This time, Tong Yang did not resist. No matter what changes occurred along the way, her plan was to at least die once and enter the time loop. Even if it only sent her back ten minutes before her death, she would still be in Screening Room 61.
Fortunately, “Tao Bai” acted quickly, sparing Tong Yang from feeling any pain. As she lost consciousness, time began to rewind.
The first sound that reached her ears was a faint rustling. Her head spun, and darkness enveloped her vision. Slowly, Tong Yang opened her eyes and found herself in a dim, endless corridor.
“Tong Yang?”
She suddenly stopped, causing the people behind her to look at her in confusion. Tong Yang turned around to see seven people staring at her with tense expressions. The screening room number in the corridor was 34.
At this moment, they had yet to split up and take action. This meant that before the loop, they had not left the parallel world under He Jingjing’s guidance but had instead died within ten minutes of entering Screening Room 37.
Why? Could it be that Chu Shiyu did not leave with them? Instead, she died within those ten minutes?
“Tong Yang? What’s wrong?”
“Let’s go! They’re about to catch up!”
Tong Yang fell silent for a moment. Regardless of whether they had managed to leave in the end, it was too late now—they had to escape this place first. After all, when they reached the moment of death, Chu Shiyu would regain the memories from when she had died.
“Follow me,” Tong Yang said, then led them straight into Screening Room 37. Now that she knew there was no exit to the eighth floor at the end of the corridor, there was no longer any need to split up.
Although everyone was confused, they still followed her into Screening Room 37. Tong Yang casually took down a figure lurking in the darkness, then signaled for them to close the door. She instructed Chu Shiyu and the others to use iron rods to barricade the emergency exit—it would hold them off for now.
“There’s no staircase at the end of the corridor; it might be behind another door.”
Tong Yang didn’t waste time explaining and turned to head toward another exit. Like the emergency exit, the door could only be opened from the outside, so they would have to break it to get out.
“Stop dawdling, come help,” Tong Yang reminded. “Xu Junyue, you take two people to guard over there and buy us some time.”
“Got it.”
Even though they didn’t understand how Tong Yang suddenly knew there was no staircase at the end of the corridor, they didn’t question it in the urgency of the moment and worked together to break down the other door.
However, the emergency exit door was too sturdy. Despite their best efforts, they only managed to pry open a corner of the metal sheet. At that moment, footsteps echoed outside the entrance—the Order Maintainers had arrived!
“Did you open it? They’re here!”
“Hold it! Don’t let them in!”
Hu Shuo and Tao Bai each took an iron rod to pry up the metal sheet on both sides, finally creating a gap at the bottom. Tong Yang grabbed the metal sheet with her bare hands and pushed hard, but it was too solid and barely budged.
“Kick it.”
Hu Shuo stood up and kicked it a few times; the metal sheet finally showed signs of loosening.
“Bang! Bang!”
A loud crash came from the other side as they continued to kick the door. Tong Yang urged them to keep kicking, then quickly returned to Xu Junyue and the others.
They were holding the door from the inside, and since the Order Maintainers couldn’t open it from the outside, they began to slam against it. With so many people and their reckless strength, the safety door was already bending inward, looking like it wouldn’t hold for long.
“Ah!” He Jingjing suddenly screamed as a hand reached through the gap and grabbed her hair.
Tong Yang swiftly severed that hand at the wrist, but once the safety door had a gap, those things could slip through anywhere. Even if they were cut by the sharp metal sheet, bleeding profusely, they didn’t care, their eyes wide and crazed as they squeezed through the door gap.
“Alright!”
Hu Shuo shouted in surprise, seeing that another safety door had been pried open enough for one person to pass through, and indeed there was a passage on the other side!
“Go!”
“Quick, go!”
The three boys rushed over to hold the shaky door, signaling for the girls to leave first.
Tong Yang didn’t hesitate; she led a few people through the door hole and then shouted to them, “Come over!”
