“Consultant Ji, are you okay? You don’t look well today.”

It was Tang Le, one of the new teammates and one of the twin brothers with a round face.

He seemed a bit shy, and after hearing Ji Yushi’s response, he reacted in that straightforward way typical of many men.

“Oh, I see,” he said awkwardly. “Well, Consultant Ji, don’t worry too much. This jump is similar to the missions you’ve done before; they’re all pretty much the same. And the mission is really simple—we’ll be back by tomorrow.”

…

In the next second, blood gushed from Tang Le’s neck, splattering all over him, running down his black uniform and staining the “7” insignia of Sky Vault Team Seven a deep red.

His eyes grew lifeless, gradually clouding over with gray and white. Behind him was the zombie biting into him and the endless Black Wall: “Consultant Ji, we can’t go back—”

The scene blurred, and a flash of white light erupted.

The sky and ground cracked and shattered.

A piercing alarm blared.

【Illegal jump detected!】

【Illegal jump detected!】

In the violent shaking, someone grabbed his shoulder: “Kid, calm down!”

A sheet of white paper and a pencil lay before him. Someone knelt beside him, saying, “Come on, now do as the teacher said, okay?”

The small room was eerily quiet, sunlight spilling across the table. A small hand gripped the pencil, writing the first number in the center of the paper.

“See,” the teacher said gently. “We’ll start from 1 and slowly write the numbers one after another, until we can’t fit anymore on this page. It’s okay if you make mistakes, you don’t need to think or remember anything. That’s right, don’t be afraid, just keep writing… until you feel comfortable…”

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Gunshots echoed across the sky.

Someone shoved him hard toward the window, sweeping the zombies with a weapon named Shenmian. When they turned back, their eyes flashed with thunderous fury: “Stop wasting time! Get moving! I’ll cover the rear!!”

…

In the speeding car, ashes scattered in the wind.

“Sacrificing yourself is stupid and not worth emulating. Nothing is more important than staying alive. There’s still a lot to do in this team, so don’t rush to die.”

“Did everyone hear me?!”

…

The vehicle overturned, and a large hand reached out.

Its palm was pierced with glass shards, bleeding profusely.

He extended his hand in return.

In the moment their hands clasped, the other’s dark eyes narrowed: “Consultant Ji, I think you haven’t been completely honest with me… How many times have you gone through our current situation?”

…

“It seems we haven’t lost our minds.”

Everything stilled.

Before Ji Yushi was the pristine interior of the capsule pod, the transparent panel displaying garbled text, and outside the glass window, dense woods under a gray sky.

“Zzzz.”

With a faint sound, a robotic arm clumsily handed him a nutrient solution.

Thump. Thump.

What was he thinking in the last second before death, when the darkness consumed him?

He had no recollection.

All he knew was that his heart was still beating fiercely in his chest.

Ignoring the dizziness and disorientation, Ji Yushi almost instinctively unbuckled the safety harness, weakly opening the pod door.

The cold dawn wind swept through.

Seven capsule pods glowed faintly, standing quietly in the center of the woods.

Three or four teammates stood a short distance away, speaking in low voices, their tone somewhat agitated, as if complaining about the incorrect time coordinates.

Nearby, the capsule pod closest to him opened, revealing a young man who looked pale as he covered his mouth, ready to step out.

“Clang!”

The pod door was suddenly kicked shut.

“Captain Song!!” Li Chun’s muffled voice came faintly from the sealed pod. “Ugh—”

“If you’re going to puke, do it at home.”

The person passing by, clad in a black combat uniform, had a pair of strong, long legs, and his actions were brazen and self-assured: “You only rode the giant swing twice during the whole vacation.”

The three people not far away activated their mockery mode.

“Chun’er is throwing up again? How many times has Captain Song caught him?”

“Can’t blame him. He went to an amusement park and got outdone by the girls on the thrill rides. He puked three times after one go on the giant swing.”

“No wonder the simulator can’t help him.”

On the other side, the thirty-something Duan Wen was busy adjusting the main control panel, his voice raspy from too much smoking: “Captain Song! Our equipment seems to be locked!”

Song Qinglan: “I know.”

He walked over unhurriedly, leaving Li Chun to marinate in his own misery inside the capsule pod.

When he was just a few steps away from Ji Yushi, Song Qinglan suddenly stopped and turned around.

Due to the height difference, Ji Yushi felt as if the other man was almost looking down at him.

Song Qinglan’s features were sharp, his dark eyes full of vitality, and he said with a casual air: “Consultant Ji, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you smile.”

Ji Yushi: “…”

Instinctively, he turned to look.

The glow from the capsule pod illuminated his face.

In the glass reflection, Ji Yushi could faintly see his own lips, and there did seem to be an almost imperceptible curve.

“Looks good,” the deep voice said.

