Everyone else fell silent.
For them, in this train, even if they had to run through a few more carriages or exert some effort to pry open the metal plates, it wasn’t too difficult. However, the front and the rear of the train—how could there be a front in a train that seemingly had no end?
Lin Qing frowned, “Could it be that the Retrospection deceived you?”
This was a possibility.
Retrospection was a phantom formed from the deepest and heaviest resentment of a ghost or monster during their lifetime, not a factual recording like a video tape. It carried a strong subjective bias, and some Retrospections even included the ghost’s delusions. How to distinguish these delusions from facts relied entirely on the reasoning and logic of the players immersed in them.
Ding Xiao shook her head, “In the Retrospection, I kept scrutinizing the logic of every scene. My judgment is sound, but you—”
Ding Xiao looked at Yan Wei, her lips curving into a smile, her eyes bright, her focus seemingly solely on Yan Wei.
Xu Miaomiao observed Ding Xiao’s gaze and felt something was off. Ding Xiao was someone who judged based on looks, showing extra leniency towards attractive people—a fact Xu Miaomiao had known since she started following Ding Xiao, herself a beneficiary of this trait. This didn’t seem like Ding Xiao’s usual reaction to a handsome man; instead, it seemed like she had complete trust and even expectations for Yan Wei.
At that moment, Xu Miaomiao thought that if Yan Wei told Ding Xiao to jump into a cesspit to read a Retrospection, Ding Xiao would believe Yan Wei was right.
Xu Miaomiao: “…”
Something’s off, really, something’s off.
Yan Mingguang also looked towards Yan Wei.
Strangely, in Xu Miaomiao’s eyes, Lin Qing, who should have been leading Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang as a mentor, also remained silent, merely watching Yan Wei as if waiting for his orders.
Xu Miaomiao: “?”
She had been brought up by Ding Xiao, excelling in both instance quality and deductive ability among her peers—except for that one time on the 49th floor when Yan Wei had outmatched her. But now, countless speculations flashed through her mind, none of which could explain why these two big shots treated Yan Wei, a newcomer to the 89th floor, as if his words were gospel.
Her gaze darted between Yan Wei, Ding Xiao, and Lin Qing, but Yan Wei had already spoken.
“Tell me what you saw in the Retrospection,” Yan Wei, accustomed to Ding Xiao’s gaze, adjusted Yan Mingguang’s oversized coat, “Don’t leave out any details, I’ll make the judgment.”
Xu Miaomiao: “…?” The most bizarre thing was Yan Wei’s nonchalant attitude.
Ding Xiao nodded and began recounting the Retrospection she had seen.
The Retrospection filled in the parts missing from the files, detailing what happened after the “Azure Sky Project” failed.
This project shouldn’t have existed in the first place because eternity was universally considered an impossibility, from the smallest mayfly to the vast cosmos. Yet, Li Mao, the project’s planner, was a fanatical believer, convinced that the goal was within reach, even though it ultimately failed.
Li Mao was unwilling to give up, and the remaining workers, grateful for the high wages he had always paid them, chose to stay and continue indulging in this impractical fantasy. The Retrospection Ding Xiao experienced belonged to one of these workers.
Everyone knew they were just humoring Li Mao.
But human endurance has its limits. No matter how wealthy Li Mao was, his fortune dwindled without any income and constant spending. The train remained just an ordinary train beside the platform, the laboratory shut down due to lack of funds, and the eternal power source never appeared. Even cooking had to be done by Li Mao himself.
The workers couldn’t hold on anymore; they were preparing to leave.
But then, Li Mao appeared before everyone. Ding Xiao, from the perspective of the corpse she inhabited, stood among the workers, crowded in the aisles of several carriages. Li Mao—the Attendant—stood at the front, his expression fervent, shouting, “I’ve found a way!! I’ve found a way to make the engine run forever!!”
A worker in front of Ding Xiao was the first to voice dissent, “How? Did you find new materials or a new structure?”
Li Mao’s face flushed, “No, not that, but it will run forever. Will you support me?”
“But even if it could run,” Ding Xiao heard herself speak, now embodying the worker, “the tracks aren’t right. Even if the train runs endlessly, it needs a track that can support continuous movement.”
Players experiencing Retrospection could feel the emotions of the person they were embodying. No one believed Li Mao; they all thought he was just dreaming again. Ding Xiao could feel that “she” wasn’t really opposing him but, knowing Li Mao’s stubbornness, was subtly pointing out the problem from another angle.
