“Are you really going to that world this way?”

Bernice stared at the massive maser before them and cried out in alarm.

“This is the only way to reach that world.”

“But you could really die! Just like we did!”

“If you want to gain something, you have to give something up, right?”

In the world viewed through the lens of destruction, everything was gray. The maser was a slightly lighter shade, so maybe it wasn’t too dangerous.

At that moment, they were at the Israeli Laboratory Research Center in the upper world.

Without the immortals, the upper world had fallen into complete silence. And with the world collapsing, everything everyone saw was distorted, as if viewed through the filter of an old television.

“Xu Fang, why not give my suggestion some more thought?” Owen said. “Think long-term. Go back to the real world first, then find a chance to use the ‘box weapon’ on that author. We could at least seize the initiative…”

Yoriko kicked Owen hard. “Xu Fang has already established a connection with that world. How could he just go back to the real world? Do you want reality to fall under that author’s pen?”

“Fuck!” Owen tried to hit back, but Yoriko had already darted well out of reach.

“There isn’t much time. Bernice, help me start the machine.” Xu Fang looked at the others. “If I really make it to that world, this might be the last time we see each other…”

He hadn’t finished speaking when Xu Fang caught sight of some other people in the distance.

Yezhi, Simpson, Mulin, Four-Eyes, Morton, Black Frame…

They stood in a dark corner, their eyes full of a jumble of emotions.

Black Frame waved, as if to say, “Goodbye.”

Goodbye.

Xu Fang lowered his head slightly, then simply smiled. “You all did incredibly well. I couldn’t have made it this far without you.”

As power surged into the maser, it roared to life. The passage gradually brightened, until the light grew blinding.

Xu Fang stood in the passage, at the spot where Luo Xiaoming had disappeared. He waited for quantization to begin.

Positive and negative charges collided, sending currents and sparks flying in every direction.

“Oh my god, that’s so cool!” Owen stared, dumbstruck. Before he knew it, he was walking toward Xu Fang too, but Empty yanked him back.

“Please don’t mess this up!”

“Luo Xiaoming, I’m about to come over.” Xu Fang placed the blue eyeball in his eye socket and prepared himself.

“Okay.” Luo Xiaoming was beside herself with excitement. “I’ve been waiting for so long!”

Time, space, matter, consciousness…

At that moment, the foundations of the world suddenly lost all meaning.

Xu Fang felt himself turn into a ball of light.

But everything except him had vanished.

So this is quantization…?

Gravity tugged Xu Fang downward. He passed through an electron cloud and fell into an ocean. He kept sinking, the water around him growing thicker and more sluggish, until at last he came to a stop.

Darkness. Cold…

Who am I? Where am I? And…

His consciousness was almost gone, and a crushing sleepiness swept over him. Xu Fang slowly closed his eyes, but a voice cut through his drowsiness.

“Xu Fang, over here!”

In an instant, Xu Fang saw the light again. On the other side of the darkness lay a much brighter world. A figure stood there, as if they’d been waiting a long time.

His awareness returned, and Xu Fang opened his eyes.

Luo Xiaoming held out her hand and looked at him expectantly.

Xu Fang got to his feet and walked toward Luo Xiaoming. The distance between them grew smaller and smaller.

Xu Fang held out his hand too.

Just a little farther, and Xu Fang would be able to take her hand…

But he couldn’t get any closer.

“Ah…”

Luo Xiaoming’s startled gaze fixed on the space behind Xu Fang.

Xu Fang slowly turned around. Behind him, something had appeared without warning…countless chains.

Endless chains stretched out of the boundless darkness and converged on Xu Fang.

They bound him tight, keeping him at this farthest possible distance.

Xu Fang reached out and tried to pull the restraints away, but the chains weren’t physical. He couldn’t touch them.

Then thousands upon thousands of chains suddenly went taut, and an irresistible force seized him.

Xu Fang was dragged back into the abyss.

“Xu Fang—!!” Luo Xiaoming reached out with all her strength, but her hand closed on empty air.

She understood. Xu Fang couldn’t reach this place. They were going to be separated.

Fear, confusion, grief… Luo Xiaoming’s throat tightened with a sob. She seemed on the verge of bursting into tears.

“I’m okay.” Xu Fang’s voice crossed the unreachable distance between them. “Wait for me a little while, Xiao Ming.”

Light fell across Xu Fang’s face, bringing out the depth in his eyes. They were like a still lake, gentle and calm.

The unease in her heart seemed to blow away on a breeze, and a faint blush spread across Luo Xiaoming’s cheeks.

“Okay. I’ll wait!”

……………………

“Damn machine! It breaks at a moment like this?! ********” Owen swore viciously.

“The immortal world can’t hold on any longer. It can no longer support the operation of equipment like this.” Bernice sighed.

Xu Fang had returned to the RF transmitter’s passage. Thick smoke billowed around him, and black scorch marks covered everything. It looked as if there’d been an explosion.

“Did I fail?” His current body couldn’t feel emotions. Otherwise, Xu Fang would’ve been in a terrible mood.

Beyond the smoke stood several authors, golden points of light flickering on them.

He was back in the immortal upper world.

Xu Fang stood there, waiting for the smoke to clear.

