Chapter 21: The Mirror

“The main quest… it’s complete, just like that?” Wei Congxin was dumbstruck. “I-I-I was just throwing it out there.”

“The answer was written all over your face, and you couldn’t even copy it?” Lin Yujing stretched lazily. For the first time, he felt that this broken game’s quest evaluations actually had some merit.

Sinless Abyss, the game that loomed over reality, was pulling in more and more people. Most newcomers, raised in the peaceful modern era, couldn’t adapt to this place at all. Surviving a novice instance was a long shot, let alone returning to the real world with strange powers.

But for those already on the brink of death, perhaps this was a twisted form of generosity—a second chance at life?

Zhang Bing and Yan Shanque still had heads full of questions. Just as they were about to ask, a blinding light flared before their eyes. When their vision adjusted, they found themselves back in the meeting room from the very beginning.

Everyone was seated in their original spots.

Only two chairs were empty.

Zou Zihao and Qin Dan.

Zou Zihao’s corpse was likely beyond even reanimation now, and as for Qin Dan, no one knew where he’d gone.

Zhang Bing, naturally, wasn’t going to worry about the man who had betrayed him, but he was curious enough to ask.

Lin Yujing was lounging lazily in his chair, looking as pristine and well-put-together as ever, like a sleek, well-fed grey cat. “Who knows? Dead, maybe.”

“Then… what about Pearl?”

At the mention of Yin Luo, the grey-haired man snapped to attention. “Him? The kid said he was off to settle a little personal grudge.”

…

Qin Dan knew something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

This was the infirmary—the one they had tried to enter at the start, only to find the door locked.

But he was inside now. After dragging Zhang Bing down with him and fleeing down the stairs, he’d frantically burst into this room.

Logically, every part of this villa should have been charred black beyond recognition. But this room was different.

The light inside was bright, the air clean. Precious, expensive instruments were arranged in perfect order.

But all Qin Dan felt was terror.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t reality.

Before he entered, everything outside was still a blackened, scorched ruin, engulfed in raging fire. The night was deep. How could stepping through this door change everything so completely?

And most importantly, he saw the mirror.

—That mirror that had inexplicably appeared in his room, the one he couldn’t explain.

It was a half-body mirror. From the outside, it looked utterly ordinary. But when he stared at it, the glass seemed blurry, hazy and indistinct.

“Why… why, why?!” Qin Dan realized something. Tears and snot streamed down his face.

He spun around, frantically pulling at the door, kicking it. The door didn’t budge.

He ran wildly around the room, only to discover that no matter where he went, no matter which way he faced, he could still see that mirror!

He tried lying down; the mirror appeared on the ceiling. He hid under the bed; the mirror was there too, on the underside.

And as time passed, the reflection in the glass grew clearer and clearer. His features, his face smeared with blood and ash, his terrified expression—everything was reproduced on the mirror in excruciating detail.

He almost felt the person in the mirror was more him than the one standing outside it.

“It shouldn’t be like this, it shouldn’t be like this… I was so close! I could have left this place, I could have escaped!”

He broke down completely.

…

He didn’t know how much time had passed when the door opened again.

A white-haired youth holding a rabbit plushie walked in.

He glanced with disinterest at Qin Dan’s corpse on the floor, then looked up, focusing his attention on the mirror.

A very familiar mirror.

He had run into it the very first night he’d descended into this world, in the washroom.

Then Aunt Jing had swapped it, and he’d seen it again while his wound was being treated.

The first time, it had been a scare. The second time, this mirror was already treating him as prey, making its move on him.

That was the moment Little Bear had “come to life” right in front of him, kicking the mirror with a thud and snapping him out of it.

But now, the roles were reversed.

Yin Luo tilted his head, looking at the strange full-length mirror.

The blurry reflection inside stirred, seeming to tilt its head too.

After about ten seconds of this staring contest, the human silhouette in the mirror grew sharper, like clay being sculpted into shape, slowly outlining limbs.

The longer Yin Luo stood before the mirror, the more the black shadow inside condensed. Its flat face pushed forward, neck elongating, beginning to look more and more like the person outside.

Though perhaps it was a trick of the light, the reflection’s skin was a ghastly pale blue, its entire form radiating a sinister chill.

As if mesmerized, Yin Luo stepped closer, slowly raising his hand. The reflection did the same, as if ready to pierce through the glass barrier and drag the person outside in.

Just as his fingers were about to touch the surface, Yin Luo stopped.

He offered the “thing” in the mirror—now nearly indistinguishable from himself—a perfect smile. Then, in the next second, Yin Luo’s body split into pieces.

Eyeballs, brain matter, cracked skull fragments, neck, arms, internal organs, thighs… and a massive amount of blood splattered onto the floor, piling together in a heap.

The sickly, cloying smell of gore from this pile of minced flesh and severed limbs filled the entire room.

Even in the end, the corner of the mouth on that half-face, looking as though it had been hacked apart by something, was still curled upward.

The figure in the mirror froze.

It didn’t move for a long time.

Then, with a bang, it burst apart just like the person outside, exploding into a cloud of Black Mist. Right after, the strange mirror shattered, tinkling to the ground in pieces.