Faced with his boss’s silver tongue, Zhou Qi’an had finished cursing in his head; what he said aloud was still polite: “I won’t disappoint your expectations.”
He put on the look of someone ready to bend his back for the company, while wondering whether Shen Zhiyi had managed to hook a fish yet.
“The success rate should be ninety-nine percent…”
With the fire raging and the smoke this thick, even a mole would find it hard to resist striking now.
The priority, though, was to play this damned “spot the difference” game well.
He remembered there were a few file folders in the cabinet whose orientation didn’t match the drawing—but after that explosion, he couldn’t verify.
At the moment, the most miserable one was the newspaper employee being held by the throat.
Not only was he ignored, but his whole body was pinned to the floor, while his head was forced back until his neck made sickening cracking sounds as if about to snap.
At last the boss spared the staffer a glance. With one hand he drew out the picture; with the other, he slid his fingers over the blurred, blackened neck. “You keep the voice box for speaking. I ask, you answer.”
Bent at that angle, the staffer had a wide-angle view of everything around.
“Take a good look at the workplace here. What’s different from the picture?”
The staffer shakily pointed up toward his station.
The boss broke his finger. “Don’t worry about the people.”
“…You could have said that before you broke it!”
“Fi—file cabinet… hanging lamp…”
As the words fell, a crossbeam dropped from above. The boss yanked the staffer out of the way just in time, but the man’s eye was still punctured by flying debris.
Watching from the side and also dodging, Zhou Qi’an frowned and immediately thought of rule balance.
The amount of information players could squeeze from NPCs had a limit. Obviously, the boss had drained this one’s value. Using the same trick to find more differences was almost impossible now.
The boss tossed the now-worthless staffer aside.
Wearing that handsome, false smile, he looked at Zhou Qi’an: “The clues are yours to use. Don’t forget what I told you.”
Follow the company to survive.
He had given two dates, but his threatening gaze stabbed like a knife.
Decisively grabbing the immediate benefit, Zhou Qi’an declared his loyalty while slowly moving away from this area.
The newspaper office wasn’t exactly big, but it definitely wasn’t small either. In the rolling smoke and poor visibility, every step had to be careful. As he moved, Zhou Qi’an repeated the information the staffer had given.
[Spot the Difference: 2/3]
Thanks to the vampire boss, at least a chunk of time was saved. He needed just one more difference to guarantee basic survival.
“Cough-cough-cough…” Zhou Qi’an faintly heard a dog’s cough.
The little girl wasn’t with the hound; the dog was rummaging alone in a trash can. The rack above it teetered dangerously. Time was tight. Zhou Qi’an grabbed the dog by the tail and hauled it out of the danger zone.
The hound saw the shadow swelling overhead and knew something was about to fall. Even tugged by the tail, it didn’t snap.
Once safe, the hound happily ate the chocolate—wrapper and all.
Zhou Qi’an narrowed his eyes.
Anything in the game world was at least a yin-being; it should, like the boss, prefer devouring yin energy.
The confusion item’s timer expired.
A dog didn’t identify by face; it ignored the changes in Zhou Qi’an’s looks and kept barking at the trash can and the candy wrapper.
Zhou Qi’an compared with the drawing at once. In the picture’s trash can there was only some grit—no chocolate.
“The trash can.”
[Spot the Difference: 3/3]
[Safety passage activated. Leave the fire scene?]
[Note: Strike while the iron is hot—opportunity won’t return.]
[Next passage activation requires 5/5 differences.]
Choking in smoke, Zhou Qi’an felt his kind heart and lungs turn black. This wasn’t a real choice. To get the extra clue, he had to stay.
But if he couldn’t find the other two, he’d end up a charred corpse.
“No.”
Zhou Qi’an trusted only himself. The boss didn’t like doing extra work; the chance of him staying for five differences was low. Shen Zhiyi still needed to handle the mole.
The other players were even less reliable.
Decision made, Zhou Qi’an scanned again.
Spot-the-difference had its tricks: color/brightness, shape/size, and positional structure.
The first was hard to judge now; he had to rely on the latter two.
Most of the scene was already destroyed by fire. He finally noticed a floor tile whose pattern didn’t match the drawing—but the system said someone else had already claimed it.
“There has to be some pattern.”
Blind searching would be brutally hard.
Crackling flames roared in his ears. He swept the area again and again without forming any linkage.
His patience didn’t fail him. Forcing his mind to still, he opened smarting eyes reddened by smoke and looked once more.
When his gaze passed over the dried corpse whose neck the boss had twisted, it halted suddenly.
“The staff…”
A hypothesis surged up: actions of people weren’t counted in the spot-the-difference, because players roamed and these dried corpses attacked at will.
