Chapter 389 |
Fang Qi knelt on that fragment of floor, suspended alone in the pitch-black nothingness, burying his face in the silver hair splayed out before him.
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
The sweet strawberry scent still lingered.
That familiar fragrance gradually pulled him back from the chaotic frenzy of the code storm he had just endured.
His hands were still trembling slightly, but his mind had begun to work again.
The silence around him was deafening.
All he could hear was his own breathing and heartbeat—crystal clear.
In his arms, the silver-haired girl’s lips still held that final, reassuring curve.
...She was only sleeping.
Fang Qi raised his head once more and looked around.
Blackness.
Profound.
An expanse of nothing.
He felt as though he had been cast into a void of the cosmos, without stars.
All around him, even light had been devoured completely.
The things that once formed the room—metal walls, steel structures, lamps, instruments—
All of them were gone.
They had been eaten away, bit by bit, by the deep-blue code surging from Gu Xi’s eyes.
Now, only two islands remained in this void.
On one knelt Fang Qi, holding the sleeping Liguang.
On the other sat Gu Xi, bound and slumped like a puppet, her head hanging low.
Fang Qi’s gaze drifted slowly through the blackness, his mind hazy.
So this...
Was this the bottom layer of the world?
Earlier, he had walked through scenes that seemed real—scenes that could be rewound and replayed endlessly.
He had even seen many things...
Places that looked far too much like the world he originally came from.
He had even wondered if he was from this world!
He had also wondered...
Whether this world was reality!
At least, some kind of reality!
But now, the answer seemed to be right before his eyes.
Sitting in this space stripped of its material shell, gazing down at the dark abyss just beneath his feet...
This place was definitely not his real world.
This, he realized, was most likely that "game world"!
Everything was made of code!
Tables, chairs, walls, lights, even human skin and the beating of hearts—
All woven from zeros and ones!
And now, Gu Xi’s deep-blue code had peeled away every layer, one by one!
It had exposed the very foundation, the skeleton of it all—
That is...
The darkness before him.
Fang Qi looked down at the abyss below, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
He held Liguang tightly in his arms, freeing one hand to...
Tear off his own jacket, which had already been eaten through in several places by the code.
"Rip—"
The sound of tearing fabric was especially harsh in the dead silence.
He held the jacket in his hand, his fingers gripping its edge lightly. Then...
He cautiously lowered it toward the abyss below.
Slowly dipping one corner of the jacket into the blackness.
...There was no sound.
The part that entered the darkness vanished as if swallowed by water, sinking in.
But there were no ripples, no waves—it simply...
Silently disappeared from sight.
Fang Qi squinted, then slowly lifted the jacket back up.
And then his pupils abruptly contracted!
Because the section of fabric that had entered the darkness...
Was gone!
Vanished!
All that remained was a perfectly smooth cut!
No frayed edges, no scorch marks—as if it had been severed at the molecular level!
Only...
Upon closer inspection, tiny specks of light were peeling away from the cut, flickering, then dissipating.
They were deep-blue code fragments!
They scattered in the air, flickered a few times, and then vanished completely!
Fang Qi held Liguang tighter in his arms and retreated half a step deeper into the center of this "lonely island."
Just as he thought…!
This pitch-black darkness could not be touched!
This dark void worked the same way as the blue code surging from Gu Xi’s eyes—
Touch it, and matter would dissolve into code!
He looked down at the silver-haired girl's peaceful sleeping face in his arms…
A wave of lingering terror shot up his spine.
Thank goodness…
Thank goodness he had pulled her back just now, preventing her from falling into the "abyss."
“…Thank goodness…”
He whispered softly, burying his face once more in Liguang’s hair.
That scent of strawberry sweetness gradually suppressed the surging dread.
Then he lifted his head and looked at the small island ten meters away—
The same island suspended alone in the void.
Gu Xi still sat quietly on the metal chair.
Her hands were bound behind the chair back, her disheveled black hair covering most of her face.
She lowered her head, staring emptily beyond the edge of the floor, into the bottomless darkness. Her eyes were like lamps whose wicks had been pulled out.
Looking at those eyes, Fang Qi felt something heavy pressing on his chest.