“Quick, come over!”
Seeing that they could no longer hold off the relentless Order Maintainers, the three turned and ran toward the exit.
Once they all got out, Tong Yang wedged the last two iron rods behind the door. There were too many Order Maintainers, and trying to get through the narrow door wouldn’t be easy, but it would buy them some more time.
“Let’s go.”
After doing that, Tong Yang immediately led everyone away.
The exit of Screening Room 37 still led to a dimly lit corridor that seemed endless. The two corridors, one inside and one outside, resembled two circles, with the outer corridor leading to the seventh floor and the inner corridor likely leading to the ninth floor.
With a “thud,” Chu Shiyu, who was following her, suddenly buckled at the knees and nearly fell to the ground.
“Ah!”
“Help!”
“Get away! Don’t kill me!”
…
Immediately, everyone seemed to go mad, screaming frantically.
Tong Yang stared at them in shock. No way? Did they all die in the end? Not a single person left the parallel world?
Chu Shiyu was the first to react, looking pale as she turned to Tong Yang and said, “You entered the loop?”
“Yeah.”
After experiencing the fear of death, the others gradually calmed down.
“I… I didn’t die?”
“Didn’t we all get killed?”
“How could this happen?”
“Is what Tong Yang said true?”
“She really can…”
[Hmm?? What loop??]
[What do you mean really died?]
[You’re still alive, but if you don’t run now, you might die!]
[Hurry up! They’re about to catch up!]
Tong Yang said, “Let’s go first, we’ll talk about it in a safe place.”
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Xu Junyue urged.
She ran to Tong Yang’s side, her expression excited, “What a magical feeling! I clearly saw myself die!”
“This is so fun!”
“Fun my ass! I’m about to die of fright!”
“I’m still covered in cold sweat!”
The Order Maintainers had already broken through the safety exit of Screening Room 37 and squeezed into the corridor they were in.
Tong Yang led them to keep running; this place felt more like a completely enclosed passage, with no stairs leading to the ninth floor. She looked at the screening room numbers behind her and found that even though they had reached Screening Room 61, there was still no end in sight.
As they continued forward, they suddenly saw the screening room number change to 01, and they had actually returned to the back of Screening Room 1!
“We can’t keep going forward.” Tong Yang suddenly stopped.
“We’ve returned to Screening Room 1; if we go any further, we’ll loop back to Screening Room 37.”
The back corridor of the screening room should be a complete closed-loop passage; there were no other exits apart from the screening rooms.
“What do we do?”
“If this goes on, we’ll eventually run into those things.”
Tong Yang pondered for a moment. When the Order Maintainers had chased them into the front corridor, almost all the screening room entrances had been opened. These two doors could only be opened from the outside. If they entered Screening Room 1 now and closed the door behind them, the pursuing Order Maintainers wouldn’t be able to open the entrance door from inside.
But if there were still Order Maintainers in the corridor outside Screening Room 1, it would be a disaster. They would be trapped between the front and back corridors, with no way to escape.
However, if the corridor outside Screening Room 1 was empty, they could exit from the front and return directly to the seventh floor, following He Jingjing’s guidance to leave the parallel world.
“Tong Yang! There are also people ahead! What do we do?”
The front of the circular corridor unexpectedly had faint footsteps as well; there was no time to hesitate! Even if they stayed here, they would be completely surrounded, so they could only take another gamble!
“Go!” Tong Yang pulled open the safety door at the back of Screening Room 1, and everyone hurriedly followed her inside.
Upon entering Screening Room 1, seeing that the other open safety door was quiet, Tong Yang knew she had made the right bet!
No matter how many Order Maintainers there were, their numbers were still limited! They had now completely passed through Screening Room 1, gathered toward Screening Room 37, and then entered the back corridor through Screening Room 37 to chase them back to Screening Room 1.
But with several doors in between, their speed would be significantly reduced, buying Tong Yang and the others more time to escape!
“Back to the seventh floor.”
