Everyone looked at Qi Yang with some surprise; only Nan Sheng’s expression showed indulgence.

The Overseer looked at him gently; he turned and pointed toward the yacht moored along the shore. “Lunch is already prepared, it’s on board.”

He meant for someone to go up to the yacht and bring the lunch down.

Qi Yang naturally wouldn’t go. He glanced at Nan Sheng, who immediately understood him. Nan Sheng went up and brought down three packed meals; one of them was very different from the others, exceptionally nutritious and plentiful.

But there were five people here, so obviously two portions were missing. The extra portion Nan Sheng had was given to Kang Lian by Qi Yang; Kang Lian thanked him gratefully.

As for the other two portions, Yang Jiang glanced at Yi Xinming’s half-bandaged face but didn’t ask him. He turned and walked toward the yacht, telling himself as he went that nothing in the sea would crawl out—there absolutely wouldn’t be any trouble.

Climbing onto the yacht indeed produced no immediate incident; Yang Jiang grabbed the two meals and didn’t linger for a second, immediately turning to leave. But just at the moment he turned, things began to appear in the rippling water—dark shapes rose up from the sea one after another.

Yang Jiang’s heart nearly leaped into his throat. He clutched the food, trembling with anxiety, made a small jump onto the yacht, stumbled, then quickly got back up and ran toward Qi Yang and the others.

The monsters in the water rose to the surface without a sound, surrounding the yacht in a tight ring; some of the rotting corpses still dripped water as they crawled onto the beach.

The ones crawling on land didn’t seem to move as fast as those in the water. The group grabbed their lunches and quickly returned to the island’s forest.

They didn’t head deep into the woods, only went a few meters in, and found a clean rock in a spot where they could still see the beach and the sea. They sat around the stone to eat lunch.

Everyone took out their boxed lunches and, by comparison, realized Qi Yang’s meal was worlds apart from the rest—like theirs were ten-yuan boxes while Qi Yang’s bowl contained a feast worth thousands.

But no one thought it was prepared specifically for Qi Yang; they figured it might have just happened to be there, or maybe it was intentionally set up that way to see whether the players would start arguing over a single meal.

Having a stutter was already fortunate, let alone Qi Yang having helped everyone so much; even if someone got the best portion, they’d probably give it up for Qi Yang.

When Qi Yang ate, he glanced toward the overseer. The overseer stood with his back to them, gazing at the horizon; his silhouette suddenly gave off a sort of loneliness. That was the feeling Qi Yang had in that moment—whether he would do anything about it, he wondered

Earlier I couldn’t yet; the time hadn’t come.

Qi Yang knew deep down that this meal was most likely prepared especially for him by the Overseer. Judging by that, the other party was quite thoughtful—were they planning to court him the same way as Nan Sheng? Humans and ghosts walk different paths; they were different species. He couldn’t understand how the Overseer had come to fixate on him.

So far the Supervisor’s behavior has been entirely normal and acceptable; people were willing to be kind to him, and it wasn’t something Qi Yang demanded. Qi Yang accepted it naturally as well.

After they ate, things were tidied up; Kang Lian did the cleaning — it’s her personal habit. She doesn’t like trash strewn about, so she put it on the rock, figuring some ghost or spirit might come and take it.

“There are still a little over two hours. Where to next?” Yang Jiang didn’t want to go to either the beach or the woods — both were dangerous — but no matter how he looked at it, those were the only two choices.

“Don’t hurry, sit here for a while first,” Yi Xinming said.

Qi Yang didn’t go out. He stood up and walked to a clump of shrubs, where he gazed out at the vast, azure sea.

Scenery that’s rare to see in the real world could be seen in this game; in that respect, these games did have their merits.

After staying for a while, Yi Xinming spoke: “I don’t think just waiting here for time to pass will work.”

“Heading into the forest?” Yang Jiang replied quickly.

“Better not stay here.” This place was close to the beach; if the rotting corpse and the water ghost showed up and trapped them between the two, it would be dangerous no matter how you looked at it.

Yi Xinming knew from Qi Yang’s gaze that Qi Yang approved of his idea.

