Infinite Nightmares

Seeing the other man getting angry, Zhang Wenda quickly stepped in to play peacemaker. "Come on, it’s not worth it. Why get worked up over a kid?"

After placating him, Zhang Wenda glanced at Hu Maomao again. ’He’d never expected Hu Maomao to be so serious about this. It was a strange, endearing contrast.’

Just as Zhang Wenda was thinking this, Hu Maomao, who was floating in mid-air, whipped her head around and glared viciously at him.

Zhang Wenda shrugged, ignoring her furious glare.

"Can you two stop bickering? In a place this dangerous, is this really the time?" Song Jianguo, perched on Zhang Wenda’s left shoulder, looked utterly exasperated with her teammates.

She had already sent her cats out; they would alert her immediately if anything happened.

It was unclear whether Song Jianguo’s words had worked or if it was because of the bad blood between Hu Maomao and Zhang Jiahui over their respective bureaus, but whatever the reason, none of the four spoke for some time.

As time passed and the probability of running into Lakov dwindled, everyone’s tense expressions began to relax.

Clearly, they had more or less moved out of Lakov’s range of activity. For now, they were safe.

A dozen or so minutes later, Zhang Jiahui raised his hand to check his watch. After confirming the time, he spoke up. "Your people should be just ahead. I’m sorry, but I have to go back. The fact that Lakov would appear around here... I need to get back to my teammates as soon as possible and give them this information."

"Alright. Be careful."

"I’m not the one who needs to be careful. You are. Look, the number here has already dropped to 73," Zhang Jiahui said, holding up the Observer Radar in his hand.

After speaking, he walked over and slapped the Observer Radar into Zhang Wenda’s hand.

This gesture left Zhang Wenda momentarily confused. He looked at him in surprise. "What’s this?"

Zhang Jiahui shot a sidelong glance at Hu Maomao and waved his hand dismissively. "It’s a gift! Can’t have people thinking we can’t afford one. Besides, this thing is practically worthless at Bureau 702." With that, he strode away without another word.

The turn of events left Zhang Wenda unsure whether to laugh or cry. He really hadn’t expected their bickering to net him an unexpected reward. He just wasn’t sure if the radar was as worthless as the man claimed.

"Since he gave it to us, we might as well use it," Hu Maomao said. "It’s free, after all. Waste not, want not."

But before Zhang Wenda could feel even a hint of joy over this unexpected gift, he saw the number on the radar plummet from 73 to 56 in an instant. His heart sank.

The next second, a massive BOOM echoed from the distance.

A powerful shockwave, carrying sand and gravel, slammed into them. Zhang Wenda quickly grabbed one of Song Jianguo’s feet to keep the gale-force wind from blowing her away.

However, this was only the beginning. Suddenly, Zhang Wenda felt a chill around his feet, as if his legs were submerged in ice water. But when he looked down, he saw nothing beneath him.

But Zhang Wenda soon realized something was wrong. Some of the loose gravel seemed to be swept along by an invisible liquid, rolling backward.

Some of Song Jianguo’s Black Cats were paddling their limbs, treading in place, and somehow, they weren’t falling.

When Zhang Wenda reached down to touch it, he finally realized that some kind of invisible liquid had soaked the lower half of his body. The Black Cats were swimming in this unseen water.

"What the hell is going on in there?" Zhang Wenda lifted his hand to look at the Observer Radar and saw the number fluctuating between 51 and 56.

No matter what was happening inside, the sudden explosion and the constantly dropping numbers proved that the environment within was extremely harsh and dangerous.

Just as he was once again weighing the pros and cons in his mind, a streak of yellow drifted up from the distance.

’Yellow? Yellow again?’ Recalling his last two experiences, Zhang Wenda immediately began to hesitate. ’The last two times I followed the yellow, I got nothing out of it. Maybe I’m supposed to use this one differently than the last two times?’

’The last two times it was yellow, I chose to follow it and got nothing for my trouble. So this time, should I do the exact opposite?’

While Zhang Wenda was hesitating, Hu Maomao had already made her move. Gritting her teeth, she stared into the dust-choked, blurry distance ahead and flew forward rapidly.

Seeing her move ahead, Zhang Wenda grew worried and quickly followed with Song Jianguo.

They had only taken a few steps when corpses of various sizes began to appear at the bottom of the invisible water. Propelled by the unseen liquid, red blood drifted like silken tendrils in mid-air, making it look as if they were in the middle of a forest of short, red trees. The scene was exceptionally eerie.

Some of the corpses were from the Big Circle, and some were from the Third Line.

Suddenly, Zhang Wenda stopped. He looked at a corpse beside him. It was Li Chengying, someone he had met once before.

The once-in-a-generation 03 was now lying carelessly on the ground like a broken doll. Her entire chest cavity was torn open, with red tendrils drifting out from within.

Zhang Wenda looked at the radar in his hand again. The number on it had now dropped to 31.

Her face anxious, Hu Maomao tried to press on, but Zhang Wenda grabbed her arm and stopped her. "Wait."

"What is it? If we don’t hurry, we’ll be too late!" Hu Maomao said anxiously.

Zhang Wenda thought for a moment, then pointed a trembling finger at Li Chengying’s corpse. "Do you know who that is? She’s 03 from Bureau 507, one of our top combatants."

Then he looked seriously into Hu Maomao’s eyes. "If even *she* died here, do you really think a battle like this is something small fry like us are qualified to join? The three of us don’t even have our own Cognitive Tides. If we meddle any further, it’s almost certain death."

"So, what are you trying to say?"

Zhang Wenda thought for a moment before saying, "Even Li Chengying is dead. That proves the battle inside has become incredibly intense. We shouldn’t get involved."

Hu Maomao gave Zhang Wenda a strange look. "You’re being controlled by blue again. Go back and have another look."

’Blue? Blue again?’ Zhang Wenda’s heart sank. But then he looked toward the danger-filled distance, and a powerful sense of resistance made him not want to go forward.

"This isn’t about blue or not blue! No matter which color we choose, we can’t just throw our lives away when we know it’s this dangerous!"

Hu Maomao floated in place, looking at him as if she could see right through to his innermost thoughts.

"If there hadn’t been a yellow guide before, you wouldn’t have come here at all, would you? You’re only saying this now because you want to try doing the opposite of what the yellow guide suggests, isn’t that it?"

"I already told you! Stop fucking reading my thoughts!!" Zhang Wenda roared, glaring furiously at Hu Maomao.