Tong Yang quickly crossed the passage and left Screening Room 1. Once all seven people had run out, she closed the entrance safety door again. This way, the pursuing Order Maintainers couldn’t open the door from the inside and could only keep slamming against it.
Looking at the empty corridor, everyone finally felt their hearts settle back into their chests.
“Safe for now.”
“I can’t take it anymore; I feel like I’m going to die from exhaustion!”
“I can’t move!”
“They should take some time to circle back; let’s rest for a bit.”
Not to mention the others, after such a frantic escape, Tong Yang’s legs felt a bit weak. She didn’t stop everyone, leaning against the wall to support her knees and taking a few heavy breaths.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Tong Yang asked in a low voice. “I waited fifteen minutes before entering the loop; if you had left the parallel world then, you wouldn’t have been pulled back in.”
“I don’t believe you all would be stupid enough to not want to leave me here, deciding to accompany me to death.”
Hearing her say this, everyone immediately became unhappy: “Why don’t you believe us?”
“We’re a team; how could we leave you behind and escape on our own?”
“Exactly!”
“We’re all going to die together!”
“Look how much we value the bond between teammates!”
Tong Yang wrinkled her brow in disgust. “You all didn’t understand how to leave, did you? That’s why those people broke in and killed you?”
Hu Shuo, embarrassed and angry, retorted, “You’re talking nonsense! We, of course, know; we just didn’t want you to be alone! That’s all!”
“Right, right! We definitely know how to leave!”
Tong Yang raised an eyebrow, “Oh really?”
Chu Shiyu mercilessly exposed them: “We really don’t know how to leave.”
Xu Junyue said, “He spoke so vaguely; He Jingjing guided us, chaos and order, and then what?”
Tao Bai added, “I didn’t understand what that meant either.”
He Jingjing nodded, “Me neither.”
Hu Shuo: “…”
He Jingjing: “…”
Well, they really didn’t understand.
Who told “Tao Bai” to speak so concisely? Who knew what it specifically referred to? Did He Jingjing just let them leave?
Tong Yang didn’t understand and asked, “Xu Junyue, you don’t understand either?”
Xu Junyue looked confused, pointing at herself, “What do I understand?”
Tong Yang squinted at her, seeing the clear foolishness on her face, and shook her head in disappointment, “Nothing.”
“Let’s go once we’ve rested.” Tong Yang said.
“It’s only been a minute!”
“Let’s take another minute; they shouldn’t catch up that quickly.”
“Don’t waste time; let’s go.” Tong Yang said decisively, standing up and heading toward the exit.
At the same time, they heard a crashing sound coming from Screening Room 1; the Order Maintainers had likely already broken into the screening room.
Not wanting to waste any more time, the group hurried through the corridor of the screening room, passing the counter and the waiting area beside it, arriving at the escalator entrance.
Tong Yang glanced down and saw that the oval corridor on the seventh floor was empty.
They went straight down the escalator and returned to the seventh floor.
But now the lights on the seventh floor were on, which didn’t meet the conditions for traversing worlds.
The resting area was a public space, and the lights were too bright; they needed to find a quiet, dark space.
Tong Yang suddenly remembered the corridor outside the changing room where Tan Wanqi died; it was a long, narrow passage with closed dance practice rooms on both sides. Perhaps they could create the conditions needed to leave the parallel world there.
“Let’s go to the ballet studio.”
They sprinted down the corridor, the sound of their shoes scraping against the floor echoing in the empty environment.
“Thud, thud, thud—”
The escalator made a few muffled sounds, and everyone turned in panic to look back as an Order Maintainer holding a sharp blade rolled down from the escalator.
Then came the second, third… they seemed to have jumped down directly from the eighth floor, their bodies piled on top of each other, twisted limbs and bodies, blood everywhere, like zombies.
But it seemed they wouldn’t catch up for a while.
