Chapter 386 |
Fang Qi stared intently at the pitch-black void!
His hands were shaking!
Not because he was afraid.
He wasn’t even afraid of death!
It was shock—a jolt straight to the crown of his skull!
Space distortion? Matter being digitized into code and vanishing into thin air?
This wasn’t just some high-tech trick!
The world’s foundational rules were being pried open by something!
And this world, it was indeed…!
His voice was painfully hoarse.
“Did you… see that?”
The silver-haired girl didn’t answer. She gripped Fang Qi’s hand tightly!
In her amber pupils, a faint blue light flickered wildly at an unprecedented frequency!
Her gaze darted rapidly across the room!
Those hovering strands of blue code in the air…!
That twisting patch of space…!
That corner of the table—cleanly missing a chunk, with not a single shard of debris left behind!
Fang Qi could even see the faint blue glow seeping through the protective skin at the nape of her neck!
Her core was running at full power, light spilling from the interface!
Then—
“Master!”
She yanked Fang Qi’s wrist!
“We have to go now!!”
“Stay away from her!!! She is…!!!”
Fang Qi barely had time to react before his feet left the ground again!
Silver hair whipped past his eyes as she became a flash of pale purple lightning, charging toward the doorway!
Fang Qi heard the air tear with a sharp whistle!
In an instant, they reached the door!
Liguang pulled him along and stepped out!
Just as he was being dragged across the threshold—
A flash of blue.
His world turned blue in that moment.
An endless blue.
Countless strands of blue code shot through his vision!
Overwhelming!
Thick like rain!
Like an enormous net, closing in from all sides to trap him!
“Tap.”
Liguang’s toes touched the metal floor.
Fang Qi’s feet also found solid ground again.
But they weren’t in the hallway of Basement Level 2.
No, ahead was—
That metal chair.
The policewoman, tied up tightly in that chair, reappeared just one meter in front of them.
The woman’s light brown eyes were streaming blue data endlessly…
She stared at them faintly.
Fang Qi’s mind went blank for a moment.
Huh?
They were… back?
They had rushed out the door…
And then wound up back in the center of the room, right in front of Gu Xi?
He stood frozen.
Staring at Gu Xi, still bound to the chair, surrounded by floating blue code.
Liguang’s amber pupils flashed with sudden intensity!
She clenched Fang Qi’s wrist even tighter!
Fang Qi could feel his wrist bones creaking!
But Liguang didn’t pull him away again.
She just stared straight at Gu Xi!
Beneath those amber pupils, blue data streams rolled wildly!
The floating blue code continued spinning around them!
And ahead—
That blue glow kept spilling from Gu Xi’s eyes!
Drifting into every corner of the room!
Flowing silently, spinning silently…
It touched the metal cabinet against the wall—
In an instant, the cabinet door dissolved into data streams, leaving only a neat black hole!
It touched the ceiling light strip—
A corner of the strip vanished without a trace, along with a patch of ceiling, turning into a void!
The whole room was being “eaten away” by these blue data streams, bit by bit!
Fang Qi’s grip tightened on Liguang’s hand!
He noticed something.
The blue code floating in the air deliberately avoided him and Liguang.
When it got close, it seemed to hit an invisible barrier, veering slightly and bypassing them.
The code that was devouring the desk corner, the cabinet door, the ceiling…
Not a single strand touched their bodies!
They merely swirled around them…
Rising and falling.
Like a blue galaxy.
He could feel sweat in his palms!
But Liguang’s cool little hand held his steadily.
That cool touch was the only anchor he had left.
In this space being unraveled by code…
It seemed her hand was the only real thing that remained!
Fang Qi took a deep breath…
Then twisted his head sharply to look at the woman tied to the chair!
“Gu Xi!”
He stared her down.
“What the hell is going on?!”
Gu Xi sat motionless.
The ropes were still cinched tight, holding her fast to the metal chairback.
Her black hair was stained by the blue code flitting everywhere, taking on a surreal fluorescent tint.
The code flowing from her eyes merely orbited her, not “freeing her” at all.
As for the rich expressions on her face—
The stubbornness, anger, mockery, and pleading that had been so vivid moments ago…
They were all gone now.
As if they’d been wiped clean.
Like that corner of the table touched by the code.
Her brows were no longer furrowed.
Her jaw was no longer clenched.
The stiff, odd curve of her lips was gone.
Her face was becoming a blank slate.
And her eyes…
Those light brown eyes, once so full of emotion…
As the blue data stream poured out, they grew increasingly hollow!
The hollow look of a soul being fully drained!
A puppet!
A ghost!
“You…!”
Fang Qi stared at those fading eyes, opened his mouth…
“I…!”
But found he had no idea what to say!
His mind had never been more chaotic!
Space distortion, code overflow, matter dissolving, rushing out the door only to end up back where they started…
No, wait…?
What was all this?!
None of it fit into his understanding!
What was this?!
He was just a visual novel player!
His expertise was dying in the face of yandere girls!
Not cracking the world’s foundational code!
This stuff…
He couldn’t even comprehend it!
What was he supposed to do now?!
What about…?!
Liguang? Did she understand the situation now?
And what about her—the genius girl? Lin Xiaoyou?
What were you even doing…?!
And before him, Gu Xi was still looking at him.
Through the gaps in the floating blue code, in the depths of her increasingly hollow brown pupils…
The last bit of focus still lingered in her gaze.
Now it settled on Fang Qi’s face.
Then she smiled.
A cold smile.
Like a program still running, forcing out a final signal before the system shuts down completely.
