When we returned to the room in silence, we saw a familiar face inside.

But he and I had been separated for too long. After recalling for a long time, I finally remembered this person was my Brother Guyu.

Like Sister Siwei, he was someone who treated me very well.

“Siwei, Hero.” Brother Guyu smiled. “I’ve returned.”

Brother Guyu’s appearance was exactly the same as before. It seemed not only him—even my appearance hadn’t changed much. After all, we simply didn’t grow up in this strange prison.

But the scent on his body had changed. He wasn’t as clean as he had been many years ago, yet he still smelled pleasant.

“Guyu…?” Sister Siwei was startled. Just as she was about to say something, she immediately turned back and closed the door. “How did you…?”

“It’s a long story, but fortunately I came back in time. Everything worked out.”

“Worked out…?” Sister Siwei asked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“No one in this place can be allowed to collect enough ‘jade,’ otherwise an irreversible massive disaster will occur.” Brother Guyu answered.

Sister Siwei gasped: “So… that ‘jade’ was your doing? You came to stop Brother Wan from collecting the ‘jade’?”

“Yes.” Brother Guyu nodded. “Have you forgotten my ‘Qingxiang’ ability? I concealed that ‘jade.'”

“Concealed…?” Sister Siwei’s eyes widened after hearing this. “That means that ‘jade’ is actually…”

“Right there, it didn’t go anywhere.” Brother Guyu smiled slightly. “Unfortunately, people in reality aren’t like in TV dramas—they don’t grope around inside after seeing the safe become empty, otherwise my plan would have been ruined. The safe has been opened now, right? I’ll find an opportunity to dispose of them.”

“But how did you do it? That was a safe.”

“Just that simple…?”

“Just that simple. This is an office building, not a bank.” Brother Guyu said. “The safes here are usually for storing contracts. They couldn’t possibly use the highest-grade locks, so it wasn’t hard for me. Last night when you were all shouting slogans together, I had already concealed all the ‘jade.'”

Sister Siwei pondered for a moment, then asked: “Then what do you mean by ‘massive disaster’?”

“You might not believe this, but over these years I’ve traveled to other cities multiple times and learned much information we didn’t know before.” Brother Guyu squatted down and drew diagrams on the ground as he spoke. “If we can’t think of a good solution, we’ll definitely be completely annihilated.”

Sister Siwei and I also came to his side, watching him draw a simple map on the ground. Before, I could never understand when adults talked, but now I seemed to have grown up.

What an interesting thing—my age hadn’t changed, but I had grown up.

Brother Guyu drew five circles on the ground. They were arranged like the Olympic rings, then he pointed at the circle on the left in the bottom row and said: “Siwei, Hero, the city we’re in needs to collect ‘jade.’ I’ll call it ‘Jade City’ for now. Of the other four cities, two no longer have any living people, and two are still active. One of the active cities is ‘Vortex City.’ They collect a spiral-shaped object like a snail shell, called ‘vortex.’ The other is ‘Dao City.’ They’re collecting a kind of golden, glittering small ball, called ‘dao.'”

Sister Siwei and I listened to this knowledge we had never encountered before and fell into contemplation.

“Five cities…?” Sister Siwei murmured. “We’re all collecting different things?”

“Yes, but that’s not important.” Brother Guyu said. “Whether it’s ‘jade’ or ‘vortex’ doesn’t matter at all. What matters is that people who have preserved their memories for a long time all know the same thing… that is, these things must never be completely collected. This is a massive deception.”

“If… they are completely collected, what will happen?”

“We’ll ‘start over.'” Brother Guyu said. “I visited two seniors in ‘Vortex City’ and ‘Dao City’ respectively, and according to what they said, it’s like this. Once everything is collected, an irresistible force will appear, making all of us start over. However, they all seemed to be afraid of something and didn’t explain the specific situation to me.”

The scent on Sister Siwei’s body began to change. She was silent for quite a while, then asked: “Then doesn’t that mean we can’t escape…?”

“About this… I can’t say for sure.” Brother Guyu said. “Each city has its own direction of effort… From what it looks like now, we and ‘Vortex City’ are in more dangerous situations. We could fall into eternal damnation at any time.”

“Eternal damnation…?” Sister Siwei paused. “You mean, we’ll be like those two nameless cities, with total casualties?”

“Exactly.” Brother Guyu confirmed. “As for the two cities that are currently active… the ruler of ‘Vortex City’ is called Nie Bei, an active special forces soldier. His existence has made ‘Vortex City’ an entire nation of soldiers. There, regardless of gender, every single person has a look of facing death unflinchingly in their eyes. From morning to night, they take turns gambling their lives against the ‘Zodiacs.’ The entire city is littered with corpses and flowing with rivers of blood, but I never saw a single person regret it. On the contrary, the ‘Zodiacs’ working there all have some complaints. They don’t know when they’ll die in the ‘Participants” relentless bombardment. Nie Bei told me that as long as ‘Vortex City’ still has one last person remaining, they will still fight the ‘Zodiacs’ without hesitation until total casualties occur. I asked him the reason for doing this, and he said that since the first time they ‘gambled with their lives,’ the ‘Zodiacs’ have been the murderers who killed their comrades, so this battle must be fought until there’s a result.”

Sister Siwei was stunned: “There are such people…?”

“‘Dao City’ is the complete opposite.” Brother Guyu pointed at the circle in the middle of the first row and continued. “This city located in the central position doesn’t have a leader like Nie Bei, but has several very famous ‘strategic generals.’ If Nie Bei represents ‘martial strength,’ then Dao City represents ‘wisdom.’ The advantage of this city is that they guarantee a higher survival rate, but there are also disadvantages—’Dao City’ can’t achieve Nie Bei’s kill rate against the ‘Zodiacs.’ Unfortunately, I didn’t meet their leader Wen Qiaoyun this time, but I did meet a good man named Qian Duoduo. He told me some history about ‘Dao City.'”

After hearing this, Sister Siwei and I both fell silent. Compared to these two cities, what were we doing?

“You should have realized…” Brother Guyu said heavily. “Everyone in this place is working hard toward ‘escape,’ but we in ‘Jade City’ have been treading water all along. No… rather than treading water, we’re actually regressing.”

“This city is already ‘sick’…” Sister Siwei said.

“It is indeed ‘sick,’ but it can still be saved.” Brother Guyu looked at me. “As long as we have ‘Hero,’ everything can still be saved.”