A group of them walked back into the forest.

This time it was rather unexpected — they hadn’t gone far before they bumped into Qiao Ran. It was just Qiao Ran and another player. When Qiao Ran saw the five people approaching, the smile in his eyes deepened by several degrees.

“I was about to come looking for you, and then I ran into you.”

“Looking for us? About what?” Yi Xinming was wary of Qiao Ran; he always felt the man’s gentle friendliness was put on.

“I found a small wooden cabin, and there’s a passage beneath it,” Qiao Ran said.

“You didn’t go down?” Yi Xinming smiled.

Qiao Ran knew what Yi Xinming was thinking; this man’s thoughts were far too easy to read.

“We went down — two people went down, but after waiting ages they didn’t come back up. We left someone outside the wooden hut to keep watch and came out to find some help.” Earlier Qiao Ran and the others had driven the car away, leaving the players with no escape, and now that he wanted help he said these words without the slightest blush.

“Then the area under the wooden cabin is probably not very safe. I think we shouldn’t go there.” Yi Xinming refused outright.

Qiao Ran was directly rendered

Du Bu didn’t look angry at all; he simply reached out and handed a piece of paper to Yi Xinming.

Yi Xinming originally didn’t want to take it. He looked down and saw it was just an ordinary piece of paper, and there were words on it. Before taking it, Yi Xinming glanced at Qi Yang; Qi Yang gave a slight nod, and Yi Xinming took the paper.

He unfolded the paper, which clearly read: “All visitors to the island are requested to collect a souvenir from under the cabin.”

As for what souvenirs, it didn’t say specifically, but the information hinted by that sentence made Yi Xinming realize his earlier guess was correct: he wouldn’t get the fourth card so easily. Sure enough, here it came.

“What’s written on it?” Kang Lian and Yang Jiang walked over; the two of them leaned in to read the words on the paper.

Yang Jiang read aloud the information on the paper.

“So? Will you help with this favor?” Qiao Ran watched the others’ faces change in an instant, then smiled and asked again.

Of course this time no one objected. Going down to the cabin for souvenirs felt somewhat like the stroll through the village a couple of days ago; it was obvious this was a hidden quest.

“What if you don’t come back to find us—would we then not be able to see this message?” Yang Jiang couldn’t help but conjecture.

“Your assumption is incorrect.” Qiao Ran stated the fact plainly.

Yang Jiang looked at Qiao Ran’s smiling phoenix-like eyes. Although the man was handsome and his smile amiable, Yang Jiang just felt that at heart Qiao Ran wasn’t truly that kind.

Qiao Ran’s teammates led the way up front, while Qiao Ran walked beside Qi Yang. His curiosity about Qi Yang deepened. He had heard a detailed account from the teammate who stayed behind about what happened at the coast—apparently the ghosts treated Qi Yang differently, almost as if protecting him. Qiao Ran couldn’t help but recall the scene in the hot spring blood pool. It made no sense: one person in his team died, more than half of the remaining players ended up dead, yet the few around Qi Yang emerged unscathed, as if Qi Yang himself were a bug.

Games in the real world always have bugs; this was a game world where ghosts existed, and everything was real. Who says the real can’t have bugs too? Maybe Qi Yang really was that kind of existence.

This made Qiao Ran realize that it was very necessary for him to smooth things over with Qi Yang, even if the other person was clever and aware of his intentions.

And now he had taken the initiative to show goodwill toward Qi Yang; he trusted that Qi Yang could feel his sincerity.

A group of people walked toward the center of the island, and soon a small wooden cabin appeared in everyone’s view, standing there all alone and looking somewhat out of place.

The person standing outside the wooden cabin saw Qiao Ran bring

someone back and immediately stepped forward to meet them.

He shook his head slightly and said, “Not out yet.”

“It’s fine, we’ll go down and find them.” Qiao Ran said. He turned to Qi Yang and curved his lips into a smile. “Right?”

