Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
“Lu Xia! Lu Xia!” Sun Zheng banged his fists on the door which was already hot to the touch.
There was a low cough coming from behind the door.
“Lu Xia!” Sun Zheng stretched out his hand to turn the doorknob again, but he shrank back from the heat. Then, he gritted his teeth and grabbed onto the doorknob with vigour, but he couldn’t unlock the door.
Next, he tried ramming into the door. The door shook, but remained shut.
There was endless darkness all around him. Only the sounds of the shaking door, echoing throughout the corridor on the fourth floor kept Sun Zheng grounded.
What to do?
There was a haze of despair settling in his heart.
How could he help Lu Xia? How is it possible that he was the only one who came out?
“Lu Xia, can you hear me?!” Sun Zheng yelled with all his might.
“You’re so loud…Of course I can hear it.” The voice came from inside the room. It had a teasing lilt to it, but it sounded incredibly weak.
“Just wait for me. I’ll find a way to open this door!” Sun Zheng was a little relieved upon hearing Lu Xia’s voice.
“Why don’t you use your brain right now, Mr. Studious Sun.” The man inside seemed to be talking with his body leaning on the door.
Sun Zheng also pressed himself up against the door: “What? What do you mean?”
Lu Xia rapped his knuckles against the door for Sun Zheng to know his position. It came low, as though his friend was lying on his stomach, so Sun Zheng also bent down too.
“Have you ever played games?”
“Huh?!” Sun Zheng was anxious and angry. Why would Lu Xia still be talking nonsense at this critical moment?
“Right now, we are like two people in a game world. Everything around us…cough…everything we touch and touch seems to be real…but in fact, it’s not…” Lu Xia was finding it more and more difficult to speak.
Sun Zheng was not in the mood to listen to his nonsense, so he looked around, trying to find something to open the door. But all he could see was the deep darkness in the corridor on the fourth floor, reflecting his current gloom.
“Listen to me,” Lu Xia knocked on the door again, as if he could see through Sun Zheng’s thoughts. “We are in the chasm now. Past events repeat themselves here, so whatever we come into contact with right now are all things which have happened before. Doors which could not be opened in the past will naturally not be able to open in this space, and people who appeared in these past events will also naturally keep appearing here. If we happen to run into any of these ‘spots’ and get dragged into an event, all we can lament is our poor luck, so…”
“So this door can’t be opened?” Sun Zheng said angrily. “I don’t even know where you got that weird theory from. I’ll go find a tool to open the door, hold on!”
Sun Zheng stood up.
Lu Xia seemed to be incredibly anxious. He slammed onto the door with all his strength. “Don’t run around!”
Sun Zheng pretended that he didn’t hear Lu Xia’s words. His chest was heaving as he surveyed the surroundings, frantically trying to find a way to wrench the door open.
In this all-encompassing darkness where he couldn’t even see his five fingers, Sun Zheng felt as if he was trapped in an illusion. He had no idea if he was really standing in a corridor, or if he was in the wilderness. All he could feel was an undercurrent of that oppressive darkness surging around him.
It was a force which was invisible.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The cool air against his skin made him tense up.
Qtfgf mbeiv tf ub? Lbk mbeiv tf rjnf Oe Wlj?
Po Oe Wlj gfjiis mbeivc’a ufa bea, atfc ktja rtbeiv tf vb ogbw tfgf bc?
Lf vlvc’a kjca ab atlcx jybea la.
Lf kjr agslcu cba ab jmmfqa atlr gfjilas jii atlr ktlif, yea cbk atja tf kjr jibcf, tf obecv tlwrfio rtgbevfv lc jc ecqgfmfvfcafv ofjg jcv mbcoerlbc.
All this was beyond his comprehension.
“Zheng…” Lu Xia’s voice came from the door again, “Listen to me. Don’t turn off the flashlight, and don’t run around aimlessly… I don’t know what else is in here with us… Go find the next safe place… Take it one step at a time… do you hear me?”
Sun Zheng tried to calm him breathing. He clenched his fists, took a step forward and walked into the corridor.
Lu Xia leaned heavily against the door. His skin seemed to be burnt dry and cracked, blistering. His breaths came short and rapid. There were no more sounds from outside the door.
He didn’t know if Sun Zheng had heard his last words.
