Li You opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a vine winding across the ceiling. It gave off a faint blue-green glow and spread over most of the walls, making the room look like the inside of some enormous plant.
He sat up in bed, bewildered, and looked around. It took him a while to remember that he had been delivering food on his electric scooter. Then, as he turned a corner, a Hundred-Ton King had appeared right in front of him...
Uh. Did that mean he had been sent to another world?
No, he might have fallen into a coma and been moved here after a long time. He needed to check himself first!
Overhead, the Glow Vines—whether plants or something artificial, he couldn't tell—were barely bright enough to make out the outlines of the table, chairs, and cabinets. To see if he was injured, Li You jumped out of bed. Unable to find any slippers, he walked barefoot to the faintly glowing wall and began checking himself for wounds.
But...
One look was enough to tell Li You that something was wildly wrong!
Why were his hands so small? Why were his arms and legs so thin? Had he gotten shorter? And what was with this white dress? Who had dressed him in girls' clothes?
Wait. It couldn't be... A horrifying possibility occurred to him. Li You reached down between his legs, then sucked in a sharp breath.
It was gone!
It was really gone!
So he really had crossed into another world—and ended up in a little girl's body!
The shock left Li You's mind blank. He dropped back onto the little bed beside him. Only after sitting there for a long time did he notice the footprints on the floor in the dim light. A thick layer of dust seemed to cover the ground, and every step left a clear print, as though he had walked through snow.
Why is it so filthy? Has no one cleaned this room in ages?
He frowned and looked for something to wipe his feet with. Then his pupils contracted as he realized something. Wait. With this much dust, no one's lived here for at least a few weeks. Why was the body's original owner lying in a place like this?
He examined the room more closely. There were no signs of movement between the open doorway and the bed, either. That meant the original owner had lain in bed without getting up for at least several weeks—possibly even months—before he arrived!
So...
Have I crossed over into a dead body?
But why hasn't it decomposed? Is that because I crossed over, too?
Without the original owner's memories, Li You could only speculate. He soon turned his attention to the vines, the most conspicuous thing in the room.
He had noticed by now that the vines had spread in from outside, covering much of the ceiling, walls, and floor.
That put an end to his theory that they were mood lighting. Who would make mood lights this elaborate, or this lifelike? Could they really be some kind of glowing plant?
Then again, now that he had crossed into another world, anything was possible...
Li You took a deep breath, got off the bed, and opened the cabinet. He found nothing useful. Then he left the room.
Outside was a broad, curving corridor with several narrower branches. Li You followed the wide passage cautiously. A few minutes later, it opened into a vast space.
Before him lay an enormous circular chamber, apparently the central hall of this level. A dome rose overhead. Tens of thousands of vines spilled from a ventilation shaft at its center, forming a glowing cascade more than twenty meters high. Like an enormous cold-lit jellyfish, it bathed the entire hall in an atmosphere both beautiful and eerie.
The sight stunned Li You for a moment. Then he began taking in the rest of the hall.
Debris littered the floor: rotting scraps of fabric, shattered glassware, toppled or broken sofas, tables, and chairs. Human and animal bones lay scattered in fragments throughout the room.
Clearly, some great disaster had struck this place. Nothing else could explain the wreckage and the bones strewn everywhere.
Li You stared at the human remains for a few moments, his eyelids twitching. He hurriedly took several deep breaths and forced himself to calm down. It was his first time seeing human bones. Coupled with the gloomy, enclosed silence, they made the place feel like a horror movie.
After several minutes, he finally felt a little steadier. Then he frowned as a question occurred to him.
Whether it had been a disaster, some other incident, or an accident, surely the police or military would have come by now? At the very least, someone would have collected the bodies.
Why did it look as though no one had touched this place?
Had the outside world never discovered it?
There wasn't a single window, though. The place was either sealed off or underground. Maybe it really was some hidden illegal facility...
With that thought, he looked down, searching for clues by the hall's relatively bright blue-green glow.
To his disappointment, most of the papers on the floor had rotted badly, turning dark brown. A few hardcover books had survived fairly intact, perhaps because they had been made with durable, high-quality acid-free paper. But he couldn't read a single word in them.
That's the downside of crossing over without inheriting any memories. I'm illiterate now... He set the book down and wandered around the hall, eventually picking up a long metal object.
It looked like a sleek, futuristic gun with a white casing. Intricate patterns covered both its barrel and body. Since it felt sturdy—perhaps made of some specialized plastic—Li You decided to use it as a "bat" for self-defense.
After another dozen minutes of searching, Li You finally found an abandoned elevator shaft in one corner of the hall, with the entrance to a stairwell beside it.
He went straight in.
Truthfully, he should have been more careful. He could at least have checked the stairwell for unknown threats. But the place was deeply unnerving, like a sealed underground tomb. Even with the Glow Vines providing light, he didn't want to stay there a second longer.
Li You climbed the metal stairs one floor at a time, trying to keep his steps quiet. He felt as though he were walking through a horror movie. At any moment, some terrifying monster might burst from an entrance to another floor and leap at his face.
He had chosen to go up because the lack of windows made the place feel underground. Even if he was wrong, there might be a roof at the top where he could get a commanding view of the area.
He kept climbing, with no interest in exploring any of the floors along the way. After eight flights, Li You reached the ninth and final level.
Gripping his "bat," he stepped cautiously onto the floor. In the faint glow of the vines, he saw a wide corridor.
Rooms and side passages lined both sides. At the far end stood a huge metal door, with a smaller door beside it. The smaller one was ajar, and light shone through.
Is that... sunlight?
Feeling air move against his skin, he quickened his pace. At the small doorway, he pulled the door open and found a stairway rising through a tunnel. Far above, the exit was a bright point. Golden light poured down, making the stairs look like a path to heaven, beautiful and sacred.
I can finally get out of this awful place!
Hope surged through him. He broke into a run and rushed through the light.
But once his eyes adjusted, he stopped in shock. Outside was not dry land. He stood on a small platform above the water.
Dark, deep lake water surrounded the platform. He couldn't tell whether it was hundreds of meters deep, but the lake stretched at least two or three kilometers across. No shore was visible in the distance. Instead, sheer, unbroken rock walls rose from the water like a giant barrier, enclosing the entire lake.
Li You stood frozen, with only one thought left in his mind.
How am I supposed to get out?