Who is stronger than Ji Yushi?

This made Morita Yu sigh. It seemed that this era, where the calendar is marked as Xingyuan, was more talented and advanced in technology compared to their own era, with significant technological gaps.

However, besides exchanging current information within the cube, none of them mentioned their own eras or backgrounds.

To maintain temporal stability, they wouldn’t engage in too much communication with travelers from other timelines.

Regardless of the timeline they come from, the three fundamental laws of the Sky Vault are ingrained in their bones: never alter the past, never discuss the present, never become obsessed with the future.

“This room is indeed moving,” Zoe said. “Every time a door opens and someone goes in, the original room disappears and is replaced by another. There might be some kind of sensor device in the room.”

It was clear from her experience that she had encountered this situation several times before.

Ji Yushi nodded, “That’s possible.”

Zoe began to think, “In that case, it’s hard to find a pattern. With so many rooms, what exactly does the ‘cube’ want us to do or piece together?”

Everyone knew that answering this question required experimentation and exploration. If they stayed put for safety, they would never find the answer.

After a brief discussion, they decided to continue.

Zoe removed a red sphere floating in the air.

The three checked the colors of the small spheres in the six surrounding rooms from four directions—up, down, left, right, front, and back—and found the colors to be different: two blue, one yellow, one green, one purple, and one red.

Based on Morita Yu’s earlier guess, they chose the room with the red sphere to proceed.

Along the way, Zoe marked rooms with Roman numerals using a dagger.

The quiet, white rooms, one after another, gave a sense of isolation from the outside world, and indeed, they were isolated.

Morita Yu tried to start conversations, but he wasn’t as talkative as Li Chun. Though his speaking style was a bit verbose, it was always useful information.

“Senior, you said there should be 21 more people active here. That clears up one thing for me,” Morita Yu said. “After getting separated from my teammates, I was in a room when a door suddenly opened, but I didn’t press a switch. The door was open for a second before closing.”

He said this with a spooky tone and gestured, “I thought if it were my teammates, they would have called out to me, so I didn’t see anyone behind the door and thought there might be a ghost. Now, thinking about it, it’s actually quite simple. It must have been people from another team who found me but didn’t want to team up, so they left. It might have been your teammates.”

If there were only three guardian teams here, Morita Yu’s chances of encountering the Sky Vault’s Team Seven were quite high.

Ji Yushi, hearing this, thought that there might not be just three teams here; they might encounter more travelers from other timelines, just like they did in the temporal rift.

“It shouldn’t be my teammates,” Ji Yushi said. “If they had found you, they wouldn’t just leave.”

Even if they were competitors, Team Seven wouldn’t act that way.

Exchanging effective but reserved information is the way to quickly reunite with teammates in the cube.

Morita Yu smiled, showing his white teeth. “Ah, Senior, you have so much confidence in both your team leader and your teammates. I really envy the atmosphere you have.”

Zoe, who was less talkative and found Morita Yu a bit chatty, just wanted to get out of there quickly. “Isn’t it like that in your team?”

“Not really,” Morita Yu said, scratching his head awkwardly. “I used to be in a administrative role. I originally planned to be a recorder, but when the guardians needed people, I signed up. My combat skills and experience are still lacking, so I’m not particularly familiar with my teammates.”

Zoe didn’t feel sorry for him.

Every guardian goes through a period of adjustment when they join a new team. If they adapt, they stay; if not, they leave. She had seen too many such cases in the Sky Vault.

Ji Yushi, hearing Morita Yu’s response, seemed touched.

He turned to Morita Yu and said, “Administrative workers have their own strengths. After a few more missions, you’ll become more familiar with your team.”

They arrived at a new room.

Up, down, down.

These were the three rooms they had reached, all with red spheres inside.

Ji Yushi remembered the direction they entered each room. The basic room layout that was originally parallel in his mind began to distort and reorganize. The arrangement here was far more complex than he had imagined, far exceeding his initial estimate of 86 rooms.

What did the splicing mean?

Zoe continued to remove spheres while pressing switches, and Morita Yu and Ji Yushi checked the patterns of the small spheres’ colors in each room.

Morita Yu looked at the left room. “Red!”

Ji Yushi climbed the silver ladder to the right wall, and after the door opened, he looked. “Red… wait a minute.”

In the room to the right, Ji Yushi saw a large pool of bright red blood on the floor and a head lying in the corner, with the back of its head facing outward.

Seeing his unusual reaction, the others asked what was wrong.

Ji Yushi descended the ladder. The sight of blood, which he hadn’t seen in a long time, overwhelmed him, causing him to feel nauseous and uncomfortable, struggling to suppress it. “There’s a head inside.”