“Fang Qi…”
She murmured.
Her voice was perfectly calm.
“You’re always like this.”
“Forcing forward no matter what…”
…?
Fang Qi held Liguang’s hand tightly, his eyes locked on her.
Her lashes dipped faintly, then lifted slowly.
From her eyes, the blue data stream still poured, mingling with the floating code, casting her face in flickering light and shadow.
“Trapping us all…”
Her voice hitched.
In that pause, something…
had vanished from her voice.
Some subtle inflection. Some vocal quality that belonged to the woman named "Gu Xi."
After that hesitation, it seemed impossible to find again.
“… left behind.”
Her tone was flat as still water.
Fang Qi opened his mouth.
… What was she saying?
He didn’t know.
But he knew…
Her emotions were fading, being erased.
This woman who had once raged, begged, and mocked—now, bit by bit, the streams of deep-blue code pouring from her eyes were…
Draining away all her feelings.
“You—!”
Fang Qi’s voice was hoarse.
He clutched Liguang’s hand tightly, staring at the woman before him, who was being enveloped by the cascading data and losing every trace of expression.
“What the hell…”
“What do you have to do with me?!”
His voice boomed, echoing in the cramped metal room.
Gu Xi said nothing. She only looked at him quietly.
The deep-blue data streams continued to flow from the corners of her eyes like two glowing teardrops, silently tracing down her cheeks…
Then dispersing into the surrounding air.
Beside him, the silver-haired girl remained taut.
Her gaze swept back and forth between Fang Qi and Gu Xi.
The same deep blue flickered wildly in her amber pupils.
Her crimson pupils also flashed.
Her lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something…
But she pressed them shut again.
Finally, she squeezed tightly—and dug her fingers hard into Fang Qi’s hand.
… It hurt.
Fang Qi snapped back to clarity for a moment.
Gu Xi spoke again:
“In the last loop, my final reminder to you…”
Fang Qi: “…?!”
What…?
“I deliberately stood on your opposing side…”
Gu Xi’s voice continued, flat and calm.
“…but I still drew the ‘Rules’ attention to myself.”
Fang Qi’s pupils shrank.
Rules…!
She really knew a lot. She really…
… Wait.
Did she just say…
“the last loop”?
…?!
Fang Qi felt his blood freeze in an instant.
She hadn’t said “dream”—the word they used to fool the world’s rules.
She had just said, outright, in front of Liguang, a word that shouldn’t be known to her.
He could feel Liguang’s slightly cool hand stiffen sharply in his grip.
He clenched her hand with all his might.
Her small hand bent under the pressure of his force.
But he almost… didn’t dare to turn and look at her.
… Damn it!!
Her eyes were the eyes of the world!
This world would reject memories that shouldn’t exist.
And now Gu Xi had mentioned “the last loop” right in front of Liguang.
That word, meant to exist only in the unspoken guise of their pretending—a word that, once spoken, could be erased from memory by the world’s rules.
Would Liguang forget?
Would she lose all the memories of the island, the apartment, the eighty-two cycles of dawn, the countless days and nights they walked side by side…
… Everything?
No—!!
His vision blurred red.
He glared at Gu Xi.
“You—!!”
You did this on purpose…!!
“Buzz—!”
A scarlet glow suddenly exploded beside him.
Beside him, the silver-haired girl extended a beam of crimson from her fingertip.
The edge of the light rippled in the scorching air, aimed directly at Gu Xi, who was bound to the chair.
Her crimson pupils flared.
In that instant, the fierce scarlet glow even overpowered the deep blue in the room,
dyeing half the metal walls blood-red.
Liguang’s lips trembled violently.
The tip of her laser blade quivered in the air.
And in her amber left eye, deep-blue data surged out of control, wildly thrashing.
“…!!”
She couldn’t form a complete sentence.
She was terrified.
She wasn’t afraid of the codes dissolving the space—she was afraid of loss.
Afraid of losing the memories she had fought so hard to keep: the paths she had walked with her master, the every precious second she cherished.
Under the gaze of the “world’s rules,” they would be wiped clean.
Just like… the emotions of this woman before her?
“Heh.”
Gu Xi laughed again, a very faint sound.
The last trace of expression still lingered on her face—an extremely shallow curve at the corner of her mouth.
It was a kind of bittersweetness, hard to describe.
Or perhaps… a kind of relieved acknowledgment.
“Don’t worry.”
Her tone remained utterly flat.
“Right now, this place…”
She lifted her head slightly, her near-empty light-brown eyes looking toward the floating deep-blue codes around them and this distorted space.
“…is already an isolated island that the ‘Rules’ cannot probe.”
Fang Qi’s pupils quivered violently.
… The Rules cannot probe?
He caught his breath…
Then slowly exhaled.
… Damn.
Ah, so she’s an ally…
He had almost…
Almost acted again…!
“So don’t worry.”
Gu Xi looked back at him.
Her eyes were now mostly hollow, but still held the last shred of focus.
Throughout the room, the deep-blue data streams rose and fell in a steady rhythm,
surrounding Fang Qi and Liguang.
“And besides…”
Her lips moved slightly, as if unsure what tone to use. Finally…
She simply spoke the words very flatly:
“This method… was taught to us by you.”
…?
“This ‘authority’ that we shouldn’t have had…”
Gu Xi’s voice grew flatter.
In her mostly hollow, light-brown eyes, there was still a final, faint trace of—
Tenderness?
“…was you, Fang Qi…”
The corner of her mouth twitched slightly.
“…You, the one from beyond this world, stole it from the ‘Rules’…”
“For us.”
