City Central Hospital, in an office on the top floor of the twenty-third level.
Li Yi was flipping through a suspense mystery novel one-handed. He had read this book countless times, and though he had long memorized every plot point, he still could not put it down.
Beyond the broad floor-to-ceiling windows, dark clouds had gathered, blotting out the sky and sun as though they would smash through the glass and pour inside the next second.
The air conditioner circulated the air, and the cool breeze stirred the empty sleeve at his right arm, making Li Yi seem especially detached and lonely.
"The final calamity is almost here. I can feel it closing in rapidly. Perhaps it will come with the restarted Manager Mission, perhaps..."
"I still don't know how far Gu Xingjian has gotten, but I strongly suspect that he intends to replicate Ji Li from fifty years ago!"
"Fifty years ago, Ji Li could practically be called a success. After all, he forced Tianhai into a corner with no way out."
"And now someone like Gu Xingjian has appeared. He is even more difficult to deal with than Ji Li was fifty years ago. This man must die too."
In his vague memories, Ouyang had been a habitually gloomy man, taciturn and fiercely individualistic.
Yet whether it was the changes of fifty years, the many hardships it had endured, or its ambiguous identity at present, something had caused its temperament to change drastically.
It always discussed issues with even more impatience than Li Yi, as though some possibility from the future had filled it with an irrepressible terror.
That fear was nearly tearing it apart, making it increasingly restless and agitated.
Li Yi had long grown accustomed to this way of getting along. He remained absorbed in every