Embers Ad Infinitum
chapter-906-30041322

Shang Jianyao jumped up and down, proceeded to check the ventilation duct, and attempted to break open the door, but it was futile.

The entire room seemed to be cast from steel.

"Am I locked up?" The rash Shang Jianyao was a little dumbfounded.

The ruthless Shang Jianyao was raging. As he struck the wall, he laughed loudly. "Is there a need to ask? I knew that something would definitely go wrong with the body when a single-celled creature like you and a few low-IQ fellows are in the lead, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly! How dare you enter a room that's clearly odd!?"

"In theory, everyone is a New World powerhouse. Nobody can lock us up easily. Besides, what's the point of locking us up? Even if they want to absorb our consciousness and mind, won't they still have to fight us?" the honest Shang Jianyao muttered.

The ruthless Shang Jianyao scoffed. "Don't you know how deep the waters of the New World are?"

"Alright, alright. Everyone, stop arguing." The calm and rational Shang Jianyao stopped the internal strife. "The most important thing now is to think of a way to get out. Although we don't have to worry about mental exhaustion for the time being, being trapped here will seriously affect our progress in exploring the New World."

At this point, he looked up at the brighter fluorescent lights and said, "That person doesn't seem to have left yet…"

A single New World powerhouse like Shang Jianyao was unlikely to support such bright lights.

"Maybe he's hiding in a corner of the room, waiting for us to make a mistake and stab us in the back," the honest Shang Jianyao said.

The rash Shang Jianyao expressed his dissatisfaction. "How is that possible? I just checked every place here with a broom."

"What's the point of such a check?" The ruthless Shang Jianyao jumped a few times. "You can easily dodge it."

He meant that the room owner could completely avoid the broom's touch by jumping in the form of skipping rope.

"156, 157, 181921…" The Shang Jianyao that sought novelty performed excitedly without any sense of him being trapped.

In Pangu Biology, house-hopping, hide-and-seek, and other games with the least requirements were the children's favorite games. Next was skipping rope that only used a small number of materials.

Shang Jianyao—who valued relationships the most and was the youngest—asked worriedly, "Then, how should we check so that we don't miss anything?"

"That's simple." Zen Master Redemption smiled and said, "Focus and forcefully materialize a bomb. Then, detonate it in the room and cause indiscriminate damage. This way, no matter who is hiding here via invisibility, it's impossible to survive without making sound."

"Indiscriminate damage…" The ruthless Shang Jianyao frowned.

The honest Shang Jianyao asked, "What about ourselves?"

"We will also be hurt." Zen Master Redemption raised his right palm and chanted a Buddhist proclamation. "If I don't enter hell, who will?"

Without waiting for his peers to scold him, he added, "This is a mental bomb that originated from us. With us standing in the eye of the storm, the damage we suffer is definitely the lightest."

The calm and rational Shang Jianyao thought for a moment and said, "What if the invisible one has already left but is now outside the door?"

As they were very close, the corresponding light wouldn't be reflected in the corridor but in the room. In such a situation, a mental bomb wouldn't be too effective.

All the Shang Jianyaos fell silent.

After a while, the rash Shang Jianyao anxiously said, "We can't just sit back and wait for death!"

"What do you have in mind then?" The ruthless Shang Jianyao now realized that this fellow was more annoying than the calm and rational one.

"Think of a way to break out of the door," the rash Shang Jianyao replied. "We are all New World powerhouses. There's no reason for him to trap us so easily."

The calm and rational Shang Jianyao smiled. "The buildings here are constructed by the Kalendarium. The walls and doors are definitely extremely sturdy. We can only consider starting from the connections and weaknesses. But before making such an attempt, I have another suggestion."

"What suggestion?" the honest Shang Jianyao asked.

The calm and rational Shang Jianyao replied confidently, "Ask Big White if she has any good ideas."

"That's right, that's right." Shang Jianyao immediately agreed.

The other Shang Jianyaos had no objections.

…

In order to maintain her mental strength, Jiang Baimian forced herself to sleep. This was all thanks to her being an Awakened.

In a daze, she felt like she had returned to the company and was living a stable life with her parents, brother, sister-in-law, and the others.

One day, the people around her suddenly became Heartless one after another.

