Chapter 17

Xu Hua looked astonished. “You, this is your first time playing this game?”

Horne nodded.

“No wonder you think that way. Anyway, be careful.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Gao Qie stood up as well. He took a step back and muttered, “I don’t care about you guys anymore. I’m leaving this place right now to win the game.” With that, he turned and ran toward the city gate.

“Hey! Wait! Damn it, why is everyone in such a hurry?” Han Ya shouted.

Gao Qie ignored him completely and charged straight into the thick fog at the city gate, desperate to claim first place. It seemed he had developed a psychological trauma from Hels’ pranks; in every game, truth and falsehood were hopelessly mixed, and the truth always seemed elusive.

That figure dashed down the long street and vanished into the fog before everyone’s eyes.

“Fuck, he’s not actually going to win, is he?” Victor stood in place, staring at the disappearing figure in a daze, as if seriously pondering something.

For a moment, everyone stared at that patch of fog, waiting for some kind of outcome. However, after a long wait, the fog remained just fog—no corpse was spat out, and there was no other movement.

Victor grew eager. “Fuck, nothing’s happening?”

Han Ya rested one hand on his other elbow, rubbing his chin with his fingertips as he stared at the city gate, his resolve wavering. “Could he actually be right?”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to get punished.” With that, Victor bolted toward the distant city gate.

Another person vanished from everyone’s sight.

Silence spread to everyone’s hearts. None of the remaining six moved.

They remained deadlocked for a good while until Wen Yu sighed and said, “I don’t think it’s that simple. This is a cooperative game—the goal and the hint completely contradict each other. I don’t believe it’s just psychological warfare.”

“It’s probably a rule reminder,” Horne said. “We only know our own roles; they don’t form a complete story. We need to figure out what happened to put us on this street right now.”

As he spoke, Moroz nodded beside him, the slight smile tugging at his lips never fading.

Horne hadn’t noticed when Moroz had stood up and sat down next to him.

Xu Hua looked concerned. “But what if it really is just a prank like they said? I’ve heard of things like that. I want to leave too. This street feels a bit creepy.”

Horne suddenly recalled the plate that had fallen and shattered on the ground when he was on the second floor.

He was certain that he was the only one who had entered that house. If this had something to do with Moroz… Horne’s gaze flicked toward Moroz, and the next second, as if sensing it, Moroz looked back.

“What’s up?” Moroz smiled at him.

Horne immediately looked away. “Nothing.”

The technician role Horne was playing was a genuine shut-in who rarely used the kitchen. The plates were brand new in the cabinet, none left out alone. It was impossible for one to shift through throwing, let alone some clumsy trick like tossing a stone from outside the window to knock it down.

Unless the plate had opened the cabinet itself and fallen, but that was downright eerie.

This game wasn’t Hels’ conspiracy. There had to be something they hadn’t discovered yet.

Horne looked at the fog again, countless possibilities unfolding in his mind instantly.

The winner could make a wish to Hels. More wishes meant more trouble, so Hels probably didn’t want a winner. He wasn’t the charitable type… right?

Horne couldn’t quite figure it out. He realized he could barely read Hels at all. The man had personally claimed to have a habit of charity, but the game staff had solemnly denied it. After the denial, Hels had conveniently gathered the military list for him, waited in his room all night, and even applied medicine to his wounds in the end.

If that wasn’t idleness, what was?

Horne sat cross-legged on the ground, back straight, frowning deeply as he thought about it.

Whatever. Horne gave up trying to guess Hels’ intentions. He stood abruptly and said coldly, “Everyone’s memories are important. I’ll go find them.”

Time was limited, and progress was negligible. They couldn’t just sit idly by and wait for death—especially him, with his time even more pressing. He needed to clear the game quickly and leave; the longer he stayed, the more dangerous it became.

41 hours.

He had just stood when Ains tugged at his clothes, hesitating as she said, “But the game warned us not to go through the city gate, right?”

Horne had already realized the bizarre contradiction between the goal and the hint. If they didn’t want people going in, they could have just set the gate to closed or omitted the rule entirely. Adding it instead felt like an invitation: Please go through the city gate.

