The roadside signpost indicated that from where Yu Bai and Xie Wufang stood, the Sun Park Police Station was about two hundred meters away.
The police who had just rushed out of the station only to halt at the sight of the strange phenomenon in the sky were now roughly twenty meters from the entrance.
The passing standard for the one-hundred-meter sprint in police physical fitness tests was about fourteen seconds.
(This was something Uncle Li, the Criminal Investigation Captain, had told him before a PE exam back in his school days.)
Assuming they didn’t keep fleeing forward, it would take the police another twenty-five seconds or so—sprinting from their current position—to catch up to these two who had boldly escaped from the station.
Yu Bai had already spent thirteen seconds exchanging secret signals with Xie Wufang and explaining the situation.
In other words, they had twelve seconds until they were caught.
The pair who had just crossed into this timespace hadn’t made any further moves yet.
Meanwhile, the uniformed officers behind them drew ever closer, their shouts and the rush of wind whipping through the air.
“Little Bai, stop right there! Don’t run anymore!”
“What’s the big idea, dragging someone off like that out of nowhere!!”
…But he had already stopped.
And out of nowhere? Hardly!
The non-human was about to get nabbed for using a fake ID!
With that thought, Yu Bai fired off two rapid questions at the man beside him in the precious twelve seconds remaining.
“Can you send us back to the real world right now?”
Xie Wufang clearly grasped the urgency too and replied just as succinctly: “No. Side effects.”
Yu Bai pressed on: “Can you use your abilities freely here in this timespace? Like conjuring another ID identical to the one from the system?”
Xie Wufang answered: “Better not.”
Because of the side effects, right.
…Fantastic. He wasn’t remotely surprised.
Damn that Doom Orb!!
Ten seconds later, footsteps thundered in, and the aggressive police closed the gap.
Yu Bai could now clearly make out the bewildered shock on the face of the Criminal Investigation Captain leading the charge.
In the final two seconds, he lowered his voice to the man next to him. “Don’t say a word unless I ask you to.”
Then Yu Bai stepped forward, positioning himself in front of Xie Wufang.
He was no longer the hack magazine writer from the early loops—the one who could only fumble through with lousy acting under the psychologist’s probing stare.
In some loops, he’d played the part of Young Master Yu, dealing with cops.
He’d even done some acting.
His learning curve might not match Xie Wufang’s, but diligence compensates for lack of talent, and practice makes perfect.
Amid the stares of passersby—some shocked, others curious—the police who had burst from the station caught up to the two young men who had been running away but had inexplicably come to a halt.
Xiao Li, in the lead, instinctively lunged for the nearest suspect, aiming to wrench his arms behind his back and prevent another dash for freedom.
But the brown-haired young man suddenly fixed his gaze on the officer with the strongest presence amid the group.
“…Sorry, Uncle Li,” he murmured. “I thought it was the end of the world.”
His voice trembled with unmistakable panic.
Xiao Li had already seized Yu Bai’s arm and was about to twist it when the Criminal Investigation Captain behind him intervened.
“What do you think you’re doing? Easy on him!” Li Nanxiao reacted swiftly to Yu Bai’s words, slapping Xiao Li’s hand away. “Little Bai stopped running!”
“Ah? Oh, right…”
Xiao Li released his grip at once. Seeing the vivid red mark blooming on the other’s unnaturally pale skin, he apologized on reflex. “Sorry about that, Little Bai!”
Surrounded by the cluster of officers, Yu Bai rubbed his sore wrist and muttered dejectedly, “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have dragged him out like that.”
Even as he spoke, a flicker of relief passed through his mind.
Thank goodness he’d moved fast to shield Xie Wufang. Had a human grabbed that one’s arm instead, either the sky would have gone weird again or his freakishly cold body temperature would have spooked everyone—turning a routine mix-up into full-blown zombie territory.
He wanted to defuse the crisis at hand, not blow it up bigger.
Given that he and Xie Wufang couldn’t bail from this timespace right away—and who knew how long they’d be stuck—he made the snap call to give up the fight.
After all, confession brings leniency; resistance brings the hammer.
Five minutes later, Yu Bai and Xie Wufang were seated once more amid the chaos of the police station.
The place was a madhouse. A Qiang, who’d been tussling with that punk thief earlier, had spotted Yu Bai bolting and nearly given chase—only for the thief to latch onto his leg like a dog-skin plaster. In a fury, he’d tried shaking the pest off, but then Yu Bai had returned unscathed in no time.
