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When the​⁠‍‍‌​‌‌⁠‌‌‌⁠⁠⁠‌‍​⁠‍⁠‍⁠⁠ breeze stirred again, An Yu opened his eyes.

The world folded into the Prayer Coin  was clear and bright, devoid of the gloom inherent in the Bait City and the white desolation of the wilderness.

A tall woman in a business suit briskly entered the café at the corner of the street. During the two minutes she waited for her coffee, she rested her chin on her hand and stared out the window in a daze.

After she left, the shopkeeper went into the back kitchen and came out with a large tray of cookies, cheerfully arranging them like flower petals in the glass display case.

A young girl carrying a bass guitar yawned as she unlocked the rusty lock on the bar’s door.

It resembled the Main City, but the lives of the Main City’s inhabitants were clearly not this leisurely. The streets were sparsely populated; aside from the two newcomers, there were only women.

An Yu and An turned their heads to look at each other.

An Yu sighed. “Looks like we got separated.”

—Zhu Tao, Ning, and Chao Wu were nowhere to be seen.

An weakly met his gaze. After a few seconds of silence, they both turned their heads back at the same time and simultaneously pulled their hoods that were blown by the wind back over their heads.

“This street seems familiar, like I’ve seen it in the Main City,” An Yu said as he walked down a long slope. “Does it ring a bell?”

An walked beside him without saying a word.

“It seems like we’re not far from the Central Church,” An Yu added. After waiting two minutes, he sighed and said, “Since I’ve only been in the Main City for a few days, I was asking if you remembered.”

An finally spoke.

“I’ve never seen the Main City.”

“…Sorry.”

An Yu belatedly remembered that An Ning was from a Bait City, and after the attack in the valley, when he opened his eyes as an aberrant, he was already in the Spire. They had never truly set foot in the human Main City.

In this world hidden inside the Prayer Coin , the annoying whispers were clearer, and the stench of blood spread into every corner, making this otherwise beautiful world disturbingly eerie.

An Yu clenched his jaw, trying to suppress the rising irritation in his heart.

An lightly covered his ears and his face was slightly pale.

He pulled his hood to cover his eyes and said, “I want to find Ning.”

An Yu, who had held back all this time, finally couldn’t help but ask, “Did you submit your application to join the team yourself?”

After a long pause, An answered weakly, “I already regret it.”

They followed the road signs and walked for over ten minutes before eventually finding the Central Church.

The church was also empty. After leaving the church and walking a bit further, An Yu found himself at a familiar street corner, where he looked up at a small sign.

—Hope Bread.

This was the bakery before it was sold.

The wooden door swung open with a soft chime from the bell, and Xu Shuangshuang peeked out from behind the counter, smiling, “We’re out of bread! Our baker hasn’t been here for a few days; sorry about that!”

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The time in this world was fixed on September 30th. Everyone’s memories had regressed to their own September 30th, but people still felt puzzled because while days passed, the calendar remained frozen on that day.

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“Are you guys from Bait City?” Xu Shuangshuang gave them both a once-over and clicked her tongue, “White hair and white clothes are unlucky symbols. Don’t go out much, or you’ll get dragged into a hidden street by fanatics and beaten to death!”

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“We’re really out of bread. I’ll get you something to eat. You two look like you haven’t eaten in ages.” Xu Shuangshuang muttered as she stood up and went into the kitchen.

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“Sit down first,” An Yu said. “Help me test something.”

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An bit his lip and intently stared at An Yu. Seeing no reaction from him, he turned and walked to the far corner.

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An looked at him, puzzled.

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The napkin holder trembled on the table as if something unstable was about to pop out. An Yu stared intently at the napkin holder, and the red light faintly glowed in his golden eyes.

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An Yu closed his eyes and relaxed his tense arms. “Space folding.”

His first use of space folding was teleportation, which was triggered by a life-threatening situation— he folded space, but only folded it once, using the momentum of folding and bouncing back to achieve fixed-point teleportation. It wasn’t until he saw the Prayer Coin that he suddenly realized he might also be able to stabilize the overlap of two points, sealing the original space at the overlapping point, like…

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The way An looked at him changed.

