The surrounding streets all looked identical; it made no difference which way they went. Qiao Ran still let Qi Yang pick a place—whenever he was with Qi Yang, he seemed to instinctively let the other person make the choices.

Qi Yang glanced left and right; the left and right here only meant where they were standing. There was no sun in the sky, no landmarks to tell them east from south. Qi Yang turned to the right—he personally preferred the right side.

Qiao Ran had no objections and followed behind Qi Yang.

Fu Mingnan stood in the middle of the road, watching the two walk away. The cold line of his mouth, previously pressed tight, suddenly curved into a faint, silent smile.

They stepped onto the road on the right and walked toward its end. When the two reached the terminus and were about to move forward or turn left or right, the path before them abruptly vanished, disappearing right in front of Qi Yang and Qiao Ran. In its place stood a wall and an open door.

The scene beyond the door was oddly identical to the surroundings, as if a mirror had been flipped.

“Want to go in?” Qiao Ran turned to look at Qi Yang.

Qi Yang didn’t speak; he walked straight through the door.

The hint was that obvious—if he didn’t go in, that would be the only way anything could go wrong.

The dangers in this game could no longer threaten Qi Yang, so he didn’t care at all about what lay ahead. Everything here was different from the real world; Qi Yang learned to change his mood and face it with the mindset of playing a game.

Qiao Ran watched Qi Yang’s composed, calm expression, as if nothing mattered at all—such an attitude was truly admirable.

With Qi Yang’s cleverness, Qiao Ran knew Qi Yang certainly understood that the Overseer had designs on him, and he probably made good use of that fact.

Being favored by the Overseer was equivalent to holding a get-out-of-death-free card in the game; most people would likely be envious if it happened to someone else.

But thinking it through, the Overseer wasn’t human, and they probably wanted Qi Yang to stay in this place rather than leave immediately after clearing the level. If Qi Yang became one of the spirits, Qiao Ran found himself oddly looking forward to that unexpected turn.

Qiao Ran was followed immediately by Qi Yang; the two walked side by side, but after only a short distance the same scene reappeared—the same wall, the same door, it even seemed utterly unchanged, as if it were the very wall from before.

“If we keep going like this, we might walk ourselves to death,” Qiao Ran said.

Qi Yang naturally agreed with Qiao Ran; continuing like this clearly wasn’t feasible, something had to change.

As for what had changed, Qi Yang soon gave the answer: he stepped one foot through the doorway, paused, then turned and stepped back in

Come.

Qiao Ran watched Qi Yang come in and out puzzledly; he smiled and asked if Qi Yang felt dizzy from walking too long.

Qi Yangchen stared intently at Qiao Ran. As soon as Qiao Ran finished speaking, he reached out his hand toward him.

But what happened next made Qiao Ran’s eyes widen slightly, because he saw Qi Yang’s hand pass straight through his body.

“This…” Qiao Ran was surprised and astonished.

Following that was another matter: Qiao Ran’s voice was suddenly cut off and could no longer reach Qi Yang.

Qi Yang read Qiao Ran’s lips and said, “The space is misaligned.”

Qiao Ran stared at Qi Yang’s mouth and, by guessing, roughly figured out a little.

Qiao Ran walked into the room, turned his head back the way Qi Yang had just done.

But when he returned, the space he was in was different again—the third space, not the second space where Qi Yang stood.

“Let’s go out.” Qi Yang said to Qiao Ran. Their voices couldn’t carry through, nor could they communicate, so there was no point in staying any longer.

Qi Yang turned and hurried away. Qiao Ran watched his receding figure from behind and let out a laugh.

Although Qi Yang could no longer hear or see him, Qiao Ran still replied once: “See you.”

After parting with Qiao Ran, Qi Yang walked alone down the empty street. Another wall appeared, but this time the door was closed. Qi Yang went up and pushed it open; inside was no longer a mirrored street, but a dessert shop.

The shop displayed many exquisite pastries; at a glance it seemed no different from the world outside, except that there were no customers.

There were quite a few waiters.

Someone saw Qi Yang arrive and immediately greeted him warmly, leading him to a seat by the window and then asking him what he would like to drink.

Qi Yang had no money on him, but knowing the spirits here treated him differently than the other players, he didn’t hesitate. He ordered a cup of hot water and even asked if they had any new pastries — if so, bring two.

The clerk’s smile bloomed like a flower as he said they had it, and asked Qi Yang to wait a moment while he went to prepare it.

Qi Yang turned his head to look out the window; the street was still deserted, which made him realize that this shop was also part of the game, and the staff here were, of course, ghosts.

Suddenly Qi Yang’s gaze sharpened; he realized that a line of sight seemed to be fixed on him. He didn’t try to locate where it came from, because he had a hunch that that gaze might belong to someone—or to some kind of ghost.

Qi Yang had actually always been rather strange; that supervisor called Fu Mingnan seemed to treat him unusually. The way he looked at him was similar to how he looked at another player—both of their names contained the character “Nan.” Qi Yang had suspected it before,

but at that time he dismissed the thought, because he couldn’t believe such a coincidence could exist in this world.

But suddenly Qi Yang began to think, who says coincidences can’t happen? If the other side knew his identity from the start, or if his coming to this game was orchestrated by them, then many things could be explained.

And in the game he had just played, the piece of information he received was that he had come because he wanted to get rid of the child in his belly—that he wanted to kill this little life.

The game knows of his intention — or rather, Fu Mingnan knows of his intention; if Fu Mingnan and Nan Sheng are the same person, that would mean Nan Sheng knows as well.