Unexpectedly, Li Mao immediately replied, “No problem! No problem…”
Li Mao muttered to himself, clearly on the verge of madness.
Seeing he wouldn’t listen, and this wasn’t the first time, they didn’t press further. Eventually, he would fail and give up.
Before they dispersed, Li Mao said, “Will you help me? With everything you have?”
Their footsteps paused.
They had stayed for the high wages, never believing the project would succeed. Such scenes had become commonplace after the Azure Sky Project failed.
The worker Ding Xiao embodied, like the others, waved dismissively, insincerely saying, “Sure, sure, you should rest now, it’s almost lunchtime…”
Li Mao smiled, and the seemingly routine gathering ended.
A few days later, workers started disappearing on the train. First, it was worker 1101, whose belongings remained neatly packed under his bunk, while his sleeping area above was empty.
The workers searched through over two hundred carriages but found no trace of worker 1101.
They thought he had lost patience with the Azure Sky Project and sneaked off the train at night. It was normal; the project was a joke.
So, they soon forgot about it.
But the next day, two more workers disappeared.
“I confirmed,” Ding Xiao said, “the bed numbers of these two are the ones written on the blackboard today. The Attendant, Li Mao, is repeating the same death sequence; those who disappeared were actually killed by him.”
Yan Wei lifted his eyelids, calmly asking, “How were they killed? Why?”
“With kitchen utensils, to complete a dark ritual.”
This was only revealed at the moment of the worker’s death that Ding Xiao was embodying.
After several disappearances, fear spread through the train. Some thought about leaving, but the next event amplified their terror—the train’s doors and windows wouldn’t open, not even the windows could be smashed. It seemed like a sealed space, impossible to escape.
In a sense, achieving the eternity Li Mao desired.
The workers were terrified, but Li Mao remained as usual, keeping the train running and cooking for the remaining workers. He looked unchanged, even somewhat happy. But he had always been eccentric, so despite their panic, no one suspected him—after all, workers disappearing seemed detrimental to him.
A few days later, the train was filled with the stench of rust and decay, seeping into everyone’s nostrils, nauseating.
Several workers, including the one Ding Xiao was embodying, responsible for the engine, decided to investigate the source of the smell—the engine was at the front.
There, they found the brutally dismembered bodies of several workers—just like the bodies of Zhao Jingchen and Cao Qun that Yan Wei and the others had seen, hidden in the engine compartment. The bodies—or rather, the flesh—had rotted, emitting a foul odor, blood soaking the metal, creating a grotesque, horrifying scene.
Seeing this, they finally turned their suspicions towards Li Mao.
In their panic, they quickly took photos, used the fax machine at the front to print them, and hid them as evidence. But as soon as they told the others to find a way to escape, Li Mao, who had followed them, killed them.
Ding Xiao’s voice was hoarse by now, and as she reached for a bottle of mineral water on the table, Yan Mingguang’s cold voice rang out, “That bottle Yan Wei drank from.”
His tone was icy, chilling as snow.
Ding Xiao quickly withdrew her hand, clearing her throat without expressing any dissatisfaction. Lin Qing, as if used to it, glanced at Yan Mingguang, bent down, and took a new bottle of water from a box under the table, handing it to Ding Xiao.
Xu Miaomiao: “…?”
“The final moment of the Retrospection,” Ding Xiao drank some water and continued, “was this worker being stabbed through the heart by Li Mao, bleeding out on the ground, watching Li Mao approach with a knife, feeling the carriage begin to shake, the train slowly starting to move, and then he closed his eyes forever. I came out then. If there’s no fabrication, the hidden photo is the item representing the Stairway.”
In the Death Oppression Instance, such a crucial item could only symbolize the Stairway.
Yan Wei understood, “This is Li Mao’s dark ritual, right? Physically, there’s no such thing as an eternal engine, but unresolved resentment, the lingering malice of a vengeful ghost, won’t cease. He brutally killed these workers, binding them to the train, controlling them. Because they had promised ‘willingness’ to Li Mao in life, they couldn’t break free even in death. The ghosts’ endless resentment drives the train endlessly forward.”
Prometheus brought fire to humanity, offering hope to escape suffering.
Zeus saw him as the most unforgivable traitor, punishing him with eternal torment, chaining him to a rock, where an evil eagle would eat his liver every day, only for it to regrow and be eaten again the next day.
Only by killing the tormenting eagle and breaking the chains binding the hero could the endless suffering be ended.