Horne patted Ains’ hand and said softly to her, “Stay here and wait for me. Don’t go anywhere.” Then he looked at the others. “All of you stay here until I get back.”

“No,” Moroz refused outright, standing up as well. “I’ll go with you.”

Horne frowned.

Moroz’s intentions were too obvious. His target was Horne himself; he wanted to be alone with him. They barely knew each other—just met a few hours ago. Besides the task forcing him, Horne couldn’t think of any other reason.

Horne’s habitual commanding tone slipped out unconsciously. “You stay with Ains. No one here has any connection to her except you.”

Moroz didn’t listen. He insisted, “I have no connection to her either. I want to go with you.” The expression on his face was different from his earlier carefree demeanor—now overly resolute, as if he absolutely had to go together.

Xu Hua offered a compromise. “How about you two go together? You can watch each other’s backs, and the rest of us stay here?”

Horne headed straight toward the city gate without looking back, his tone icy. “No. I don’t want anyone holding me back.”

For one, Moroz’s task was likely related to him—whatever it was, better to be cautious. For another, he didn’t know what lay beyond the fog and didn’t want unstable factors slowing him down.

Horne didn’t see Moroz’s expression change behind him. Moroz took a step forward to follow but stopped, staring at Horne’s back with clenched fists.

This back—the back that had turned away from him and left countless times.

Before Horne got too far, Wen Yu stood, brushed the dust off her clothes, exchanged a silent glance with Han Ya, and said, “Then I’ll go with him.”

Horne did prefer to act alone for speed, but since it was Wen Yu catching up, he said nothing.

“That boy really wants to go with you, but you’re wary of him,” Wen Yu said, watching Horne’s expression as she spoke.

Horne didn’t respond. Wen Yu changed the subject. “Fine. At least I won’t hold you back.”

The fog swirled and churned inside the gate, an ominous gray-black that sent chills down the spine.

Horne was all too familiar with this city gate. In every dream of despair and grief, humanity’s final stand was depicted here—heavy and resolute.

His father had died beneath this gate. From then on, he had feared it. These memories were like the fog before him now, buried deep in the wasteland of his mind—untouched, unapproached.

He simply hadn’t expected a game to force him through it.

Horne took a deep breath and stepped forward twice, plunging entirely into the thick fog.

In that instant, a “buzzing” tinnitus exploded in his ears. His vision was engulfed, shattered by a tornado-like vortex. A massive tearing sensation assaulted him as countless skulls rampaged through his body—entering through his chest, exiting from his back. Each penetration brought excruciating pain. Horne furrowed his brows tightly, clutching his chest, advancing step by step with great difficulty, his heart feeling like it was being sliced by knives.

After the tinnitus came screams, wails—perhaps even sobs and laughter. Many people, many voices.

So sad. In this fog, intense sorrow overwhelmed him. Amid the pain, countless other sensations surged: hatred, numbness, rage, and occasionally a hint of relief.

These feelings didn’t last long. As soon as Horne stepped out of the fog, all the borrowed senses vanished instantly.

Horne let out a breath of relief, his hand dropping limply.

His vision cleared, but the sight before him stunned him momentarily.

It was still Loch City No. 1 Central Avenue, as if the fog couldn’t penetrate it. He was back.

Horne stood in place and could see the opposite gate at a glance—the North City Gate he had just entered.

No, this wasn’t the same spot. He had entered the fog from the North City Gate but emerged from the South City Gate back onto the street.

Horne turned to look at the fog behind him, realizing Wen Yu was gone. Had she not come out yet, or turned back?

The familiar street, the familiar houses. Horne walked along, reading the names of all eight of them at the doorsteps.

An endless starry sky, floating interstellar dust, a silent and eternal universe.

Exactly like the place he had come from. Horne walked faster and faster until he reached the spot where the eight of them had sat, but now it was empty.

Horne looked around but saw no one. He called out tentatively, “Ains?”

No answer. His voice was quickly swallowed by the silence of the star system.

“Moroz?” Horne tried again, met only with silence.

Horne checked each person’s house immediately, but after searching them all, he confirmed one thing.