So Nan Sheng was always so cautious and particularly attentive toward him, worried he might get tired walking, worried he might get hurt.

Qi Yang rubbed his fingers lightly. He had always thought himself clever, but now he realized he had been a bit too arrogant—kept completely in the dark like this. When Nan Sheng didn’t come up from the underground passage to the island, Qi Yang had even been sad for a short while; it turned out that had all been a lie.

Once he figured certain things out, the parts that had puzzled Qi Yang in the past suddenly became clear, so the reason these ghosts treated him with such respect was probably because they had been instructed to do so by Fu Mingnan, the overseer.

The Overseer?

Qi Yang thought of another thing: at the blood pool when this game began, Qiao Ran had once said he was seeing the Supervisor for the first time. Qiao Ran had cleared the game multiple times—how many exactly Qi Yang didn’t know—but it was clear it wasn’t just five or six times.

Why did the Supervisor never appear before but suddenly show up now—because of him?

Qi Yang wondered when he had become so irresistible.

But from another angle, the Supervisor knew he was pregnant and knew he wanted to terminate the pregnancy. The Supervisor pulled him into this game; as another father to the child, the Supervisor wanted the baby, which is why he came to focus on him?

The more Qí Yáng thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

Then why does Nan Sheng exist?

Qi Yang lowered his eyes. The waiter brought the water and pastries over; seeing that Qi Yang seemed lost in thought, he moved gently, afraid of disturbing him.

Qi Yang’s peripheral vision caught the waiter’s respectful, cautious manner; he looked up at the waiter.

“Who told you to do this?” Qi Yang asked.

The waiter looked puzzled: “What?”

“Who told you to be so respectful to a player of that kind? Don’t tell me there isn’t such a person.” Qi Yang smiled, the smile carrying a threat.

The waiter couldn’t control his expression, He took a step back, and when he saw the expression on Qi Yang’s face that seemed to see through everything, he hurriedly shook his head to deny it: “No, there really isn’t such a person. As long as someone comes into our shop as a customer, we treat them with this level of respect.”

Qi Yang expected the waiter wouldn’t say anything, and he didn’t intend to squeeze any information out of him anyway. In fact, from the waiter’s surprised expression, Qi Yang had already gotten his answer.

“Then I was overthinking it. I thought there was something special about me, that I was different from the other players, but apparently not.” Qi Yang explained casually.

The waiter, suspecting nothing, turned and left.

Sitting in the shop, Qi Yang ate two small cakes and drank half a glass of water. His energy was mostly restored; it was time to find the exit to Sifang Street.

When he stepped outside a gust of wind blew, and Qi Yang felt a slight chill. A smile lingered at the corner of his mouth, faint yet persistent, as if it had always been there.

The exit was easy to find. Qi Yang walked only two blocks and effortlessly saw the exit—more precisely, he saw the Overseer standing at the exit.

Qi Yang walked straight up; having deduced a few things, the way he looked at the Supervisor was already somewhat different from before.

Fu Mingnan had been distracted by something earlier and hadn’t continued watching Qi Yang, so he didn’t know what had happened in the dessert shop, and he didn’t know that the person in front of him had already noticed some of the things he was hiding.

Qi Yang stopped in front of Fu Mingnan; they were very close, but Qi Yang still didn’t halt. Fu Mingnan thought Qi Yang was about to ignore him and intended to stop him from moving forward, but in the next moment Qi Yang suddenly leaned in and kissed him on the lips.

The sudden kiss left Fu Mingnan stunned—this development was entirely unexpected; he could never have imagined Qi Yang would kiss him so abruptly.

Qi Yang stepped back and stood in front of Fu Mingnan. Seeing the surprised expression on the man’s face, though it was quickly controlled, Qi Yang still knew that this ghost had considerable influence over him.

“See you in the next round!” Qi Yang said with a smile. He walked up to Fu Mingnan, patted the man’s shoulder with his hand, and spoke in a soft, gentle voice.

Fu Mingnan twisted his head to look into Qi Yang’s eyes. A light flickered in Qi Yang’s gaze—something had slipped out of his control. Fu Mingnan grabbed Qi Yang’s hand.

“Did you find out?” Before Fu Mingnan could ask, Qi Yang cut him off.

Fu Mingnan frowned, saying nothing.

Qi Yang didn’t speak either; he simply placed his hand on his abdomen.

Fu Mingnan immediately fixed his gaze on Qi Yang’s hand; in that moment his expression said more than words ever could.

“But what does that have to do with you? Kid

Ziyou isn’t yours.” Qi Yang said deliberately, watching Fu Mingnan’s eyes flicker slightly.

“And I don’t want this child; if I get the chance, I’ll have it aborted.”

“Do you have some kind of weird fetish, like enjoying making other people accidental fathers?”

Qi Yang’s expression was innocent, but his tone was sarcastic.

Fu Mingnan’s mouth was tightly pressed; he wanted to say the child was his, but Qi Yang’s next sentence dispelled that thought.

“I don’t like being lied to. Once might be forgivable—I would give you a chance to correct it. Twice or three times, then you can get lost.” A ruthless edge surfaced in Qi Yang’s eyes.

Breaking free from Fu Mingnan’s hand, Qi Yang turned and walked away without looking back. As for how burning the man’s gaze was behind him, that had nothing to do with Qi Yang—after all, the other had lied to him.

I’ve deceived him for so long; he ought to deceive me back—only then will things be settled between us.