Tong Yang ran into the ballet studio, entering through the small door next to the front desk, and saw that the corridor was lit, with several dazed-looking people standing there.
“Find a way to kill them and destroy the corridor lights.”
“Understood!” Xu Junyue gripped her butterfly knife and charged forward.
Tong Yang returned to the front desk of the ballet studio, locked the glass door, and had the remaining people move things to block the entrance.
Then, Tong Yang quickly walked into the front desk, pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote down the steps for traversing space that Dr. Wu had taken them through last time, but in reverse.
“Tong Yang, I’m ready!”
Tong Yang looked at the steps on the paper, which were the opposite of the “elevator game,” turned around, and handed the paper to He Jingjing.
Actually, if they only needed to create chaos, it wasn’t necessary to reverse the steps, but since they had returned to the real world in reverse last time, it was safer to do it the same way as before.
“Remember the steps on the paper; you just need to guide us and execute it together.”
He Jingjing took the paper, nodding seriously, “I understand.”
Tong Yang then said to the others, “Once we start, everyone close your eyes. If you have to choose to move forward or backward midway, always choose backward until you’re given the option to open your eyes again. Only then can you open them, understood?”
Everyone looked anxious, “Got it.”
Tong Yang said, “If there’s a mistake midway, or if our choices are inconsistent, we’ll likely have to start over.”
When they were at Hailin International School, the three of them stood in different corridors, and because they made different choices, they entered the parallel world at different times. Now, with all eight of them standing in the same corridor, if there were different choices, it would be impossible for all of them to return to the real world; they had to maintain the same choice.
“Do you remember?” Tong Yang asked.
He Jingjing took a deep breath and nodded, “I remember.”
“Good, close the door.”
Xu Junyue had already destroyed the corridor lights in advance, and after closing the door, they were once again plunged into darkness.
Sounds of crashing came from outside the ballet studio; the Order Maintainers had arrived, and they had to leave immediately, or they would have nowhere to go in the narrow corridor!
“Close your eyes, let’s begin!”
The eight of them stood in a line, with Xu Junyue at the front and Hu Shuo at the back.
“Please do not turn around, take ten steps back.” He Jingjing’s voice came with a hint of hesitation.
Once Hu Shuo moved, the others slowly stepped back, maintaining a half-meter distance between each other to avoid breaking formation.
Tong Yang had roughly measured this corridor; it was enough for all eight of them to complete the “elevator game.”
The first round of movement went smoothly; the sounds of crashing outside the ballet studio continued, and the Order Maintainers had not yet successfully broken in.
“Please walk forward four steps.”
The line of eight moved forward, with Xu Junyue leading the way and Hu Shuo leading the backward movement.
Everyone tried to avoid bumping into each other, and the sound of their hurried breathing echoed in the corridor.
“Please do not turn around, take twelve steps back.”
Hu Shuo led everyone backward again, and at the same time, a loud crash came from outside the ballet studio as the glass door was shattered.
Their breathing became even more hurried.
“Please walk forward four steps.”
Xu Junyue led them forward, and the small door outside made “bang bang bang” sounds.
The Order Maintainers were just on the other side of the door!
“Please do not turn around, take twenty steps back.”
Perhaps due to the sounds outside, everyone’s footsteps became frantic, and the line became disordered.
“Please walk forward ten steps.”
Amidst the hurried breaths, the sounds of crashing outside grew fainter.
Tong Yang realized they had returned to the interlayer between the two worlds.
In the chaotic interlayer, some places were in the parallel world, while others were in the real world.
However, the increasingly faint sounds of crashing outside indicated that the corridor they were in was the real world, while the outside was the parallel world.
They were temporarily safe!
Not only did Tong Yang notice this, but the others also sensed it and collectively sighed in relief.
But just then, the doors to the closed dance practice rooms on both sides of the corridor slowly opened.
In the silent darkness, a clear creaking sound of the door opening echoed.
Tong Yang felt the people in front of her tremble and take half a step back, accompanied by obvious gasps.
