WTNL Chapter 271 [Follow-up]

Follow Up
Chapter 271: An Xin is Heartbroken

In front of the courtyard, the lights of the white and red lanterns gradually extinguished, and the decaying old door slowly closed in front of the four people, eventually making a “click” sound as it completely shut. At the moment of closure, the boundless darkness behind them suddenly closed in.

The familiar mechanical prompt echoed in everyone’s ears:

【Changsheng Building… zzzz… The mainline task of the instance has been completed, Instance—beep-beep-beep—】

The system’s announcement sounded as if it was being interfered with by some invisible presence, repeating unnaturally until it suddenly cut off.

In the next second, the four people’s vision blurred, and when they opened their eyes again, the courtyard shrouded in eerie red light had completely vanished, replaced by the familiar, grayish floors.

“This is…”

Qi Qian withdrew his instinctive defensive posture, straightened up, and looked around in some astonishment.

The air was filled with gray mist, floating like a layer of ash and paper scraps. Above them was a square courtyard, and looking up, they could see layer upon layer of tall buildings, with no end in sight.

The most core “fifth floor,” which theoretically did not exist, had automatically closed and vanished after the completion of the [Ultimate Mainline Task].

And these few anchors who originally did not belong anywhere were sent back to the place where they started, which was, strictly speaking, the very first floor of Changsheng Building.

“What’s going on?” Su Cheng frowned.

He had collaborated most with Wen Jianyan and had completed many ultimate mainline tasks, so he immediately noticed something was wrong. “Why isn’t there a countdown for the instance to close?”

Normally, after completing the ultimate mainline task, a countdown for the instance’s closure would ring out, usually for one minute.

But this time was different. After the task’s ending announcement began to stutter, the system’s voice had completely disappeared, as if it had been muted.

And they were not sent back to that white space but directly returned to the first floor of the instance.

This… wasn’t quite right.

Wen Jianyan lowered his head and scanned his appearance.

Hmm, there was no restoration; he was still in his wedding attire.

That was fine, as he had already revealed his true self in front of both team leaders, and there was no real need to continue pretending.

His focus was on…

Since his appearance hadn’t returned to normal, for whatever reason, it symbolized that Nightmare’s control over this instance was weakening, or rather, had already been weakened.

“Um.”

At that moment, standing beside him, Orange Candy swayed slightly, a muffled grunt escaping her nose, lasting only an instant before vanishing into the air. If one didn’t pay attention, it would be almost impossible to catch.

Wen Jianyan was startled and instinctively turned to look.

The little girl had her head slightly lowered, and due to her short stature, he couldn’t see the expression on her face but could see her overly pale complexion. Without needing to think deeply, Wen Jianyan immediately understood the reason.

Time reversal.

Even among the many gifted types of Nightmares, this was far too unnatural and terrifying. Even the rarest offensive talent couldn’t compete with it; thus, its activation must come at a significant cost. Wen Jianyan couldn’t help but think that Orange Candy’s unusually low teeth, which seemed so out of place among the other anchors, might also be related to her talent.

The innocent suffers when a treasure is at stake.

Moreover, with such a terrifying and even revolutionary talent, it would naturally be kept under wraps, tightly sealed.

Wen Jianyan had no doubt that if they hadn’t been pushed to their limits on the fifth floor earlier, Orange Candy probably wouldn’t have revealed her talent.

For the others, that suddenly added three minutes would likely be considered a system malfunction or some other more reasonable explanation. In the absence of any clues or premises, very few would attribute it to the effects of Orange Candy’s talent.

Clearly, Orange Candy did not intend to expose the specific nature of her talent to others.

Unless it was truly the last resort… otherwise, she wouldn’t show a single hint.

Wen Jianyan silently withdrew his gaze.

He discreetly moved closer to Orange Candy, using the overly large sleeves of his wedding attire to discreetly let her lean against him.

“!”

Orange Candy’s pupils constricted, and her body suddenly stiffened, as tense as a bowstring that could snap at any moment.

She abruptly raised her head, looking at Wen Jianyan in shock.

The young man did not look at her; from Orange Candy’s angle, she could only see his sharply defined jawline. His face, which bore three to four similarities to “Wen Wen,” revealed no extraneous expression, as if that overly considerate gesture had not originated from him at all.

