Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Where are we going?" She felt as if she had asked before, yet perhaps she hadn’t. Xiaoya’s head was always spinning, her mind clouded and unclear.

“We’re going to the suburbs to look at a house,” her younger brother Xiaohao told her.

“Why are we looking at a house?”

“Are you alright, sis? We agreed the whole family would go see the public rental apartment today. We applied to the government for it. Don’t you remember?”

Xiaoya shook her head, still dizzy, her vision blurry. She rubbed her eyes and finally saw that it was Mrs. Lin driving, while her father sat in the passenger seat. They both seemed quite happy—perhaps because they were finally about to move into a new home.

“At last, the day has come,” her father, Shiqiang, said with a sigh.

“Isn’t it wonderful? The new development is really nice. Even though it’s in the suburbs, transportation is convenient and the rent is so cheap,” Mrs. Lin said with a smile.

Xiaohao nodded eagerly. “Exactly! It’s great!” He was visibly excited.

“There it is—wow, it’s so big, and the environment looks really nice.” Xiaohao pointed out the landscaped gardens. “Look, sis, isn’t it nice?”

“Mm-hmm,” Xiaoya replied absentmindedly. She kept feeling she had been here before, and that she had forgotten something very important, something she simply couldn’t recall.

“You all get out first. I’ll go park the car,” Mrs. Lin said, and so the three of them got out and headed toward the property management lobby.

“Why is Mrs. Lin bringing us to see the house?” Xiaoya whispered to Xiaohao.

“She’s just being kind. She happened to have other business nearby today, so she brought us along. That way we didn’t have to figure out the bus ourselves,” Xiaohao explained as they entered the management hall.

A staff member called over a man—he would be their guide, taking them to see the apartments. The man looked familiar. Xiaoya followed, trying to see his face clearly.

He walked very quickly, and Xiaoya couldn’t shake the feeling that everything here was familiar, as if she had already experienced this before. Who was this man? She had a vague impression, but just couldn’t remember.

“Aren’t we supposed to take the elevator?” Xiaoya asked as she saw the guide leading them up the stairs. It seemed odd.

“The elevator’s broken. We have to go up to the thirteenth floor before there’s another one,” he replied impatiently.

“So which floor do we need to go to now?” Xiaoya pressed.

“Just a bit above the thirteenth,” the guide answered, saying everything and nothing.

“So exactly which floor?” she persisted.

“Why do you ask so many questions? There are three units—each on a different floor, none below the thirteenth. That’s all you need to know,” the guide said, clearly annoyed.

“Which three? Which floors exactly?”

“I don’t know. The keys are with my colleague upstairs. Once we get them, you’ll see. You can choose one of the three,” the guide explained, as if he couldn’t be bothered unless pressed.

“Why are you asking so much? The young man will take us up. He isn’t going to trick you,” her father scolded Xiaoya, then turned to the guide with a smile. “Sorry to trouble you. We’ll just follow you.”

The guide glanced at the three of them with disdain, as if thinking they must be paupers—how else could they qualify for such cheap housing? His gaze belied his contempt.

Xiaoya felt uncomfortable. There was just something about this man she couldn’t stand.

Suddenly, in her vision, the guide was no longer Jason, but Boss Zhong—the owner of the restaurant where Xiaoya worked.

With a sour look, he led them up the stairs, and the three followed behind. Xiaoya, dizzy and bewildered, soon lost sight of her brother, her father, and the guide. How could they climb so fast?

At last, she reached the thirteenth floor, panting hard. But she couldn’t find any of them. Where was the elevator? She didn’t know. She decided to peer through the fire door; beyond it lay a hallway. She had the strange feeling she would pass by eight different units.

When she reached the seventh, a voice whispered in her ear, ghostly and soft.

“Come in, this room is open! Hurry inside!”

Guided by the voice, she pushed open the door. Sure enough, it wasn’t locked. She stepped inside, and the voice urged her again:

“The last room—go in, quickly!”

She hurried to the innermost room. The door seemed to be waiting for her. Without hesitation, she opened it—

—but inside was pitch-black. She could see nothing, her vision already blurry, now swallowed by darkness.

Could she turn on a light? She fumbled for a switch but found none. Suddenly, something flickered weakly ahead, a glimmer on the floor. She bent and picked it up—

What was this? Feeling it, she realized it was a necklace, with a pendant—engraved with a letter, perhaps crystal or gemstone. It felt familiar, though she couldn’t recall where she’d seen it before…

Suddenly, with a bang, the door slammed shut! Panic rose in her; she couldn’t see a thing. How could there be no windows in this room? In broad daylight, not a sliver of light entered. She had to get out.

Thinking this, she shouted, “Who closed the door? Someone’s still inside—open up!”

No sooner had she finished than she heard the door open again, letting in a sliver of light.

After a moment, footsteps approached.

With every step closer, Xiaoya’s heart raced with inexplicable anxiety.

“What are you doing in here?” The man who entered shone a flashlight, blinding her. It was Jason again. Yet Xiaoya didn’t recognize him. His very presence seemed to herald that something was about to happen. But what?

The harder she tried to remember, the more her head ached.

“What’s wrong? How did you get in?” he asked, as if puzzled she’d managed to enter without a key.

“I… I just walked in.”

“This isn’t the apartment you’re looking for. This one is already reserved. The one you’re to choose is on a higher floor. Come with me.” With that, he turned and left, and Xiaoya hastened after him.

At this point, Xiaoya couldn’t remember that he was Jason. He took her by elevator to an upper floor.

“What floor are we on now?” she asked quickly.

Jason remained silent. When the elevator doors opened, he strode ahead. Xiaoya tried to see the floor number, but everything was a blur. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make it out.

She hurried after him. At one of the apartments, Jason opened the door.

“This is one of the units. Go in and see if you like it,” he said.

“Alright.” She hesitated a few seconds. Something felt off, but she entered anyway.

“There’s the balcony—the view is great, the light’s wonderful. Go take a look,” Jason coaxed her.

The balcony? She hesitated again, a sense of foreboding creeping over her.

“I’m not lying. The balcony faces the best direction,” he pressed.

Hearing this, she walked slowly toward the balcony…

“Take a look down—it’s not that high, the view is just right. Look and you’ll see,” he urged.

Xiaoya, still in a daze, felt the floor was actually quite high—how could it not be? At that moment, someone grabbed her legs from behind, hoisting her up and hurling her over the edge—

She had no time to react, only to let out a scream, “Ah—”

Instantly, darkness engulfed her.

And then, sunlight streamed through glass, warming her cheek…

Her brother’s voice came again: “Sis, wake up! We’re almost there!”

“Damn, so close!” Aiwen had failed again—this was the second time! She was trapped in a cycle of repeated deaths. The door that had sucked Xiaoya in was actually the entrance to the dream space, but unlike before, this dream space was not the original entry point in the consciousness bank—it was another, mysterious port, altered later by someone else.

Now, Xiaoya was endlessly looping through this nightmare; if she couldn’t escape, she would never awaken. Meanwhile, Aiwen’s consciousness, after being quantized and transformed into particles, continued to travel through the H-code system, searching for the hidden port. Through meticulous probing, she had discovered that once drawn in, the consciousness was locked and unable to withdraw, becoming trapped in a state of endless death loops within the nightmare space.