Nightmare (12) - Gray Sky

The subway station was crowded. Just then, a subway train pulled into the station, and many pedestrians with blank expressions stepped off. They followed the rule of keeping to the right without expression, brushing past another group of blank people.

"Please follow the rules, passengers can disembark first, then board..."

The broadcast was mechanical and rigid, yet it carried a comforting gentleness, repeating the same words over and over again.

Yu Xing walked in from the east entrance, looking around. His subtle glances caught the attention of some pedestrians. People playing on their phones, waiting for someone, or chatting paid more attention to him, glancing at him every now and then.

A group of people had just gotten off the train and walked past him, looking travel-worn. He glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, then looked away and walked towards Zhao Ruru, who was waiting in front of him.

"You got here so quickly?" Zhao Ruru was touching the red bandage on her wrist when she glanced up and saw Yu Xing. She greeted her, somewhat surprised. "It hasn't been long."

Yu Xing raised an eyebrow and corrected, "Thirty minutes isn't fast."

He left the cemetery, took a taxi, and walked into the subway station. The time that took was definitely not fast for someone who was anxious, especially since the mission objective had been lost. How could Zhao Ruru say such a thing?

𪩘𪩘. Unless she is really surprised.

Sure enough, Zhao Ruru casually pulled out her phone, forced a tired smile, and glanced at the screen. "Thirty minutes? Are you kidding me? It's only been... wait!?"

"Really... wait, how come it's almost two o'clock?" She paused for a moment, then frowned deeply. "Zhou Xue and I only took the high-speed train, it couldn't have taken this long."

Zhao Ruru's palms were burning hot; her right hand, clenched into a fist, held a coin. "The timing isn't right."

When I called Yu Xing just now, she also checked her phone, but she didn't notice the time.

Before she knew it, time seemed to have passed too quickly, so quickly that she couldn't imagine what she had done to fill such a large void.

"Yeah~ Congratulations on finally realizing that there's a time difference between us, and it seems that this time is based on mine." Yu Xing's time had passed normally. He had his hands in his pockets, feeling that there were too many people around to talk, so he gestured with his chin towards a quiet corner, indicating that they should talk there.

But in reality, there's nowhere in the subway station where you can't be heard. The two of them need to maintain the persona they're playing in front of the other members, so they can only have a brief conversation.

Yu Xing leaned against a pillar at the station, his face grim. "Was there any warning before she left?"

For a moment, Zhao Ruru thought Yu Xing was imitating Zhao Yijiu, but after a couple of seconds she realized that Yu Xing had told her about his persona last night, which was this strange and quirky character.

Perhaps... all artists have eccentric personalities?

She dismissed a fleeting thought and replied, "No, I got off the bus before her, and she was gone as soon as I turned around."

Yu Xing accepted the stares from passersby, seemingly used to such looks, and continued, "Could it be that she didn't get out of the car at all?"

Zhao Ruru laughed in exasperation, "Do you think I'm mentally challenged?"

Couldn't she calculate the difference between not getting off the bus and disappearing after getting off?

"Oh." Yu Xing only said it casually. He looked at the crowded subway station and listened to Zhao Ruru repeat how worried she was about her neighbor. He became impatient at the end and said, "Looks like we can't find her in the subway station. Shall we go out and take a look?"

Since Zhou Xue can disappear, this place cannot be viewed in the same way as usual. Instead of hoping to find Zhou Xue in some nook or cranny, we might as well hope that Zhou Xue will appear on her own after we exit the subway station.

It's pointless to waste time doing useless work here. Zhou Xue's temporary safety doesn't mean she'll be safe in a little while. Time is precious and cannot be wasted.

Zhao Ruru just wanted to find an excuse to meet with Yu Xing. She needed to have an equal amount of information with Yu Xing, otherwise she would be easily manipulated by the ghosts. Naturally, she readily agreed to Yu Xing's suggestion.

Incidentally, under the pretext of being worried, she openly "told" Yu Xing about Zhou Xue's encounter with a ghost in her dream, which supplemented the setting and provided a reasonable explanation for Yu Xing's later appearance in front of Zhou Xue.

The two were making their plans and headed out. Yu Xing had entered through the east gate, but this time she and Zhao Ruru were leaving through the west gate.

Another train stopped, and the two people inside left all the noise behind and took the elevator up.

The elevator's final stop was the exit, and not far away was a commercial street lined with all sorts of buildings. But when they went out, they looked up and saw not the beautiful blue sky with sparkling clouds that they had seen when they left, but a gray, hazy sky that looked like it was covered by a black veil.

Like the approaching dusk on a cloudy day, an endless expanse of faded fabric envelops the world, as if we are about to fall together into another layer of empty dreams.

One by one, uniquely designed streetlights lit up, their reflections in Yu Xing's dark pupils replacing the vanished stars and creating a shimmering spectacle.

Yu Xing's shadow was indistinct and elusive amidst these illusory lights.

He gazed at the sky, a thoughtful look in his eyes, then stepped out of the elevator and into the hustle and bustle.

"It's evening...?" Zhao Ruru looked around in surprise, having some new ideas about the background setting of this stage of the mission.

Before, when she first entered, this world seemed perfectly normal, just like the "real world" was stable and followed rules, while the "dream world" was completely separated from reality and belonged to Zhou Xue's personal experience.

So subconsciously, both she and Yu Xing believed that there would be no rule-based anomalies in the "real world," unless it was something like deliberately going to a cemetery to trigger a plot.

But what was the result? Zhou Xue disappeared silently in "reality," and the sky turned from azure to gray-black without their noticing.

This shows that the "real world" is not as peaceful as they imagine; beneath the bustling facade, undercurrents are turbulent.

Zhao Ruru checked her phone again. Just a few minutes ago, the time was close to 2 a. m., but now it was past 6 a. m., and night was approaching.

"It seems we misunderstood the three-day time limit." Yu Xing was beside her, his tone calm and collected. Zhao Ruru even suspected that he had anticipated this situation before coming to the subway station to find her, so this was just what he expected.

"There's no need to protect her for 72 hours; sometimes large chunks of time are skipped." He stopped in the square. "Yesterday, almost no time was skipped, but today it's happening one after another; there must be a reason."

"Could this be the key?" Zhao Ruru, unusually exhausted, met Yu Xing's thoughts. "Right! Is Zhou Xue's disappearance related to a time jump? Did time happen to change at that time, so she disappeared on the spot, but actually she went to another timeline normally?"

"In her eyes, I probably just swipe and it's gone, but because I can't receive text messages from another timeline, I can only receive those from the current time."