Qi Yang knew Qiao Ran had ulterior motives, but he had nothing to worry about. If Qiao Ran really threatened his life, Qi Yang figured he wouldn’t mind sending Qiao Ran off early—after all, whether he or Qiao Ran died, unless Qi Yang lost his mind, he wouldn’t tolerate someone trying to kill him.

Qi Yang nodded, and he smiled too, his smile even brighter than Qiao Ran’s. “Right.”

“We’ll go in front, you follow behind us, so no one thinks I’m up to anything.” There was more to Qiao Ran’s words than met the eye.

“How could it be? It’s most important that we all help each other through this, isn’t it?” Qi Yang and Qiao Ran bantered.

“Of course, I’m joking.”

“Me too, I’m joking.”

Qiao Ran’s eyes flickered. He turned away without another word and walked straight toward the cabin.

The cabin looked clean and tidy, as if someone tended to it at all times. In the center of the cabin was an entrance: a slanted staircase leading down into the basement. The light around the steps was dim and hazy, making it hard to see what lay below when standing above.

But the note clearly said they had to go down there to retrieve a souvenir, and the note wasn’t handwritten—it was printed—so that ruled out the possibility that Qiao Ran and the others had tampered with it. That meant this was a potential island check-in task.

If they didn’t complete the task, there was a very good chance—nine times out of ten—that they wouldn’t be able to return.

Although Yang Jiang and the others were nervous and uneasy, they forced themselves to go down. Fortunately, they were together, not alone; had any one of them been descending by themselves, they probably would have gone weak in the legs halfway down the stairs.

Yang Jiang was timid by nature, but with a girl in the group he made an effort to appear strong. Kang Lian’s looks would count as a six- or seven-out-of-ten beauty in real life, and Yang Jiang felt a little flutter. He secretly imagined finding a girlfriend in the game, then marrying after beating it and having an adorable baby — the thought made him feel especially happy.

But that fantasy didn’t last long; the cold, brutal reality of the game pulled him back quickly. Staying alive was enough—he no longer dared to hope for a girlfriend or anything like that.

The group walked down the underground passage in pairs, side by side. This corridor was different from the one they had taken yesterday; it wasn’t all glass. The surrounding walls were dim, and the light cast on them seemed to suck away the brightness. Someone ran their hand along the wall and then let out a surprised “ah.”

“What’s up?”

Everyone turned to look at the person who had made the sound.

He waved his hand. “I think I touched a gecko.”

Everyone immediately relaxed. The man scratched his head and apologized to the group.

At first everyone walked side by side without any problem. Then the stairs shuddered; with that jolt everyone instantly became alert. Nan Sheng grabbed Qi Yang’s hand and warned him to be careful.

Of the remaining pairs, no relationship matched theirs; although some people felt a momentary panic, grasping the hand of the person beside them created such a scene it gave everyone goosebumps.

Yang Jiang walked alongside Kang Lian, turning to look at her face, hoping that if she was frightened she would grab his sleeve; instead her complexion only paled slightly, and she seemed even calmer than Yang Jiang. He awkwardly rubbed his nose.

The staircase seemed very long, stretching downward without end. After walking for several minutes with no sign of an end, Qiao Ran, who was walking ahead, paused slightly and turned to wait for Qi Yang and the others behind him.

“Still going forward?”

Qi Yang smiled, “Or go back? Didn’t it say we need to get a souvenir? If we don’t take it, I doubt we can clock out.”

“True.” Qiao Ran realized he had asked too many questions.

They went on. A teammate wearing a blue cotton jacket beside Qiao Ran held a small knife; after walking a stretch he would carve a number into the wall, marking it this way to confirm whether they were entering a looping staircase.

So far everything was normal, except the staircase had trembled slightly a few minutes ago.

After walking a bit further, several doors appeared before them, and oddly enough, the number of doors matched the number of people exactly.

“Could it be that each person has to go through a different door?” Yang Jiang joked.

As soon as he finished speaking, many people looked at him, their expressions as if what he had said might actually be true.

“No, no way?”

Yang Jiang felt a chill run through him. If someone went in alone and there was something terrifying inside, what would happen? With his own strength, he felt he would only die behind that door.

