Chapter 9

Not long after, he received a reply: [Is Horne confirmed to participate in the holographic game the day after tomorrow?]

Han Ya: [50% confidence. But speaking of which, have you hacked into the game server?]

Cars on the street brushed past each other, kicking up dust as they crawled forward.

Horne stood up, thanked the barber, watched him leave, then walked to the window.

His posture was straight, just like in those past years when he stood on the training grounds in the Military District, walking behind row after row of training soldiers, overlooking the city below with a solemn and resolute expression.

He still didn’t understand the motives behind Hels’s meticulous care for him, but he had to admit that his injuries had recovered well. The meals delivered from the Red Light District were perfectly nutritionally balanced, doctors came regularly to check on him every day, and even a request for a barber was fulfilled as best they could.

Several sets of clothes hung in the closet. Horne ran his hand over them, then took them out one by one.

Hels said they didn’t know each other, but he didn’t believe it.

Many things in this room were ones he had been accustomed to using: the incense, toiletries, lighting colors, even the clothing sizes, and the emergency escape tools habitually placed in the corner of the room.

The only certainty was that these people feared Hels’s sudden killings, but he had survived in a near-fatal coma from this madman’s hands. Unless this charitable game was just another form of his madness.

An autonomous bus stopped downstairs, then quickly drove away, much like the words Hels had spoken, lingering briefly in his mind.

“Humanity was destroyed by its own ambitions and desires. They deserved it.” That was all Hels had said. No matter how much more he pressed, Hels refused to reveal anything else. Even after a few threats, it was still the same response: “That was so long ago. I don’t know the specifics. I only know we’re not gods.”

Gods didn’t care about the joys and sorrows of insignificant individuals; they only cared about the continuation of an entire species.

The humans back then would never have surrendered so quickly, no matter what. Total annihilation might have been acceptable, but surrender—Horne could never imagine it.

Humans were extremely fragile yet powerful beings: weak in their constrained physical shells, strong in their heart-to-heart resolve.

Heart to heart…

Horne suddenly froze all over, his hand quickly touching the mask still fused to his skin at that moment.

The mask clung to his face like a transparent spiderweb, with no sensation at all. It mimicked its owner’s every expression, every joy and sorrow.

Horne stayed in this room that Hels had specially left for him until the evening of the next day.

All his lucid time, he thought about one thing: Who had brought him from 2110 to 2210?

Before that, humans had considered abandoning Earth for Mars colonization. Nuclear thermal rocket technology had already shown results, cryogenic hibernation pods weren’t a technological hurdle, and the power gap with the aliens wasn’t an insurmountable chasm, so they had options.

Perhaps someone had put him into a cryogenic hibernation pod, or maybe he had climbed in himself, and with that sleep, it had been a full century? But that also brought a huge mystery: Why had his cryogenic hibernation pod appeared in the Tower?

He couldn’t have chosen to wake up in the Tower for no reason. What did that choice signify?

The sunset was obscured by clouds, showing almost no color. The clouds grew thicker, the air increasingly humid and heavy, making it hard to breathe—a precursor to a downpour.

As soon as Horne went downstairs, he bumped into Ains in the Red Light District lobby, her face streaked with dirt from crying. The spot where Ains stood was under half of The Creation of Adam—if he remembered correctly, it was the entrance to the holographic killing game that the wide-brimmed hat man had mentioned before.

Horne hesitated for a few seconds but ultimately walked over.

“Let me join, I want to join.” Ains’s voice was thick with a nasal tone from crying; it sounded like she had been at it for a while.

The staff member nearby impatiently pushed her hand away. “Stop coming here every day. A little kid like you would just die inside. I’m too lazy to register you.”

“Let me join, I really need to.” Ains kept wheedling.

Horne walked up behind Ains, paused silently for a moment, then spoke. “Ains, why are you still here?”

Ains jumped at the sudden voice from behind, spun around immediately, and upon seeing the familiar face, wiped her tears with her sleeve, saying aggrievedly, “Big brother, I want to join this game.”

Horne’s brow twitched slightly. “This place is very dangerous. Didn’t I tell you to go home?”

Ains hung her head, her voice dropping several notches. “I-I can’t go home yet. My mother is sick, very sick. We don’t have enough money to treat her. There’s a new game tomorrow. I want… want… to ask Mr. Hels for help.” Her voice grew smaller and smaller until it ended in a few faint sobs.

No money for treatment—she could just peacefully accompany her mother through her final days instead of going to die. Of course, Horne didn’t say any of that out loud. He only felt that strange sensation rising in his throat again.

After a moment, Horne squatted down, positioning himself slightly below Ains’s eye level, and asked calmly, “Have you thought of other ways?”

Ains nodded, then shook her head. “They’re all too slow.” Besides the Red Light District, Loch City was still fundamentally a human city at heart. Apart from outliers like Hels who operated outside the rules, everything else ran by human societal norms. There weren’t that many rags-to-riches strokes of luck.

“So that’s why you came here to steal?” Horne asked. Seeing Ains stay silent, he followed up, “Why not go straight to Hels and ask him for help?”

