He Yuliang pondered for a moment, then asked back, "What about Chen Cang? Do you not care about him at all?"

Du Yuheng raised an eyebrow. "If you're willing to share, of course I'm willing to hear you out."

He said that, but He Yuliang still detected that Du Yuheng truly did not care about Chen Cang;his focus was entirely on that Cheng Lin.

However…

After a moment of thought, He Yuliang fixed Du Yuheng with a meaningful stare for several seconds, then blurted out:

"The flesh you provided me today for stepping on the sewing machine—what you really want in exchange isn't Cheng Lin's information, but to tag along with me to get to Cheng Lin earlier, right?"

Du Yuheng's eyes flickered. "As I thought—"

"In your previous life, you had already met Cheng Lin in the Forest of Oddities before Cheng Lin came to the school?"

"Or even…" Du Yuheng couldn't help but speculate, "did Cheng Lin come to the school because he obtained some information from you?"

Since he had agreed to reveal information, He Yuliang didn't hold back.

In truth, there was nothing worth hiding.

He said directly, "In my previous life, I did meet Cheng Lin in the Forest of Oddities."

"At the time I had a pure black version body, which drew considerable attention from him."

"I still remember the look on his face the first time he saw me—he looked like he'd seen a ghost and asked me a lot of questions."

"He asked about how I came to have that pure black body, about the auditorium incident, about our Personality Reconstruction school…"

"After asking around, he came to the school at noon."

"I guess he also wanted the pure black body. The first thing he did after arriving was go and gawk at the auditorium ruins."

"Back then, the grand auditorium, even after that terrifying explosion, still retained a lot of heat;the veteran players left in the school were reluctant to approach it."

"But that guy actually dared to brave the terrifying heat and went straight into the auditorium to explore the ruins…"

"I suspected at the time that the ruins might not only be filled with residual heat… but could also contain energy similar to nuclear radiation!"

"I even tried to admonish him out of concern, but I couldn't persuade him, so I stopped bothering."

"What surprised me was…"

"I had already stopped caring, yet you chose to step up and help him."

"I don't know how you did it, but you drew him into your pure black body, the pure black energy enveloping him, then you carried him in that state into the ruins."

"I didn't go into that auditorium exploration with you. But I clearly felt—your attitude toward Cheng Lin was special."

"Not only did you escort him into the explosion core with a pure black body, but you also treated him with obvious respect in other ways."

"Basically, anything he asked you, you told him without reservation. You even revealed your reincarnation dreams and your Mind Reading talent, as well as my Luck talent and Reroll Life, and even the 'Zhou Qiming' matter—everything to him without holding back…"

"It was because of your attitude toward him that I thought that guy was exceptional."

"Some veteran players, because of how you treated him, even suspected he was a disguised Superior Person making a private visit."

"I had the same suspicion then, but when I asked you you said nothing."

"Later, that guy didn't stay at the school long. He was there for roughly two nights before disappearing."

"I asked you how he vanished then, and you still gave me no answer."

"So the veteran players spread rumors that he really was a Superior Person and had returned to his rightful normal city."

"For a while I suspected the same, but I didn't take him too seriously."

"Until I later went to the Exile City and was developing on my own, I unexpectedly saw him… with a Mecha Unit."

"That Mecha Unit, exuding a dark aura, was obviously a disguise layer for a pure black body."

"Back then, only the three of us had pure black bodies."

"If it wasn't me, then the one with him at the time had to be either you or Li Ku. I suspected it was you."

"But I didn't investigate further and kept developing by myself."

"Until later, during the early waning phase of the solar eclipse, when Li Ku's forced entanglement drove me to collapse and I ran to find you, I saw Cheng Lin again."

"That time I was certain Cheng Lin was with you."

"That time, Cheng Lin's look at me was complicated…"

"Honestly, I wished I had Mind Reading then to see what he was really thinking."

"Later, during the eclipse's peak period, when I sensed I was getting closer to the Confusion state, I asked you if you had read anything from Cheng Lin's mind."

"I don't know if you were purposefully evasive or simply showing off, but you answered me with eight words."

"Those were probably the last eight words I heard as the eclipse approached its peak and I was about to fully fall into the Confusion state—"

"Cold moon, warm sun, come to sear one's life."

He Yuliang paused, and seeing Du Yuheng lost in thought, couldn't help asking, "Did those words really come from Cheng Lin's heart, or did you just brush me off?"

This time Du Yuheng hadn't answered yet, but the glasses-wearing youth who had been following along earnestly pushed up his glasses and, thinking himself cool, explained:

"That probably comes from the poet Li He’s 'Bitter Short Day'—I do not know the high blue sky, nor the thick yellow earth. Only see cold moon, warm sun, come to sear one's life."

"It refers to the alternation of cold and heat, the passing of sun and moon, which gradually wears away a person's lifespan."

"Emmm…" Showing off reading makes one feel confident. After a moment's consideration, the glasses-wearing youth blurted in surprise, "Could that Cheng Lin possibly think… that the movement of the sun and moon causes our lives to be consumed, so if we eliminate the sun and moon, we'll never age??"

That absurd remark earned the other four clear, dumbfounded youths looks as if they were staring at an idiot.

Their expressions seemed to say: you're dumb, don't assume the rest of us are that dumb too!

However, He Yuliang's heart suddenly skipped half a beat at the glasses youth's words!

It was as if…

In the Doomsday Apartment background of his future life, the sun and moon's motion had indeed been removed and a new time system established.

Players surviving in that Doomsday Apartment setting no longer had to worry about lifespan being worn away.

Instead, what they used to fight time became "survival stones"…

He Yuliang couldn't help thinking again.

At the same time he asked Du Yuheng, "So can you imagine what you meant when you told me those eight words back then?"