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No one answered. When she looked down, she noticed the black ash in the transparent napkin holder and reached out to touch it. “What is this…”

“Don’t!—”

“Ah!!!” Xu Shuangshuang quickly threw the burning hot napkin holder away and frantically blew on her hand. “What the heck is this? Why is it so hot!!”

An Yu: “…”

He then skillfully retrieved a pair of oven mitts from the kitchen, put them on, picked up the napkin holder from the floor, and carefully reassembled the lid that had fallen off. Even though this was probably an illusionary world, that napkin holder was still technically his property, included in the future store fees of ninety million. His golden eyes briefly scanned over the napkin holder, and with a flash of red, the “disappeared” candle reappeared on the table as if by magic.

During the meal, Xu Shuangshuang animatedly talked about her preparations for next year’s wedding. She and her fiancé were college classmates and they planned to have a child in their second year of marriage, preferably a girl, because research showed that females had slightly higher average genetic entropy than males, increasing their chances of surpassing the Main City’s threshold.

“Otherwise, being separated from my child is the least of my concerns.” Xu Shuangshuang suddenly fell silent and sighed as she gazed out the window at the empty street. “I would feel like I’ve let the Main City down. In recent years, the genetic entropy threshold of the Main City has been declining. Fewer and fewer children are being born with high genetic entropy worldwide.”

An Yu lowered his head and sent a message to Qin Zhilu:

-Commander, I’ve learned a new way to use space folding. A large space can be folded and stored within a smaller space. Would you mind practicing with me when we get back?

The small circle spun and spun—signal lost, unable to send.

The light in his golden eyes dimmed and returned to its usual coldness. An Yu pocketed the device and coldly muttered, “Useless.”

Xu Shuangshuang paused. “Who are you talking about?”

“High Peak.”

This was supposed to be a low-level mission, and yet there’s a space-time disorder zone. What happened to reliable intel?

Xu Shuangshuang was stunned for a moment, then softly said, “You can’t really blame the decision-makers for this. What kind of children we have is up to us, no, it’s up to fate. You’re being too harsh on High Peak.”

An Yu remained silent and took two big bites of food.

Sitting beside him, An had not touched his food. The sky outside gradually darkened, and the murmuring seemed to grow louder and louder. His fingers lightly scratched at the edge of the stool, and even Xu Shuangshuang noticed his anxiety, asking with concern, “Are you okay? Is the food not to your taste?”

An immediately turned his head, pulling his wide hood tightly over his face, not even letting Xu Shuangshuang catch a glimpse of his profile.

An Yu asked Xu Shuangshuang, “Can you hear the sound?”

“What sound? Oh, do you mean the one outside—”

Xu Shuangshuang stood up, opened the window, and smiled at the night outside. The evening breeze carried the eerie murmurs and the stench into the room. The young woman stood by the window, stretching out her arms, and closed her eyes in rapture. “It’s the prayer song of the Koi God Church. The faithful gather at sunset to pray, wishing that we can all have babies with high genetic entropy, for our families and for the better survival of humanity—”

An immediately got up and moved to the other side of the room, far away from the window. The endless murmuring only made An Yu irritable, but it caused An to grow paler and paler as his eyes darted around the room, finally landing on the shelf in the corner.

It was a storage rack for drying utensils, displaying various sizes of clean, empty jam jars. An Yu picked up the smallest silver jar, used for honey, only about a quarter of the size of his palm. He cut a piece of thick parchment paper and lined the inside of the jar with several layers. Then, he waved the little jar in front of An, “Do you like it?”

An looked at him in confusion.

“Let’s go with this,” An Yu said, taking a long olive-colored ribbon from the cabinet and wrapping it around the neck of the jar twice, then finally tying it into a knot and fastening it around An’s neck.

An immediately reached up to grab the strange object, but An Yu slightly raised his eyelids. “Don’t take it off.”

Though spoken in a calm tone, An suddenly felt his arm grow heavy. After hesitating in midair for a moment, he actually lowered his hand.

An Yu took a deep breath and, after a while, gently explained, “Sorry, this might be useful later, so please don’t take it off yet.” As he spoke, he looked out at the sky, which was quickly darkening. “We should be meeting up with Ning soon.”