Author: 颜凉雨 / Yan Liang Yu

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 6: Sorting Things Out

Treading through the night, four people hurried out of the park in one breath. Outside the park lies North Andeli Street, where both the large buildings and the residential areas were as quiet as if they were in deep sleep, with only the dim light of the street lamps casting shadows of fallen leaves on the ground.

“Now what?” Kuang Jinxin panted heavily and wiped off his sweat. He was wearing a thick coat to ward off the cold and looked flush from his “night run”.

Wu Sheng glanced at the time on his phone and looked up. “There are three more hours until dawn. Let’s find a place to sit down. We need to sort this out from beginning to end.”

“What’s there to sort out?” Xu Wang, having completely snapped back to reality from the surreal, stood firmly on the ground with the sky overhead and expressed his frustration. “Just call the police!”

“No use,” Sun Jiang said as he fumbled in his pockets, finally finding nothing, and looked around at his companions. “Got a smoke?”

The response was two headshakes and one “no.”

Sun Jiang’s already morose face grew more irritated.

Xu Wang, however, was still pondering his earlier statement. “Sun Ge, what do you mean calling the police is useless?”

Sun Jiang, unable to suppress his fatigue, yawned and then pointed to himself and Kuang Jinxin. “Both of us tried calling the police yesterday, but as soon as we got through, we started having severe headaches. I thought my head was going to explode. I’ve never felt such pain in my life—couldn’t even speak, let alone hold the damn phone!”

“Both of you?” Xu Wang looked incredulously at Kuang Jinxin, who replied with a pitiful nod.

“And you?” Xu Wang turned to Wu Sheng with a glimmer of hope.

Wu Sheng decisively shook his head.

Xu Wang thought he had found a lead and was about to inquire further when Wu Sheng calmly stated, “I didn’t call the police.”

“Why?” asked Xu Wang.

Wu Sheng replied, “They were both rolling on the ground in pain, a vivid demonstration that calling the police was a dead end. Why would I repeat the same mistake?”

Xu Wang: “……”

Sun Jiang: “……”

Kuang Jinxin: “……”

Their discussion was interrupted by the realization that what they thought might be a nightmare the day before was actually a persistent ordeal they were facing. This was a long battle; they couldn’t afford to sit and wait out idly.

But where to “discuss” this was the question.

“McDonald’s? KTV? A bar?” Xu Wang suggested places suitable for an “early morning discussion”.

Wu Sheng vetoed them all in one go. “None of those. We need a place that’s both quiet enough to organize our thoughts and private enough to minimize the risk of information leakage.”

Xu Wang was incredulous. “Brother, we’re the victims, and we have to provide confidentiality for the perpetrator?!”

“Long story short,” Wu Sheng looked around as if searching for something, then asked casually, “Who do you live with?”

“I live alone,” Xu Wang replied without a second thought.

Relieved, Wu Sheng nodded. “Let’s go to your place.”

Xu Wang: “……”

This was a pit; this was definitely a pit, and he must climb out of it!

Kuang Jinxin: “I live nearby too, but I have roommates…”

Sun Jiang: “My family’s nearby as well. My wife and children are asleep.”

Wu Sheng: “I live near the company, not far from here. But if we discuss until dawn and the employees see us, I can’t give a reasonable explanation. It will lead to unnecessary gossip and speculation, which isn’t good for maintaining my aloof image.”

Do you have some misunderstanding about your own image?!

Xu Wang: “Come on, follow me. It’s dark and slippery outside. Watch your step…”

Half an hour later, the group arrived at Xu Wang’s home. He rented a one-bedroom apartment in an old neighborhood. Despite its age, the location was excellent, and it had been renovated, making it not cheap. But for Xu Wang, who only had himself to feed, the cost wasn’t too burdensome.

“Wow, Xu Ge.” Kuang Jinxin was the first to enter, politely standing there in the living room, not even trying to enter the bedroom, while looking around in all directions in astonishment. “Your place is so clean.”

Pleased with the compliment, Xu Wang was about to respond when Wu Sheng sighed. “Oh god, back to 222.”

“222?” Kuang Jinxin had a rare moment of insight. “Was that your high school dormitory with Xu Ge?”

“No,” Wu Sheng corrected seriously. “It was your Xu Ge’s own. The rest of us just stayed there. We’d mess up the place, avoid chores, and always forget to take out the trash. We didn’t have the sense of ‘making the dorm a home’.”

Xu Wang threw a pair of slippers he had just found at Wu Sheng’s feet, along with a big roll of his eyes. “Do you have to hold a grudge like that? Have you noted down everything I’ve ever said in a little black book?”

Wu Sheng didn’t respond and just smiled while he changed into the slippers with a cheerful and spirited look.

Xu Wang, tired of the banter, turned to pour four glasses of water. When he came back with the water, the other three had already settled on the sofa. He placed the water on the coffee table and fetched a chair from the bedroom.

The cups were filled with boiling water with steam rising, giving off a warm and soothing feel.

After two days of ordeal, the four of them could finally sit down and have a serious talk.

Wu Sheng was the first to speak. When it came to serious matters, he became completely focused. “We now know four things. First, the chosen ones will enter there at midnight, whether they want to or not; second, the substantial harm received there will be brought back to reality; third, once you want to report to the police, you will suffer an unbearable headache; fourth, the location there corresponds one-to-one with a location in reality—the distance and coordinate system are the same. For example, if we enter there from our home and move two kilometers in that place, when we return to reality, we will be two kilometers away from our home…”

Xu Wang had a sudden realization. This could explain why he popped out at the crossroads downstairs yesterday, and today he ended up even further away at Qingnianhu Park because they had traveled a distance there by sleigh.

