Chapter 131: Is there something wrong with the sky?
Having searched for two days without any results, Zhong Yirou was feeling a bit frustrated.
“How am I going to explain this to Wujiu?” she sighed as she sat in the passenger seat, and opened the Altar interface in her distress.
Soon, a well-crafted celebratory animation appeared on the startup page.
[Since the launch of Altar, the game’s daily active users have surpassed 100 million. Technologically, we have achieved new breakthroughs, and the physical game cabin will…]
Before the animation could finish, Zhong Yirou skipped it and opened the [My] page. “Has Altar really gotten so many users?”
She asked casually, “Weren’t they saying it was closed and no new people were allowed in?”
Yang Erci frowned slightly, “Yeah, it’s surprising there are so many people.”
A bad feeling hovered over her heart like a vulture. She always believed that this game, or rather the unknown perpetrator behind it, wouldn’t just be content with the current scale. They would want to envelop everyone in the real world, not just the players fighting for their lives in the game. They might continue to recruit newcomers in other ways until everyone was completely controlled within it.
Though this sounded a bit alarmist, Yang Erci had always believed this.
This game, or the entity behind it, was not limited to its current size.
What they wanted was perhaps, as the game’s name suggested, to turn the human world into a sacrificial Altar.
Zhong Yirou found An Wujiu and sent him all the information they had gathered during their search. She then called him to ask if he would be coming back tonight.
But the call never connected, which Zhong Yirou found odd.
Yang Erci reminded her, “You forgot, he has a chip now. You can contact him through the chip.”
“Oh, right.” Zhong Yirou remembered and searched for An Wujiu in her internal contacts. But strangely, she couldn’t find him. Then she thought it might be because An Wujiu’s chip hadn’t been fully updated, so it retained the original owner’s name.
She searched again and found an unfamiliar contact named Abraham Cruz.
“What an ancient name,” Zhong Yirou blurted out.
Yang Erci, steering the aircraft in another direction, asked, “What did you say?”
“I said the name of the original owner of the chip,” Zhong Yirou read it out, “Abraham Cruz. Doesn’t it have an Old Testament vibe?”
Yang Erci suddenly frowned, almost stopping the aircraft mid-air.
“That’s the name of a former colleague of mine…”
Zhong Yirou was stunned, “How could that be? Then this chip…”
“He’s already dead,” Yang Erci said. “He died suddenly while working. But I had already left by then, and a friend still in Sha Wen told me about it.”
Zhong Yirou thought of the routine operations of those who traded in second-hand citizen chips, “That makes sense then.”
“What do you mean?”
“These chip sellers usually have two sources for their goods: one is from desperate people who voluntarily sell their chips for money. These are usually poor, indebted folks, so their chips aren’t worth much and don’t sell for high prices.”
Zhong Yirou continued, “But there’s another source, from dead people. According to the law, a deceased person’s citizen chip must be confirmed destroyed by the relevant authorities. Otherwise, all the deceased’s pre-death information, like cash accounts, work files, and family records, can still be used.
But some chip sellers have connections and can bypass this step, allowing chips that should be destroyed to circulate back into the market. These people either have government ties or are involved in the deceased’s cremation and burial processes.”
Yang Erci nodded, “No wonder those chip sellers are so cautious.”
“Yeah, one misstep and they could get caught,” Zhong Yirou couldn’t help but sigh. “I never thought they could even get a researcher’s chip from Sha Wen. No wonder it’s so expensive.”
She tried to contact An Wujiu through the chip, but again, it didn’t work.
Zhong Yirou tried several more times, “No, not even a ring.”
“Maybe it’s a signal issue,” Yang Erci said, showing her the current navigation projection.
Zhong Yirou then noticed that the navigation was also intermittent, constantly crashing and unable to provide a complete route.
“Is the signal really that bad here?” Zhong Yirou looked out the window. The street outside was quite bustling, not a place where high-altitude signals should be weak.
“Don’t worry,” Yang Erci looked ahead, “my aircraft has a backup route identifier, we can navigate ourselves.”
They finally made it back to the apartment safely, coincidentally meeting Wu You and Nan Shan, who also returned around the same time.
Learning that they, like themselves, had no information about Wujiu’s sister, Wu You was a bit disheartened. He sat on the couch and glanced at the electronic clock, which read [October 23, 10:45 pm].
