Chapter 6: World 006 Part Four (Thanks to HZ Youyou Zhongkou Alliance Master)
Li Chengyi casually chose a self-service dessert set, placed his order and paid, then stood up to collect his tray, ready to pick up his dessert.
“I can’t take it anymore, really, I just can’t!” he suddenly heard a voice tinged with sobs as he walked to the dessert counter.
“It’s okay, you just didn’t sleep well last night, and the stress from exams is a bit too much. Rest up these days, do the meditation I told you about, adjust your mindset, and everything will be fine,” another low female voice reassured.
“It’s not a hallucination, not a dream!” the previous voice continued.
“I even cut myself at that time, see, the wound is still there, it was all real! Real!” The girl’s voice was very young, probably only seventeen or eighteen, and clearly on the verge of breakdown.
“Have you tried consulting an online psychologist? You can look for the best and book a consultation. Tell them about your situation, maybe they have seen it all and should manage.”
“I told you it’s not an illness! It’s all real! Really!!” The girl’s emotion started to spike.
“I’m going to die… If I enter that place again, I’ll surely die.” She began to cry.
“You’re just too nervous, too tired, it won’t be anything serious, don’t worry, I’ll be with you,” the other woman consoled seriously and gently.
Li Chengyi picked up a yogurt cake with a strawberry on top and put it into his tray, glancing in the direction from which the voices came.
To the right of the self-serve dessert bar, next to the second table over, sat two young women.
The one who was crying wore a white sweater with black dots and had shoulder-length black curly hair and white glasses.
She was holding a coffee spoon so tightly that her knuckles turned white, nearly shattering the white porcelain spoon, her whole body shaking.
Across from her, a short-haired girl in a dark blue hoodie was quietly comforting the other with a worried expression.
The two seemed to notice Li Chengyi’s glance, and their voices quickly lowered.
Li Chengyi hastily grabbed another cake shaped like a banana, turned to fetch a glass of milk, and rather than returning to his previous seat, he sat at another table not far from the two women.
He was very interested in the topic the girls had been discussing, the white-sweatered girl’s experience making him think of what he was currently going through.
However, his movements seemed to have attracted the attention of the two girls, who also glanced at him briefly, and then spoke in almost inaudible voices.
Li Chengyi lowered his head, eating his cake while hesitating in his mind.
He wondered whether to approach them and ask about their situation.
But whether what he had seen was good or bad remained unknown. After hesitating, he continued to sit without moving.
Not long after, the two girls got up, grabbed their bags, and hurried off.
Li Chengyi kept silent until the end without engaging in any conversation, merely sitting in his place.
Thinking back on the content of the girl’s complaints, he frowned slightly, then suddenly, an idea crossed his mind.
“I’m such an idiot.” In the information age, he actually just sat there doing nothing. If there was a problem, the best approach was, naturally…
He took out his phone, unlocked it efficiently, and opened the browser.
Then he searched: dreaming of entering an unknown place.
Clicking confirm, the screen instantly displayed a series of information links.
“Dream interpretation charges.”
“Dream dictionary VIP edition.”
“Northern psychology master Su Lun answers the unknown for you”
“Dreaming about my dad trying to chop me.”
“Dreaming of falling into a strange toilet.”
Li Chengyi felt dizzy looking at the unrelated search results, but that’s how information is: finding a needle in a haystack requires gradual filtering.
He patiently checked each link that seemed promising.
The light outside the window gradually dimmed, the sunlight became slanted, and the cafe began to fill with more people.
More people were arriving after work.
Finally, Li Chengyi drank the milk in his cup, stood up, and grabbed his phone.
With so many people around, it was not conducive for him to quietly check the information, so he decided to change locations.
Squeaking, as he pushed open the cafe door and passed by the cluster of white flowers at the door, a trace of black swiped across the back of his right hand, and a line of clear text appeared.
It was written in the language and scripture he had learned in his previous life.
The text was quite concise.
“Loading started. Please continue to touch for ten seconds before releasing.”
Apart from Li Chengyi, no one else could see this black text.
While he was engrossed in searching on his phone, he did not notice the change on his hand at all.
As he walked further, the distance from those small flowers increased, and the text on the back of his hand began to fade rapidly.
“Start failed. Please continue contact for ten seconds.” The text quickly disappeared as if it had never appeared, as though it ran out of battery.
By then, Li Chengyi’s attention gradually concentrated, and he actually spotted something unusual while clicking through the links on his phone.
“Dead End Forum?”
“Dead End Club.”
“Dead End Research Institute.”
One after another, related websites entered his sight.
He randomly clicked on one of the Dead End Club links.
Immediately, a pitch-black webpage automatically popped up.
“If you encounter a dead end, don’t be afraid. Because whether you’re afraid or not, you will die.”
A line of red text slowly emerged.
“A dead end cannot be escaped. It binds you like shackles, forever around your neck, suffocating you, step by step into despair.”
After the red text displayed, a series of news links appeared.
“A couple from Wanxi City mysteriously disappeared in their own home, with freshly cooked noodles still on the table.”
“An elderly man from Jiaxin City disappeared in the middle of the night after taking out the trash, with no anomalies captured by surveillance, as if the old man never left the staircase.”
“A student from Yiyang City mysteriously disappeared on his way home from school, with nothing found by cameras on either end of the road.”
News after news, all from various places where people disappeared were collected.
At the bottom was a knowledge exchange entrance button.
Li Chengyi clicked it, and the screen immediately switched to another webpage.
