Rat-Type Game

The warehouse door clicked shut behind Candy. Through the grimy window, Jack Li watched her silhouette move between towering shelves stacked with cardboard boxes.

"Five minutes," the Rat-Masked Host chirped, her clawed gloves tapping the rusty stopwatch. "Starts now."

Candy's boots echoed on concrete as she overturned the first shelf. Cereal boxes and canned goods rained down in a metallic cacophony.

"Clever girl," Barrett muttered. "Flush the rat out of its hole."

But when Candy killed the lights, the warehouse remained stubbornly dark - no telltale golden glow. Through the door, they heard her frustrated curse as bean cans rolled across the floor.

"Time's up!" The Rat-Masked Host swung the door open to reveal Candy kneeling amidst spilled legumes, her surgical gloves dusted with flour. "Better luck next time, sweetie."

Jack Li's eyes narrowed. The warehouse had reset itself - shelves upright, boxes neatly stacked. A fresh layer of dust coated everything.

"I'll play again." Jack Li stepped forward, the remaining dao orb glowing crimson in his palm. "But we're changing the stakes."

The Rat-Masked Host froze. "W-what do you mean?"

"I wager my life." His voice cut through the humid air. "If I lose, you claim it. If I win..."

Before she could react, Jack Li's hand darted into the folds of her ceremonial robe. The stolen dao orb pulsed between his fingers, its golden light exposing the warehouse's true nature - walls shifting like living parchment, shelves dissolving into shadow.

"You cheat!" The Host scrambled back, rodent mask slipping to reveal a girl's tear-streaked face. "This wasn't supposed to—"

A feathered hand materialized from the blood-red sky, talons sinking into the Host's shoulders. The Vermilion Bird's plumage burned like molten copper as he descended, his human face contorted in avian fury.

"Rules are rules, little mouse." The celestial being's voice harmonized with distant temple bells. "The mortal invoked Du Ming. The debt must be paid."

As the Host's screams merged with the screech of tearing metal, Jack Li understood - this was no game. The warehouse walls peeled back to reveal endless corridors of identical rooms, each containing a sobbing figure in rodent masks. The real "dao" had been the despair they farmed all along.

The Vermilion Bird's clawed hand retracted from the girl's abdomen with a wet schlick. Warm, viscous blood splattered across Jack Li's torso as the rodent-masked host collapsed into his arms. Her mask clattered to the ground, revealing a face that couldn't have been older than sixteen.

"You... fucking monster!" Barrett surged forward before Taylor restrained him. The loan shark's tattoos rippled like angry serpents beneath his shirt. 

The celestial being nuzzled the dying girl's hair, his feathered mantle shimmering with unnatural light. "Manners maketh man," he purred, licking blood from his fingers. "But rules..." His burning gaze locked onto Jack Li. "...rules unmake us all."

The con artist's arms trembled under the girl's weight. "Why me?" The question escaped before he could stop it. "Why does my name matter here?"

The Vermilion Bird's laughter crackled like burning parchment. He floated upward, looming above them like a vengeful deity. "You still don't remember, do you?" His voice bifurcated into dual tones - one honeyed, the other screeching like rusted metal. "The architect always dies in his own maze."

As the entity vanished into thin air, the dying host pressed three pulsating dao orbs into Jack Li's palm. Her whisper carried the scent of copper and jasmine gum: "The masks... they grow into your face..." 

Jack Li's migraine struck with sledgehammer force. Visions cascaded - a white-clad girl laughing through tears, the Vermilion Bird's true form writhing beneath its human disguise, endless corridors of screaming faces molded into animal masks.

"Jack!" Taylor's hands gripped his shoulders as he convulsed. "Stay with us!"

The dying host's final breath misted the air as her body dissolved into golden motes. Where her heart had been, a fourth dao orb materialized - its surface etched with tiny rodent claws.

Barrett kicked the abandoned mask across the plaza. "What the bloody hell was that thing talking about? Architect? Mazes?"

Candy stared at her trembling hands. "Zhang Lijuan... he called me Zhang Lijuan. No one's used that name since..." Her voice broke.

The con artist staggered upright, dao orbs burning holes in his pockets. "We're missing pieces." His voice carried new steel. "Important ones."

Above them, the corroded loudspeaker crackled: "Current survivor count: 4,326. Remaining time: 9 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes."

The Vermilion Bird's parting words echoed through the ruins as dark clouds swallowed the false sun. Somewhere in the bleeding horizon, a clocktower began its thirteenth chime.