The Safe Zone is Safe

Song Shiyi woke up at exactly seven. She showered first, dried her hair, then drank a glass of warm milk before checking the memos on her phone.

No matter what happened the day before, Withdrawal Amnesia would always clear her memories on schedule, leaving her with only what she remembered before age fourteen.

Some people said having too good a memory was a burden.

But for Song Shiyi, constantly forgetting was also a regret.

She always woke up in a blank slate, then groggily found that the person in the mirror had suddenly grown up. As if overnight, she had arrived at twenty.

What exactly had happened in those six missing years?

Song Shiyi couldn't help wondering.

According to the records from the hospital and the committee, she had been injured by a special tool during a capture mission three years ago. This had caused her brain to malfunction, unable to retain recent memories.

The days of practicing dance and performing with the SUH Girl Group felt like yesterday.

Song Shiyi opened her memos, synced to the cloud server. The first line written there was:

"Every day is a new beginning."

She had been chosen by the Simulator at a very young age to become one of the God players, and that part of her memory was preserved intact.

Or rather, those memories were protected by some kind of power rule, so even tools capable of destroying memories couldn't strip them away.

The memos were divided into two parts.

The first part was work, the second was life.

She tapped the work section first.

The latest message read:

"Mark and search for a player called [God Yao] in the Pantheon. His Fragmented World is related to [Golden Plains]."

She lightly tapped beside it, and a recording played.

A woman's voice said: "Why you? Can't you send someone else?"

"...That guy only calls himself 'God Yao,' I know nothing else."

Song Shiyi had no memory of this conversation.

But she was used to it.

Her phone would play conversations she completely didn't remember, strangers would keep calling, and people she didn't know would greet her...

Sometimes she imagined that maybe she wasn't Song Shiyi at all—just someone who had inherited or seized the identity and life of a person named Song Shiyi, walking through this world.

Or perhaps the real Song Shiyi had already died. The current her was nothing more than a twenty-four-hour replacement, rebooting after each day, like some kind of storage-deficient machine.

But it didn't really matter.

After all, in everyone's eyes, including her own, she couldn't deny that she was Song Shiyi.

Her phone suddenly rang. The caller was an unknown number not in her contacts.

Song Shiyi answered on speaker.

There was no sound on the other end.

"Hello?" Song Shiyi tried. "I'm Song Shiyi."

Then the other person spoke: "Come out and meet."

It was a girl, her voice sounding young.

Song Shiyi asked, "What's the matter?"

"We've met before, in an alley with lots of cars. Yu Yao of the Donghai Clan was there. I have information to tell you, and I want to ask you something too."

Song Shiyi opened her work section and scrolled down by date.

She found the relevant entry on one line.

"Outside the Locomotive Factory Dormitory in Jiuyuan Community, parking alley. Jia Xiaokai's follower, Yu Yao of the Donghai Clan, caused two deaths. Executed by the female Apostle Mary."

"Ah, I remember now, hello hello."

Song Shiyi agreed. "Then let's pick a place?"

The other person said, "How about the alley from last time."

The call ended.

Song Shiyi looked at the number—a perfectly normal phone number.

But she didn't bother checking it; even if she did, she might not find anything. For her, her greatest advantage was that she forgot everything she saw, causing neither trouble for herself nor burden for others.

That was also the key to her having so many informants.

Song Shiyi changed her clothes, slung her bag over her shoulder, and waved at the crystal chandelier in the living room.

"Mingzai, let's go."

A small sparrow flew out from the gleaming chandelier and landed on Song Shiyi's shoulder.

The moment it left, all the lights in the house went out instantly.

The sparrow smoothed its chest feathers with its short beak, tilted its head, and fixed its tiny eyes on Song Shiyi, no different from any ordinary bird.

"Same rules as before—no matter how tempting, don't steal electricity or fire outside, especially from public facilities. We agreed on that." Song Shiyi scratched its head with her finger.

Mingzai nodded, bobbing like a chick pecking at rice.

Outside the Locomotive Factory Dormitory, in the parking alley, two kids around eleven or twelve were kicking a soccer ball around.

After Song Shiyi arrived, their eyes kept sneaking glances at her, their conversation half-hearted. The ball at their feet never seemed to stay still.

When they met Song Shiyi's gaze, the two boys flushed, hastily looked away, and pretended to focus on practicing their passes.

Song Shiyi checked her own outfit.

She wore a wool jacket over a black fitted knit top, with jeans and leather boots. Her silver-gray hair was cropped to ear-length and fluffy, no earrings or necklace—just a touch of eyeliner and natural-toned lip gloss.

This getup made her look a bit more mature.

Song Shiyi looked around and spotted the other person already sitting in a car.

