Chapter 508: Escape

Zheng Zhi stared blankly at the pitch-black image on his phone screen, then stubbornly opened his photo album, only to see that the last several photos he'd taken were all the same.

"This isn't right..." he muttered in bewilderment. "I clearly took pictures—that place was a hall, and outside the hall there were ruins and a tower, and there was something pitch-black and..."

But before he could finish muttering, Yu Sheng beside him suddenly snapped to attention. "Wait! What did you say?"

Zheng Zhi instantly came back to his senses, looked up, and saw several pairs of eyes fixed on him. He quickly adjusted his state and began recounting everything he'd seen in that strange, dim space from memory.

Frankly, Yu Sheng's expression had remained fairly calm while listening to the description of the tower—until Zheng Zhi mentioned that pitch-black "celestial body." Then his eyes changed completely.

Black Star!?

Although Zheng Zhi's final memories were somewhat blurry, and his impression of that dark celestial body was filled with hallucinations caused by mental contamination, what he described was clearly the "Black Star." In his memory, that Black Star hung high at the end of the endless tower, surrounded by countless bizarre wreckage...

This instantly made Yu Sheng think of the description Bai Liqing had mentioned—"In the Year of Drifting, the dark star and the dome overlapped, and the alien god descended along the Boundary Bridge..."

Even Little Red Riding Hood was stunned, looking at Zheng Zhi across from her with an odd expression. "...Where exactly did you end up going?"

"I don't know!" Zheng Zhi spread his hands with an innocent look. "All I remember is that before I fell in, I saw a black thread floating on the ground, the kind Eileen usually uses... I'd only eaten half my meal when I fell in."

Hearing this, Hu Li immediately felt a pang of heartache.

At the same time, several gazes snapped back to Zheng Zhi. He shuddered under the scrutiny, instinctively shrinking his neck. "Wh-What?"

"Go back to that place!" Eileen pointed at her nephew, speaking with absolute conviction.

"It's not like I can just go back whenever I want," Zheng Zhi said, on the verge of tears. "I don't even know how I fell in."

Eileen turned her head to look at the spot where she usually ground her sphere.

But the black spider silk that had been floating in the air earlier had already dissipated.

The little doll thought for a moment, then looked up at Yu Sheng, only to see him lost in thought.

She reached up and tugged at his head. "Yu Sheng, what do we do?"

"We don't know if the process by which Zheng Zhi 'fell' in can be replicated, but the fact that he fell in this time tells us at least two things," Yu Sheng said, raising his head with a contemplative expression. "First, to find the strange space where that 'tower' is located, the 'black spider silk' is the key. Second, Zheng Zhi's constitution is indeed effective."

Zheng Zhi blinked and listened from the side, then suddenly reached over and poked Li Lin's arm. "Brother Li, I feel like my back's a bit cold again..."

Li Lin didn't turn around. "It's been getting colder the past couple of days."

Zheng Zhi was taken aback and was about to say something when he suddenly felt a wave of bone-chilling cold wash over him. Looking up, he saw Eileen dragging a bundle of black threads and throwing them onto him—she'd already wrapped him twice.

"Why isn't it working?" The little doll looked up, staring straight into Yu Sheng's eyes. "Black threads, nephew—both conditions are met."

"It's possible that the 'threads' you deliberately summoned don't work," Yu Sheng quickly waved his hand. "Or maybe there's another condition missing. Put the threads away for now—it was hard enough getting him back."

"Oh."

The black threads vanished into thin air, and the bone-chilling cold finally disappeared. Zheng Zhi shivered belatedly and started vigorously rubbing his arms, muttering, "Give me some warning next time, would you? That stuff is freezing, like a ghost."

"Alright, you go back and rest first," Yu Sheng said, explaining his original plan to Zheng Zhi. "We were planning to head to the 'Dark Alley' again today and bring you along, but you just went through a 'Lost' episode, so it's not a good idea to go into a foreign domain..."

But before he could finish, Zheng Zhi interrupted, patting his chest. "I'm fine, Brother Yu. I just got lost—that happens all the time..."

"If I tell you to rest, you rest!" Little Red Riding Hood glared at him without mercy. "That's a real foreign domain, not the yard at 66 Wutong Road!"

In terms of age, Little Red Riding Hood was the youngest present, but after years of being the head of the household in "Fairy Tale," she had plenty of authority when scolding people. Zheng Zhi instantly wilted, forcing an awkward smile. "Alright, alright. I'll go back and rest."

...

Nighttime, Jinglin Sanatorium, the Dean's office.

The sanatorium maintained the same day-night cycle as the outside world. By now, the night outside the window was deep. According to the facility's rules, after nightfall, all human employees had to leave the core area, so the spacious room was currently occupied only by a solitary figure, and the corridor outside was silent.