It was unclear whether she was thinking about how she had deceived them throughout the instance or realizing her secret was exposed. Perhaps it was also the physical contact that could not be ignored, even though it was carefully separated by the layer of sleeve… Orange Candy bit her lip, her brows furrowed tightly, making her already pale and bluish face look even worse.

She silently glared at Wen Jianyan’s profile, as if she wanted to chop him into pieces with her gaze.

Suddenly, at this moment, a series of hurried footsteps sounded. Everyone raised their eyes to look in the direction of the sound.

It was their teammates.

Zhang Yu, An Xin, Wei Cheng, and others approached, their faces filled with tension and joy as they hurried towards this direction.

“Captain!”

“Captain!”

It seemed that the anchors who hadn’t exchanged their gifts for invitations on the path to the fifth floor had indeed been sent back to the starting point. After Wen Jianyan and the others were similarly returned here, the scattered team finally reunited.

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“Captain! Are you all okay?” Tong Yao approached with concern.

Zhang Yu followed closely behind, clearly bursting with questions: “What happened after you entered the fifth floor? What on earth occurred? And the announcement just now… Did you really complete the ultimate mainline task?”

An Xin blinked, surveying the area, and suddenly looked alarmed:

“Wait, where’s Wen Wen? She wouldn’t—”

While Qi Qian’s team exchanged information, Wen Jianyan slightly turned his body to pass Orange Candy back to their team members.

It seemed that the members of the opposing team immediately noticed something was off with their captain and quickly gathered around, swiftly bringing Orange Candy back into their own team. Orange Candy cast a steady glance at Wen Jianyan.

He skillfully controlled the angle to block other people’s line of sight, preventing anyone from noticing her abnormality.

“…”

She expressionlessly withdrew her gaze and softly clicked her tongue.

On the other side.

“You’re too noisy.” Qi Qian was somewhat annoyed by his team’s commotion. “Questions should be asked one at a time…”

“Anyway…”

At that moment, a stranger, a young man, appropriately interjected: “What happened before on the fifth floor isn’t important; the most crucial thing is why we haven’t returned to the Anchor Hall.”

Everyone was stunned, and all their gazes instinctively fell on Wen Jianyan.

They seemed to realize that, at some point, an unfamiliar man dressed strangely had appeared among the group, and they immediately became vigilant.

“Hey, who are you—”

An Xin squinted, a hint of hostility appearing on his face.

“Ah, you don’t recognize me anymore?”

The young man looked at An Xin, tilted his head, and his amber eyes narrowed slightly, suddenly breaking into a smile.

On his face, the calm and rational expression of a bystander disappeared, and both the corners of his mouth and eyes curled up slightly, causing the originally sharp and rigid lines to soften. Though only a few hardly noticeable details had been controlled and adjusted, his aura seemed to undergo a dramatic transformation.

His masculine traits were completely erased, and his smile appeared gentle and shy. The face, which originally bore only three to four points of resemblance to “Wen Wen,” now astonishingly appeared to be seven or eight points similar.

The air grew eerily quiet.

Wen Jianyan blinked: “No way, I thought we had a good relationship.”

“…”

“…”

In an instant, the entire venue fell silent.

Everyone stared blankly at the young man in the red wedding dress before them, their faces frozen in a bizarre expression, seemingly unable to accept the reality in front of them.

Qi Qian looked at his teammates and their expressions, which were identical to his earlier ones, slowly revealing an indescribable expression. How should he put it…

Well…

This kind of thing was really hard to accept, right?!

“…”

An Xin stared blankly at Wen Jianyan, his eyes unmoving, and his expression completely froze.

He opened his mouth, saying dryly:

“Wen, Wen Wen…”

“Eh.” Wen Jianyan replied with a smile.

“………”

An Xin cracked.

Before he could recover from the shadow of his breakup, a chilling voice suddenly came from behind: “Ah, it really is you.”

Wen Jianyan raised his eyes and looked in the direction of the voice.

In a very inconspicuous spot behind the crowd stood a very familiar figure.

A withered, thin face, gloomy eyes, and one sleeve half-empty.

It was Mu Sen.

His clothes were covered in blood, and he looked much more haggard than when they last parted. Although he stood upright, his posture was very strange, as if bound by some invisible rope, and he could only follow the crowd forward.

Wen Jianyan quickly realized the reason for this scene.

