The Newcomer

Bai Yanliang settled into the old house on Qingyi Street. During that time, he occasionally saw strange shadows in the old locust tree, but nothing else out of the ordinary happened.

To Bai Yanliang's surprise, Gao Fei was also a criminal investigator. But... he wasn't an ordinary kind of cop. He was a forensic pathologist.

His job involved using various technical methods to conduct medical examinations at crime scenes, gather medical evidence through follow-up examinations, perform living examinations of injuries, dissect corpses, analyze symptoms, identify personal effects, and carry out special medical examinations—all as part of forensic investigations.

When Gao Fei had first stammered out that he was a forensic pathologist, Bai Yanliang had done little more than say, "That's impressive." He had shown no other reaction.

This greatly improved Gao Fei's impression of him.

But Gao Fei was always busy with work. He often didn't get home until the early hours of the morning, and once he got up, it was already one or two in the afternoon.

All in all, the two got along quite well.

Bai Yanliang sat on a stone bench with a book in his hands, a forensic science textbook he'd borrowed from Gao Fei.

Come to think of it, more than half a month had passed since Du Shangjing had contacted him. If nothing unexpected happened...

Just as that thought crossed his mind, Bai Yanliang suddenly felt his heart seize.

Was it happening?

He could clearly feel a strange sense of suffocation welling up from deep inside him.

Thump-thump—thump-thump—

Bai Yanliang's heart was pounding wildly, beyond his control.

It was that feeling...

This was... Mist Gathering calling him.

Bai Yanliang slipped a hand inside his collar and pulled out a silver key.

To keep it from getting lost, he'd strung it on a chain and worn it around his neck.

This time, his hands and feet didn't move against his will.

He really wanted to find out what would happen if he forced himself to resist the feeling and didn't open the door.

But... reason told him there was absolutely nothing to gain from doing that right now.

Bai Yanliang stood up and put the silver key into the keyhole of his bedroom door.

Just like last time, the key and the lock—which looked as if they couldn't possibly fit—somehow worked together.

Bai Yanliang gave the door a gentle push, and it... opened.

Mist Gathering was shrouded in a haze of chaos, with countless figures already gathered ahead.

Bai Yanliang realized that he was the last one to arrive.

Of the previous batch of newcomers, everyone had arrived early—even the rather strange Qi Nian. Only Shen Changrong, who had already died, was absent.

Speaking of Shen Changrong, Bai Yanliang had tried to find out what had happened to him this past month. He hadn't just looked into Shen Changrong; he'd even searched for information about Ruyi Inn in Yingcheng.

The results, however, had been far from satisfactory.

Shen Changrong had been listed as a missing person, and the shares he held in Baisheng United Group had been snapped up in no time.

Even stranger was what had happened to Ruyi Inn in the real world.

Bai Yanliang couldn't find any information about Ruyi Inn at all. Whether he searched newspapers or the internet, the inn where several people had died in Mist Space seemed to have vanished from the world. No... to be precise, it was more like the name had been blocked as a search term.

Perhaps it still existed, but its existence had been blocked from people's basic perception—even erased from it.

That was the only explanation Bai Yanliang could think of.

"Mr. Bai, you're here?"

Zhou Li greeted Bai Yanliang warmly.

Earlier, Du Shangjing had posted a summary of the mission, written by Bai Yanliang, in the group chat.

Everyone had read through what happened carefully.

Most had seen only the bizarre and terrifying events. Only a few had noticed Bai Yanliang's unusual way of thinking and the reasoning behind it.

Zhou Li was one of them.

Zhou Li was handsome and accomplished for his age. Though he'd been trapped in this bizarre, terrifying place, he hadn't completely given up hope.

He believed that one day he would make it out alive and free himself from this damn curse for good.

But he couldn't achieve that alone. So Zhou Li had been watching, looking for people in Mist Gathering who were "qualified" to escape the curse alongside him.

Fortunately, though there weren't many such people, there were more than Zhou Li had expected. Several of them were exceptionally capable. They might not have been near the top of the list in Mist Gathering, but that was only because they'd arrived later.

In Zhou Li's eyes, Bai Yanliang was one of those people.

Though his name was currently at the very bottom, his potential might far surpass that of most people near the top.

Bai Yanliang nodded in response to Zhou Li's greeting.

Quite a few people were watching him now, but he couldn't match many of their names to their faces. He knew very little about these unfortunate "companions" standing before him.

"Bai Yanliang!" Li Yuejun walked over to him.

Bai Yanliang looked at her. Jiang Li and Xu Zhi'an were walking over with her.

"We wanted to contact you in the real world, but... Mr. Du said you didn't like being disturbed there."

At that, Bai Yanliang glanced up at Du Shangjing and shook his head slightly. "It's fine. I just don't like posting in the group chat."

That Mr. Du had asked him a very strange question last time: "Do you feel like there's something wrong with you?"

Perhaps he'd misunderstood something. Or perhaps... there was something Bai Yanliang didn't know about.

The others stood scattered about instead of gathering together. They kept their distance from one another, each group clearly separate—even Li Yuejun and her two companions.

Bai Yanliang remembered Li Mu saying last time that he shouldn't trust anyone.

And that "Feng Yiru" had also said not to trust Feng Xiuxue.

Perhaps... there were rules in Mist Gathering that Bai Yanliang didn't know about.

Just then, something changed...

Bai Yanliang and the others watched as a door opened in midair and a strange figure stepped through.

Bai Yanliang recognized the door. It was... a hospital door.

He'd spent ten whole years in a hospital, after all, even if it had been a psychiatric hospital.

"Why is there only one newcomer this time?" someone asked, puzzled.

Li Mu stood silently at a distance, watching the door open in midair and the figure who'd entered. No one knew what he was thinking.

Du Shangjing stood beside him, his brows furrowed.

"Mist Gathering is getting stranger and stranger. Newcomers are becoming Grudge-Bound, Wei Xiu's group was wiped out, and the curse for Yu Hanzhou's group began in Mist Gathering itself. And now Mist Gathering hasn't even filled the roster back up to forty-nine people. It's added just one newcomer..."

"Li Mu..."

Li Mu gave a slight shake of his head. His utterly ordinary face revealed nothing.

"I don't know, and there's no need to know. For now, the only thing we need to think about is how to survive the mission."

Du Shangjing opened his mouth, then fell silent, unable to reply.

Meanwhile, the sole newcomer had slowly emerged from the gray mist and appeared before everyone.

"May I ask... where is this?"

A gentle woman's voice drifted out of the mist. She looked to be in her twenties, with bright eyes like autumn waters. Though she wore no makeup, she was still lovely, and her long hair fell in wisps over her shoulders. There was little fear on her face as she asked her question—only mild confusion.

Everyone looked at her and couldn't help but freeze. Not because she was beautiful, but because... she was sitting in a wheelchair.