Since they were no longer heading for the fourth building, the exploration of the Ninth Psychiatric Hospital was considered finished.

However, Bai Wu had a kind of intuition that helped him know which areas had been completely explored.

Wu Jiu didn’t have such a gift, and he asked,

"I believe every area has its significance for us, whether it was previously considered rescuing those who were suffering, acquiring some critical items, or obtaining fragments of the Doomsday Puzzle."

"But what about this time? The Ninth Psychiatric Hospital, could there be something else hidden here?"

If this were a real scenario, it would probably be like many of the past excursions from the High Tower, mainly for the pursuit of survival resources, without significant gains.

But this place isn’t reality, it’s heavily distorted. How can one determine if an area has been thoroughly explored?

Bai Wu shook his head:

"Just trust me on this one, this world is similar yet entirely different from the world as we know it. We will encounter many distorted, yet familiar scenes.

Each of these scenes has a Guardian, and as long as this Guardian is redeemed from their heavily distorted state, we will have completed our exploration.

As for its significance... it’s hard for me to articulate, but I did feel some subtle changes after gaining the recognition of Hong Yin."

Actually, Wu Jiu was very curious about how Bai Wu knew all this. This shouldn’t be something that Hong Yin could have told Bai Wu.

If he asked now, Bai Wu would probably answer truthfully that he had strange pages of fate hanging above his head.

Through the text on the pages, his recent experiences, and the inexplicable changes in his body after redeeming Hong Yin, Bai Wu reached a conclusion—

He needed to correct this heavily distorted world.

Had he possessed Prayle’s Eye, he might have known that the change was related to a terrifying Sequence.

But even without it, Bai Wu could still feel something.

When he first confronted that yellowed page, he felt fear, and after the captain’s behavior was altered, an overpowering sense of helplessness and despair.

Yet the captain, with his iron-clad will, proved that some parts of the yellowed page were beyond control.

This gave Bai Wu the confidence to resist the page.

Now, having gained the recognition of Hong Yin, Bai Wu increasingly felt that the text was no longer frightening.

Raising his head to meet the gaze of the pages, Bai Wu was filled with a sense of bravado.

[He seemed to believe that he had regained the power to fight against Destiny, but how did he know this wasn’t within Destiny’s calculations as well?

Thirty-five kilometers ahead, one would see a grand city; along the way, Bai Wu and his friends would encounter many powerful monsters...

Uh, okay, let’s skip over their thorny journey and turn this page.]

The page actually turned as if the hand named Destiny had pushed the exploration of the entire scene to the next phase.

The surroundings rapidly changed, with Wu Jiu and Bai Wu witnessing countless flora and landscapes swiftly receding.

For a brief moment, numerous Evil Fallen also appeared in their line of sight, retreating just like the scenery.

The Evil Fallen seemed unable to see Bai Wu and Wu Jiu; in their eyes, the world still appeared to be at a standstill.

Only Wu Jiu and Bai Wu felt they were in a world shifting gears at an accelerated pace.

After a full ten seconds.

New text was written on the following page.

[This section omits their search for the city, the next area, and their continual fight with monsters for survival... eight thousand words.

Well, in short, they arrived at the entrance to the next game.

The great Dragon Slayer arrived in a city filled with many familiar buildings; he immediately recognized the place as Baichuan City.

He sensed human presence, as the Evil Fallen seemed to be wary of coming close to this area.

This Baichuan City was like a refuge, but it was much more prosperous than any shelter he knew.

Uh... it still seems insufficient, let’s speed up the game again and skip the boring observation phase.]

The scene, which had already stopped changing.

Wu Jiu, through the Heart Net, felt the presence of countless humans, a density of the crowd even more exaggerated than during the High Tower days.

Only cities from the Pre-Tower Era could possibly have such a volume of people.

But just as Wu Jiu wanted to ask what had happened, the yellowed pages inscribed the final passage—let’s give the game another boost in speed.

Thus, another change occurred.

"Bai Wu, what’s happ—"

Before finishing his sentence, Wu Jiu vanished.

The Wu Jiu standing beside Bai Wu simply disappeared from sight.

Bai Wu was startled, but he quickly calmed down.

After all, the captain was no ordinary person; he was one of the most powerful beings among humans.

"What exactly are you trying to do?"

[The Dragon Slayer seemed to believe he could converse with Destiny, so he asked, "What exactly are you trying to do."

