The two of them carried an old aluminum pot and kept moving through the city.

Qi Xia had never imagined that a city without lights would be even darker than the wilderness.

After walking for just over ten minutes, the sky became as dark as if ink had been dripped into it.

The rustling of insects all around echoed back and forth, making Qi Xia feel irritable and restless.

“Lin Qin, are you still there?” Qi Xia asked.

“I’m still here,” Lin Qin answered. “Walk slower, be careful not to trip.”

“We can’t go any slower.” Qi Xia looked at the sky. “Right now we can still barely see the road a bit. We need to get to the convenience store early. Grab onto my clothes.”

Lin Qin nodded and reached out to grab Qi Xia’s clothes.

Relying on their memory, the two walked for about another twenty minutes before finally arriving at the plaza where they had first appeared.

Fortunately, the view here was open, and they could generally make out the outlines.

Entering the plaza and walking east, the two saw a shop with firelight.

That should be the location of the convenience store.

“They made a fire…” Lin Qin was somewhat puzzled. “How did they find a fire source?”

After saying this, she understood. There was a female clerk in the shop. When everyone had encountered her, she had been cooking over a fire, so the fire source was probably borrowed from her.

The two of them moved toward the firelight through the darkness and finally arrived at the convenience store entrance.

What struck them as strange was that the bull-headed man who had been standing at the restaurant across from the convenience store had now disappeared.

“Officer Li, Lawyer Zhang, are you here?” Lin Qin asked tentatively. “Xiao Ran, Doctor Zhao?”

There was clearly movement inside the room, but no one answered.

“What’s going on?”

Lin Qin was about to go in and look, but Qi Xia held her back.

“Stay back, I’ll go in first,” he said quietly to Lin Qin.

Accompanied by the rustling of insects, the two entered the shop.

But just as Qi Xia stepped through the door, a wooden plank came flying toward his face.

Fortunately, Qi Xia was already prepared and immediately dodged backward, narrowly avoiding this fatal blow.

“Ah…!” Lin Qin cried out in alarm and hurriedly supported Qi Xia. “Are you okay?”

Only then did they see clearly that the person holding the plank inside was none other than Doctor Zhao, with Xiao Ran behind him.

Doctor Zhao looked at Qi Xia, then at Lin Qin, before finally forcing out a smile and saying: “Ah! So it’s you two… I thought it was someone else…”

Qi Xia carefully examined the two of them, his expression slightly puzzled.

Doctor Zhao was naked except for his white lab coat, without even shoes. He wrapped the lab coat around himself like a trench coat, his face very unnatural.

Behind him, Xiao Ran’s hair was disheveled, her clothes in disarray, and her makeup smudged.

The two of them clung closely together like a couple who had just been robbed.

Qi Xia understood the situation before him, but didn’t know why such a situation would occur.

“Qi, Qi Xia, don’t misunderstand…” Doctor Zhao said with an ingratiating smile. “Xiao Ran said she seemed to be injured, so I was helping her examine it.”

“Why are you explaining to him?!” Xiao Ran jabbed Doctor Zhao with her elbow. “Stammering like that, are you even a man?”

Qi Xia shook his head: “I don’t want to deal with your affairs. Where are Officer Li and Lawyer Zhang?”

“Ah…” Doctor Zhao showed an embarrassed smile again. “The two of them went out during the day to scout the surrounding area and haven’t returned yet.”

“What?” Qi Xia’s brow furrowed. “Haven’t returned yet?”

The sky had now become completely dark. Officer Li had said he would investigate the nearby area, so the two of them couldn’t possibly be staying outside overnight.

If they still hadn’t returned, could they be dead?

Or were… these two lying?

Qi Xia slowly walked into the room and surveyed the situation.

Although the floor was still very dirty and messy, there didn’t appear to be any fresh bloodstains, much less signs of a struggle.

A weak bonfire burned inside the room. Not far away lay Han Yimo’s corpse, making the atmosphere both ambiguous and eerie.

Qi Xia turned back to look at the two people who seemed to have guilty consciences and slowly asked: “Aren’t you all on the same team? The two of them haven’t returned even after dark, yet not only are you not worried, you even have the leisure to fool around here?”

“This… worrying won’t help anyway.” Doctor Zhao said. “It’s so dark, we can’t go out to search either. We can only wait until dawn…”

“Is it any of your business?!” Xiao Ran shouted angrily. “When did the people in our team become your concern?”

Qi Xia didn’t answer. He walked to the employee break room and gently pushed open the door.

Inside the room, the female clerk was squatting in the corner, facing the wall, muttering something under her breath.

It seemed she had been here the whole time without moving.

Qi Xia closed the door and turned back to look at Doctor Zhao, since Doctor Zhao was still somewhat communicable.

“Is the ‘Dao’ still here?” Qi Xia asked.

“This…” Doctor Zhao’s expression clearly showed some wariness. “Qi Xia, what exactly did you come here to do?”

“I came to borrow ‘Dao.'” Qi Xia said. “The ‘Dao’ that was left here during the day, I want to borrow it. I’ll return it with interest afterward.”

“Borrow ‘Dao’?” Doctor Zhao thought for a moment, then examined Qi Xia’s even dirtier clothes that were stained with traces of blood. “Where’s your own ‘Dao’? Where are that punk and that prostitute?”

“They have names,” Lin Qin suddenly spoke. “Don’t call them that.”

“Oh…” Doctor Zhao nodded perfunctorily.

“What are you trying to act virtuous for…” Xiao Ran wrapped her clothes tighter around herself and also walked up. “The two of them didn’t participate in games and then die, did they?”

Qi Xia’s expression was heavy as he nodded slightly: “More or less.”

“Ha!” Xiao Ran laughed angrily with a mocking expression. “Didn’t you swear confidently that you would collect three thousand six hundred ‘Dao’ and leave this place? Now you’ve gotten your teammates killed and come to borrow our ‘Dao’?”

After hearing this, Qi Xia raised his eyelids, looked at this woman, and said indifferently: “Although the situation is indeed as such, I advise you to know when to stop.”

Doctor Zhao hurriedly stepped forward to mediate: “Alright, alright, let’s talk nicely…”

Then he turned to look at Qi Xia: “It’s not that we don’t want to lend it to you, but Officer Li took the ‘Dao’ with him…”

“Took it?” Qi Xia paused.

“That’s right.” Doctor Zhao pointed to the restaurant across from the door. “After you left, the two of them went there to participate in a game and seemed to have won. After that, they went somewhere else.”

Qi Xia looked in the direction of Doctor Zhao’s finger and quickly noticed a problem: “What do you mean ‘seemed to have won’? You’re this close, and you don’t even know whether they won or not?”

“This…” Doctor Zhao frowned and forced an awkward laugh. “Originally Xiao Ran wouldn’t let them go out with the ‘Dao,’ but Officer Li insisted on going to check it out… They had different views and got into an argument. We couldn’t very well ask them about it, so we let them be. After all, who would want to join them in this suicidal act…”

“Let… them be?”

After hearing this, Qi Xia’s eyes widened instantly. He grabbed Doctor Zhao’s collar with considerable force.

“Hey?!”

Xiao Ran was stunned after seeing this and hurriedly lunged at Qi Xia: “What are you doing?!”

Qi Xia sidestepped, then extended his foot to trip her. Xiao Ran immediately fell to the ground, falling face-first into the filth-covered floor in a genuine faceplant.

Qi Xia took a deep breath and said viciously to Doctor Zhao: “I treated you politely for Officer Li’s sake, but you fucking went your separate ways?!”