1TWITF[C Chapter 42

Chapter 42

This place… was too terrifying.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he was stunned.

It was just an ordinary little attic. The long corridor and elevator from before were gone.

Lu Yanli didn’t speak, obediently following her down.

He wanted to know what was so strange about this world.

And where the exit was.

Lu Yanli didn’t believe in evil. He searched the entire house thoroughly, but still couldn’t find it. He also didn’t change his clothes as his mother had asked.

The more he got involved with this world, the harder it would be to leave.

He stood in the living room, trying to compare it with his memories and find the differences.

“What are you doing?” Lu’s mother smiled as she brought another dish out of the kitchen, feeling puzzled.

Lu Yanli didn’t answer her.

He looked directly at the image of his mother in his memory, as if memorizing it for the last time, and then resolutely stepped out the door, ignoring the anxious calls behind him, and walked towards the street.

The male head of the household returned.

A car stopped in front of him. It was his father.

Without even looking, Lu Yanli memorized the route and quickened his pace, walking away.

“Hey kid, where are you going?!” His father shouted from behind.

But he had already walked away without looking back.

He could sense that the people who had disappeared were all peering at him through the windows, as if they were looking at something strange.

Lu Yanli instead felt a strange sense of relief—this world was indeed abnormal. It wasn’t his hallucination.

Next, he needed to find the way back.

This place was too dangerous. Although it seemed peaceful now, the deathly aura hidden beneath the tranquility still made him uneasy.

Lu Yanli quickened his pace and ran forward, trying to find the entrance from before. But before he could take two steps, the sky darkened at a rate visible to the naked eye.

There were no stars or moon, and the visibility was very low. He couldn’t tell where he was.

Lanterns rose from the ground, along with many paper lanterns. The paper was thin, trembling slightly in the cold wind. Each white surface was painted with childish smiling faces, yet the faces looked somewhat lifelike after staring at them for a while. Flickering lights illuminated the dim night sky.

The people who had been hiding in their houses earlier poked their heads out one by one, their eyes filled with infatuation and joy. They stared foolishly at the white lanterns in the sky, reaching out to grab them in vain, but unable to reach them. Only pairs of pale arms reached out from the windows, waving constantly.

Suddenly, a sound rang out from above.

Lu Yanli couldn’t describe the sound that entered his ears. It seemed like someone was talking. No, that kind of sound was difficult to describe with human language. It was definitely not within the range of human vocalization. It was hoarse, cold, and as indistinct as if separated by a thick fog. Only a few fragmented sounds pierced through the distant distance.

It was a language that humans couldn’t understand.

Lu Yanli stood at the end of the road, coldly watching the frenzied crowd.

He had reached the end. At the end was an abandoned house, which was difficult to see clearly in the darkness. It was about two or three stories high, and directly opposite it was a black metal door without any patterns, covered in rust, exuding an extremely cold and evil aura.

Lu Yanli didn’t push open the door for now, but inevitably approached it a little to avoid the crowd suddenly rushing out of the houses.

Gradually, a huge white thing emerged. The road was too long, and it was too late, so Lu Yanli could only see from a distance that it seemed to be a huge spherical object, and its surface seemed to be wriggling.

As it approached, the crowd once again erupted into shouts of joy, desperately running towards that place.

What… was that?

The thing gradually approached, and Lu Yanli widened his eyes little by little—

The monotonous music of the music box continued, and the people entangled in the huge mass of flesh were still smiling, smiling happily, their faces full of smiles.

Just watching from a distance, he could feel the hugeness of this mass of flesh, not to mention when it got closer.

Lu Yanli stared for a while and saw two familiar faces on the outside of the human flesh mass. At this moment, they, like everyone else, had foolish smiles and were entangled with the limbs of others.

He didn’t want to open the door, nor could he face the monster that was about to roll in front of him and occupy the entire street.

