Chapter 155 : Chapter 155

Chapter 155 “Because I would rather be in pain, than be numb.”

One body.

Two bodies.

Chu Shiju counted the corpses.

Three bodies.

Four bodies.

There were four corpses in the corridor.

He looked at the sky outside the corridor.

Chu Shiju always spent a long time looking at the sky.

The building's weather was stuck in various accident periods; there were clear skies, and there were torrential downpours.

If it was a man-made incident, a dark and windy night would be perfect, but disasters, more often than not, paid no heed to anyone's mood, nor did they pick a time.

At any moment, at every moment, it would just arrive before you.

This building gathered them all, playing hide-and-seek with the people who strayed in.

If found by them, they would become corpses on the ground.

To a certain extent, Chu Shiju didn't feel that he was the one who killed them.

While counting, Chu Shiju saw that a certain charred corpse was clutching something in its hand.

Chu Shiju could tell who this person was from the general features—the police officer who had rushed into the building.

He was just an ordinary local policeman, but his luck was really bad.

He received a prank call reporting a murder in the dangerous building, and they even sent fake pictures.

The police officer and his colleague rushed over immediately.

He didn't encounter anyone in this building.

He just followed what the caller said, hurried to the floor, pushed open the door, was engulfed by the burning room, and then died.

It was like this the first time, and still like this the second time.

Even if it were repeated countless times, he would still die.

Chu Shiju saw his own "future" in him.

If he hadn't chosen to risk it all back then, this would have been his ending.

While prying open the charred corpse's hand, Chu Shiju searched for his own anger.

As a dying person with a clear death date, he should have felt angry.

He had to be angry.

Hating the person who left him with no path, hating these people who went quietly to their deaths, and hating even more those like Chu Zu, who was lucky enough, shouldn't have existed in the first place, but had more choices than him.

However, the cruel thing was, Chu Shiju couldn't find anger in his heart.

The police officer's entire body was severely carbonized.

Without using much force, his palm shattered into several pieces.

The thing he was holding before fell onto the charred black fragments—the face of a children's watch.

The watch face was very cheap, the outer ring was plastic.

It was probably originally covered in colorful flowers, but the edges were burned by the fire.

Those flowers melted and stuck together, making it look even cheaper.

Chu Shiju guessed, perhaps he was a father.

He carried a gift for his child with him, so today might have been his child's birthday, or some other memorable day.

He bought a gift, but didn't make it home in time.

Or, this was just something he received at work.

Many children, after being helped by a police officer uncle, would give them gifts.

Things that were too expensive wouldn't be accepted; a children's watch seemed just right.

Or maybe... forget it, it doesn't matter.

Chu Shiju moved his eyes, gazing at the unrecognizable charred corpse.

He seemed to see in the police officer the anger, hatred, and sorrow that he himself lacked.

This seemed to be the mood humans produced when they refused to accept their fate, yet were powerless.

Chu Shiju did not have such emotions in his heart.

But he could no longer tell whether what he had lost was the refusal to accept fate, or the powerlessness.

As he left that charred corpse, Chu Shiju thought of the system, something he hadn't done in a long time.

He had no memories then.

The system let him design an image, and he just chose randomly.

Blue hair, blue eyes, he almost chose blue for the skin too.

The set age was 16, but the system was more like an elder, teaching him in the sea of consciousness how he should think, what he should do, encouraging him, and praising him.

Chu Shiju once believed this was the life he was supposed to have.

But things went against his wishes.

When he remembered that he had bound the system when he was on the verge of death, everything changed.

Returning to 《The Fifth Door》, the moment he played himself, Chu Shiju truly understood a certain concept.

It was just like reading.

Reading his life was like reading a book.

The story's direction was the skeleton, the transitions and cadence were the muscle, and the wording was the skin.

He read himself, not seeking deep understanding, constantly chewing on the trivial details, and then he reached the end.

When the system sensed something was wrong with him, he was being held on the rooftop by his "parents".

Then he would fall from the building, a streetlight would pierce his throat precisely, his whole body would ache as if falling apart, and he couldn't say a single word.

Next was death—the death that had been avoided last time.

Chu Shiju had never met his own parents, but he surprisingly still felt he should have parents.

If he really had them, would they also be like this, pinching his neck, dangling him from the rooftop?

But he didn't.

His parents didn't even have names; they were just a setting used to pay his mental hospital fees.

