“Suppose there really is such a higher civilization. If it radiates its power across the entire Earth by way of the sun, then perhaps only places the sun cannot reach would allow humanity to survive unscathed. So the hypothesis concludes that the two polar regions would become fortresses of safety. Since we’re in the Northern Hemisphere, the rumor spread and transformed into what people now call ‘heading north is safer.'”

He shook his head slightly. “But these are only hypotheses. No one knows whether they’re true or false. Besides, fleeing to the Arctic—let alone actually living there—is something not everyone can do.”

He paused, and suddenly thought of Bai Youwei’s mother, Wang Jingxian.

Wang Jingxian had traveled north by ship. Her destination, in all likelihood, was the Arctic.

Saying ‘heading to the Arctic’ sounds inconceivable, yet many people have made Arctic tours before. With sufficient preparation, going to the Arctic is not as difficult as one might imagine.

Even without an icebreaker, you could go overland: first to Russia’s Saint Petersburg, then follow the tracks of the Arctic railway northward, passing through Petrozavodsk and Kem, arriving at Murmansk in Russia’s Arctic region, then crossing the border into Norway—where there is a small coastal Arctic town called Kirkenes…

Of course, there would certainly be many hardships along the way. Cold temperatures and food shortages could cost people their lives.

But it was also possible… just possible… that the Arctic region had not been affected by the doll games and still remained as it once was?

All these considerations seemed far too distant for now.

Bai Youwei suddenly asked him, “When does the polar night in the Arctic begin?”

Shen Mo raised an eyebrow slightly. “In September—around the 20-something of September—and it lasts until March of the following year. For those six months, you can’t see the sun.”

Bai Youwei did the math in her head.

It was currently August. Setting out from here to the Arctic would take a little over a month, which would be just in time for the polar night. Then they could spend half a year in peace somewhere the sun couldn’t reach.

That mother of hers had thought things through quite beautifully.

Seeing that she was asking such specific questions, Shen Mo assumed she’d taken an interest, and asked, “Do you believe the Arctic hypothesis is true?”

“Even if it’s not, it doesn’t really matter.” Bai Youwei smiled. “There are hardly any people there. You’d struggle to scrape together a table of four for mahjong. Even if the game zone covers the entire Arctic Circle, it would probably be very hard to trigger a game. I was just wondering—could the blind spot in the Arctic be something the game deliberately left open? To draw the survivors together? Otherwise there’s no way the jigsaw puzzle could ever be completed.”

Shen Mo frowned at this and thought it over. “If survivors remain scattered indefinitely, the jigsaw pieces they can collect are also very limited. Without transportation, we simply cannot reach labyrinths in other regions—like Australia, for instance… The doll game shouldn’t set us a goal that we fundamentally cannot achieve.”

Even if a blind spot was set up to lure people northward, there would certainly be those who, for various reasons, could never reach the Arctic. So how would that portion of the jigsaw pieces be collected?

Both of them fell silent simultaneously, seemingly realizing this was a deadlock—or a dead end.

After a long pause, Shen Mo said, “Collecting all the jigsaw pieces allows you to clear all the games—that’s the clue Zhang Tianyang got from using the silk-bag item, so it shouldn’t be wrong. Perhaps when there are more pieces, there will be more clues.”

Bai Youwei thought it over, then pulled out all the jigsaw pieces and laid them on the bed to try to fit them together.

Shen Mo also very much wanted to know what these jigsaw pieces could form.

But unfortunately, of their meager eight pieces, not a single one matched the shape of another. No matter how they tried to fit them, nothing took form—there was no coherence whatsoever.

Shen Mo said blandly, “It seems we need more jigsaw pieces…”

Outside, Shen Fei’s voice suddenly rang out:

“Cheng-laoshi! Is my brother in?”