It seemed that the red-clothed female corpse had not successfully killed Mu Sen—this was to be expected, as Mu Sen was a veteran anchor, and he was still a key protected target in the inquiry. He undoubtedly had many hidden cards. Moreover, the talisman on the red-clothed female corpse had a time limit; once it disappeared, she would return to the fifth floor. Mu Sen was known to be unscrupulous in his methods, and since he had teammates who could be sacrificed as a buffer, he naturally had a great chance of surviving.

However, the existence of the red-clothed female corpse clearly posed a significant threat to them.

Thus, even though Mu Sen survived, he was severely weakened.

He had left the fourth floor and entered the fifth floor, just at the same time as Zhang Yu and others, who had been sent back from the courtyard, coincidentally bumping into each other, and naturally got caught without surprise.

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Mu Sen raised his lifeless gray eyes, gritting his teeth, his withered face slightly twisted, and intense hatred almost overflowed from his eyes.

“Great, you remember me.”

Wen Jianyan wore a slight smile as he walked over, slightly bending down to closely examine the other’s face.

“…You shouldn’t have entered the instance.” Mu Sen’s expression became uncontrollably twisted, “They—”

“If I didn’t enter this instance, how could I see your beautiful expression?”

Wen Jianyan smiled as he leaned in a bit closer.

“And…”

He tilted his head: “They?”

“…” Mu Sen’s face looked even worse, as if he wanted to shred Wen Jianyan with his gaze. He clenched his teeth, seemingly unwilling to say another word.

“The captain asked me to give this to you.”

Wei Cheng looked at Wen Jianyan with a complicated expression, then suddenly raised his hand and threw something over.

Wen Jianyan raised his hand to catch it and looked down.

It was a small, grayish cloth bag, and something inside was clattering against each other, making a crisp tinkling sound.

It was Mu Sen’s set of wooden tokens.

“Thank you.” Under Mu Sen’s increasingly hostile gaze, Wen Jianyan’s smile widened.

He shook the bag in his hand and said, “I’m very happy to do business with you.”

“Next, he’s entrusted to us. You have no problem with that, right?” Wei Cheng asked.

Having heard the earlier conversation, he quickly understood that Wen Jianyan spent a vast amount of points to enter the instance with an appearance so different from his true self, probably related to Mu Sen. However, since Mu Sen had left their team and attempted to make the first move by leading customers to their shop, the conflict between them had already become irrelevant to Wen Jianyan.

“Of course.”

Wen Jianyan had already obtained what he wanted, and he naturally hoped that others would take this troublesome Mu Sen off his hands.

Wei Cheng nodded at him.

Immediately after, the group turned around and walked toward the distance.

Mu Sen was forced to move his legs, stumbling behind them, but his hateful gaze remained fixated on Wen Jianyan.

However, this was no longer a concern for Wen Jianyan.

Qi Qian spoke up: “You just said that the important thing is why we haven’t returned to the anchor hall yet. What do you mean?”

“Literally.”

Wen Jianyan tucked the cloth bag into his pocket and looked at Qi Qian. “Didn’t you think something was off about the system’s announcement just now?”

Qi Qian frowned: “Indeed.”

“If I’m not mistaken, the Nightmare’s control over this instance has weakened. If you open your live broadcast interface, you’ll find that while the broadcast hasn’t been disconnected yet, the items in the system shop are no longer usable.”

Tong Yao beside them was stunned and opened her live broadcast interface.

Everything was as Wen Jianyan had said.

“Although the Nightmare’s control over the instance has weakened, it still firmly holds onto the anchors.”

Wen Jianyan looked at Su Cheng: “How much time is left until this instance’s time limit ends?”

Su Cheng looked down at his watch: “Less than ten minutes.”

“Then it’s correct.”

This instance being a timed instance is for a reason, not just because the “Changsheng Building” is an endless loop. It should also serve as a double insurance for the anchors within, to prevent situations like the current one from occurring.

Wen Jianyan paused, then continued: “Although we can’t end the instance early, once the time limit expires, we should be able to return to the anchor hall.”

Qi Qian narrowed his eyes, revealing a contemplative expression.

Wen Jianyan added: “Don’t worry, after completing the ultimate mainline task, this instance will temporarily cease to pose any danger to us. You all can take a good rest for the remaining time.”

“After saying that, he turned around and walked away, lightly tossing out a sentence:

“I’m going to walk around somewhere else.”