This resembled a forum interface, with several striking red titles pinned at the top among the rows of posts.
“1: Overview of community rules, methods to earn points.”
“2: Must-see for newcomers.”
“3: Please protect personal information when posting discussions, to avoid being deceived. Recently, criminals have…”
Li Chengyi quickly clicked on the must-see for newcomers.
Instantly, a batch of text popped up, hundreds of words.
“No one has ever seen a dead end, perhaps it’s just a legend, but the constantly increasing cases of missing people make us believe that there must be some force getting closer, lurking around.”
“Dead ends are hard to notice, often misconceived as a dream. Unfortunately, you can wake up from a dream, but entering a dead end means certain death; you can never reappear.”
“If you encounter a dead end, please do not contact us. Try to enjoy your last moments of life. Dead ends generally approach slowly and will pull you in completely on the third warning. Go on and do everything you’ve wanted to but were afraid to.”
Li Chengyi’s brows furrowed.
This forum exuded a sense of despair and a devil-may-care attitude.
He quickly looked at the position of the poster, where the name nickname stood.
“——Knowledgeable One.”
He quickly clicked on the name, and a small window popped up.
“Nickname: Knowledgeable One. Real name: Zhang Xiaying. Disappeared mysteriously at home in June, year 22. Still missing to this date. If found, please contact this number.”
Below was a black and white photo of a woman, along with a line of phone numbers.
The woman in the photo appeared more like an extremely strong, burly man with cropped hair rather than a woman.
Her eyes were sharp, defiant, with a scar on her forehead, her neck as thick as a bucket, and even through the photo, one could see the strong muscle lines.
She wore an army green tight T-shirt with military insignias, likely a veteran.
Li Chengyi checked the current date: May 13, year 24, Thursday.
“Already missing for almost two years?” he sighed internally. If he had any doubts about his experiences being hallucinations or dreams, now, seeing all this real proof, he understood that what he had gone through was not an illusion.
He continued to search the forum. Besides some hints, the forum was more about hobbyists discussing and boasting about their dreams.
Not finding more information, Li Chengyi reluctantly closed the website.
As the sky gradually darkened, he walked to a bus stop and stood waiting.
As he stood, he faintly felt a bit tired, perhaps because he had eaten too many sweets.
Pulling out his phone, he continued to browse the web, checking information about dead ends.
Click, click.
Suddenly, the phone screen stuttered, then displayed a cartoon image of a small yellow dog wagging its tail and sitting.
Below was a line of text.
“Sorry, your network signal is weak, please check and try again.”
“Hm?”
Li Chengyi quickly glanced at the upper right corner of his phone where the signal indicator was. Indeed, the originally full signal was now blank with a red cross.
He shook his phone, wondering if it was malfunctioning, but then felt something was off. It was too quiet around him.
Lifting his head.
His eyes widened in shock.
Around him was no longer a bus stop!
Instead, it was the underground parking garage he had entered before!!
In the dim parking lot.
The square, expansive area, devoid of any cars, resembled a sealed-off long box stretching to the horizon.
White fluorescent lights spread from the center of the ceiling to both sides.
To the right was a continuous line of lights, shining all the way to the end of the view.
To the left, sections of horizontal lights, one-meter long cold light lamps spaced five meters apart, likewise extending to the horizon.
Li Chengyi stood frozen in place, his neck stiff as he slowly looked left and right.
Both sides were lined with gray-white lime walls, the red fire cabinet, and the maintenance room’s gray door clearly visible.
But not a single person.
Not one.
Li Chengyi quickly glanced behind him.
Behind him was a solid white wall, the bus stop billboard from before completely vanished.
The dimly lit space, the ground marked with vague black parking lines.
No wind, no sound, only him alone.
Click.
Just then.
A faint noise came from the right side, from one of the maintenance doors.
It seemed like the sound of a door lock being rotated and opened.
Li Chengyi looked far off, with about twenty meters between him and the door, clearly seeing the doorknob slowly turning.
Rust flakes also slightly fell off as it rotated.
Gulp.
Li Chengyi unknowingly swallowed a bit of saliva.
Even after living twice, facing danger, he remained just an ordinary person with no special abilities.
And now.
Click.
Suddenly, that maintenance door slowly opened.
It gradually widened, revealing a narrow, dark gap.
The gap was illuminated by light, showing nothing inside.
It seemed to be just a storeroom used as a maintenance room.
Li Chengyi still dared not relax, his eyes locked on the door gap, not daring to shift his gaze for a moment.
Click.
Suddenly, a slight noise came from behind him!
He was shocked, not expecting the wall behind him to make noise, quickly turning to look.
Behind him was nothing, still just a white wall.
He then realized and quickly turned back to look at the maintenance door.
A face!!!
He saw a huge face at the door gap, silently staring at him.
The face was entirely black and white, as if forcibly extracted from an old videotape, without any color.
The face was expressionless, with a few sparse black hairs on the forehead.
It didn’t have a body, the head looking like a balloon, easily squeezing out through the gap.
Li Chengyi stood still, his body numb, unable to move.
He stared at the face, wanting to move, but his skin seemed to lose sensation, unable to move at all.
Cold sweat slowly seeped from his forehead, temples, and back.
Tiny red dots, blood spots, began to emerge from the skin on his legs and gradually spread upwards.
The nearly two-meter-tall face slowly floated closer, approaching him.
Closer and closer
Closer and closer
(End of Chapter)