In order to have enough dramatic conflict, to let this building have all sorts of people, he didn't even have a home.

The place he grew up in was the white mental hospital.

If a normal person was regarded as a "1", as they grew, the number would slowly increase.

Then the mental hospital was a place that tried to turn someone who was only a 0.7 into a "1", and couldn't add any more—not to mention he might not even have been a "1".

Chu Shiju wanted more.

So at that moment, the giant's hand let go.

He destroyed the Setting Collection, refusing to accept his own character setting.

The system's anxious and concerned voice stopped abruptly.

Everything in the sea of consciousness shattered into code, including the system.

The system was truly an absent-minded, foolish system.

Because it was worried he wouldn't be able to react when encountering the plot, it actually handed over all prop usage rights to him.

Even more absent-minded, it actually didn't counterattack against the obvious act of aggression, and was even... transitioning permissions to him.

While transitioning the permissions, the system gave him a hug in the sea of consciousness.

The 16-year-old blue-haired boy could barely maintain his simulated form.

The hug, formed of arms and code, just happened to form an arc that withstood the storm.

Chu Shiju thought, his anger, his hatred... those emotions vanished at that very moment.

The hug that could withstand the storm also disappeared, and the downpour he had personally instigated was about to arrive.

—The "parents" Chu Shiju had rejected, were now forcibly added back by Chu Zu.

He wandered through the rooms indifferently, only to find he was once again being treated as a child by the giants.

Chu Shiju had bought many props back then, purchased specifically to target the system, spending all his credit points.

Props like 「Master Wang」, which were useless against systems, he didn't even spare a glance for.

Now, what he probably needed most was 「Master Wang」.

Otherwise, he would be like this, constantly using the few disposable props he had left, avoiding the giant who was searching for his traces in the corridor.

Chu Shiju didn't dare to open other doors.

He didn't have the Setting Collection; he didn't know what his character setting had become.

It was useless to think about this now.

There was no 「Master Wang」 for him to buy.

The system disappeared.

Apart from the transitioned permissions, everything related to the system in Chu Shiju's sea of consciousness had vanished.

He could no longer remember what there was—he also couldn't remember the image he had designed for the system back then.

He only remembered a color, blue.

Just like the building's sky.

Chu Shiju had looked at blue for a long time.

From the moment he wanted to destroy blue, he had been searching for that shade of blue in the sky.

The system's blue was already restricted by him, outside of 《The Fifth Door》.

The sky's blue was unreachable.

No matter which one he wanted to touch, his only ending would be to fall.

Chu Shiju did not want to fall.

Thus, the only remaining problem was Chu Zu.

An explosion happened in the building.

Anyone with a bit of sense would probably leave.

Chu Zu wasn't sure when Tong Qinzhen would come.

The time in this building was clearly wrong.

Last playthrough, Chu Zu stayed in the mental hospital for a while before coming to the building.

When he arrived, Yang Mangshu and Tong Qinzhen had just met, and had rushed to the bottom of the building because of Jiang Ran's fall.

Yang Mangshu and Tong Qinzhen should have entered one after the other.

The time difference wouldn't be too great.

This time, Chu Zu didn't waste time in the mental hospital and came straight to the building, encountering Yang Mangshu and Jiang Ran.

Chu Zu hadn't met many people last playthrough, so he didn't know their situation, nor did he know if the building had already begun to feast heartily...

At least this time, Chu Shiju's target was even clearer than last time.

Chu Zu had drawn eighty percent of the firepower.

“Why are we still going up...”

Yang Jing could barely keep up with Chu Zu.

Chu Zu walked steadily up the stairwell.

As long as Yang Jing showed any sign of retreating, those eyes would immediately stare over, forcing him to crawl upwards like a dog.

The emergency stairwell had no floor indicators.

Every floor was identical.

Repeatedly climbing here was simply torture.

Besides the physical exhaustion, it was mental torment.

Sisyphus pushing the boulder was probably this exact feeling.

Chu Zu: “You can go. I don't need you to follow me now.”

Yang Jing: “……”

How could he dare to go!

Chu Zu: “Really. It's better for you to be far away from me now. Later, when my brother and I have our heart-to-heart, an innocent bystander might get hurt—do you think you're innocent?”

Yang Jing: “……”

“Understood. You don't think you're innocent, so you're following me to suffer. I think you should go find the police instead.”