But there was no response from his surroundings. Then it suddenly occurred to him that the new game had started, and perhaps there were clues on his own person. Let’s observe the surroundings~

Destiny awaits your choices.]

The new game had already begun.

Bai Wu looked around and only then realized he was in a modern luxury-decorated house.

This was probably the simplest two-bedroom house in the Original World, which, in the exorbitantly priced Baichuan City, counted as a considerable possession.

He was dressed in a suit, sitting at the dining table.

Just a second ago, Bai Wu was still on the outskirts of Baichuan City. The next second, following the inscription of that sentence on the yellowed pages, he found himself in this room.

"Stay calm..."

Bai Wu looked at the page again. There weren’t any new words for the moment, it just faithfully recorded Bai Wu’s actions.

However, it was worth noting that next to the yellowed page, a countdown timer appeared, 47:59:54.

The next second, it changed to 47:59:53.

This was obviously a countdown, starting from forty-eight hours.

But at this stage, with the conditions at hand, Bai Wu was not yet able to understand the meaning of this countdown.

Seeing no clues, Bai Wu began to observe his surroundings, to the point where the milk in his cup and the toast on his plate remained untouched.

"What’s wrong, isn’t breakfast to your liking today? Are you feeling unwell, dear?"

A familiar voice came through, and Bai Wu looked up to see Yan Jiu, wearing an apron, looking at Bai Wu with gentle eyes.

"Another one of these fake scenarios... How boring. Is this your challenge? I’ve already been through this in the Memory Palace, in Zhou Zeshui’s memories."

The instant Bai Wu saw Yan Jiu, he guessed that this was probably another strange fake scenario.

In Zhou Zeshui’s distorted memories, he and Yan Jiu were husband and wife, Zheng Yue became a model worker, Dwarf and Dwarf’s Wife got married, and incidentally, Dwarf in his human form was one-ninety tall.

Lin Wurou became a city cultural ambassador, and Bai Xiaoyu became a gang boss.

Very chaotic and twisted memories, everything reversed from reality.

So when Bai Wu saw Yan Jiu wearing an apron, he probably understood...

He had become husband and wife with Yan Jiu again, and he had entered a familiar predicament.

But this time... Bai Wu was wrong.

[Thinking this, he felt the test from the World Will of the Well was nothing special. This time it was experiencing a twisted reality; within this distorted reality, if he found the source of the distortion, he could solve everything. But he was obviously... too arrogant.]

Bai Wu didn’t ponder the words on the page just yet and instead finished the milk in the cup and slowly chewed and swallowed the toast.

He didn’t know why he did this...

But it was like this now; when Yan Jiu uttered those three words, "my dear," there instinctively rose within him a feeling that he couldn’t let her be upset, that she was his beloved.

This feeling made Bai Wu somewhat uncomfortable.

Actually, he shouldn’t have felt uncomfortable.

He should have been totally unaware, believing everything should be as it was.

It was only because he had received Hong Yin’s recognition that his willpower and spiritual power had been strengthened, so he was able to retain his original memories.

"No... something’s wrong..."

"Fantastic, I was worried you didn’t like it, dear, you should go to work now, you have forty minutes left, if you don’t hurry, you’ll be late," said Yan Jiu, looking at Bai Wu with love but without a smile on her face.

Bai Wu knew that Yan Jiu’s smiles were always fake, meant to please the people around her.

He had told her that she didn’t need to do this in front of him.

"This isn’t just an inverse reality... something’s off here..."

In the memory-copy of Zhou Zeshui, everything was distorted, to the point where even Bai Wu couldn’t remember who he truly was.

But this scene was different; Bai Wu had his own memories.

Yet, when Yan Jiu said the three words ’my dear’... Bai Wu found himself instinctively accepting this setting.

[He finally realized something... this game was completely different from the previous ones... he should look for the strangeness elsewhere.]

So he decided to go along with Yan Jiu’s words for now and head to work to see what was going on.

"Alright, I’m off then, I will come back as soon as I can."

"Okay, can I have a kiss?" Yan Jiu asked expectantly, looking at Bai Wu.

"Ah?" Bai Wu was at a loss.

In the real world, he was good at handling all kinds of emotional issues, whether with female Evil Fallen friends, male Evil Fallen friends, or social butterflies of the Investigation Corps, seemingly understanding matters of love and attraction better than Liu Chengzi.

But the truth was... he had no interest in matters of men and women.

Adventures in the post-apocalyptic world, who had time for love?

As a result, there were many things Bai Wu had never done.

