The most peculiar thing is that this land of death has an automatic clothing-changing function. Not only was Du Jun dressed in a dark brocade robe, but even Sun Han was changed into a refined scholar's attire.

The little girl looked down and realized that she was wearing a light yellow ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress), paired with embroidered shoes of the same color, and her hairstyle was a lively double bun.

Even so, pedestrians on the street still use mobile phones for communication and vehicles for transportation, just like in modern times.

Her gaze bypassed Du Jun and looked back, finally pursing her lips. The street scene behind her was completely unfamiliar, meaning that the apartment building and the shops on the ground floor were just a coincidence from a parallel dimension.

“These clothes and decorations are much more exquisite and gorgeous than those worn by the guides of the Abyss City!” Sun Han imitated the manner of a scholar, dusting off his sleeves.

Du Jun, who values ​​practicality more, frowned and said, "The hem is too long."

Cheng Shuang scratched her cheek and looked at the same convenience store as hers on the street. "Does this mean I can shop again?"

The two men's lips twitched, and they immediately suppressed the girl's terrifying thoughts. Du Jun cautiously said, "Let's find out the situation in this death zone first!"

"How do I check?" Sun Han subconsciously reached for his glasses, but unfortunately, the frames had vanished, so he could only touch the bridge of his nose instead.

"Go 500 meters east, past the main road, is that your elementary school?" Du Jun asked Cheng Shuang.

The little girl nodded and asked in return, "Going to school? Do you suspect it's a haunted school or something?"

Du Jun's eyes widened in surprise. He had only asked casually; he had never really considered a ghost school.

The three of them felt completely lost for the first time; the "new world emerging from the cocoon" described on the tickets was utterly baffling.

Skyscrapers stand side by side, and the world, from the fonts to the celebrities on billboards, is not much different from what they remember.

“The office building behind me is where I work.” Sun Han pointed behind him, his tone wistful. “My home is on the Fifth Ring Road, and my workplace is on the Third Ring Road. The traffic jams are so bad they make my scalp tingle.”

“I know, but that street should have been located east of the primary school.” As a college student with many holidays, Du Jun had plenty of free time to wander around with his classmates, so he knew the city’s street layout better than Cheng Shuang, who didn’t go out much, and Sun Han, whose work route was simple.

"Is this chaos meant to confuse our minds?" Sun Han sighed, noting that it wasn't just the little girl who missed her family and friends; the adults were also bound to have concerns about the real world, though they were better at hiding them. Occasionally, even old rivals from work would pop into his head, let alone his closest and dearest relatives like his parents and siblings.

"I really want to take a taxi home right now," he said with a wry smile.

Du Jun coldly poured cold water on the idea, saying, "Don't even think about it." He held up his phone to show Sun Han and Cheng Shuang, "It can't connect to the internet."

"Fine!" Sun Han shrugged; he was just saying it.

Seeing the somber atmosphere, the little girl innocently offered an example: "On the bright side, at least we're familiar with this place!"

The three of them couldn't really stay still. Sun Han's idea was that since the city landscapes were similar, they should go out of the city and take a look. They would eventually find a breakthrough. Their past experience told them that being passive would only lead to being beaten.

Following their memories, the three waited for the train at the station. The little girl chattered excitedly to Sun Han about the best places to eat nearby. Even a grilled sausage sold at a small window seemed like a delicacy to her, proving that memory can indeed beautify everything.

"The bus is here." Du Jun took Cheng Shuang's wrist. There were two or three people waiting for the bus at the station, but there was no guarantee that more people would get off. If it got too crowded and they got separated, it wouldn't be a good thing until they had a clue.

The little girl understood immediately and tugged at Sun Han's sleeve. After the passengers filed off the bus, the three of them boarded.

Du Jun tried to buy a ticket with real-world change, and the driver glanced at it but did not stop him.

As the vehicle started moving, Cheng Shuang, who had found a seat, swallowed hard, patted Du Jun and Sun Han, who were looking out the window, and pointed towards the front of the vehicle.

Because it is a bus heading to the suburbs, the vehicle is an air-conditioned bus, and a scrolling electronic screen and LCD display are installed on the front of the bus.

At this moment, five blood-red words appeared on the electronic screen: 'Bus Mini Copy'.

The three looked at each other in bewilderment, while the few other people in the car were dozing off in the back seat, seemingly unaware of anything amiss.

"Look at the monitor," Sun Han whispered a reminder.

Cheng Shuang looked up immediately and saw that the animated film playing on the monitor had turned into a long paragraph of text:

As dusk fell, Grandma went to pick up her granddaughter from school. As she passed the road in front of the school, she suddenly remembered that her granddaughter loved eating grilled sausages from the roadside vendors. She had promised her granddaughter that if she took her medicine properly, she would buy her a grilled sausage after school. When Grandma arrived at the school gate with the sausage in hand, she waited for her granddaughter for a long time, but the granddaughter did not come out of the school gate.

After reading this text, Du Jun and Sun Han both turned to look at Cheng Shuang. The school, the road, the grilled sausage, and the medicine—it was hard not to overthink things when these four things were connected.

The little girl quickly waved her hand, "My grandma isn't well, she's never picked me up from school!"

Then the text changed again: The grandmother anxiously found the teacher and checked the security camera footage at the gate. She saw her granddaughter waiting at the gate after leaving the school. When most of the students had left, a minibus pulled up in front of her. No one appeared inside; instead, they said something, and the granddaughter obediently got on. The sausage fell to the ground. The grandmother was both frightened and guilty. She thought that if she hadn't been delayed buying the sausage, her granddaughter wouldn't have gotten on the unfamiliar vehicle.

"Does this city have minibuses?" Sun Han wasn't from Beijing. He used to commute by subway when he first started working, and soon bought a car and a house through his own efforts. He had basically never taken a bus. In addition, he had been away from the real world for a while, so his memory was inevitably a little confused.

“If you’re talking about those minibuses you can just wave to get on, they still existed when I was a few years old, but they were later shut down.” Du Jun shook his head. “If we’re talking about a synchronized timeline, then no. But in this place, it’s hard to say.”

“Yes, there are minibuses.” Cheng Shuang’s eyes lit up. “The kindergarten uses minibuses to pick up and drop off the children. I’ve ridden one before.”

She looked at the monitor and, seeing that no new text appeared, continued, "If it were a kindergarten minibus, the grandmother's granddaughter might lower her guard. In a child's mind, a kindergarten vehicle is equivalent to a school bus. If the other party is someone she knows or a former teacher, it would be reasonable for her to get on the bus without warning."

This mature-sounding analysis made Sun Han pat her head and ask with amusement, "Do you think that child shouldn't have gotten on the bus so easily?"

"Isn't this common sense?" Cheng Shuang sniffed. "Teachers will teach, parents will remind, they'll keep telling you every day. Unless you forcibly take the child away, the child isn't stupid."

Then the text changed again: To find this little bus, Grandma traversed the city, working tirelessly from dawn till dusk, never giving up. Finally, she found the bus driver and the bus itself. She confronted the driver, demanding to know where he had taken her granddaughter. The driver didn't hide anything; he even took Grandma to find her granddaughter. However, Grandma ultimately couldn't reunite with her granddaughter.