“Try it and you’ll know.” The man in the blue cotton shirt said. He put away the small knife in his hand and walked straight ahead, casually choosing a door. Every door looked the same, with no numbers on them; the surrounding walls were dark gray, showing no sign of clues. The man in the blue cotton shirt didn’t like to think, but that didn’t mean he was stupid—on the contrary, he was very clever; he simply didn’t want to bother thinking.

The door wasn’t locked; it opened with a gentle push. The man in the blue cotton jacket standing outside turned to Qiao Ran and said, “I’ll go in first. See you in a bit.”

Qiao Ran chuckled lightly and nodded; this man was even more suitable than Zhong Chong, who had died not long ago

become his team member; he likes people who are smart and speak little.

“Be careful.” Qiao Ran still offered a reminder.

The man in the cotton jacket turned and walked toward the door, raising the back of his hand and waving to everyone.

The moment the man in the cotton jacket stepped into the room, the opened door suddenly slammed shut with a bang, startling Yang Jiang. He stared at the door for a few seconds, then dashed over and tried to push it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I can’t push it open.” Yang Jiang looked back, his expression seeming incredulous.

“Judging by the situation, it looks like the only option is to go through individually.” Qiao Ran laughed, glancing over the other doors and landing on the one farthest to the right. “I’ll take that one.”

Qi Yang’s eyes flickered; he also liked that door, and for no reason simply wanted to go through it.

Before entering, Qiao Ran glanced at Qi Yang. He had intended to say, “I’ll go ahead, you two follow quickly,” but instead he saw a strange expression on Qi Yang’s face — it looked as if he, too, wanted to go through that door.

“Want to come in?” Qiao Ran asked directly.

“Yes.” Qi Yang nodded.

Qiao Ran was generous by nature; any door would do for him. He wasn’t fixated on taking the right one, and if letting Qi Yang have it made him happy, he was even willing—after all, beauties deserve a bit of preferential treatment.

“Alright then, I’ll take this one.” Qiao Ran walked over and chose the second door from the right.

He didn’t dawdle—he pushed the door open and stepped inside, his handsome figure disappearing beyond the threshold.

A few more people from Qiao Ran’s team also found doors and went in one after another, and in the end only Qi Yang and the others were left.

Yang Jiang wore a bitter expression, feeling that the future was uncertain.

Yi Xinming walked over and patted Yang Jiang on the shoulder: “It doesn’t necessarily have to be that hard. Just be careful when it happens. Your luck seems pretty good—believe in yourself, you’ll definitely be fine. Let’s have hot pot together tonight!”

At the mention of hot pot, Yang Jiang’s face brightened a little, though he still looked quite downcast: “I’ll try to live a little longer.”

“That’s a must!” Yi Xinming cheered Yang Jiang on.

“Okay.”

“I’ll go first.” Yi Xinming and Qi Yang waved their hands, and Qi Yang nodded.

Then Qi Yang set off; he walked toward the door on the far right, Nan Sheng following at his side. Qi Yang glanced back and looked at the man’s handsome face.

“Don’t worry about me, just take care of yourself, and you too.” He glanced at Kang Lian and Yang Jiang as he finished; after a slight nod to them both, he pushed the door open and walked in without looking back.

The door behind him slammed shut. With that loud bang the scene before Qi Yang suddenly shifted. When everything came to a stop, his pupils narrowed—he realized the corridor now standing before him was very familiar.

A hotel’s corridor.

Not far away there was a

Ding—. It took Qi Yang a moment to realize the elevator had stopped. He stood still. A few seconds later someone emerged from the corner at the far end of the corridor—someone he knew all too well.

The feeling was strange. Seeing himself from a third-person perspective, Qi Yang felt as if that person wasn’t him—was he really like that when drunk? He didn’t realize his flushed face could be so alluring.

“He” had drunk too much; his body swayed, though his reason seemed mostly intact. Holding the room key, he compared it to the door. When he reached the door, he didn’t use the card to open it. Instead he turned to look at the tall, stern-faced man behind him. The two had just ridden the elevator up together and had been going their separate ways, but suddenly “Qi Yang” stopped. He leaned against the doorframe, lifting a smiling face—his eyes and features full of seductive springtime.