So now A Qiang was back at pummeling the even more culpable little bastard, while the other bodyguards and a few cops strained to pull him off. Cries of pain and roars filled the air, enough to split a headache wide open.
All so touchingly familiar…
Yeah, right.
Yu Bai let out a silent sigh.
Aside from the officers keeping order, every other cop in the station hovered around him and Xie Wufang, their faces etched with a peculiar wariness.
Li Nanxiao poured him a cup of water and asked gravely, “Why’d you run earlier?”
Yu Bai replied with utter sincerity. “I looked out the window and saw the sky acting weird—like it had turned into a lake.”
He cradled the cup in both hands, his arms draped over the table’s edge, pale warm skin flush against the chilly surface.
The man beside him—who’d been out of the loop on everything prior—stilled at the words. His gaze lifted from the reddened patch on that arm to Yu Bai’s cheek.
Li Nanxiao acknowledged it calmly. “We saw it too. But what does that have to do with doomsday?”
“Well… You might not believe this, Uncle Li, but I dreamed something just like it last night.”
Yu Bai launched into his fabrication without missing a beat.
“After I woke up, the scene stuck with me. I thought it was cool, figured it’d make a great story. My next manuscript’s short on inspiration, so I planned to spin the sky turning into a lake as an omen for the end of the world—to launch the plot from there.”
“Then bam, it happens for real. I froze up, got lost in my own story, and bolted on instinct.”
He delivered it with straight-faced earnestness, tinged with regret.
The beat cops from Sun Park Station—who’d taken his witness statement something like fifty times and knew his line of work—started buying it.
“Talk about coincidence. For real, I thought Earth was toast. That sky was nightmare fuel.”
“Little Bai, does your knack for drama infect the heavens now too?”
Someone ribbed, “Your dream didn’t cause it, did it?”
Amid the banter, the picture of innocence, Yu Bai hung his head and stayed mum.
Had nothing to do with any dream.
But yeah, it was his fault.
Li Nanxiao listened through it all, falling silent for a beat, lost in thought.
Then he clapped Xiao Li on the shoulder and yielded the floor. “You guys take it from here. I won’t get in the way.”
“Got it, Captain Li.”
Xiao Li was the young officer who’d handled Yu Bai and Xie Wufang’s statements over the thief and the Go business.
He still held Xie Wufang’s ID—the one with the white-shirt photo.
Xiao Li cleared his throat and eyed the man now sporting a white shirt, tapping the table with the ID. “So, what’s the story with this piece of paper?”
But the other man said nothing.
Those gray-blue eyes—so unlike any human’s—fixed on him without a flicker of emotion, like a frozen lake under ice.
The sheer pressure in that blue gaze sent an unbidden shiver through Xiao Li.
…He seemed like a whole different person compared to before the sprint.
Wasn’t giving Captain Li that look earlier, was he?
Got a beef with me?
Xiao Li glanced instinctively at the friendlier Yu Bai. “Your buddy, he…”
Yu Bai slid in seamlessly. “He had no idea the ID was fake.”
“…Huh?!” Xiao Li’s focus snapped over, and he pressed gravely. “So you’re admitting it’s bogus?”
“Obviously. Everyone knows you can’t wear white for an ID photo here.” Yu Bai stated it like plain fact. “Has to be fake.”
Xiao Li started, “Then your friend—”
“He’s not a local born and bred,” Yu Bai cut in. “Household registration’s here, sure, but he’s clueless about a ton of local customs. How else does he whip out an obvious fake in front of cops?”
…Fair point.
No wonder the guy was munching chips in the station.
It was still that overpoweringly strong tomato flavor.
Xiao Li pressed on. “So where did this fake ID come from?”
Yu Bai said very seriously, “I was just about to mention that.”
“I have a lead to share with you.”
Half an hour later, the fake ID seller—wearing a look of utter bafflement—was hauled into the police station by a group of officers.
Silver handcuffs gleamed on his wrists, and his feet dragged against the station’s tiled floor in futile resistance. He couldn’t accept the fact that he’d been nabbed so suddenly. “No way! My turf isn’t under this station’s jurisdiction! What gives you the right to grab me?”
“Quiet down,” one of the cops snapped. “Someone came to our station with the tip, so we’re handling it.”
“Which idiot gave you that tip? Damn it—!”
“Watch your mouth!” the officer barked immediately. “What, you planning to retaliate? Your forgeries are so obvious—it’s a miracle you weren’t caught sooner!”