He tilted his head and saw Nan Shan standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, seemingly lost in looking at the stars. Wu You walked over and said, “Taoist, what are you looking at?”
Nan Shan snapped out of it, smiling and shaking his head, “Nothing.”
“Nothing that has you so engrossed?” Wu You glanced outside too, but saw nothing special.
“Just observing the night sky,” Nan Shan said, looking up at the dark night sky. There was a cold, white full moon, and the smile on his face gradually faded, replaced by a slight frown.
“Is there something wrong with the sky?” Wu You asked again.
Indeed, there was.
“Today is Frost’s Descent, and it’s the third day of the lunar month. It should be a new moon.”
Wu You frowned and looked at the night sky. The moon was perfectly full and bright, radiating its clear light even through the haze.
This was indeed strange. He told the others about it.
Zhong Yirou had just come out of the room and softly said to everyone, “Noah is still asleep. She seems very tired.”
Yang Erci heated up some food, saved a portion for Noah, and the remaining four of them shared the rest to fill their stomachs. She took half a piece of bread into the study, planning to check her emails and record their recent findings.
After starting up the computer, she found an anonymous encrypted email among the unread messages. Feeling curious, Yang Erci tried to open it, only to find that it required a password. The password hint was [last day].
Yang Erci thought for a moment, and a string of numbers came to mind, matching the number of characters required by the password field.
Excited, she entered the date of the day her father had disappeared without a word.
As expected, the email was decrypted!
It was an email from her father!
Yang Erci habitually copied the email to her chip’s cloud storage space before quickly opening it. But just at that moment, the projection suddenly went out, the lights went off, and everything went dark.
It wasn’t just her room; Yang Erci could clearly see through the large floor-to-ceiling windows behind her desk that the entire city’s lights had gone out at the same time.
At 10:45 PM.
An Wujiu felt that something was off about this place. Even if Lilith wasn’t his sister, he would have to visit again for her safety.
Thinking back, Lilith’s behavior earlier was also unusual. Seeing a man and her former boss at her door would naturally cause fear, but this time she seemed too indifferent and calm.
“What if she still doesn’t admit it?” Gabriel wasn’t very confident. He was rarely rejected, so being turned down put him in a bad mood.
Shen Ti didn’t say anything, pressing the elevator button. Just like when they arrived, the other elevator showed it was under maintenance and unusable, so they had to use the one on the right.
“Honestly, I haven’t thought about that,” An Wujiu said.
The old elevator slowly climbed up, the numbers changing constantly.
“I just feel like someone is watching us here. Could it be…” He paused, “that besides us, someone else is looking for her too?”
Shen Ti speculated, “Besides you looking for your sister, she could also be targeted by that pervert from last time, or by Sha Wen. It’s hard to say.”
“So you’re planning to help her now?” Gabriel understood and didn’t object. “Alright, I’ll get the guy who helped me tail her last time to come over again. The more, the merrier.”
He started to make a call, but probably due to weak signal in the elevator, he couldn’t get through.
“What the hell is wrong with the signal?” Gabriel cursed.
As luck would have it, the elevator doors opened at that moment.
The three of them stepped out of the elevator. An Wujiu looked at the other end of the corridor, shrouded in darkness and silence.
They retraced their steps from a few minutes ago, but when they turned the corner to Lilith’s place, they found her door wide open.
An Wujiu frowned.
Just as he thought.
“Gabriel, stay back and don’t follow too closely.”
It was the first time Gabriel saw An Wujiu like this. He had an extraordinarily beautiful face and always attracted attention when seen with the green-eyed handsome guy beside him. Usually, he had a very good temper, pure intentions, and a kind heart, making him a gentle focal point.
But now he looked like a skilled hunter, his steps and posture exuding professional training.
Gabriel felt a bit creeped out watching them approach the house. He glanced back at the dark, deep corridor, filled with an unknown fear, as if a black fog was lurking, ready to surge out.
He quickly turned back to find that the two of them had already gone in, so he hurriedly followed.
The scene before Gabriel only added to his already gloomy mood, swearing that he had never experienced such a disheartening night in his life.