“Hehe…”
A child’s giggle rang in their ears as they stood in the middle of the corridor, and someone quickly ran past them, bumping into Tong Yang’s arm that hung by her side.
“What are you doing?”
“Can’t you play with us?”
“Sister, I can dance beautiful ballet; do you want to see?”
“I really want to go home; can you take us home?”
He Jingjing said, “If other people appear around you, please do not talk to them.”
“Because they are most likely not human.”
Tong Yang wrote this sentence down on paper.
When they were at Hailin International School, after the space became chaotic, other people appeared around them.
“Sister, can we go home together?”
In the darkness, Tong Yang felt a cold little hand grasp her hand.
“Ugh…”
Someone let out a whimper.
At the same time, warm liquid soaked Tong Yang’s calves, and a soft, slippery thing wrapped around her knees, dragging at her feet.
“Take us with you.”
“Can I go home with you?”
The situation the others faced should be similar to Tong Yang’s.
He Jingjing’s voice trembled as she said, “Please choose to move forward or take twenty steps back.”
With Tong Yang’s previous reminder, everyone naturally chose to step back.
But as they moved, strange sounds echoed beneath their feet.
They were stepping on something soft that felt very strange, uneven, like the corpse of some small animal.
“Ugh…”
Before they could figure out what was under their feet, sharp cries suddenly came from beside them.
“It hurts! It hurts!”
“Don’t step on us… it hurts…”
“Please… I’m in so much pain…”
The children’s piercing cries came from beneath their feet, and everyone froze.
Those uneven, soft things were all children?!
Realizing this, all of them, including Tong Yang, stopped in their tracks.
Tong Yang felt an unparalleled sense of disgust; her understanding of the parallel world was being reinforced time and again, and she grew to loathe this world even more.
“There’s someone behind me… I can’t move…”
In the tense silence, Hu Shuo said uneasily.
Tong Yang exhaled and said, “Open your eyes.”
They had entered the interlayer between the parallel world and the real world; the Order Maintainers were in the parallel world, and the corridor they were in was in the real world, so they were temporarily safe.
“Damn! What is this thing?!”
“So disgusting…”
Tong Yang shook off the hand that was gripping her and opened her eyes. The doors to the dance practice rooms on both sides of the corridor had indeed opened, and some rooms were even lit, the dim light enough for them to see the scene around them.
Some bloodied, twisted children crawled out from the dance practice rooms, gathering around them.
These children looked quite young, completely naked, with hardly a patch of intact skin on their bodies, as if they had suffered unspeakable torment, crawling on the ground and leaving behind shocking bloodstains.
“Oh my god…” He Jingjing let out an incredulous sigh.
“How could this happen?”
“Are they all children from the parallel world?”
“This is too terrifying…”
Tong Yang pressed her lips tightly together and glanced into the open dance practice room, where countless child corpses were piled up, some injured but still alive, while others lay limp with closed eyes, already dead.
“What do we do? We still haven’t returned to the real world.”
“There are too many corpses here; we can’t proceed.”
“But it seems like the outside is the parallel world; we can’t get out at all!”
“Tong Yang, what should we do?”
Tong Yang looked at the children’s bodies on the ground, some still alive, tears streaming down their faces as they lay there, crying out, “It hurts, it hurts.”
Now they were in the interlayer between the two worlds, just one step away from leaving the parallel world.
Unless they stepped on these children’s bodies and went through another round of the “elevator game,” they would have to think of another way.
“Bang—”
The small door was slammed open, but it wasn’t the Order Maintainers who rushed in; they had been completely separated into two spaces.
But why could these children enter the corridor that was in the real world?
Was it because of the doors to the dance practice rooms?
When they entered the interlayer, the doors to the dance practice rooms were opened, effectively connecting the two time passages, allowing these children to traverse?
Similarly, when they entered the interlayer, the Order Maintainers didn’t manage to break through the door in time, so they couldn’t traverse the space?