"What ah? Kiss me before you leave, or you’re not allowed to go to work."

Of course, this wasn’t like Yan Jiu at all. The real Yan Jiu would have fainted from happiness if Bai Wu had kissed her.

Of course, it was also hard to say, perhaps in this game’s setting, he and Yan Jiu were an old married couple...

"Alright, stop it now, I’ve got an urgent matter today, I’ll bring you a gift when I come back."

Bai Wu decided not to take advantage of this situation.

[Bai Wu fled in panic, his heart pounding... well, his heart rate was actually normal, he was a dog of a man who was focused on unsheathing his sword without emotion.]

As for this assessment, Bai Wu did not express an opinion; what woman could be more interesting than an adventure?

The most pressing matter was to figure out what the rules of this city were.

"According to Hong Yin, this world has several areas, and it is very likely that I have experienced each of these areas in reality..."

"But the rules of these areas have been distorted. Inside the Ninth Psychiatric Hospital, where it should have been empty, it was filled with patients, although it turned out that the patients were actually manifestations of Hong Yin’s resentments."

"So this place, theoretically, should also be one of the adventures I’ve experienced, only it has also become heavily distorted and unrecognizable..."

"Which scene could it be..."

These thoughts flashed through Bai Wu’s mind in an instant.

At that moment, the elevator door opened. Bai Wu lived on the twelfth floor of a high-rise building on Academy Street in Baichuan City.

It was rush hour in the morning, and there were other people in the elevator.

A boy about eleven or twelve years old, a middle-aged man with a backpack, and an elderly woman wearing reading glasses but also a construction site helmet.

Bai Wu found it strange for the old woman to be wearing such a helmet.

This is usually the hat of a construction site foreman, even emblazoned with the words "Safety First."

But he didn’t know these people, nor did he speak to them, though it’s normal for elderly folks to act a bit oddly.

He only looked tired, his face showing reluctance; the middle-aged man seemed to be in a rush to get to work yet also had to take his child to school.

The reluctance on his face was probably because this was a task usually meant for the child’s mother to do.

He didn’t pay further attention, his eyes returning to the countdown next to the yellowed pages.

What would happen after forty-eight hours?

Could he recall any scene from his experiences that involved a countdown concept?

He tried to think carefully but found he couldn’t remember anything at all.

"First of all, my thoughts shouldn’t be limited to Baichuan City."

"Since the Ninth Psychiatric Hospital already appeared in Food City, this means the map has completely changed."

"This place is Baichuan City, but the guardian who twisted this city could also come from areas outside Baichuan City."

As the elevator reached the sixth floor, a little girl of the same age as the little boy, holding a trash bag ready to throw out garbage, walked in.

At this moment, there was a slightly weird feeling.

Shouldn’t this little girl be going to school? If this boy around her age is also going to school—

Upon entering, the little girl glanced at everyone and said something that was both normal and strange:

"Sending kids to school, huh?"

Bai Wu hadn’t noticed the little girl’s look at this moment.

Because he was still fixated on that countdown.

Even though the atmosphere in the elevator was a bit strange, it hadn’t yet reached the point where Bai Wu immediately sensed something off...

Until...

The little boy spoke up:

"Yeah, sending kids to school. Where’s your child?"

"He already went to school early with his dad."

"Well, that’s nice. Unlike mine, who loves to sleep in."

At this moment, the elevator stopped briefly.

Bai Wu’s pupils trembled at this instant.

A tremendous sense of dissonance finally erupted.

Bai Wu looked at the children in disbelief, the boy and girl in their early teens. Meeting Bai Wu’s strange gaze, they felt uncomfortable but still nodded politely out of courtesy.

The boy didn’t like the way Bai Wu was looking at him and said to the middle-aged man beside him:

"Today, I have to behave well and listen to the teacher at school, okay?"

The seemingly reluctant middle-aged man nodded uncomfortably in agreement.

A phone suddenly rang, coming from the elderly woman wearing a safety helmet.

As soon as the old lady saw the caller ID, she immediately started nodding and bowing:

"Hey, Li Ge, it’s Little Hu here. I’m really sorry for disturbing you so early, but the thing is... the site really can’t proceed! Can you hurry them up a bit?"

Can you imagine an old person speaking so slowly while trying to convey a sense of urgency?

Everyone in the elevator seemed to be stuck in some strange identity...

It wasn’t just their identities; social relationships also began to warp.

In this instant, Bai Wu finally realized—

This game was related to some region he had experienced.