“Thank goodness. The person at the center of all this is still here.” Empty spotted Xu Fang.

“Tch, that temperature was high enough to turn you to ash, and you still made it. Amazing.” Owen came over with a grin and brushed the ash off Xu Fang’s head. “It’s fine if you failed. As long as you’re alive, there’s still a chance. Once we’re back in the real world, we’ll look for another way to get there.”

Yoriko sat down on the floor, relief and helplessness mingling on her face. Her eyelids drooped as she muttered, “Xu Fang didn’t fail. The ‘Narrator’ made him fail on purpose. We’ve already been anchored by the pen in the ‘Narrator’s’ hand… The world is done for. Heh. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m already content just to witness an ending like this.”

Only Xu Fang heard Yoriko’s quiet murmur. “Do you know the ‘Narrator’?”

“I don’t know them at all. If anything, I wish I did. I’d like to be a reader who observes humanity.”

“What did you mean by ‘witness an ending like this’?”

Yoriko lifted her head. The light had gone out of her eyes. “Oh, I might’ve forgotten to tell you all. My time is up.”

“Miss, what do you mean?” The Daoist sensed something strange about Yoriko’s presence.

“In this suffocating universe, no living thing can live longer than 432 years. I’ve reached the limit.” Yoriko smiled. “See those immortals who disappeared? They’re just like me—people who tried to escape death. The immortal world was their last way to prolong their lives, though in the end, they’d lived long enough too.”

Owen said, “Wait, you’re really over four hundred years old?!”

Empty was about to say something when the ground suddenly shook so violently that he staggered.

Bernice gazed at the sky as it began to tear apart and said softly, “Everyone, you have to stay ali—”

Before she could finish, she vanished without a trace.

Time began to flow again, and the rules of the immortal world broke down.

As the sky split apart, the immortals watching from the distance turned to ash one after another, scattering into the world around them.

“I’m seeing things! It’s like I’m back at Lingfeng Hall!” Empty saw the scenery around him overlapping. One moment he was in the immortal world; the next, he was looking at the home he knew so well.

Owen and Empty began to turn translucent.

“Xu Fang, let’s use a code phrase. When we get back to reality, get in touch…” Owen’s voice grew choppy too.

“Disaster Strategy Group,” Xu Fang replied offhandedly.

The immortal world sank into the sea of reality.

What were the true identities of No. 1 and No. 2?

What was the connection between that website and the immortals?

Why had Luo Xiaoming entered the immortal world? And where was the world she was in now?

Perhaps Xu Fang would learn the answers soon.

With a violent sense of spatial dislocation, the immortal world silently merged into reality, and Xu Fang landed at the corresponding location in the real world.

After spending so long in the immortal world, reality felt strange now.

If he made it back to reality, where would he end up?

A distant memory told him it would be S City.

But did S City have this kind of weightlessness?

He opened his eyes and looked around. There was no light, but he could still make out countless fragments drifting through the darkness.

Where the hell am I? Is this S City?

Xu Fang’s first thought was that he’d entered yet another bizarre world.

He looked at his body… Still an energy being in loli form.

Xu Fang reached toward his right eye socket, but stopped at once.

There was no need to check. He could still see Luo Xiaoming.

The synchronization device and the eyeball were still working!

The eyeball hadn’t disappeared along with the immortal world. Maybe it had been “recognized” as part of Xu Fang, or perhaps there was something else special about it.

“Wait, isn’t this the place I came to before?” Through Xu Fang’s right eye, Luo Xiaoming saw the scenery around them.

“I think I know where I am.”

Xu Fang used his hair to pull over a floating piece of metal wreckage. With a light step, he pushed off it and leaped toward a drifting corpse.

It was the corpse of a Caucasian man. His face was gaunt, his skin shriveled, and there were no external wounds. Half a slip of paper poked out of the pocket of his black, form-fitting clothes.

“It really is this place! That man scared the daylights out of me back then.” Luo Xiaoming recognized the corpse.

Xu Fang took out the slip of paper and unfolded it. The contents matched exactly what Luo Xiaoming had described before.

Organization K’s lunar base. Why had he ended up in this godforsaken place?

The good news: he’d confirmed he was back in reality. The bad news: he was stranded on the moon.

“Xu Fang, what was that thing holding onto you from behind earlier? It looked so scary!”

“What did you see?”

“The shadowy shapes of lots of monsters. They were following you. I saw them carry you away.”

What Luo Xiaoming saw was completely different from what Xu Fang saw. In her eyes, the chains binding Xu Fang were living things beyond description.

“Hmm. Since I ended up here, those things must not be able to hurt me.” Xu Fang paused, then said, “I’m really interested in that book, The Real World. Could I take a look at it?”

“Sure, just a second.” Luo Xiaoming took out her phone.

“Huh? This author just updated the latest volume! And they uploaded so many chapters at once?”

Luo Xiaoming held the phone screen up in front of Xu Fang.

Xu Fang saw the words from the “Narrator.” The first character—and victim—of the latest volume was none other than Gussy.

“We’ve already been anchored by the pen in the ‘Narrator’s’ hand.” Xu Fang remembered Yoriko’s final words once more.