This wasn’t a play

A violent⁠⁠‌⁠‍​‌‌⁠⁠‌⁠⁠‌⁠⁠‌‌​‍⁠​‌​ impact like the sound of shattering glass slammed into An Yu’s consciousness.

He snapped his eyes open.

His nose was just millimeters from the windowpane. Millimeters away, countless scarlet eye sacs were staring at him. The droning hum vibrated through the floor, numbing the soles of his feet.

The eye sacs pulled back abruptly, only to slam against the glass once more with the force of thousands of water ants’ bodies!

A child’s terrified cry made An Yu snap back to reality. A pair of twins, five or six years old, were huddled in the corner, holding each other.

They seemed unable to see him.

Another vicious impact caused a crack to appear on the sturdy glass. The droning intensified, and the two children curled up in pain.

It was pitch black outside the window, with no sunlight visible. Only dots of scarlet light flickered alternately in the darkness.

They were the eyes of the water ants.

The entire building was surrounded by tens of thousands of them. Under the continuous wave of impact, not to mention the glass, An Yu could even feel the building shaking.

The little boy suddenly stood up, trembling all over. “The glass is cracked! We have to go to the underground air-raid shelter!”

“Gege…” The little girl’s eyes were red and swollen. “My head hurts.”

“Endure it. Ge will take you to a safe place!” he said, pulling her up as they stumbled out.

An Yu immediately followed them. The moment he opened the door, the thick, acrid stench of blood and decay almost made him vomit. The smell hit the two children so hard they tumbled to the ground. They scrambled back up and the boy’s face was pale. “If you’re scared, close your eyes and follow gege!”

The little girl sobbed, clutching his hand. “Okay!”

An Yu stared at their figures—he had to keep track of the screen’s owner at all times. If there was an accident, he had to get out of the screen before the owner died, otherwise his consciousness would likely be trapped forever in the extinguished screen.

At that moment, the twins’ movements were perfectly synchronized. He couldn’t yet tell if the brother or the sister was the owner and could only follow closely behind.

The entire corridor was filled with District 34 residents in the midst of mental breakdowns.

People were being torn to bloody shreds by the water ants that had forced their way into the building. They clutched their festering, bleeding heads and faces, kneeling on the ground, wailing, screaming, and cursing.

They called out the names of their dead relatives again and again, ignoring the splatter of flesh and the sound of cracking bone as they slammed their heads against the wall, until their skulls burst and their brains splattered on the ground.

A woman scooped up clumps of water ant eggs from the floor and smiled as she stuffed them into her mouth. Soon, a droning hum emanated from her stomach. She let out a scream of despair and frenzy, stabbed a knife viciously into her abdomen, and yanked the blade sideways. Blood and stinking, viscous egg fluid sprayed out.

An Yu ran past her. Filth splashed into his eyes. A sharp, searing pain flashed through them, but the grime quickly dissipated from the golden eyes, as if it had never been there.

He looked back and his calm gaze looked over the woman’s corpse, then glanced at the people moving away behind him and sliding toward death in their collapse.

There were living people everywhere. This wasn’t a play; it was a real tragedy unfolding in the objective world.

Main City’s intervention had driven Zhong Ke into a complete frenzy. He was wantonly using the plague and the ant disaster to torture every single person indiscriminately.

An Yu was calm to the point of seeming cold. He didn’t pause for a moment and followed the children, dodging the swarming, feeding water ants in the stairwell, trampling over human corpses as he sprinted downstairs.

Zhong Ke had to be nearby, mixed in with this crowd.

A water ant whistled past the children—it seemed to have another target and didn’t stop. But as it brushed by, it cunningly opened its spear-like fangs and stabbed at the girl’s chest. In a flash, the boy violently shoved his sister aside. His own left collarbone was instantly pierced by the fangs and blood sprayed.

In that instant, An Yu’s consciousness felt as if it had been slammed and a sharp pain tore through his mind. The world in front of him almost went black.

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“Ge!” the girl cried, dragging the boy’s hand and continuing to struggle down the stairs. “Now you follow me!”