One visible, one invisible.
[Tong Jie, I checked for you; Xili Mall has hidden stairs.]
Hidden stairs?
“What are those?”
[Some buildings hide the stairs, leaving only the elevator. I went through all the news about this incident and found that the mall manager suggested that the missing person might have left through the hidden stairs.]
[Hidden stairs? I think I’ve heard of them.]
“Hidden stairs…” Tong Yang murmured.
In the script of the parallel world, Tan Wanqi was killed by the murderer just a few minutes after entering the changing room. During that time, no other students were in the ballet studio—only the cleaning lady, who later discovered the body, had entered the area.
However, in the murder mystery game, the murderer could only be one of the eight players. This meant that within the missing script information, the character represented by Tong Yang might hold crucial clues.
For example, this mall has hidden stairs.
The murderer didn’t enter the changing room through the front door but instead entered the ballet studio through the hidden stairs in the building.
“There might be hidden stairs here; let’s split up and look around.” Tong Yang said.
If they could find the hidden stairs, they could go directly to other floors or conduct the second round of the “elevator game” in the hidden stairs to return to the real world completely.
“Hidden stairs?”
“Are there hidden stairs here?”
“Everyone be careful and look around.”
“If we find the hidden stairs, we can go to the ninth floor!”
“Do we need to search in these dance practice rooms too?”
“Yeah.”
The eight of them split up, trying to avoid stepping on the bloody, mangled things as they searched in every corner.
Tong Yang entered the changing room, where Tan Wanqi’s body had been moved to the wall, and the bloodstains on the ground had long since dried.
She carefully checked the changing room and found that all the personal lockers had single doors, but the locker near the corner had double doors.
The locker space was narrow, and the combined width of the two doors was still less than that of a normal door, but this design was very unnecessary.
Moreover, Tong Yang noticed a not-so-obvious bloodstain on the locker handle.
According to the normal murder mystery process, the murderer entering and exiting the ballet studio through the hidden stairs would definitely leave traces, allowing the players to find the real murderer from the clues.
“I found it.” Tong Yang called everyone over.
The double-door locker was unlocked; after pulling the doors open, Tong Yang knocked on the bottom board inside, and sure enough, it was empty behind it!
“Found it?”
“Where??”
Tong Yang pushed hard, and the bottom board felt slightly loose but didn’t open directly.
Tong Yang braced herself against the door frame, leaning at an angle, and raised her right leg to kick the bottom board hard. With a “clang,” the bottom board cracked open a gap, and some dim yellow light spilled out.
“Seriously? It’s really here?”
“Let’s go, let’s go!”
“Let’s hurry! I feel uncomfortable staying here.”
“Those people in the parallel world are crazy; they actually tortured children like this!”
Tong Yang kicked the bottom board open completely, revealing the full view behind it, which was indeed a closed staircase, with a dim yellow sound-activated light hanging above.
She was the first to crawl through, smelling a pungent dampness, looking up and down, and finding it pitch black.
“Come over.”
Tong Yang helped them on the other side, the sound of their landing echoing clearly.
Once everyone entered the hidden stairs, Tong Yang pondered whether to conduct the “movie game” here or find a more open place when suddenly, footsteps echoed in the corridor.
“What’s that sound?”
“Did you move?”
“I didn’t move!”
“No one moved!”
Everyone looked at each other in fear; were there others in the hidden stairs?
“Bang—”
“Bang bang—”
As the sounds echoed, the sound-activated light at the bottom of the stairs lit up.
In the empty corridor, it seemed something was bouncing up the stairs.
The eight of them exchanged glances, confirming that the source of the sound was below the stairs.
“Bang—”
“Bang bang—”
“Who of you will go take a look?”
“I don’t want to; you go look yourself!”
Tong Yang shot them a sideways glance and walked to the railing, looking down.
“Bang—”
“Bang bang—”
“Tong Yang, is there… anything there?”
