Chapter 24#
Chapter 24#
Smiling Gas · 20
Four hundred meters in two minutes—under normal circumstances, it would be nothing.
But now their path was nothing but rubble and shattered concrete, every step risking a twisted ankle or a sharp edge tearing into skin. Smoke rolled toward them in heavy waves, and the fire devoured the surrounding oxygen. Each breath drained their strength that much faster.
And on top of that, they had a six‑ or seven‑year‑old girl—and a superior officer in questionable health.
After stumbling a few steps in that awkward formation, Yu Feichen immediately realized they couldn’t keep going like this. He shifted to Anfield’s right side, scooped the girl into his arms in one swift motion, then grabbed the officer’s right wrist and pulled him forward.
Fortunately, Anfield’s sense of balance held; he didn’t trip over the rubble. Half a minute later, they burst out of the ruins.
Three hundred meters to the south gate.
Yu Feichen glanced back at Anfield. The captain held the white towel over his nose and mouth, only his eyes visible. His face was pale, but he was still standing.
Standing was good enough.
Ahead lay a clear stretch of road. Yu Feichen drew in a breath, and hauled the man forward without looking back.
Run.
Just run.
Leave this place.
His mind emptied of everything else. Wind roared past his ears. The exertion, the fumes, the lack of oxygen pressed down like a vise; the world distorted at the edges—
The south gate was close. Very close.
And then—just one step away—a corpse lay sprawled across their path.
Yu Feichen didn’t have time to think—not about the time left, not about whether Anfield would notice the body underfoot. He feared he wouldn’t have the strength to step over it. Almost instinctively, he pulled the man forward sharply, then half-embraced him and leapt over the corpse. His strength was nearly spent; and with the weight he carried, his center of gravity tilted forward—
Exactly as he had intended.
Using his momentum, Yu Feichen hurled himself into a controlled fall forwards. Anfield clutched the girl tightly whilst Yu Feichen shielded the back of Anfield’s head with his right hand as the three of them tumbled across the ground, rolling twice in the snow. The concrete pillars of the south gate blurred gray in Yu Feichen’s vision as they flashed past—
They were out.
Yu Feichen pushed himself upright on one arm, and Anfield loosened his grip on the girl. The girl scrambled up off Anfield, wide‑eyed and terrified, though she seemed scarcely aware of what had just happened.
Yu Feichen spared her only a glance before turning to Anfield.
Here, away from the fire, Anfield’s platinum hair sprawled messily across the snow, the shorter curls near his temples damp and clinging to his forehead. His breaths came in ragged bursts, uneven and shallow. The corners of his eyes flushed red; his pupils blurred.
Yu Feichen’s gaze sharpened. He pressed a hand firmly to the captain’s chest, over the lungs.
“Deep breaths. Now,” he said urgently. Smoke, heat, oxygen deprivation, carbon monoxide, exertion, chronic lung illness— Combined, they would lead straight to suffocation.
Anfield did not react. In the deathly silence of the night, time seemed to stretch endlessly. Yu Feichen clearly heard the pounding of his own heart.
Thump.
Thump.
He tapped Anfield’s cheek, voice rough. “Captain. Wake up.”
“Captain.”
“Anfield.”
Anfield slowly blinked, the snowflakes clinging to his long eyelashes, fluttering with the movement.
Still conscious. Yu Feichen exhaled in relief.
He kept one hand pressed against the captain’s chest. “Breathe.”
Beneath his palm, he felt the chest rise—disordered at first, then gradually steadying, each breath deeper, more rhythmic.
Looking down, he saw Anfield’s lips pressed into a tight line, his body trembling faintly, but his breathing was stabilizing.
For someone on the brink of suffocation, taking a deep breath is agony; the lungs can barely withstand it.
But deep breathing was the only thing that could keep him alive when no other medical aid was available.
Clearly, Anfield knew what he needed to do, and he had enough willpower to force himself through the pain.
After just a few deep breaths, his breathing had already steadied considerably.
“Help me up,” Yu Feichen heard his light, hoarse voice—like snow sand scraping across the ground.