It was an interference factor the game had to exclude.
But that also created a kind of bug.
Moments ago, after he’d noticed the file cabinet discrepancy, he’d been attacked almost at once.
“Could that be the pattern?”
The dried corpses were a double-edged sword. They raised the difficulty for players, but if the ambush pattern held, then inversely, the staff tended to lurk near “difference points.”
Find a staffer and compare the immediate surroundings—one should find a difference easily.
Before the thought fully formed, his gaze was already prowling again.
Finding staffers was far easier than finding differences. He hadn’t even finished scanning the office when his eyes locked onto the printer.
A restless shadow poked its head from under the desk, waiting to spring like a hunter by a rabbit stump.
Zhou Qi’an stayed put and didn’t take the bait. He compared with the image at once.
The typewriter stood out most, so he started there. At first glance nothing seemed off. As he glanced elsewhere, a realization sparked. He stepped forward a bit, squinted, and fixed on a detail.
The nameplate on the typewriter read: Wanzhong.
In the drawing, the brand was: Fangzhong.
“…”
“Typewriter brand name.”
[Spot the Difference: 4/5]
Damn. How heartless did one have to be to design that?
Cursing the game was a waste of breath. He was still a distance from the typewriter; the staffer didn’t charge.
There was another lurker by the restroom corner, but his view was blocked, so he couldn’t compare properly.
He thought for a moment, raised his arms, and made a heart above his head.
Even stripped of reason, the staffer hesitated, trying to parse that bizarre motion into an attack.
He didn’t notice Zhou Qi’an’s cold glance toward the hound and the quiet order: “Go take a look for me.”
They’d already cooperated once in the Other-Experience Hall; that was proof the dog could understand a bit of human speech.
“Woof!”
The hound got the idea and bolted. Moments later, as the staffer noticed a pet rushing up, the hound shot back again.
Zhou Qi’an was still in place, holding the printout high.
“D—die…” The staffer, now realizing he’d been played, howled and lunged.
The scariest parts of the staff were those hands—nails so long and sharp they could tear thin sheet metal.
“White ribbon.” Zhou Qi’an didn’t use it to clash head-on.
In the fire, the ribbon had wilted too. It shortened itself and flitted before the monster’s eyes, teasing it like a trained monkey.
Zhou Qi’an took the chance to ask the hound, “Find any difference?”
The ribbon couldn’t distract the monster for long. The typewriter lurker, seeing Zhou Qi’an wouldn’t step close, rushed him too.
Flanked on both sides, the hound slapped a paw onto the restroom light switch shown in the drawing.
In reality, the switch had a sticker of three clustered chrysanthemums; in the drawing, it was a sunflower.
Seeing where the paw pressed, Zhou Qi’an’s throat burned. He didn’t recite the specifics—just the keyword. “Cough—cough… the switch sticker.”
[Spot the Difference: 5/5]
[Safety passage activated. Do yo—]
“Yes—yes—yes.” Zhou Qi’an cut it off decisively. Both monsters were closing; speed!
As he answered, he scooped up the hound—and nearly wrecked his back under the weight.
“You need to lose some weight.”
He couldn’t be sure the game would let the hound leave, but carrying it improved the odds.
Flames leapt hideously. Through the fire, the lunging corpses looked even more grotesque in silhouette. When the two figures were nearly upon him, Zhou Qi’an suddenly felt the space transform.
It was as if a three-dimensional wall had risen between him and the burning staffer. He couldn’t cross, and neither could it. In the next breath, the warped iron door turned transparent. From his feet to the doorway, sparks couldn’t even spit in.
He dashed, clutching the dog.
His body passed through. The smoke, the twisted bodies, the roaring fire—everything was sealed behind him.
He took the stairs three at a time and ran a long way.
Fine rain cooled his face; the burning in his skin eased a little.
“Woof.” The hound hopped down and tugged his hem.
After a few deep breaths, reality settled back into focus.
He returned upstairs.
The door that had been slightly ajar was now locked tight. If he approached, the burn came back at once.
He didn’t force it. Back outside, the little girl was waiting.
“You…”
She nodded, acknowledging his guess. “I found three differences and left.”
Five would be a bit much for her. She didn’t want to waste key items here—she needed to save them to deal with the newspaper boss.
Before leaving, she’d left the hound to help him.
Zhou Qi’an had already suspected that—otherwise the dog wouldn’t be this obedient.
He looked up at the building. Shen Zhiyi and the others were still inside the sea of fire.
The surrounding yin energy kept rising—probably tied to the blaze. If the cold neared the point his body couldn’t withstand it, it would mean something had gone wrong inside, and he’d have to consider other rescue methods.
