Xing Yun stiffened her neck and looked at God, saying, “I think that as long as I leave through this door, I can survive.” Outside the door, birds were singing and flowers were fragrant, a picture of prosperity. Xing Yun looked toward it, but her palms were slick with cold sweat.
She did not actually know whether stepping out of the door would lead to survival; she was simply relying on Yu Xi’s absolute intuition. Since he said it was a warm place, it ought to have the characteristics of warmth.
God looked over as well, narrowing His eyes slightly as if contemplating something. Suddenly, He reached out and grabbed Xing Yun’s throat. His grip was immense but stopped short of killing her, allowing Xing Yun to experience the true sensation of suffocation. Tears flowed uncontrollably, and she beat against God’s hand, yet her reddened eyes remained sharp and fixed on His, as stubborn as an old pine tree.
God suddenly let go. He slowly took out a handkerchief to wipe His hands, looking down at Xing Yun while His gaze lingered on the startling red marks on her neck.
Xing Yun leaned against the wall with one hand and clenched her other into a fist against her chest, coughing repeatedly. She felt as if she had just taken a trip to the gates of hell.
Rong Ping’an helped her up. “God has spared you.”
Xing Yun glanced at her and remained silent for a long time. Perhaps in some people’s eyes, being spared by God was a grace, a second chance to prove oneself. But Xing Yun did not think so. This was nothing more than God’s cat-and-mouse game, a mockery of His prey; it could hardly be called grace.
Xing Yun wiped the sweat from her hands onto her clothes. She currently had only three items: the human-skin mask God had given her, which had no offensive capability; the photograph, which was a tool for transport with no damage potential; and the bead, which was human bone and useless.
The odds between her and God were essentially one to nine. If God hit her once, she would spend nine years in the underworld.
“Want to go over there?” God spread His hands. “If you go, I will destroy everything within those walls.”
“Oh.” Xing Yun nodded faintly. “Then go ahead.” Her gaze was calm, but inside, her heart was pounding like a drum; she could not maintain her composure at all. She was simply trying to confirm one thing: whether God could bear to destroy what He had created.
“Interesting.” God smiled with His eyes curved, arms folded.
However, His words left Quan Tianjiao unsettled. He shouted, “No… to die so inexplicably is too cruel for me!” Facing imminent death, he was filled with terror. Initially, he could calmly say he did not want to live, but that was only because he did not know his time was up. If he had known he was about to die, all his heroic ambitions would have vanished.
Xing Yun tilted her chin toward Rong Ping’an. “Do you see that door? Do not think about anything, just run over there. You go first to scout the path, and I will follow.” Seeing Rong Ping’an did not react, she shoved her. “What are you staring at? Are we just going to wither away here? Escaping is a rule of the game God set; we are just following His wishes.”
Rong Ping’an could not refute this. She nodded and ran over. God did not even look at her; He kept His interest fixed on Xing Yun, as if asking what other tricks she had up her sleeve.
Xing Yun did have tricks. She turned immediately to Quan Tianjiao. “What? Do you want to live forever in the darkness of this instance? And if no newcomers enter this instance, you will just be waiting for death without nutrients. Oh, right—if newcomers do enter, it will only accelerate you becoming new fertilizer; perhaps you will die even faster.”
“You speak so lightly!” Quan Tianjiao’s eyes were bloodshot. He covered his eyes in pain. “Who could accept that they are really going to die!”
“Then why did you act so righteous before?”
“I do not want to live like this forever, but how can I easily accept just dying like this?”
“Then you might as well stay below; if you lack the resolve, then just live a life of ignoble survival.” Xing Yun’s words were merciless.
She knew she was actually fighting a lone battle. Even though she had teammates, God had been gracious to Rong Ping’an, leaving a rift between the two of them.
Xing Yun actually understood Quan Tianjiao’s thoughts. What she said to him now was merely to attract God’s attention. Her brain was churning in a storm, and she had already found a way to break free from God.