Even at this time, he was still very calm. Lu Yanli looked around at the surrounding houses and found an alley between the two houses that were also crumbling due to the arching of the road.

He rushed straight into the alley. Just as he entered the alley, the huge, strange mass of flesh composed of human bodies rolled past with a tsunami-like joyful laughter.

When that thing passed by the alley, several faces on it were still staring at him and laughing. After it passed, Lu Yanli rushed out of the alley again. He ran to another road across the street that had been revealed after the houses were damaged.

The strange patterns on the ground became clearer and clearer, and the color of this road gradually appeared, a deep red, like being covered in old blood.

He ran for a long, long time, finally reaching the end. Lu Yanli stopped.

Because there was no road ahead.

But the situation behind him was not optimistic. That monster rolled to the end of the road and rolled back again. He gritted his teeth and rolled down sideways.

The feeling of rolling was not pleasant. Lu Yanli protected his head as much as possible. Even so, he suffered multiple injuries. After rolling for an unknown amount of time, this long, steep slope finally came to an end. Then, he fell off a platform that was a little over half a meter high and landed on the ground.

No… no, this is too scary.

The vehicle traveled at high speed for a long, long time, covering a great distance, almost crossing the distance of a city, and finally stopped. Lu Yanli still hadn’t regained his composure. Since the great change in the world, he rarely had such out-of-control situations. It was rare for him to be so uneasy.

But… if this was really the truth, if what he saw was real…

Lu Yanli opened the car door and walked down. He slowly turned his head.

From the beginning of the run, he had vaguely had some guesses, and now, this guess was finally confirmed.

The shadow it cast was enough to encompass the entire city, which was why the city never saw the sun.

So, the place he had been running all along… was the back of this giant statue’s foot!

Lu Yanli couldn’t help but feel a chill in his heart.

Was this another world? How could he possibly go back?

People easily realize their own insignificance in the face of overwhelmingly large things, and some even experience extreme fear or even faint. Lu Yanli didn’t have a fear of huge objects, but at this moment, he couldn’t help but feel some despair in the depths of his heart.

Such a huge statue, how could he find clues?

Where exactly was the road he came from?

Just as he didn’t know where to go, a long line came from a distance.

The woman at the head was wearing a long red robe, with a sacred and gentle smile. All the followers were wearing red or white robes. They chanted something in their mouths, walking neither fast nor slow. Before long, they came to Lu Yanli’s side.

“Sir, are you worried?” the woman at the head asked.

The Omniscient God?

A god whose title spanned two worlds? Could they really be the same?

Lu Yanli’s eyes suddenly froze on the red statue.

This statue… was exactly the same as the one Wen Zhengxin had lost.

A guess suddenly jumped out of Lu Yanli’s mind, and this guess caused a sudden opening in his mind, which had been shrouded in fog for many days. He finally opened his mouth, “All wishes come true?”

Seeing that he was interested, the woman’s smile became gentler, no longer as sacred as before, but with some strangeness. She said, “Yes, whoever believes in my Lord, all wishes will surely come true.”

“If… I want the dead to come back to life?”

The woman’s smile widened a little, no longer as divine as before, but with some strangeness. She said, “God is omnipotent.”

“What price is needed to resurrect a person?”

“Although my Lord is tolerant, we must not be greedy and exhaust the love of God. We must offer sacrifices that God loves.” The smile on her lips rose again.

*

On the other side, Chu Xiu was still standing in the darkness.

He sensed the body getting closer and closer to him. For some reason, this scene felt familiar.

Where… was this?

He had already gripped the knife in his hand.

Don’t fire easily, even if you have a silencer, it’s best not to. Especially in a dark place, it’s simply providing a beacon for certain things to find their way.

That person… was getting closer.

Chu Xiu saw his face clearly.

That person also saw Chu Xiu clearly. Both of them were stunned in place.

Perhaps he was too shocked, the person hadn’t even reacted yet. He widened his eyes and died, but before he died, he murmured a wish to something in the dark.