Morita Yu was shocked. “A head?! Is it a dead person?”

Ji Yushi nodded, not wanting to continue on the topic.

Zoe expressed doubt. “You said the sphere is red. How could there be a dead person inside?”

It wasn’t distrust of Ji Yushi. After all, they were strangers with no mutual understanding or emotional connection. Regardless of how logically clear Ji Yushi’s analysis sounded, Zoe needed to see for herself.

Zoe climbed the ladder and her expression changed. “What happened?”

Seeing the body, and just a head, Morita Yu had no intention of climbing the ladder to see for himself. He couldn’t even stand the sight of it from the other side of the wall. “Let’s go, forget it. Maybe it was done by the person who killed Chuck. He’s definitely a murderer! He will get his comeuppance!”

Morita Yu turned the super S-level mission into a locked-room murder case, and he was genuinely angry and dramatic.

As he cursed and muttered, Morita Yu climbed the left ladder. “Let’s go. Don’t waste time! People can’t survive without food for three days, and I’m already very weak. We need to move quickly!”

Ji Yushi followed Morita Yu, preparing to climb the ladder.

Zoe also jumped down from the right ladder.

Ji Yushi looked up and saw the soles of Morita Yu’s shoes. After climbing two ladders, Morita Yu looked down and reminded him, “Senior, be careful not to step on my hands.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Morita Yu slipped into the round hole, and his feet suddenly kicked out, with a loud thud as something heavy hit the ground, followed by silence.

Ji Yushi was puzzled and climbed up a few steps.

Seeing the situation clearly, Ji Yushi’s blood ran cold. “Morita!!!”

His cry was filled with extreme terror and his voice almost trembled.

Zoe, still standing on the ground, shouted, “What’s wrong?! What happened?!”

Ji Yushi, still hearing Morita’s warning, saw Morita Yu lying on the ground, in a fallen position. He had died on the spot, blood spraying from his neck, with a clean cut as if it were sliced with a knife—

His head was missing.

Ji Yushi suddenly thought of something and quickly slid down the ladder.

“Give it to me!”

Ji Yushi snatched the sphere from Zoe’s hand and quickly found the switch in the right room.

He climbed the ladder smoothly and looked into the right room. The head facing the corner… was Morita Yu’s head!

Zoe had climbed the left ladder and saw Morita Yu’s body. “Wh-what?! Why?!”

She couldn’t accept it. How could someone who was alive just moments ago be decapitated instantly, dying on the spot without even a sound?

In such a situation, any emotionally healthy human would feel sorrow, and Zoe, who had traveled through so many rooms with Morita Yu, couldn’t help but tear up and step back from the ladder.

“How could this happen?! What went wrong?!”

According to the previous theory that rooms with the same color were safe, they could have chosen any room to continue.

They had passed through many rooms based on this theory, and Morita Yu’s death was entirely unexpected.

Could it be that rooms of the same color are not safe?

Then what can be done to ensure safety?!

Zoe, frustrated, paced the room and hit the wall with the butt of her gun. “So, the head in the other room was Morita’s?! But how is that possible? He was just here. When we arrived, the head was already there. How do you explain this? It doesn’t make sense!”

After venting her frustration, Zoe turned and saw Ji Yushi standing next to the right ladder, eyes closed and seemingly lost in thought.

This young man from the East, from 70 years ago, had left a calm impression on her in a short time.

Apart from his good looks, calmness seemed to be the most attractive thing about Ji Yushi.

At this moment, Ji Yushi’s face was pale, and beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead.

Ji Yushi couldn’t control himself.

Seeing Morita’s body and head, chaotic memories surged uncontrollably in his mind.

Blood spraying from Tang Le’s severed artery, diamond bullets bursting out of Li Chun’s head, rotting flesh on a windshield, a black boot-clad calf… and a knife plunged into someone’s chest on a gloomy, rainy day.

He didn’t want to see.

And he didn’t want to remember.

But no one here told him not to look.

He opened his eyes, a hidden storm of gloom in his gaze, and quickly took out a small medicine box.

A small pill fell into his palm and was then placed into his mouth.

“How are you? Are you okay?” Zoe asked. “You seem mentally unstable.”

Without water, the pill was chewed and the bitter taste filled his mouth.

Ji Yushi chewed slowly and meticulously, seemingly savoring the bitterness. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and, as if nothing had happened, said, “Two minutes.”

Zoe thought he was asking for a two-minute break. Seeing his poor condition, she set aside her doubts and fears and suggested, “No, you need more rest. Half an hour, at least. We can’t leave right now, and we can’t choose rooms with red spheres anymore; this theory doesn’t seem right…”

“From when we discovered the head to Morita’s death was approximately two minutes,” Ji Yushi explained concisely. “In other words, the room with the head is two minutes ahead. There’s a time difference between these two rooms.”