“What use is knowing all this? I want to know what that damn place really is! Who’s playing us!” Sun Jiang interrupted Wu Sheng, voicing the question they all urgently wanted answered.

This was something Xu Wang, Kuang Jinxin, and even Wu Sheng themselves wanted to figure out. But “wanting” and “being able” were two different things.

“I don’t know. With the experiences and clues we’ve accumulated at this stage, there’s no way to answer these questions. But if we let it be and do nothing, we’ll never solve them,” Wu Sheng said, his tone unchanged and his demeanor as calm as if he was asking if you’d like some porridge today.

Sun Jiang slumped back onto the couch, looking up at the ceiling. His eyes were bloodshot from two sleepless nights filled with exhaustion. Xu Wang knew; he also realized that they couldn’t get any answers, but not venting out would make him feel even worse.

In fact, everyone felt the same, including Wu Sheng, who appeared unaffected. If he wasn’t bothered, why would he show the same determination he had when facing the toughest problem in a mock exam?

He was competitive, and Xu Wang could see it.

After all, such unprovoked disasters would infuriate anyone who encountered them.

“There are these four certainties, and there are four uncertainties,” Wu Sheng continued, his thoughts undisturbed by Sun Jiang’s interruption. “First, whether that place can truly exert mental control over people, such as preventing them from calling the police; second, whether there is some sort of protective mechanism that, when people involved are in grave danger, bounces them back to reality, minimizing harm, like when Xu Wang was attacked by a bear; third, today when we re-entered, both Sun Jiang and Kuang Jinxin’s [Stationery Box] were empty—the [Fishnado] and [Jingle Bells] that had never been used disappeared. Was this a punishment for their attempted police call or something else? Fourth, are there others like us who have been drawn into that place?”

“That… test submission,” Kuang Jinxin hesitantly said. “Before popping out, did you hear someone congratulate you for passing and successfully turning in the test?”

Xu Wang nodded quickly. “I heard it today, and yesterday I even saw a scorecard with information about another team turning in their test.” He had been confused when the new information popped up yesterday, but thinking about it today, he connected the dots.

“Yeah, I saw that too!” Kuang Jinxin’s face lit up with joy, but he instinctively reined it in. Clearly, he was an honest kid, not used to boasting, but definitely sharp-minded. “I remember the scorecard saying that team turned it in on 3/23—something about Yue Shuai… and someone named Anan…”

Xu Wang looked at Wu Sheng. “About the fourth uncertainty, I think we can move it to the certain category now. There are others.”

Wu Sheng took a sip from his cup and shook his head slightly. “Not enough. They might be humans, or not; might be forced like us, or willing; might share the same space with us and encounter us at any time, or might exist in a parallel, independent space, never crossing paths with us.” Putting down the teacup, he sighed. “Without confirming these, it can’t be classified.”

Xu Wang looked at him for a while and conceded. “After all these years, I admire your thoroughness.”

Wu Sheng frowned and said in sincere disbelief, “Just thoroughness?”

Xu Wang suppressed the urge to punch him and asked the last question, “The team that submitted their test yesterday was 3/23. Today, when we passed, it was 1/23. What do you think?”

“Same as you.” Wu Sheng shrugged, as if he had already accepted the reality. “It means there are 22 more levels waiting for us.”

Sun Jiang suddenly sat up, holding back from roaring, but his face clearly conveyed his astonishment and despair.

The discussion continued until 5:30 in the morning. Xu Wang learned that the first night after he was ejected early, the remaining three used Wu Sheng’s [Fishnado] and [Jingle Bells] to contend with the bear until they reached the coordinate point, then had to flee down the mountain due to not triggering the ice waterfall. They were pulled back into reality just before reaching the base of the mountain at around 5 a.m.

Calculating back, the time difference for them returning to reality was about an hour. Xu Wang was naturally long gone, which explained why Wu Sheng spent the next day searching all over Beijing.

That evening, Wu Sheng, having run around with Kuang Jinxin all day, simply parked his car at the last stop of his search, the West Fifth Ring, while Sun Jiang found an excuse to leave home and ducked into a KTV he’d never been to before. At the stroke of midnight, the eerie entrances appeared again, one in the back seat of the car and another on the wall of the KTV’s private room, as arbitrary as if there were no taboos but as persistent as a shadow. Two minutes later, the three, struggling fiercely, were dragged in just like Xu Wang the previous night.

The experiences of his teammates sent chills down Xu Wang’s spine, completely dispelling any thoughts of fleeing.

At the end of the discussion, Kuang Jinxin suggested, “It’s awkward always saying ‘that place’. How about we give it a name?”

Sun Jiang was speechless. “Are you playing house, naming that hell of a place?!”

Wu Sheng and Xu Wang didn’t object. In fact, the name was already glaringly obvious to them—

Xu Wang: “Isn’t there such a big word written underneath the owl’s head? That’s probably its name, so from now on we’ll call it…”

Wu Sheng: “Owl.”

Xu Wang: “Can. You. Not. Interrupt?”

Wu Sheng: “Okay, re-do. Isn’t there such a big word written underneath the owl’s head? That’s probably its name, so from now on we’ll call it…”

Xu Wang: “Owl!”

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