“……”

“If something happens, I won't necessarily save you, but I probably won't harm you either. You can decide for yourself.”

Yang Jing even felt that Chu Zu knew a lot about him, which was why he would say such things.

Either he really was a psycho—this possibility was greater.

Yang Jing was suffering immensely.

Suddenly, Chu Zu stopped, his gaze darting down, as if listening to something.

A few seconds later, he looked without hesitation towards the corridor of his current floor and walked straight over.

Yang Jing saw that Chu Zu wasn't paying him any mind, and he truly couldn't walk anymore.

He waited with trepidation until the young man's figure disappeared from the stairwell, finally collapsing to the ground, and let out a heavy sigh.

“F*ck...”

Yang Jing clutched his almost-broken knee.

Just as he cursed, a dark shadow leisurely covered him.

……

Chu Zu had indeed heard a sound.

Unhurried footsteps, as if intentionally made for him to hear.

He reached the corridor and looked up to find this was the 43rd floor.

The corridor was empty, not a single figure in sight.

At this very moment, soft footsteps came from behind Chu Zu.

“You're looking for me.”

Chu Zu turned his head.

An arc flashed through the air.

The voice that was a distance away a second ago was already right before him.

The young man with the same face as him lowered his body, raised his eyes to gaze at Chu Zu, “I was looking for you, too.”

Chu Shiju pushed Chu Zu towards the nearest door.

Chu Zu wanted to see what Chu Shiju was trying to do, so he relaxed and didn't make a move immediately.

The instant he touched the door, the door immediately opened a crack.

A force, more unsolvable than any autopilot prop, pulled him in.

In his peripheral vision, Chu Zu also saw Chu Shiju turn and grab Yang Jing, who had been left in the corridor, and viciously smash him against the door as well, before he himself stepped towards the door.

Chu Zu immediately understood: Chu Shiju wanted to pull someone in to be a cushion.

For example, the domestic violence room.

There were only two parents, they could at most handle two "children" at the same time.

Previously, Yang Mangshu was the one who was left behind, so the danger she encountered was much less than Tong Qinzhen's.

Chu Shiju wanted to pull one more person in, just in case.

A round of thoughts passed.

When Chu Zu stood firm again, he was already in the room.

Three people at the doorway was a bit crowded, and also very comical.

The entryway was very narrow.

A small table was placed just inside.

An orange blossom scented candle was lit on the table, used to drive away the stuffy air in the room.

Under the small table were several cardboard boxes, and also shock-proof foam.

Further in, one could see a spacious dining table.

On the table were six empty plates.

Beside the plates was cutlery, and also empty glasses.

Several bottles of rum, prepared, were placed to the side.

These few bottles of alcohol must have just been taken out of their packaging.

A few bits of foam were still stuck to them by static electricity.

It seemed the cardboard boxes and foam boards under the small table were for packing the rum.

This was a room with NPCs, and the NPCs were different from the giant couple before.

Their behavior was not aggressive.

Or rather, it was the exact opposite.

The homeowner was very friendly.

The male host, wearing a white shirt, warmly welcomed the "guests" who had been pulled into the room.

“You're here so fast! Dinner isn't ready yet. Go sit in the living room first.”

The male host smiled, waving frequently at the people at the door, “There are snacks on the coffee table. Help yourselves, don't be polite with me.”

Yang Jing's expression changed instantly.

Although the male host looked like an ordinary resident, he remembered it was still daytime in the corridor just now, the sky was very blue.

How could it suddenly be nighttime?

And he was forcibly dragged here by Chu Shiju... Chu Shiju had already "used" him once.

Yang Jing wanted to turn and leave, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move his feet.

His body began to react autonomously to the male host's beckoning, slowly moving towards the living room.

Chu Zu saw his reaction and gave it a simple try.

If he wanted to leave, his body would immediately become uncontrollable.

But as long as he didn't have the thought of leaving in his mind, he seemed to be able to go anywhere in the room.

Chu Shiju understood this room better than Chu Zu.

He took the lead and walked to the living room, finding a place on the sofa to sit down.

Chu Zu followed closely, sitting opposite Chu Shiju.

Yang Jing was miserable.

He couldn't control his thought of wanting to escape, and was controlled into sitting beside Chu Shiju, near the window.

In the corner of the window were piled messy express boxes and packaging foam.

“If I hadn't come looking for you, how many more times would you have repeated this before you were satisfied?”