Before leaving, however, she wanted to see Honghong one more time. She opened the coffin, looked at the passageway below, and shouted with all her might, “Be certain that there is no curse here, nor any evolution! Everyone will become fertilizer to maintain the instance! You have all been lied to!”
The underground was dim, and the coffin Xing Yun opened was their only source of light. Honghong looked back at her, her eyes completely calm. “The Master’s words are the most important.”
The truth did not matter; the Will of God was all that mattered.
Xing Yun laughed helplessly, her heart full of mixed feelings. She suddenly realized a truth and said to God, “I was the one overthinking. I never needed to know if you would destroy your own heart’s blood. Because anyone who connects with this place will die. This instance itself is a half-finished product; it cannot run independently and needs more and more people to serve as fertilizer. If the people underground knew they were killed by you, they would have no complaints… so…”
God reached out to grab Xing Yun’s arm. “You do not care about their lives anymore?”
“My own survival is an unknown; how could I care about others?” She took a deep breath and ran toward Rong Ping’an, toward the warm end she should have reached long ago.
Rong Ping’an nodded, masking her excitement. “I almost thought you would not make it.”
Xing Yun smiled.
God’s rage followed her escape. As the blue flames were about to burn her body, she finally reached the other side. As she stepped through the door, the heat behind her vanished completely.
The divine fire was blocked behind them, and similarly blocked was God’s slightly twisted, angry face.
He stared straight at them, the air around Him cold and chilling. Flames began to burn from beneath her feet, and in an instant, large and small fires swallowed everything behind Him. Quan Tianjiao’s wailing was as startling as a thunderclap.
But the others welcomed death in silence.
“Survived.” Xing Yun murmured to herself. The joy of surviving a disaster instantly submerged her. “As I thought… that incomplete instance cannot exist on its own, so this instance is made of two completely different worlds pieced together.” Xing Yun lay on the grass, her chest rising and falling with her breath.
In the first instance, she summoned God and He appeared, suggesting that even in His own world, God was subject to certain restrictions. God acted deliberately; because He was the creator of the rules, He was also their firmest supporter.
Now that He had arrived voluntarily, it proved that this world could not operate without His support. But God had just spoken of “escaping”—yet since He had descended into the instance, where could players possibly escape to?
Although Xing Yun had always treated God as a normal person, in truth, God possessed the oppressive power of a deity. Xing Yun had heard of God’s various great deeds but had never heard of Him breaking His word or making false statements. God held Himself to a high standard; in a way, it was like the imperial decree of an ancient emperor, so there must be a place to escape to.
Xing Yun tied up her messy hair and propped herself up on the grass, panting. It was not that her body was tired, but the process of thinking made her head ache. She had been dealing with the situation at hand while collecting information, which was truly exhausting. Ever since God told her to escape, she had been brainstorming—was there a place God could not reach, or perhaps a rule that restricted God? Since God was already beyond human reach, the only thing that could restrict Him was Himself.
Thus, Xing Yun deduced that there was a new region restricting Him.
“I have not thought of how these two instances are connected, but it should not have a major impact.” After all, God would not let a half-finished product destroy a finished one. Xing Yun climbed up from the lawn, glanced at Rong Ping’an, who was reaching out a hand, grabbed it, and whispered a “thank you.”
Xing Yun looked at God. Blocked by the air wall, His expression was unkind. “You really think it will be this simple?”
“You can come over and threaten me with something else later.” Xing Yun rolled her eyes impolitely. “It seems the priority of this independent instance is higher; the condition that provoking you three times means certain death no longer applies, does it?”
Everything experienced in the instance just moments ago was like yesterday’s flowing fire. In retrospect, it was clear yet felt like a dream. A myriad of emotions surged in Xing Yun’s heart, but she could not express them. In the pocket over her heart remained the only physical evidence: the bead snatched from Yu Xi, the only keepsake from the previous instance.
God’s power seemed stuck in a “loading” state, unable to transmit through. On the other side of the air wall, He smiled sinisterly. “Since you know it is a complete instance, you should know it will be even more treacherous.”