Before that, he checked the “hint” he’d earned.
[Clue hint: Your reward is to go again later.]
“…Son of a—” He swallowed the curse when he remembered the minor present.
Seeing his expression shift, Yan asked, “What is it?”
Keeping his tone even, he repeated the so-called clue.
Yan’s face went cold. “I’ll curse his ancestors eighteen generations back.”
“…”
Kid, that was funny.
After the initial swearing, they quickly realized the second visit probably wasn’t a reckless venture; more likely, it would be after the time-rewind of the fire, when it was relatively safe to search.
Rain slid from the eaves. Before long, there was movement upstairs.
A refined figure descended—the boss, wearing his inhuman smile. A little later, Qiao Song and Yuan Nianshu stumbled out, faces blackened with smoke.
Only Shen Zhiyi, Chen Su, and Sixth Master remained inside.
Zhou Qi’an checked the time.
Not only inside the newspaper—the whole world’s time was accelerating.
On the surface, they were closer to the six-day survival deadline; ironically, what they needed most now was time—time to figure out the newspaper ghost.
A few more minutes passed. Yuan Nianshu grew anxious, staring up.
“Before you left—weren’t you with Chen Su?” Zhou Qi’an asked.
Yuan Nianshu shook her head. “The fire was too big. We split up.”
Hunting differences together was inefficient. But with the president’s strength, she shouldn’t be behind.
“Maybe she’s also trying to collect all the clues?”
As she spoke, the yin in the air thinned. The marrow-chilling cold receded.
There was a warped struggle-noise from the stairwell.
They looked up. After a brief door creak, Shen Zhiyi appeared.
Hands in pockets, he idly toed something with the air of punting a can. From the stairs tumbled a man drenched in blood, rolling down a dozen flights and slamming face-first into the mud.
As the splash flew, Zhou Qi’an took a step back.
When he saw the face, his brow rose. “So it’s you, old bastard.”
Aside from the boss, who didn’t care, the rest were taken aback.
“Sixth Master?” Yuan Nianshu recovered.
Chen Su came out just then. Yuan Nianshu looked at her: “President, what happened?”
Chen Su didn’t know much. She had stayed upstairs to collect all the clues, then happened to exit at the same time as Shen Zhiyi.
While everyone stood bewildered, Sixth Master, half-unconscious, cracked an eyelid.
Facing Zhou Qi’an, ice gleamed in his gaze. A gust of yin wind swept across. His entire arm split down the middle—like squid tentacles—snaking toward Zhou Qi’an. Then the limbs closed like a carnivorous plant, trying to snare him.
The hound lunged.
Under the dim skies and the dog’s bulk, no one noticed another shadow gliding in—silent—toward Sixth Master. It struck like a butcher, stripping the sinews from his arm.
“Aaaa—”
Sixth Master’s limp body bounced off the ground. His scream split the air.
“A ghost!” Chen Su’s face changed. No human evolution resulted in that. There was a ghost among them.
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes narrowed.
He’d seen this kind of attack before—on the way back from Fengshui Village. A monster in a hoodie had split its arm like this to suck the marrow from other monsters.
Not an ordinary ghost.
A traitor from the Zangwu Lab.
“No wonder things felt so off.” Zhou Qi’an had never figured out when the mole had joined—or how it fit into the instance’s story.
With the traitor angle, everything clicked.
Ying Yu had said Xun-beasts were masters of disguise who could create illusions. The traitor had transplanted Xun-beast organs, so he naturally inherited the power—and had almost killed several players in the barbecue shop.
“Ying Yu really was forward-thinking.”
Earlier, he’d already proposed that monsters might not be stripped of “player” status—and had people watching the city’s key cameras. Who’d have thought the traitor would come for them first?
A new question rose immediately.
Knowing what he was thinking, Shen Zhiyi said, “This old guy is a lot younger than he looks.”
He wasn’t fifty or sixty—more like early thirties.
Once all players were clear of the fire, the system chimed:
[When the rain stops, you may enter the newspaper again.]
This time it gave a concrete timing—to Zhou Qi’an and Chen Su only, the ones who had collected clues. They glanced up—the rain had eased even more.
After a moment, Zhou Qi’an’s gaze fell back on Sixth Master.
Just regaining a bit of awareness, Sixth Master met a pair of utterly lifeless eyes—and fear, thinly veiled, broke across his pain-creased face.
Zhou Qi’an suddenly smiled. “I’ve never believed in coincidences.”
What were the chances a monster popped into the same instance as him?
Especially since, cornered and panicked, Sixth Master had still attacked him first.
As he finished, Shen Zhiyi walked over without a word.