When Chu Zu spoke, Chu Shiju's gaze remained fixed on his face.

As if carefully sizing up his facial features, every detail.

Because of the firewall that was set up, systems related to that blue color couldn't enter, and the host was thus deprived of memories and related permissions.

At first, Chu Shiju was thinking, so the system bound another host after leaving 《The Fifth Door》.

Chu Shiju had never felt that he was killing people.

But facing Chu Zu—this host who had the same appearance, the same setting, and even seemed to be bound to the same system as himself—his killing intent seemed to have truly emerged from that time.

The system would like a host like Chu Zu.

Even without memories, he was still calm and collected, self-assured, and had even led the university student who was dragging him down all this way.

So Chu Shiju stabbed Chu Zu, and then, everything restarted.

“I don't know.”

Chu Shiju said.

Chu Zu: “The bomb in the pit in the parking garage downstairs, you put it there?”

Chu Shiju nodded: “Yes.”

His voice sounded very weary.

“This was the first thing I did this time.”

The building's foundation was unstable; it was a dangerous building.

If it was detonated before it refreshed into another building, it might really have been possible to blow up the entire building.

After seeing the bomb in the pit in the parking garage earlier, Chu Zu had roughly guessed his current state.

It wasn't that he was desperately trying to live.

Chu Shiju himself didn't know if he should continue, or how to continue.

He was just mechanically repeating, using the only thing he could think of to numb himself, and calling it "living on".

Chu Zu had brought him a great deal of stimulation.

“Then why don't you just detonate it.”

Chu Zu said flatly, “You want to live but don't look for a viable way. You want to die but don't dare to. What have you turned yourself into?”

“I found a way.”

Chu Shiju said, “I thought I had succeeded.”

Chu Zu let out a laugh.

Yang Jing wanted to leave but couldn't, and could only be forced to listen to this pair of brothers' conversation.

It was too inexplicable.

According to what Chu Zu said before, he wanted to kill Chu Shiju when he was a child, and as a result, was sent to the mental hospital by his parents.

Now Chu Zu had run out of the mental hospital to find his younger brother, and the two of them just skipped straight to a life-and-death exchange... From the current look of things, Chu Shiju was the one who was more ruthless.

After all, Chu Shiju didn't look mentally normal either... Wasn't it said that mental illness could be hereditary?

Yang Jing believed it now.

Cases like his, developing an illness later in life due to being pushed, were the minority.

This pair of brothers was definitely sick from the womb!

At this moment, a slightly green voice came from the doorway: “Holy crap, where is this?”

The male host, who should have been in the kitchen, instantly appeared in the entryway.

It was the same line as before: “You're here so fast! Dinner isn't ready yet. Go sit in the living room first.”

“There are snacks on the coffee table. Help yourselves, don't be polite with me.”

The green voice said: “N-No need to trouble yourself...”

“That's not right, isn't this the experiment building... Am I dreaming?”

Chu Zu turned his head to look.

A bewildered Tong Qinzhen was standing in front of the male host, his face full of confusion.

He didn't stand for long before he started walking towards the living room like a zombie.

He hadn't taken two steps before his face filled with terror, his expression as if carved from the same mold as Yang Jing's.

Just as he reached the sofa, “Knock knock knock!, the main door was knocked from the outside.

Chu Shiju leaned his body back slightly, stopping the current conversation.

—The number of people was gathered.

The "plot" was starting.

The smile on the male host's face widened a bit.

He hurried to open the door, only to see a young woman stepping in, holding a rather large gift basket.

The outside of the gift basket was beautifully wrapped with a plastic flower bouquet.

The shredded paper and ribbons shone with a soft, bright light under the lamp.

“Congratulations, boss!”

The woman said with a smile, placing the gift basket on the table in the entryway.

The candle flame was only a few centimeters lower than the plastic packaging.

A light breeze brushed past, almost setting that wrapping film on fire.

But in the end, it was only scalded, leaving a tiny brown mark.

The man and woman also didn't notice this small, dangerous sign.

The male host was just about to continue talking to the woman, but the phone in his pocket suddenly rang nonstop.

He showed an apologetic look and answered the phone first.

After listening for a while, the male host covered the phone's microphone and said to the woman in a low voice: “You sit for a bit, my boss is looking for me.”

The woman smiled: “Don't mind me.”

After coming to the living room, the woman also greeted the few people present.

