After emerging from the Past-Future God's death zone, Gao Ming had confirmed that Fate had tampered with his memories. He and the vast majority of the city's residents were being "kept," and their futures were predetermined.
But now Gao Ming had a chance to change that. He might become the first person to truly leave Hanhai.
The main road leading out of the city was broad and clean, as though plenty of vehicles traveled in and out every day. Who could have imagined that it was all an illusion?
No one knew where the vehicles heading out of the city ultimately went. Perhaps they had never left Hanhai at all. Perhaps their drivers were accomplices too.
Sparks burst with a crackle inside the brazier fashioned from a shrine. Beneath the dancing flames lay a thick layer of ash left by black-and-white photographs, with a few weeping faces still faintly visible within it.
"The black fog is getting thicker." Teacher Li looked at the dwindling stack of black-and-white posthumous photos in her hands and felt a wave of despair. Their phones had no signal, and the vehicle's navigation system did not work either. They were clearly traveling along a road, yet it felt as though they had been forgotten in the depths of another world.
"Teacher, I'm a little scared. My grandma isn't in very good health. She's still waiting at the station for me to come home." Fu Ping was the most timid child in the class. She always spoke hesitantly, never daring to speak up in class or talk to others. Her introversion and shyness stemmed partly from her family circumstances. Her parents had left to find work long ago and never returned, leaving her grandmother to raise her. To avoid causing trouble for her grandmother, she had learned