Qi Xia steadied himself again and looked up at the staircase.

Under this tremendous shaking, the old building began developing numerous cracks.

Qingdao was a coastal city where earthquakes were rarely seen, so the houses built here had no idea what magnitude of earthquake they could withstand.

Qi Xia worried the building could collapse at any moment. He had to find Yu Nian’an quickly.

“An! Can you hear me?! Come down quickly!” Qi Xia shouted again.

The entire building was shaking, and the massive sounds quickly drowned out Qi Xia’s voice.

“An…” Qi Xia steadied himself and continued running upstairs.

However, earthquakes caused normal people’s sense of balance to become chaotic, not to mention trying to run up stairs. Qi Xia only felt his legs covered in bruises, but he still used both hands and feet to continuously climb upward.

If Yu Nian’an lost her life in this earthquake, Qi Xia would have no reason to continue living.

“Damn it… still shaking…”

Qi Xia fell to the ground once more, his entire knee losing all feeling.

He had seen news reports that the most intense tremors of an earthquake usually only lasted a very short time, no more than three minutes at most.

But Qi Xia felt the entire earth had been shaking for nearly five minutes and still showed no signs of stopping.

Just how massive must this earthquake be?

Finally, Qi Xia dragged his battered body to the third floor.

The building continued to shake. Qi Xia wanted to knock on the door, but suddenly thought that Yu Nian’an might be hiding under a table, and running around recklessly would be even more dangerous, so he could only pull out his keys from his pocket.

But he simply couldn’t insert the key into the lock.

People were shaking, hands were shaking, the building was shaking.

Everything in his field of vision was shaking. Massive rumbling sounds continued to come from the distance, and there were even sounds of glass shattering.

“Damn it! Damn it!”

Qi Xia held the key with both hands and finally inserted it into the lock.

With a “click,” the door opened.

“An!! Are you here?” Qi Xia shouted, but the room was completely quiet.

He instantly thought of something.

No response from inside—there was only one possibility.

Yu Nian’an had left long ago.

Without a second thought, Qi Xia turned to leave, but suddenly remembered the phone call Yu Nian’an had made to him.

“No, there’s a second possibility…”

She had fallen ill!

Qi Xia instantly fell into a difficult choice. The entire building was shaking more and more violently. If he didn’t run out early, he would certainly die here.

But he absolutely could not abandon Yu Nian’an.

“An! Are you here?”

Qi Xia pushed the door and entered the room. The empty room had no one speaking. Several simple pieces of furniture were also in disarray from the earthquake. Qi Xia glanced under the small dining table—it was completely empty.

“Not here. Could she be in the bedroom?”

He supported himself on the single-person sofa and walked forward with difficulty, reaching the bedroom door in just a few steps.

If Yu Nian’an was still at home, she could only be here.

“An!”

The moment he pushed open the door, Qi Xia showed a trace of relief. There wasn’t a single person in the bedroom. As far as his eyes could see, there was only a desk and a chair.

Qi Xia let out a long breath. He knew Yu Nian’an had most likely escaped to a safe place. Even if he died now, there was nothing to fear.

Just as he was about to turn and flee, he suddenly froze in place as if struck by thunder.

Something didn’t seem right.

A bone-chilling feeling gradually rose in Qi Xia’s heart, making his hair stand on end, unable to calm down for a long time.

In the midst of the massive earthquake, Qi Xia turned his head in bewilderment and looked at this strange “bedroom.”

Why was there only a desk and a chair?

Where was the bed?

He completely ignored the small fragments falling from the ceiling and walked to the desk step by halting step. In his memory, there was a photo of himself and Yu Nian’an on the desk.

But when Qi Xia approached and picked up that photo, he found only himself standing blankly in the frame.

He stood by the seaside with an expressionless face, looking at the camera, leaving behind this lonely photograph.

“An…?”

Qi Xia seemed to have lost his mind. The balance he had just found completely disappeared.

He only felt dizzy and disoriented, returning to the state of stumbling with every step, falling countless times before crawling into the living room.

Here was a single-person sofa and a small dining table for one person.

This room didn’t even have seating prepared for a second person.

“What kind of joke is this…” Qi Xia showed a trace of desperate smile. “What kind of joke are you playing on me?!”

He suddenly remembered something and hurriedly crawled to the entrance, where a small shoe cabinet was placed.

Qi Xia gritted his teeth hard and opened the shoe cabinet door.

Inside was only a pair of men’s leather shoes.

From inside to outside, this room had absolutely no traces of Yu Nian’an ever having lived here.

Qi Xia suddenly lost all strength and sat down hard on the floor.

All the scenes of being together with Yu Nian’an were vivid in his mind.

Her scent, the warmth of her palms, her eyes that curved when she smiled—Qi Xia remembered every single detail clearly.

But why wasn’t she here at all?!

Qi Xia couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t understand anything that was happening.

Yu Nian’an had called him less than an hour ago. How could she not be here…?

Qi Xia tremblingly pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialed “A” again.

He slowly swallowed, his entire body trembling. He seemed to have already sensed what was coming.

“Hello, the number you have dialed does not exist. Please verify and dial again.”

As the cold bilingual announcement sounded, the phone in Qi Xia’s hand also fell to the ground.

All of this was too terrifying.

Yu Nian’an… didn’t exist?

“Impossible…” Qi Xia’s eyes suddenly became determined. He clearly could recall the first time he met Yu Nian’an, and could remember every day of their life together.

She couldn’t not exist.

“Qi Xia, do you know?” Yu Nian’an’s voice echoed in his mind. “There are many roads in this world, and everyone has their own path.”

Qi Xia suddenly stood up, standing tall in the shaking room. After pondering for a moment, he walked to the bedroom again and without a word pulled open the wardrobe.

Among the numerous men’s clothes was an old white shirt.

He took the white shirt and turned it over. A cartoon sheep patch was sewn on the chest.

This was sewn by Yu Nian’an herself.

Qi Xia never knew how to mend clothes. Old clothes would only be thrown away by him. If Yu Nian’an didn’t exist, this little sheep shouldn’t exist either.

“Goddamn it… I understand now…” Qi Xia coldly raised his head and looked out the window. “‘Land of End’… you want to drive me insane? You want to make me think I’m crazy?”

He slowly stood up, his expression carrying unprecedented hatred.

“Even if you are ‘gods,’ I will make you return Yu Nian’an to me.”

As soon as the words fell, Qi Xia saw that the sky outside the window had actually split open with enormous cracks. Inside the cracks was pitch darkness, like the infinite universe.

The entire ceiling also collapsed with a thunderous crash at this moment. With a world-destroying roar, Qi Xia was ruthlessly buried under the rubble.

In his dying moments, Lin Qin’s voice rang in his ears.

“I’m really curious about you.”

“I don’t mean to offend you, but you’re a liar. What kind of person is your wife?”

“You do have a wife… Even if the two of you live together, do you still sleep sitting up every night?”