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But Ling Qiu had once said that there were two kinds of evil men. One liked to hide himself in the crowd, like a drop of water in the ocean. The other was obsessed with performance, and could never suppress the desire to do evil.

Don't scrape

Don't copy

If Zhong Ke dared to play one of his time tricks in front of him…

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The mental interference was about to end. This was Zhong Ke’s last chance to take the stage.

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“Ge, are you okay?”

The boy didn’t answer. He closed his eyes, taking one deep breath after another, in and out. His heaving chest finally began to calm.

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Don't scrape

Only later did he understand that this was a method the Commander had discovered as a teenager, while facing the after-effects of the experiments all alone.

Don't copy

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The little boy’s face was as white as paper, but he finally regained some consciousness. He slowly squeezed his sister’s hand back. “I’m… I’m… okay,” he said weakly. “Ge is…”

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Time reset!

Zhong Ke had finally made his move.

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“You are indeed fast.”

Zhong Ke’s voice sounded as if it were being whispered right in An Yu’s ear.

Don't scrape

An Yu’s heart stopped for an instant. His golden eyes contracted violently.

It wasn’t a reset!

The ruptured blood vessel at the boy’s collarbone was the fatal wound! Zhong Ke had never intended to make him relive the mental torment. Instead, he had chosen that exact moment to plunder the last bit of time before his death.

The screen’s owner was dead.

The world before An Yu’s eyes rapidly slid into darkness. The voice, right by his ear, sensed his terrified trembling and chuckled. “Stay here forever. I’m moving on to the next screen.”

In that instant, a surging sense of humiliation eviscerated An Yu’s nerves. It felt as if something had detonated in his consciousness, and the rapidly darkening world suddenly froze for a split second!

—An Yu didn’t have time to register what had happened in that instant, but his instincts allowed him to seize the fleeting opportunity. His consciousness violently ripped itself free from the timeline!

“Corner! Corner!”

“Corner! Corner, answer me!”

“Your mental power is fluctuating!”

“Ning! Pull him back! At all costs!”

“Corner!”

…

Panicked shouts exploded in his earpiece. An Yu’s eyes flew open, and he gasped for breath.

He was lying flat on his back. His vision was filled with circling blue morpho butterflies. Their breaths, in and out, wove a tranquil, blue-purple ripple around him.

A larger-than-normal white morpho butterfly had landed on his chest, its wings beating slowly yet powerfully.

His golden eyes were vacant for a moment and the frantic questioning in his earpiece came to an abrupt halt as it switched to a private channel.

“An Yu?” a familiar voice sounded. “Are you awake?”

The Commander’s voice was as steady as ever.

“Mm…” An Yu was overcome with a profound sense of relief. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said weakly, “I’m okay. Please don’t worry.”

In front of his screen in the Main City, Qin Zhilu slowly uncurled his tightly clenched fist and let out a silent sigh of relief.

“Don’t rush,” he said gently. “Your survival value is full. After your consciousness entered the screen’s timeline, the white morpho butterflies remained on standby, but your survival value never fluctuated in the slightest. It seems that no matter what you encounter in there, you won’t suffer any harm in the objective world.”

A small, unconscious smile touched An Yu’s lips. “Mm.”

The Commander always knew what he cared about most.

Qin Zhilu continued, “But your mental power did experience a sudden 10% drop just now. Don’t worry, it has already recovered to a full state.”

An Yu froze. “Mental power? My mental power took a hit?”

“Yes.” Qin Zhilu paused briefly, then murmured, “But it’s hard to say whether that impact was external or internal.”

An Yu didn’t understand. He stared blankly at the blue butterflies circling him and murmured, “So… it was Ning who pulled me back…”

“No,” Qin Zhilu immediately denied it. He clicked his mouse lightly, watching the slow-motion video feed sent back from the Brain. “Your mental power dropped unexpectedly fast. Ning reacted about a second too late. Before the blue morpho butterflies could be released, your value had already rebounded to 100%. You recovered on your own.”

An Yu’s eyes were vacant, as if he had reverted to the state he was in when Qin Zhilu first met him.