Then, Chu Xiu dragged that person a little to the side. Immediately afterwards, he continued walking in the same direction as that person had been walking.

He remembered! In a flash of inspiration, he finally realized where his sense of familiarity came from.

He had returned to the factory at the intersection of the Yin Ming Road! He had returned to when he played the Four Corners Game!

Yes, that was also Chu Xiu.

Chu Xiu took action against his past self without hesitation the moment he saw himself. He believed that if his future self encountered the same situation, he would also take action against his past self. Only in this way could the Four Corners Game truly continue, so that he could escape and find the real way to break the cycle of reincarnation.

However, no matter how Chu Xiu died, there would be a continuous stream of new Chu Xius filling in. Unless… he could avoid that elevator, otherwise, whether he chose to be with Lu Yanli or his three partners, he would be transported here.

Then, he would kill a past version of himself, and then use his identity to escape and try new plans.

What he didn’t know was that every killed version of himself would suddenly think of that omniscient and omnipotent god before dying. Afterwards, they would all make a wish, hoping that they could start over and truly escape.

The god’s transactions were never fair. The so-called starting over could also have many tricks. Perhaps, distorting time and space and watching a few ants crawl in a Möbius strip that had been twisted several times could bring a little happiness to Him.

Unfortunately, Chu Xiu hadn’t completely understood this principle yet. He was thinking about how he could start over and safely pass the elevator game.

They both endured it, not speaking or moving. Later, they didn’t choose to leave the elevator, but stayed inside.

But this was also a dead end.

The figure that was constantly approaching outside the door finally reached out a hand into the closing elevator door when they reached the 12th floor.

The elevator fell, and the hand was cut off and fell to the ground, revealing a bloody cross-section.

Then, the hand quickly cracked open in front of the two, revealing deep red, almost brown cracks. Immediately afterwards, the cracks widened, and blood-red tentacles stretched out from the cracks. The twisted, waving tentacles easily killed the two in the elevator.

*

“What should we do? Are we going to leave now?” The cold in the elevator was getting heavier and heavier, and Ye Shengke couldn’t stop shaking. He felt his neck getting heavier and heavier, almost unbearable.

Chu Xiu nodded in agreement. “We can’t go out.”

Nie Yunzhen also clenched his heart.

“Speaking of which, I really don’t know what the other world is like. Hey, what do you think happened to that old man? Where did he go?” Nie Yunzhen said.

Shi Yan glared at him. “Don’t go looking for death again.”

Everyone here had been dealing with blood and corpses for a long time, so of course they could smell the stench of rotting corpses. It’s just that there was no evidence just now, so they didn’t say anything.

Nie Yunzhen’s mention made Shi Yan remember as well. She shook her head, deciding not to think about this doubt.

“Let’s talk about it when we get out. What’s the use of talking about it now?”

As soon as she finished speaking, the elevator door opened again. Outside the door, it was still dark, and the long corridor exuded an endless deep and evil aura.

Every time the elevator stopped, they remained silent, not looking or saying much. Only after the door closed would they continue to chat.

Shi Yan stood in front of Ye Shengke. She suddenly felt a little itchy on her neck. She looked back suspiciously and saw that Ye Shengke’s hands were resting properly and he hadn’t moved at all.

“Then what… touched my neck just now?”

Shi Yan’s light, trembling words echoed in the elevator. Instantly, the already cold space seemed to become even colder. Nie Yunzhen also panicked a little and stammered, “Don’t joke because of what I said just now, don’t deliberately scare me.”

Chu Xiu asked, “What kind of feeling?”

Shi Yan recalled, “It’s like… human hair.”

As soon as he said this, Shi Yan immediately widened her eyes and looked straight behind him. The other two did the same, gathering together in an instant, leaving Nie Yunzhen alone in the center of the elevator.

The elevator door “dinged” and opened.

Without saying anything, they all rushed out.