knock echoed from the door.

Mo Bai, who had been resting with her eyes closed and conserving energy for the coming battle, opened her eyes calmly and asked, "Who is it?"

A deep, heavy voice came from outside the door. "Daddy's home. Open the door quickly."