"The Near-Ancient Century?"
Lu Xiao looked at Liuguang, his dead-fish eyes making Liuguang's scalp prickle.
Liuguang steeled himself and answered.
"Yes! The Near-Ancient Century!"
"Then what century is it now?"
A possibility surfaced in Lu Xiao's mind.
Liuguang paused thoughtfully.
"It's the Innovation Century now!"
Lu Xiao repeated the term silently to himself.
"Then what year of the Innovation Century is it now?"
Liuguang answered without hesitation.
"This year is Innovation Era 211!"
"So 211 years have already passed in the Innovation Century?"
Liuguang nodded.
Lu Xiao sensed something strange and instantly discarded his earlier idea.
"I only fell into the Dark Prison three years ago! Have more than two hundred years passed outside?"
The question lingered in his mind.
Then another possibility occurred to him.
"Does time in the Dark Prison differ from time in reality?"
At this, everyone shook their heads.
An eerie atmosphere hung inside the ambulance.
Lu Xiao said nothing.
He did not think the members of the Cityfire Squad were lying to him.
That left many possibilities.
"Could this be a parallel world?"
That was Lu Xiao's guess, and he thought it was highly likely.
But he had overlooked a problem.
Even in a parallel world, the timeline still did not match.
Seeing Lu Xiao fall silent, no one dared breathe too loudly.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Only then did Dart, who was driving, break the silence.
"We're here!"
With that, he immediately got out.
The other squad members followed him out one after another.
Just as Lu Xiao was about to get out after them, Dart said gravely.
"Mr. Lu Xiao! Please follow my instructions. Unless I tell you to act, just watch from the sidelines!"
Lu Xiao did not refuse.
Seeing how agreeable Lu Xiao was, Dart secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
He had been worried all along that Lu Xiao would break free of their control.
If Lu Xiao insisted on acting alone, their squad had absolutely no chance of stopping him.
And once a contained anomaly broke free of their control, the consequences would be unpredictable.
But clearly, Lu Xiao had no such intention.
As soon as he got out, he looked around curiously.
In the distance stood a brilliantly lit manor house.
He asked Liuguang.
"Buddy! What's the containment target?"
Liuguang immediately looked at his captain. Only after Dart nodded did he answer.
"According to the information, the containment target is a mirror with omniscient properties!"
"Omniscient properties?"
Lu Xiao's eyes instantly lit up.
Liuguang nodded.
"This mirror is very strange. It's said to know everything, whether in the past or the future!"
"It's that uncanny?"
Those words had truly hooked Lu Xiao's curiosity.
He happened to be full of questions right now.
It was like finding a pillow just as he grew sleepy.
Lu Xiao suddenly became interested in this containment operation.
Originally, he had only intended to go through the motions, but now he was determined to get his hands on that anomaly.
Meanwhile.
Boss Liu sat on the sofa, his face ashen.
It was not that he had never thought of running away, but the images shown in the Magic Mirror had already foretold his fate.
As the Magic Mirror's owner, he knew better than anyone.
The Magic Mirror's answers were unchangeable facts.
Over the course of that day, he had recalled his entire past.
Originally, he had been nothing more than the owner of a small processing factory in Magic City.
There were eight thousand, if not ten thousand, small-time business owners like him in Magic City.
Although he lived quite comfortably, he clearly had greater ambitions.
By chance, he had discovered this mirror in an antique shop.
From the very first glance, his gaze had been firmly drawn to it.
So he had paid a high price to bring the mirror home.
On one occasion, overwhelmed by stress, he had been talking to himself in front of the mirror when the Magic Mirror answered him.
From then on, there was no stopping him.
With the Magic Mirror's help, his business flourished.
He learned his competitors' weaknesses one by one.
In just ten years, he became the biggest business owner in Magic City.
He was the biggest boss behind ninety percent of Magic City's businesses.
In the process, perhaps even he had forgotten how many lives he had sacrificed to the Magic Mirror.
But he remembered the first life he had sacrificed very clearly: his wife, who had shared his hardships.
But all of that had already faded into the past.
He stared blankly at the Magic Mirror, thoughts surging through his mind.
After learning his fate, he had thought of destroying the Magic Mirror.
But no matter what he tried, he could not damage it in the slightest.
The Magic Mirror had never responded to him again, either.
Regret, frustration, fear...
Countless emotions surged within him.
Just then, a piercing alarm sounded.
The villa was under attack again.
Gunfire rang out across the night sky.
The authorities had long since sealed off the road leading from Magic City to the manor.
A police car was parked at every intersection.
At one intersection, two police officers, one old and one young, were resting against their car.
The younger officer took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to the older officer beside him.
"Uncle Wang! Day after day, the higher-ups only tell us to block this road without giving us a reason. Why do you think that is?"
The older officer, whom he called Uncle Wang, had been on the force for over a decade and knew considerably more.
Uncle Wang slowly exhaled a smoke ring.
"Kid! Just do whatever the higher-ups tell you to do!"
"Don't go digging for answers. Some things aren't for us to know!"
The young officer nodded, only half understanding.
As the two chatted, a van approached from the distance.
The vehicle followed a very strange course, weaving along the road in one S-shaped curve after another.
Its headlights swung from side to side, making their eyes uncomfortable.
Uncle Wang gave the young officer beside him a shove.
"Probably drunk driving. Stop them!"
The young officer nodded, walked into the middle of the road, and waved at the van.
Soon, the van pulled over.
The young officer knocked on the window.
The window opened, revealing a soldier in special operations gear in the driver's seat.
The young officer froze for a moment, then immediately saluted.
But the man in the driver's seat did not respond. Instead, he was making extremely strange movements.
His hands had long since left the steering wheel and were constantly making mechanical motions.
The atmosphere was extremely eerie.
The young officer felt his scalp prickle.
But out of duty, he still steeled himself and spoke.
"Sir! This road has been sealed off. No one can pass without special authorization!"
Hearing the young officer's words, the soldier in the driver's seat stopped one hand, took an ID out of his bag, and handed it to him.
Meanwhile, his other hand did not stop, continuing its mechanical motions.
The young officer took the ID and glanced at the rearview mirror.
What he saw in the rearview mirror instantly covered him in goosebumps.
Six people wearing special forces uniforms sat inside the van, all their hands swaying strangely.
They were exactly like the man in the driver's seat.
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