Zhou Mingxuan had no desire to leave this world, and because of that, this world wouldn’t obstruct him. All members of Sky Vault’s Team 7 had received the emergency recall order, but it seemed that Zhou Mingxuan was the only one who had returned to Sky Vault.

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed as a well-trained squad from Sky Vault arrived at the rehabilitation center, searching for why the overlap of realities originated from this location. Only Zhou Mingxuan knew the reason — Director Wang was the key variable.

Inside the room, no one moved, and all eyes were on Zhou Mingxuan and Song Qinglan.

Song Qinglan asked, “Do you think we’ll let you stay here?”

“Yeah!”

“Are you out of your mind, Old Zhou?”

“This is just a bubble world. I can’t explain it well, but Consultant Ji knows. Don’t you trust him?”

The team spoke over each other, panicked. Giving up on a teammate was simply out of the question.

Zhou Mingxuan was silent for a few seconds before he looked at Ji Yushi and asked, “Consultant Ji, Captain Song said in the message that if we all return to our original reality, this world would restart, like a loop in Ouroboros. If I stay, can this reality continue?”

Even with his simulated face, Ji Yushi remained the easiest of the team to read.

Though the simulated mask hid his true expression, Ji Yushi deeply empathized with Zhou Mingxuan’s situation. He couldn’t lie in response to this question.

His teammates looked at him, hoping he would shatter Zhou Mingxuan’s naïve illusion, but Ji Yushi answered truthfully.

He said, “Yes.”

Everyone was stunned.

So this world could continue?

“But,” Ji Yushi quickly added, his tone calm and measured, “if you don’t return, when we reach point ‘B’ in the original reality, there will be one less of you. Your friends, your comrades, and everyone in your life will lose you forever. Team 7 will no longer have Zhou Mingxuan, and we will no longer be complete. This is worse than when our observer, Old Yu, was injured. The guilt of allowing you to indulge in this derivative world because we were soft-hearted will haunt all of us for the rest of our lives.”

Ji Yushi continued, “A bubble is still just a bubble. Once your regrets are temporarily satisfied, it will eventually disappear, but your real life won’t. What will you do when you’re left alone here? Unless… you believe your life is meant for just this one thing.”

For the first time, Ji Yushi spoke so much at once in front of everyone, not just analyzing the situation but sharing his heartfelt thoughts.

Even Zhou Mingxuan seemed taken aback.

Only Song Qinglan understood where Ji Yushi’s words were coming from.

What Song Qinglan didn’t expect was that the person who would “pull Zhou Mingxuan out” wasn’t him, but Ji Yushi.

These words, while meant for Zhou Mingxuan, were also directed inward, at himself. They had both been deeply tempted by this bubble world, but Ji Yushi knew how to help Zhou Mingxuan escape its allure.

The sound of the search party grew nearer.

Song Qinglan stepped forward, snatching the gun from Zhou Mingxuan’s hands. “Stop overthinking! Whether this world continues or not, it’s not yours. You’re coming with us, right now!”

Zhou Mingxuan hesitated. “Captain Song, I—”

Tang Qi walked over, saying nothing as he put an arm around Zhou Mingxuan’s neck and slapped a small round device on him. A new simulated face appeared over Zhou Mingxuan’s, and the others crowded around, pushing him out of the room.

The group left in the opposite direction of the search party, but they were soon stopped. “What are you doing?! Come register!”

They kept moving, avoiding the searchers by navigating through several long, winding corridors. Song Qinglan pushed open a fire escape door and, as they hurried down, asked, “Old Duan, can you write an electromagnetic wave simulation program?”

As the team’s operator, Duan Wen confidently replied, “Yes!”

Song Qinglan pressed, “How long will it take?”

Duan Wen grabbed Director Wang’s transparent panel, already containing the necessary data, and answered with certainty, “Just a few minutes.”

They descended another floor, only to be confronted by Sky Vault searchers coming up from below.

Both sides froze.

It turned out to be the Guardians of Sky Vault’s Team 3 from this reality, all of them familiar faces.

Seeing the gun in Song Qinglan’s hand, the leader shouted, “Stop right there!”

“Shit!” someone cursed, and the team turned and ran.

Team 3 was no slouch, as skilled and agile as their counterparts.

In the narrow fire escape of the rehabilitation center, a chase ensued. They burst through one fire door after another, only to find each floor already occupied by Sky Vault personnel.

Luckily, no one fired a shot, and there was no exchange of gunfire, but Song Qinglan knew that Team 3 had likely already informed all the other teams at the center through their subcutaneous communication devices, planning to trap them like fish in a barrel.

“I knew it! I shouldn’t have messed with their equipment last time!” Li Chun cursed. “Karma’s real!”

“Then spit out your share when we get back!” someone retorted.