Tong Yang’s expression was calm, her tone indifferent, “Nothing.”
“Really?”
“If you don’t believe me, look for yourselves.”
Everyone was half-convinced but also very curious, so they slowly leaned toward the railing to look down.
“Bang—”
A little girl in a red dress with disheveled hair, her legs bound together with black cloth, hopped up a step on the stairs.
“Bang bang—”
A little boy with twisted limbs crawled up the stairs, his head hanging down, and with each step he took, his head bumped against the stairs, making a muffled sound.
His forehead was already bleeding, and the stairs he crawled over were stained with blood.
“Holy crap…”
Hu Shuo gasped, shivering in fear.
Perhaps hearing his voice, the little girl and the little boy looked up at them simultaneously.
The little girl’s face was pale, one of her eyeballs hanging down her face, about to fall off, but she grinned, revealing a row of bright red teeth.
However, the little boy’s face had become a mass of mush from the impacts, making it impossible to see any features.
“Bang—”
“Bang bang—”
They took another step up.
“Ah!!!”
“Help!!!”
“Mom! I want to go home!!!”
The piercing screams rang out beside them, and Hu Shuo ran up the stairs like a madman, the others influenced by him, sprinting after him.
Tong Yang was speechless, “Is it really that serious?”
“Of course it is!!”
“I want to go home!!!”
“I’m never coming back to this damn place again!”
“Help!!!”
“I’d rather they come at me with knives than have those freaks appear!”
[Although, haha]
[Curious! What could scare the little brother like this?]
“Do you want to see?” Tong Yang asked.
[Yes!]
[Sister, take a picture!]
[Please, sister!]
[Right! We can take pictures, not videos!]
Tong Yang pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the little boy and little girl, sending it to the gossip group.
After two or three seconds of silence in the headphones, a scream erupted that was even more terrifying than Hu Shuo’s.
[Ah!!!!]
[Help!!!]
[Holy crap, I’m going to die!]
[Tong Yang!!! Run, damn it!!!]
[They’re about to come up! You better run!!!]
[Damn!!! Are you crazy? You’re not running like this?]
[My god! I almost cried from fear!]
[Please, hurry up and run!]
“Tong Yang!!!”
“They’re coming up!!!”
Screams came from above, and Tong Yang rolled her eyes, quickly following after them.
“Open, open, open! To the ninth floor, to the ninth floor!”
“I’m not joking! I’d rather die outside than in this place!”
Arriving at the exit of the hidden stairs on the ninth floor, Hu Shuo was so scared that tears streamed down his face as he frantically kicked the door, fearing the two people below would catch up.
“Bang bang bang—”
At that moment, a bloody spherical object rolled down from above the stairs.
Everyone looked down and saw a round head staring at them.
“Brother, can you help me pick it up?”
At the corner above the stairs, a pale face appeared.
“Ah!!!!”
“What the hell is this place!!!”
Hu Shuo let out a heart-wrenching scream and slammed the door open, diving into the ninth floor.
Because Hu Shuo was too panicked, the others’ emotions didn’t swing as wildly, and some even wanted to laugh as they followed him out of the hidden stairs.
Entering the ninth floor, Tong Yang looked around in surprise, discovering that it was just a wasteland.
In the distance, neon lights lit up, illuminating the area they were in.
The vast ninth floor of Xili Mall was laid bare, with only a cement floor, a few rough load-bearing walls, and cold wind blowing from all directions, making them shiver involuntarily even on a summer night.
“This place…”
“Is there nothing here?”
Everyone stared blankly at the familiar buildings and neon lights in the distance, incredulously saying, “Did we return to the real world?”
“Impossible, how could the ninth floor of Xili Mall look like a half-finished building?”
“Is the ninth floor of Xili Mall the parallel world? The outside is the real world?”
Tong Yang was momentarily stunned, turning back to glance at the door of the hidden stairs.
