Yu Yezhou and Xu Yu wandered around, discovering that this place was essentially a huge factory.
Those puppet people seemed to follow someone’s orders, removing the tags from the little puppets sent over, putting on new tags, and then transporting them away in trucks.
Some had become defective products; for example, Yang Lin had been discarded in a warehouse.
Yu Yezhou and Xu Yu found a way in, only to realize they couldn’t distinguish which one was Yang Lin.
The Yang Lin without tags was indistinguishable from the other puppets...
After a moment, he forced himself to calm down.
The four of them had entered the instance; now, they were already half down, and they couldn’t let chaos ensue.
Yu Yezhou thought for a moment and said, “She has a birthmark on her wrist; maybe it’s different from the others. Let’s look for it.”
“Let’s go.” Xu Yu didn’t hesitate and followed him toward the mountain of boxes.
They climbed up and down several large boxes, searching through all the puppets, and finally discovered a puppet that had fallen to the ground in the corner, with a mole on its wrist.
Xu Yu squatted in front of the puppet and said, "Can you be sure this is Yang Lin? What if we got it wrong…"
Yu Yezhou replied, "I'm sure, this is Yang Lin."
His tone was so absolute that Xu Yu couldn't help but look up at him.
Xu Yu's eyes were filled with doubt, while Yu Yezhou's expression was somewhat unnatural. He cleared his throat twice and said, "Let's go, let's get her out of here."
Xu Yu asked, "Where should we take her?"
Where should they take her?
With that question, Yu Yezhou felt a bit confused as well.
Where could they go now?
At that moment, the ground beneath them suddenly trembled, nearly knocking Yu Yezhou and Xu Yu off balance.
"What’s happening?"
They hurriedly dragged Yang Lin’s puppet toward the corner, but before they could take two steps, cracks began to appear beneath their feet. The cracks were rapidly spreading from a distance! They soon reached the wall.
A large crack opened in the wall, and the shaking beneath their feet intensified!
Ominous black gas surged out from the cracks, and amidst the chaos, a black cat leaped up from the depths of the fissure. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be carrying something on its neck.
"Meow!"
The black cat, like a small mountain, burst forth, forcing the factory ceiling upward, letting in long-awaited sunlight that stung Yu Yezhou and Xu Yu’s eyes.
"What the hell is happening?" Yu Yezhou couldn't help but curse.
Xu Yu's sharp eyes quickly spotted a small figure on the cat's back.
"It's Gu Zhan!"
Xu Yu shouted loudly.
"What?!" Yu Yezhou was even more shocked, "He's still alive?!"
He thought Gu Zhan had surely died after jumping into that black hole!
The ground shook more violently, and the two of them struggled to move forward, barely managing to run past the cracks beneath their feet.
After a lot of effort, they finally reached the corner, but they saw the cat rampaging through the factory, crashing through countless walls and ceilings.
The puppets below were alarmed and hurriedly grabbed their weapons, aiming at the cat. However, not only was the cat enormous, but it was also very sturdy; all the weapons thrown at it broke or bounced back to the ground.
A broken stick fell from the sky, its sharp end aimed at Yu Yezhou's chest.
Yu Yezhou rolled to avoid it, drenched in cold sweat.
Even knowing Gu Zhan above might not be able to see, Yu Yezhou couldn't help but yell, "Watch where you're going!"
To his surprise, it seemed the person on the cat actually heard his voice, as the cat's head suddenly turned and charged toward him.
The giant cat's eyes glowed green, exuding a strong sense of beastly pressure. Yu Yezhou turned to run, cursing himself for not being able to keep his mouth shut.
But he couldn't outrun the cat, which quickly pinned him down by the back of his neck! The sharp claws "slapped" out next to his neck, and before he could be frightened, the cat's teeth came in close, precisely grabbing the back of his collar and tossing him upwards!
Next, Yu Yezhou found himself falling into the soft cat fur.
The fur engulfed his face, and as he struggled to get up, he looked up to see Gu Zhan sitting next to him.
Gu Zhan... seemed to be a bit off.
Yu Yezhou paused for a moment before realizing that Gu Zhan had lost his human ears, replaced by a pair of upright black cat ears, and his pupils had transformed into thin lines of gold.
This... was a sign of transformation!
Yu Yezhou asked, trembling with fear, "How much sanity value do you have left?"