Yu Feichen slid an arm underneath and lifted Anfield by the shoulder and back, helping him sit upright against him.
Anfield coughed a few times and asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Yu Feichen replied.
He adjusted his own breathing. Moments earlier, all his attention had been on the almost-dying Anfield; only now, returning to himself, did the discomfort in his chest and lungs surge all at once.
His strength was spent, his chest felt weighed down as if filled with sand, and there was a faint taste of blood in his throat.
But it was all still tolerable. He was used to moving in and out of danger. Only the frantic pounding of his heart felt strangely unfamiliar. He drew a slight breath before blaming it on the tension of what had just happened.
As he was thinking this, he saw Anfield gripping his sleeve with one hand for balance, while the other flicked open the cover of his pocket watch.
From the moment they stumbled out the south gate until now, about twenty seconds had passed. The slender second hand now pointed toward the mark at eleven.
11:59:55.
—5 seconds until midnight.
At that moment, they both lifted their heads and looked toward the containment facility beyond the wall.
The dark red horizon, the towering crematorium chimney, lingering flames. The blackened, broken walls and the bodies lying near and far. It all looked like an apocalyptic scene from some ancient myth.
What would happen when midnight came and the timeline shifted again?
Yu Feichen pulled the captain a little farther back and began counting silently.
Five, four, three, two, one.
The instant the second hand touched “12,” time seemed to stand still.
His breath caught in his throat.
A moment ago, the afterimage of the flames had still been burning on his retinas—yet now, inside the facility, not a single spark remained.
It was impossible to describe how the flames vanished—whether they disappeared from the world all at once, or scattered like fireworks into the night—because the naked eye could not catch the moment of change at all.
It was like watching a smooth film reel, only for the frame to suddenly freeze and cut to a completely disconnected image.
With the flames gone, the sky that had been dyed red returned to pitch black. A cold wind swept past, even the harsh smell of burning diminished noticeably.
Looking through the south gate, the silhouettes inside the facility were still the outlines of ruins, still dark and broken.
All around, was absolute silence.
The strange change occurred within the walls, while they stood outside them.
Suddenly, a soft-toned but emotionless mechanical system voice sounded by Yu Feichen’s ear:
“Escape successful.”
As the system voice faded, everything around him dimmed and blurred. In the next blink, he was standing in a gray void, seemingly stretching infinitely in every direction, yet containing nothing at all.
The next moment, a mass of gray mist formed before him. It shifted slowly, and within its movement, faint shadows and patterns appeared. Yu Feichen stepped back a few paces and finally saw the full shape—a three-dimensional aerial projection of the containment facility, woven from countless strands of gray-black strands of mist.
He reached out, but his fingers passed through the strands without affecting anything.
Then the system voice came again:
“Please begin deconstruction.”
Yu Feichen heard the words clearly.
“Escape successful” referred to leaving the facility before the time limit. Then what did “begin deconstruction” mean?
After the prompt sounded, nothing in the gray mist changed. Since there was nothing else in this space except the mist and himself, it was obvious the system was instructing him to “begin deconstruction.”
The meaning of “deconstruction” was straightforward: dismantle, reveal. And now he stood before an illusory, malfunctioning containment facility—so naturally, he was being told to explain what had happened inside it.
Like answering a question on an exam.
Yu Feichen steadied himself and quickly went over everything that had happened these past days.
Then, facing the image within the mist, he spoke.
“Oak Valley Containment Facility is a place the Black Badge Army used to detain and execute Koroshan prisoners. Before January 15, everything was normal.”
“Starting January 15, the time and space inside the facility began to distort.”
“Every night at midnight, through the doorway of my barracks, I could see the scene eight days in the future. But it wasn’t actually traveling to the future—it was seeing a parallel spacetime. The originally linear timeline broke, and once broken, the split segments overlapped for eight days. The 15th and the 23rd happened simultaneously, and so on— continuing until the 22nd and 30th overlapped.”
“Because the timeline was broken, causality was lost, so the ‘future’ shown after midnight wasn’t a strict, guaranteed future, but a reasonable projection based on everything that had already happened in the true timeline.”
