Earlier, during the break, Song Qinglan had contacted Tang Le, who had agreed to wait for them near the highway. However, the person who showed up was Li Chun instead.

Song Qinglan had already given a brief explanation of the current situation over the phone. During the Ouroboros mission, just understanding the concept of a time anchor nearly cost Li Chun his life. He didn’t know how much the other teammates understood, but he certainly hadn’t grasped things like the “double-slit interference experiment” or the “bubble world.” All he knew was that his Captain Song and Consultant Ji had mentioned that this wasn’t their original reality, and that was enough!

The three of them always seemed to reunite first during missions.

Li Chun, completely unaware of his captain’s discontent, continued to chatter on, playing his usual role as a talkative sidekick: “I knew something was off! That girl couldn’t have been that unreasonable. Turns out this isn’t our original world! These past few days, I’ve been sweet-talking her so much I practically became a simping puppy!”

Ji Yushi: “…”

“Luckily, when I saw Director Wang’s photo, everything clicked!” Li Chun exclaimed. “In our world, I didn’t even have the girl’s phone number yet! But in this world, she’s just been handed to me on a platter?! Aren’t you supposed to at least get to know each other before starting a relationship? I ended up pouring my heart out for nothing!”

Song Qinglan downed an entire bottle of water and noticed Ji Yushi taking off his socks, getting ready to put on shoes.

Both of their feet were badly scraped, Ji Yushi’s even more so, not only with cuts but also with blisters from the heated track. His socks stuck to his skin, and when Ji Yushi ripped them off without hesitation, Song Qinglan felt pain just watching, resisting the urge to help.

Ji Yushi didn’t even flinch, his face expressionless.

This guy… always cried out when someone else touched him, but when he got hurt, no matter how painful, he stayed silent.

Song Qinglan thought to himself, This bad habit of Consultant Ji’s needs to change.

In Team 7, nobody held things in like that.

For example, Li Chun was still sighing: “Last night, she threw a tantrum. The more I thought about it, the more upset I got, so I borrowed some booze from a friend to drown my sorrows. This morning, Tang Le climbed in through the window with a face so dark he nearly strangled me. I swear, if I’d known drinking would cause so much trouble, I wouldn’t have done it. All it did was delay things and hurt my body. We broke up, but at least we can stay friends when we meet again.”

Li Chun’s “player philosophy” continued, forcing Song Qinglan to interrupt: “Eyes on the road.”

People still hadn’t forgotten how, back in PU-31, Li Chun had crashed a car straight into Runjin Tower.

Now, Song Qinglan was too tired to care about the fact that the driver was unlicensed.

Li Chun glanced in the rearview mirror. Seeing that Captain Song wasn’t in the mood for banter and that Consultant Ji looked drained in the back seat, he toned down his energy and became much more serious: “Alright, I actually have one question…”

Song Qinglan: “Ask.”

Li Chun asked, “How do we get back to our original world?”

The question hit the nail on the head, tapping into what was on everyone’s mind.

Reality had overlapped, and ghostly images of another world could be seen everywhere. They could see and even touch it, but they couldn’t fully enter it — and as of now, they had no idea what to do.

Li Chun asked again, “If we leave, what happens to this place? Will it disappear?”

The car sped along, and the scenery outside was shocking.

Not only had ghostly images of vehicles appeared on the road, but as they approached the city, there were more and more human figures. The bubble world was derived from the original world, and apart from some minor details, it was highly similar in many aspects.

This meant that the people and events in the bubble world were real, and the people here had their own lives.

“I don’t know,” Ji Yushi said. “It might disappear, or it could be like Ouroboros, looping endlessly from the point we leave, continuing on.”

“Damn…” Li Chun felt a pang of sympathy. “That’s really sad.”

Ji Yushi replied, “It’s actually not that bad.”

Song Qinglan turned, surprised by Ji Yushi’s attitude. He didn’t think Ji Yushi was someone without compassion.

Ji Yushi calmly explained, “Like the survivors in PU-31, the people in the bubble world will never realize they’re trapped in an endless cycle. What they perceive as ‘now’ will always be their ‘now.’ In a way, that’s not much different from us. After all, we can’t even be sure that the world we live in is real.”

Li Chun shuddered, chilled by the conversation. “Consultant Ji, you’re creeping me out.”

Here we go again.

The pessimistic “brain in a vat” theory.

Song Qinglan raised his hand, and as a result, Ji Yushi’s hand was raised too, the handcuffs clanking. “Reality? This is reality. Even if we’re worried someone might be tempted to run off, besides you, I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to be locked up with.”

Song Qinglan’s wrist was still swollen and red from the dislocation, looking rather alarming. His eyebrows lifted slightly as he added, “If it were Chun’er instead…”

Li Chun protested, “What’s wrong with me?!”

Song Qinglan, in his usual unflinching manner, replied, “I’d knock you out and drag you along.”

Li Chun started yelling again, “What, am I not worthy?!”

Song Qinglan leaned back lazily in his seat, casually bantering with him.

Listening to their argument, Ji Yushi turned to look out the window, a slight smile tugging at his lips.

Trains overturned, planes crashed, and car accidents were everywhere.

News reports were broadcasting scenes of overlapping realities from around the world. Cities were filled with smoke, and ghostly images of people, animals, and everything that could move appeared out of nowhere. Even iconic buildings had been replaced by ghostly versions of other landmarks.

In the blink of an eye, this world had descended into chaos.

Everywhere — on holographic screens, on the radio, and online — the same messages were being relayed about the ghostly apparitions.

Less than two hours after the overlapping phenomenon began, Sky Vault issued an emergency directive. The Time Management Alliance of various countries had defined the incident as a “parallel world overlap.” However, for the people in this reality, they had no idea their world was nothing more than a bubble created by the time anchor.