He picked Sixth Master up like a sack of trash and carried him away.
He had ten thousand ways to make a man wish for death—and his shadow had ten thousand more. Ten thousand plus ten thousand was thirty thousand.
In the visual blind spot, no one could see what happened.
Blood trickled from around the corner like a thin creek.
The world was quiet. The rain had softened. Small, scratchy sounds came from the shadows, and everyone imagined his body being disassembled like machine parts—piece by piece.
Plop.
A wrist bone dropped into the filth—confirming their worst fears. The players shuddered.
Zhou Qi’an showed no pity. For those traitors who had caused the bloodbath three years ago—even ten thousand cuts would stir nothing in him.
He wanted only to know what had happened back then, and why Sixth Master had come to this instance.
He did not go to watch. If he was present, Shen Zhiyi would show restraint while doing terrible things.
Right now, he didn’t want to hamper Shen Zhiyi’s performance.
“Heh…”
Looking at the bones in the water, Zhou Qi’an laughed softly. Sixth Master’s wrist bones were much sharper than normal—and split into many fine spurs.
“Take a closer look—they’re like fish bones.”
As he’d said—every fish dies of greed.
Players itching to ask more felt a chill and held their tongues.
—
Just around the bend—
Sixth Master lay curled like a dead fish. His too-long limbs had lost all elasticity, limp as deep-sea tentacles, tangled together. He didn’t have many wounds, but each was shocking up close.
The arm he’d used to attack was honeycombed. Each hole was stuffed with ground bone.
He couldn’t stop replaying the fire scene. He’d prepared well—used illusions—and had ambushed just as “Zhou Qi’an” was attacked. So why had he failed?
“Y-you suspected me all along…”
More than the shame of failure, it was when Zhou Qi’an’s face shifted to Shen Zhiyi’s in the fire—there was the fatal blow.
Shen Zhiyi didn’t answer, nor did he ask anything.
He just stood quietly.
The shadow took apart the mutated arm bit by bit. After a while, and Sixth Master’s screams, Shen Zhiyi spoke at last, gently, like an observer: “Transplant rejection has dropped. Seems someone helped you recently.”
That someone’s means had limits—or he wouldn’t have aged so quickly in a short time.
“The one who helped you likely promised this: kill Zhou Qi’an—and you’ll be helped to fully master the monster’s power.”
With those few words, Sixth Master’s pupils blew wide.
Seeing his expression, Shen Zhiyi knew he was right.
He bent down, tone preternaturally soft. “I’m about to guess it all…”
Sixth Master’s body jerked. “Kill me.”
Facing those colorless eyes, a dreadful premonition swelled. If he didn’t speak, he’d suffer the worst torture the world could devise.
“The Whalers’ Association,” he blurted—helpless under the psychological pressure. “It was the Whalers’ Association that struck a deal with me!”
Shen Zhiyi’s lips pressed thinly. Another thought came.
At the start of the instance, Zhou Qi’an had suspected Chen Su’s group of coming prepared.
“Light and shadow, public and hidden…”
The Whalers had reached Chen Su first, tasking them to deal with Zhou Qi’an—and privately contacted the half-human, half-ghost traitor.
Whether Chen Su’s “public card” worked or not, it would draw Zhou Qi’an’s attention. If he relaxed even a little, Sixth Master would use his environmental manipulation to deliver a killing blow.
Chen Su probably didn’t even know she’d been used as the decoy.
“Good. Very good,” Shen Zhiyi murmured, then clapped sharply in the rain—twice—scaring off birds on nearby eaves. “To think they’d plot him like this…”
The applause grew louder and carried to the newspaper entrance. The others glanced at each other.
Zhou Qi’an waited calmly for the rain to stop.
One man’s repertoire of torment was limited. Letting Shen Zhiyi bloody his hands alone wasn’t ideal. Better to pool their talents.
He slanted a look at Chen Su and Yuan Nianshu. “In the barbecue shop, you stepped on those stairs early because of this man’s illusions.”
Both had felt a creeping numbness in their scalps; now, at his words, ice cooled their faces.
Yuan Nianshu looked at the lividity darkening on her skin; hatred peaked in her brows.
Then she turned and slowly walked toward the corner.
Wearing a mild smile, Zhou Qi’an pivoted to the others. “With the mole gone, we’ll be very united moving forward—won’t we?”
Respect, acknowledgment, dependence—the three essentials for fledglings to take wing—were fully formed.
Qiao Song and the little girl, still nearby, fell quiet for a beat—then nodded.
__
Author’s Note:
Zhou Qi’an: The fledgling takes flight, dreams set sail. With double wings of exploration unfurled, what storm ahead could we fear!
