No wonder Lin Xinlan had asked Song Qinglan, “What did I ever do to offend you?” It turned out he was from a year ago and wasn’t aware of everything that had happened since.

Ji Yushi quickly thought of a question—since they had met here, Lin Xinlan from one year later must surely remember everything that happened in this “cube.” After being temporarily taken here and returning to his own timeline, Lin Xinlan likely only documented these experiences in his mission report and said nothing to anyone else.

Meeting Team 7 here was both the future and the past for Lin Xinlan.

When he returned, he would know that a year later, Team 7 would experience a time-space abduction. But time’s structure is so complex that even the slightest change could alter the time trajectory and affect the integrity of the timeline.

So Lin Xinlan must have done well after returning.

Handling encounters with people from different time periods is a core lesson for Sky Vault’s time witnesses.

Song Qinglan knew this too, which is why he couldn’t treat the present-day Lin Xinlan with the same attitude as the future. He had no choice but to let him tag along.

After Ji Yushi finished speaking, he calmly added, “But you should also hold back. Even though we gays can be a bit messy, we follow the rules before confessing to straight guys.”

Song Qinglan instinctively replied, “That’s not what I meant, damn it.”

Ji Yushi asked, “Then what?”

Song Qinglan: “…”

At that moment, Duan Wen, ever the peacemaker, stepped in to smooth things over for his captain: “Captain Lin, I’ll give you a hand!”

Lin Xinlan responded, “Thanks, Old Duan.”

Lin Xinlan was the last to reach the new room.

“Beep——”

The round door closed behind him.

“What are you guys up to? Talking bad about me?”

Lin Xinlan tapped his knees, trying to get the blood circulating again. Half-joking, he asked, “Hey, if I stick with you guys until we solve the puzzle, will the system count me as a winner too?”

Lin Xinlan had a pleasant appearance and demeanor—definitely not the annoying type. No one would guess that someone like him would later become a persistent nuisance, full of misplaced confidence that Song Qinglan could be “turned.”

Song Qinglan stood up, his face worn and rugged, the very image of a straight man: “From blue to green, it’s safe.”

He glanced indifferently at Lin Xinlan, signaling that he didn’t care if others felt excluded.

The theory of adjacent colors being safe was confirmed. Song Qinglan said, “Duan, open the door.”

Duan Wen removed the floating green sphere and pressed the switch.

The door on the right opened. Song Qinglan, with his long legs, climbed the ladder in a few strides and called down, “Blue,” before jumping back down.

Duan Wen asked, “What about this side?”

Meanwhile, Lin Xinlan wasn’t idle either. As soon as the door opened, he climbed the ladder and reported, “Red.”

The four worked together quickly to observe the sphere colors in all six directions. Ji Yushi had already finished marking the floor and opened the holographic projection.

Song Qinglan asked, “Well? Any thoughts?”

Ji Yushi replied, “A little.”

“When we arrived in the previous room with the blue sphere, in the order of front, back, left, right, top, and bottom, the surrounding room colors were yellow, red, green, red, yellow, and green,” Ji Yushi explained. “We’ve now entered the green room to the left of that blue room, right?”

Everyone nodded.

Ji Yushi used the symbols on the floor to identify the direction and pointed to the wall in front of him: “We came from that room. As soon as we entered, the blue room moved and is now yellow.”

Song Qinglan added, “A single room’s movement must affect an entire row or column of rooms. So, this yellow room must be one of the yellow rooms we saw from the blue room.”

Ji Yushi manipulated the holographic projection, connecting the yellow cube to the green one, and said, “Right, but from the blue room, we saw two yellow rooms—one above and one in front.”

Which yellow room had replaced the blue one determined the direction of the room’s movement.

“I get it. The room we left could only have moved backward or downward, which is why we now see this yellow room,” Song Qinglan said. “Am I right, Consultant Ji?”

Ji Yushi nodded.

Duan Wen, looking at the holographic projection, tried to move the cubes himself: “Damn, so how do we figure out if this yellow room is the one from above or in front?”

“We can’t be sure,” Song Qinglan raised an eyebrow, “so we need to do more tests and keep observing.”

Now that Ji Yushi was with them, their movements through the rooms had a clearer purpose. Though they had begun to form ideas before, they had never been this certain.

What Ji Yushi didn’t know was that, before finding him, the three were already exhausted.

In this “cube,” participants didn’t feel hunger or fatigue. Apart from some physical changes due to time discrepancies, they didn’t need food or water. The exhaustion they felt was purely mental—feelings of hopelessness, pressure, and the drawn-out nature of the task.

Now, that exhaustion had lifted. Duan Wen, feeling energized, exclaimed, “Damn, we might be close to solving this!”

Solving the puzzle?

It wasn’t clear whether Lin Xinlan, the outsider, had followed their thought process. He stood off to the side, deep in thought.

Duan Wen asked, “Which room do we go to now?”

Song Qinglan said, “To avoid the time discrepancy, we can’t go to rooms with the same color or opposite colors. That leaves the adjacent ones… Blue and yellow are connected, so we can enter this blue room.”

No sooner said than done.

The four quickly entered the room with the yellow sphere and immediately turned back to observe.

The green room they had just been in had now turned red, meaning the red room they had seen above had replaced it, indicating a downward movement.

The data wasn’t enough yet.