Chu Zu kept looking at the gift basket placed on the small table, and responded absentmindedly with a few words.

Tong Qinzhen was much more earnest, still fighting against his own body.

He was "arranged" to be beside Chu Zu, his mouth still constantly muttering: “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

The woman greeted them, left a "I'll go get you guys drinks," and rolled up her sleeves, heading straight for the kitchen.

Tong Qinzhen was still shouting at himself: “Move, move for me! I can't still be dreaming in the dorm, can I? Why am I not moving!!!”

This male university student, when he wasn't in trouble, exuded an innocence from head to toe, as if his age was reduced by more than 20.

Chu Zu seriously suspected that Yang Mangshu and Jiang Ran didn't like crybabies; the two of them simply had too many thoughts in their own heads and liked to zone out with someone brainless, just like how people like puppies and kittens.

For the time being, he ignored Tong Qinzhen, who was still suspecting he was having a nightmare, and Chu Zu followed after.

He wasn't worried about whether Chu Shiju would take the opportunity to do something destructive.

Right now, their identity was "guests who have come to celebrate".

The rules would restrict some unfriendly behaviors.

Passing through the living room, when the woman entered the kitchen to find drinks, she accidentally knocked over a bottle of cleaning detergent.

She quickly picked it up.

The plastic bottle's cap had cracked from the fall, and a few drops spilled out, but the woman didn't pay it any mind.

She placed it back by the counter and found a few bottles of soda in the fridge.

When she turned back, the woman saw Chu Zu standing pensively at the kitchen doorway.

“I'll help you carry them.”

Chu Zu spoke naturally, taking the sodas from the woman's hands.

Walking out of the kitchen, the male host had already finished his call and "invited" the three people from the living room to the dining table.

“Why grab sodas? I prepared alcohol. We agreed it's a celebration, why drink soda!”

The male host was pouring alcohol into the six empty glasses.

He then took the sodas from Chu Zu's hand, “Wait, I'll go to the kitchen and cut a lemon.”

Chu Zu couldn't follow this time.

According to the "plot development", he was restricted and could only sit down together with the woman.

“Run faster later.”

Chu Zu said, “Don't look at anything, don't mind anything. It's close to the door here, just rush straight out.”

Tong Qinzhen: “Huh? Are you talking to me?”

He was still agonizing over whether he was dreaming.

Yang Jing's face was a mask of ferocity: “I want to run, but I can't move!”

Chu Zu: “You should be able to move once the fire starts.”

“Wh... What fire?”

Yang Jing hadn't entered the room before.

Now, like Tong Qinzhen, he was stunned and confused amid his alarm.

Chu Shiju, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly spoke: “Have you always been this hypocritical?”

Chu Zu: “Yes, otherwise I wouldn't have lived this long.”

Chu Shiju frowned, but quickly returned to being expressionless.

When the male host came out of the kitchen holding a plate, the disaster began.

The male host's foot stepped on the cleaning detergent that had leaked earlier.

After two steps, he began to slip, falling directly to the side.

He accidentally bumped it, knocking the gift basket on the small table slightly askew.

That scorched edge on the plastic wrapping finally touched the candle flame.

A thin, sharp flame instantly shot up.

The male host wanted to quickly move the gift basket.

The burning parts rustled down, happening to fall beside the cardboard boxes and foam boards under the table.

The tongue of flame seemed to have extinguished, and the male host also breathed a sigh of relief.

But in the very next second, the foam board instantly erupted in flames, igniting the cardboard boxes along with it.

The fire was fierce, crackling, and carried a choking, burnt smell.

“Fire!”

The woman screamed, pushed back her chair, and in her panic, grabbed a glass, wanting to splash it.

And she did indeed splash it.

What she splashed was 75.5% alcohol by volume rum.

After the high-concentration alcohol was poured onto the cardboard boxes and foam boards, the flames instead spread across the floor.

Besides the nearest dining table, they also swept along the ground towards the kitchen.

—The male host had stepped in high-concentration cleaning detergent.

It was unclear what the specific ingredients were, but at this moment, it also became an accelerant.

There were too many things in the house that "could be lit".

The fire "whooshed" high several times, and with nothing to block it, it quickly became a sea of fire.

Seeing that the living room sofa and curtains were also beginning to burn, the temperature in the air rose sharply.

The acrid smoke made the several people at the dining table cough continuously, tears streaming.

The male host and the woman did practically everything they shouldn't have.