Those two seemed unable to see him. Qi Yang stepped forward, coming close to them, watching himself and Nan Sheng at close range. Seeing that the two were about to spend a night together, Qi Yang tried to reach out—he went to grab his own wrist, but obviously failed. Two of the same person couldn’t exist in the same world at once; it was more likely, Qi Yang thought, that two timelines had temporarily overlapped.

“You followed me all the way,” “Qi Yang” said, his red lips curling like a rose.

There was a faint trace of anger in Nan Sheng’s gaze. Qi Yang tilted his head as if he were drunk and hadn’t noticed, but now he could see everything clearly.

“You’re drunk.” Nan Sheng said coldly. Although Qi Yang couldn’t touch him, the chill radiating from Nan Sheng seemed to seep through, making Qi Yang shiver.

Suddenly Nan Shengchao glanced to the side, his gaze landing exactly where Qi Yang was standing. For a moment their eyes met; Qi Yang’s heart skipped a beat, nearly convinced Nan Sheng had actually noticed him. But then Nan Sheng looked away, and Qi Yang’s figure was gone from his eyes.

The two were still talking when “Qi Yang” invited Nan Sheng inside; he eagerly threw himself into the man’s arms, and the man caught “Qi Yang.”

“You’re very handsome, exactly my type,” Qi Yang said.

Qi Yang looked at himself; he couldn’t remember saying that. Watching Nan Sheng’s expression, it was clear this stranger didn’t have much self-control either—he had been seduced just like that. Qi Yang seemed to have forgotten that his face, even when not trying to attract, drew plenty of attention on the street; let alone with a flushed, drunken face, his entire hair seeming to be tinged with a kind of lust.

The two of them entered the room, and only stayed with Qi Yang’s memory

The situation inside was different: the room door wasn’t fully closed, left ajar with a gap. Qi Yang stood before the gap, and suddenly a knife appeared in his right hand — a blade, sharp and honed.

Qi Yang raised the knife, and a line of words appeared on the door: “Kill the two people in the room and you can leave.”

Kill those two? One was himself, the other was Nan Sheng — he was being told to kill them both?

Qi Yang had never killed anyone in his life, and one of them was himself. The bedroom door slowly opened, silently, and the two people inside both fell onto the bed; “Qi Yang” was tearing at the man’s clothes, his whole body twisting like a snake.

He stepped into the room and walked to the bedside, still holding the knife. Standing there watching the two people rolling on the bed, Qiyang’s gaze gradually darkened. He raised his hand as if intending to drive the knife into the man’s back, but just as the tip neared the other’s body, Qiyang suddenly stopped.

He realized a key issue: the note he’d read before coming here had said to take a keepsake, but it never told him to go back and kill someone.

Was it the words on the paper, or the person who wrote them?

Qiyang looked down at the knife in his hand. Was this knife considered a keepsake? He fell silent for a moment. The two people’s clothes were almost all off; watching himself and another person having sex from an outsider’s perspective felt very novel to him. Seeing them embrace each other passionately, Qiyang’s mouth curled into a smile.

Turning around, Qi Yang hurried away. He was beginning to understand why he had ended up here—because this scene was the thing he regretted most so far. He had often thought that if he could go back, he would never voluntarily invite Nan Sheng into the room.

Qi Yang opened the door and stepped out. The past had already become the past. If time could truly be turned back, then life might have little meaning left; the inability to change the past is also a form of life’s preciousness.

Qi Yang walked toward the stairwell, pressed the button for the top floor, and the elevator ascended and stopped there. He reached the rooftop and climbed onto the terrace. Sitting on the rooftop, the high wind was biting, lifting the hem of his clothes.

He just sat there the whole time, until the surroundings shifted again and reverted to the dim underground space. Qi Yang went downstairs with the knife; the moment he opened the door he was back on the island. A swath of green forest and roaring waves lay before him. Qi Yang walked toward the beach. Not far off, beside the Overseer, Qiao Ran and his teammates were bending over to examine the cards inside the glass bottles.