“…Huh??” The fake ID seller’s face crumpled in collapse. “Someone reported me because the ID was too fake? No way! That doesn’t add up!”
Yu Bai and Xie Wufang stood at the entrance to the police station, quietly watching as the man was escorted inside.
The tip had checked out, and Yu Bai had even spun a story about Xie Wufang losing his real ID and stumbling across this fake one by chance. The officers, long accustomed to the pair’s knack for dramatic entanglements, confiscated the fake ID and let the two of them go for now.
How had he known the fake ID seller’s details?
That was a tale from another loop.
In that loop, the seller really had been busted after someone reported his work as insultingly counterfeit.
It had even dragged Yu Bai and Yan Jing into the station for a few hours of questioning.
In any case, they’d cleared this hurdle for the moment.
Li Nanxiao—who’d just happened to pass by the station and check in on them—had official business to attend to. Once he’d confirmed nothing major was amiss, he’d left ahead of them.
A Qiang and the others, locked in a brawl with a thief inside the station, were truly stuck there for a while. They wouldn’t be playing bodyguard for Yu Bai anytime soon.
The area around them had finally fallen quiet.
As Yu Bai recalled the chaotic scene from that day—the one that had spurred his desperate flight—he had the nagging sense that he’d overlooked something.
He had no time to dwell on it just yet. He’d held off for half the day, but now he finally had a moment to inspect himself properly.
He and Xie Wufang were dressed in the clothes from this loop’s original timeline. They’d also retrieved his backpack from the police, the one holding the ceramic angel gift, along with Xie Wufang’s parchment notebook covered in indecipherable script.
The small box in Yu Bai’s hand from the elevator—the one containing the Doom Orb—was gone.
In theory, then, their consciousnesses had entered this timeline, one that had already concluded.
But…
Yu Bai’s hand paused as he felt the slip of paper in his pocket.
Amid all the items native to this loop, he had one extra: a neatly folded sheet of A4 paper.
It was the Pen Fairy Game paper he’d grabbed that morning on his way out, intending to experiment with it at the funeral parlor.
When Yu Bai unfolded it, he could still make out Yuan Yuxing’s handwriting. The white sheet, divided into four sections, bore four lines:
One: Fulfill Zhang Yunjiang’s last wish.
Two: Deal with that Turtle Bastard.
Three: Deal with Comrade Xie.
Four: No reason—just felt like playing.
…
Sigh.
That damn Doom Orb.
He wondered if Yan Jing, Yuan Yuxing, and He Xi—who’d been trapped in the Golden Elevator with him—had entered this timeline too.
With that thought, Yu Bai turned to the man at his side, who’d remained utterly silent the whole time. “Do you know if those three made it in?”
Xie Wufang glanced at him and countered, “Am I allowed to speak now?”
Yu Bai blinked, then remembered what he’d told the man earlier: Don’t speak unless I ask you to.
…So obedient.
“You can now,” he murmured softly.
The two of them stepped out of the police station together.
Xie Wufang replied at the same time, “Anyone who sees that time gets pulled into this timeline.”
They’d only just emerged side by side when a figure hurried over from the nearby stone bollard.
“Hey! You two okay?”
The old man, looking spry and alert, crossed his arms over his chest and peered at them with concern. “I saw the cops chasing you earlier—gave me a real scare. Didn’t want to go in and make things worse for you…”
In that instant, Yu Bai finally realized what he’d forgotten.
Amid all that earlier chaos, there had been one more person: an old fellow whom Yuan Yuxing had shooed off the ambulance, who’d then made a special trip to the station to find Xie Wufang and beg to learn chess from him.
Yu Bai had only known the man’s surname before, always calling him Uncle Zhang. But according to Yuan Yuxing’s note, his full name was Zhang Yunjiang.
The very Zhang Yunjiang whose body couldn’t be cremated in the real world because of the Doom Orb was standing there before him right now, alive and breathing.
Yu Bai stared at the elderly face creased with worry. Instinctively, he glanced at Xie Wufang beside him and whispered, “He’s the one from the funeral parlor—”
He didn’t finish. Xie Wufang’s gaze simply swept calmly over Zhang Yunjiang, utterly unsurprised to see the old man still among the living.
Or perhaps, utterly indifferent.
His eyes settled instead on Yu Bai’s arm, where the faint flush had now faded. In a low voice, he asked, “Does it still hurt?”
