The closer they got to the exit, the more puppets accumulated behind them.

Hundreds of Shen Mos, hundreds of Bai Youweis, hundreds of Tan Xiaos, Cheng Weicais, Zhang Tianyangs, Chen Huis, Yang Yis…

After tearing down another poster, the mirror reflected his own puppet face. Zhang Tianyang efficiently finished tearing the poster, crumpled it into a ball, threw it away—he could already maintain a completely numb expression.

After finishing, he looked back.

Being followed by so many… so many puppets was quite a spectacle.

Chen Hui asked Bai Youwei, “They don’t seem to be attacking us anymore, but why do they keep following?”

“Because they also want to get out…” Bai Youwei sketched and drew on paper, eliminating route options. “The maze traps us, and it also traps them.”

Her voice paused, then she raised her head and continued, “They are actually us as well—another version of us. So if we want to get out, we must plan a route to the exit for them too.”

“Understood.” Chen Hui nodded. “Through the mirror surface’s reflection and refraction, the puppets in the mirrors shift position. So doors with mirrors are the true exits.”

Bai Youwei neither confirmed nor denied this, marking another passage on her paper before wheeling over to it.

Chen Hui followed and asked, “When did you figure it out?”

“This morning.”

“This morning?”

“Yes.” Bai Youwei nodded. “This morning we went to the exit and confirmed that the mirrors on both sides of the door couldn’t reflect ourselves. Not only that—the mirrors on the outer side of the exit corridor also couldn’t reflect. Later when we walked back, I worked backward and discovered that on the return route, some mirrors could reflect while some couldn’t. If the exit was correct without issues, the problem could only be the walking path.”

She paused briefly, looking ahead before continuing, “In a moment when we reach the exit, if the mirrors can smoothly reflect us, it means our current method works.”

“What if they still can’t reflect?” Zhang Tianyang asked.

Bai Youwei was slightly stunned, then glanced at him and said:

“Then we’ll just wait to die.”

Zhang Tianyang: “…”

Tan Xiao sympathetically put his arm around his shoulder, his eyes silently telling him: Hang in there!

Teacher Cheng sighed on the side, “Since ancient times, people have worshiped mazes, believing that a person’s entire life is like a maze. Only through the difficult and winding path of searching can one bid farewell to falsehood and evil and find one’s true self. Looking at it this way, this maze game has actually been reminding us from the start to correctly face the light and darkness of our own selves to avoid being devoured by inner demons.”

“It’s just a self-important game—where are all these profound philosophies?” Bai Youwei sneered coldly. “Even if there are, they’re just the maze glorifying itself.”

She walked alone at the front of the group, her indifferent tone containing contempt: “…Besides, whether to bid farewell to falsehood and evil, whether to find my true self—those are my own business. What the hell does it have to do with this maze!”

Everyone’s feelings were complicated upon hearing this.

They looked back again at the puppets behind them.

Those puppets had the same faces as them, following at a measured distance, crying, laughing, angry, indignant—as if they could never be shaken off…

They were the puppets, and the puppets were also them.

In the maze, they were merely dolls manipulated by game rules.

“All right.”

The girl in the wheelchair ahead stopped and smiled without warmth: “We’ve arrived.”

Everyone hesitantly moved forward, turned the corner, and saw the door leading to the exit.

They also saw the mirrors on both sides of the door.

The mirrors reflected their images—this time, living, flesh-and-blood people.

Shen Mo seemed to sense something and suddenly turned around.

The others also looked behind them.

The puppets that had been following them, crowding the entire passage, had all disappeared.