Going back is impossible.
The novelist's hands trembled slightly as he gripped the thermos and gulped down two mouthfuls of tea. His swollen eyes choked, and he suddenly coughed violently for a long time before vomiting a mouthful of blood.
Dark red blood clots splattered on the pages of the book, and the novelist grew paler and more haggard at a visible speed.
"No...this is not the ending I wanted..." He pulled out a pen and frantically smeared the bloodstains on the pages of the book.
The pen tip scraped against the pages with a harsh sound, and finally snapped completely with a snap.
The ink slowly seeped out, gradually mixing with the blood.
The novelist lowered his wrist dejectedly: "Impossible... You can't just change the ending like this..."
He stared at Xiao Cheng with deep, unfathomable eyes, as if he had seen something unbelievable. His pupils suddenly contracted, and after a long silence, he burst into maniacal laughter: "It's it! Hahaha—! It's it!"
A muffled thud.
Xiao Cheng suddenly stood up, staring in astonishment at the spurting blood.
The novelist gripped the broken-pointed pen in reverse and shoved it forcefully into his throat, almost all the way in.
He was breathing heavily, like a bellows, his breath coming in labored gasps, sounding a bit like air leaking out.
His gaze quickly dimmed, but his eyes remained fixed on Xiao Cheng.
"You...you..."
He forced a smile, and bloody foam spilled from his mouth, trickling down his jaw.
"You can't do it..." The novelist's voice trailed off, until it was barely a whisper, like a random murmur from another world, "You can't change... fate..."
"What a load of bull, fate."
Xiao Cheng stared blankly at the corpse, showing no respect whatsoever for the deceased.
"So... it's over now?" Woman Number Two tightened her grip on Woman Number One's arm and asked in a low voice, still shaken.
But no one answered her.
"Number Six, what did he mean by his last words?" Fang He hesitated for a moment, but finally couldn't help asking, "What is it? What is this so-called destiny? Number Six, you..."
“I’m not number six.” Xiao Cheng interrupted him calmly, turning to look at him intently. “Congratulations, your dungeon is over. As for what happens next…”
"It's all up to me now."
As soon as the words were spoken, the entire hall seemed to shed its disguise, gradually transforming into the somewhat dilapidated state of the first instance.
A hazy white light emerged, gathering from all sides towards the center, enveloping the completely unaware Numbers 1, 2, and 3, and then vanished in an instant.
Only Fang He remained.
He sat on the sofa, his gaze passing through the hazy mist, tilting his head slightly to meet Xiao Cheng's eyes.
But he found that he seemed completely unable to see through her, or rather...
I never truly understood her.
"What are you going to do? If it's dangerous, I might be able to help. Let's cooperate. Since you already know this so-called other me, then..."
“No way.” Xiao Cheng shook her head and said in an unquestionable tone, “You’re not qualified yet, Fang He. It’s not the right time for us to get to know each other.”
The fog grew thicker, completely obscuring their vision. They could no longer see each other, and soon even their voices became faint.
"Can you still hear me?! Tell me, when will I see the other me?! Number Six?!"
Xiao Cheng did not answer.
She turned her head to look at the all-too-familiar elevator entrance that emerged from the thick fog.
In her "first scene" scenario, Fang He will emerge from there and then whisper intimately to himself—
"Cooperate with me, and we'll work together."
"Tsk, what kind of messy little thoughts are these?" She sighed softly, somewhat amused, but a smile involuntarily crept onto her lips.
As Fang He also emerged from the instance, the fog instantly dissipated. Xiao Cheng bent down to pick up the tattered book that had fallen at her feet, gently wiping away the dust and stains clinging to the cover.
There was no title. The cover featured a grotesque, enormous eyeball, half full and half shrunken and covered with crisscrossing blood vessels and nerves.
"So... this is the anchor point that was set up?"
Xiao Cheng let out a deep breath, using almost all her strength to turn the first page. Countless twisted tentacles instantly surged out, their enormous suction cups clinging to Xiao Cheng's arms and pulling her into the book.
A huge black vortex appeared out of nowhere, and Xiao Cheng did not resist, letting it swallow him up.
The feeling of suffocation gradually enveloped her. In the last second before losing consciousness, she saw the book being cut into pieces by countless blood-red light blades.
A dilapidated ruin.
It's almost impossible to find a single intact patch of ground.
Xiao Cheng was woken up by the stone. She woke up groggily and moved her body slightly to the side, but almost fell over.
She then realized that she was lying on the tip of a protruding rock, maintaining her balance in a delicate posture.
"Oh, you're awake?" A somewhat familiar voice came from not far away.
She turned her head in confusion and saw Fang He leaning lazily against the stone wall with his arms crossed, a slightly mischievous smile on his face.
"This is rare. I thought that after all the effort of bringing him back, he was just another hopeless dead man. He's pretty tough. Give me a straight answer, is it just a last flicker of life before death?"
Xiao Cheng: "..." This familiar tone is definitely Fang He himself.
"You don't recognize me?" She keenly noticed the unfamiliarity in Fang He's eyes. "What kind of instance is this? Besides you and me, how many other players are still alive?"
"I don't know if you're playing dumb, but I have some good news for you, stranger." Fang He chuckled ambiguously, scrutinizing Xiao Cheng from head to toe. "There won't be any more dungeons, not even a single one."
Xiao Cheng was surprised by the answer. After a couple of seconds of stunned silence, she braced herself with one hand and nimbly flipped off the rock, arriving in front of Fang He in the blink of an eye.
"What do you mean?" she pressed. "What do you mean there won't be any more instances?"
Fang He was briefly stunned by her skills, but quickly regained his composure: "The literal meaning is that the rescue operation has completely failed, and the fragmented world has been completely destroyed... Strictly speaking, it's not completely destroyed, after all, there are still two of us alive, and..."
He pulled a shriveled eyeball, about the size of a glass bead, from his tattered pocket.
"System mainframe?!" Xiao Cheng's mind was in complete turmoil.
This is completely different from what she believed.
What is this? Why is the system's mainframe dying? Is it the hard-won memories deceiving me, is the anchor point set incorrectly, or...?
This is a completely opposite world line.
This belongs to Fang He's worldline.
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