Gu Xi.
She had offered up her soul.
…What had she come here to do?
To stop him from opening that door.
To help him complete what she called—his "plan of entering the game himself."
So she had led people in, raised a gun in threat, and after being captured, triggered the "blue code."
Using her own "soul" as the price, she created this island beyond the rule’s detection.
Then, everything she could say—and what she couldn’t—
She had crammed it all into him!
But now, she had paid a terrible price.
She had become a numb, hollow puppet, stripped of all emotion.
Officer… you really were on our side.
Fang Qi’s vision trembled.
So…
Could she ever recover?
After he went back, after he reset the world…
Could she, too, recover?
Fang Qi hugged Liguang closer to his chest, letting her cheek rest more securely against him.
Perhaps not.
Because she had said—
"Last cycle."
She knew everything.
She knew about the rewind, about the rules, about how he would "reset" this world.
But even knowing all this, she had also said—
—“I… am going to become like them too.”
—“This is… the last time I can help you.”
Fang Qi’s breath trembled, his lips pressed tightly together.
So…
She might never recover.
She had come here with that resolve.
She knew this was the last time, that this sacrifice would be irreversible even with the rewind—so
That was why she said it was "the last time."
Even if he rewound, she would be just like the ghosts she had brought through the door—
Hollow, numb, expressionless.
Like that young Lin Zhouyuan, whose eye he had shot out without so much as a frown.
Fang Qi was silent for a long time, so long that the deathly stillness seemed to congeal.
Then—
“Thank you.”
He spoke softly to the puppet on that lonely island.
“Gu Xi.”
“Officer.”
“Matchmaker.”
“Ghost.”
“And… senior.”
His voice was faint, hoarse.
“Goodnight.”
Thank you for telling me all this.
But…
Was it worth it?
He really wanted to ask.
Gu Xi, for what reason did you sacrifice your "soul"?
A plan... that even he himself doesn’t remember?
And even...
Whether the “little Qi” from childhood was really him, he still can’t be fully sure!
For a reason he knows absolutely nothing about...
This beautiful female police officer—who once glared at him with red-rimmed eyes and would blush and curse when called his “childhood crush”—had turned herself into this?
She had her identity as a police officer.
She had her best friend, An Lian.
She had her own vibrant, living life.
But now, all of that—along with the blue code code glimmering in her eyes—had faded away.
Fang Qi buried his face in Liguang’s silver hair.
What would she become?
A hollow shell unfit for her role as an officer.
She would...
...Wait.
Officer?
Fang Qi’s breath caught for a moment.
Hold on?
Gu Xi was a police officer—that had always been certain!
And police officers are people of the authorities!
The authorities... hell, they’re the masterminds behind the Second Mechanical Crisis and the founding of Twilight!
But Gu Xi, as a police officer, was helping him?
Acting almost like one of his... “former subordinates”?
She had even been willing to sacrifice her own “soul” for him!
...Then what about the police department?
And the authorities?
What the hell are they...?!
“...!”
Fang Qi shook his head vigorously!
No!
Now wasn’t the time to think about all this!
These mysteries could be solved later!
If worse came to worst, he’d storm into the police station and demand answers!
But right now...!
He lifted his head and looked around at the void surrounding them.
He had to...!
He had to...
“So...” he murmured.
“Right now...”
“How do I get out of here?”
Everything around him was nothingness.
Silent nothingness.
No one answered him.
He tightened his arms around the silver-haired girl in his embrace, pressing his lips together.
No matter what...
He had to find a way out!
He had to bring Liguang out of this void, safely!
He took a deep breath...
His gaze sharpened!
He began to carefully examine his surroundings.
Then he realized something...
Although this space had been consumed by the code, leaving only nothingness...
The boundaries were still there!
Only the walls, ceiling, and floor had been completely devoured.
All that remained was a pitch-black void, replacing the room’s edges, wrapping around them.
And the relative positions of the islands of floor beneath him and beneath Gu Xi...
Everything matched his memory of that room.
This was still that very room—just transformed beyond recognition.
Fang Qi once again pressed his face into Liguang’s silver hair, inhaling deeply!
The sweet scent of strawberries!
It smelled great!
It cleared his mind!