Everyone was gone.

Not only that—Horne soon noticed something off about the place.

Compared to the street when they split up, the houses’ paint here seemed more peeling, though it might have been psychological. Horne hurried back to his own house.

Nothing inside had changed. He took two steps and stopped. The chandelier on the living room ceiling wasn’t bright; a layer of dim grime covered the bulb, casting the entire room in filthy shadows.

At his feet lay a yellowed leather diary, identical to the one he had found before—even in the exact spot where he had first picked it up, not where he had last placed it on the table.

He opened the diary. Like before, the early pages were blank, but on the last few pages, Horne found something different.

[2050.12.1] The experiment succeeded. Thank goodness it did, or I’d hate myself.

[2050.12.10] Moroz will soon climb from the bottom to the top of the Forbes list, huh? Sometimes I feel so pathetic. I’m such a loser.

Horne stared silently at those two lines, a vague suspicion forming in his mind.

The previous diary entries were from November; now it was December. And there was no one here.

This was the future.

In other words, passing through the city gate led to another timeline of this street, where new clues existed.

Horne closed the diary, ready to go back and inform them, but at that moment, a loud “thud” echoed from above—the sound of something falling, exploding against the ceiling. Horne’s hand nearly shook in fright. He set the notebook down immediately and looked toward the stairs.

Someone was upstairs.

Thin wires held the bulb, swaying slightly from the impact. The furniture flickered between light and shadow, shadows dancing. Further up, at the second-floor landing, pitch blackness reigned—not even shadows visible, like a deep cavern emanating chilling cold.

“Who’s there?” Horne asked. No response.

Horne frowned slightly, lightened his breathing, and slowly approached the foot of the stairs, quietly observing upstairs. He paused for two seconds, then placed one foot on the stair.

“Creak—” The crisp sound of wood under pressure pierced the suffocating silence.

Horne paused, then took a second step.

“Creak.”

Each step made the wooden stairs creak, the sounds climbing slowly from the bottom upward. The higher he went, the darker it became.

Horne controlled his steps carefully. As he reached the second floor slowly, another item fell.

“Smack!”

“Creak, creak.”

As countless sounds arose, Horne quickly flicked the stair light switch. The moment the second-floor corridor lit up, his heart pounded wildly.

A rocking chair stood in the corridor—an item absent from the previous timeline. But what accelerated his heartbeat wasn’t the chair itself, but that it was rocking back and forth, pressing on the floorboards and producing the endless “creak creak” sounds.

The second floor was just a narrow three-meter-long, two-meter-wide corridor with one bedroom. With the corridor fully visible, if anyone was there, they could only be hiding in the bedroom.

Gao Qie? Or Victor?

Horne drew the knife from his sleeve completely and pressed against the wall, the bedroom door just two centimeters from his side.

The door was open, with a sliver of warm light from the desk lamp leaking out from inside, but no sound could be heard.

The rocking chair sat right in front of Horne, less than three meters away. He watched as its shadow gradually came to a stop, the quick, even tapping sounds on the wooden floor slowing down bit by bit like slow motion, decelerating until they vanished completely, with the shadow no longer swaying.

In the deathly silence, Horne gripped the knife handle in his hand. In the instant he shifted his feet, he darted into the bedroom, knife held straight out in front of him, ready to meet any attack.

The desk lamp glowed faintly, dimly illuminating the small bedroom. Black curtains were half-drawn, the window tightly closed and locked from the inside, and the bed was a mess.

No one was there. The bedroom was completely empty.

Horne took two steps to the wardrobe and yanked open the door, thrusting the knife forward in an instant. A second later, he lowered his hand and exhaled the air from his lungs.

A few clothes hung scattered inside the wardrobe. Aside from that, there was nothing else—no living creatures.

This situation only made Horne more serious. How had that chair started rocking on its own?

There was no time to think further. With a “zzzt” sound, the desk lamp went out, plunging Horne’s vision into pure darkness. At the same time, “creak creak” sounds rose from the stairs he had just climbed.

He was very familiar with this noise—it was exactly the sound his feet had made stepping on the stairs when he went upstairs.