Here, he paused—he wasn’t entirely certain about this part, but it was the only explanation he had.
“So what happens during the day will affect the future shown at night.”
“On the 22nd, everyone escaped the facility, and a fire broke out inside. So the only possible projection for the future was that eight days later, the place would be an abandoned ruin after a fire.”
He paused again, then continued: “After midnight tonight, the timeline passed through the overlapping section and jumped directly to the 31st.”
“At that point, the projection becomes the real reality. The current containment facility becomes the facility on the 31st—the fire has gone out, the buildings are ruins. Everything from the original timeline’s real facility will have disappeared.”
“So the only way to ensure survival is to leave the facility before midnight on the 22nd.”
The gray mist continued flowing in silence. He reviewed his explanation once more, then said: “That’s all.”
As his voice fell, the system spoke again.
“Commencing deconstruction.”
A faint golden light appeared within the misty image, pulling a thin, bright line through the darkness.
Threads of light spread across the dim projection of the facility. The next moment, Yu Feichen saw the entire structure trembling and collapsing, dissolving into countless shimmering golden particles that drifted like scattered light.
The dissolution spread from all directions, some parts faster, some slower, as if following some mysterious rule.
But when everything except their barracks remained, the process stopped.
A prompt sounded: “Deconstruction progress: 86%.”
Eighty‑six percent? Yu Feichen frowned. That wasn’t very high.
But in the next instant, the entire space was struck by a force beyond description—something that seemed to shake the soul itself, impossible to defend against. The remaining misty projection of the barracks shattered instantly into a spray of starlike fragments.
The system voice, cold and clear, said: “Deconstruction successful.”
The gray mist had disappeared. The space shimmered with countless light particles swirling like shooting stars. It was impossible to describe the feeling they gave—dim yet brilliant, soft yet magnificent.
Yu Feichen’s eyes widened slightly as he watched part of those light particles drift far into the distance and vanish, while another portion surged toward him and finally sank into his body.
After the last point of starlight disappeared, the entire space returned to emptiness.
Yu Feichen stood where he was. He needed a moment to sort out what had just happened.
Was that the rule system of the Gate of Eternal Night manifesting itself just now? Regardless of what “deconstruction” truly meant, did “deconstruction successful” indicate that he had completed the mission?
According to the procedure he was familiar with, once a mission was completed, he should immediately be transported back to Paradise. But no countdown to teleportation began in this place.
What were those golden lights that entered his body? A reward?
Countless guesses flashed through his mind.
But the very next second—just as abruptly as it had appeared minutes earlier—the space vanished without warning.
A blast of icy air struck him. Yu Feichen found himself once again outside the containment facility’s wall, amid ruins, and the second hand of the pocket watch had just passed midnight.
That earlier space existed outside of time. In reality, nothing had happened at all.
No—somethinghadhappened.
Yu Feichen suddenly realized that all the strength he had exhausted earlier had returned.
He lifted his gaze toward the facility. In the darkness, the outlines of the buildings were perfectly clear—despite the mild nearsightedness of this lawyer’s body he had been inhabiting.
Not only that, his hearing and smell felt sharper, his muscles stronger, as if his entire physical condition had been enhanced.
He was still thinking about this when a tremor by his shoulder pulled his thoughts back.
Anfield was coughing again.
Yu Feichen didn’t know what to do at first. Then he reached out and gave the man a few cursory pats on the back to help him catch his breath.
But after a few pats, he frowned.
This cough was different from before.
Sure enough, when Anfield finally stopped coughing and lowered the towel, the snow‑white fabric was blotched with bright red blood—quite a lot of it.
Anfield’s eyelashes lowered slightly, but his expression remained calm. He folded the towel neatly and covered his mouth as he gave two more light coughs.
He acted as if nothing were wrong, but the little girl saw everything. She had already been terrified from being trapped in the ruins, then stunned speechless by the strange sight of the flames vanishing, and now seeing the man who saved her coughing blood—her lips quivered, and she burst into loud sobs.
Anfield coughing blood, the girl crying—both were things Yu Feichen had no experience dealing with. It left him feeling a rare sense of helplessness.