Startled, he turned back, but the person who had spoken was already walking away, leaving only a tall, broad back in his wake.

“The main control panel is offline, and we can’t contact the command center. The capsule pods aren’t working. It seems like the electromagnetic waves or magnetic field here are different, but we can’t be sure. Maybe it’s related to the jump we just made. The only thing still functional is the communicator, which means we’re stuck… here.” Duan Wen quickly rattled off his observations, then furrowed his brows, as if something had just occurred to him. “Didn’t I say this somewhere before?”

Song Qinglan patted him on the shoulder: “You did.”

Duan Wen squatted down, racking his brain to remember.

This scene seemed somewhat familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why.

“Can’t remember?” Song Qinglan moved over to Zhou Mingxuan and motioned for him to open the mechanical storage. “Take your time.”

The others: “?”

Song Qinglan scanned the neatly arranged gear and immediately selected a military knife.

Just then, footsteps echoed through the woods.

In the dim light, Song Qinglan’s hand flashed with a cold gleam, and a shadow not far away fell to the ground.

Everyone: “!!!”

Even Ji Yushi was momentarily stunned; this man’s accuracy was beyond his expectations.

The teammates shone their flashlights on the corpse, discussing the greenish, web-like veins on its face, the bulging gray eyes, and the decaying flesh, all with a sense of dread.

The vagrant that the captain had taken down didn’t look much like a human anymore, but had he acted too quickly?

Once Li Chun finally emerged from his capsule pod, Song Qinglan called everyone to gather.

“Anyone else feeling déjà vu, take a moment to think carefully.”

Song Qinglan’s gaze swept over each person, his tone unusually serious: “This time, no one is allowed to die on me.”

“Choose your gear. Pick the most powerful weapons and take everything you can carry. Our first priority is to find a vehicle.”

Li Chun, still dizzy from his bout of vomiting, asked the question everyone was thinking: “Captain Song, where are we going? Is this some new mission?”

Song Qinglan calculated the time difference in his head and turned toward the team’s leftmost member.

Standing there was the refined and handsome Ji Yushi, the newcomer to their team.

“Consultant Ji?” Song Qinglan asked, “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Go straight to the bookstore,” Ji Yushi replied in his cool, clear voice. “There was a clue I didn’t get to finish reading.”

Song Qinglan suddenly smiled.

Then, with a determined, all-or-nothing attitude, he said calmly, “Perfect. That’s what I was thinking too. Let’s head to the bookstore, figure out the clue you were looking at, calculate the Black Wall’s movement pattern, and find the so-called mission target—without having to do this all over again.”

The two of them, in perfect sync, showed an unexpected level of understanding.

Everyone was confused.

Song Qinglan said, “I’ll explain everything to you all on the way.”

Everything in the park looked exactly the same as it did the first time: the trash, the bodies, the bloodstains.

Hearing about the Black Wall and the zombies, some team members fell silent, while others were in disbelief. For some of them, it was impossible to believe that these events had already happened, especially for Tang Qi. Since he wasn’t involved in most of what happened afterward, it would be hard for him to feel any sense of déjà vu.

Duan Wen vaguely remembered some scenes, and Zhou Mingxuan also felt a slight sense of familiarity.

Song Qinglan speculated that this was related to each person’s training.

After the Sky Vault system was invented, many special forces soldiers preparing to enter Sky Vault as Guardians participated in the Time Witness Program.

The side effects of time travel on the human body, such as memory loss and confusion between reality and illusion, were rehabilitated for a long time through repeated memory training. This was also why Song Qinglan could guess the type of medication Ji Yushi was using.

Currently, those in the team who had some recollection of the previous two experiences were those who had participated in the Time Witness Program and undergone training. However, Li Chun, Tang Le, and the others had entered Sky Vault when the Time Management Bureau had already invented new technology that could effectively mitigate side effects through nutrient solutions. As a result, they might be very slow to realize what was happening, or perhaps they would never feel it at all.

And as for Ji Yushi, there was no need to explain.

A person without the ability to forget.

Was that a blessing or a curse?

“So, every time we die, we restart?” Zhou Mingxuan asked. “Does this death have to be a specific person, or does it mean the whole team?”

“It’s the whole team.”

The one who answered was Ji Yushi.

Perhaps it was because he had been in a state of extreme mental tension for a long time without rest—ever since they restarted the mission for the first time. For Ji Yushi, who hadn’t slept well the night before they set out and still remembered everything, it had been nearly twenty hours without sleep.

The bruise on his forehead from when the car crashed into the Runjin Building had disappeared with the mission restart, but the faint dark circles under his eyes remained, making him look as though a strong gust of wind might knock him over.

“According to the hints we’ve received, the mission rule is death elimination,” Ji Yushi said. “But the Sky Vault system has also set a time anchor for us—”

“Time anchor?” Song Qinglan was surprised that Ji Yushi knew about this concept.