On the way, Song Qinglan’s phone also received an order, instructing all teams to return to Jiangcheng’s division immediately.

But after hanging up, instead of heading to the division, they drove straight to Director Wang’s rehabilitation center with their two teammates.

For them, getting back to their original reality was the real emergency.

The red sports car raced through the chaotic city, passing collapsed overpasses, crumbled buildings, and countless overturned vehicles. In a short amount of time, the car itself was nearly wrecked from all the collisions.

The streets were filled with the ghostly images of people from the other reality, while the people from this reality ran around in panic. Their world, as they knew it, was falling apart.

“Down with Sky Vault!”

“Illegal time travel!”

“Stop tampering with time! Shut down the Sky Vault system!”

“Overthrow the Time Management Alliance!”

A protest march appeared on the road. The opposition was shouting slogans passionately, full of righteous indignation.

About twenty years ago, when the scientific community had first begun research on the Sky Vault system, similar protests had erupted on a large scale — but this was the first time young Ji Yushi had seen such a scene.

Seeing Ji Yushi frequently glancing back at the protestors, Song Qinglan commented, “When they protest like this, they have no idea how much Sky Vault has sacrificed for them.”

As a Guardian, Song Qinglan deeply understood the hardships of their missions and how peace was not easily achieved.

There was no such thing as peace in the present world — it was simply the result of countless unseen people working hard behind the scenes.

Ji Yushi softly replied, “Maybe the scientists didn’t expect Sky Vault to develop like this either when they first invented it.”

His voice was quiet, so Song Qinglan didn’t catch it.

The car slowly turned onto another road, taking two to three times longer than expected to finally reach the vicinity of the rehabilitation center.

Before getting out of the car.

Song Qinglan used a tool to pry open the handcuffs, finally freeing them both.

Ji Yushi flexed his stiff and sore wrists. “No more handcuffs?”

The handcuffs were thrown onto the seat. After all, they’d had a love-hate relationship with those cuffs the whole trip.

Song Qinglan glanced at them and replied coolly, “No more, but you’re still within my line of sight, Consultant Ji. Don’t forget you have a record.”

From the driver’s seat, Li Chun turned around, grinning: “Wow, Boss, that’s some overbearing CEO talk. If Consultant Ji were a girl—”

Ji Yushi cut him off: “She’d stay far away from you.”

Li Chun: “?”

Inside the car, Song Qinglan knocked on someone’s head: “Do you think he looks like a girl?”

Something about that last sentence felt off to Li Chun.

The captain’s eyes were intense, and the rebuttal seemed oddly… strange. Did Song Qinglan look a little reluctant when he took off the handcuffs?

Wait a minute — wasn’t Captain Song supposed to have PTSD about that?

Was the world crazy, or was he going mad?

The three of them got out of the car.

As if some mysterious force had taken hold, the passersby on the street suddenly stopped.

People fell silent, turned around, and stared at them intently.

Then, from all directions, they began walking toward them, mechanically and in unison.

Li Chun’s scalp tingled. “Oh hell, not again?!”

The three of them slowly backed away, but the crowd didn’t slow down as they had encountered before. Instead, the closer the crowd got, the faster they walked, almost breaking into a sprint.

“Run!”

“Run!!”

All three shouted at once and bolted.

The crowd swelled like a tidal wave, surging toward them, with more and more people appearing from the front.

They collided with countless ghostly figures, pushing past what felt like statues of stiff living people, and were soon scattered by the onslaught.

Amid the crowd, Ji Yushi found himself pushed to the edge of the street, packed tightly with people like sardines.

“Ji Yushi!”

“Captain Song!!”

Song Qinglan and Li Chun’s voices rang out, but amidst the throng of people, Ji Yushi could hear them but couldn’t see them.

As he looked around, all he saw were unfamiliar faces, some standing still, some walking toward him with rigid expressions. He couldn’t tell which were ghostly figures from the other world and which were living humans.

These faces filled his mind, and he couldn’t help but search his memory, the sheer amount of information overwhelming him and causing his head to ache.

In just a few minutes, cold sweat beaded on Ji Yushi’s forehead.

Suddenly, someone pushed through the crowd toward him.

It was an utterly ordinary face — bland eyebrows and unremarkable features.

Like the other passersby, it was a face Ji Yushi had never seen before, but as he looked up in confusion, he found himself gazing into a pair of deep black eyes.

The man was tall, and amidst the sea of people, he raised his hand, taking advantage of his long reach to stick a round disc behind Ji Yushi’s ear. “Don’t move.”

A faint sound rang in Ji Yushi’s ear, followed by a familiar sensation spreading from behind his ear to his face.

His face was covered by a new one.

Eighty-nine missions as a recorder, eighty-nine times pretending to be nonexistent.

Eighty-nine times using this simulated face.

No one knew how to use it better than he did.

With it, Ji Yushi became someone else.

The people around him slowly returned to their senses, their expressions becoming animated again as they resumed their previous looks of surprise and panic, scattering once more. They surged in like a tide and retreated just as quickly.

Ji Yushi gasped for breath, his figure now shielded by another tall figure.

Song Qinglan, now wearing a simulated face, said, “I told you, you were never out of my sight. You definitely weren’t getting taken away. What are you so afraid of?”

Ji Yushi: “I’m not afraid.”

Song Qinglan chuckled softly.

Three others approached, all of them with equally unremarkable faces.

One round face was hitting another square face: “I just went to the black market to buy some high-tech stuff, and now the car looks like this?! Like this?!! You owe me!”

The square face whined, “Come on, virtual world, real or fake, does it really matter?!”

Another round face spoke up, this time in a familiar voice — it was Tang Qi: “Consultant Ji, didn’t expect we’d team up again so soon.”