Gu Zhan responded with an "Mm" and turned to look at Yu Yezhou, his cat-like pupils flickering with a cold light.
"How much?" he slowly replied, "I am rational now."
Yu Yezhou: "..."
That tone, that expression, didn’t seem rational at all.
However, Gu Zhan didn’t continue the conversation on that topic; instead, he asked, "Where's Xu Yu?"
For a moment, Yu Yezhou didn’t know if he should tell him Xu Yu's location.
"We scattered earlier; he's with Yang Lin..." After hesitating, Yu Yezhou said, "He ran that way just now."
Gu Zhan stroked the black cat beneath him, which immediately changed direction and headed toward where Yu Yezhou pointed.
Yu Yezhou exclaimed in surprise, "Where did you get this cat?"
Gu Zhan didn’t answer, and they quickly darted around the factory. The ground beneath them gradually shrank and deformed.
Before everything completely collapsed, they found Xu Yu.
The black cat employed the same trick, tossing Xu Yu and Yang Lin onto its back, and in the next moment, the tags buried deep in the ground erupted forth, blocking out the sun.
These tags were deeply polluted, and as they flew past Yu Yezhou, he could hear his san value continuously decreasing.
Before he could react, Xu Yu quickly covered his eyes and nose!
With his sight and hearing obscured, things became much better.
Those tags resembled butterflies, sprouting black wings as they flew toward the distant small town.
In an instant, even the sunlight vanished from view.
Yu Yezhou listened to the "flapping" sounds beside him until the noise disappeared, and only then did Xu Yu remove his hand. Even so, his sanity value had dropped by more than twenty points.
Looking at Gu Zhan, he seemed to still be in the same posture, his expression unchanged.
Yu Yezhou: "..."
This guy couldn’t have already gone insane, right?
However, they were now "riding a cat with no way down." Even if Gu Zhan had truly lost his mind, they could only continue.
But after the swarm of black butterflies flew past, several stray tags flew in their direction.
Before Yu Yezhou could clearly see what was written on those tags, they zoomed toward each of them.
Yang Lin had the most tags; he and Xu Yu had only one or two... As for Gu Zhan, not a single tag flew toward him.
After the tags took root above his head, Yu Yezhou distinctly felt his perspective shift.
His body seemed to have returned to normal. He looked at Xu Yu and Yang Lin, who also began to return to normal. Finally, Yang Lin woke up from her coma.
Confused, she looked around and, upon realizing she was lying on the back of a moving black cat, let out a piercing scream!
“Ah, ah, ah!”
Before she could scream a second time, Xu Yu quickly covered her mouth.
“Mmm!”
Forced to calm down, Yang Lin finally quieted down.
Soon, she signaled Yu Yezhou to let Xu Yu release her.
After observing for a while and seeing that Yang Lin was in good spirits, Yu Yezhou allowed Xu Yu to let go.
At this point, they had already arrived above Happiness Town, where black butterflies flew onto passersby and into every house...
This shocking scene prompted Yu Yezhou to exclaim, “We’ve blown up the instance!”
Yang Lin looked bewildered. “What’s going on?”
No one answered her; everyone unconsciously turned to look at Gu Zhan, who sat in front.
Gu Zhan was sitting cross-legged at the head of the cat, his head lowered as he licked his wrist.
His movements were light and graceful, and with the cat ears on his head, he looked like a sitting black cat from a distance.
As if sensing everyone’s gaze, his cat ears twitched slightly, and then a soft voice came, “You can leave now.”
The townspeople below also sensed the changes in the world and began to walk out of their houses.
They all looked up at a certain point in the sky, their expressions filled with surprise.
Following their gazes, Yu Yezhou saw a massive light circle appear in the sky, shining down on everyone like the sun.
That spot must be the exit from the instance.
It was Yu Yezhou’s first time escaping an instance like this, and it felt absurd.
“You guys go ahead.” At this moment, Gu Zhan suddenly spoke.
He stood up and leaped off the black cat, quickly disappearing above Happy Town—not the kind of disappearing where you can’t see him from a distance, but as if he had jumped into another world and vanished in an instant.
The black cat then turned and headed toward the light portal!
Yu Yezhou watched the direction in which Gu Zhan disappeared, murmuring, “That damn man... I’m going to have psychological trauma from this!”
What’s with him always free-falling in front of him!