Time anchors were a technology that had been strictly prohibited as soon as they were developed.

They could set a specific time coordinate as an anchor point and insert another necessary condition. When that condition was detected, time would revert to the anchor point.

The emergence of this technology created severe time paradoxes, such as making someone immortal during a specific period or preventing a historical event from ever occurring, thus generating time bubbles that could disrupt the normal flow of time.

Therefore, time anchors were banned in their era, and very few people knew about them.

Ji Yushi said, “Yes.”

He briefly explained to the group what a time anchor was, then continued, “This means that the timeline will restart, and we will always return to the park. I suspect that death elimination means that in each cycle, those who die become expendable, and the remaining members continue the mission. If it detects that everyone has died, the mission restarts, ensuring the highest chance of completion—even if only one person remains.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s brutal!”

“Whoever came up with this idea must be heartless!”

“I don’t know if they’re heartless,” Ji Yushi said. “But if we don’t complete the mission, this loop could go on indefinitely.”

As he said this, Song Qinglan glanced at him.

Then Duan Wen asked, “Does the mission mode, Ouroboros, represent this concept?”

Song Qinglan already had a guess about this.

And he had already discussed it with Ji Yushi once.

“It’s possible,” Song Qinglan said. “In any case, now that we’ve figured out the basics, we need to understand what the Dark Pursuer is.”

The group had reached the location where they found the park previously, but this time, they didn’t need to go there again.

However, Ji Yushi suddenly stopped in his tracks: “Captain Song, how about getting a vehicle that can crush anything?”

Song Qinglan found himself getting used to Ji Yushi’s sudden comments.

If Ji Yushi said it was possible, then it probably was.

Song Qinglan couldn’t resist a bit of sarcasm: “If I want it, does that mean we’ll have it?”

The group: “???”

“Yes,” Ji Yushi’s serene profile looked especially calm in the morning light. “In the park management office, there’s a key to a space vehicle on the administrator’s desk.”

Behind the park management office, there really was a brand-new space vehicle parked.

The key to the space vehicle was easy to identify, unlike a regular car key. However, in the previous two cycles, they wouldn’t have thought of driving a space vehicle into the city, and it had been buried under a pile of newspapers and takeout boxes.

Song Qinglan couldn’t remember such a detail, but Ji Yushi recalled it perfectly.

The space vehicle was eight meters long and five meters wide, with an extremely sturdy metal exterior, no cockpit, and a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour—a true crushing machine.

This type of vehicle already existed in their time. Once set up, it didn’t require a driver and followed special routes, typically used in transportation. Essentially, it was an unmanned, intelligent version of freight trucks from centuries ago. Due to its large size, some people even used it as a mobile home, hence the name “space vehicle.”

“Consultant Ji!” Li Chun jumped inside and took a quick look around. “I feel like I just hit the jackpot! This thing is awesome!”

Tang Le said to Tang Qi, “If there are zombies, this thing could crush a hundred of them, right?”

Tang Qi replied, “Pretty much.”

Song Qinglan checked the time on the communicator and urged, “Hurry up.”

The vehicle also carried several large tree trunks.

After Duan Wen studied the control system and activated it, the trunks were unloaded with a loud crash.

In the distance, a few zombies were attracted by the noise and charged madly toward them.

“Bang, bang, bang!”

Zhou Mingxuan, using his laser gun equipped with a sniper scope, fired several shots in quick succession.

The zombies’ heads exploded in a spray of blood and brain matter as they fell to the ground.

The sound of gunfire drew more zombies out of hiding as daylight broke.

Seeing the zombies up close, the teammates were shocked and found it hard to calm down. It was only at that moment that Captain Song and Consultant Ji’s earlier conversation about the situation truly sank in.

They threw their gear onto the vehicle, and everyone got on board.

Just as the door was closing, a black wall suddenly appeared on the horizon.

“Quick!” someone urged urgently.

Ji Yushi remained calm as he swiftly and accurately set the destination on the control panel. As soon as Duan Wen saw the successful setup, he pulled the start lever, and the space vehicle shot out like an arrow.

The Black Wall devoured the forest, half the park, and everything in sight.

The space vehicle sped out of the park.

It barreled down the main road.

Like an unstoppable tank, it crushed any obstacles in its path, reducing the zombies rushing toward it to pulp, with blood splattering all along the way.

“Yeah!!!”

“Awesome!!”

The young men couldn’t help but feel their blood boil, as if they had finally gotten some payback.

At a speed of over 200 kilometers per hour, the space vehicle reached the corner of a street intersection when suddenly, with a loud crash, the vehicle shook violently, “Boom—”

A small car had suddenly appeared from the intersection, only to be crushed into scrap metal by the space vehicle.