"Over here." A girl waved at her.

The Xiali the girl sat in was covered in dust, likely abandoned by its owner. Not that it mattered.

Song Shiyi slid into the back seat of the Xiali as well.

She observed the other party.

Mary was a girl in a gray hoodie, looking about seventeen or eighteen, with a baseball cap pulled low to hide her face. Beneath the brim, her green hair was tied up.

The girl wore sunglasses, as if she didn't want anyone to know her true appearance. A normal person wouldn't understand that within this seemingly slender frame lurked terrifying Apostle power.

The other party said, "I want to look into someone. Prayer God."

The girl spoke softly, "There's something in his hands. It's dangerous."

"Miss Mary."

Song Shiyi began, "I do know relevant information about Prayer God. But as an inspector for the Committee, leaking secrets is a violation of discipline..."

"May I ask what that thing is that you find dangerous?"

"No comment."

Song Shiyi wasn't surprised by the reaction.

In essence, she and her informants exchanged intelligence for mutual benefit. But the Committee had red lines that had to be followed.

Both sides fell silent for a moment.

Mary suddenly said, "The thing might be hidden in the Safe Zone, not in the Fragmented World. That's what I know."

Song Shiyi wasn't sure what the other meant.

But for the Committee, maintaining normal order in the Safe Zone was the top priority.

"Miss Mary, the Safe Zone is still safe," Song Shiyi said.

"Really?" Mary countered.

That left Song Shiyi momentarily speechless.

Recently, two cases had occurred nearby.

Yuan Lisha's robbery of faith, Jia Xiaokai's believers breaking through walls to kill...

Lately, public security had been far from good.

Song Shiyi could only fall back on official rhetoric: "We'll do our best to stop dangers in advance, but manpower is ultimately limited. We can't prevent every case..."

Mary cut her off: "That's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what?"

"Something more dangerous... like the Whistleblower."

Song Shiyi immediately shook her head. "Impossible."

Mary responded with silence.

"I don't know your reasoning. But..."

Song Shiyi blurted out, "According to the theory of dimensional parallelism, high and low dimensions have always remained relatively parallel. The physical distance between players on Earth—strictly speaking, the information exchange generated—maintains a certain synchronization with the low-dimensional world."

"Macroscopically, unlike the active and volatile low dimensions, high dimensions are in a long-term static state and cannot directly overlap or interfere with other dimensions."

"For a player from another dimension to arrive here, they must move their own world, overlapping it at the world level. But the higher the dimension, the harder it is to move."

"Any closed world or Fragmented World that cannot form a two-way passage or world-level overlap fits the definition of a Safe Zone. The Earth of the high dimension is one of them."

"As the saying goes, a person cannot lift the ground beneath their feet."

"The usual approach is for players to use the Pantheon to descend into a low-dimensional world. By moving the low-dimensional world they control, they overlap or interfere with other low-dimensional worlds."

"It's like two people living in different countries—they can't move their entire houses and cities, so they have to walk out and meet using mobile transportation."

Song Shiyi cited many established conclusions and finally summarized: "The Safe Zone is like the deep sea, and the Crawling Zone is like the shallows."

"Deep-sea pressure makes shallow-water creatures struggle to survive—their vaunted abilities all fail here, and they might even suffocate."

"Even if cross-dimensional players manage to reach the Safe Zone, they must cut off their own arms, losing all abilities from the Crawling Zone. That would make them no different from the ordinary people or animals here, instead plunging themselves into extreme danger."

Mary said, "There are exceptions to everything."

Those light words, however, set Song Shiyi's mind racing.

The Safe Zone theory was a conclusion drawn from extensive practice.

But as the Committee's research into the Simulator deepened, new perspectives and ways of thinking kept emerging.

Any crack in the Safe Zone's theoretical barrier would yield consequences too dire to bear.

Even if the probability was low, it had to be guarded against. This Mary wouldn't be passing her information just for amusement.

"Thank you for your information, Miss Mary."

Song Shiyi said seriously, "I'll report this to the Committee as an anonymous source."

In the room, Lu Yao let out a long breath.

Every organization has security anxiety—just point out a theoretical risk, toss out a bit of sensational news that sounds plausible, and they'll be half-convinced.

This time, he was really after just one sentence.

"Is the Safe Zone actually safe?"

For that vinegar, Lu Yao wrapped a whole plate of dumplings.

Since the Safe Zone was stable and gods from other dimensions couldn't come for a real-life PK, Lu Yao had nothing to fear.

What [Whistleblower]? What [Flayer]?

Same old line.

On the Garlic Tribe's turf, if your people dare show their faces, I'll beat them down every single time I see them.