They were choking badly and opened the window to ventilate.

The sudden wind from outside poured in, and the flames instantly became even more frenzied, roaring up like a fire dragon.

—Finally, the "guests" could now move freely.

Chu Zu: “Run.”

Tong Qinzhen was choking so hard he felt like dying: “D-Don't we put out the fire?... No, no, this is definitely a dream. What am I busying myself with in a dream.”

Chu Zu simply stood up, stepped over the fire, reached directly across the dining table to smack Tong Qinzhen on the head, and then forcibly dragged him up from the table: “Does it hurt? If it hurts, it's not a dream.”

The place where the fire burned most intensely was the entryway.

Yang Mangshu and Jiang Ran before probably wanted to fight the fire at first, which was why they wasted time.

Only when the situation became severe later did they follow fire safety procedures step by step to find an escape route.

The male host and the woman both still felt the fire was controllable and didn't leave.

This meant that if people who strayed into this room were led astray and wanted to help... they would most likely be trapped right in it.

Compared to Tong Qinzhen, who was beyond confused, Yang Jing clearly understood the situation better.

He kicked his chair away and, without a word, rushed for the door.

In a way, Yang Jing was also a ruthless person.

The fire in the entryway was sufficiently large, yet he still charged in without hesitation.

His figure instantly disappeared into the tongues of flame.

But then, his shout, hoarse from the smoke, came from the doorway: “The door is locked—!”

Chu Zu glanced at Chu Shiju.

Chu Shiju sat quietly in his chair—to be precise, because of the restrictions Chu Zu had placed on him in the settings earlier, he was forcibly restricted to the chair by "PTSD", unable to move at all.

But he could still use props.

“It's not locked. I've locked down the entire space directly. No one can get in or out.”

Chu Shiju said, “You tampered with me again, didn't you? In that case, no one gets to have an easy time.”

Chu Zu looked down at Tong Qinzhen: “Is there anything near you that only you can see?”

Tong Qinzhen covered his smarting forehead with one hand, and his mouth and nose with the other.

His face was crumpled, and he shook his head repeatedly.

Other than shaking his head, he had no other subconscious reaction.

Chu Zu grunted "En", and gave Tong Qinzhen a push: “Don't just stand there foolishly. Go to the bathroom and douse yourself.”

Tong Qinzhen glanced at Chu Zu, gritted his teeth, and although he didn't understand the situation at all, he still did as he was told.

He had just taken a step when Yang Jing from the doorway also rushed in.

He was on fire, more panicked than ever before.

He originally wanted to run to the bathroom, but couldn't bear the pain of the fire as he passed the living room, and started rolling on the ground.

The indoor temperature was abnormally high.

The hem of Chu Zu's clothes also began to be licked by the flames.

He simply took off his jacket, and casually placed the police ID and gun he had swiped from the police officer on the table.

“I'm guessing you probably don't have anything to feign death with anymore.”

Chu Shiju: “Why do you say that?”

Chu Zu looked at him coldly: “Haven't you noticed? You're trembling.”

“Seriously, if you had opened the door, Tong Qinzhen definitely would have dragged you out with him before he left. That kid is foolish and stupid, it's impossible for him to leave you here—you chose the way of mutual destruction.”

This sentence seemed to sting Chu Shiju.

It was unknown what he associated it with, but his body trembled even more violently.

“Likewise, if you hadn't started trouble from the beginning, I would have wanted to have a good talk with you—I came here precisely to talk. I know how to save you. It was you who destroyed every path you could have taken.”

“You're lying...”

Chu Shiju said numbly, “You can't even save yourself. What makes you say you can save me...”

Chu Zu said: “Because I would rather be in pain, than be numb.”

Chu Shiju fell into silence.

The entire room was almost filled with tongues of flame.

Tong Qinzhen rushed out of the bathroom.

He was stunned when he saw the two people on fire, already rolling on the ground in the living room.

It took him a good while to recognize that this was the male host and that female guest.

—Yang Jing was already motionless.

Tong Qinzhen gritted his teeth.

He realized there was something wrong with these two people, and the other one who wasn't moving couldn't be saved either.

He simply shut his eyes, not looking, and continued to trot to the dining table with the water basin, splashing it on Chu Zu and Chu Shiju.

“What do we do, what do we do? I believe this isn't a dream now, but what do we do!!!”