“Screw you! Dream on!”

Duan Wen joked, “How come they’re always on external missions in this reality too? No class at all!”

Despite the banter, everyone understood the gravity of the situation. By now, the entire Jiangcheng division of Sky Vault in this reality had probably mobilized. Not just Sky Vault — looking out the windows, they could see a crowd of onlookers gathered around the rehabilitation center, drawn by the overlapping realities and Sky Vault’s actions, making escape nearly impossible.

The cacophony of sirens, voices, and helicopters filled the air. It seemed there was no way out for Team 7.

“Split up?” Tang Qi suggested. “Find a place to meet later?”

“No splitting up!” Song Qinglan barked, shoving open another door. “Stay with me!”

They entered a recreational media room attached to the rehabilitation center. Inside were several still, lifelike figures, frozen as if someone had pressed pause. Aside from these ghostly figures, the room was empty.

Song Qinglan declared, “This is it!”

The team locked the door behind them. Without needing further instruction, Duan Wen placed the transparent panel on a table and began furiously typing, writing the program.

A few minutes. That’s all they needed.

Everyone fell silent, the only sound in the room the simulated typing on Duan Wen’s holographic keyboard — he didn’t even bother muting it. They all knew that once Duan Wen finished the program, and once they made the call, they would return to their original reality.

The six of them circled Duan Wen, tense and focused. This was their one shot to sever their connection to the bubble world.

“Wait.” Tang Le suddenly spoke up in the silence. “I want to make a call to my sister.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

Tang Le’s eyes were red. “Even if I don’t belong here, even if this is a bubble world, I still want to call her… After this, we won’t have a sister anymore.”

Tang Qi, trying to comfort his brother, gently ruffled his hair, his eyes also reddening. “…”

Li Chun pulled out his phone. “I… need to too. It’s pretty scummy not to break up face-to-face.”

On the holographic projection, the code continued to auto-generate.

Duan Wen typed the final letter, then leaned back in his chair, covering his eyes.

A man in his thirties, unable to bear the emotional weight of leaving behind the father-daughter relationship he had enjoyed in this world. The daughter he had gained here would be gone forever.

Even if he had children in the future, they would never be this same child.

Zhou Mingxuan sat alone, silently fidgeting with his phone, his expression unclear.

Ji Yushi leaned against a desk near the window.

Sunlight streamed in from the side, casting a glow on his pale skin, making it seem almost transparent. He had no phone and no new attachments in this world. He simply lowered his gaze, lost in thought.

“Captain Song.” Li Chun asked, “Did anything change for you in this world?”

Everyone looked up, turning their attention to Song Qinglan.

With overlapping memories from two realities, everyone had two sets of experiences, yet no one could recall any significant differences in Song Qinglan’s life.

Song Qinglan crossed his arms, leaning against a counter, his long legs firmly planted on the ground.

His sharp eyes carried the weight of thought, and he finally spoke. “At eight o’clock this morning, my father wasn’t on a plane to some meeting. Instead, he was sitting at home, leisurely drinking tea. Does that count as a change?”

Ji Yushi also looked at Song Qinglan.

It seemed Song Qinglan had never mentioned any changes in his life before.

In other words, Song Qinglan’s life had remained almost unchanged between the two realities. He had no regrets and no desire for anything to change. He had perfected control over his life, down to the smallest detail.

A man with no flaws, no regrets, was truly invulnerable.

Perhaps it was this perfection and stability that made Song Qinglan’s mind and spirit so strong.

A short alert sounded.

The simulation program was complete.

The simulated electromagnetic wave frequency had fully synchronized with the other reality. All they had to do now was connect a phone and dial the one unique number, and everything would end.

Ji Yushi stepped away from the window and took the phone from Song Qinglan’s hand to connect it to the simulator, preparing to enter the number.

At that moment, a loud “boom” resounded.

Everyone’s expressions changed.

The door to the media room shook violently. The people from this reality had used a breaching device, and with one more hit, the door would collapse!

“Gather up! Stay close!”

“Quick, quick, quick!”

Another deafening “boom” followed, shaking the floor.

That second seemed to stretch endlessly. As Duan Wen closed the holographic projection, Song Qinglan’s command of “Don’t move!” coincided with the sound of the door crashing down.

The heavy door clattered to the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Dozens of Sky Vault Guardians stood at the entrance, fully armed, surveying the motionless figures in the media room.

In this place where two realities overlapped, the ghostly figures were no longer mere apparitions. Aside from being frozen in time, they were indistinguishable from the real people.

From the Guardians’ perspective, it looked as if the room was empty, devoid of any living souls.

“Next room!” someone commanded.

The Guardians filed in, attaching the detection devices to the walls as required. After a quick scan, they prepared to move to the next location.