Inside the house, it was dark with only moonlight filtering in, illuminating parts of the space. It was empty, devoid of anyone. The furnishings were sparse—a sofa, chairs, tables, a row of cups on a shelf—all in uniform tones. Various small items were neatly arranged on the coffee table.
An Wujiu squatted on the floor, holding a bag of cheap bread.
Scattered on the floor were other food items and some daily necessities, along with the shopping bag that Lilith had been holding moments ago.
“No signs of struggle, no blood,” Shen Ti inspected the small room and said to An Wujiu, “Doesn’t seem like a kidnapping. Such a small place, not even a scratch.”
An Wujiu also found it strange, staring at the floor and murmuring to himself, “The position of this carpet hasn’t changed.”
Gabriel didn’t understand. “How do you know it hasn’t changed? Didn’t you say you hadn’t been here before?”
Shen Ti explained, “He means the carpet should have changed.”
This explanation left Gabriel even more confused.
An Wujiu told him, “Lilith has OCD. Everything in this room is very orderly, including this large carpet. She bought a very square design, with a grid pattern, placed perfectly straight without any tilt.”
“She was carrying this bag earlier, and now everything from the bag is scattered on the floor. Logically, if she was abducted, there should be signs, especially with this carpet.” An Wujiu pressed his hand against the carpet. “As soon as you enter, you would definitely step on this carpet, so if someone abducted her, the position of the carpet would have shifted during her struggle.”
Gabriel initially thought Lilith had been kidnapped by that perverted man, but after hearing their analysis, he felt a chill in his heart.
“So you mean, no one kidnapped her, she left on her own?” Gabriel asked.
An Wujiu wasn’t sure.
Even if something urgent happened, given her OCD, she wouldn’t just leave these things scattered on the floor.
Gabriel recalled, “This building has only one exit. We were standing by the exit right after we came down, and shortly after, we came back up. Logically, she shouldn’t have left the building during that time. But now, who knows? She could have observed us turning back and left the house, taking another elevator down.”
Shen Ti shook his head. “The other elevator is under maintenance, so she couldn’t have taken it.”
The situation was becoming increasingly strange.
An Wujiu’s intuition told him that Lilith was no longer in this building.
“I feel dizzy, I need another smoke,” Gabriel said, patting the pocket of his deep gray hoodie to find his pack of cigarettes. “Just one left.”
An Wujiu thought about how much Gabriel had already helped them by making this trip. Feeling a bit guilty for keeping him longer, especially since it was late, he decided it was time to go.
“Let’s head back,” he suggested.
Just as Gabriel lit his cigarette, looking somewhat bewildered, he asked, “We’re not going to keep looking?”
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Shen Ti chimed in, putting his arm around An Wujiu’s shoulder. “It’s fine. Once we’ve identified the person, we won’t have trouble finding them. This place is covered in surveillance. We’ll check with the building management system during daylight and should get some answers.”
Gabriel was convinced. “Alright then, let’s go back.”
The three returned to the elevator. An Wujiu glanced again at the out-of-service elevator on the left.
As the elevator descended, the mood among the three was complex, so conversation was sparse. An Wujiu stood at the front, lost in thought staring at the reflective elevator wall. As they approached the second floor, he heard Gabriel bringing up the topic of late-night snacks, asking if they wanted to have a drink to unwind.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” An Wujiu replied, wanting to keep a clear head.
The elevator reached the ground floor.
An Wujiu stepped out into the dim light, once again picturing Lilith’s denial from earlier tonight.
He intended to return to Yang Erci’s place tonight.
“Shen Ti, we…”
An Wujiu turned around, but the elevator doors were closing, and no one was inside.
Turning back, there was no one in front of him either.
Shen Ti and Gabriel had disappeared inside the elevator.
An Wujiu rushed towards the closing doors, but before he could reach them, the faint lights in the building also disappeared in an instant.
Step by step, he walked out, finding the entire city plunged into darkness.
A sense of foreboding washed over him.
An Wujiu tried every method to contact Shen Ti, but nothing worked. Even the communication system within the Altar was malfunctioning.
Just as he was about to succumb to despair, a familiar sharp voice emerged.
Every screen in the dark city instantly lit up—building facades, school playground displays, hospital screens, and every advertisement screen, all illuminated simultaneously.
And on every screen appeared the same image—a rabbit dressed in magician’s attire.
“My dear friends, surprise!”