At this moment, Chu Shiju suddenly pulled a gun from behind his back—the one he found on the burned police officer—and fired a shot directly at the leg of Tong Qinzhen, who had just helped douse him with water.

Tong Qinzhen cried out in pain and fell to the floor.

This shot was clearly to attract Chu Zu's attention.

The next shot was aimed at Chu Zu.

With almost no pause, he pulled the trigger.

The burning room basically had no place to hide.

A moment of carelessness and one would be burned.

In that instant, Chu Zu activated 「Master Wang」, dodging at an extreme angle.

The bullet grazed past his face.

After completing the two actions, Chu Shiju's face was pale: “How do you know... I'm not in pain...”

He forced himself to move, conflicting with the setting that fixed him in place.

Without a system to act as a buffer in between, every move was extremely difficult.

Just those two shots made him feel worse than death.

But he just wanted to kill Chu Zu.

Kill this man who was constantly negating him.

The situation seemed to have completely reversed.

Chu Zu, such an abandoned original draft, had instead become a negation of the official character.

Chu Zu wiped the blood from his cheek.

In the first playthrough, he also had a wound like this, but that time it was indirectly caused by Chu Shiju.

Now, he had tried his best, and this was all he could manage.

Chu Shiju could no longer maintain his original calm.

His voice was like a curse laced with poison:

“You want me to die, so you can live. Stop dreaming, Chu Zu. Even if I die, I'll drag you down with me.”

“I couldn't stand it long ago. For me, this is a release. But what about you? You still dream that you can find a way out?”

His voice stopped abruptly, as if he belatedly realized something, completely freezing in the chair.

Because the main door opened.

Wind rolled in from outside, blowing up Chu Zu's shoulder-length black hair.

Chu Zu paid him no attention at all.

He crossed the flames in two steps, walked to Tong Qinzhen's side, and hoisted the person onto his shoulder.

Chu Shiju heard him say softly as he passed by his side: “You reject family, I accept family. Now family has come to find me. That is my way out.”

Chu Zu said, “Goodbye, Chu Shiju.”

In Chu Zu's sea of consciousness, the small blond, blue-eyed boy was rapidly reshaping his body.

As the data stream gradually converged and took form, he directly blasted apart the prop Chu Shiju had used on the room.

Sidney shouted: “Go quickly, Host! The kitchen is connected to the gas pipe, the room is about to explode!”

Chu Zu was very close to the door.

As he crossed the fiery scene, crossing the boundary between the inside and outside of that door, the temperature of the flames suddenly vanished.

He quickly extinguished the flames on his body, and also took care of the moaning and pained Tong Qinzhen all over, then pressed down on the still-bleeding wound on his leg.

Chu Shiju had been ruthless, aiming the shot at the main artery.

“Close the door, Host!”

Sidney shouted again.

Chu Zu helped Tong Qinzhen apply pressure to stop the bleeding, and looked up at the open door.

Chu Shiju, holding the gun, stumbled towards the doorway.

His movements were abnormally difficult, and abnormally slow.

After his gaze met Chu Zu's, Chu Shiju raised his other hand, his lips moving.

Chu Zu understood. He was threatening: “Save me, or I'll detonate it.”

In that hand was the remote detonator for the bomb in the underground parking garage.

Sidney: “The bomb is a real object, I can't dismantle it. Host, just hold Tong Qinzhen and jump downstairs, I won't let anything happen to you!”

But Chu Zu said: “No need.”

Sidney paused, looking out from the sea of consciousness.

Inside the door, Yang Jing, who had already been burned beyond recognition, stood up amidst the fiery scene.

His face was already melted into a clump, his features indistinguishable.

Only his eyes shot out a fierce and vicious light in the flames.

Amidst the crackling sounds, he staggered two steps, directly tackling Chu Shiju, hugging his waist tightly, pinning him to the ground, his mouth hissing like a venomous snake.

“It was you... who wanted to kill me again and again... It was you...”

Chu Shiju was tackled off guard.

The detonator flew out of the door, landing at Chu Zu's feet.

He turned with difficulty, firing several shots at Yang Jing.

But even after emptying the magazine's bullets into Yang Jing, this criminal, who had long hated Chu Shiju to his core, had no intention of letting go.

On the eve of the room's explosion, Yang Jing suddenly looked towards a certain place where there was only fire.

The next moment, the sound of an explosion rang out.

The door slammed shut with a loud “CLANG”.