His thoughts were somewhat disordered, and he corrected himself, “No, it’s correct that there’s a time difference among these three rooms.”

All of them being travelers from the same timeline, they were familiar with the theory of time and space.

However, unlike the familiar situation for Team Seven, Zoe was shocked: “How can there be a time difference within the same timeline? That doesn’t make sense; it’s completely illogical…”

The situation here was somewhat similar to what they had encountered in the Chaos task, with rainforests and cities.

If it were Song Qinglan, he would likely have immediately understood his reasoning.

Often, Ji Yushi didn’t need to explain further for Song Qinglan to grasp his meaning and provide additional analysis, while other teammates would only need to raise questions and solve them together.

Ji Yushi couldn’t afford to spend time describing the time anchors and spatial rifts they had encountered to Zoe. He cut straight to the point: “You’re right. Generally, there shouldn’t be a time difference within the same timeline. So, think about it: what if these rooms are not in the same timeline?”

Zoe was stunned by Ji Yushi’s bold idea and found it hard to accept.

Ji Yushi had swallowed the medicine, leaving only the bitter taste in his mouth.

Perhaps due to psychological effects, he had calmed down considerably: “Do you have anything unimportant that you can lend me? We can throw something to verify this guess.”

Zoe took out a pack of gum from her pocket. Ji Yushi took it and, feeling it was just right, smiled slightly: “Would you like one?”

In a short time, he adjusted his mental state.

To Zoe, this was somewhat unbelievable, not realizing it was just a skill common among Team Seven members.

After giving Zoe a piece, Ji Yushi took one for himself, which alleviated the bitterness in his mouth.

The two of them chewed gum to relax.

In this situation, it was indeed bizarre.

Zoe asked, “Aren’t you going to throw it?”

“No need,” Ji Yushi said, holding the gum box. “Just having the thought of ‘throwing the gum’ is enough. Zoe, could you please check the room on the right?”

Zoe climbed the ladder, and then widened her eyes: “Here, there’s an extra half-pack of gum!!”

This was within Ji Yushi’s expectations. He handed the gum back to Zoe: “Compare it; is it yours?”

Zoe confirmed it was her gum, and she was left in a mess of confusion.

Her knowledge from coursework, practical experience, and the experiences after being captured all swirled in her mind.

Ji Yushi gave her time to think and didn’t interrupt her.

After a full minute, Zoe attempted to speak: “Could it be that the time in this room is two minutes ahead, so it shows what might happen two minutes later?”

After entering the room, they found Morita’s head.

Two minutes later, Morita’s body was also found in the left-side room.

Zoe asked, “What if I hadn’t thrown the gum, what would have happened then?”

Ji Yushi stood in the center of the room and checked his communicator: “It’s been two minutes. Take another look; is the gum still there?”

Zoe looked back and exclaimed, “It’s gone!”

The half-pack of gum in the room had vanished like a ghost.

After Zoe came down from the ladder, Ji Yushi returned the gum to her: “If we had thrown the gum, there should be a half-pack of gum in the right-side room now, just like in the left-side room.”

This would mean that the sequence of events was identical to what happened with Morita.

Through this experiment, Ji Yushi’s hypothesis was confirmed.

The three rooms indeed had different time differences, and these differences couldn’t be crossed directly.

Ji Yushi pondered, considering that Chuck’s death mentioned by Zoe also happened at the moment of entering a room. So, was it that certain rooms had a time difference, or did all the rooms have a time difference? Could it be that their safety while moving through the rooms was actually unrelated to the color?

Ji Yushi asked, “Zoe, Morita said the room where Chuck died had a yellow sphere?”

Zoe replied, “Yes, what are you thinking?”

Ji Yushi shook his head: “Not yet. I need more data.”

The theory that rooms with the same color are safe had been overturned, and different colors might also lead to dangerous situations. They checked the surroundings, and aside from the two eerie rooms with red spheres, the remaining ones had a yellow, a green, and two blue spheres.

Zoe came up with a method and threw a piece of gum into each room to observe the results, but they all quietly landed on the floors of the rooms with no response. Ji Yushi also observed the room two minutes later, and it was unaffected by other colored rooms.

It seemed that there was no time difference in the surrounding rooms, but even so, they didn’t dare to recklessly choose a direction to proceed.

They seemed to be trapped here.

The Tetris blocks rapidly changed and fell to the ground, clearing one row after another.

Ji Yushi sat on the floor, his long, fair fingers manipulating the black-and-white game console, his profile focused, fully immersed in the game. His game score increased rapidly, and if he were to participate in a Tetris competition, Ji Yushi would undoubtedly come out on top.