Su Cheng nodded at Qi Qian and the others, then quickly turned to follow Wen Jianyan’s figure.

“Where are you going?” Su Cheng quickened his pace to walk alongside Wen Jianyan, asking curiously, “Didn’t you say we just need to wait for the time to end?”

“I have a guess I want to verify.”

Wen Jianyan said without looking back.

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He headed straight for a shop that was closest to him.

Soon, the tightly closed shop appeared before the two of them.

Staring at the tightly shut glass door, Su Cheng still felt a bit anxious: “Wait, wait, you’re not actually going to go in, are you?”

“Can’t get in.”

Wen Jianyan glanced at Su Cheng and said.

“We’re not ‘customers’ here, nor are we ‘staff’ here. Even if we wanted to go in, we probably wouldn’t be able to.”

“Then you mean…?”

Su Cheng furrowed his brows in confusion.

Wen Jianyan did not answer. He simply took out his phone from his pocket, turned on the flashlight, and pressed it against the glass door of the shop, shining inside.

A strange thing happened.

The darkness that had once been unable to be dispersed by light now seemed very ordinary.

Under the flickering light of the flashlight, the dim shop became slightly brighter, and one could vaguely see rows of shelves.

As expected.

Wen Jianyan squinted his eyes.

The most terrifying “darkness” in the “Changsheng Building” actually did not belong here but was a fragment of Wu Zhu sealed here. He had already formed some relevant speculations before entering the fifth floor.

Although the Wu Zhu often used the “darkness” he manipulated as strange tentacles, as someone who had been in close contact with those tentacles, Wen Jianyan could feel that this seemingly intangible existence was not ordinary; it merely appeared harmless due to the Wu Zhu’s influence.

Once it lost the owner’s control, it would become as terrifying as the darkness within the “Changsheng Building.”

This also indirectly proved his speculation.

The “Changsheng Building” instance was very special.

It was special for both the Nightmare and the Wu Zhu.

Wen Jianyan still did not know the specific reason, but he felt he was very close to the truth.

Thinking from the aspects he had already understood, first of all, the “Changsheng Building” existed independently and was not a instance “manufactured” by the Nightmare.

The Nightmare had split the core source of the entire instance, the female corpse in the red dress, into pieces, sealing them in other places, then replaced them with a fragment of the Wu Zhu in the fifth floor, thus claiming the “Changsheng Building” as its own instance. That terrifying darkness should be what the Wu Zhu referred to as “an important part.”

Therefore, the “Changsheng Building” had become so terrifying.

Now, with the fragment reclaimed by the Wu Zhu, the “Changsheng Building” naturally returned to its original state.

Wen Jianyan stood outside the glass door, slowly moving his steps.

The light from the flashlight followed his movements, eventually landing on the counter and illuminating a motionless, rigid figure behind it.

Su Cheng sharply inhaled: “That is—”

Wen Jianyan moved his wrist, using the flashlight to illuminate the figure’s face.

A pale face, crimson cheekbones and lips, and a high, raised smile.

It sat motionless behind the counter, as if it had always belonged there.

“It’s a paper person,” Wen Jianyan said slowly.

He gazed at the paper person, which appeared increasingly terrifying under the dim light, and said, “It seems they are the real staff here.”

The “Changsheng Building” is a complete and intricate closed loop.

Those “customers,” although devoid of the ability to think, were all terrifying spirits. The “Changsheng Building” was responsible for guiding them through the four floors, sending them into the graveyard to sleep eternally.

The “female corpse in the red dress” in the fifth floor was the core driving force of the entire machine and was the strongest ghost artificially created.

The “paper people” were the staff, responsible for guiding the ghosts upward continuously.

And they were humans who had sworn blood oaths and guarded this place with their lives.

It was just like the gatekeepers of hell.

However, with the Nightmare’s invasion, splitting and sealing the woman in the red dress, the entire machine of the “Changsheng Building” became flawed, allowing “anchors” to be sent in, replacing the paper people as employees.

Otherwise, the entire mechanism could operate on its own without the sacrifice of any innocents.

And the anchors naturally could not complete tasks as perfectly as the paper people.

They would fear and die, and naturally, countless ghosts would be unable to complete the cycle of the four floors, lingering for a long time.

So… where would they go?

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, turned off the flashlight on his phone, and tucked it back into his pocket.

The answer was imminent.

—The human world.

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