I know I can’t get out anymore… But you have to escape…
Only he himself knew best why he didn’t make it out. His reaction was quick and he shoved Sun Zheng out immediately, but because of that, he forgot to close his eyes.
And at that exact moment, his feet froze. He stood rooted to the spot, unable to muster up the strength to move past ‘that thing’.
He couldn’t tell what it was. His right hand was still trembling uncontrollably. Was that Liu Qunfang who pushed the door open?
He knew that if he remained trapped in this chasm, he would end up looking like that eventually.
Perhaps they were also like him once upon a time, struggling to find a way out of this chasm, repeatedly seeing those past events reenacting before their eyes, seeing those creatures… Maybe in the end, he would succumb to exhaustion just like those who’d entered the chasm before him and his concept of time would come to a standstill.
Day after day after day, he would simply repeat what happened here.
Repeating the scenario of himself watching Sun Zheng play with his mobile phone? That didn’t sound all too bad…
Sun Zheng… still had a chance to escape.
He was just afraid that Sun Zheng would not be able to come to terms with this new reality. Who knew what else was waiting for Sun Zheng inside this large and dark hospital.
Would Sun Zheng really be able to escape if he’s alone…
Lu Xia couldn’t breathe anymore. A burning sensation spread through his body.
There seemed to be a woman crying outside the door, her wails particularly heart-wrenching.
The door he was leaning against began to shake vigorously, interrupting Lu Xia’s blurry thoughts. If this wasn’t Sun Zheng, then it was probably that vicious woman…
But why, why was she crying?
And where was Sun Zheng? Where did he go?
Lu Xia tiredly lifted the corners of his lips. A bitter smile appeared on his stiffening face. To think that he would still be worried about Sun Zheng at his final moments. Lu Xia struggled to raise his right hand and fumbled inside his clothes.
Just at this moment, the door began shaking even more vigorously, as if there was someone banging against it desperately.
It’s useless.
Lu Xia thought, yet he felt a burst of coldness hitting his body. He cracked open his heavy-lidded eyes and was promptly stunned.
Fuck, was he lucky enough to see this darn creature twice in a day?
This was his last thought.
Then the door behind him loosened, opening up, and he fell out into the corridor.
The cool, fresh air assaulted him and it jerked him straight to his senses.
He hastily pushed himself forward with the last of his strength, rolling the whole of his body out from the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine. One of his feet was hurting from the burns but he couldn’t care less anymore because the door which had briefly opened, slammed shut once again.
Exhausted, he spread his limbs out on the floor. He stared up at the dark ceiling, his mind whirring and organising his thoughts.
“Lu- Lu Xia?!” There was someone panting some distance away from him, staring at him in surprise as he swept the flashlight over his face.
Lu Xia, who was laying on the ground, shot a grin over. “This door…is pretty amazing, huh…”
Sun Zheng sprinted over and helped Lu Xia up, with a cloudy expression on his face. “You, how did you come out?”
Lu Xia blinked. “Guess?”
“Do I look like I have the patience to guess!” Sun Zheng was angered to the point of laughing. Then suddenly, he seemed to realise something and stared at Lu Xia with widened eyes. “Could it be, could it be…that I actually..”
“You actually what?” Lu Xia pressed a hand against the ground for support, and while leaning heavily against Sun Zheng, pushed himself up into a sitting position. “I finally understood what happened back then.”
Sun Zheng looked at him, dumbfounded. He waited for Lu Xia to continue.
Lu Xia reached over to switch off the flashlight. “The night the fire broke out, why did Chen Juan go upstairs?”
“It’s because she knew that Liu Qunfang had found out about her secret, and she wanted to go upstairs to find her mother and child.”
“That’s right. When she got upstairs, her mother and child were probably asleep and the door was locked, but she realised that there was a fire inside the room.” Lu Xia said with a grin while enduring the pain from his burns.
Sun Zheng’s eyes brightened. “So, this means that you finally agree with me that it wasn’t Chen Juan who set the fire, and that she wasn’t the one who locked the door on purpose?”
“Yes, I misjudged Chen Juan,” Lu Xia admitted. “When Chen Juan arrived, the room was already on fire. She knocked on the door desperately, trying to wake her sleeping mother and child inside.”