Xing Yun curled her lip. She had witnessed how powerful Yu Xi’s absolute intuition was; God would not be able to scare her.
Xing Yun made a face at God. “Alright, alright, many thanks for the reminder.”
Yu Xi, who had arrived here early, had also experienced some things.
The young girl who owned this place was always pestering him to play. “Brother, play with me!”
He did not dare refuse, so he could only nod stiffly. He was not very willing to accompany the little girl, but every time he refused, his heart would throb with dull pain. Once, he even collapsed with cardiac arrest, only saved because Xu Lang arrived in time to perform CPR. Saving him had cost Xu Lang a broken rib, and it took a long time for the pain to subside.
“Play… what do you want to play…” Yu Xi answered weakly. He was doing this entirely against his will, for if he refused, the little girl would immediately go cold, the surrounding temperature would plummet, and snow would even drift down. For some reason, this region lacked the ability to resurrect the dead, and most of them were wearing pajamas, making the cold unbearable.
But what he did not expect was that this time, the little girl was exceptionally hard to please. Even when he agreed, she still wore a sinister smile.
“Let’s play dancing this time… How about a dance marathon?”
Yu Xi’s complexion changed repeatedly. A dance marathon was a popular activity in the 1920s where contestants danced for as long as they could. Human stamina is finite, and eventually, exhaustion sets in. To keep going, they learned to fall asleep while standing, and even ate or washed while dancing. Some even died on the dance floor from sheer exhaustion.
A dance marathon was truly dancing with death.
Yu Xi rubbed his temples and sat in a chair nearby. “How long do we have to dance?”
The little girl sat by his leg. “Brother, how about a year?”
The number she tossed out so casually made Yu Xi’s scalp tingle.
“A year might be very difficult.”
The little girl hugged her knees innocently, looking up at him. “It is possible, why not? Do you not want to play with me?”
“I do.”
Yu Xi could not say no, but promising her a year-long dance marathon would surely cost him his life.
“What does everyone want to eat today!” A man suddenly entered from outside. “Oh dear, Xiao Xing, do not pester your brother. I told you, this is a place for your brother to rest and recuperate; do not keep bothering him.”
Yu Xi let out a long sigh. The man was the little girl’s father and the only key person who could delay the girl’s desire to play games. If the girl wanted to play, it was best to drag it out until her elusive father came home.
Aside from playing games with the little girl, life here could be considered quite good. There were no other dangerous scenarios, no aggressive NPCs, and no tasks to complete. There were few people and the air was fresh, it was genuinely refreshing.
Leaving here was always an option… but returning to the lobby meant starting new instances, so resting here for two days was better.
Just two days…
Suddenly, Yu Xi felt a pain on his face. It was Xu Lang’s fist swinging at him.
Before Yu Xi could get angry, he saw Xu Lang pointing at a lady in front of him. “Tong Huiran has called you many times; why are you ignoring her? Dreaming again?”
“What?” Yu Xi paused, his fingers clenching. “Could you be clearer?”
Xu Lang was stunned. “What is wrong with you? Did you not eat? Why do you need me to be clearer?” He turned to Tong Huiran, looking embarrassed. “Sorry, Sister Tong, he has been selected by the little girl to play games often lately; his mental state is not good.”
Tong Huiran: “It does not matter.”
Yu Xi felt inexplicably confused. “Can you tell me who Tong Huiran is? There are so many people coming and going here; do you expect me to know everyone?”
Xu Lang opened his eyes wide. “Do you know what you are saying?”
“Wait.” Tong Huiran interrupted Xu Lang. “You do not have to know everyone.” She looked Yu Xi up and down. “Rong Ping’an, you should know who that is, right? God, you should be able to recall that, at least?”
Yu Xi looked blank.
Xu Lang opened his eyes uncontrollably wide.
At the same time, Xing Yun and Rong Ping’an were walking toward them.
“There is a small village over there.” Xing Yun extended her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.
“At a glance, that village is all there is. I saw it; you do not need to go out of your way to talk to me.”
Xing Yun: “…”