Chapter 21 Part 3

Horne’s heart beat a little faster. He realized he had done similar things himself—not exactly as Moroz described, but recalling that reckless yearning from back then, the words that came out carried a hint of self-mockery. “Romanticism is downright foolish in this era.”

He realized his mistake right away and quickly added, “Sorry, I didn’t mean him.”

Moroz didn’t dwell on it. He clenched his fists and said word by word, “No matter how foolish, I’ll stay with him.”

Horne closed his eyes, then opened them again. At his own naive, romantic age, he had once yearned for someone so steadfast to love him in the future. Ten years younger, he would have envied Moroz’s beloved.

Horne asked, “Do you think that in some ways, I’m like the person you love?”

Moroz froze, then relaxed quickly and nodded earnestly at him.

“Mm.” With this explanation, Horne better understood Moroz’s initial attitude toward him. Love so intense led to involuntary projection, even if the other party felt nothing.

Horne softened his voice a touch. “But love is a path of no return. Once you step onto it, you can’t turn back.”

Moroz’s response came with a clenched-fist resolve, each word deliberate. “Never turn back.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than one of the wardrobe doors slammed shut with a “bang,” startling both the people inside and outside. Moroz scrambled out of the wardrobe like a shot and hid behind Horne. “I’m scared!”

Realizing they had lingered upstairs too long without knowing the situation below, Horne stood up immediately and pulled Moroz to his feet as well.

“We need to go down. I’ll hold off the ghosts; you grab the clue and head straight to the next timeline.” Horne said urgently. He paused, then added, “I have other matters; we need to end the game quickly.”

Twenty-nine hours. Fifteen hours left until the game ended—half the time gone.

Moroz was just about to nod when that wardrobe door “bang”ed open again. Once open, it began swinging on its own.

Moroz tugged at Horne, trying to drag him toward the door, looking every bit the fearless type who was terrified only of ghosts.

Horne took two steps back and looked at the empty bedroom. The wardrobe door, without any pull, opened and closed with unusual urgency.

Just one second before the two left the bedroom, Horne turned back to confirm that the wardrobe wouldn’t suddenly fly up or smash toward them, but in the next instant, he suddenly froze in place.

Moroz grabbed him but couldn’t pull him along. Somewhat surprised, he turned back. “Brother?”

Horne stood rigidly at the bedroom door, staring deathly at the wardrobe door that kept opening and closing. Shock gradually appeared in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Moroz asked him worriedly.

At that moment, something seemed to have happened downstairs as well. Two huge crashing sounds came in succession, along with the sound of something breaking and Han Ya’s loud cursing.

Horne said nothing. He only drew in a sharp breath, feeling his heartbeat growing faster and faster, almost about to leap out.

It seemed they had been wrong all along.

Horne yanked Moroz back, and the two rushed into the bedroom again.

Though Moroz acted scared, he didn’t question it.

Horne sat directly on the bed facing the wardrobe. His back was ramrod straight, his lips slightly parted, and his eyes fixed unmoving on the cabinet door that still opened and closed. His expression was more serious than ever before.

After a long time, Horne asked urgently, “You said your name is Mazora? Fine, Mazora, what if the ultimate goal conflicts with the personal task?”

“Uh?” Moroz was puzzled, but he realized Horne wasn’t talking to him at all. He froze for a moment, then finally shifted his gaze from Horne to the cabinet door that kept opening and closing nonstop.

The door sometimes opened fully, sometimes only halfway, and slammed shut hard when closing. After prolonged activity, a “creak creak” grinding sound came from the joint, regular like the ticking of a clock.

Moroz opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He was talking to the cabinet door.

A long time passed. During that time, people downstairs roared several times. They heard Gao Qie’s scream of pain, Wen Yu’s stern reprimand, and Han Ya’s furious cursing.

Horne stood up, softly said “Thank you,” and immediately pulled Moroz quickly downstairs.

Han Ya had been waiting downstairs for a long time. The moment he saw the two, he frowned tightly, clearly very displeased. “What’s up with you, you brat? So hard to coax? We’ve taken turns several times already.”

Moroz shrank behind Horne, hugged his arm tightly, raised his hand, and pointed at Han Ya. “Brother, this guy’s so fierce. Are you close to him? If I hold your hand like this, will that brother get mad?”

Han Ya: “?”

Han Ya was baffled. “No, buddy…”

Horne had no patience for their bickering and directly interrupted Han Ya, quickly asking him, “What is your personal task?”

Han Ya was stunned by the question. “Huh? Can you even ask that?”

Horne’s expression was more serious than ever. He strode out quickly, pulled open the door, saw the red figure not far away, and turned his head. “We’ve been tricked by the game prompts.”

Han Ya continued: “Huh?”

“Go to the next timeline. Share all clues in a bit.” Horne said in a low voice. “Moroz, go get your clue and catch up with us right away.”

“Okay.” Moroz dashed out directly.

In the war era, the enemies humans faced weren’t their own kind, so many encrypted languages gradually fell out of use. Later, when the Aliens integrated into humanity and learned human languages, secret communication was brought up again.

They had all thought the ghost in the house was a malicious game setup, creating an illusion of nowhere being safe. The household items attacking them one after another reinforced that notion.

Until he saw the wardrobe door swinging.

If he had been alone there, he would have left like before or simply smashed the door, but Moroz was there at the time, so his first reaction was to protect Moroz, and he took an extra glance.