A dirty little boy picked up the bloody head from the ground, gently brushing off the dust on it, saying, “Mom, I’m sorry, I didn’t hold it steady.”
Meanwhile, the little girl in red and the boy who could only crawl also reached the entrance of the hidden stairs on the ninth floor.
“Brother, we just met a big sister.” The little girl smiled, “She took a picture of me and my brother.”
“Yeah…” the boy on the ground whimpered in response.
“Brother, do you think it’s safe outside? Can we go out?”
“I really miss Dad; he always secretly brings us food.”
The little boy shook his head, “Let’s go back.”
“Oh…”
“Bang—”
“Bang bang—”
Watching the three disappear from view, Tong Yang’s gaze fell.
Why would the parallel world…
“Tong Yang, what do we do now?”
Tong Yang came back to her senses, walked over to the others, and said, “We just need to do the elevator game again.”
The ninth floor was much safer than she had imagined, laid bare with no hidden dangers.
“Alright!”
“Finally, we can go back!”
“It’s spacious here; let’s stand side by side; someone just stepped on my foot!”
“Hopefully, no one else will show up, right?”
To avoid any unexpected incidents midway, Tong Yang blocked the door at the entrance of the hidden stairs; apart from that, there were no other entrances on the ninth floor.
“He Jingjing, let’s start.” Tong Yang said.
He Jingjing, hearing the voice, looked dazed, her gaze lowered, and nodded, “Okay.”
The group stood in a line, deliberately choosing a position in the middle to avoid getting too close to the edges during the movement.
“Please do not turn around, take eight steps back.”
Without the half-meter gap between them, everyone’s footsteps felt much lighter.
The wild wind from the tall building blew away much of their fatigue.
With no relentless Order Maintainers pursuing them, in the quiet, gentle night, after several hours of tense and thrilling experiences, they finally welcomed a moment of relaxation.
They closed their eyes, savoring the hard-won peace.
“Please walk forward four steps.”
They followed He Jingjing’s guidance, moving slowly.
He Jingjing, who had previously encountered the parallel world, was different; although she was never a person from the real world, her thoughts were different from those in the parallel world. Moreover, there couldn’t be more than fifty people like her who were sent to the real world since childhood, so at least she posed no threat to Tong Yang and could occupy one of those spots.
“Please do not turn around, take twelve steps back.”
After leaving this place, Tong Yang wanted to ask Ye Huai if he still had contact with Ye Tianlin from the parallel world, whether he was one of the fifty people sent over like He Jingjing, and by the way, when he would pay her back, though it was okay if he didn’t for now.
“Please walk forward four steps.”
For some reason, He Jingjing’s voice became a bit shaky, as if she were crying.
“Please do not turn around, take twenty steps back.”
“Please walk forward ten steps.”
The strong wind scattered her voice a bit, and Tong Yang frowned, feeling an ominous premonition, sensing that she seemed to have overlooked some important information.
“Where are you going?” A strange voice came, right beside them.
“If other people appear around you, please do not talk to her.”
“Because she is most likely not human.”
“Where are you going? Let’s go together!”
He Jingjing said, “Please choose to move forward two steps or take twenty steps back.”
All eight of them chose to step back, as Tong Yang had reminded them earlier.
“Please…” He Jingjing’s voice became choked.
[Tong Jie, your news has changed!]
[In the early morning of August 13th, the police in Tianyuan District received a report; a player named He from the real-life murder mystery game at Xili Mall mysteriously disappeared and is still missing. Later, a source revealed on the forum that the player named He had fallen to their death that night, and the body has vanished…]
“Please choose whether to open your eyes.”
Tong Yang’s body jolted, and she suddenly opened her eyes.
During the movement, they had long since been on a different level.
Just a dozen meters away from them, at the edge of the building, stood a familiar figure.
Her body trembled in the cold wind, tears rolling down her cheeks to the ground as she moved toward the bottomless abyss.
“He Jingjing!”