In this environment, Ji Yushi sat for two hours.

It was undeniable that he wouldn’t feel bored even if he stayed longer.

Zoe was initially able to remain calm, but as time went on, she grew anxious and walked back and forth in the room. Having been there longer than Ji Yushi, her mindset was different, and seeing Ji Yushi still playing the game, she even contemplated leaving on her own.

She couldn’t wait any longer.

“Are you really not going?” Zoe asked, holding her gun, planning to randomly choose a room to exit.

Green or blue was fine.

As long as it wasn’t the yellow that killed Chuck or the terrifying red on the sides, she was willing to give it a try.

Ji Yushi’s gaze didn’t leave the game console. He said, “I’ve said before, I need more data.”

Zoe said, “Ji, just sitting here doing nothing won’t help you get more data.”

Ji Yushi replied, “Firstly, there are other travelers here besides us. Secondly, whenever someone enters a room, the original room moves. The movement of rooms is not isolated; it surely causes surrounding rooms to interact. Why don’t we wait and see? Perhaps the surrounding rooms will change when we look again.”

Zoe was almost convinced at first, but she paused for half a second and quickly countered, “Even if the surrounding rooms change, what does that matter? Can you choose which room to go into?”

Ji Yushi said, “When the surrounding rooms change, we can do more experiments to collect more data. Even if there’s no useful information immediately, at least it’s safe here.”

Zoe, feeling frustrated, ruffled her short blonde hair. Ji Yushi’s reasoning was not without merit.

She calmed down and waited with Ji Yushi for another three hours.

Apart from their breathing, the labyrinthine rooms fell into utter silence.

They had taken turns checking the surrounding rooms several times without finding any changes.

Zoe could no longer wait: “We need to get out of here!”

Ji Yushi looked at her.

Zoe continued, “Look, if there are really countless rooms here, waiting until we die won’t bring anyone or make the rooms move. We might as well choose between the blue and green rooms. Maybe we’ll pick right and get more data.”

Ji Yushi asked, “Which one do you want to choose?”

“It’s simple. There are two of us,” Zoe said. “Let’s play rock-paper-scissors. The loser goes first and chooses either one. If we pick correctly, we can both leave. If we pick wrong, at least one of us survives. It’s fair.”

Zoe particularly liked fairness.

However, Ji Yushi disagreed: “What if both choices are wrong?”

Zoe responded, “So what? It’s better than doing nothing.”

Though she would never admit it, she began to understand the mindset of the killer who was using them for experiments.

Ji Yushi remained seated, shaking his head: “Sorry. I choose to stay.”

Zoe crouched beside him and said sincerely, “I really hope we can pick right. This is a mission, and the Sky Vault said there’s a reward. Even if it’s risky, creating opportunities for each other, isn’t that better?”

Ji Yushi’s expression remained unchanged as he met her gaze with his calm eyes: “Sorry, precisely because I want to win, I cannot take risks. If you want to leave, feel free.”

Zoe was stunned.

She suddenly realized that this handsome young man with black hair was not only calm but also quite ruthless.

She retorted, “If I leave this room, the moment the door closes, this room will move immediately, and you’ll get the data you want without doing anything. That’s not fair at all!”

Ji Yushi said, “You can choose to stay.”

Zoe was speechless and frustrated: “Ji, you’re terrifyingly cold. With no warmth at all, I doubt you can find a girlfriend.”

Ji Yushi replied, “Oh, I prefer men.”

Zoe had already taken the suspended sphere: “Suit yourself, men or women, you just don’t give the impression that you need anyone.”

She opened the room with the green sphere, revealing a circular hole in the floor. The gum she had thrown remained there, seemingly without danger. As she prepared to go down, she said, “If I succeed, it will be due to my courage—facts will prove that a 70-year-old guardian is stronger than one from 70 years ago! If I die in the green room, remember that I gave you the chance for victory. You owe me, Ji.”

With that, she disappeared into the circular hole.

With a “click,” the door closed.

But at that moment.

With another “click,” as the door closed, another door opened.

Inside, Zoe walked in.

Behind her was the living Morita Yu.

They seemed unable to see Ji Yushi and were completely unaware of his presence.

Morita Yu jumped off the ladder and said, “I was previously working in an administrative role, originally planning to become a recorder. When the guardians needed someone, I signed up. My combat ability and experience are a bit lacking compared to everyone else, so I’m not very familiar with the team yet.”

Soon, Ji Yushi saw “himself” appear at the hole and climb down the ladder.

He silently moved his lips and said to the “himself,” “Administrative workers have their own strengths. After a few more missions, you’ll become familiar with the team.”