She eventually escaped the underground building after an ordeal, only to discover that the entire Ashlands had become a paradise for Heartless. Human civilization had been completely destroyed.

Phew… Jiang Baimian opened her eyes and woke up.

The nightmare from before was still lingering in her mind.

She fell into a daze for a while and muttered to herself, "Wasn't the reason that I wanted to investigate the reason for the Old World's destruction and the Heartless disease's origins because I hope that our next generation won't have such a guillotine hanging over their heads and that the tragedy of the Old World's destruction will never happen again…"

When she was young, she had heard her father talk too much about the Old World's destruction, the Heartless disease's horror, and the tragic encounters of humans. Only then did she slowly develop the idea of investigating the cause of the Old World's destruction and the Heartless disease's origins.

When she came into contact with the Old Human civilization more broadly, such thoughts took root and became her dream or ideal.

She didn't want her descendants to be afraid again. She didn't want the once brilliant civilizations to be wiped out.

She prided herself on being a part-time folklore scholar. She experienced the local customs wherever she went because of her love for human civilization.

Most of the humans she had never seen before were indeed strangers to her. They didn't leave an indelible impression, but the children around her—the poems, songs, and scientific knowledge that contained human intelligence—left clear imprints in Jiang Baimian's heart.

Jiang Baimian exhaled again.

She stood up and stretched her body. She then communicated with Shang Jianyao at the agreed time, helped him find a place to pee, and injected him with a nutrient shot.

After doing all of this, Jiang Baimian simply made do with compressed biscuits and energy bars. During the process, she sighed with emotion and muttered to herself in confusion, "When you think about something enough during the day, you will dream about it at night as well…

"This dream came at the right time—it helped buttress some of my thoughts. But isn't it too much of a coincidence?"

As these thoughts raced through her mind, Jiang Baimian cast her gaze at the tightly shut black door and considered the problem she would explore later. Since only one-tenth of Heartless are present at night, what will it be like during the day?

Jiang Baimian felt that there was still hope of infiltrating the small city in broad daylight by hiding her human consciousness and relying on the military exoskeleton and other equipment.

At this moment, her head throbbed a few times. This was a familiar precursor to the Heartless disease.

Fortunately, the throbbing pain quickly subsided.

Jiang Baimian immediately came to a realization and understood that Shang Jianyao was looking for her. She quickly walked back to Shang Jianyao's side, kneeled on one knee, and extended her psyche.

She soon 'met' Shang Jianyao.

"I'm locked up!" Shang Jianyao went straight to the point.

The corners of Jiang Baimian's mouth twitched slightly. "Give me the details."

Upon hearing Shang Jianyao say that he had rashly entered the target building and that strange room, she almost raised her hand to facepalm herself. After calming down, she thoughtfully said, "Your situation is a little like Yama Tiger's encounter…"

They were restricted to a certain place in the New World and couldn't move freely.

"That's different. I can still return to the Ashlands as long as I choose the right person to pray to." Shang Jianyao didn't agree with Jiang Baimian.

Jiang Baimian chuckled. "Why are you so sure when you haven't tried it yet? What if the Kalendarium ignore you?"

"'They' ditched us after having 'Their' fun!" Shang Jianyao's thoughts jumped elsewhere. "Besides, Yama Tiger was a wild fox back then. He proclaimed himself a god and probably didn't know that he could temporarily return to the Ashlands by praying to a Kalendaria."

"Then, who's giving him the 'blood transfusion' to maintain his consciousness?" Jiang Baimian chuckled.

Without waiting for Shang Jianyao to argue, she nodded. "Don't act rashly for the time being. I'll find an opportunity to approach the corresponding building in reality at night and fire a few grenades at it to see what changes it will bring."

In reality, the building corresponding to the place where Shang Jianyao was trapped was where the tower's outermost lamp was. Although Jiang Baimian couldn't reach there yet, the remaining distance didn't prevent her from deploying long-range attacks at all.

"That's very dangerous," Shang Jianyao said in concern.

"You are actually aware of that too? Don't be so rash in the future!" Jiang Baimian exhorted. "I'll evacuate immediately after bombarding that building. With the help of the military exoskeleton, those Heartless shouldn't be able to catch up to me if I travel in a straight line."

Just as she said that, Shang Jianyao suddenly felt the lights in the room dim significantly.

The fluorescent lamp was no longer as bright as before!