A tall figure in a white coat sat behind the desk. One hand supported his head—a spherical fish tank—as his fingers unconsciously tapped the glass. His elbow rested on the armrest of the chair, while his other hand moved the mouse on the desk, operating the computer.

On the monitor in front of the "Dean," surveillance footage was playing.

In the upper-left corner of the screen, the relevant information was displayed: one day ago, 4:10 PM, the reading room.

In the footage, a middle-aged man in a shirt and trousers sat quietly at the table, casually flipping through a magazine.

Sun Chen—at that time, he was still alive, and looked completely normal.

The goldfish in the spherical tank made a slow circle around the tank, manipulating its humanoid shell to move the mouse and drag the footage backward.

Sun Chen read the magazine for a while, then raised a hand to massage his neck and roll his shoulders.

After a few more minutes, the man in the footage suddenly got up from the table, looking around somewhat dazedly.

He turned, his steps a little stiff, and walked out of the reading room.

The time of his departure was one hour earlier than his usual habit.

The "Dean" leaned forward slightly, dragging the progress bar back again.

Sun Chen finished reading the magazine, stretched his neck and shoulders, then suddenly stood up. Within the limited angle of the surveillance camera, his expression could clearly be seen turning blank.

But there was no one else beside him.

"Hmm..."

The goldfish in the tank stirred its fins uneasily. It dragged the footage back again, simultaneously increasing the volume.

Sun Chen returned to the moment he stretched his shoulders.

A fuzzy sound came from the speakers—a melody, the sound of someone whistling.

There was no one else in the footage.

Sun Chen himself was whistling—from the surveillance footage alone, it looked like a perfectly normal act. He was reading a magazine in an empty reading room, idly whistling, then stretching his neck and shoulders... and then, right in the middle of his own whistling, he suddenly went blank.

The "Dean" immediately sat up straight. A cluster of dense bubbles rose from the tank on his head, and the goldfish rapidly waved its translucent fins in the water—almost at the same moment, it seemed to sense something.

Its tall humanoid shell dodged sideways abruptly, and the air beside it warped. A figure materialized out of thin air as the optical camouflage field deactivated, a faintly glowing blade in its hand slashing down right past the "Dean's" body. The disintegration field effortlessly sliced through the backrest of the office chair.

The goldfish watched the attacker in the office through the transparent fish tank.

A human in a shirt and trousers—but everything above the neck was no longer human. Swollen, deformed nerves and blood vessels sprouted from the neck of that shell, twisted and tangled like chaotic vines, forming a huge, swollen lump of flesh shaped like a brain. That brain seemed to be slowly expanding over time.

The attacker turned. Two eyes embedded in the front of the swollen brain calmly fixed on the "Dean" not far away. He shook the dagger in his hand, the blade humming in the air, the illusory light of the disintegration field running along the edge.

The Dean stared fixedly at the "human" before him. From inside his body came a hoarse, magnetic female voice: "Faked death... no, Sun Chen's corpse is still in the containment chamber... It's personality materialization?!"

"They said that if I cooperate with them to extract the 'knowledge' from my mind, they would have a way to get me out of that tower..." Sun Chen's voice came from the swollen brain, carrying a hint of pleasure. "Although the process wasn't quite what I imagined... right now, I feel great."

"'They'?" The Dean's voice was low. "Who are they?"

But "Sun Chen" didn't answer. He simply stared calmly at the tall figure before him.

The office fell silent. The sound of dripping water was especially prominent.

A thin stream was flowing from near the "Dean's" neck. A small crack had opened at the bottom of its fish-tank head, and the transparent liquid inside was steadily draining.

The goldfish suddenly realized what was happening. It raised a hand to press against its own tank—but the containment device had already been breached by the disintegration field, and the rate of liquid loss only increased.

"You've been trapped in this fish tank all this time... It's stifling, isn't it?" Sun Chen said softly. "Today is the day I gain my freedom—Dean, you're free too."

The goldfish didn't respond. Instead, it abruptly raised its right hand toward him.

Invisible currents of water materialized out of nowhere, wrapping around Sun Chen layer by layer. Intense water pressure began to squeeze and tear at his swollen, deformed brain, as if trying to crush him in the water.

But the next second, the condensed mass of water suddenly lost control and began to spread in all directions.

The humidity in the office skyrocketed. Streams of water began to flow along the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.

The liquid in the spherical tank had completely drained. The goldfish turned into a phantom, swimming out of the tank along the last trickle of water, darting around in the increasingly damp air, where droplets were already beginning to condense out of thin air.

"Sun Chen's" figure slowly faded into the air.

The goldfish swam around the office in confusion, then suddenly seemed to have a moment of clarity—the next second, it rushed toward a large red button on the side of the desk.

A piercing alarm instantly rang through the building, accompanied by repeated urgent emergency broadcasts:

"Alert: the 'Dean' has breached containment. Facility emergency evacuation! Alert: the 'Dean' has breached containment. Facility emergency evacuation!"