Now that Liguang had no power left, it was his turn—his wild woman—for him to protect her!
He lifted his head again and looked toward Gu Xi, ten meters away.
Yeah.
...Gu Xi wouldn’t harm him.
She had proven that by sacrificing herself!
So... if all she had wanted was to stop him from opening the gene door, she must have also left him a way out!
Could it be...?
He recalled how, just moments ago, when he had roared, “All of you, go back!” the code had actually obeyed him!
It had surged back into Gu Xi’s body!
It seemed he possessed some kind of “authority” himself!
But right now, he didn’t have that strange feeling anymore.
Still, he had to give it a try.
So he opened his mouth:
“Room, change back!”
...Nothing happened.
“Go back to how it was before!”
“Bring back the door!”
“Let me out!”
His voice was swallowed by the surrounding darkness, producing no echo, no reaction, no change at all.
The entire space remained as silent and lifeless as ever.
Fang Qi: “…”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
He felt like he had just acted strangely foolish…
Tsk. It seemed he had overthought things.
He had assumed that with a single shout, he could make a cool exit.
Since he couldn’t leave in style, the only option left was…
Fang Qi pressed his lips together.
…Only to commit suicide and reload, right?
Gu Xi knew he had the ability to reload.
Just now, she had said “last playthrough,” which proved she understood reloading deeply!
So, maybe when she designed this plan…
She had intended for him to use “reloading” to escape?
The world rewound.
He and Liguang would return to the morning of the ninth day, back to that cup of 52-degree archived tea.
The simplest method was self-harm.
Breaking one of his own fingers, causing irreversible damage…
Then reloading.
But, no!
That would just be an ordinary reload, and Liguang wouldn’t retain the memories of this playthrough!
He had said…
He wanted to protect Liguang’s memories!
He wouldn’t let Liguang lose the memories of any playthrough!
He wouldn’t let her forget any stretch of road they had walked together!
The morning they walked side by side!
The silence of holding hands in the corridor!
The curve of her lips when he kissed her!
The bloody fights where she shielded him behind her!
None of these were allowed to be erased by the world’s rules!
What’s more, even from a rational perspective…
The memories of this playthrough were incredibly important for him and Liguang!
So…
Fang Qi looked down at the pitch-black abyss so close at his feet.
Now, if he took just one step forward, he would be entirely swallowed by that darkness.
Just like the half of his coat before—silently, without a sound, dissolving into scattered data streams, leaving not even a trace behind.
But…
No!
Fang Qi narrowed his eyes.
He had never felt his mind so sharp!
Liguang had said before that if he were killed by the blue code, he would never be able to “wake up” again!
He wouldn’t be able to trigger the reload mechanism!
He wasn’t sure how Liguang knew that, but he trusted his wife!
As for why he couldn’t reload…
He had his own guess!
He glanced at his coat, now only half remaining; faint “blue code” fragments were still falling from the cut edge.
This world…
Was probably a digital realm woven from code!
Everything was made of 0s and 1s.
Tables were code, walls were code, Liguang’s silver hair was code, and the little plastic star on her earlobe—also code!
So…
If the code dispersed, that would be like…
Being erased from the very foundation?
Like…
Directly deleting the underlying source file!
Thus, even the reload mechanism wouldn’t be able to recover it.
Because it was completely deleted! The reload mechanism couldn’t find it!
It simply ceased to exist!
He had just verified it himself…
This pitch-black abyss could also dissolve his coat into code debris!
So, the abyss’s effect was the same as those blue codes!
He didn’t know if his guess was a hundred percent certain, but he dared not gamble.
If he guessed wrong…
He would be holding Liguang as they both truly died!
Both of them would be utterly erased from the world’s foundation!
They could never return to the morning’s save point, never drink that cup of 52-degree tea again…
She might disappear forever, forever from this world!
Just like that...
corner of the table touched by the code.
Fang Qi moved a little closer to the center of the island, holding the silver-haired girl in his arms more tightly.
He realized that he was actually very afraid of death.
Afraid of true death.
Afraid of consciousness sinking into nothingness.
Afraid of...
no longer being with his crazy wife.
Very afraid.
Afraid, so afraid.