Between the two, he chose not to deal with the crying child and turned to Anfield instead.
“Do you have medicine?”
Anfield nodded, pulling a small white pill bottle from his coat. With no water available, he swallowed the medicine with the blood still in his mouth.
Yu Feichen helped him up. “Let’s find a place to spend the night first.”
For the captain’s current condition, warmth was the priority.
Even though they had “escaped successfully,” Yu Feichen preferred not to re‑enter the facility until daylight.
Surveying the surroundings, he chose the back of the lumber transport truck as their shelter.
At some point the unconscious sentries and guards had woken and fled. A large corpse still lay there; Yu Feichen dragged it out, cleared the truck bed a bit, and helped Anfield and the girl inside.
The captain soothed the child and her crying finally subsided, making Yu Feichen feel less of a headache.
Next was driving the truck to a wind‑sheltered spot in the mountains. They couldn’t light a fire inside the truck bed, so Yu Feichen opened the rear door halfway, gathered some firewood, and lit it near the entrance with his lighter. This way, fresh air could circulate, and the warmth could still flow in.
Thinking of Anfield’s sickly condition, he added extra firewood—firewood he himself had chopped earlier in the day.
Come to think of it, this firewood had originally been meant to warm Captain Anfield. Now, in a way, it had completed its purpose.
With the fire lit, he didn’t have to worry about wild animals. And even if any came, Anfield carried a gun—his aim wouldn’t be poor. Thinking this, Yu Feichen felt assured enough to walk off a bit, picking ripe acorns from the branches. Not for any special reason; he just didn’t want to hear any more crying. Feed the kid something, and maybe she’d be quieter.
The firelight illuminated the snow, the truck, and the surrounding oak trees as he followed the glow back.
When he returned, Anfield was gently patting the girl in his arms. Her hair was a bright gold, darker than Anfield’s, but under the firelight, their hair looked almost identical in color.
Hearing him return, both looked toward him at once—Anfield with gentle calm, and the girl with tear‑bright eyes.
Yu Feichen placed the acorns in her arms without a word, then sat against the truck wall on their right side, acting as an outer barrier against the wind. With his strengthened body, he was in perfect condition now.
The girl looked exhausted and was already drifting off. She clutched the acorns and closed her eyes. Anfield seemed better as well; he kept a light hand on the girl’s back, helping her fall asleep.
Yu Feichen watched quietly—not to learn any child‑soothing techniques from Anfield, but simply because Anfield had looked at him several times today; looking back felt like basic courtesy.
Despite Anfield’s practiced motions, the girl had been through too much fear. Each time she was about to fall asleep, she would jerk awake, face pale, repeating the cycle painfully.
After her fourth panic episode, Yu Feichen saw Anfield gently stroke her hair. Under his lowered lashes, those ice‑green eyes carried a trace of sorrow. Then Anfield’s pale lips moved slightly.
A very soft, very slow melody drifted into the firelit truck, light as snow settling upon pine needles.
A lullaby—or something similar. The tune was airy and faint, almost unreal. Yu Feichen couldn’t tell what language it belonged to, or if it was simply rhythm without words.
Under that song, the girl’s breathing gradually steadied.
Yu Feichen realized that even his own breath had slowly followed the rhythm, growing long and calm.
For a moment, he felt himself pulled toward sleep as well, glimpsing a scene like a distant vision: a white temple that did not exist in the real world, stretching for hundreds of miles, stone tablets rising, doves circling, flowers blooming.
He saw the girl’s tightly knit brows relax, her breathing even and deep as she sank into peaceful sleep, a faint smile touching her face—as if she too had seen the vision he had glimpsed. Unnoticed, the melody faded and vanished, leaving no trace, as if it had never existed. In the quiet night, only the soft popping of burning wood remained.
The snow had stopped. Beyond the reach of the firelight, the snowy forest stretched endlessly, and faintly, one could still see the ruins near the south gate.
Anfield said, “Was all that your doing?”
Yu Feichen knew what he meant. He had no reason to hide it.
“Yes,” he replied.
Anfield looked toward the distant scene, lost in thought.