—
【Where is Gu Zhan? Why isn’t he coming out?】
【He’s already mutated and can’t get out??】
【From the looks of it, that doesn’t seem to be the case.】
【What do you know? Once a person’s sanity value decreases, they no longer see themselves as human; they won’t regret staying in the instance. His behavior is quite normal.】
【So according to you, even if sanity decreases, there’s no need to be afraid, since by that time, they would willingly stay in the instance.】
【They’ve all gone out; why isn’t the livestream shutting down?】
【He should be alive; if people die or everyone clears the instance, the livestream will shut down.】
【With things like this, how can anyone survive?】
The bullet comments were bustling with discussions about Gu Zhan's whereabouts.
In reality, Gu Zhan was not in any mysterious place.
He had simply entered the internal space of the watch.
At this moment, the director wearing a tattered white coat, sat beside the central fountain, cradling a black cat in his arms, with a deep blue mermaid tail beneath him that didn’t match his outfit at all.
There was a sense of twisted stitching about him, with completely unrelated traits forcibly sewn together.
But those eyes were very familiar—filled with malice and provocation, the same gaze Gu Zhan had seen several times.
“Sure enough, it’s you,” Gu Zhan said.
However, the person in the white coat ignored him completely, just lowering his head to stroke the black cat in his arms.
The black cat also seemed dazed, allowing him to pet it.
Not far away, Sun Jingqiu held Xiao Ling’s hand, quietly observing.
After a while, Gu Zhan frowned.
He rarely felt this displeased.
It seemed he had been unknowingly fooled several times.
Yet, he couldn’t confront the matter directly, leaving him to swallow his frustration.
Noticing something was off, Sun Jingqiu cautiously approached with her daughter and asked, “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Gu Zhan replied as he stood up, casually lifting the black cat by the nape and tossing it into Xiao Ling’s arms. “Here’s your pet.”
“Ah?” Xiao Ling was taken aback.
This was obviously not a pet, but since Gu Zhan didn’t want to say anything, they could only treat it as a pet.
The black cat seemed to dislike being held, and shortly after being placed in Xiao Ling’s arms, it jumped away.
Gu Zhan looked up; everything here was as before, though the sky seemed clearer.
It seemed that clearing these instances not only rewarded him with points but also enhanced the watch item.
“Do you need anything for your daily life?”
Sun Jingqiu always regarded Gu Zhan as a benefactor. When he asked, she quickly replied, “We don’t need anything; we’re doing well now.”
“Good.” Gu Zhan didn’t say much more and took his leave.
—
At the entrance of the instance, Yu Yezhou and the others had already exited but were reluctant to leave.
Especially Yang Lin.
After coming out, Yu Yezhou told her about the events they had encountered after being taken away.
Yang Lin had dropped offline early and relied on her teammates to pull her out.
Meanwhile, Gu Zhan had been trapped inside without any news.
Though it didn’t directly concern her, Yang Lin couldn’t help but think that if she had been a bit more capable, Gu Zhan wouldn’t have had to take risks.
“The livestream hasn’t closed yet, which means someone is still alive.”
Xu Yu had been watching the livestream intently. With a calm demeanor, he said, “It’s just that I don’t know why the screen keeps staying on Happy Town... Hmm, it’s like their previous time has been buried; now everyone in the town is becoming normal again.”
As he spoke, he stroked his chin, puzzled. "Is this how the dungeon works? Doesn’t the dungeon reset every time a player leaves?"
Yu Yezhou felt confused as well. To force himself to calm down, he started thinking alongside Xuyue.
"You’re right, but if we think about it, if the normal ending is about reclaiming the label that was taken away at the start, it wouldn’t affect the factory’s operation. The next player entering the dungeon would still face the same situation... Huh? That doesn’t seem quite right."
As he continued talking, he genuinely became perplexed.
"It seems like it’s really the same. We always think that clearing a dungeon means the dungeon is over... But with the way we cleared it, the dungeon could continue just like before??"
As soon as he finished speaking, the live stream suddenly cut off with a “pop.”
"Ah..."
Yu Yezhou froze for a moment, forgetting to think about his earlier discovery. He nervously pointed at the live stream screen and said, "The live stream is gone; it’s..."
Before he could finish, he saw a figure slowly walking out from the dungeon entrance not far away.
It was Gu Zhan.
He’s not dead!
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