“How did you find out?” Sun Zheng asked.
“I heard it… I don’t know why but I heard her voice. She never gave up. She was knocking on the door from the start but we never heard it. I didn’t put too much thought into the words Liu Qunfang said before rushing into the door, but she must have heard the knocks too.”
“She’s here! She’s here!” Qunfang-jie shouted excitedly. “She’s crying, she’s crying…”
“The mother or the child?” Qunfang-jie threw down the torch all of a sudden. “Chen Juan, Chen Juan…”
“Her mother woke up and found that she was surrounded by fire. The door was locked from the inside and her daughter was outside the door desperately trying to save them.”
“Then what did the question ‘the mother or the child’ mean?” Sun Zheng asked.
Lu Xia moved slightly. “That’s a question of choice for Chen Juan. If you can only save one person, would you save your mother or your child?”
Sun Zheng froze in bewilderment, then quickly asked, “Why couldn’t she save both of them?”
“Because,” Lu Xia’s bitter expression was hidden in the darkness, “Her mother couldn’t walk anymore. The fire had already reached her knees. Chen Juan could either run in to take her baby out, but that meant there would be no time for her to carry her mother out anymore. Alternatively, she could save her mother first, but the fire was already too strong, so there would be no way for her to carry her child out after that.”
Sun Zheng stared at Lu Xia in surprise. “How do you know all that?”
“Because I saw it.”
“Huh?!” Sun Zheng couldn’t believe Lu Xia’s words at all.
“If it were you, which would you choose?” Lu Xia raised his head and asked Sun Zheng.
“Me? I…” Sun Zheng hesitated.
Lu Xia laughed all of a sudden, but the smile was a little unnatural: “You don’t have to choose at all.”
“Why?”
“Because a mother would always choose their child.” Lu Xia moved his injured feet, trying to see if he could stand up. “Even if her whole body is on fire, a mother will hold her child tightly in her arms. She would endure the pain of being burned, crawl to the door, use all her strength, open the door, shove the child out, and shut it tightly so her child wouldn’t bear the risk of running back in again…”
The flashlight in Sun Zheng’s hand fell to the ground.
Lu Xia gestured at himself. “That’s how I managed to come out.”
“Did you see it?” Sun Zheng couldn’t believe it. “Were you really able to see in such darkness? What exactly did you see?”
Lu Xia shook his head. “You wouldn’t want to know.”
Sun Zheng seemed to falter. He let out a soft sigh.
Lu Xia patted him lightly on the shoulder. “There was no resentful spirit in this room. There was only a mother who had no grudges or regrets, and a pair of mother and child who had nothing but regrets.”
“No, it’s two people who have neither grudges nor regrets,” Sun Zheng corrected, his eyes glinting in the dark night.
Lu Xia didn’t answer him. He seemed to be lost in thought.
The two stood there for a long time, neither of them speaking. At this very moment in the silent hospital, there was no such heavy feeling that made people breathless.
Suddenly, Lu Xia jerked, as if he was very excited and wanted to spring to his feet.
“What’s wrong?” Sun Zheng asked while helping him up.
“How did Liu Qunfang open the door? How did you get out at that moment?” Lu Xia’s voice was trembling.
“What… you mean, how did she manage to get the door to open?”
“Yes! At that time, it was the reenactment of the night of the fire, and so the door should have been locked from the inside. Just like how we were not able to open the door, it should have been impossible for Liu Qunfang to push the door too!”
“Then…” Sun Zheng was also uncertain.
“She heard Chen Juan’s voice, and seemed to have seen what happened that night. We thought that she had yet to enter the chasm, so it was still possible for her to open the door. However, if she had already entered the chasm by that time, then how was it possible for her to open that door?”
Sun Zheng seemed to have thought of something too. He grasped Lu Xia’s hand tightly. “You mean, she, she…”
“That’s right! She’s the only one we see in the records now who bypassed this law. How did she manage to do it? If we can find the answer to that…” Lu Xia exclaimed excitedly. “Then maybe we’ll also be able to find the key to escape from this chasm!”
I desperately need Lu Xia to just say everything all at once because first I didn’t like Chen Juan but now I just feel sad 😭😭 Like bro how’d you figure everything out in a burning room with barely any oxygen??