The moonlight brightened, the train cars stretched like a long spine across the valley.
Yu Feichen said, “They say the prisoners came from the Highland Concentration Camp.”
“I know,” Anfield replied. “Highland was transferring a group of prisoners to other facilities for execution. I knew you were planning an escape, so I had them redirected to Oak Valley.”
Yu Feichen thought—Of course. This superior officer would never miss a chance to make life more difficult for him. “Besides that, what else did you do?” he asked, propping his chin in his hand, looking meaningfully at Anfield. “Took advantage of the chaos to reap the benefits?”
—He was referring to the missing documents in the colonel’s office.
Anfield turned his head to look at him as well. His gaze was not the usual cold calm; it seemed gentler now.
“Tonight, there was a coup inside Xiyun,” he said softly, almost whispering so as not to disturb the sleeping girl.
“I came to Oak Valley to inspect the facility’s conditions and collect certain necessary documents to support the faction I belong to.”
“If it succeeds, many policies will change—including how prisoners are treated.”
“Seems like I’ve misunderstood you,” Yu Feichen said casually. “So what was the result?”
“It’s not convenient to disclose,” Anfield replied.
Yu Feichen had long expected this level of caution from him, so he switched topics.
“In the containment facility—what exactly was the ‘future’ we saw?” he asked. “What do you think, Captain?”
“It’s already over,” Anfield said. “You’re still thinking about it?”
“I am,” Yu Feichen said.
In that strange space, according to the system’s announcement, his deconstruction of the facility had only reached 86%. It was like scoring 86 points out of a hundred—intolerable. He had never encountered such a thing before and couldn’t accept it; it stuck like a thorn in his mind.
“Perhaps what appears every night is supposed to be a fixed, unchanging future,” Anfield said softly. “Butsomeone’sactions always stray beyond what time expects, so the future keeps changing.”
Yu Feichen caught the meaning.
Just now, he had lightly mocked Anfield, and now Anfield was subtly blaming him in return. Forget it—he wouldn’t argue.
He leaned against the truck wall. “But it’s still strange.”
He continued, “Very fragmented.”
In an ordinary world, one place suddenly collapsing into disorder, the timeline breaking—he had never seen anything like it.
Anfield said something that sounded vaguely philosophical.
“In many places in the world, fragmentation is the norm.”
“Mhm.” Yu Feichen said, “Are all young people of Xiyun as knowledgeable as you?”
Not just knowledgeable—calm in the face of the impossible, as if he had seen it countless times before.
This time, Anfield did not tell him to “mind yourself.” With refined elegance and impeccable politeness, he returned, “Are all Koroshan lawyers trained in marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat?”
“Not really,” Yu Feichen replied offhandedly. “I went to Air Force school for two years before switching careers to law.”
Anfield didn’t answer. Yu Feichen looked at him and noticed the captain seemed to be looking at him as well, a faint smile playing on his lips.
Feeling a little uncomfortable, Yu Feichen lowered his gaze—and once again saw the faint tear mole near Anfield’s eye. Perhaps it couldn’t even be called a tear mole; it was too close to the eye, right at the lower lash line. Unless one was very close, it only looked like he had slightly thicker lower lashes.
But that spot was indeed the first place a tear would touch if it fell.
It added an otherworldly calm and sorrow to Anfield’s otherwise proud and expressionless face.
Yu Feichen looked at that calm and sorrow and found himself at a loss for words to describe what he felt.
He wanted to erase that tiny mole—yet at the same time he thought it beautiful.
At that moment, the girl in Anfield’s arms stirred. He lowered his head to check on her, and Yu Feichen turned his gaze away toward the mountains and forest beyond the truck.
Silver moonlight spilled over the snow-covered valley. Occasionally, a starling would land, shaking accumulated snow from the oak leaves.
He looked at the scenery for a long time, not out of leisure or interest, but because the vast, empty night made everything appear quietly poignant.
When he glanced back, Anfield was asleep, still holding the child.
A six- or seven-year-old— though thin and small, was not exactly light.
Yu Feichen sighed. In the end, he slid the girl out from Anfield’s cloak and settled her against himself instead.