Before Ains could respond, the staff member who had been sitting nearby cut in with a cold laugh, mocking, “Do you think our boss is running a charity?”

Horne slowly looked up and countered, “Isn’t he?”

The staff member’s brows furrowed, his eyes narrowing. He let out a “Ha,” utterly baffled. “Sir, while cognitive bias isn’t some particularly serious condition, I still suggest you get it checked at a hospital.”

Horne’s mouth half-opened, speechless for that instant. Before he could say more, the staff member continued, “Also, sir, this is a very basic common-sense matter. Out of goodwill, I’m reminding you: please don’t casually discuss Mr. Hels outside. When addressing his name, use the honorific. The way you just called him could bring you deadly trouble.”

Horne pondered for two seconds, then nodded lightly. “…Oh, okay. Thanks.”

The staff member said no more. Horne turned his attention back to Ains. “Do you know about this game?”

Ains nodded.

“Why do you think you can win?” Horne tried to make his question as gentle as possible, but to bystanders, it still sounded as cold as ever.

Ains clutched the corner of her clothes, rubbing it unwillingly a few times, then said softly and nervously, “I don’t think I’ll definitely win, but if I don’t try, I’ll definitely lose. In a few days, it’ll be my mother’s birthday. I still want… want to buy her a birthday cake.”

Horne suddenly pinpointed the source of that choking sensation in his throat—it came from his own past. Mother, birthday cake—like Pavlov’s dog, it haunted him endlessly.

Horne gently pried the now-wadded cloth from Ains’s hand, then held her icy fingertips, tilting his head up slightly as he asked softly, “Tell me your chip ID.”

Ains hesitated for a moment, then exchanged contact info with Horne.

“Do you know what the consequences of playing this game might be?” Horne asked.

Ains blinked and nodded. “I know.”

“You know, and you still want to go?”

Ains nodded again.

Horne sighed, stood up, took Ains’s hand, and walked to the staff member, his expression returning to neutral. “Names: Horne, Ains.”

By the time Horne sent Ains home and returned, night had fallen deep and heavy. The thick clouds could no longer bear the weight, unleashing thunderous booms like explosions, and the downpour arrived right on schedule.

The Red Light District doors stood open, its red decorations in the lobby looking even more like a monster’s exposed stomach sac at night. People rushed inside to escape the rain, gradually filling the sac to satisfaction.

The cold streetlights flickered uneasily in the sudden torrent a few times before extinguishing completely, turning the entire street into a shattered lake.

In a deep alley near the Tower District, a tall, slender figure stood upright, silently observing everything at the Tower District entrance.

There wasn’t much time left; he couldn’t go back to the Red Light District penthouse to grab an umbrella. Horne let the rain soak him, the few curved strands of hair on his forehead plastering fully to his skin. Rain slid to his collar, then seeped quietly into his clothes.

The guards at the Tower District entrance stood nearly 24/7 without reduction, indistinguishable by appearance as humanoid aliens or humans. Recon drones circled continuously in the air overhead.

Entering the Tower District directly was almost impossible. As he pondered, Horne suddenly recalled Wang Wudao’s words.

Double mask?

Only then did Horne realize that from the start, Wang Wudao had been scamming him completely. Even if a double mask truly existed that aliens couldn’t scan, what if the guards made him turn into an alien on the spot to enter?

Boom. A bolt of white lightning accompanied by deafening thunder exploded right before his eyes, illuminating the entire city in an instant. After that momentary daylight came the intensifying downpour, a misty haze where he could barely see ahead, the noise around him grating on the nerves.

This kind of stormy night was perfect for sneaking in.

Two scurrying figures dashed past to escape the rain. A little boy pointed at Horne. “Mom, everyone’s hiding from the rain, but this big brother isn’t. Is he sick?”

“Shh, you can only say that behind his back.”

“It’s okay, I have a mask. He won’t know who I am.”

Horne stared straight ahead, ignoring them completely. There was actually another way he might get in—remove the mask. But that would require a partner, and not just any ordinary person. The maskless partner would draw attention, allowing him to slip in amid the chaos.

Clearly, in Loch City a century later, he had no one he could trust.

With that thought, he stepped back into the darkness to avoid detection by the recon drones. As soon as he moved his foot, he stepped on a slightly recessed, ajar spot, stumbling once before forcibly steadying himself. Horne turned to see what had nearly tripped him.

In front of a tightly shut shop door, a two-square-meter striped iron grate drain cover sat there. Rainwater seeped down the slight slope into it. Perhaps due to years of neglect, the grate had uneven support, causing one corner to lift.

Horne suddenly fell silent, staring at the rust-spotted striped iron grate. Moments later, his fingers hooked under the raised corner, and with effort, he pried the entire grate up, revealing the deep hole beneath.

Horne crouched low, his dripping hair blocking part of his view, but he could still make out the swiftly flowing rainwater below, surging in one direction. A few seconds later, he tucked the soaked hair behind his ear and leaped into the two-meter-deep hole.

The torrential rain swept through, and the man who had just stood in the shadows vanished completely from the street.