Du Yuheng was silent for a long time, then shook his head. "Not certain. But I guess it might have something to do with Li Ku's dream, and also your sacrifice."

He Yuliang thought it over carefully and found that plausible.

Cold moon, warm sun, come to sear one's life.

Placed against the eclipse backdrop at the time and combined with Li Ku's ambitious dreams, as if his aspirations could take flight at any moment…

He Yuliang couldn't help but speculate—

Could the operation rules of that Doomsday Apartment they experienced in their future lives…

actually have been created by Li Ku?

What was Li Ku trying to do during the eclipse?

Based on later events…

Perhaps he truly wiped out the Superior People of the normal cities!

And also helped the sinners remove their Prison watches, achieving personality liberation.

But…

Players without Prison watches later still feared the mist.

So could the Prison watch itself be the players' reliance for surviving within the mist?

Afterward, the mist almost covered the entire world.

Was that also caused by Li Ku?

Or did it evolve bit by bit over time?

That said, if Li Ku had been so formidable, why did the later generations never hear his name at all?

So did Li Ku die later?

For a moment, He Yuliang ran through a whole set of deductions about the Doomsday Apartment's history in his head.

But he soon shook his head and laughed softly.

No matter how awesome Li Ku had been in his previous life, much of it relied on the pure black version body.

In this life, Jiang Ye did not sacrifice himself, the auditorium did not explode.

Li Ku also lost the pure black version body.

Everything in this life might be different from the last.

With that thought, He Yuliang turned to Du Yuheng again:

"You know the Forest of Oddities. That thick mist, those dense hair-like trees… If I go into the Forest of Oddities again in this life, I might not encounter Cheng Lin."

"And even if I did meet him again, without the pure black body I had before, I doubt I'd attract Cheng Lin's attention."

The implication was that Du Yuheng's hope of meeting Cheng Lin early by relying on He Yuliang might be in vain.

But Du Yuheng appeared unconcerned. "We're traveling together anyway. What happens later will be left to fate."

Talking like that, their group drew ever closer to the Forest of Oddities.

The so-called Forest of Oddities was a peculiar mist world.

It wasn't part of the Personality Reconstruction school, but its entrance lay behind the school, where one could step into the Forest of Oddities.

If one compared it to the Doomsday Apartment situation in the future…

then the school was like a sealed apartment complex.

The Forest of Oddities was like the mist world outside the apartment.

But in He Yuliang's later-life understanding, players could not set foot into the mist, so they could only survive inside the apartment.

During this prison period…

perhaps because these "sinners" wore Prison watches, they were allowed to enter the mist alone.

The so-called Forest of Oddities was a grove within that mist.

The forest's covered expanse was virtually boundless.

Even Du Yuheng, who had reincarnation dreams, said the Forest of Oddities seemed endless to him.

In the longest reincarnation dream he lived through, while deliberately measuring the forest with his feet, he never reached its end.

So it might indeed be a borderless woodland.

Of course, calling it a "woodland" is misleading: the "trees" in the Forest of Oddities actually grew like enormous strands of hair.

Black strands one after another shot straight up to a sky you couldn't see.

Some of the "hairs" curled or bent down…

In short, the whole forest felt like an enormous magnified human head.

Once they entered, the ground beneath their feet felt like a scalp.

The dense woods felt like hair.

And each "strand" connected to a space like an instance.

Each instance space typically yielded at least one survival stone.

Their morning forest work mode was to explore those instance spaces to earn survival stones.

These instance spaces that produced survival stones were very similar to the personal exclusive instances every newbie had in the Novice Apartment in later life.

But personal exclusive instances were more tailored to individuals.

The instance spaces scattered through the Forest of Oddities were entirely random.

No one could know in advance what lay inside unless they went in to explore.

This randomness favored someone with the Luck talent like He Yuliang.

In his previous life, he earned many survival stones working in the Forest of Oddities and occasionally triggered opportunities to gain benefits.

So in this life he was rather looking forward to forest work.

But the five lucky surviving newbie youths in this life did not feel the same.

When they saw that deep mist exuding an eerie aura from afar, fear showed unrestrainedly in their eyes.

One youth couldn't help but complain, "Isn't that mist probably a graveyard? Behind my old school there was a graveyard!"

Another youth looked shocked. "No way? I only ever saw schools built next to graveyards in those campus horror stories, I didn't expect a real school to be next to a graveyard!"

"Whoa! You mentioning those campus horror stories suddenly conjures up some unfriendly ghost stuff in my head…"

"Stop stop stop! Can we not scare ourselves? Learn from the two seniors and stay calm, okay!"

The two seniors remained silent, not even bothering to spare them an extra glance.

But as they neared the Forest of Oddities, the glasses-wearing youth suddenly realized:

"Strange…"

"At 6:30 isn't the whole school's students supposed to go into the Forest of Oddities together to earn survival stones?"

"Why at this time are only a few of us standing on the path to the forest?"

His question made the air fall silent for a moment.

Soon another youth hunched his shoulders and said, "Didn't the Student Council president organize people to carry out a massacre? Those Hollow People were all killed;that's why the school seems quiet now, right?"

The glasses youth immediately retorted, "What nonsense? Even if the Hollow People were all killed, what about the veteran players? What about the Student Council members? Why aren't they here at this hour?"

As he questioned, the glasses youth's gaze shifted to He Yuliang and Du Yuheng.

After all, in their eyes these two seniors were worldly and knew more than they did.

But soon the five newbie youths felt even more terrified.

They saw worry etched on the faces of the two seniors as well!

Just as despair settled over them because of the seniors' solemn expressions…

there was suddenly a strange muffled thud coming from the direction of the mist, from the Forest of Oddities!