“Wait,” a voice said.

From the group of Guardians dressed in black combat uniforms, a man stepped forward.

He was a young man, slim with pale skin and almond-shaped eyes, the number “9” displayed on his chest. Slung over his back was a shotgun similar to Song Qinglan’s.

Outside, chaos reigned — the noise of voices, the Guardians running through the corridors, media shouts, and sirens, all signaling that this world had already descended into disorder.

The young man stopped in front of Song Qinglan.

He stared at Song Qinglan’s unfamiliar, ordinary face with those distinctive eyes, then smiled slightly. “Tell Minister Qi that our Captain Song has been a bit mischievous, playing hide-and-seek. Maybe go easy on him?”

For a moment, you could hear a pin drop.

With only three steps left.

Ji Yushi’s hand was in his pocket, pressing the final number on his phone.

The young man raised his arm, reaching towards the small device behind Song Qinglan’s ear — the concealed, small disc.

With two steps left.

Ji Yushi said, “Captain Song.”

In unison, Team 7 moved, each grabbing the hand of the teammate next to them.

The young man stepped back.

Shing! The Guardians surrounding them raised their guns all at once.

The final step.

With guns trained on them, Ji Yushi pressed the call button.

Beep—

The Guardians moved closer.

Beep—

Under the watchful eyes of the group, Minister Qi, now in more formal attire, strode in. Despite her graying hair, her grace was undiminished, just like when they first met in Chaos.

Beep—

Suddenly, the rehabilitation center began to shake. The ceiling and walls flickered with ghostly shadows as the world began to collapse.

People looked around in shock, but it was as though a thick barrier had formed between realities, muting all sound.

In that moment, fate was sealed.

“Hello?” A familiar middle-aged woman’s voice answered on the other end of the phone.

[Warning! Warning! You have deviated from the target coordinates!]

Amid the violent tremors of the capsule pod, Ji Yushi gripped the safety handle tightly, his lips turning pale. Red lights flashed before his eyes. He knew he had returned to the moment of transition — back to the so-called “point B.”

Back to their original reality.

Back to [10:00:03], the third second after they had departed from the Third Command Center.

—And back to that perfect temporal hijacking.

[Detected illegal transition!]

[Detected illegal transition!]

The blaring of alarms, so familiar to Ji Yushi, didn’t faze him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the dizziness and ringing in his ears to pass, making sure not to vomit in his capsule pod.

It felt like an eternity, though it might have only been a few seconds. To Ji Yushi, it dragged on for what seemed like hours.

The expected descent of the capsule never came. When everything finally quieted down, and he opened his eyes, he saw a bright blue sky.

The sun was shining.

A humid breeze rustled the leaves above, and he heard the sound of people laughing.

Ji Yushi sat up, finding himself lying on a beach chair with the sea just a few meters away. The blue water lapped at the soft, white sand, with seagulls occasionally flying overhead. Children collected shells, and tourists in swimwear wandered by with surfboards.

For a moment, he was disoriented.

This looked just like the beach he had visited alone after graduating high school.

No — this was that beach.

He looked down and saw that he was wearing the same clothes from back then, but now there was a black communicator on his wrist that didn’t belong in that time, reminding him this wasn’t a dream.

The communicator had an unread message.

Ji Yushi tapped to open the holographic projection.

[Welcome, Ji Yushi. Welcome back to Sky Vault.]

Ji Yushi didn’t even have to think to know this message was from “Sky Vault in every era.” Only Sky Vault could create such an eerily realistic illusion.

[Congratulations, you’ve completed a new A-level mission: Chaos.]

Ji Yushi frowned. So the mission from Chaos had only now been settled?

[Congratulations, you have triggered a derivative mission, rated S.]

[Mission mode: Who am I?]

[Mission rules: None.]

[Mission objective: None.]

[Congratulations, you’ve completed the derivative mission: Who am I? The next mission will be unlocked soon.]

Ji Yushi: “…”

So the bubble world had been treated as a derivative mission, and now it was being tallied all at once?

“Where am I?” Ji Yushi asked.

The voice system activated.

Sky Vault’s gentle female voice responded, “After a system upgrade, I’ve created this personalized temporal transit station for you. You can rest, train, and eat here. I have ample supplies, and I recommend you make use of them before moving on to your next mission.”

Ji Yushi: “Where are the others?”

Sky Vault: “The others are in their own personalized transit stations. Would you like to jump to another person’s station?”

Ji Yushi: “Yes.”

Sky Vault: “Please choose a person to jump to: Song Qinglan, Zhou Mingxuan, Duan Wen, Tang Qi, Tang Le, or Li Chun.”

The sea breeze blew gently.

Ji Yushi lay back on the chair, contemplating for a long time before finally saying, “Song Qinglan.”