As they moved, Ji Yushi marked each room and updated the holographic projection with different colored cubes, calculating their movement patterns.

Their progress was smooth.

This time, they entered a room with a blue sphere.

After the “beep” sound, the door behind them closed.

As soon as Ji Yushi landed, he noticed something was wrong.

Everyone’s movements became incredibly slow, though before entering the room, everything had seemed normal—this room had a time discrepancy. Since they hadn’t entered from a room with the same color, the discrepancy didn’t harm them.

“Ti—me—dis—cre—pan—cy!” Ji Yushi mouthed, his words drawn out like a slow-motion fish, struggling to form the shapes, though no sound came out.

In front of him, Song Qinglan was turning his head.

A simple movement stretched out over several seconds. Ji Yushi saw the lines of Song Qinglan’s neck, then his strong jaw, straight nose, and prominent brow, followed slowly by the rest of his deep-set features.

Ji Yushi had never stared at Song Qinglan’s face for so long, forced to memorize every detail of his expression.

Song Qinglan’s lips moved, slowly forming several sounds, though no voice could be heard.

Duan Wen’s hand was raised toward the floating blue sphere, but it would take at least ten seconds to reach it.

Lin Xinlan’s leg was lifted mid-step, stuck in a stride, also turning back slowly.

Everyone realized something was wrong with the room.

The flow of time had slowed, and the room was eerily silent.

In this extreme quiet, their actions were so slow that even the strands of hair floating in the air hadn’t yet fallen.

Oddly, despite the slowed movements, their thoughts remained sharp.

Everyone tried to speak.

Ji Yushi watched their lips move but, unable to read lips, couldn’t make out what they were saying. He painstakingly turned his head, so slowly that he could almost feel his eyeballs rotating in their sockets and see the lashes normally overlooked.

This room, with the green sphere, already had markings from previous visitors.

A large “24” was painted on the wall in Arabic numerals, left behind by a previous protector team.

Since their shadows were nowhere to be seen, they had obviously left the room.

Ji Yushi didn’t need to mark the room since it had already been done. He memorized the details and moved on.

He turned back to see Duan Wen finally touch the floating blue sphere.

Lin Xinlan’s foot had landed, and Song Qinglan had fully turned, reaching his arm out toward Ji Yushi.

Ji Yushi was standing at the circular opening below.

It seemed like Song Qinglan wanted to pull him away from the spot to avoid Duan Wen’s potential misstep.

Ji Yushi raised his hand and allowed Song Qinglan to pull him.

The four of them, trapped in what felt like a slow-motion film, moved with incredible patience. Their progress in identifying the room colors took dozens of times longer than usual, and even climbing the ladder became a grueling task.

To their surprise, they finally discovered the unknown color: gray.

Because of the lack of sound and the delayed actions, everyone slowly opened the holographic projection and wrote down the colors.

Ji Yushi recorded the colors in six directions.

They were—front: gray, back: red, left: blue, right: blue, top: gray, bottom: gray.

The red room behind them was the one that had replaced the green room they had come from.

And gray was the new color they had encountered for the first time.

This meant they were now surrounded by identical blue rooms, opposite gray rooms, and an adjacent red room.

Rooms with the same color and a time discrepancy would lead to death.

Entering rooms with the opposite color would also lead to death.

The red room behind them was their only retreat.

Song Qinglan’s expression was icy as he wrote two words in the holographic projection, his lips mouthing them as well: “Go—back—!”

Just then, a “beep” sounded.

Someone had opened the circular door to the red room behind them.

Everyone was startled and looked up.

At the opening was an unfamiliar face, a dark-skinned Westerner.

This traveler’s movements and speech were normal. He laughed heartily at the scene below, clearly finding it amusing. Flashing a grin of white teeth, he said something to someone below him, clearly accompanied by others.

As soon as he spoke, the room behind him erupted in laughter.

Then, he backed away.

Ji Yushi’s pupils shrank in alarm—the man was about to leave the room with the red sphere!

Song Qinglan seemed to have realized the same thing. He was already rushing toward the wall, but his movements were too slow.

Seeing Song Qinglan’s reaction, Lin Xinlan and Duan Wen immediately understood. If those people left the red-sphere room, the room would move and be replaced by another color, cutting off their only exit.

Before Lin Xinlan’s foot could fully land, there was another “beep,” and the door closed.

Everyone’s expressions changed dramatically.

Song Qinglan, with all his might, climbed the ladder, trying to stop them.

But it took several minutes before he reached the circular door that Duan Wen had reopened.

It was too late.

The room was empty.

The red sphere had turned gray.

Those people had left.

Song Qinglan cursed under his breath, feeling a cold chill. Back on the ground, he didn’t even have time to tell the others that their exit had been cut off. He felt not only trapped but mocked.

He wrote in the projection, “What did he just say?”

The language had sounded like French, which none of them understood.

After writing, Song Qinglan looked at Ji Yushi, indicating he should translate.

Lin Xinlan raised his eyebrows—could Ji Yushi understand?

Ji Yushi calmly raised his hand and slowly wrote the translation in the holographic projection.

“Hahaha, a bunch of idiots just entered the room we were in! Let them have fun here for a while!”

The entire line, including the “hahaha” laughter, was carefully translated word for word.

Ji Yushi’s expression remained cold.

Everyone simultaneously cursed in their minds: Damn!