The wardrobe door’s swinging had a pattern. It was a string of Morse code.

The first sentence had only a few words: Face the real you.

The second sentence was longer: Reveal the secret, even if it violates the rules.

The chaos in the houses they encountered on every timeline wasn’t intimidation but a hint. When he passed through the city gate alone and first reached the second-floor room, those upstairs sounds weren’t attacking him but trying to trap him.

Trapping him in the room wasn’t to scare him but to let him see the lamp’s regular flickering then, the rocking chair’s swaying—each item decoding a segment of encrypted language.

Even the staircase breaks he saw, cracking at different positions, were a binary ASCII code.

But he didn’t understand and just fled. Everyone who came here thought it was haunted and fled.

Some items had bad tempers; when their hints failed, they wanted to kill them, but most still hoped they would notice.

The breakthrough in this game lay in its purpose conflicting with the rules. To win, they had to pass the city gate—but to pass the city gate, they absolutely must not pass it.

The truth of the story had almost appeared in the first timeline. The question was whether the players obeyed orders to conceal from each other or defied convention to reveal directly.

The moment Moroz returned, the group rushed out the door, called for Wen Yu, and ran toward the nearest city gate.

28 hours left.

Eighth timeline.

[2050.8.6] Second experiment. Algernon seems a bit off.

[2050.8.15] Algernon asked me if her parents were okay?

Horne set down the diary and ran out, just in time to meet Moroz returning.

At the tipping point rushing to the next city gate, they ran into Victor and Xu Hua, who had one foot stepping in.

Both sides froze for a moment, then Xu Hua let out a scream.

Dozens of transparent ghosts surged toward them, wriggling, about to fill half the street.

Han Ya roared, “Hurry and pull it shut, through the city gate!”

27 hours left.

Ninth timeline.

[2050.10.2] Third experiment.

[2050.10.19] Algernon seems unable to distinguish time. She keeps talking nonsense. It’s clearly morning, but she says good evening. In the early hours of yesterday, she suddenly asked if lunch was ready. Just now, she asked if her parents had sent a message back. I clearly told her a few days ago—that was days ago.

[2050.10.20] I reported Algernon’s abnormalities to Victor. He said it’s Algernon’s body rejecting it, very normal since it’s modified cells.

“Bam!” The door was smashed open. A ghost burst in suddenly. Horne immediately set down the diary, dodged around it, and raced out the door.

Outside on the main street, more than one person was running wildly. Victor panted as he ran and shouted, “Fuck this, there are too many! What’s the point of playing!”

Horne froze for only a second before ghosts wriggled toward him.

One person could no longer attract a group’s attention. There were at least a hundred on the street; they surged toward anyone they saw.

The instant Moroz burst out of the house, he shouted, “Brother!”

Horne ran over and pulled him along, then yelled loudly to the people nearby, “Don’t hide it! Say your personal tasks out loud!”

Victor, not far away, cursed upon hearing it. “Say personal tasks my ass! Why don’t you say yours!”

Horne pulled Moroz along while dodging the ghosts’ pursuit. He saw Han Ya and Wen Yu come out of the house, followed by Xu Hua and Gao Qie.

Horne’s voice rang clear amid the chaos. “Algernon is Ains!”

Before the others could react, Horne continued, “Reviewing the experiment reports was what I wrote. There was a lot of unethical content in them. I objected, but I need to live! I couldn’t defy Victor’s orders, or I’d face retaliation. I could have been tougher—that’s my personal task: to conceal my cowardice!”

“Fuck!” Victor cursed. “Aren’t personal tasks not supposed to be said?”

At this point, Wen Yu reacted. She said loudly, “The prompts might be a deception?”

“Ahh!” At that moment, Gao Qie let out a scream. “Help! I can’t run anymore! Why are they chasing me!”

Not far down the street, Gao Qie was surrounded by a group of ghosts as he ran. He stumbled disheveledly for several steps before Han Ya, who had run up beside him, grabbed him.

“Buddy, did you skip meals or what?” Han Ya mocked.

Aside from Horne and Moroz, no one knew what Gao Qie had done.

“I can’t take it anymore!” Victor panted as he ran. “If the game doesn’t kill me, exhaustion will!”

Horne rushed over to join Han Ya and the others, shouting loudly, “Through the city gate! Back to the first timeline, find Ains!”

This game was simpler than imagined. Horne didn’t understand why it was rated A.

Almost the moment everyone got their personal tasks, the story’s outline had appeared. What prevented them from finishing the game right away wasn’t the game itself but their mutual suspicions.

In all the following time, the game only reminded them of one thing: Face yourself.

When you were a coward, did you have the courage to admit it? When you wanted to put someone else to death, did you dare say it outright? If you could truly face yourself and accept all the good and bad you’d done, the game would end in a few hours, not drag on for 17 hours like now.

So it couldn’t be explained simply as “trust.” Trust was mutual, but facing yourself was personal—even teaming up couldn’t break it.

The shoulder-to-shoulder ghosts pressed down suffocatingly. They passed through a city gate, immediately split up to rush into their rooms, grabbed clues, and ran to the next city gate.

Time after time, timeline after timeline, the ghosts multiplied, almost exponential growth.

22 hours until the hunt, 8 hours until game end.

On the thirteenth timeline, they finally saw Ains sitting quietly alone at the house door.